Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Stephanie Ruhle 20180

MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Stephanie Ruhle August 21, 2018 13:00:00

Speaks perfect english. Good morning, im Chris Jansing in for stephanie ruhle. This morning, executive power. The president asserts he is, quote, totally out to be involved in the mueller investigation. Even saying he could run it if he wanted to. But despite months of claims that hed sit down with the Special Counsel, hes now worried it could be a perjure trap. They simply dont have any evidence of collusion and they have no evidence of obstruction other than their version of the truth. Going fishing. Microsoft seizes control of websites created by Russian Hackers intended to look like conservative think tanks and the u. S. Senate with the intent of Stealing Passwords and yet deny chuls of users. And courting support, documents on the Supreme Court nominee are released as judge Kavanaugh Heads to the hill. Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. He said he believes he has the authority, for example, to fire rod rozrozen rosenstein. He cant technically fire mueller. He could push rosenstein to do it. Rosenstein has indicated he is not going to do that. The president , though, could also try to essentially defang mueller. Essentially take away his security credentials. Something he did to former cia director brennan. He was asked about that in that reuters interview as well. He said he hadnt really given that a whole lot of thought. We try to drill down exactly what the president meant. The other big headline here is President Trump seeming to indicate that hes now leaning against doing an interview with Special Counsel robert mueller. Saying what his lawyers have been pushing for a number of day. That hes concerned about a socalled perjury trap. The president also neglecting to say again that Russia Meddled in the 2016 election. Instead saying this to reuters. The investigation played right into the russians hands. So its against that backdrop that President Trump prepares to head to West Virginia later tonight, chris, for a campaign rally. We could hear more about all of this at that rally, chris. We wouldnt be surprised if we did, kristen, thank you for that. Let me bring in my panel. Ned price, spokesperson under president obama. And Mark Thompson is a radio host with ziriosirius xm progre. Let me play what giuliani said on june 3rd on meet the press. He was talking about the possibility of President Trump stepping in and ending an investigation like this. Thats a very unrealistic thing. If youre asking in a theoretical sense it could lead to impeachment. I mean, if he terminated an investigation of himself, it could lead to all sorts of consequences. Constitutionally, youre making the argument you think constitutionally he could. Is what youre saying. Im saying constitutionally, it sure locks that way. So, ned, youve got Rudy Giuliani saying that we talked to a former federal prosecutor in the doj and asked him, he said the president could do it. He could step in. He said the question is whether its lawful or does it have a corrupt purpose. And that question would likely be decided by the courts. What do you think is going on here . Whats your answer to that question . Could he stop it if he wanted to . Well, yes, chris, both the feature and flaw of our system is that there is very little that is written specifically into the constitution, into law, into statute. Much of this is based on norms. Norms that are previous 44 president s, all good people for the most part, have observed and adhered to. We now have a president who is willing to flout these norms. These norms of american society. This is the first time we found ourselves in this position. Yes, i think technically the president could step in. The fact, though, is he would probably do so in an effort to obstruct justice with malign intent to exonerate himself. So i think that is where this would violate what we have observed for the 240some years of our republic. The other question is we have focused so much on the president s assertion he could run this investigation that we have overlooked his statement he has stayed out of it to date. And that is false we just played that sound of him. We could play, the entire hour, of sound of him talking about and criticizing this investigation. We have the Mueller Probe in the first place because donald trump fired jim comey with russia in mind. Hes continued to harangue the prosecutions. Hes tampered with witnesses by encouraging Paul Manafort to stay strong. Not only that, but susan, just the idea, again, even if he can do it legally if there arent any strong restrictions on it. A president deciding to end the investigation that essentially is about his election. I think he would have a tremendous amount of backlash. Even though the republicans have been hands off with this president , i think thats a bridge too far. I do not think hell go that far. Do you think he would do it . Do you think hes just talking . Donald trump likes to talk. He likes to talk about how much power he has. He likes to talk about how much power he has because he thinks it makes him look strong. Like i can take care of this. In fact, it has the opposite effect. It makes him look weak and petty, that hes basically punching down. So do i think he would do it . If his back was against the wall, if they start finding out things and i think thats what hes most afraid of, you have the don mcgahn interview. You have omarosa with tapes. You have Michael Cohen looking to make a deal with tapes. I think this president is afraid. Hes a cornered animal. And he will do anything to he did not speak as Donald Trumps personal attorney and thats a very important difference. One of the things i mean, you know, the president said look, of course i said mcgahn should, you know, speak because i have nothing to hide. Part of his whole feeling, you know, that he is in control. He wanted to make very clear that that was his decision. He also keeps talking now about taking away Security Clearances. He suggested even James Clapper might be being nice to him because he wants to keep his own Security Clearance. He also tweeted about an interview that former fbi official phil mudd did on cable news. Take a watch of this. When i am requested to sit on advisory board, let me ask you one question. How much do you think im paid to do that at the request of the u. S. Government . Give me one answer and youve got ten seconds. How much . Ill give ill ask you a question. How much are you paid for exposing your contracting gigs, for being a i have no contracts with the u. S. Government that pay money, zero. When you have a Security Clearance i have zero relationships with the private sector that involve my Security Clearance, zero. Then the president who obviously was watching tweeted, just watched former intelligence official phillip mudd become totally unglued and weird while debating John Brennans Security Clearance. Mudd is in no mental condition to have such a clearance, should it be revoked. Besides, ned, just that thats how the president of the United States is spending his time watching cable and then essentially doing a live in time commentary on that. I mean, is that where we are . Hes just picking people to threaten . Does this support the argument hes using Security Clearances simply as a weapon against his critics, not because some of those people might, in so many way, be leakers or pose a threat to National Security . Yes. T the answer to that is yes, absolutely, 100 . Donald trump should be careful of having unglued and weird as the barometer for removal of Security Clearance. Passion that phil mudd had dedicated, passion that phil mudd had channeled to service of his country over the course of deca decades. But what weve seen from the president is not an understanding that Security Clearances are not something that go only to your defenders, to your champions. These are what former officials have so that they can consult, they can share their knowledge, they can work and continue to work on the hardest, the most challenging problems we face as a nation with their current colleagues. With those who remain in the intelligence community. In the Law Enforcement community. But youre absolutely right. This president sees it as a political reward and he is seeing the removal of Security Clearance as punishment, as a chilling signal to all of those, all of those who would criticize him and who would find fault with what he is doing, and frankly, that borders on autocratic tendencies. Ned price, thank you. Susan and mark are going to stay with us. Up next, new evidence of russia trying to hack our political system. This time, targeting conservative think tanks who dont like trump. Well explain what these hackers tried to do and how microsoft stopped it. But, first, remember, we talked yesterday about melania trumps speech on Cyber Civility . Well, conan obrien suggests one person should have been listening a little more closely. Melania trump gave a Speech Denouncing cyber bullying. Immediately yaafterward, Presidt Trump went on twitter and called her a loser immigrant. Sleek de. Performance. Dependability is top on my list. Well then, heres some vehicles that deliver on that. Woah wow. Oh jeez thats our truck its our truck and theyre our cars thats my chevy chevys the only brand to earn j. D. Power dependability awards across cars, trucks and suvs three years in a row. Awesome. Im proud. Its like a dynasty. Its impressive. In them therr hills on your guarantevacation. Find gold but we can guarantee the best price on this rental cabin. Or any accomodation from hotels to yurts. Booking. Com, booking. Yeah authoritarian regime. Our guest is a National Security robe reporter for the post and she joins me now. These hackers, i guess they are named fancy bear and they were named in the indictment last month, when he was talking about interference in the 2016 election. What have they been doing exactly . So fancy bear or apt28 is a unit of the Russian Military spy agency gru, the gru. And they have been active for years and years in Information Warfare campaigns across europe, western europe, european europe and the United States. And they famously hacked into the Democratic National committee in 2016 and as well as into john podesta, Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, his email account, and they famously dumped those email also out into the public on wikileaks, which really through the 2016 election in disarray. They havent gone away . Thats correct. We shouldnt be surprised they havent gone away. We, in fact, been warned and told by intelligence officials for the last two years that theyre not going away, that theyre going to continue their efforts, and i want to at least make one point clear here. What they do is they do espionage as well as Information Warfare, which is Weaponizing Information they steal by putting it out into the public sphere, in a way that can embarrass a candidate or create confusion and discord. We dont know yet exactly what their goal was with this latest effort to create fake websites, mimicking conservative think tasks. Perhaps it was straight espionage. Perhaps it was an effort to see if they could find very damaging information, interesting information that they could put out there to create more confusion and discord and perhaps to help President Trump, but their ultimate goal is really to undermine u. S. Democracy, u. S. Values of openness, transparency and democracy and enhance the already existing divisions we have here in the u. S. Society. So is it that our laws are not sufficient or havent kept up with whats out there . The reason theyre still operating, are they outteching us . Why have we not stopped them . First, part of it is what it is theyre doing, the scope of their campaign. And secondly, its not a problem that can be addressed solely by the u. S. Government alone. In fact, a large part of the battlefield is in the private sector on the networks and on the pipes of private companies or private sector companies, Tech Companies, where we as americans really dont want our u. S. Intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement agencies snooping around and sitting on them and sniffing out threats. That would be considered, you know, an invasion of privacy and of civil liberties. So thats the scene that the russians have cleverly exploited in the last, you know, several years. Knowing that the tech sector has traditionally been off limits to u. S. Federal agencies and so they can sort of root around with impunity. Whats good here, whats interesting here, is that Tech Companies are starting to fight back. Microsoft has become much more proactive and aggressive about discover, detecting, russian actors on registering fake websites, et cetera, and has taken actions to unilaterally take them down by transferring them over to their own domains. As we look at as we look at how why theyre doing this, these conservatives think tanks and groups, many of them have broken with donald trump and also criticized the kremlin. Senator don mcgahn, mitt romney are on the board of the International Republican institute. Those are two men who have been very openly critical of the president. Does that Signal Something or is it just impossible to know without going back to the source and figuring out exactly what do we summize from it . Whats important to note, the russians arent really strictly partisan in their campaigns. Their overarching goal is to divide and conquer. Is to foment confusion and doubt. And set one up against the other. And so they can do that by hacking into republicans and as well as hacking into democrats. Yes, these are conservative institutes whose Board Members have not been shy about voicing criticism of the president when they believe its warranted or, for instance, the Hud Sson Institute recently hosted the director of intelligence dan coats who learned about the lights are blinking red here in america. And, you know, the russians are the most aggressive actor in the space. And they are, you know, we could be we need to be very aware of and alert to any big cyberattacks coming. So yes, its you know, its hard to know whether theyre going to whether theyre planning to see if they could get information that they could find and put out into the public domain. Maybe they just wanted to take information that could help them in their own espionage efforts, which is what spy agencies have been doing for millennia, finding ought what their adversaries are up to. Great reporting in the washington post. And for another perspective on this, and why theyre doing what theyre doing, today on Andrea Mitchell reports, andreas going to talk to brad smith, hes the president and chief legal officer of microsoft, noon eastern, only here on msnbc. The latest president ial appointee to draw the ire of the boss, the chairman of the federal reserve. President trump says hes not thrilled with him. Why that criticism could mean something for your 401k. But first, Michael Jacksons thriller just lost its title as the best selling album ever in america and it was knocked off the throne by the eagles greatest hits. 71 to 75. They just took the title. Theyve sold that album 38 million times. Can be relentless. Tremfya® is for adults with moderate to Severe Plaque Psoriasis. Im ready. With tremfya®, you can get clearer. And stay clearer. In fact, most patients who saw 90 clearer skin at 28 weeks stayed clearer through 48 weeks. Tremfya® works better than humira® at providing clearer skin, and more patients were symptom free with tremfya®. Tremfya® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or have symptoms such as fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. Before starting tremfya® tell your doctor if you plan to or have recently received a vaccine. Ask your doctor about tremfya®. Tremfya®. Because you deserve to stay clearer. Janssen wants to help you explore cost support options. Has gone up five times since the president took office. Two of those hikes were under powell with another one expected next month. President trump also questioned the feds independence, saying, quote, were negotiating very powerfully and strongly with other nations. Were going to win. But during this period of time, i should be given some help by the fed. Cnbcs editor at large john harwood joins me now. John, american president s generally dont talk about the fed. So whats the concern . Why have president s generally not done this . Well, because we counted on the fed to provide independent Oversight Management of the u. S. Economy and its monetary policy.

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