Andrea, it is great to see you, congratulations on 40 amazing years. It is great to work with you. Thank you. Good afternoon to all of you, i am kasie hunt in today for craig melvin. Stop this. The president tells is Attorney General to end the russia investigation in a string of tweets on the same day his form er campaign chairmans trail. The Press Briefing should start in about 15 minutes. Well see how they respond to questions about this. Plus, russian influence, hearing on capitol hill reveals russias push to sway American Voters went deeper than we thought. We all these talks, when do we see action to stop it . Off message, the president says you need to buy an id to buy
groceries the day after his administration floats the idea of a huge tax cut for the rich. We start with President Trumps twofold twitter attacks today demanding his Attorney General end the Special Counsel investigation. He defended the target of one of the biggest Indictment Results in that probe. Former Campaign Paul manafort. The White House Press briefing in about 15 minutes. We are expecting Sarah Sanders to take the podium and answer questions about why the president wants to end the probe that secured five guilty pleas and dozens of indictments. Lets start with our nbc News ReporterPeter Alexander at the white house and ken dilanian following the Manafort Trial in virginia. Ken, i want to start with you. What is the white house and how are they pushing back, there is some new reporting from Rudy Giuliani and the president s attorneys talking about the meaning of the word should . Reporter thats exactly right. The white house is pushing back by directing reporters like myself to the outside counsel. I will be the reporter who goes in the room within the next 45 minutes and Sarah Sanders will be walking out here in about 15 minutes from now. Here is what this all began with. It was in effect on extraordinary appeal, Jeff Sessions earlier on twitter. This is what President Trump tweeted. Well put it up on the screen. He says this is a terrible situation and Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now before it continues to stain our country. Bob mueller is totally conflicted and his 17 angry
democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to usa. The Washington Post heard from Rudy Giuliani and jay sekulow. Sekulow telling the post, the president did not have any order on this. We heard from Rudy Giuliani that it is established that the president uses his tweets to establish his opinions, he carefully uses the word should. We reached out to the Justice Department as well and they are declining to comment. Kas kasie. Because we know the president is so exactly careful of which words he chooses to use. Exactly. What did the president say about Paul Manafort . Reporter the president has been paying close attention to whats happening across the
river of that trial of this former campaign trying to distance himself in the past saying he was aman manafort campaign for five months. The president tweeted. Looking back in history, who was treated worse, alfonse capone, legendary mob boss, killer public enemy number one. The bottom line of this president is hes frustrated on this. He thinks that hes being connected to the Paul Manaforts case that he knows all of these charges relate to actions. It is worth noting that the
president then Kancandidate Don Trump knew manafort and he has known him for decades and manafort has lived at trump tower for a selected time. He did select him to go onto share his campaign without checking into that background. Peter, thanks. Ken dilanian tell us of the case. Reporter the jury has not told these prosecutors work for mueller. How extraordinary it is for the president of the United States to denounce his own Justice Department and fbi and unlawfully predicated Criminal Investigations over seen by his own appointee. We kind of got used to it from this president. As for the trial, it is so far from this political world in washington. Right now kasie, we are deep in the world of mens fashion. Do you own an ostrich jacket . Reporter i do not. Paul manafort does and the prosecution introduced some pictures of his closets at the condo from the fbi executed a Search Warrant and the next witness is the guy named matt katsman. The whole point is to show the jury Paul Manafort evaded taxes and spent money that was stocked in overseas Bank Accounts on these high end items and other evidence included Land Randolpher Arandolp Rover and 50,000 renovations on a couple of bathroom and property. The judge is constantly Paul Manafort is not on trial because he had a lavish style. Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Order. I think that i would rather be on the prosecution on that particular piece of evidence in the same way that he said would means wouldnt. To that point aaron. Shes right in the context of any one of us operating in a daytoday life with somebody and not just your boss but kind of the commander in chief of the United States of america tells you to do something, how else are you supposed to take it . I keep on thinking if i got my boss came to me and said hey, you should write about this thing. I would not take that as an option. I think maybe i should go write that thing. I definitely should if i want to watch out for my job. So i think that the question though whether that rises to the legal standards just because it is meant to be interpreted as a command. I think thats the argument that the president s lawyers are going to make. Matt miller, whats the
difference between the public and private version of this . One of the things thats interesting of the idea that mueller is going through the tweets. Often times we dont necessarily the president s keeping something secret. In this case, it seems that the public statements itself are problematic. They are just as powerful evidence as anything he said in private. If the president is taking direct action to conceal something, for example, when he asked all his staff to leave the room so he can have a one on one conversation with james comey. He knew what he was doing is inappropriate. If he were to do a Television Interview and directly admit what he did, why he did it with lester holt when he said i fired james comey because of the Russian Investigation. Thats powerful evidence against
him. Just because hes stupid enough to do it publicly does not mean it is any less damaging. Although there is the question of Contra Dridictions the president makes. The strategy, you say one thing and the other thing and it is totally contradictory and nobody know his state of mind. Is he doing that because hes trying to play in his defense of the Russian Investigation or is he all over the place . I dont think anybody knows the answer to that question. We spend a large portion of our time in the Media Psychoanalyzing the president trying to figure out what he means. Thats a game to an extent of the Mueller Investigation have to play, too. Jill, do you see any store rhistoric parallels that we need to focus on . Everyday is parallels. We are getting a pretty powerful case where the pieces of evidence are coming to ring tog now. I am going to count on viewers to come up with a fake nixons account. Matt miller before we go, we should not lose site of the fact that hes telling Jeff Sessions to end this. Of course, much of the president and much of his anger, we know hes angry about this. Jeff sessions had no choice to recuse himself. It was not an optional act. It was written in regulation. The president does not care about that and hes asking sessions to violate the Department Of Justice regulations and unrecuse himself and shut down the investigation into the president himself. Thats powerful evidence of the president corrupting. It is only wednesday. Aaron blake and ji
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understand these tools best. Theyre creators. Nbc jo lynn kent is gjoining me now. Jo, i want to start with you. Have anything you have been monitori monitoring this morning, have anything stood out to you . Have you learned anything new today . U. S. Focus activities by the Internet Research agency out of russia spiked into mid of 2017. Thats a new nugget. Another thing we want to hit is talking about what we should be looking for going into the 2018 midterms. Automated accounts as we have reported are payable to put out much more devices content faster than humans so want to discord in the upcoming election and the individuals have been testifying have said faster than 25 or 30
acts. They are organizing facebook users bideny identity and other background issues and we are talking about antimuslims or antilgbtq and looking at extreme issues that can be used in extreme ways. I want to share some sound from some of the folks who testifies who this goes beyond facebook and twitter. We spend a lot of time talking about facebook and twitter. As renee highlighted and others have noted, this is a problem of the entire information ecosystem. This is crossed platform and reddit confirms hundreds of created accounts and tumblr did it and that platform was used to target the africanamerican community. This is why it is so difficult to quantify in any meaningful way the reach of these activities. This is across the entire
ecosystem. So kasie, what we are seeing is a continued attempt of manipulation. Facebook declined to say whether those problems, problematic pages or accounts came from russia or not. Senator mark warner says it is kremlins activities. There are a lot of voices weighing into this right now. The real center of the issue so far from this, one individual testifying saying extreme are screaming while the majority is whispering. It captures the sentiment of what we are learning today. Derek, i want to show you something that senator Susan Collins said today just exactly what the United States are doing with the problem that jo lynn just laid out. No, i dont think the administration is focused enough on this issue. For one thing, we no longer have a Cyber Security expert at the
white house whose sole job is to focus on issues like this. Thats a very porpt step that muy important step to take. It may be too late. Big question is will russia intervene of the 2018 elections in the same way we know . The answer is they started to try. Facebook shuts down over a dozen accounts. They found out certain profiles have been linked to the Internet Research agency, the ira have spent 11,000 on its platform. They essentially said help us work on this problem. You have facebook having this sort of realization that their platform is being used to so division and hate and disunity
of election year. You have the white house which is doing something completely different. Trump meeting with putin and refusing to say anything to russia acted inappropriately. You have the president repusing often to investigate moving further on these issues. I think shes exactly right. You have this remarkable situation where the business and political community, at least large parts of it are united in their efforts to combat russian attempts to intervene in our elections and the president of the United States is not only refusing frankly to help them, hes actually purposefully trying to shut down an investigation, illegal investigations into the origins of these efforts. It is a shocking thing. Jo, at this point, facebook is turning to our government
saying hey, can you help us get to the end of this and figure out the last mile of what is going on here, right . Well, facebook is cooperating with the Department Of Justice and fbi and other agencies in washington. The real issue is regulation and selfpolicing. These Major Tech Companies are not capable of policing themselves and running a flat form that can promote real true tiff or just the basic truth. There is not a political will right now, at least on capital hill to place regulations on these companies or sort out what it may look like. Theyre saying if it is necessary, they see a lot of political will coming out from the senate and the house and you got the Intel Committee hearing coming up from the week of september where you will hear jack dorsey and we dont know if the googles ceo is going to accept his invitation. Those are critical moments thats coming up that well be watching closely if anything can be moving. Thats september and the midterm is in november. Coming up very, very quickly. Nbc jo lynn kent and jared thompson. Thank you very much. Thanks. We are keep on watching the white houses brief pressing room. These briefings have become less and less frequent. There is quite a bit of ground to cover. The president in his element among his supporters, how he connects to the everyday man. His interesting take on what you have to do if you want to buy groceries. Im ray and i quit smoking with chantix. I tried cold turkey, i tried the patch. They didnt work for me. I didnt think anything was going to work for me until i tried chantix. Chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. Chantix reduced my urge to smoke. I needed that to quit. When you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. Serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be lifethreatening. Stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. Tell your Healthcare Provider if youve had depression or other Mental Health problems. Decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. Use caution when driving or operating machinery. The most common side effect is nausea. I cant tell you how good it feels to have smoking behind me. Talk to your doctor about chantix. Its a hightech sleep revolution. The sleep number 360 smart bed intelligently senses
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