Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. The issue of adoption, did that come up . Like i said, that was the primary thing we had spoken about in the meeting. Thats not the premise that got them in the room. Then it was essentially a bait and switch to talk about that 6789 everybody has basically said that in. The already. There is this another intere interesting thing over the weekend. Hope hicks boarded Air Force One and flew to the president s rally in ohio and back. You may recall, hope hicks resigned from the white house one day before a Congressional Committee that she had told white lies on behalf of donald trump. She is now living here in manhattan and she too has come under scrutiny for crafting that
selfinflictselfinflic selfinflicted wound. We dont know the back story, but our understanding is this was not a tragic legal tweet. This was not a messaging tweet. This was the president waking up and doing what we reported him doing in our story, privately brooding and then publicly fuming and roaring. He sent this tweet out to refute a part of our story, but in doing so, actually pushed his own narrative into a place thats not particularly helpful for him or his namesake son. That might be an understatement. Lets talk about djtj donald trump jr. To your knowledge and based on the best of your reporting has anything about don juniors case changed materially that has motivated the president s behavior . His change in mood is this. The truth is, brian, we just
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Into some serious trouble. Joyce, things that happen in plain sight dont often have the gravity in realtime. Twitter as a medium is all but entirely lacking in gravity. Its instantly available. Its ubiquitous. Do you think what we saw in plain sight from the president s cell phone on sunday had a weight of a legal matter . It does. It will have ultimate weight here. I think twitter may end up being this president s undoing. Many of the worst hits he has taken and that his presidency have taken have been own goals often from twitter or his own statements to the media. But this one is really a doozy by any standard. Its difficult to understand what may have motivated him. Perhaps he felt provoked by ashley and philips reporting and went off without think about the this idea that don junior may have wandered into a crime is something we havent focused on. Thats not true. You get criminal liability for committing acts with a certain state of mind, not just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe trumps goal was to run a Public Relations campaign leak he so often does on twitter. Let me ask you about the u. S. Code that you no doubt have committed to memory it small be unlawful for a Foreign National directly or indirectly to make a contribution of money or other thing or value to to make a contribution or donation in connection with a federal,
state, or local election. Joyce, has this notion been litigated . Probably a lot of people wish it had been liquidated. Do we know advice on your opponent from russians could be construed in Federal Court as a thing of value . Its an interesting question. Under this statute why which theres been little litigation, certainly people will have different opinions. But a thing of value is something that people would typically pay money for. People pay money for Opposition Research. Seems likely thats a possibility here. One of the most intriguing aspects is its not just illegal to receive this sort of help from a foreign government. Its also illegal to solicit that help from a foreign government. Just based on what we know,
which is surely only the tip of the iceberg, looks like the participants in this meeting have a hlot of trouble on their hand. Phil rutger in the believe it when i see it, is this president really going sit down, but did Rudy Giuliani forgive the casualness of this, just need a distraction last week to point us in the future . . Thats the big question this week. The president s circle indicated this would be coming very soon. They are in the final stages of negotiations with the special counsels team. Thats been going on for months now to figure out the parameters and scope of the interview with the president. Who knows if that decision is going happen. This is a president who likes to always say, im going to do x, y, or zrk in two weeks and three, four, five weaks pass until you hear about it again. He may not have a decision this
week, but we may have a decision announce in the ten mince on twitter. We need to stay tuned. What we know is theres disagreement on the team. The lawyers dont want him do the interview. The president wants to because he thinks he can convince mueller he did nothing wrong. Theyre going to have to reconcile that and come to some sort of agreement with the special counsel. Point taken, 11 12 p. M. On a monday night. The night is young in twitter terms. Theres a piece written in vanity fair on just what hope hicks was dong on Air Force One this weekend. Some speculate that amidded a weekend when donald trump was talking about the Trump Tower Meeting, having Hicks On Board was at best inappropriate and at worst, a chance for them to get their stories straight. Your reaction . And any reporting you can add . I think at the very, very, very least. The optics are absolutely horrible. You remember bill clintons Tarmac Meeting during the campaign. You just cant do this. My sense based on some reporting is this is the free wheeling way things work in trumps orb it. If you look at the last three rallies, he has taken people he feels comfortable with into the campaign and white house who flew on Air Force One with him, Cory Lewandowski to pennsylvania, hope hicks. So i think on some level for trump theres a sense of, this is friendly. Hey, youre in bedminster, why dont you hop on Air Force One, fly out to ohio with me. That ignores the situation theyre embroiled in. Terrific answer. Bottom line is it was an
interesting visual on the tarmac in Morristown Airport on saturday. Our thanks to Ashley Parker, philip rutger, joyce vance. As always, appreciate our top three coming out for us. Coming up, more on why that meeting with russians in trump tower two years ago is considered to critical to the ongoing investigation. Later with 92 days to go to the midterms an idea of what well talking about this time tomorrow night and the what the primaries from ohio may show us. Just Getting Started on a monday night. Harmonica Interrupts . And told people about geico. Harmonica Interrupts how they could save 15 or more by. Harmonica Interrupts . By just calling or going online to geico. Com. Harmonica Interrupts sighs and chuckles sorry, are you gonna. Harmonica Interrupts
everytime. Geico. 15 minutes could save you 15 or more on car insurance. But he has plans today. Ain. Hey dad. So he took aleve. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. We really pride ourselves on temaking it easy for youass, to get your windshield fixed. Teacher lets turn in your science papers. Tech vo this teacher always puts her students first. Student i did mine on volcanoes. Teacher you did . oh, i cant wait to read it. Tech vo so when she had auto glass damage. She chose safelite. With safelite, she could see exactly when wed be there. Teacher you must be pascal. Tech yes maam. Tech vo saving her time. [honk, honk] kids bye tech vo . So she can save the science project. Kids whoa kids vo safelite repair, safelite replace its a hightech sleep revolution. The sleep number 360 smart bed intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts. So you wake up ready to run the world. The new sleep number 360 smart bed, from 999. Introducing zero account fees for selfdirected brokerage accounts. And zero minimums to open an account. We have Fidelity Mutual funds with zero minimum investment. And now fidelity has two index funds with a zero expense ratio. Because when you invest with fidelity, all those zeros really add up. So maybe ill win saved by zero
i think from a practical standpoint, most people would have taken that meeting. Its called Opposition Research or research into your opponent. In the case of don, he listened. I guess they talked about as i see it they talked about adoption and some things but Nothing Happened from the meeting. Zero happened from the meeting. While both the president and his son maintained that Trump Tower Meeting yielded no information about Hillary Clinton the fact that it took place, the fact that there was a cover story put out about it, those have become big problems. We are lucky to have with us two people who have both won Pulitzer Prizes this year with that meeting. With us matt apuzzo and Ashley Parker agreed to stick around. Matt, welcome back to the broadcast. What was it like the first time you learned of the existence of this meeting. What are the dangling questions out there still unaddressed shh. Ashley got into this in the first segment. When we went to the white house with what we knew, the existence of this meeting last year, and we said, what was this about . We knew don junior, jared kushner, paul manafort, three most important people at the height of the campaign are meeting with a kremlin connected lawyer. We knew that. They said, what was this about . They push third down off and said, we need some time. People are traveling. Well get back to you. We said we just want to moe the answer. Well give you the time. They said, it was nothing. It was just about adoption. It was such a head scratch a. It was so obviously bizarre it raised more questions than it
answered. Then over the course of three days the story kept changing. And here we are now a year later and we are still trying to figure out where exactly the president is on this. And where we have ended up is the president saying, we tried to collude with the russians but it Didnt Work Out and we didnt actually pull off the collusion. And that is Head Scratchingly where we ended up a yoear after reporting. Yashley, heres this presidet taking the time to dictate a meeting and the purpose of the meeting in trump tower. Can you believe we still have so many questions . That this still generates so much News Coverage a year later . I can and i cant. The way we understood the story
was we understood the first statement was drafted or dictated by the president as he flew back from a trip to europe. Our understanding was it was this scrambled frenzy on Air Force One to try to come up with a statement with the president really taking the lead and dictating it. That sot of statement, that problematic first statement that arose from so much chaos, im not surprised that that Frenetic Energy isnt coi going on to th remind me there was an effort to expose this. Remind me mark karallo. Yeah, its interesting. He was a spokesperson for the legal team. He said that he resigned because he had concerned about this. The trump team says he was fired. He was never a valued member of the team, like so much that goes on in this administration it
sort of depends on who you talk to, where the truth lies. I think the Point Ashley Made is a good one. The story she and her colleagues wrote about the misleading statement, that story has legs because that issue of President Trumps involvement in the missing statement is among the topics we now know that bob mueller wants to talk to the president about ands that at the heart of this question of, is bob mueller going to subpoena the president . Is he going to take no for an answer or is he going to take, well talk about this, but not that for an answer. One more question on that, matt of the foundation of the mueller case, the founding questions and documents do you think Trump Tower Meeting is easily top five . Yeah, i think its you look at the Questions Mueller said he wants answered from the president. The question of what did you know about this meet something what did you do in records to it
is front and center. I think of course it is. It goes to the issue of people from the kremlin show up in the middle of an influence operation to tip the outcome of the president ial election and they say, we are here to help you on behalf of the russian governments efforts to help Donald Trumps campaign. We would like to hurt Hillary Clinton and they say, sure, absolutely lets meet. Of course its front and center. Its one of the most important issues facing the mueller investigation. Put it that way it sound almost like a serious meeting. Ashley parker whats the fear level the Anxiety Level who are regulars who work for this president in the west wing . Its high. Whats striking is its not just high among them, but its high with the president himself. So hes someone who, at this moment he does believe he has done nothing wrong. As phil said earlier he believes he can get in the room with mueller and convince him of
that, but even the president is worried about who is getting wrapped up in this and especially about his son, don junior, ands that all tied to this one meeting. Its tied to what happened at this meeting. Its tied to who knew b what about this meeting before it happened. Its tied to whoever don junior may or may not have told. The president understands thats a risk because in that tweet sunday he also knew enough to distant himself. He said, i didnt know about the meeting in advance. Just because the president said something, that doesnt mean its true. It does show you he realizes any knowledge of the meeting beforehand would be problematic for him. We are 24 minutes into our broadcast week. We have already had three pulitzer prizewinners. Our thanks to two of them. Coming up, the star witness in the trial of perimeter. Takes the stand and immediately confesses to criminal behavior. The revelations under oath from
rick gates and what he admitted to that caught everyone in the courtroom by surprise. vo people with Type 2 Diabetes are excited about the potential of onceweekly ozempic®. In a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. Oh under seven . vo and you may lose weight. In the same oneyear study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. Oh up to 12 pounds . vo a twoyear study showed that ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. Oh no increased risk . Ozempic® ozempic® should not be the first medicine for treating diabetes, or for people with Type 1 Diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. Do not share needles or pens. Dont reuse needles. Do not take ozempic® if you have a personal or Family History of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to ozempic®. Stop taking ozempic® and get medical help right away
if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, itching, rash, or trouble breathing. Serious side effects may happen, including pancreatitis. Tell your doctor if you have Diabetic Retinopathy or vision changes. Taking ozempic® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may increase the risk for low blood sugar. Common side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, and constipation. Some side effects can lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. I discovered the potential with ozempic®. Oh oh oh ozempic® vo ask your Healthcare Provider if ozempic® is right for you. The new united Explorer Card hooks me up. Getting more for getting away. Traveling lighter. Getting settled. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com
manaforts business parter in, told the jury he committed a bunch of crimes. He said he had 15 offshore Bank Accounts they did not disclose to the federal government. He then testified that manafort told him not to report the accounts. At one point, the prosecutor asked him if he committed crimes with manafort. He respond simply yes. Gates also admitted he stole from his boss. He copped to Embezzling Hundreds Of Thousands of dollars from manafort by claiming false expense reports. With us today, at the end of a long day for him. And Danny Savales is back with us. Josh you get to go first because you were there. Im curious about things like eye contact, body language, and
what was the reaction in there when gates said, sure, i robbed from the boss. That does indicate enough money was around that it wasnt missed immediately. Right. I dont think there was a lot of shock. The defense team said out at the very beginning, manaforts defense team that there would be indication that g