Transcripts For MSNBCW The 11th Hour With Brian Williams 201

Today the russia investigation took a major step forward. For the first time a member of the president s inner circle faced questions on capitol hill. Put another way, this investigation has now come within one man of the president. He is arguably the closest man to the president. White house Senior Adviser and soninlaw Jared Kushner spent more than two hours with the Senate Intelligence committee and then he made a Public Statement saying he never colluded with russia. It comes as trump pours the pressure on his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who rekuzed himself from the Justice Departments russia investigation months ago. A decision the president has not been able to get past. He wrote about sessions on twitter this morning, referring to his own Attorney General, mind you, as our beleaguered Attorney General. And tonight the Washington Post as a new report headline, trump leaves sessions twisting in the wind Bile Berating him publicly. It reads in Part Sessions was once considered one of the trumps closest advisers and enjoyed access few others had. Now he is left to endure regular public crimson by his base. It adds some in the white house are going so far as to toss out names of replace mts for sessions, names like ted cruz of texas and former mayor Rudy Giuliani both have distanced themselves from this speculation. Then tonight the president bored Air Force One and flew to West Virginia to give a address to 30,000 boy scouts. The reaction to what he said started as he was say going. It when it became clear offense giving a rally speech, adult speech to 30,000 boy scouts who go to hear the president relit fwat his election convictsry include that its harder to win the Electoral College pan the popular vote. Heard the him talk about the socalled war on christmas, the effort to pass health care, and then some. By the way, just a question . Did President Obama ever come to jamboree . We won and won. So when they said there is no way to victory, there is no way to 270, you know i went to maine four times because its one vote. And we won. But we won. One vote. I went there because i kept hearing were 269. But then wisconsin came in. Many, many years, michigan came in. So and we worked hard there. You know my opponent didnt work hard there, because she was told dsh the polls thats also fake news. Theyre fake polls. But the polls are saying but we won wisconsin. So i have to tell you what we did in all fairness is an unbelievable tribute to you and all of the other million and millions of people who came out and voted for make America Great again. And by the way under the Trump Administration youll be saying, Merry Christmas again when you go shopping, believe me. Merry christmas. Secretary tom price is also here today. Today dr. Price still lives the scout oath, helping to keep millions of americans strong and healthy as our secretary of health and human services. By the way youre going to get the votes . He better get them. He better get them. Oh he better otherwise ill say tom, youre fired. Ill get somebody. On that note lets bring in tonights starting panel, White House Reporter for the Washington Post Ashley Parker. White house reporter for the associated press, vivian salama, and fresh off Air Force One vaflg traveling with the president to West Virginia tonight eli stokols for the wall street journal. Eli before i toss the first question to you i want to show the reaction that started coming in tonight, some of it from people we know and colleagues here. We have some of the twitter feeds to put up on the screen. Starting with richard painter, the former ethics czar in the boy scouts must distance themselves from that offensive attempt to politicize scouting and turn them into a trump youth organization. Steve schmidt of the mccain campaign, this eagle squout is appalled. Mark salter i was a boy scout five or six years, the whole point of the experience was to teach kids not to grow up to be like donald trump. And one more from our own Nicole Wallace who was retweeting a twitter rant the president went on just tonight about Washington Post. She said serious question, mr. President , is this the tweet you started to type as an apology to the boy scouts before your rage toward the media took over . Eli we both covered a lot of events and youre in a hurry to get back to the motorcade and all kinds of things. Sometimes its not readily apparent at a live event exactly what it is youre seeing. Was it apparent in real time that this was a very adult kind of Campaign Trail Rally speech . Yeah, in abecause you could see the crowd after a campaign in which we saw so many times in Candidate Feed off large crowds, tonight he maybe 40,000 people packed around that amphitheater. They were giving him a pretty good response cheering loudly when we walked out on the stage the first thij he did was criticize the media said we wouldnt report the size of the crowd. The second thing he did was adlib this line about who the hell wants to talk about politics when youre in front of the boy scouts . And that was a big flash being red light. Usually when paurs what donald trump says he will saylike you know a People Dont Know this thats code for i just found in out. When donald trump said im not going to talk about politics, you knew immediately that a lot of political red meat was coming for me a lot of meem night not have thought this was appropriate he was talking about killing obamacare. Joking et about Firing Tom Price process to a manhattan Cocktail Party and back they were giving him positive feedback im sure the president loved the reaction he got and probably the News Coverage to the extent the networks stayed on it. Its starting to sound like he has a obsession relitigating the the Electoral College victory unbelievable we heard that again tonight. Ashley parker, we move on to the fact that one of the eagle scouts in his cabinet was not present tonight. We saw health and human services. We saw energy. We saw interior. We didnt see justice. Jeff sessions wasnt there. But Jeff Sessions is a man in the news. Tell us the latest on what you know. Sure that was a pointed absence that Jeff Sessions former eagle scout was not there. But he is sort of weathering a storm of his own right now. Which is basically the president is actively incredibly frustrated with him. And according to aides the president despite making his name on the catch phrase youre fired is not that good at firing people. And so he is not necessarily going out and firing Jeff Sessions. He also realizes there would be a huge political controversy if he fires him. But according to aides who have a sense what he is thinking he is doing everything in his power to get Jeff Sessions to resign that includes the interview with New York Times where he trashed his Attorney General. And then this tweet today where he called him beleaguered. And also sort of asked in very sort of stark and stunning terms why Arent You Investigating Hillary Clinton my political rival. The white house is going so far as the president has been floating names internally who he might be a good replacement for are Jeff Sessions and including ted cruz and Rudy Giuliani. Vivian youve grown 30 years in adjournism experience in six months and learn ag learned to toss out the phrase he would never dot dot dot. As all of washington try togs war game out what this could be about. It could be about mueller. It could be there is someone in mind for the Justice Department. And it could be that he is waiting for congress to go on recess to appoint that person and really blow up washington. Or it could be just that President Trump does not really handle crimson and opposition weapon. Weve seen that. Every time someone pushes against him about a policy or any of his views he comes back swinging. And see that in the situation now with Jeff Sessions, and the fact that Jeff Sessions would take a step back and recuse himself from the investigation. President trump sees that as his way of succeeding to the possibility that there could be an issue with the campaign in terms of collusion, in terms of any kind of controversy surrounding them with russia. And so he has taken that very, very personally. And from someone who he once presumed to be loyal to him. That was a sign of disloyalty. That really affected their relationship. But whats more interesting now is what weve seen collectively. What my colleagues just talked about. What we saw today in West Virginia Andway We Saw today with Jeff Sessions. I covered National Security. One of the things i hear from so many people here in d. C. And more broadly in the country that i speak to is what this is doing to our countries institutions when gou aefr the media, when gou after Cabinet Secretaries so publicly it starts to chip away at the institutions of this country. Its really starting to alarm a lot of people who feel this is not the time and particularly when we found ourselves so vulnerable to outside influences such as what happened with russia last year and you know whatnot. Its really starting to alarm a lot of people that the president is really just pouring gas on an open fire. Eli, since vivian mentioned natural security it actually plays into part of his twitter fusel ade tonight. I dont think weve taken the time to make them all graphics because there was a flurriy obviously after the boy scout event. But i know you one of them caught your eye because it was about a mission overseas. Well about these payments to Syrian Rebels that the administration has stopped. Russia wanted the u. S. To stop the payments. There was a Washington Post story about that and late tonight after he got back to the white house the president tweeting here about the ending that program really confirming the program existed. It was a classified program he he has now declassified it as president s can do but he is upset again as like vivian mentioned an institution, the Washington Post, the media, request with the courts he looked today go back to the tweet this morning about beleaguered general Jeff Sessions should investigate Hillary Clinton his political opponents Sarah Huckabee sanders came back and answer the question as few minutes with reporters. One of the questions she got was is the president serious . Does he really want the Justice Department to investigate his past political opponent. Her answer was well i would think he wants the Justice Department to investigate anything this they believe to be a potential crime. If you just play that back save that set that aside that is stunning. What we are seeing what weve been talking about since the show began is this president s anger at his Justice Department and Attorney General for investigating him because theyre not sure whether or not his campaign may have committed some crimes during the last election. Its really just sort of a stunning moment and stunning political tin ear Tone Deafness whatever you want to call it. Ashley at the risk of being accuse of naval gazing lets talk about our profession. Ive said around the newsroom the last couple of months the last thing you want to be this year is a pull itser prize judge. Good luck there because i think we could double the number of them usually awarded for the reporting that has gone on in the First Six Months of this administration. There hasnt been this great a time to work for the because jeff bezos owns it amazon Washington Post since the montana mid70s. With that in mind when you hear a president say to this spirited audience of 30,000 kids in the most American Organization you can think of, boy scouts of america, when you hear him tell them their news media are fake, what the effect do you think that might have . Well, i think it goes back to the point earlier in the program just about the president either intentionally or unintentionally oh or probably some combination of both chipping away at a lot of these democratic institutions. And i would crew the media first among that. I think it has a kor ohsive effect. Its not with god people when people dont trust the media. The media used to be a place where people turned to for fact checks. They trnd heard something a politician said wanted to know if it was true or not or if it was going on with the community. But to be clear thats still the function we perform. But the president is sort of Throwing Shade i dont think thats good for democracy or for the people but for whatever he says i dont think as youve seen by the stories coming from sort of all major publications, the media is in no way cowed. Often when the president pushes backs against a story on tietz about it it means the reporters and uks publications are on the right tra track. Vivian as much as i read the toledo of you you are tasked with the fastest version of journalism. Ive seen all of you search for ways to put the new normal a lot of the old modifiers we used to use covering president s arent enough anymore. Well, one thing that is really important for all of us weve learned to do this in realtime is fact check. And its nothing necessarily personal to President Trump in particular. But its the fact that he is so active on twitter. And that lends a totally different dynamic to covering the presidency than it has in the past. Of course i wasnt covering the white house under previous administrations so its hard to compare. But certainly from what my colleagues tell me this is a lot faster pace. Youre getting in a lot more information. I get in early and covering tweets trying to decipher them sometimes were not sure what he is talking about. We spend the morning really trying to understand and interpret to the American People receiving the message can better understand what he is saying. All of those things are definitely new challenges, exciting but also you know sometimes very difficult. Vivian salama who at least one war time overseas posting im not sure which was more difficult or daengs. Ashley thank you. Eli, thank you very much. Great Beginning Panel tonight. Coming up after our first break, Jared Kushner and the questions that remain to be answered in this overall russia investigation. Were just Getting Started on the Monday Edition of The 11th Hour. You know whats awesome . When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids. And these guys. Him. Ah. Oh hello that lady. These houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh. Sure. Still yes you can get it too. Welcome to the party. Introducing gigspeed internet from xfinity. Finally, gig for your neighborhood too. Welcome back to the Monday Edition of our broadcast. The president s soninlaw, Senior Adviser Jared Kushner appeared on capitol hill this morning where he was interviewed by Senate Intelligence committee staffers. Behind closed doors. More on that in a bit by the way. Earlier, kushner had released an 11page statement. In it he admitted to four meetings with russians. He says he didnt know about the russia meeting in trump tower in advance with donald trump jr. And asked to be called out of it early. Later, at a white house lectern and with the white house as hisback drop he read a short statement to the reporters in the white house driveway. Since the first questions were raised in march, i have been consistent in saying that i was eager to share any information i have with the investigating bodies and ive