Transcripts For FOXNEWSW The Daily Briefing With Dana Perino

Daily briefing. The republican lawmaker has said he would not support pompeo to be the next secretary of state before agreeing to take todays meeting at the behest of donald trump. Rich edson is live at the state department. Rich, i thought that was a pretty wise move of the president to suggest this meeting. Reporter yeah. Just after the president suggested it, dana, the president spoke with kentucky senator rand paul, asked him to meet with mike pompeo, the cia director. That just happened on capitol hill. The cia director meeting with the only republican to publicly oppose his nomination as secretary of state. That meeting happening for about 45 minutes in rand pauls office. Shortly after the president nominated the cia director to be secretary of state, paul said that he would vote against him. Kentucky republican argues pompeo advocates for an enduring military presence overseases. He says it would be a big deal to change his mind on pompeo. Now, pauls office, or paul himself have said if this meeting changed his mind, if he plans on at least considering voting for pompeo or just forget about it. Now, pauls republican colleagues say he is out of the republican main stream on this issue. As to rand paul, you say you support the president. Heres a really good chance to do something about it. Do you want to avoid a war with north korea, somebody needs to do something different. I cant believe that mr. Pompeo is not qualified by any definition. Now, if youre looking for a libertarian, youre not gonna get one. Reporter there is also an undecided republican on pompeos nomination, thats arizona senator jeff flake. Republicans have a narrow Senate Majority and they will likely need some democratic support to confirm pompeo. Theyre targeting democrats from republican leading states and the 15 senators who voted for pompeos confirmation as cia director. Democrats argue pompeo would fail to check the president s first impulses. Republicans say pompeo speaks for the president. That was obvious, they say, in this meeting that pompeo had over eastern wheat again with kim jongun. They say that shows pompeo is a trusted emissary of the president of the United States and hes already executing American Foreign policy. Dana . Dana all right, rich, thank you so much. Were watching President Trump preparing to return to maralago from his visit in key west. We will catch back up with him when he arrives back at maralago. Syria is stepping up efforts to crush opposition as fresh gun fire prevents International Inspectors of seeking evidence of a poison gas attack, putting those efforts on hold. Benjamin hall is live across the border in turkey. Benjamin . Reporter yeah, hi, dana. Its been 12 days since that terrible gas attack that took place in douma. Its been four days since inspectors arrived in damascus to try to get samples and yet they still havent come close to it. What were learning here on the border is that concerted ef forts by syria and russia to prevent people from finding out what happened. Wto tried to go yesterday and were held back by gun fire supposedly by rebel fighter. But we know that is not necessarily true. Weve spoken to a number of soldiers who said rebel fighters were bussed out ten days ago in a deal which was done with the russians. In fact, similar deals are being done in other parts of damascus. But despite all the efforts in russia and syria to prevent people from finding out, stories are still getting out. Bit by bit were able to paint a picture of what happened in that terrible chemical attack in douma. We cant get to the site ourselves, but every day evidence and witnesses come across this border wall with more horrific details. We met up with a survivor of the chemical attack. Translator one brick in the roof and they were stuck. Everybody in that house and at least two other houses died. The barrel was five feet long, yellow and made of thick metal. Doctors say they only had room to treat those who had a chance of survival. They left the others to die. Reporter and weve also heard that the regime has found the graves of the chemical victims in douma and have taken the bodies so that they cant be tested. We heard doctors who treated those victims have been harassed, their families have been threatened if they give evidence to the outside world. But this evidence is still getting out. We spoke to some people who said they have seen contact with americans in the north who had taken blood and urine samples. Even if the wto may not have this evidence, the American Government does. Dana what has been the response from the u. S. Air strikes from last weekend . Reporter there have been a mixed response here. Many people feel a lot of gratitude after many years, they feel the western world has gotten them and that President Trump backs them. But they say its not enough. These strikes on the ground the military situation remains the same. So, yes, a sense of gratitude, but also a sense of more needing to be done. Interesting they all say they feel they are fighting not only assad. They are fighting russia and assads primary backer. Thats the state at the moment, many of them giving up hope here. Dana . Dana benjamin hall, thank you. For more on this, general jack keane is a senior strategic analyst. Sir, can you help us understand what is happening there when you send a team in to get evidence, the russians had four different stories last week trying to explain away this chemical weapons attack. Then there was small arms fire yesterday that prevented french and u. S. Well, the french and the United States both said it was preventing inspectors from getting in. What are they trying to prevent inspectors from seeing . Well, the russians and assad, as well as our government, the british government, french government, we all know that chemical weapons were used on that attack. So thats a fact. The russians are trying to avoid another damning report that was done as a result of the chemical attack a year ago this month in syria. And even though that report came out again by International Investigators confirming that chemical weapons were used by the assad forces, the russians still maintain that it was the radicals that used chemical weapons. So they persist in this lie. Putin, its about an image thing for putin. Assad does not care. He doesnt care that people know he uses chemical weapons. He knows for a fact that everybody in that area knows what happened. He would use chemical weapons again if it suits his military purposes. After all, after he used chemical weapons on his final holdout in damascus after six years trying to hold the city, this final holdout. He couldnt get it done with conventional weapons. He used chemical weapons and the rebels left. Dana listen to the joint chief, Kenneth Mackenzie on that very issue about syrias ability to conduct war strikes. They will have the ability to conduct limited attacks in the future. I would not rule that out. Howev however, theyve got to look over their shoulder that we will have the ability to strike them again, should it be necessary. Dana do you think last weekends attack did give a brush back pitch enough to assad to know he shouldnt do this again . Yeah. I just think that the purpose of the attack was misguided. The first attack that we made, the purpose was to deter assad. But obviously that didnt work because he came back and used chemical weapons a year later. The purpose of last fridays attack should not be to deter him. Thats already failed. Take all the capability away from him for him to be able to do another attack. That would have meant all his air force, rotary fixed wing, artillery. Take as much chemical weapons as you can. But you cant get all of it. That would have had meaning and we wouldnt be in this position waiting for another chemical attack. Dana while i have you, i wanted to ask you about mike pompeo. Hes the cia director who just had a meeting with rand paul, the senator from kentucky, who said he was going to vote against him. President trump asked senator paul to meet with mr. Pompeo and they had a meeting today. This is happening right at the time that weve learned mike pompeo had actually gone to pyongyang to try to set up the parameters for a possible meeting with kim jongun. He met with kim jongun. Yet it looks like hes going to have a hard time getting confirmed in the senate. This is congress reaching, i think, an incredibly low point. Here we have and i spoke to director pompeo on north korea a few weeks prior to his going over there because he didnt disclose he was going there. This man understands the issues, dana, and he also knows the profile of kim jongu. N. He went over there to stress test kim jonguns stress test. The fact that the president is moving towards a summit tells me theres an opportunity for progress. Think about it. Director pompeo is involved as a principle player in the most significant diplomatic effort that weve had in terms of a major achievement in 70 years. If this actually does happen, if we are on the cusp of denuclearizing north korea. Why would you want to keep him from being secretary of state, given the skill sets hes got . Its all about politics, unfortunately. Dana it certainly is. Its sickening to watch it, frankly. Dana well have a chance to talk to senator rob portman and well ask him about that. Jack keane, thank you. Puerto rico goes dark again. An update on restoring power to the territory after an island wide blackout. And lawmakers meeting over a bill to protect special Council Robert mueller if the president decides to fire him. What happened today behind closed doors. Patrick woke up with back pain. But he has work to do. So he took aleve. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. Lets team up to get the lady of the house back on her feet. And help her feel more strength and energy in just two weeks yaaay the complete balanced nutrition of great tasting ensure with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. Ensure. Always be you. A heart transplant. Thats a whole different ballgame. I was in shock. I am very proud of the development of drugs that can prevent the rejection and prevent the recurrence of the original disease. I never felt i was going to die. 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Fox news is still working to confirm reports that there was a criminal referral by the Justice Departments internal watch dog, the Inspector General, over the former fbi Deputy Director Andrew Mccabe and his four counts of lying, three under oath as to his role in the leak of information about the clinton foundation. Whats key here is that the Inspector General can make criminal referrals in two ways. One is that after they finished their investigation and they concluded mccabe headlined federal investigator, they would send that information to the u. S. Attorneys here in washington for them to reach their own conclusion over whether there was a prosecutable case. The other option is that sometime ago, perhaps a couple months ago, the Inspector General, having concluded mccabe lied to federal investigators, then pushed that information to the u. S. Attorney and worked with the u. S. Attorney to determine whether criminal charges would be brought against him. The key thing here for critics of the fbi and many republicans on the hill is theyve made this argument that mccabe lied to federal investigators, he did it on multiple occasions, and members of the Trump Administration had to do big deals with the special counsel because they admitted to lying to federal investigators. They say theres got to be a uniformed standard here if youre going to get guilty pleas from members of the Trump Administration, you should also see if prosecution was warranted in the mccabe case. Dana whats going on with the Mueller Investigation . Reporter thats what i was up here to really cover originally on the hill. Were outside the Judiciary Committee hearing room. They had a business meeting this morning that lasted about an hour. Kind of a procedural event. For now they put off action on this Bipartisan Legislation to protect the special counsel. As you know, the Senate Majority leader expressed opposition to this legislation. What we heard from the committees republican chairman, Chuck Grassley and Diane Feinstein is that they are going to push ahead. Congress should at least require the executive branch to issue detailed reports to congress about the appointment investigation or removal of special counsel. Im concerned about requiring Law Enforcement officials to report prosecutorial decisions during open criminal investigations. In the name of transparency, we should not create new reporting requirements that could bring about obstruction or political pressure. Reporter one of the issues Committee Members are wrestling with is a possible amendment that would require additional reporting requirements for the special counsel to congress, but the bottom line is that this legislation is trying to add further protections for the existing special counsel, robert mueller. Only a senior Justice Department official could fire the special counsel in this case, the responsibility falls to Rod Rosenstein and if the special counsel were to be fired there would be an immediate and mandatory review. If it wasnt for cause, the special counsel would be reinstated. As you know yesterday in florida, the president didnt really indicate that firing either of these men was on his mind. As far as the two gentlemen you told me about, theyve been saying im going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months, and theyre still here. Reporter so the thing to watch here, dana, is whether this amendment becomes a deal breaker for some members of the committee. And if we get more information on the Andrew Mccabe referral, the report, that referral, well bring it right to you on fox. Dana all right, thank you. Puerto ricos Power Company now says it has restored electricity to about 80 of the island after a downed transmission line put the entire territory in the dark yesterday. They are struggling to repair a power grid seven months after hurricane maria. Puerto rico restored electricity to 90 of its customers before this latest outage. Felons who served their time but still cant vote. A new effort to restore those rights and what it could mean to future elections. Hey we didnt have a homeowners claim last year so allstate is giving us money back on our bill. Well, that seems fair. We didnt use it. Wish we got money back on gym memberships. Get money back hilarious. With claimfree rewards. Switching to allstate is worth it. With a class leading 31mpgs nx combined estimate. Lease the 2018 nx 300 and nx 300 all wheel drive for these terms. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. You know whats not awesome . Gigspeed internet. When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. 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That is, unless they wait five years after their sentence and then get specific permission from the state to cast a ballot. He hopes to change that. I think that theres nothing that speaks more to american citizenship than having the opportunity to have your voice heard. Reporter after serving his time, meade went to rehab, finished college and law school, even though florida also prevents him from practicing law. Meade and his organization, florida rights restoration coalition, are trying to restore Voting Rights with amendment iv. This is something that would create an opportunity for citizens to earn the ability to vote. And they do that when they serve their time. They include a portion o