discussions as they re described with some of his top allies. let s discuss now more with cnn, senior political commentator, former special advisor to president obama, van jones. and cnn legal commentator and former for trump white house lawyer jim scholtz, van guys, good morning. let me start with you first van. what do you think biden needs to do first and foremost, in this debate? well, i mean, if you re joe biden, you ve got a hill to climb here the reality is he is behind in most polls. the momentum is not with him yet. and so i think you ve got to reassure the american people that he is the commander in chief, and that he has commanded the situation when it comes, especially to the economy that s where he is struggling the most. and so number one, the contrast is going to be very clear joe biden s going to have a lot of facts and expect donald trump to have a lot of insults. so you already know that s already kinda baked in the entertainment factor is going to be on t
listen to what jeff sessions tells fox news. never had conversations with russian about the campaign, them assisting in the campaign, anything like that. that s in the wake of the attorney general s announcement he will recuse himself from any investigation related to the trump campaign. president trump defending attorney general and charging democrats are quote overplaying their hand. and learning that vice president mike pence routinely used private e-mail account as governor of indiana. talk to the reporter who broke to story. get to jeff zeleny and mish ale kosinski. earlier today attorney general recused himself from investigations related to the trump campaign, possible contacts with russia. what is the latest? stunning turn of events in the last 24 hours.
brexit, also called into question the relevance of nato. he once made a statement saying he might recognize the annexation of crimea. just a couple of weeks ago there was i was in ukraine recently, uptick in violence on the front line there, it was after a phone call between trump and putin and trump was asked does that bother you and he said he didn t know if russian forces were even if russia was even backing separatists and ukrainians, this is just a known thing among the policy community and people watching what is going on. it s really puzzling. another thing, being in ukraine, sanctions are a huge deal for them. seen as one of the only things deterring russian aggression, it s existential thing, really counting on allies, u.s. and
champagne glasses in celebration. you got to think why is the kremlin, russian propaganda, targeted hacking, clearly campaigning for trump to get elected. so there s this web of connections and a lot of shadiness, lot of questions. this is just adding on to all the existing questions. one thing that s striking for me is beyond just these questionable characters with connections to russians is the rhetoric we re hearing from surrogates and trump himself. mr. sanders mentioned we don t know what trump wants or what his motivations are. haven t seen his tax returns. but we know what putin wants. he wants sanctions lifted on the ukraine, hurt their economy. he wants to see a weekend nato. he wants to see a weekend european union. and trump has spoken to all those things and also supported
democracy, intervening in our election to support donald trump. number two is if everything they were doing is above board and innocent, why lying about it? doesn t make sense. only way to get to bottom of it is have independent counsel appointed by justice department. it s great that attorney general sessions said would recuse himself. but that s not enough. republicans on the hill are shielding trump. being patsies for president trump. not going to get to the bottom of this. that s the subpoena power. great digging by washington post, new york times, wall street journal and others but you need subpoena power, needs to be special counsel because you can t trust justice or capitol hill republicans to do a thorough job. quickly get the others in. response? i don t know how you know that kislyak is a spy recruiter.