And we know how that turned out. God, you may want to intervene here. I want to just pray for arnold, if we can, for those ratings. Im not worried about arnolds ratings. Im worried about what are we going to do about iran. Im in favor of additional sanctions against iran. Nothing is off the table. Reporter officials in the u. S. Military raising Major Concerns over President Trumps hastily approved Ground Strike in yemen. He doesnt make executions like that glibly. He did make the call at dinner, right . I cant reveal where he made the call. President trumps enemies within the administration continue an unprecedented level of leaking for a presidency that is not yet two weeks old. There are new leaks tonight about the president s role in launching a mission in yemen in which u. S. Navy s. E. A. L. William owens became the First American killed in yemen. Counsel of different people. There were other people around the Table Including his secretaries and generals. So he did make the call at dinner, right . I cant reveal where he made the call. As Commander In Chief he takes the job very seriously and executes on that as appropriate. All of this leaking comes the day after the administration leaked excerpts of Donald Trumps combative phone calls with the Prime Minister of australia and the president of mexico, two of our closest allies. Dold trump decided is morning that the National Prayer breakfast was the Perfect Place to Say Something about that. When you hear about the tough phone calls im having, dont worry about it. Just dont worry about it. Theyre tough. We have to be tough. Its time were going to be a little tough, folks. Were taken advantage of by every nation in the world, virtually. Its not going to happen anymore. Its not going to happen anymore. Today john mccain released this statement in response to the president s phone call with the australian Prime Minister. I called australias ambassador to the United States to express my unwavering support for the u. S. Australia alliance. I asked ambassador hockey to convey to the people of australia that their american Brothers And Sisters our historic alliance, honor the sacrifice of the australians who have served and are serving by our side. This afternoon a white house official confirmed to nbc news that australias ambassador to the u. S. Met with steve bannon and Reince Priebus at the white house. Politico reports that the stream of leaks from the white house and federal agencies stems from the fact that, quote, a feeling of distrust has taken hold in the west wing of Donald Trumps white house and beyond as his aides view each other and officials across the federal government and on capitol hill with suspicion. Joining us know, john heilemann, coauthor of game change and the ecutive producer of the documentartrumped, premiering tomorrow night. And eli stokols. Eli, weve seen, of course, white house leaking before. Weve never seen it this fast. I cant think of a significant leak that came out of a white house in its first two weeks. This is nothing like anything weve seen before. No, and i mean, its downright nixonian. The competing Power Centers in the campaign is something that hes always been sort of a part of his managerial style. Were seeing it now in the white house. The problem now of course is that the consequences are far greater than just, you know, what matters to his political campaign. The entire country is invested
in this. Behind that you have this broader sort of Intrinsic Disregard for experts and for institutional knowledge. You see that with trump putting his loyalist political appointees on the National Security council. You see it when they sort of reject the input of a person at the State Department who has studied the holocaust, they dont want their input when theyre putting out a statement for holocaust remembrance day. Its big things and little things. This is an administration that controls things very tightly. The Executive Order on vetting on friday, even in the west wing there were a lot of people that didnt know it was coming. They held that close to the vest because they were trying to prevent the leaks. The problem there is that people in the federal government, whether they were lawyers who needed to make sure that the thing held muster legally or whether they were people at the agencies who were going to be implementing this thing, they hadnt seen it. Widespread dysfunction weve seen from the west wing in the
what you are a master of. So john, the master, Whats Going On here . I think one of the key things to understanding what the psychology is of the leakers, part of problem that trump is suffering from is there are a variety of people with different kinds of motivations to want to leak. One set of people, and i think theres a large group of these, especially people like Kellyanne Conway, im not accusing her of leaking, but the way to temper trumps behavior, the way to get him to understand a point, is if he sees it on television. She has essentially said that publicly. Yes, she has. Again, not accusing her of leaking. But saying others around him know that if you want to get through to him, you dont write him a memo, you dont try to talk to him about it. You try to get people on television to try to talk about him. So there are those leaking who are trying to get his behavior to be better. Others, people who are more institutionally aligned, people who are part of the washington establishment who are now in the administration, people who are
maybe part of the permanent government who are alarmed by trumps behavior, theyre not speaking to trump. Theyre speaking to the outside world and trying to make it clear to everyone in america and democrats and other republicans and all of us, just how alarming some of the behavior that they see is, at least in their eyes. And when you are caught in that crossfire, you have people leaking who think theyre trying to help you and people leaking to hurt you, that is a bad place be. And you know the one thing thats going on right now, it is making donald trump mental right now. Mental. Yes. Because hes the control freak, obviously. All president s want this control. And his is out of control. I want to go to one of the issues that has been leaked about, which is this phone call to the Prime Minister of australia. And lets listen to what donald trump said about that today. I have a lot of respect for australia. I love australia as a country. But we had a problem where for whatever reason, President Obama said that they were going to take probably well over a
thousand Illegal Immigrants who were in prisons. And they were going to bring them and take them into this country. I just said, why . A Previous Administration does something, you have to respect that. But you can also say, why are we doing this . Thats why were in the jams were in. Eli, a stunning statement. For one thing, hes finally gotten the number down to what it really is, which is down around 1200, he has been saying over 2,000, so someone got him to say the right thing. But then its outright lies, the notion that refugees are Illegal Immigrants, the notion that theyre in prisons. Australia is holding them on these islands, trying to figure out what to do with them. Australia would like a little help from other countries like the United States, which is a reasonable thing to ask for. And thats why this deal was done. And also, the Executive Order on immigration includes a provision for this exact deal. And heres donald trump, who signed that order, pretending he
didnt know anything about it. He signed an Executive Order that incorporated it. Well, the contradictions come pretty quick with this administration. So you have to be ready for those. And i think, you know, nobody is shocked at this point after some of the other threats hes made to other foreign leaders in the first two weeks. I mean, its shocking that he would pick a fight seemingly with australia, one of the countrys closest allies, going back decades. But this is donald trump. Hes unpredictable. This melodrama is sort of reminiscent of what he staged throughout the campaign. Instead of megyn kelly, you have australia, one of our closest allies. You have the feud, then the makeup session, today the australian ambassador is at the white house, people are sort of hysterical. Steve bannon believes these sort of media freakouts, the constant hysteria, has the effect of numbing the public to what theyre doing and sort of
people get uncalibrated, where they cant tell anymore whether its a scandal that really matters or whether its just the sort of melodrama of the day. And i think even if this looks crazy to a lot of us who observe this and have never seen anything like this before, some of the dysfunction and the chaos coming from the white house may in fact be by design. And john, theres a fascinating thing thats helped in white house Damage Control that you now see senator mccain, Elliott Engel, the house of representatives, leading democrat on the Foreign Relations committee, they are doing Damage Control for america. Yes. With foreign countries. Yes. The president says something crazy about australia or about mexico, and theres john mccain calling the ambassador, Elliott Engel did the same thing, called the ambassador of australia saying, please dont hold this against us. And no doubt making some private comments about, weve got a crazy man in the white house, dont listen to him. More than that, not just
trying to apologize on americas behalf. Mccain is speaking for america. Hes saying, please tell australians that american and americans are still on their side. Hes basically acting like a proxy president. Theres really supposed to be one person in our system of government who speaks for the American People to foreign entities, and that is the president of the United States, not a senior senatorrom the republican party. I have toause on this australia and the Mexican President s leak, the australian Prime Ministers leak. Ive never seen anything like that in more than 25 years covering national politics. The number of people with access to those calls and access to transcripts of those calls is very small. So when Kellyanne Conway says no one inside the white house, no one in the west wing is doing this, thats just wrong. She may not know who the person is whos doing it but there are not a lot of people outside the west wing with Cessiaccess To T phone calls, who sees transcripts of them. Those people fall into that
first category, people who are genuinely saying the only way to get trump to tone this down is if we embarrass him to the press. And man, were not two weeks in, and thats where we are. John heilemann, who knows a thing or two about trafficking in leaks. Eli stokols, thanks for joining us tonight. Coming up, new questions about the military raid in yemen. Joe bidens National Security adviser will join us. And a special personal rewrite about what donald trump got wrong about harleydavidson today. And of course, to make that point, im just going to have to show you pictures of my harleys. Vehicles out here. That has everything to do with the people in here. Their training is developed by the same company who designed, engineered, and built the cars. Theyve got the parts, tools, and knowhow to help keep your ford running strong. 35,000 specialists all across america. No one knows your ford better than ford. And ford service. Right now, get the works a Synthetic Blend Oil change, tire rotation, Brake Inspection and more for 29. 95 or less. When i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. I just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. My Insurance Company definitely doesnt have that. You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™ Liberty Mutual insurance youthats why you drink ensure. Sidelined. With 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. For the strength and energy to get back to doing. What you love. Ensure. Always be you. Did you know slow internet can actually hold your business back . Say goodbye to slow downloads, slow backups, slow everything. Comcast business offers blazing fast and reliable internet thats over 6 times faster than slow internet from the phone company. Say hello to internet speeds up to 250 mbps. And add phone and tv for only 34. 90 more a month. Call today. Comcast business. Built for business. Protests against President Trumps policies continue around the country, including this one in brooklyn, new york. Hundreds of Business Owners shut down their delis, grocery stores, and bodegas to protestPresident Trumps travel plan. One protesters said he closed his deli because his wife and baby are stuck in yemen after almost completing a fouryear process to get a green card. Up next, the controversy around Donald TrumpsFirst Military order. Joe bidens National Security adviser will join us. vo maybe it was here,
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that be, the generals, the secretaries, his Vice President , other people who are in the know with respect to that operation. And then, again, weighing the consequences, listening to the recommendations, the intelligence, and then ultimately executing on it. It was a very successful operation. White House Press Secretary sean spicer defended t msion by saying the plan was developed by the Obama Administration. On november 7th, centcom submitted the plan to dod, clearly that was under the last administration. Legal teams were involved immediately when it was submitted to dod. On december 19th, the plan was approved by the department of defense and recommended that it be moved ahead. Joining us now, colin call, former National Security adviser to Vice President joe biden. Mr. Karl, what is your understanding about how this mission was first discussed in the Obama Administration and how
you saw it proceed to execution . A number of weeks before the end of the Obama Administration, the pentagon came forward with a proposal that we looked at in what we call the interagency, the various agencies and departments, up to the deputys level. It wasnt for any particular raid. It was for an expanded set of authorities to allow raids like this to happen. We made the recommendation that we not go forward with this but instead leave it and defer it to the next administration so they could do a careful review. The president agreed with that recommendation and basically said that the trump team should take a careful look at this because this was a major escalation that could have significant risks involved. So they had to carefully vet this option before moving forward. This particular raid never came before the previous president of the United States. Whats your reading of the administrations reaction to what has been publicly revealed so far about how this decision was made . Well, i mean, obviously the raid didnt go as planned. We had a navy s. E. A. L. Killed. There were civilians caught in the crossfire. Our military demonstrates incredible professionalism and care but things sometimes go wrong, which is why you have to have a deliberate process leading up to this. My uerstanding based on what ive read and heard from folks still in the government is that in Essence General Mattis and the new Secretary Of Defense and general dumford briefed President Trump over dinner on this on wednesday and it was approved without any interagency process. With the consequence that it probably wasnt vetted with the care it deserved. Tell us what would be missing without the socalled interagency process. So usually