With vladimir put snin. Dianne feinstein joins me to explain the probe into the probe into these allegations. And with the fbis email investigation now under investigation itself, democrats go public with their anger at director james comey. The fbi director has no credibility. Joining me for insight and analysis are rich lowery of the national review, Helene Cooper of the New York Times and Jeffrey Goldberg of the atlantic and danielle pletka. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. From nbc news in washington this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning on this Martin Luther king jr. Weekend and the last sunday of the obama presidency. Even before john lewis explosive statements denying Donald Trumps legitimacy as president , monday president elect trump in effect challenged decadesold laws of nepotism by hiring Jared Kushner as a Senior Adviser tuesday. A dossier of mr. Trumps ties to russia are published by the online site buzz feed. Wednesday he calls a bizarre News Conference where he called cnn fake news for reporting the existence of that dossier. Thursday the Justice Departments Inspector General of how fbi director james comey handled the Hillary Clinton investigation and on friday, an icon of the Civil Rights Movement says he doesnt think president elect trump is a legitimate president. Well begin with part one of my interview with lewis and his comments about donald trump. You have forged relationships with many president s. Do you plan on trying to forge a relationship with donald trump . I believe in forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people. It will be hard. Its going to be very difficult. I dont see it as president elect as a legitimate president. You do not consider him a legitimate president . Why is that . I think the russians participated in helping this man get elected and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I dont plan to attend the inawing raisiinau inauguration. It is the first one ill miss since ive been at congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that its wrong. It will send a big message to a lot of people in this country that you dont believe hes a legitimate president. I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the russi russians that helped him get electeded. Thats not right. Thats not fair. Thats not the open, democratic process. Youre a man of action. You have been your whole life. You believe this president is not legitimate. What would you tell young folks, young activists to do. I would say to young people, and i continue to say it today, and ill say it during the next few days as we celebrate and commemorate the birthday of Martin Luther king jr. , that when you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something. You cannot afford to be quiet or to be silent. What should nancy pelosi do . What should Chuck Schumer do . What should president obama do . We should not be silent. Are you suggesting the president is being too silent . I dont think hes been too silent. Hes an outgoing president. Those of us in position and those of us not in position, weve got to make some noise. Weve got to organize. That is a powerful thing to say coming from you that you do not believe hes a legitimately elected president. What should be done . We must continue to work. We must continue to speak up. It will be very hard and difficult, almost impossible for me to work with him. Well have more later in the Program Including whether he would invite donald trump to selma and as well his take on president obamas legacy and thats later in the broadcast. Not surprising, lewis reaction drew strong comments from both sides of the aisle and more comments from president elect trump. A day after congressman john lewis said he doesnt believe trump is a legitimately elected president , trump responded tweeting congressman john lewis should spend time helping his district which is falling apart, not to mention crime infested rather than complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk, no action or results sad. Late last night after many pointed out Lewis Atlanta district is solidly middle class with wealthy areas. Trump tweeted again. Congressman john lewis should finally focus on the crimeinfested inner cities in the u. S. I could use all the help i can get. With five days to go until trump is sworn in the civil rights icon has ignited the new debate about trumps legitimacy putting republicans on the defensive. John is a good man, and i think he will, in time, feel that he used his words poorly. And initially dividing democrats. John lewis is right on target, you know, in terms of how this president elect was elected. I just dont want to see this constant churning that leads to a kind of reflexive reaction every time a president gets elected who we dont like. Trumps eagerness to pick a fight with a legend is now uniting the democrats. Its the latest in the coming showdown with russia. Its interference with the election and ties to the Trump Campaign. Trumps pick for National Security adviser Michael Flynn is facing questions about a series of phone calls with russias ambassador including on the day the Obama Administration announced sanctions retaliating against russia for its interference on the election. On the very eve of these sanctions, was it right to have that conversation . Now trump tells the wall street journal he would be open to lifting sanctions on russia in the future. Quote, if you get along and if russia is really helping us why would anybody have sanctions if somebody is doing some really great things . Three senators in trumps own party disagree with him on russia and that disagreement dominated confirmation hearings this week. Do you believe that Vladimir Putin and his cronies are responsible for ordering the murder of countless dissidents, journalists and political opponents . I do not have sufficient information to make that claim. None of this is classified, mr. Tillerson. These people are dead. Do you think the russians are behind hacking into our election . I just know what the media says about it. Do you think you can get briefed any time soon . Ill need to. I think you do, too. They threatened nato allies and intervened militarily in syria leaving a trail of death and destruction. Joining me is the president elect incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus. Welcome back to the program, sir. Thank you, chuck. Let me start with what congressman amash tweeted. He had a pretty succinct respond to the third tweet that the president elect made on john lewis, simply, dude, just stop. Let me ask you this, does the president elect contemplate reaching out to congressman lewis privately before tweeting . Heres the thing, i think that, chuck, its shocking that congressman lewis who is a civil rights icon and is a person who has championed Voting Rights would actually question the legitimacy of an election in this country in starting this firestorm. I mean, the truth is donald trump won 30 of 50 counties. He won 128 out of the 159 counties in georgia. He flipped 200 counties that obama won and had the biggest electoral landslide on our side of the aisle since ronald reagan. I mean, i get you want to go back and forth on tweets, but the truth is its irresponsible for john lewis, historic as he is, to have done this. And the other piece of this, chuck, is that barack obama should step up as well and call it what it is. Its wrong what is happening. Its wrong how some of these democrats are treating president elect trump. We have a great relationship with the white house. I talk to dennis mcdonogh every day. We had a great meeting with the cabinet members and the sitting white house cabinet members on friday. The transfer of power within the white house is going great, but to do this to president elect trump five days before he puts his hand on the bible is just wrong and the democrats are fund raising on this comment from congressman lewis right now. So theyre making money on it. Let me ask you this, because one of the things that congressman lewis says he will never forget and possibly never forgive that Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than president obama and there are people that will respond to your comments right now and say donald trump spent five years questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obamas constitutional viability to be president of the United States with the birther controversy. Do you understand why there are going to be some who look at your criticism of john lewis and say thats hypocritical coming from somebody who works for donald trump . So first of all, he the president elect never said that Vladimir Putin was a better person. He didnt say i said stronger leader. My question to you was stronger leader for what its worth. Thats what i quoted. I get it. Im trying to make the distinction. It wasnt hes a better person, and i would rather have him as president of the United States. It was the characteristics of leadership can be parsed and compared, and characteristic qualities can be a lot of things and thats what he was talking about, but certainly wouldnt prefer Vladimir Putin over barack obama as president of the United States. Thats ridiculous and to take an old argument about where the president was born has nothing to do with whether or not any democracy in the United States, whether donald trump won the election and whether it was legitimate. James clapper, the Intelligence Community and i dont know if john lewis knows more than they do, but they have concluded that there is no evidence that anything that was done in the course of this election by russians or whoever changed the course of this election. In fact, the only evidence there is of tampering and having a real connection to foreign leadership was the dnc pagan operative over 400,000 to meddle in the ukraine to dig up dirt on donald trump. Nobodys talking about the 400,000 the dnc spent digging up dirt to an operative in the ukraine. There is nothing in regard and all of the intelligence agencies have concluded that. When you say theres nothing here i mean evidence that changed the outcome of the election. Youre not disputing that there is a lot of evidence of russias attempts to interfere in the election . Im not disputing that the russian entities hacked the dnc, but i am im not going to go back to our interview of a few weeks ago, i will say that when you dont have defenses on your Computer System and you basically hand over 50,000 emails obviously that makes it a whole lot easier, and i also think that the clinton folks wasted 1 billion of their donors money and theyve got a lot to answer for and none of this would be happening if Hillary Clinton would have simply not used a personal server in violation of federal law. Okay, but mr. Priebus does that excuse a Foreign Government from attempting to interfere in the United States election . Weve never of course not. All of its wrong. Chinas wrong. Russia is wrong, iran is wrong, all of these entities are wrong for doing what theyve done, but back to john lewis, for him then to say which no intelligence official is saying, that donald trump was elected illegitimately is irresponsible, and just because hes a civil rights leader and someone that i respect as a civil rights leader and someone that i went to selma with him and many others. Yes, you did. A few years ago, it doesnt excuse the fact that his statement was not responsible and its not right and its too bad because president elect trumps going to be a great president and this country elected him in an electoral landslide and its a shame. Its really a shame that five days from now hes being sworn in and were talking about this. I want to talk about this, because the issue has to do with russia and there was another dispute and some concern that on the same day that the Obama Administration announced new sanctions against russia for their meddling in the 2016 election that the National Security adviser Michael Flynn was on the phone multiple times with the Russian Ambassador to the United States. Can you say definitively that there was no promises, no winks, no anything that somehow there was a an acknowledgement that these sanctions will go away as quickly as possible once the inauguration takes place . So, chuck, almost every single day general flynn talks to counterparts and ambassadors from all over the world. Almost every single day. Thats his job. So as a National Security adviser for those that dont know, one of his jobs is to be in constant communication with counterparts and Security Issues all over the world. The ticktock on this is that at christmas the two of them texted each other merry christmas. A couple of days later this ambassador texted general flynn that he wanted to talk and then the next day they had a conversation which did happen to be that same day, but i have talked to general flynn. None of that came up and the subject matter of sanctions or the actions taken by the Obama Administration did not come up in the information. In fact, it was the sports team that was in an unfortunate plane accident. They talked about setting up a phone call after inauguration, and they also talked about a conference in syria, and that conference in regard to isis in syria. Those were the only subjects that came up, but there was no controversy in general flynn talking about their counterparts in the world . There was no challenge by the russians . No, sir. There was a new report out from esquire magazine that includes quotes by the incoming secretary and anonymous quotes that seemed to indicate that it is your intent to remove the White House Press corps from the white house. Is that true . Well, look, first of all let me explain. No, because the white house obviously is 18 acres, right, chuck . No. The technical answer is no, but what we have is you saw the News Conference the other day, and i would have to quarrel with you. I dont think it was a bizarre News Conference. I dont think its a fair characterization, but there was 500 to 600 reporters at that News Conference. What im talking about and what were talking about and the only thing that was discussed about this, is whether or not you take 50 people in the very small press room which it looks big on tv, but is very diny and whether you want to go 50 feet to the eob and have for the first few weeks or the first months or so the press conferences where you can fit three or four times the amount of people. It is about more access. This isnt about the office space or any of that business . This is about quadrupling the amount of reporters that can cover our press conference. But there will still be reporters there will still be reporters every day going to work in the white house . Well, that hasnt been determined, chuck, but as of now the only thing that created this story, i just want to make it very clear was the question of whether or not the press briefings, at least initially are going to be in the eob. Is this about press briefings or is this about kicking the press out of the building altogether . This is about press briefings. Thats what created this story. All right. Reince priebus. I will leave it there. So the press will still be going to work every day in the white house. How about a little go, pack, go . There will be a lot of go. That i promise you, all day. All right, sir. I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on and sharing your views. All right. Still so much to get to in the broadcast, including the decision by the Inspector General to how they handled their own investigation of the their own investigation of the Hillary Clinton emails and il welcome to the world 2116, their own investigation of the Hillary Clinton emails and il you can fly across town in minutes or across the globe in under an hour. Whole communities are living on mars and solar satellites provide earth with unlimited clean power. 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