People. And later is Vladimir Putin a war criminal . I would not use that term. Secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson takes his turn in the hot seat. Do you lack the knowledge to answer my questions or are you refusing to answer my question . A little of both. This is mpt day lay and it starts right now. Good evening, im chuck todd here in new york, welcome to mtp daily, and boy was it. Held his First Press Conference as president elect today. And it was a crazy scene, it was a circus, it was volatile, it was trump. It came amid explosive claims obtained by intelligence officials that leaked that rush was very unverified allegations about trump and his dealings with and inside russia. Senior intelligence official tells nbc news that those claims are unvetted disinformation. Were going speak with the ed nor chief of buzzfeed which made the controversial decision to publish the dose yay in full even as buzzfeed themselves and others noted how unverified and unvetted it was. Their move is ignited a media fire storm. Well deal with that. Thats engaged the trump transition and the kremlin say its considering a lawsuit. But folks, the toothpaste is already out of the tube. The office of the presidency has a serious credibility problem. It appears as if the incoming president and his intelligence agencies are in open warfare and american small Democratic Institutions are now caught in the cross fire. If we were observing this happening to a foreign country just nine days before their transfer of power. Wed probably come to the conclusion that and say that that courys ldership is a bit unstable. And youve got to wonder if thats how other countries are describing us right now. Today. Donald trump escalated his feud with the u. S. Intelligence community as tensions rose to a truly unprecedented level. I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out. I think its a disgray. Todays press Conference Left us with more questions than answers on a lot of topic, especially russia. Trump seemed to acknowledge that trumps intelligence interfered in our election, then took it back a few moments later. At the same time, she scolded putin with, but also seemed to thank him for the interference as well. As far as hacking, i think it was russia. But i think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. But could have been others also. We talked about hacking. Hackings bad. And it shouldnt be done. But look at the things that were hacked. Look at what was learned from that hacking. On that Intelligence Report that the second part of their conclusion was that Vladimir Putin ordered it because he aspired to help you in the election. Do you accept that part of the finding . If putin likes donald trump, i consider that an asset, not a liability. Trumps initial acknowledgment of u. S. Intelligence findings base raised another question. Which trump answered by again, criticizing the Intelligence Community. Why did you spend weeks undermining the u. S. Intelligence committee before simply getting the facts and then making a public statement. I think its pretty sad when Intelligence Reports get leaked out to the press. First of all its illegal. Trump attacked the press for reporting on the story. He singled out buzzfeed. And he called them a quote failing pile of garbage. Then he dismissed cnn as quote fake news. They did not publish the dossier at all. We have questions piling up, what is trump doing . What is the Intel Community doing . Whats congress doing . Hows the Intel Community going to react to being compared to the nazis . What were their motivations and including this salacious and unsubstantiated information in the realm they might have used. What about trump and congress . The office of the presidency has a serious credibility issue . Whos going to restore it . Will trump himself do it . Or will he continue to steam roll the allegations and praise putin . Arguably making things worse . And what about the democrats. Ask yourself, do they want to clear the president s name or destroy it . What about republicans . Do they want to restore the credibility to the office of the presidency for the good of the public or as revenge against the democrats . These are all questions that the world might be asking too as it tries to figure out what is going to happen next. Joined now by the Senior Investigative correspondent, cynthia mcfda. Lets start with the straight up news. Theres a lot of information about the dossier, trump, and russia, tell what you say we know to be true. So, first question, did u. S. Intelligence believe that the russians had a dossier on donald trump that was contained in this 35 initially 35 page document. The answer chuck, based on numerous sources is no. The u. S. Intelligence did not believe this was credit nl. In fact, u. S. Intelligence officials tell us there is no credible evidence linked donald trump to russia in any substantive way, period. So, thats not true. The document prepared by the Intelligence Community ordered up by president obama, which laid out the case for why they believe the russians were involved in the u. S. Election. In an addendum called an annex to that report, titled, disinformation, this two page summary of this 35page Opposition Research essentially, a smear campaign, ordered up privately against donald trump was summarized. Why as you propose . Why would u. S. Intelligence put it in a section called disinformation. Why would he be part of it . The answer appears to be this. They wereriefing donald trump. Two things, they wanted to be prepared if. Will trump said to them, well what kind of political disinformation is out there . They wanted to say this, not that we believe it, but this stuff is out there. And two, in case mr. Trump was having trouble believing that they had analyzed intelligence linking the russians to the election. They wanted to be able to say look, were talking about our assessment. Were not talking about this kind you have junk that exists out there. Isnt it reasonable to assume though if youre donald trump and they bring this piece of information that theyre not just doing it because they think you should know sir, maybe theres an implied threat behind it. Which it seems to me how he is taking this. Yeah. Listen, and im not sure it could cause a kerfuffle prior to being released. It appeared there were no documents that changed hands of the intelligence briefing. One of the questions is, this was an oral briefing led by the head of dni, mr. Clapper. It was a verbal briefing. They never got in the verbal briefing to this matter. I have to tell you, i just got off the phone with former commander of nato, james, and he says i said what is mr. Trump doing, everybodys got to go. The heads of the intelligence agencies have got to go. Because we are not going to be able to conduct a sensible Foreign Policy right now. Has been sort of both was in trump transition rumors and on the Hillary Clinton short list. Pretty much one of these bipartisan guys, hed fire them all. He says im going to read it. I want to get this precisely right. I think the relationships between the president elect and the current leadership of the cia, the nsa, and indeed the director of National Intelligence are ir rep bli broken. That the point, lets get a new director of National Intelligence, lets get a new head of the cia and after hes sworn in, we need a approach because we have complete dysfunctionally in the National Security otherwise. Left out the fbi. That was interesting. Well leave that aside. He is replacing the other two. The forensics. There it is. I will let you go back to work. Great to be with you. Im joined by jeremy bash who served as chief of staff at pentagon and cia. Let me begin with you responding to the advice that the admiral would give, which is lets, at this point, you have a relationshipetween the Intel Community and the incoming president that appears to be in a really bad place. Is the only option to essentially clean house . Well staff has got it basically right. We have to have a restart. Were going to have one, chuck, as you noted, we have a new director of National Intelligence nominee, senator dan coates. We have a new cia nominee. His hearing is tomorrow. Mike povrp poe. Okay, that leads a career officer who i think his tenure is coming up soon. Were going to have that. The trust between the new president and the career professional intelligence at this these agencies. That is what i think needs to be repaired. Putins exkgb, he loves nothing more than tension between the cia and the president. This plays right into his playbook. I have to defend the Intelligence Community for a second. People are con flating a lot of things, chuck. In my view, heres the way the conversation went down. And i wasnt there and i havent talked to anybody about it they were briefing about the way russians are trying to influence the election. They were briefing about the way russians use information potentially embarrassing to impact our politics. I think they said to him at the end of the briefing and said hey, the russians could do this to you if they wanted to. Now they might do it through allegations that unfounded. Might do it through fake news. By the way, one 67 of clappers main points was that the russians do use fake information. Disinformation. And thats one of the ways that they try to influence. I think thats kind of a warning, its not a threat like they have something over you. Dont you think he would have accused them of hiding the ball . Is being run down or has been run down by the Intel Community . Not necessarily. I dont think actually the Intelligence Community, the cia is interested in whether or not something happened to donald trump in moscow. I think the fbi, because they investigate violations of federal criminal law and they want to know if Campaign Advisors were conspireing with the service. Thats a violation of law. The actions and cape ublts of foreign actors. Thats what theyre doing here. Theyre not saying that mr. President elect to get to a 35 report. I dont think thats what they did. They basically threw it out and basically wrote a short document that said, russia uses disinformation in our political system. They definitely did it against the democrats. They might try it against you. And the level of sophistication or what the russians. It toitly never happened and im quoting trump. Heres what i was told, heres what i wasnt told. He shouldnt use kremlin spokes people defend himself. It plays into the hands of his critics. Very quickly. Is there going to be some resignations in mass from sort of intel officers rank and file . The civilian, the nonpolitical types . We have heard that unfortunately many people are preparing their resumes and they have been deep concern at other agencies about whats going to happen. And it really didnt stem from this episode. It was the last few weeks denigrating the Intelligence Community, dredging up the iraq war wmd intelligence estimate. Things that showed that they were going to bring forward. Help defend the country. Jeremy bash, former chief of staff. Both the pentagon at the cia. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate having you on. Editor at the nation, rick tyler, and former communication director for the Ted Cruz Campaign and katie tur. Covering trump since the infamous escalator. Welcome to you all. Let me start with you. Whats your reaction to donald trump and russia . Which trump has called intelligence briefing, and then we have two people speaking on behalf of the Trump Administration saying i cant talk about something thats been made public. So, i thought the press conference was fairly defensive, somewhat obnoxious. So here we are. Its going to be a long four years. But in many ways, it was very trump. It was very trump. And, you know, i thought he was going to come out and he did have a contentious moment where he tried to belittle cnn and jim acosta, i was expecting him to come out on the defensivend angrier given last nights ne. But he came out with more of a jump in his step. Own the cycle, own the news conference, own the press, spin it in his direction. I find it interesting that hes coopted the term fake news since fake news was its origin really was stories on facebook and social media that helps him campaign. Stories that were, you know, promoting the sometimes unfounded conspiracy theories that he was talking about on the campaign trail. Hes used that now to just try and write off any sort of critical news to him. Yeah, he knows thousand use a press conference. Hes very adept at it. All those everybody thats been coming, more and more press conferences. If im donald trump, i want more. Hes loving it. Give him the razzledazzle. The number of aghast moments in the course of this conversation were and the course of that press conference, you cant add them up, you cant keep up with what you should follow. There are so many questions on the table. There are so many Unanswered Questions about his personal financial entanglements. Whatever is true or not in this document, chaz scary to me is that in ten days, when we have an overhaul, we are at the end of o ability to answer some of the questions. And that was the purpose. Was to talk about that pile of paper. What does a republican do if youre in the senate and youre uncomfortable on the putin stuff . But sort of the walking this line here. Youre uncomfortable being as a public antagonist. Make this decision when it comes to poout. You defend him uncomfortably, or do you go after him and realize that its politically uncomfortable. Im not going to prejudge. Whats your sense . I think its the attention for the entire presidency. And i think the only way these republicans on the hill can overcome it is really to get personal relationship and have some trust in the people that are surrounding him and the decisions hes making while theyre doing it. Otherwise, you just dont know from daytoday. Im going to take a quick pause. We have a packed show. Coming up on the bottom of the hour. The buzzfeed editor and chief, ben smith joins me since he made the decision to release the controversial trump dossier. Plus, Rex Tillerson gets grilled on the hill. Ill talk with one of the senators who had some tough questions from tillerson. Rand paul, stay tuned. Afoot and lighthearted i take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. The east and the west are mine. The north and the south are mine. All seems beautiful to me. Welcome back. President elect Trumps Press Conference was not the only Major Political event today. It wasnt even the only russiarelated Major Political event of the day. Secretary of state nominee rex llerson confirmation hearing was going on does russia have a legal claim to crimea . No, sir, that was a taking of territory that was not theirs. Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal . I would not use that term. Do you support creating a National Registry for american muslims . I would need to have a lot more information around how such an approach would even be constructed. Let skme you, do you lack the knowledge to answer me questions or refusing. A little of both. I have a hard time believing you lack the knowledge to answer my question. Up next im joined by one of the senators who questioned tillerson today. Kentucky republican rand paul. Me i have agerelated macular degeneration, amd, he told me to look at this grid every day. And we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression, including Preservision Areds 2. My doctor said Preservision Areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula the National Eye Institute recommends to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd after 15 years of clinical studies. Preservision areds 2. Because my eyes are everything. Donald trumps pick for secretary of state Rex Tillerson has been appearing before the Foreign Relations committee today. Hes been fielding a wide range of questions from the committee. Everything from russia to latin america to middle east. For instance, senator rand paul asked tillerson about regime change in iran. What do you think of that advocacy and what do you think of i guess the donald trump statements with regard to regime change . Well, i think and i think youve described it in many ways in the same way i would see it. What is in the best interest of our National Security . Well joining me now is senator rand paul. Senator, welcome back to the show, sir. Thanks. Let me before i get into some details of the confirmation process itself. I want to know big picture for you, when youre deciding, and im in particular Rex Tillerson and Jeff Sessions, when youre deciding whether to support somebody, whether to confirm them for a job what is your line between having the ability to do the job, but i disagree with how theyre going to go about it, versus deciding, you know what, i just cant confirm this person because i am so die metically opposed to their positions. Tell me your line in your head on that. I think its a great question. Because quite a few of these wouldnt have been my first pick. I dont mean that in a mean way, had i won, i would have picked my own people. These are people that agree m