Us . A man who led the classified program, lets go out front. Team trumps mission to undermine muellers probe. Coming straight from the top. Lets start with this slamming of the Justice Department and the fbi. Hes called the state of the agency the worst in history. Adding that it was in tatters. Its a shame whats happened with the fbi, we are going to rebuild the fbi it will be bigger and better than ever. When you look at whats gone on with the fbi and the Justice Department, people are very, very angry. Kellyanne conway saying the investigation was tainted from the start. The fix is in against donald trump from the beginning. Jackie spears on the House Intelligence Committee thinks Something Else is going on. Here she is. He wants to shut down these investigations and fire mueller. The president was going to make a significant speech at the end of next week. And on december 22nd, when we are out of d. C. , he was going to fire Robert Mueller. Thats speculation and gossip, theres no evidence at this point its true. The president denied just last night he is giving any thought to giving mueller the boot. No, im not. Theyre out to disparage bob muellers investigation, that may be the goal, they dont need mueller to be fired to accomplish that, trump makes his opposition look silly and hysterical. Trump, now aided by some mainstream republicans who are jumping on the bandwagon, he could end up the victor by calling the entire investigation and its conclusion into questions as politically motivated. Lawyers for trumps Transition Team are charging that muellers team obtained emails they shouldnt have. Forcing muellers team to issue a rare statement. When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation. We have the emails were on dot gov addresses which means a government domain. Trump is raising questions, trying to weaken the credibility. He thinks hes going to get a letter from mueller clearing him of any involvement. So far, there is no such letter. If it doesnt happen iing trump sources are warning of a trump meltdown. What are you learning . Hes sympathetic to the concerns being raised. Theyre raising legitimate concerns because of what he believes are private emails. They should not be the domain of the federal government. Hes seeking to change federal law to make it clear that those should not be in the hands of the federal government. Those should be private emails, the trump team should not have gotten. Right now, some sympathetic years, it was a trump team over the weekend that sent that letter to ron johnson over the weekend expressing those concerns, but his counterpart in the first. I know you have new reporting about what exactly trumps thinking is on this. Behind the scenes, we are told that President Trump is expressing confidence that he may be exonerated very soon. He expects mueller to issue a letter saying that he did nothing wrong. And saying that hes essentially been cleared of this, from this investigation now. The concern among several of his advisers, this investigation is still ongoing, in fact, very significant signs that its picking up steam. Theres concern that if hes not exonerated any time soon, the president may do something rash. Thank you. Now richard painter former ethics lawyer under george w. Bush. Julia, let me start with you. Is discrediting mueller and his team right now, even better than firing him . They discredit him . Absolutely. I think thats what theyre doing about it would be messy for the trump white house. They still have the pardon powers. Trump did not say no to the possibility of pardoning flynn or kushner. Their strategy is what we call greasing the runway, prepping the battlefield. I know were focused on this, in the end we dont know what mueller is going to come up with. If its clear evidence of collusion or something close to collusion, all of this stuff, i believe is not going to matter, right . Because eventually youre going to have the emails, the lies, whatever. So this is a way for the trump team i think is a little panicked about what mueller has, trying to create enough exhaustion is what i would call it to make us not care what mueller comes up with. Trump has to raise questions, right . Among those who are mainstream or in the middle. On some level he seems to be doing that. John cornyn, number two gop senator is saying he has doubts about mueller, when before, no one was saying any such thing. He needs to make sure he vets that team, i have confidence in director mueller, i would think he would be concerned about the appearance of conflicts of interest that would undermine the integrity of the investigation. Confidence, but raising that shred of doubt. I think its very clear that President Trump and his minions are following a two track strategy. The president tries to stay above things, im exonerated. Im not going to fire mueller. They have the second track, if things do go to hell for him, if he gets nailed by mueller, they can discredit it. I dont think theyll bring the public fully over to their side, they understand that, if they can sow enough doubt, they can perhaps get 40 of the public to think it was tainted from the beginning. I think its working better than we would have imagined so far, in the sense of creating doubt. I do think that this email controversy is very political. Its not legal. If on the texts. The email the emails that mueller has these emails, first of all he went to the gsa, he did everything right, the right way, if you have any blame it ought to be the gsa, not the person doing the Law Enforcement investigation. Beyond that, you know, if youve got these kind of complaints, theres something called the courts. Thats where you go to resolve these. Even trey dowdy said you have to go to the courts. Thats not where they went. They went to congress with this letter. They went to congress because they want to attack bob mueller and get as many members of congress as they can to attack bob mueller, i dont think were out of the woods on the potential for the president to fire bob mueller, we now have Congress Going home over the holidays, if bob mueller is fired we need the house and Senate Judiciary committees to be convening immediately. Theyve also taken out of the action, probably the most articulate member of the Senate Judiciary committee al franken, we have no idea whos going to be replacing him on that committee, and allegations that had roger stone and foxs fingerprints all over them. This is a big mess. I think the next two weeks its going to be critically important to watch out and make sure bob mueller isnt left in washington, d. C. , alone with donald trump, thats not a good situation. Heres the thing to davids point. Theyre saying these emails were obtained unlawfully, right . They sent this letter to congress. I want to play again what trump is saying about the emails. In a sense he said he was going to fire mueller. Not looking good, its not looking good, its quite sad to see that, my people are very upset about it, i cant imagine theres anything on them, frankly. As we said, theres no collusion. No collusion whatsoever. But a lot of lawyers thought that was pretty sad. Lawyers. Lawyers for his Transition Team about muellers team had to push back saying they didnt do anything wrong. What matters more . Muellers in the right or he was forced to issue a statement, as if he had maybe done something wrong . I think the statement was important, i think it did shut down the legal argument, as david gergen just said. No one believes there was a strong legal argument. I served on a transition, the idea that my ptt. Gov email was mine is somewhat ridiculous. Taking a step back, why is this happening, its because Jared Kushner and other witnesses spoke to mueller and spoke to the committees, not knowing that mueller had these 20 or 30 emails. To me, i understand sort of all this noise and why theyre doing it, but i also believe that that noise is animated by considerable fear that members of the trump family, a son or a son in law and others are in big trouble. If we just keep our focus on that and mueller comes up with a case, and it doesnt implicate trump but others, that is where the focus will be at this moment. Its important and noisy, in the end, as long as the this suggests to me that the white house is much more panicked than not panicked. About what they think mueller has. Panicked, but very clever. Its clever. I thought one straw in the wind was that kushners legal team has gone out and hired a pr firm that specializes in crisis communications. Why would he want such a team if you dont expect a crisis to be just over the horizon. I think theyre moving at that rate, i would suggest if trump is not going after mueller, and let them reign in mueller. Im very worried about him because its congresss job to hold President Trump accountable. He can fire his attorney general and put someone else in there whos going to fire Robert Mueller, just what president nixon did in the saturday night massacre. We have al franken sidelined, which i think is a travesty, we have our real mess on our hands. I would not say Robert Mueller is out of the woods at this point in time. President trump says hes not going to fire Robert Mueller. President trump says a lot of things and i think people stop listening to Kellyanne Conway months ago. Trump says russia is a rival. Why was he on two calls with putin in the last few days. Bob corker richer, much richer. He didnt read the bill, he only read a twopage summary. Is this a ufo . The pentagons top secret program looking at exactly this question, exposed tonight. The intel fence official who led this effort is out front tonight. Is the strong way to start your day. Pop that in there. Hit strong. Press brew. Thats it. Strong. Bold. Rich. I feel like youre toying with me. Show me how strong you are. screams lift me up dan lift me up i tabut with my back paines, i couldnt sleep and get up in time. Then i found aleve pm. Aleve pm is the only one to combine a safe sleep aid plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. Im back. Aleve pm for a better am. Dad promised he would teach me how to surf on our trip. When you book a flight then add a hotel you can save. Three waves later, i think it was the other way around. Everything you need to go. Expedia. For her compassion and care. 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We also face rival powers, russia and china, that seek to challenge american influence values and wealth. We will attempt to build a Great Partnership with those and other countries. But in a manner that always protects our national interest. But his actions are far friendlier at least when it comes to vladimir putin. James clapper is out front, the former director of National Intelligence under president obama. Director clapper, great to have you with me. Twice in four days, how unusual is that . Its pretty unusual for any head of state engagement, particularly when its with the head of state of russia, this very solicitous tie log thats gone on here, i think in stark contrast against the backdrop of the profound existential threat that russia holds with this count. I would expect that would have gott gotten more prominent billing than it has. The manner in which the president s conducting business with russia. I want to ask you about what he said, versus whats in the plan. The president also spoke specifically about a terror plot that the cia called st. Petersburg and warned them. I got a call from president putin thanking our caa for information on a major attack in st. Petersburg, could have been killed. They were able to apprehend these terrorists before the event. S what your reaction, director, the fact that the president said this publicly . He goes out and said the caa shared intelligence with russia. Its normally not done. This is something we the u. S. Intelligence community is long done, if its a life threatening intelligence that has bearing on peoples lives are at stake, weve shared that with friend and foe alike. We have a moral obligation as a duty to warn. Whats unusual, is it would be made public like this, normally that kind of thing stays below the radar, and the other comment i would make that at least in my experience in trying to deal with the russians, information doctor or intelligence sharing is a one way street. We share with them, theres not a track record of getting much back from them. When you talk about the speech and what was written. The actual text of Trumps National security plan is dink on paper than what he said. National actors such as russia are using Information Tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracy. Thats what he said, i know many could say he could be stronger than that. What means more, what he says on paper or what didnt come out of his mouth . What matters is what does come out of his mouth, and that didnt. One tool or one enabler that the russians have employed against us and our allies, what i would have liked to have heard more about is recognition of the profound threat russia poses for us. The fact that theyre in abject violation of the inf treaty. Nuclear force agreement. I would like to have heard about that, a more realistic depiction reflecting an understanding of the threat that russia poses. I get it on whenever our interests converge as they do on terrorism, we should work with them. I feel more comfortable if that were underpinning of that were recognition of the threat that russia really poses to us. Dr. Clapper thank you as always for your time. The provision added to the tax bill that could be a multimillion dollar windfall for the president. The breaking news we are live on the scene tonight of the deadly Train Derailment, rescue efforts are touch and go, some railcars are teetering on the edge. A wealth of information. A wealth of perspective. A wealth of opportunities. Thats the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. Straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, taxefficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. Fidelity wealth management. To help you grow and protect your wealth. Essential for vinyl, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. Because there are options. Like an unjection™. 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New tonight, a tweak in the tax bill could be a major windfall for President Trump and a crucial republican who turned from a no to a yes. All but ensuring the bill passes. The provision allows people to make money off of renting or leasing real estate to take advantage of a 20 tax deduction, thats how corker and trump make millions of dollars. Now, corker was a no vote, he said this changes not why he flipped to yes, he said he didnt know about the change. Why is he supporting the bill, he said deficits were the reason he was voting no in the first place. The other big winner is President Trump. Building down on wall street 17. 4 million. Former chairman of the council of advisers. Lets talk about bob corker, how can he vote for a bill when it not only clearly benefits him. Fine, didnt know about, but now he does. It adds to the deficit, which is why he couldnt support it. No. I talked to corker two days before he voted against the first bill in the senate. He hoped to have a trigger. When i talked to them on wednesday for half an hour, he was for the bill, he agreed there would be a 1 1. 5 trillion in revenues. He thought growth would cover that, he thought maybe we should have a trigger to enforce it. He couldnt come back because the parliamentarian n