Foreign minister. Joining me now our msnbc legal analysts cynthia, and glen kergsner, and malcolm nance. Even though its sunday and im alert and awake, clearly i cant read. Thank you very much for being here. You know, the idea that intelligence officials are not comfortable sharing intelligence information with the president of the United States really shows still 2 1 2 years into his presidency shows that we are in new rather dangerous territory, isnt that right, malcolm . We are absolutely in dangerous territory. And the danger here is not that intelligence officials are not sharing information with the president. They are doing that because they have an obligation to it constitution of the United States to protect, defend, and uphold the constitution. The problem is they cannot trust the president of the United States with the details of highly sensitive classified information because he may, as the report said, either have an overreaction to this or share that information with a foreign power. With this specific story in the New York Times it is clearly a highly compartmented special Access Program that was authorizized in a very general way where trump thought he was giving Broad Authority to these commanders to go out and carry out intelligence collection without having to trouble him, the National Security counsel and through the secretary of defense, which was secretary mattis at the time. In this particular circumstance donald trump was not given information that of the details because technically he not only didnt have a need to know, he wouldnt want to know. Actually, to that point we should point out that in that the New York Times story it says that two Administration Officials say said they believed mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place implants, Software Code that can be used for surveillance or attack inside the russian grid. Again, to the overall point weve been talking about, its extraordinary for the president of the United States wasnt briefed on this. Let me get your reaction. Jonathan, i hate to start this way on a beautiful sunday morning, fathers day of all things, but this really is going to prove to be a lose, lose, lose, and heres why. First of all its understandable as malcolm said meantgon officials might be reluctant to give the pentagon information about Sensitive Information about our attempts to counter russian interference in our affairs. We all saw, for example, the president inviting the russians into the office after he fired fbi director james comey and telling them i just fired the nut job so the pressure is off on this russia thing. So its not a surprise pentagon officials would be reluctant to share information with the president. However, what that does is sets up this argument that theres a shadow government within a government operating separate and apart from the president. Now, that may be necessary to protect american interests but its not sustainable and its deeply troubling. The other way this is loss, i think, for everybody is it gives these deep state conspiracy theorists something to argue about that, you know, i think adds fuel to their fire. And then the third loss, jonathan is that dont we think we might now see President Trump directing his attorney general barr to open an investigation into the pentagon and barr being no more independent, frankly, than a tapeworm and will probably sheepishly go along withtouch mesothat is lose, lose, lose for our country. Thats a perfect segue for cynthia. Pick up what glen was talking about. How extraordinary would that be if the president were to do what glen just mentioned, in normal times what glen just said it would be written off as just Conspiracy Theory theorizing how can we take that seriously. But in the age of donald trump that could really happen. It could happen, and he could also just force the Defense Department to stop the program, which would be very bad for the country. Glens right. Its a concern we have this level of career people who feel they have interests the interests of the country are different from the president. And while thats a lose, its very important we have those people and career officials to do that for us. I find it hard to believe he would go ahead and request the attorney general to do that, but he may be having some back and forth with the defense secretary. We understand from the public reporting he does not like the new acting defense secretary and this could be one of the reasons because he does not like programs like this. Lets bring into the conversation jill winebanks, former assistant Watergate Special counsel. Before we brought you in glen was talking about mentioning how whats happening could feed into some of the deep state conspiracy theories. And i want to show you a tweet that President Trump sent out last night, one of many, where it says anything goes with our corrupt news media today. They will do or say whatever it takes with not even the slightest thought of consequence. These are true cowards, and without doubt the enemy of the people, all caps, exclamation point. Skr jill, let me get your reaction to that. There are two reactions. One is that this is just more of the same in terms of his attack on the free press, which is a significant danger to democracy. And the other is that its false and phony because this story was based on conversations with his own officials who all spoke openly to the New York Times, who shared the information, who probably fear what donald trump might do to this program were he to have been briefed on it. That is a danger, but he is a danger now to democracy. So we have to take these steps and we have to be grateful for a free press for protecting us. Well, to your point, jill, you know, the New York Times reported yesterday that both general nakasona and mr. Boulten declined to comment but also said they had no National Security concerns about the details of the New York Times reporting about the targeting of the russian grid, perhaps an indication that some of the intrusions were intended to be noticed by the russians. Malcolm, do you buy that . Is that the reason the reason why this was done . To get the notice of the russians. You know, theres several Different Reasons why we carry out these special access activities. And many a times we want our opponents to know some of our capabilities. We do that with terrorists often. We actually can disarm them by letting them know we know how theyre going to carry out their attacks, and that forces them to go into a very narrow planning loop. With regards to the russians themselves, the russians are pretty savvy. They know that any nation state is going to have some preparations to defend themselves and carry out offensive operations. The only question here is whether they felt comfortable that the president of the United States would be on their side and would be neutralizing these programs. That being said, the department of defense the National Security agency is under the control of the department of defense. It is a department of defense asset. And that being said, their job is to carry out defensive systems and be prepared for defensive operations in case of war. Any president that would put a stop to these or question these unless of course theyre actually carrying out illegal acts, which i dont think they are. Theyre just preparing, then the president of the United States own Decision Making process is either compromised or would have to be questioned. Whats the remedy here . In reading the stories and listening to the conversation in normal times you could turn to congress and depend on congress in a bipartisan fashion jumping up and saying, mr. President , what you are doing is, you know, putting our National Security at risk. Democrats control the house, and we know the Big Conversation happening over in the house. But at what point do republicans step up, say senator Lindsey Graham who is apparently a Foreign Policy expert, step in and say to his golfing buddy, mr. President , what you are doing is putting us at risk. Glen, im going to throw that to you. Jonathan, thats the perfect question. What is the remedy here because we have republicans who refuse to stand up to a president who has shown himself that hes willing to do russias bidding all day every day. You have democrats who seem to be a little bit too timid in opening impeachment hearings, so we can begin to see for ourselves as the American Public what this criminal president has done. So where does that leave us . It leaves us with the hundreds of thousands of patriotic federal employees, department of defense and otherwise having to make these difficult decisions. Do i keep things from the president in my attempts to protect the country, or do i resign in protest and begin to speak out about what im seeing inside government, the corrosion of our nations security by this president . And the federal workers should not be put in that position. Thats why its up to the republicans and the democrats to be the remedy here. Well, you know, im glad you said that, cynthia, and im hoping you can answer this question. But to glens point, what protections do federal workers have because i could see a situation where given this story and some other stories out there that some president and folks within his administration will seek retribution against those who arent putting out leaking out these stories. Well, first of all, let me just say i agree the republicans are going to do nothing and your desire that Lindsey Graham comes to save the day, im afraid, is not going to happen. Public employees should be very careful because the president the president can make their life miserable. And one of the weird things about whistle blowers is how much money it costs them when they want to defend themselves against the government when its going after them wrongfully. They end up spending a lot of money on lawyers and its a real problem for whistle blowers. So somehow these poor people have to try to figure out a way to stay under the radar and still get the information out, and its very difficult to put them in, and all we can do is support them because clearly the president is more interested in whatever his relationship is with russia than he is with protecting the country against russia and their incursions into our power grid. Jill, let me throw the last question to you and just a segue of what cynthia was talking about, as a former Watergate Special prosecutor, what message would you send not just to federal employees who might be caught in this difficult spot but to members of congress who are looking for the courage, the strength or the spine to stand up to the president of the president of the United States in a situation like this . Jonathan, that is the key question is when will a republican grow a spine and when will someone stand up to the president . When will there be a john dean who goes to the president and says there is a cancer growing on the presidency and we must stop it . In this case, of course, the cancer is the president. So i dont know how you tell the president that he is the problem, but i think that we need to have someone who he respects say that to him. I dont expect it to be linda graham. He has shown who he is now. But i do remember the days of bipartisanship, which is what is required. I remember it was republicans who went to president nixon and said you have no more support in the senate. You have gone from a high Approval Rating to none, and that was at the facts came out. So to me the key here is lets have public hearings, let the American People and the members of congress who are Still Standing behind the president , let them know the facts and let them know their constituents know the facts so they have to act on those facts, and there are only one set of facts. Whatever is being reported that is not consist with those, and by that i mean the conservative news media that lead people to say, well, i had no idea that there was anything negative in the Mueller Report, we need people to know what this particularly threat to america is and how significant it is and why we need to have this Counter Intelligence ability and act on it. Jill winebanks thank you very much for being on this show. Cynthia and glen will join us later in the show. Coming up, new polling that should have donald trump worried about the i word. Thats next. Worried about the i word thats next. Driverless cars. All ground personnel. Or trips to mars. 4. 95. Delivery drones or the latest phones. 4. 95. No matter what you trade, at fidelity its just 4. 95 per online u. S. Equity trade. No mattthe exus es. De, at fidelity. Every curve, every innovation, every feeling. A product of mastery. Lease the 2019 es 350 for 379 month for 36 months. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. 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Ibd, certain Hereditary Cancer syndromes, or a Family History of colon cancer. Maybe ill be at your door soon ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. Covered by medicare and most major insurers. At comcast, we didnt build the nations largest gigspeed network just to make businesses run faster. We built it to help them go beyond. Because beyond risk. Welcome to the neighborhood, guys. There is reward. Beyond work and life. Who else could he be . There is the moment. Beyond technology. There is human ingenuity. Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected, to do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. The republicans in the senate, every single one of them that i see know this is a witch hunt. They get it 100 . And thats what matters. The democrats are going to do it only because they might think it helps thel. I think it actually hurts them in the election. Donald trump may think its the democrats in congress who are out to get him, but it appears that more American Voters support impeachment, too. Fresh new polling out this morning by nbc news and the wall street journal shows just a 44 Approval Rating for trump, a number that has remained somewhat stagnant, but the same poll also shows that 27 of americans say theres enough evidence to begin impeachment hearings now, up 10 points from last months poll. Joining me now former federal prosecutor and msnbc political im sorry legal analyst paul butler and cynthia and back with me. And joining us carlos carbello. Okay, before we went onair the president of the United States sent out this tweet. A poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and deceitful newspaper. They were both a disgrace to our country, the enemy of the people, but i just cant seem to figure out which is worse. The good news is that at the end of six years after america has been made great again and i leave the beautiful white house, parenthesis, do you think the people would demand i say longer, question mark, all caps, keep america great, end parenthesis. Both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business and be forever gone. The key thing here is that parenthetical comment. Do you think the American People paul, help me here. The president sounds like hes signaling or saying flat out what makeal cohen has been saying from the very beginning that President Trump might not leave after his constitutional duty of either one term or two terms in the white house. So again the president loves to talk about treason. Treason is defined in the constitution as going to war against the United States or providing aid and comfort to the enemy, and so we can ask whether what the New York Times published, which was an article suggesting our intelligence does not trust the president of the United States. They are unwilling to provide him with sensitive classified information because theyll think hell spill the beans to the russian oz, and we dont know whether thats because hes ignor want, he doesnt know he shouldnt tell the russians this information or worse, whether he wants to help the russians. And the constitutional remedy is impeachment, and that brings us to the politics. Right, and congressman, i mean the democrats control the house which is