For air force one. Heres your new air force one, and im doing that for other president s, not for me. Everyone wants to know, is there a pod . You seen the movie air force one . Theres a pod that flies out of the back . Oh, i see. I can tell you there are a couple of secrets that i dont think were supposed to tell you. Anyway, there it is if you want. We begin the hour with headspinning comments by the president of the United States. His matter of fact admissions when push comes to shove he would at least listen to foreign powers peddling dirt on his rivals. If russia or china or someone else offers you information on an opponent, should you accept it and call the fbi . I think you do both. I think you might want to listen. Theres nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, norway, we have information on your opponent, oh, i think i would want to hear it. You want that kind of interference in our elections . Its not interference. They have information. I think id take it. If i think there was something wrong i think id go maybe to the fbi. Well, so much for america first. The president telling abc yesterday he does not care where that information comes from. Democrats this morning unified in their outrage. What the president said last night shows clearly once again over and over again that he does not know the difference between right and wrong, and thats probably the nicest thing i can say about him. There is no sense of, whats the word i want to find, any ethical sense that informs his comments and his thinking. Republicans with few exceptions silent looking to change the subject or talking in circles. Senator Lindsey Graham one of the exceptions. Thats not the right answer. If a Foreign Government comes to you as a public official and offers to help your campaign giving you anything of value, whether its money or information on your opponent, the right answer is no. But the president today unmoved by any suggestion what he said is wrong, immoral or illegal. On twitter they what he always does when he faces criticism, stirring up a storm meant to distract and confuse. In one tweet he conflated the normal business of being president and meeting with foreign heads of state with welcoming illgotten info from foreign spies but stop and think about the president s words again. Quote, they have information, i think id take it. Here with me to sharing their reporting, margaret taloc, paul cain with the Washington Post and politicos Lauren Barone lopez. I almost dont know what to say after the last twoplus years of what the country has been through, why . Just why . Does he just think there are laws, number one. You cannot take inkind contributions from foreign nationals, and plus theres just what the country has been through for the last two years, an even if youre President Trump and even if you believe you were wrongly accused and this was a witch hunt and this was a hoax, i think id take it, i dont think theres anything wrong with it . Yeah. The story in 2016 was somewhere between we didnt do anything and well, you know, we were just a new campaign, like there was no coordination. We were just trying to figure out, whatever. This is different. President has been in office for two and a half years and had multiple briefings and a very long and involved investigation and lots of meetings with counsel and whether he wanted to or not, he now knows more and has spent more time thinking about what you are and are not supposed to do during election season in terms of getting information from other countries than probably must most new president s have thought about. It seemed like a pretty deliberate statement on his part, and were not talking about norway. We also know that. Yeah. So theres a few implications for this. Number one, it sounds like an invitation for other countries to send intelligence directly to trump and bypass which he did as a candidate. Had a News Conference where he said russia, if youve got it, bring it on. Yes. There are intelligence channels if an ally of the United States, someone like britain had information about an american political candidate who they felt was a security threat, there are channels by which they would communicate to the United States government about that. The channel would not place a call to the president or his son or his Campaign Manager or Something Like that. So what what the president said seemed deliberate. Seemed like he understood what he was saying and said it anyway and thats theres so much cons flakes inside his party, by the way, as well as some democrats. Some of what the republican reflex is when the president does Something Like this. Im sorry, what the president of the United States said sitting at his desk in the Oval Office Even to add insult to injury. Is it not unamerican . Sends a strong signal to foreign adversaries but others like russia and china and to me this is stronger than what he said in the leadup to the 2016 election because hes saying he wouldnt report it to the fbi. Or he might but hed listen first. Depending on how good the dirt was. Right. The question i also have is does this mean hes also willing to take hacked material which was obtained illegally by these foreign adversaries . Thats a great question. Lets listen more to the president because if youre a supporter of the president there they go again. Dont listen to us then. Listen to him. I think you might want to listen. Theres nothing wrong with listening. If i thought there was something wrong id go maybe to the fbi, if i thought there was something wrong, but when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research, oh, lets go to the fbi. The fbi doesnt have enough agents to take it but if you talk honestly to congressmen they all do it. They always have. Thats the way it is. Its called oppo research. This is one of his tricks and hes really good at it. They all do it, and today if you read his twitter account like a toddler who got caught. Everybody is bad. Dont get mad at me because everybody is bad. What your children do when they get caught. They dont do it. Yes, they do Opposition Research. Theres legitimate opposition rest can you pay people and use nexus lexus and go to the courthouse and library and do all of that. When a Foreign Government, especially a hostile Foreign Government is the source and contacting you in offering you help, thats not oppo research, thats a crime. What the president is particularly good at is the picking an issue that the president doesnt have a Broader Knowledge about and has tangentialbased info on and deciding to make it whatever it is that helps his case when in fact its not there. Weve all been on the receiving end of Opposition Research during president ial campaigns. Ive not been on the receiving end from a Foreign Government that was offering intelligence. The problem is what hes saying is happening everywhere is not happening everywhere. You talk to lawmakers about this, they make it very clear, if they were to receive something to the government, they would report it, and when it came to the does yes, become the big counterpunch weve heard from republicans when they are willing to weigh in. When senator john mccain and spoke to senator Lindsey Graham, graham said take this to the fbi. Anybody who got that was supposed to take that to the fbi and thats the universal theme regardless of parties. If this ever came to us, take it to the fbi because where else would you go on Something Like that . This has been a National Conversation for twoplus years, including the confirmation of the fbis director if he says in the case of say donald trump jr. Or a hypothetical can, you got a phone call from somebody, quick little google shows they have associations with a has file Foreign Government, you should call Law Enforcement. George stephanopoulos asked the president about this. This is somebody who said we have information on your opponent. Oh, let me call the fbi. Give me a break. The fbi director says thats what should happen. The fbi director is wrong. Fun to work for him in that he calls you out. At least Christopher Wray understands theres no ambiguity there about what the president thinks, but he says, you know, life give me a break. Life doesnt work that way. His life doesnt work that way or hasnt worked that way, but most people get this. Yeah. There have been cases where Opposition Researchers have ended up in jail. There have been criminal cases where people went too far there. What is a case in New Hampshire last decade where this happened. He seems to not understand the difference between doing research and actually breaking into something. Where that is clearly a crime. That is what the watergate whole thing spun from what is a breakin. Youre absolutely right about that, and this also suggests kind of an adversarial instinct that the president has now about the fbi that he does not see it as the domestic Law Enforcement agency that is there to, you know, sort of support him and the public, you know, and god governance, right . Its like what hes hinting at is he doesnt really trust the fbi. If he wanted more fbi agents available so they could investigate stuff, he has the ability to use the bully pulpit and use the legislative folks to get more funding or to encourage his attorney general to shift resources, so within the same like 24hour period we saw him then, i think it was this morning, tweet that emphasizing that Michael Flynn had a new lawyer, congratulating him on a choice of a lawyer because this lawyer is sort of a wellknown antifbi, antimueller probe lawyer and the president is saying good lawyer, good luck, guys. An antagonistic tone with the fbi which is why he answered the question like that. Why does he keep doing this besides the fact that it was 72 hours since republicans on the hill had to face a cries and have furrowed brows and its anything that calls into question the legitimacy of 2016. He views whatever the position is that might call into question in his mind the legitimacy of his victory in 2016, he has to take the opposite side of it immediately and i dont think anybody of us, none of us, that this in any way impacts that. A lot of his reactions, what on earth is he talking about . Thats kind of a consistent theme with a lot of stuff that he says that shakes people in both parties. He can get away with t. Republicans can, as you mentioned earlier, john, have pretty much other than graham foind found ways to talk around it. If you ask the republicans about something controversial said by the republican president , you get a pretty predictable answer. Blame Hillary Clinton. Dawn ultra. With dawn is for more than just dishes. It provides 3x more grease cleaning power per drop, which cuts through tough kitchen messes, pretreats laundry stains, and even tackles grease buildup on car rims. Tackle tough greasy messes around your home, and save money with dawn ultra. Brand power. Helping you better. Republicans have two predictable foils when asked about outrageous things said and done by the president , Hillary Clinton and the steele dossier. Im hoping my democratic colleagues will admit that steele was paid to get dirt on trump and thats why im so upset about that. Foreign influence in our elections is growing and not lessening and we dont want to send a signal to lessen it and thats why looking at the fisa process regarding the steele dossier is important. To senator grahams credit he did first disagree with the president s statement. The president saying hed be incloind to listen if a Foreign Government offered dirt on a political opponent and the house rope can leader turned indignant when asked about the president s comments, indignant at Hillary Clinton, of course. I know the president and i know what it took in the last campaign, when he was approached by this. He did what was wrong. When i watch the democrats they did what was wrong. They actually funded it and put us through this special counsel. They utilize the fisa court to spy on americans, to falsify the salacious lies in this process that put america into this tailspin. Cnns sara mir and evan perez join in our conversation. Lets go through a couple of things. Okay. Did the steele dossier, is that the only reason we had the Mueller Investigation as the republicans say there . Theres a steele does yes, made its way to the fbi, voila, thats why we have a special counsel, fact or fiction . No. Fiction . That was not a yes or no question. Look, theres more to this. Obviously the fbi said that they had a lot of additional envelopes that they believed warranted this investigation. They had it before, as a matter of fact. They started the investigation before they received the original document that we now call the steele dossier and so theres a lot more to this investigation, and obviously some of the president s own obstructive acts which have been detailed in the Mueller Investigation is what really brought us to the Mueller Investigation. And we may learn more and im dying to learn more from the Justice DepartmentInspector General and the attorney general himself looking at the origins of the russia investigation, so if there was misuse at the fbi. Right. Of the steele information, we will learn, that right . Look. The fbi makes mistakes. They screw up all the time, and if they made mistakes here and everything was not done appropriately as part of this investigation, were going to find out, and thats appropriate for us to know, right. This is an awesome power that the fbi has to intrude on our lives and they should be held to account but thats not what these guys are talking about. They have learned very well from the president. Just conflate things and confuse. Its a great tactic that the president uses to success. Christopher steele, is he the same as russians either accepting hacked wikileaks accepting hacked emails and the President Trump, candidate President Trump urging hem to put in the public or getting a meeting at trump tower with someone you could tie back to the russia government, is that the same as the democrats and clinton and dnc paying a former British Intelligence agent now in private business to collect Opposition Research . No, its not the same thing in part as you said its a former British Intelligence agent so we have a very different relationship with the uk than we do with russia. Russia is essentially a foreign adversary and the uk is one of our closest allies, and this is somebody who has worked with the fbi in the past which is part of the reason which they felt probably more comfortable relying on some of this information, not for all of this investigation, but relying on some of this information as if they were moving forward. I think when you look at what the trump people were doing when it came to russia, they were accepting information or at least suggesting a willingness to accept information with a government that was openly hostile to the United States, a government that was involved in hacking. Its just a very different situation. Its like every time you did the republicans a question about donald trump they bring it back to hill him. Were not talking about the same thing here. Were not in the same univerves conversations and if they say go look at that shiny object doesnt mean america should all follow like sheep behind it. Its because they dont want to answer a question and heres the question and then youre going to hear john cornyn, republican senator of texas and thom tillis, republican of North Carolina up for reelection, trying to keep the president on his good side. Is it wrong for the president. United states, the president. United sates, republican donald trump, to say i would listen if a Foreign Government called, id be open to listening . Of course you would listen. Give me a break. Why would you call the fbi if an adversarial Foreign Government called you up to say we have dirt on your opponent . Its already happen. Hillary clinton paid fusion gps for dirt on President Trump and now after the Mueller Investigation which has produced no charges, now obviously the Inspector General of the department of justice is looking at how that got started. Anyone can talk about the president and saying hed be okay to accept foreign dirt . The president first off, to get information like Hillary Clinton did, she probably should have contacted the fbi. I think the president would, too, but if the information is value its a matter of corroborating it. Hes a member of the United States senate and should know the law. If the information is valid. If the information comes from a National Foreign actor, its illegal to take it, right . One of the important things about this conversation todayed is