I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump Campaign. That statement by the Attorney General On Thursday came after the Washington Post revealed that sessions met twice last year with Russian AmbassadorSergei Kislyak. Sessions scrambled to clarify. In retrospect i should have slowed down, but i did meet one russian official a couple of times and that would be the ambassador. Sessions met with kislyak on july 18th, after speaking with a group of ambassadors in the Republican Convention and he met again with the Russian Ambassador at his office on september 8th, just three days after President Obama took a hard line on russian sanctions in a g20 meeting with vladimir putin. Since the election, trump and his surrogates have repeatedly denied any contacted between the campaign and russian officials. Im telling you its all phony, baloney garbage. All of the contact by the Trump Campaign and the associates was with the American People. You are not aware of any contacts during the course of the election. How many times do i have to answer this question . I have nothing to do with russia. To the best of my knowledge no person that i deal with does. But the Sessions Reversal is one example of a growing list of admissions, dragged out of the Trump Administration after reporting on contact between Trump Associates and russian officials. There is now former National Security adviser Michael Flynn who had publicly denied he had discussed sanctions and Phone Conversations with kislyak in december. After reporting detailed phone calls, flynn reversed himself and was forced to resign. Jared kushner, reports disclose he was part of a December Meeting with kislyak at trump tower. Then theres mr. Trumps former Campaign ChairmanPaul Manafort. In july he denied that to appease the russians. The campaign fought to have the republican platform not include weapons for ukraine. It did not come from the Trump Campaign. I dont know who everybody is,
but i guarantee you. Nobody from the Trump Campaign wanted that change in the platform . No one. Zero. But former trump Policy Adviser j. D. Gordon tells abc nbc news that manafort was not forth right with us. Gordon says he was in the room and told the Committee Chairman that the amendment was a, quote, problem for the campaign. Gordon also met with the Russian Ambassador at the convention and then theres carter page, a onetime trump Policy Adviser who was also at that meeting. He has changed his story about meeting with russian officials. I had no meetings. No meetings. But on thursday, pages answer changed. Did you meet Sergei Kislyak in cleveland . Did you talk to him . Im not going to deny that i talked to him. By the way, we contacted Paul Manafort last night and he told us, quote, he has always been forthright with us and had no knowledge of the platform change until the sunday after the convention so he could havent
authorized the change. Joining me is senator marco rubio. Republican of florida. Welcome back to Meet The Press, sir. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. You traveled with the president on friday down to florida on air force one. And on saturday morning the president went on a Tweet Storm Accusing former President Obama of illegally having him wiretapped. Do you have any insight . First of all, did the president talk to you about this on friday and do you have any insight on what precipitated all of this . We never discussed that, number one, and i have no insight into what exactly hes referring to, and i would imagine the president and the white house in the days to come will outline further what was behind that accusation. Ive never heard that before, and i have no evidence or no ones ever presented anything to me that indicates anything like that. In the days to come you guys are going to ask him and i imagine hell answer it. For what is it worth, as a member of the Senate Intelligence committee, if there was a wiretap on Donald Trumps campaign isnt that something that you would have been made aware of . The term wiretap is thrown around very loosely by a lot of people so we have to understand exactly what theyre talking about. I dont have any basis, i never heard that allegation made before by anybody, and ive never seen anything about that anywhere before. But, again, the president put that out there and now the white house will have to answer to exactly what hes referring to. Its such a serious allegation. It is either, if its true, its an extraordinary political scandal and if its not true, its an extraordinary political scandal. Fair . Well, if its true, and i just hate speculating about these things. This is the president of the United States on your behalf . Clearly, if that were true then theres no doubt that it would be a very newsworthy item with a lot of discussion about it, and if its not true then obviously one would ask themselves why would you put that out there. What was the rationale behind
it . I didnt make the allegation and im not the person that went out there and said it. Ive never said that before. I would not say that to you today, and i have no basis to say that. If the president and the white house does theyll lay it out over the next few days and well be interested to see what they were talking about. Are you concerned that the president has a Credibility Problem . We can go back to the birther business, 3 to 5 million illegal votes and now this wiretap thing that you say youre not aware of. This is the president of the United States. Can we take him at his word . First of all, i would say the president has gotten elected and in many ways hes doing what he told the people he was going to do. A lot of this outrage is donald trump is doing what he said he would do if he were elected and you see that reflected in the public polling where a large number of americans are saying hes doing exactly what he said he was going to do, and thats what people are mostly focused on. Is the president s style different than mine . Absolutely. Is he an unorthodox political figure . Absolutely. Thats what people voted for and thats what they wanted in this election. Wherever those facts lead us and well allow people to make judgments based on those facts. Given that there have been reports that the white house reached out to your chairman of this Intelligence Committee richard berg of north carolina. Some democrats are concerned, including mike warner are concerned that the credibility of the Intelligence Committees investigation is now at peril because of this. Is there a point, and i know you believe you guys can do this. You have tweeted that you guys can do this yourselves in the intel committee. Is there a point that it might be better for the political process to take politics out of this and have a Special Prosecutor, whatever youant call it, and put this sort of out of congress right now . Not now. I certainly dont think were at that point at this moment and heres why. The job of the Intelligence Committee is not to be a Law Enforcement agency. The job of the Intelligence Committee is to gather facts and evidence to go through Counterintelligence Programs and intelligence programs and understand all of the evidence and the facts thats out there about how the russians did this and why they did this, et cetera and put this all in a report and thats our job to gather facts
and ive told everybody im not going to be a part of a witch hunt and ill also not be part of a coverup. I want to put the facts out there wherever the facts lead us and thats what the Senate Intelligence committee will do. I will tell you this, if its not what we do and if its not the product we produce i will be among the first people out there on this program and out there that i did not sign my name on the report because it gave irrelevant facts that the American People deserve to know. Were a finder of facts, a collector of facts and we will put that in the report and people will make those judgments based on those facts. Right after the fbi director comey briefed the Intelligence Committee, i believe it was about in fact, it was exactly february 17th, you tweeted the following. I am now very confident Senate Intel Committee i serve on will conduct a thorough bipartisan investigation of interference of putin influence. I understand that was what you
were briefed on, but what gave you more confidence to tweet that than before that day. First of all, because im interactive with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and what i have very strongly is every member of That Committee is interested at arriving at the facts and the truth. No one is looking at this from a political angle and everybody at the end of the day understands what the job is, understands that the credibility of the committee is on the line and we want to arrive at the truth. Everyone in there is prepared to go where the facts lead us irrespective of what the implications will be politically. I am very confident of that. I remain confident of that. If that changes then i will be the first out there to say hat committee is no longer capable of doing their job and were not at that point, thankfully. You said youre not going to participate in a witch hunt and that is words that the president has used to describe all of this. The more he does that, is that an irresponsible use of phrase right now . I dont know why. He obviously feels very strongly that hes being accused of things that he hasnt done and
theres hysteria in the media and he has the right to say. He has every right to defend himself and thats what hes doing. My use of the term has to do with the following and that is i want to go where the truth is irrespective of its political implications. Wherever the truth is where were going to go and everyone else needs to be committed to that principle, as well. And i believe in the Intelligence Committee that we are and if that changes, as i told you, ill be the first among them to say it. Do you believe the Intelligence Communitys assessment that the russians interfered in this election and did so to try to benefit donald trump . Well, ive never doubted that the in from back in october ive been telling people, i was in the middle of my campaign, and i refused to talk about wikileaks because it was the work of a Foreign Intelligence Agency trying to influence our elections. The key is not just to understand what they did, but how they did it because theyll try to do it again and again, not just to influence elections and to influence political debates in washington, d. C. I want to make sure that we dont spend so much time focused on things that may not have happened that we dont focus on the things that actually did happen because theyre happening now in france. Theyre happening now in germany and it will happen again in this country if we dont learn from it. Senator marco rubio, republican of florida. Thanks for coming on and sharing your views. Always a pleasure, sir. Thank you. Thank you. On thursday before Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions recused himself from any investigation involving russia and the Trump Campaign, Chuck Schumer from new york joined a growing list of democrats calling for sessions to resign. On friday afternoon President Trump released that photo and called him a hypocrite. On this , Senator Schumer joins me now. Good morning. Good morning to you, sir. There are so many tweets to keep up with. Happily talked with putin and his associates and took place in 03 in full view of press and
public under oath. Would you and your team, thats you challenging them under oath. Let me ask you this, this morning the president s Press Secretary came out and said the following, reports concerning politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling. President trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into russian activity the congressional Intelligence Committee exercise their Oversight Authority whether executive Branch Powers were abused in 2016. Is that a fair ask of this administration . Well, look, President Obama has flatly denied that he has done this, and either way, chuck, the president s in trouble if he falsely spread this kind of misinformation, that is so wrong and beneath the
dignity of the presidency. It is something that really hurts peoples view of government. Its civilization warping, and i dont know if any president democrat or republican in the past has done this. It shows this president doesnt know how to conduct himself. On the other hand, if its true its even worse for the president because that means that a federal judge independently elected has found probable cause that the president or people on his staff have had probable cause to have broken the law or to have interacted with a foreign agent. Thats serious stuff. Either way, the president makes it worse with these tweets. Is he trying to divert this here . Yeah. The president denied this. I dont have any doubt that President Obama has been telling the truth. If they want to investigate it, sure, but the real point is we need a Special Prosecutor to investigate what went on in the Trump Campaign transition and presidency. Let me ask you let me start with that, actually. Please. Do you no longer have confidence in the Intelligence Committee to do this on the
senate side to conduct this investigation . Let me answer that in two parts. First, the Intelligence Committee has congressional oversight, and yes, i have doubts about Chairman Burr. He first denied that they should investigate and when pushed by mike warner he said, okay, well investigate and then of course at the administrations request he went to the president and said something is wrong. Thats taking sides in the investigation. The faith i have in the Intelligence Committee is in mike warner and the democrats. Theyve been holding burrs feet to the fire and they will look for another alternative if Chairman Burr doesnt pursue this. There is another point to this. People mix up the two. The other is, of course, whether the law was broken and whether the Trump Campaign was complicit in working with the russians to influence the election. That needs a Special Prosecutor. Rod rosenstein, hes a career man, he will be before the
judiciary committee for his nomination for Deputy Attorney general. I am urging him at that hearing to say that he will appoint a Special Prosecutor to look into this because its on the Executive Side that any investigation is done and any criminality is put forward. Let me ask you about this specific charge, what you were just talking about with President Trump, this idea that there may have been a Court Order Surveillance of some form or another. Youre part of whats called so many gangs on senate side and youre one of the gang of eight on intelligence matters, the most sensitive intelligence matters. Youre briefed on this. Is it fair wouldnt you have been briefed if the fbi had gone to a fisa court to get surveillance of a Foreign Government involving the Trump Campaign . Wouldnt you know this . I dont comment on classified briefings. Its fair to say can you why not, if you know this information why not share it at this point . As i said we have a problem of trust and it goes to what you just quoted of ben sasse. You cannot comment on classified briefings and i