I love the studio. Melissa almost like the studio you are in later. Almost the position. Dagen im on the five first time tomorrow. Look out. Im jealous. Harris . Harris we will begin with the fox news alert awaiting the start of the White House PressBriefing Amid questions looming about Robert Muellers russia investigation and whether we are closer to a potential sit down between the special counsel and President Trump. Its being talked about. We are covering it as we go outnumbered overtime. Im harris faulkner. Moments from now, Press SecretarySarah Sanders will step up to the lectern to the left of the screen inside the White House Briefing room. The Mueller Probe expected to be a hot topic. Sources telling fox news that they responded to a letter from the legal team about the scope of a potential interview. Are they pulling parameters
he has with the level of corruption we have seen from james comey, peter strozk, andrew mccabe. Harris the chief White House Correspondent john roberts are more. You are there. We are getting ready for this. John we are not sure when Sarah Huckabee sanders will show up. Probably in the next half hour or so. We havent got word of a delay. But here is where we are in terms of the Mueller Probe and whether or not the president might sit down and do an interview with Robert Mueller. Sources tell fox news that the president s legal team may respond monday to the letter earlier this week from Robert Mueller outlining what he believes are the parameters for an interview with the president. The president s legal team want to limit questioning to russia, election and whether or not there was collusion between the Trump Campaign and the russian officials to throw the election in 2016. They did not want mueller asking any questions about potential Obstruction Of Justice. In his response, mueller
indicated yes, in fact he did want to ask some of the questions. Mueller did compromise a little bit, though. You will remember in march, the president legal team was given that list of the 49 questions from the mueller team. Hes agreed to narrow it down somewhat. We dont know what questions he plans to eliminate. He also said he would be willing to accept some answers in writing but other answers he wants oral answers to. He wants to sit down with the president in person. Now whether or not a compromise is possible is unknown at this point. Because the president s attorneys are still of a mind they have not gotten the point they are comfortable. Let the president sit down with mueller. A potential compromise could be if mueller were to agree to written answers for all of the questions about Obstruction Of Justice and then oral answers to the questions about whether or not there was collusion between the Trump Campaign and
wrong. The white house getting out in front of this in ways maybe like we have never seen before. Sarah sanders again taking questions in the next while. Look, this is a dramatic issue for the white house. You have a president who believes in his heart he is innocent. So he lashes out. As President Trump does. I can understand that. If you are on the Receiving End of an investigation which you know you have done no wrong, you will lash out. That is how innocent people behave. But the problem is when you also run the government and the prosecutors are underneath you and you try to fall for the firing this is what makes lawyers nervous. So that the that is the spot they are in. Trump is going for the p. R. High stakes. High stakes. Harris the stakes are high, too, because the p. R. Is tightly tied to what he promised candidates up for reelection and election in
the midterm elections coming up and promised to be in the Campaign Trail for them six and seven days a week. Its a p. R. That is loaded with delivering promise for political backing. It is bigger than that. This is like election day 2016 all over again. When bob mueller comes out with the report, if he said there was no collusion, that there is no evidence of anything donald trump or anybody on the campaign did illegal, trump is home free. If he won again on election day and mueller comes outs and says trump is lying and we have the goods on trump, then trump would be in a world of hurt and it would go to congress. We are all waiting to see what mueller has and its profound importance of what trump is doing in line with the tradition of what bill clinton did to ken starr trying to make a case that mueller and his team cannot be trusted prior to the report coming
Interviews with newsmakers and roundtable discussions cover the top news stories of the day. On the bone if you are trying to show a look of fairness there. Not a lot of republicans on the team. Why would it matter . Politics are talked about because of the f. B. I. And the potential bias. That is all what congress will have to consider. The credibility of what he comes out with. If mueller and his democrat largely investigators say no problem, trump didnt do anything wrong. Its over when the democrats on his team conclude that. If they say there is something wrong, if its arguable issue, many republicans in congress will discount it because they will say and trump will say this is the democrat on bob mueller. Biased. Unless he has incontrovertible proof he did something wrong or lied, that is the only thing i see that could get trump in trouble but i have seen no evidence that trump and his team colluded the hack or steal democrat emails or
podestas emails and that is what this is about. Hacking and the stealing. An attack on one party is an attack on all parties. Take it seriously. Harris those are the stakes. Quickly before i have to let you go. I want to remind the audience if youre tuning in we are awaiting the president secretary Sarah Sanders. It would be two days in a row now she would hold a News Conference early start to an august and seeing her twice at that lectern. When it happens we will take you there live. Is there a risk, ari we can talk legally when i bring on an attorney but is there a risk for what Trump Tweeting calling an end to the witch hunt and end of what he calls the russia investigation of his Attorney General . Politically i dont think so because i think trump crossed that bridge a long time ago where you have a president weighing in publicly. What is fascinating about the Trump Presidency he still sees himself as the outsider. Im uneasy when it is aimed at the department of justice. Im traditional about it. I believe the president s should stay out of the department of justice affairs. Justice must be blind and never subject to political influence. It puts people at justice in a difficult spot when their boss the president is saying these things. I dont think its illegal. This is trump lashing out. There are two sides to this. If you are innocent and the subject of an investigation, you will lash out. Its human nature and how the innocent people behave despite what lawyers want them to do. But the president it presents issues how he oversees the department of justice. A controversy. You have to wait for mueller. Harris intraparty. This is in the same republican party. It leaves some people scratching their head. It gives the critics, the democrats an opportunity to say the party is divided in some way, shape or form. Last word quickly. The party is divided
team. Maybe room for question. What do you make of the changes and the deal making . I think they have learned a lot about the investigation. Since the first time they asked for a president. Things are not static. Harris alex little. We didnt get a full sentence. We will bring you back. Sarah sanders, pes secretary secretary Press Secretary at the white house. Lets watch. Sarah since the beginning of his administration, President Trump implemented a whole of government apletch to safeguard our nations elections. The president made it clear his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in the elections from any nation, state or other dangerous actor. Last year he signed order to strengthen and secure the cyber infrastructure. Last year he chaired a meeting to address the ongoing threats and he asked officials standing next to me to brief the American People on the
work being done to protect integry till of the elections. Efforts are underway to provide Cyber Security assistance to state and local authorities and the actions to investigate, prosecute and hold accountable those who illegally attempt to interfere in the political and the electoral process. To edress the matters furthers i want the Welcome National intelligence daniel coats, christopher wray, secretary of state of the Homeland Security kirstjen nielsen. Director of the National Security agency, and the National Security adviser ambassador john bolton to make comments and take questions on the topic. As you know we have addressed what occurred in the 2016 election numerous times and extensively. The purpose of todays briefing is what we are doing now and the future to protect the integry till of the elections integrity of the elections moving forward. To help it run smoothly we ask that you direct questions to the specific person. I will turn it over to bolton to open up and make comments. Well, thank you. What wed like to address today is Election Security and the 2018 election in the future. The president has made it clear i think what his priority is. We have had obviously a number of inquiries from congress on this. Including a letter to me in the past couple of days from five senators. Signed by Senator Schumer and four others. I have responded to the letter today. We have made Copies Available to you. I forms fakework for the briefing that the four heads of the Operating Department and the agencies will give you here today. They are the ones implementing and operationallizing the policy we developed. There are other agencies involved. These are the primary ones. It is important to address the president s involvement in this, the leadership and the
determination to prevent russia and the other foreign influence in elections. We meet on this constantly. The senior staff here at the white house. We meet with the heads of the agencies involve and we discuss it regularly. My tenure of National Security adviser less than two months, we have already had two full National SecurityCouncil Meetings chaired by the president and countless other discussions as well. Since january 2017, the president has taken Decisive Action to defend our Election System from meddling and interference. This includes the measure to heighten the security and the resilience of the Election System and processes to confront russian and other foreign maligned influence in the United States. To confront such aggression through International Action and to reinforce a strong sanctions regime. As you know, elections are administered by state and local governments so the federal role is to assist
them. We will address that through comments of the heads of the operating agencies. I might also say by way of introduction that many federal government actions to protect the elections in the United States such as those implemented by the Intelligence Community or the Law Enforcement agency are necessarily sensitive. And highly classified. We do not wish to make the efforts of thed a vertaries easier efforts of the adversaries any easier. We have offered to do before and continue to offer briefing to members of congress in secure facilities. What id like to do is turn the briefing over to the people whose agencies have the responsibility. We start off with the director of National Intelligence daniel coats followed by the secretary of Homeland Security kirstjen nielsen. She will be followed by the director of the federal bureau
of investigation christopher wray. Finally the director of the National Security agency. Dan . I would like the American People to know the Intelligence Community and the agencies are postured to identify threats of all time against the United States. The president asked us to make Election Meddling and securing our election process a top priority. We have done that and are doing that and we will continue to do so. We have incorporated the Lessons Learned from the 2016 election. And implemented a Broad Spectrum of actions to share more information across the federal government. As well as with state and local government and the public and the private sector. The Intelligence Communitycontinues to be concerned about the threats of the upcoming u. S. Elections. Both the midterms and the president ial election of 2020. In regard to russian involvement in the midterm elections we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the United States. These efforts are not exclusive to this election. Or future elections. But they certainly cover issues relevant to the election. We also know the russians try to hack in to and steal information from candidates and the government officials alike. We are aware that russia is not the only country that has been interest in trying to influence our domestic political environment. We know there are others who have the capability and may be considering influence activities. As such we will continue to
monitor and warn of any such efforts. I am committed to making sure that the Intelligence Community is working together in integrating it across organizations and missions and seeking Greater Transparency with the public. The odni instituted a Broad Spectrum of actions covering collection, analysis, reporting, education and partnership. Designed to provide Threat Assessment to federal, state, local officials and to the private sector when necessary. For example, my office leads the Interagency Working Group now meeting weekly as a push toward november. With department of justice, f. B. I. , department of the Homeland Security, and the c. I. A. And the n. S. A. Inclusive of the regional cyber and the Counterintelligence Experts all focused to ensure Election Security and the integration of the efforts. The Intelligence Community focus now is persistent support to the f. B. I. , to the department of Homeland Security and the other agencies in the election responsibilities. My office is ensuring the organizations receive timely and proactive Intelligence Community support. Good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us. I want to start by briefly mentioning that on tuesday, d. H. S. Hosted the First NationalCyber Security summit. This brought together government, Industry Leaders and academia to discuss opportunities to join forces to counter threats to the nations critical infrastructure. I want to thank those who joined us from academia, government and private sector, those who participated and those who signed up for the concrete actions to confront the Cyber Security challenges. Across every sector from energy to Financial Services to transportation, to
communication and so many others a single attack can have widespread and cascading consequences. I look forward to working with the nations leading mind and digital realm. But this is not just a risk for private. Free and Fair Elections are the cornerstone of the democracy. Its clear that they are the target of the adversaries who speak to discord and underway the way of life. I share the community of the assessment, the past efforts and those today to interfere with the elections and of the current threat. Adversaries shown they have willingness and th