Trump got updates on the whole of government approach his administration is implementing to safeguard our nations elections. The president has made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors. That kind of Paper Statement is a contrast to trumps actual words in helsinki where trump sided with the russian president over his own Intelligence Agencies on the question of whether russia interfered in the u. S. Election. That was the Press Conference where putin brought back an idea these two leaders had apparently talked about, a joint u. S. russian Cyber Security group to investigate Russian Election meddling. Sort of like having el chapo join up with the dea to fight drug trafficking. Now this quite absurd plan to team up with the only country whose own agents have been charged for 2016 interference first came up you may remember all the way last summer when trump wrote that he and putin discussed forming an
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Then they lied about trumps defense of the meeting, which he was choosing to offer even though he also claimed he didnt know anything about the meeting. Now the question is whether trump lied about the worst possible thing, not what was discussed in it, not the pr afterward, but whether donald trump took actions or had intent about the meeting that could contribute to elements of a crime. And thats not a question posed by, say, a trump critic tonight or an investigator aggressively looking at these issues or posed by journalists, this is now the key question facing the white house courtesy of one of trumps longest serving, once most lawyer aides. A man who was with him before most of his current political staff, a man who documented and recorded their interactions, and that may be why these new reports tonight say that this once loyal team, these two teammates are now, quote, dead to each other, preparing to bury cohen is what the white house is leaking. Michael cohen used to be a loyal trump friend who gave privileged
advice. But cohen is learning trumps return on that loyalty all depends on the situation. Trump isnt taking cohens counsel anymore. Its a standoff captured by some words of wisdom from a famous song jukebox joints that says it all depends, with friends like you, who needs friends . Sometimes the best advice is no advice, especially when its your advice. I turn now to former federal prosecutor joyce vance who has much experience here. I dont think theres any doubt that donald trump is not taking Michael Cohens advice and counsel anymore. How do you view the significance of this rupture and the types of leaking and back biting that were seeing tonight . This is potentially very significant, ari. You know prosecutors are hard wired to be cautious, so its important to say that we havent
heard this story in cohens own words yet. That will matter. It will also matter if he has any evidence, Text Messages or emails that were sent contemporaneously that back him up. Weve heard there is no evidence of that nature. But this really is a bombshell, this idea that the president knew about this meeting before it happened and signed off on it places him squarely inside of collusion with russia. When this kind of information depose public, obviously prosecutors would rather they held it and no one else knew, so how do you interpret that . Its interesting. We dont know the source of these leaks. Frankly, they dont make sense for mueller. Certainly the leaks dont come from there. They dont make an awful lot of sense for cohen to be the leaker, because as youve pointed out, although it doesnt make it kpobl for him to cooperate with Southern District of new york, prosecutors dont like to have their cases being carried out in the media. But it also doesnt make a lot
of sense for the president to put this forward unless he knew this was coming inevitably and they believed it was so damaging that they had to somehow try to get ahead of the story. Based on the idea that theres other people in the room, which was in the original cnn report, what do you make of the possibility that some or even all of those people have already told this information to Special Counsel or is there potentially an effort to get peoples stories straight by talking about it in public . I think thats exactly the right question. We know, for instance, that mueller has already talked to hope hicks, who would have likely been in the room and would be a strong candidate to be there. Trump junior has already testified up on the hill. So there has been a lot of opportunity for folks under oath to either tell the truth and perhaps already be unbeknownst to us cooperating with mueller or to have lied and subjected themselves to criminal charges, which could possibly be used
against them now to get them to finally reveal the truth. A lot of this looks very bad circumstanti circumstantially. But i wonder what you make of what trump allies point to, that there was no speech given. That donald trump may have even shown some what our lawyers call rec wiz it intent but if he didnt get the goods to give the speech, then there wasnt an overt act. At this point we can spa speculate a lot of Different Directions about what happened but the reality is we dont know what happened in this meeting. We do know what it wasnt about. It wasnt a meeting that was exclusively about adoption. Was it a successful meeting where the russians came in and offered trump something . We dont know that. Was it a meeting where the
russians came in and didnt make a full offer and it sort of ended on unfortunate terms and they all left . We dont know that either. But one of the strong possibilities here is that there was a conversation about some form of future collaboration and then we hear this incredibly awkward moment with trump on july 27th two years ago where he says, russia, if youre listening, heres the favor that you can do for me. Come on and deliver hillarys emails. At the time it felt strange and awkward. Now with everything that weve learned in the past few days, perhaps thats the truth of what went on in that meeting in trump tower, that there was a conversation about some form of future cooperation with the campaign and that it came to pass that evening. Just to be clear, youre saying that theres multiple cover stories. Cover story number one would be adoptions. Cover story number two would be, oh, this Dossier Type Material on clinton that wasnt any good or usable for the speech. But number three, the real action would be, hey, we can do
things cyber if you flip the switch and he went on potentially under this theory of case to flip the switch in public. And the problem here is because there have been serial mistruths told about what happened in this meeting, we know that it has to have been something significant, something that people want to cover up, but we dont know exactly what it is. We do know what it isnt. Its fascinating when you put it like that. Joyce vance, we always learn a lot from you. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thanks. Nbc News National security reporter ken dilanian has been reporting on todays rather short white house meeting on election security. His story is on nbcnews. Com. Its head lined the Trump Administration has no central strategy for election security, and no ones in charge. Ken, thanks for joining me tonight. Great to see you, ari, thanks for having me. Your story digs in deeper than just what is blatantly awe
bed this meeting and its odd about this meeting and its brevity. Walk us through what officials are telling you. This is simply talking to folks and listening to Cabinet Officials talk in public about their efforts to combat foreign election interference. What they say, like, for example, the department of Homeland Security with Peter Alexander in aspen talked about things dhs is doing working with the states on election security, but then she said, you know what, thats not enough. We really need a whole of government strategy. What She Didnt Say is there isnt one, but thats what everybody you talk to about this has said. I was flabbergasted when the white house released a statement tonight that said that there has been such a strategy since donald trump took office. I havent found anyone whos ever seen that strategy. Ive talked to a lot of people who say no such strategy exists. What do i mean by that . Look, the fbi is doing things. They have created a Foreign Influence Task force and are trying to focus on this problem
of the russians and others interfering in our politics. The russians are on social media as we speak manipulating American Public opinion. The nsa, the National Security agency, says they are stepping up their efforts in cyberspace. Most of that is secret. What we dont have is anything that knits this together. We have no leadership from the oval office and this is the kind of issue that requires it because there are really hard problems like the russians playing on twitter and facebook. There may be required changes in law or Public Policy issues and when you dont have the executive Branch Leadership on this, you really lose the power of the full federal government. You dont have a strategy. You have different agencies trying to do what they can. And dont forget, some of these officials testified to congress, including chris wray, the fbi director, that they had never been asked by the president to tackle Russian Election interference so its hard to know what the white house is talking about when they say they had a strategy from day one. You mentioned the companies. Theres also the different states involved and we have a system that decentralizes our elections. Something that didnt get a ton of attention was there was a proposal in the house to put 380 million into the state efforts to combat this led by democrats. That was defeated by republicans there. How much does this effort also require upgrading what states can handle when the Mueller Investigation has revealed how these countrybacked efforts are going after individual states that may not have the cyber knowhow right now . Yeah, i mean every State Official you talk to says they need more money, they need upgraded technology, they need more resources. But i actually think that while the sort of vulnerabilities of State Election Systems are troubling, when you think of the three ways the russians attacked the election, they did hack into they attempted to breach 21 states and got into 7. That may have been the least effective method that they used, though, ari. The most effective was they hacked the Democratic National committee and hacked john podesta, they stole their emails and released them. The second most effective was their manipulation of Public Opinion on social media. Its hard to measure how much influence that had on the election and thats still going on. They may not touch a State Election Database this time around for their own reasons, but they are every day playing on social media. Theres a website called hamilton 68 that measures some of it on twitter and theyre trying to divide americans on race, on guns, on all sorts of issues. Dan coats, the director of national intelligence, gave a speech the other day and said this is happening. Theyre interfering in our politics. What he didnt say is theres really nothing were doing about it. We havent deterred, we, the u. S. Government, has not deterred this behavior at all. The attempted hack of Claire Mccaskill suggests the russians are not deterred from trying again to hack into political campaigns either, ari. Its a huge story. When we look at some of the
footage that looks different over time and what were learning about mccaskill, its just scratching the surface and were only 100 days out from the midterms. A lot going on. Ken dilanian, thanks for being here on a friday night, i appreciate it. Thanks a lot. It has been a big news day. We have a lot to get to, including what happens when you are less than truthful when you talk to the u. S. Congress. Someone quite close to this president may be about to find out. More on that in a minute. Stay with us. And we welcome back gary, whos already won three cars, two motorcycles, a boat, and an r. V. I would not want to pay that insurance bill. [ ding ] oh, i have progressive, so i just bundled everything with my home insurance. Saved me a ton of money. Love you, gary you dont have to buzz in. Its not a question, gary. On march 1, 1810 [ ding ] frederic chopin. Collapsing in 226 [ ding ] the colossus of rhodes. [ sighs ] Louise Dustmann [ ding ] brahms lullaby, or wiegenlied. When will it end . [ ding ] not today, ron. Your mornings were made for Better Things than psoriatic arthritis. As you and your rheumatologist consider treatments,
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this photo taken this morning at Reagan National airport in washington, d. C. , at gate 35x. You can see the welcome to dca sign there. On your left is Special Counsel bob mueller. He appears to be minding his own business and reading the paper. But thats not all. Over there on the right is donald trump jr. , plus the secret Service Agent who looks kind of annoyed, i think, that someone was attempting to capture this particular moment. You are looking at a prosecutor and a witness passing each other at random. Today muellers office which is notoriously tight ripped, they rarely respond to any question on the record. They put out this statement confirming that yes, that is him, waiting to board a flight. If it is accurate that the other person in the photo was donald trump jr. , mr. Mueller was not aware of him and had no interaction with him. Which is a bit like a reporter asked mariah carey about j. Lo
and she said, i dont know her. It is perfectly logical that mueller may not have been aware that trump junior was standing right behind him, but he is very aware right now of trump juniors role in this Trump Tower Meeting weve been covering, which Michael Cohen is now ready to say is a thing that trump junior lied about, how his dad approved it. That story first broke on cnn, nbc news now confirming it with a source. They are saying that trump knew and cohen said he will tell mueller if he can. Which raises a Concrete Question everyone has been talking about. I touched on it briefly with joyce vance. Why not privately tell mueller about it if you have this information. Why leak it right now across the air waves . No one knows the answer to that at this moment. As for the legal implication, cohen is effectively accusing
trump junior of a new crime because in september he told the Senate Judiciary committee that he did not alert his father to this meeting ahead of time. Ditto for his reported comments to the House Intelligence Committee in december. So if this news about what Michael Cohen is willing to tell mueller is true, then it does obviously call donald trump jr. s testimony into serious doubt. Now, the leading democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee, feinstein and leahy, are already saying they want donald trump jr. Back in for questioning. Senator leahy wants to question him in public. That would be different, as well as under oath. Adam schiff says he also wants trump junior back. He wants to extend an invite to Michael Cohen as well while theyre at it. Democrats do not control either of those committees, so you could look at those as kind of wishe