Transcripts For MSNBCW Pulse Of America 20170528 : vimarsana

Almost two weeks is filled with controversy though, including reports that his soninlaw and Senior Adviser Jared Kushner allegedly wanted a secret back channel with russian officials. Today, some want his security clearance pulled. President trump calls his nine day foreign trip a success, but one world leader might disagree. Did it create more or less confidence in his Foreign Policy . A new barrier to the border wall. The families vow to fight President Trump if he uses Eminent Domain to take their private property to build his wall. To voice your opinions, just get out your digital device, phone, laptop, whatever you have. Log on to pulse. Msnbc. Com america, and thats where you can participate by selecting your response. A reminder for you, you can vote as many times as you want throughout the show. We want to get your opinion. Well share the results throughout this day. We begin though in washington where jet lag is not the only problem President Trump faces this afternoon. New reports about his teams contacts with russia are shining a spotlight on soninlaw Jared Kushner. The president not addressing it directly, instead, firing off several tweets about leaks and fake news just this morning. Republican senators Lindsey Graham and bob corker so far, not giving too much credit to the new reports. I dont trust this story as far as i can throw it. Instead of getting wrapped up into a lot of hyperbole, as these things can sometimes do, i think talking with him directly and getting him to answer any and all questions as he said he would do would probably be the prudent course of action. The top democrat the house intel committee, adam schiff, had this to say. I do think there ought to be a review of his security clearance to find out if he was truthful or candid. If not he cant maintain his clearance. Agree or disagree, based on new reports, Jared Kushners security clearance should be pulled. Lets get to nbcs mike mccar a this afternoon. Good to see you. Are we hearing from other members of the administration so far, what might they be saying . Well, we have. I think we can break down the defense of Jared Kushner and the Trump White House in two ways, two basic categories here. First, theres outrage over the leaks themselves. Not necessarily the substance of the leaks. What President Trump may have said or may not have said to sergei lavrov, the foreign minister or others or when someone at the administration or the Intelligence Community, its not known, spilled the details about the Manchester Attack that angered theresa may the Prime Minister. Thats bad enough. But there is outrage and this comes from both sides of the aisle incidentally about the leaks themselves. Who is responsible for these leaks . Theres also a defense coming from those close to the president and in the cabinet that what Jared Kushner did was not that unusual. He simply is trying to open up a back channel. Thats his torecally been done before. One of them the defenders was the was general kelly. I know jared, hes a great guy, decent guy. Hes the number one his number one interest is the nation. So, you know, a lot of different ways to communicate back channel, you know, publicly with other countries. I dont see any big issue here relative to jared. And richard, its been reported that today will be the first meeting at the white house between President Trump and top officials. And the man the lawyer that has been tapped to lead the defense of President Trump, the outside counsel, mark kasowitz. Thank you so much. In an exclusive interview with chuck todd on meet the press, former director of National Intelligence clapper asked whether he knew about the reported communications between the russians and kushner. Take a listen. Without specific specifically affirming or confirming these conversations since even though theyre in the realm, theyre classified but from the theoretical stand point i will tell you that my dashboard warning light was clearly on and i think that was the case with all of us in the Intelligence Community. Lets bring in ned price, former senior director of the National Security director and we have jeremy bash from the cia and department of defense. Hes an msnbc National Security analyst. We have josh meyer from politico. Lets start with you on this, jeremy. What is the thought, the warning light . He said theoretically, but was he really giving us more . Two things are concerning about this story and we need to understand more of the factual basis, probably too soon to make any determinations yet about culpability or treason as people said. I think were far from that. Espionage is another word. Right. Two things. One is going to the russian facility and using their communication devices that shows clear intent to shield the communications from u. S. Intelligence. Thats very curious and potentially trouble some. The other aspect, if its about syria thats a place we have troops on the ground and one of the things that you have one present at a time is because if youre going to be coordinating military operations with the russians in syria, for example, that can affect the lives, security and safety of our troops. That is a very dangerous thing. Thats why we have discipline in our command and control system. Ned, build on what jeremy said here. John kelly also saying today that any line of communication with russia is a good thing. Well, look, they attempted to describe this as a back channel. In is an attempt by a private citizen to establish a covert Communication System with the hostile power. Look, back powers in and themselves are not a bad thing when theyre administered by the administration. And the Obama Administration used back channels in the context of iran, in the context of the opening to cuba and other areas. But this is not a back channel in the way that theyre conceived. This was as jeremy alluded to a covert attempt to establish a secret line of communications. With the russians. You asked yourself what could be the innocuous explanation be for that and i cant come up with. Senators graham and corker saying hold on a second. These are these reports are no good, basically. Josh, is this going to take a left and right thematic here as we move forward . Richard, it probably will. I think that whatever you have to say about the underlying reports they raise a lot of good questions, a lot of troubling questions and for me the big take away why hasnt the white house said anything . Why hasnt Jared Kushner and his team responded in any way, even if it were to sort of leak strategically to get their side out of the story. So i understand the need for back channels. But i think what jeremy said abouhow the u. S. As troops on the ground,ow can there only be one president at a time as ned said, i mean, this really doesnt pass the smell test. I think that what we really need to do as journalists certain my people on the hill and elsewhere need to do is get to the bottom of this and get some specific responses from them as to what happened, what their intentions were. Specific responses. Which may come in the new week as we start one on this day. Jeremy, i remember when the news came out, you were on air when we were reporting this on friday. Today is a sunday. We have a bunch of days in front of us in this new week. Put the arc together in terms of how your thoughts have changed and where they might go. Well, there are three pillars to this overall investigation. The first is whether criminal laws were broken either by mike flynn or Paul Manafort in terms of failure to register as foreign agents. The second pillar and more important is the broad counterintelligence investigation about what russia was doing in our election and who it may have helping and the third pillar is the obstruction of justice pillar with regards to the firing of the fbi director. Some people are waiting for criminal indictments. I think this is a long effort by mueller to investigate this, look at this. And ultimately report to congress and make congress under their authority under article one make some judgments about president ial conduct here. Ned, what are you hearing from the Intelligence Community, if anything, in reaction to this reporting that came out on friday and has now moved through the weekend . Well, i think you have heard Senior Intelligence officials make the very good point that if any of their employees were to have done this, if any rank and file cia officer or nsa officer were have attempted to go to the Russian Embassy up here in washington, d. C. And try to establish a covert line of communications, not only would they be immediately fired but most likely be charged with a very serious crime up to and including espionage. Clearly this is something that has rankled the Intelligence Community but lets remember that the Intelligence Community has not had a smooth relationship with President Trump to begin with. Even before President Trump took the oath of office. He had called the Intelligence Community liars. He had compared them to nazis. He made a visit to cia headquarters on the first full day in office where he recounted in front of the Memorial Wall his crowd sizes. So this is one in a series of missteps with the Intelligence Community that will surely make that relationship even rockier. With some members of congress and with some members of the judiciary as well. Finishing with you, josh, on this, four investigation, we have mueller and his investigation as well. What is the reaction of the staffers that are part of the investigations . I think that richard, they really dont know what to expect is going to happen next. I mean, you know, just literally waiting for one shoe after another to drop. I think they feel out of the loop. I think they feel like theres a lot more out there they dont know about. One thing i would like to circle back to, general clapper when you look under the dictionary for low key, general clapper is it. What he said earlier today to chuck todd you have to look at what he said carefully because thats him screaming as loud as he can warning light. So its not just fake news. You have the former head of the dni saying that he was very concerned about it. Thats what i read from that. You have John Mclaughlin from the cia using the treason word. A lot of questions. I think we need a lot of answers. And to what jeremy said about the investigation taking a long time, i agree with that. But the obstruction of justice part will move very quickly. They need to lock down whatever kind of evidence there is of that, you know, tape recordings if there are some. Documents and so forth. So look to see that happening pretty quickly i would say. Great to have you three big brains on the topic. Thank you. Thank you. All right, still time to answer the first pulse question. Agree or disagree, based on new reports, Jared Kushners security clearance should be pulled. Go to pulse. Msnbc. Com america. Rapping right now, eight people are dead in rural many mississippi. Among the victims a sheriffs deputy. What the suspect told reporters after was taken into custody, next. Break through your allergies. Try new Flonase Sensimist allergy relief instead of allergy pills. It delivers a gentle mist experience to help block six key inflammatory substances. Most allergy pills only block one. New Flonase Sensimist changes everything. My friends know me so well. They can tell what im thinking, just by looking in my eyes. But what they didnt know was that i had dry, itchy eyes. I used artificial tears from the moment i woke up. To the moment i went to bed. So i finally decided to show my eyes some love,. Some eyelove. Eyelove means having a chat with your eye doctor about your dry eyes because if youre using artificial tears often and still have symptoms, it could be chronic dry eye. Its all about eyelove, my friends. Watching this story happening right now. A tragic one out of mississippi. People were shot dead at three separate locations in rural Lincoln County overnight. The suspect is Willie Corey Godbolt who admitted to the shooting after being arrested. He have at the first residence to talk about his children and at some point the neighbors called the police and then the shooting started. My pain was a desire for him. He was just there. So youre saying hefltion Collateral Damage . He was talk we was talking about me taking my children. And then called the police. I was having a conversation with the stepddaddy and my wife and someone called the officer. People that didnt live another the house. Thats what they do. They intervene. It cost him his life, im sorry. Suicide by cop was my intention. I aint fit to live. The sheriff deputy killed there was 36yearold william durr. He was a two year veteran of the Lincoln County Sheriffs Department and a four year veteran of the brookhaven department. Next hour, ill talk to the reporter who spoke to the suspect. Now back to the first pulse question today. Were asking agree or disagree, Jared Kushners security clearance should be pulled. Here are the numbers for you. Overall, 98 agree, 2 geeg. All age groups agree, although viewers under 35 agree a little bit less so. Take a look at the graph of the political breakdown, republicans, democrats, independents, democrats a little more so. Final numbers for you here look like this. 96 agreeing, 4 disagreeing. Jared kushners security clearance should be pulled. President trump at the white house after wrapping up nine days overseas. He calls it a great success. Were asking the opinion do you have more confidence in President Trumps Foreign Policy following his first foreign trip . Go to pulse. Msnbc. Com america. Oscar mawe went back toig the drawing board. And the cutting board. We removed the added nitrates and nitrites, byproducts, and artificial preservatives in all of our meat. Every. Single. One. Why . For the love of hot dogs. Prone jar shatterst livthe competition. Pe . Olay regenerist hydrates skin better than creams costing over 100, 200, and even 400. Fact check this ad in good housekeeping. Olay. Ageless. 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Hillary clintons former communications chief also admits as she puts it, it wasnt a disaster, but this afternoon signs of strain from some of americas key Angela Merkel said that europe can no longer depend on the u. S. And britain and that we must fight for our future on our own. This while mr. Trump went to israel and saudi arabia and he chastised those in brussels including germany. James mattis defends the president s relationship with nato. Take a listen. Do you have to convince him of how important nato is . We have had good talks about it, john up. In my International Job interview with the president he brought up the questions about nato and my response was that i thought that if we didnt have nato that he would want to create it. Because its a defense of our values, its a defense of democracy. He was very open to that. Brings us to our second pulse question of the day. Do you have more confidence in President Trumps Foreign Policy following his first foreign trip . Let us know by going to pulse. Msnbc. Com america. I want to bring in kurt mills, Foreign Affairs reporter was news and world report and rebecca granfrom iris research. Is there more confidence now in donald trump post trip . I mean, i think that the president s trip was for the administration at least about saudi arabia. I think for the europeans it was about the paris climate accords and i think for the middle eastern allies i think it was about iran. I think that the first part of the trip was seen as going well. The second part of the trip was seen as having the slipups. Al there was the leaks about the german car sales. So sort of a w