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tv   America Reports  FOX News  February 9, 2024 10:00am-11:00am PST

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jean-pierre and john kirby, that is slated to happen about 30 minutes from now. they will have some big questions to answer after last night's press conference. all eyes on the robert hur report and the fallout from last night's remarks. ben, quick thought. >> the most press conference both of their careers today and they better do a really good job. they have democrats watching it, not just republicans, and if they fumble this, like kamala harris fumbled this morning, it's going to be really bad for them. >> kayleigh: and this one, you can't say hatch act, word of wisdom to karine jean-pierre. it's friday, "america reports". >> sandra: thank you for the build-up, await the news. we will hear directly from the white house, the first response since the release of the scathing special counsel report detailing how president biden
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mishandled those classified documents and called into question his mental fitness to be the president of the united states. hello, welcome, everyone. sandra smith in new york. john, great to be with you kicking off this friday afternoon. >> john: if you thought yesterday was a day, today is just as much. i'm john roberts in washington. and this is "america reports". it's a presidency in peril, the 81-year-old biden appeared agitated as he addressed the nation and tried to reassure the american people he is fit to serve. >> sandra: one former biden aide saying the democrats' current dilemma, like taking the car keys away from your parents. some liberal lawmakers are telling americans there is nothing to see here. >> john: well, let's see if that remains the case. fox team coverage, ben and dr. saphier, his department of justice says he has a "poor
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memory." first peter doocy who asked the key question, any plan for the president to change the way he operates after this report? >> yes, and no, john, there is going to be a change in the way that classified material is handled. we are told we will get those details in the next couple days but president biden has no plans to step aside, we asked. >> president biden, something the special counsel said in his report is that one of the reasons you were not charged is because in his description, you are a well-meaning, elderly man, with a poor memory. >> i'm well-meaning and i'm an elderly mean and i know what the hell i'm doing. i've been president, i put this country back on its feet. i don't need his recommendation. >> how bad is your memory, and can you continue as president? >> my memory is so bad i let you speak. >> well, the multiple memory lapses laid out by special
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counsel hur pile on top of on camera and off camera mix-ups, talking to dead world leaders and officials at the white house is saying everybody misspeaks but three days ago we were told the questions of president biden's accuracy of a conspiracy. >> how is president biden going to convince three-quarters of voters worried about his physical and mental health that he is okay, even though in las vegas he told a story about recently talking to a french president who died in 1996. >> i'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole, with you, sir. >> later today he will host olaf scholz, he cannot recall his name, not the former, the late german chancellor, helmut kohl, he told donors he was meeting with just two years ago, john. >> john: we'll see how the
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briefing plays out just ahead. >> sandra: ben is editor at large at the spectator and dr. nicole saphier, board certified physician, both fox news contributors. dr. saphier, start with you first. because after this report was released and the detailed imagery we all had from this president with a poor memory, then he stepped up in front of the microphone and addressed the nation, but then seemed to confuse egypt and mexico. listen. >> as you know, initially the president of mexico, sisi did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian get in. i talked to bb to open the gate on the israeli side. >> john: did he clear up any concerns about his mental acuity or memory? >> certainly not, sandra, and
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listen, we all misspeak often on tv, i myself, but the reality is, 40% of people 65 and older will have some level of memory loss and as we are seeing as a nation and a world we are starting to see some of that decline in our president, who is now over the age of 80 years old. now, of course when you want to talk about, you know, cognition and dementia, you know, it is not one size fits all, certainly not, but we are starting to witness what does seem to be age appropriate decline, and risk factored such as ruptured brain aneurysm in his past. he has yet to submit to a full cognitive evaluation, we know trum did that and any 81-year-old man should do that. most medical societies recommend that and prudent at this point to have the white house physician and maybe even jill biden, ph.d. very educated and she is his primary caregiver, she's with him all the time.
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they should be under oath talking about the mental fitness of the president. >> john: to ben now if we could, and when this came out yesterday, ben, kind of ironic. biden was initially or praising the report, illuminates the difference what trump and i did, but then when the rest came out, his tone completely changed and when it came to media coverage, he lost everybody. these headlines from left wing media last night, nbc news, a nightmare, special counsel assessment of biden's mental fitness triggers democratic pandemic, scathing picture, and age is not just a number, profound and growing problem for biden. whoa. >> horrible, horrible day for the biden presidency, for americans who want to have confidence in a president who actually, you know, can stand up in front of them and know what's
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going on, you know, have their mind sharp, be able to make tough decisions, not having people make excuses too late to give the press conference, 8:00 at night. from my perspective, the problem that the democrats face in this moment, john, this is a self-reinforcing dynamic, in the sense with hillary's emails, hunter biden's financial, ethical problems, things where you are debating things that happened in the past. with this situation, joe biden is going to give us in a concurrent way every single day going forward all sorts of different examples that we can use to reflect back on the frame that this special counsel has provided for us in terms of understanding him as feeble-minded. he's going to give us that evidence on a daily basis continuing forward and that has to have democrats today standing up and looking in the mirror and saying are we really going to roll with this, have confidence over the next 9, 10 months, and
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beyond, that's what you have to convince the american people of and a lot of democrats looking in the mirror saying no. >> sandra: well, a lot of democrats rushing to his defense. here are some of them, defending biden's mental sharpness. >> i just spent an hour with president biden and the entire democratic caucus where he entertained everyone for an hour. >> people who essentially people publicly for a living, of course they are going to misspeak from time to time. >> the man is 80 years old. he rides a bike. very useful political attack for that reason. >> i want to see more of joe biden, and the gaffes are built in. >> should any of that, dr. saphier, make us feel better about him being at the helm. >> i don't care how many people say how strong he is, that's great, 81 years old and can ride a bicycle, we have also seen him fall off the bicycle as well. what we need is a full cognitive examination performed by medical
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professionals and testifying whether he is capable of the job. watching him last night was really, you know, unseting, disappointed. he came out with the anger and the aggravation, and often times people who are confused or have memory loss will actually have the anger because they feel so out of control. so actually the way that he came out and was attacking peter doocy and others, that goes in line with maybe he is having some sort of cognitive decline. >> john: you know dana observed this morning while robert hur did not charge biden, he knee capped him politically. and as you pointed out. from now on, every slip that biden makes, every confabulation, every misremembered episode, embellished episode, people will hold up the hur report. now you believe us.
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>> one of my favorite john candy jokes, i hope i die like my grandfather did in his sleep, and not like the people in the consider. and they have to have confidence in the guy driving it and you cannot have any confidence and to your point, this is all now viewed through a lens that has been provided by the doj, which is built up by democrats, it's being this unassailable institution over the last several years, trusted to go through these processes and whose verdict has that moral authority, and now it's bitten them and i don't think they really have a plan what they are going to do. >> sandra: ben, dr. nicole saphier, thank you for joining us. good to have you both. >> john: now to the border crisis, fielding a crime and drug epidemic in america. disturbing attack on two nypd officers from a new angle.
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manhattan d.a. announcing felony indictments in the case after a lot of backlash. meanwhile, record amount of fentanyl is pouring into the united states with the dea seizing enough doses last year to kill every single american. that's just last year. we have fox news team coverage, bryan has more on the growing fentanyl problem at the border and how the dea is working to stop it. but we begin with nate foy, the latest on the assault of the nypd officers and nate, i think a lot of people are still surprised after that long tortuous press conference yesterday, still only one person in custody. >> that's right, john, and authorities are still looking for at least three suspects accused of kicking officers while they wrestled one migrant to the ground. take a look.
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so john, the five identified migrants all face felonies, including several second degree assault charges and one of tampering with evidence after one migrant is accused lending his coat to an attacker to help him get away. new york city mayor eric adams said this video is not representative of the over 170,000 migrants in the city. >> this was a despicable act. not only attack on the individuals who wore the uniform but attack on the symbol of justice. >> john, here is the only migrant still locked up today, 24-year-old brito, he's at rikers island. he pushed back against officers who took him to the ground. alvin bragg showed pictures of others in the attack he's now trying to finds. >> the totality of this, the aggregate hopefully will help
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the public help us to locate individuals. >> two names in the indictment will remain under seal until a later date. there are no warrants out for the arrest of anyone involved. and bragg also defended his decision against requesting bail for several migrants, some of whom are now believed to be headed west to the california-mexico border. send it back to you, john. >> john: nate, thank you. now this. >> we see ton amounts of precursor chemicals coming in from china daily. the production of super labs now in mexico producing millions and millions of fentanyl pills, especially in cartel-controlled cities and states. flooding the united states. >> sandra: mexican cartels are smuggling record amounts of fentanyl across the southern border into the u.s., leading to record seizures of the deadly drug. bryan is live inside a dea drug testing lab here in new york city. what's it like there, bryan? >> sandra, the dea's largest
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testing center in the country, box after box, bag after bag full of millions of fake prescription pills that are filled with fentanyl and made by the mexican drug cartels. dea seized 77 million counterfeit prescription pills nationwide, up 52% from 2022. the bad news is, indicative of a supply of fentanyl continuing to flood the u.s. and poisoning tens of thousands. cartels are purposely making the fentanyl-laced pills look like the real thing. in the photo on the left, a real oxy pill. right, counterfeit. seven out of ten pills in 2023 contained potential lethal dose of fentanyl. moving huge amounts to new york and elsewhere, in tractor
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trailers or cars. last year they found 300,000 inside a gas tank of a ford expedition in new york. raymond donovan says mexico is not doing enough to stop this crisis. >> there was a time where we were taking down hundreds of illicit clandestine laboratories through mexico, that has subsided. a time the relationship was strong, sharing intelligence daily, now today it's quite not the same. >> the cartels are targeting young people. these are drug baggies recently seized, stamped with travis kelce's name on it, he is about to play in the super bowl, obviously trying to take advantage between the mania between him and taylor swift. the fentanyl powder and pills are primarily sold on social media. >> gone are the days you would go down a dark alley or corner and meet up with a drug dealer
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and the exchange would take place. now it's on social media apps and the drugs are delivered to someone's doorstep. >> fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin. finding it in everything from cocaine to marijuana. no sign of it stopping. sandra. >> sandra: huge, huge problem, thank you for being on that story. thank you. and breaking news, john. >> john: fox news alert, gun violence event in washington, d.c., kamala harris was asked about the robert hur report. here was her response. >> so the way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated. gratuitous. so i will say when it comes to the role and responsibility of a
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prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw. >> john: interesting as we pointed out yesterday afternoon the president was praising the robert hur report for the difference between his case and donald trump's case, and then got further into the report and blew his stack and then last night we saw the results at that press conference in which he over and over and over again insisted he has the mental ability, mental fitness to be president and then made another biden gaffe at the end. so -- and again, i think ben domenech is right, every gaffe he makes between now and november, people will point to the hur report and say we told you so. >> sandra: yeah, that was brand-new from kamala harris calling the report inaccurate and inappropriate, the comments made by the special counsel, why this live shot of the white
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house is so important right now, john, we are waiting to hear directly from the white house, not only will this be the first briefing following the release of that hur report about the classified documents but the first time we hear directly from the white house following the president's news conference last night as he grapples with growing questions over his age and fitness to be commander in chief. peter doocy is in that briefing room and we will get there as soon as that begins. plus this. >> i never thought that the shirt i wore to school one spring morning would lead to a federal lawsuit. but the reaction from the adults running my school did not leave me with much choice. >> john: a middle school student taking his school to court after being kicked out of class because of his t-shirt. fox news legal editor kerri urbahn on the free speech fight that could impact schools nationwide. like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. voya provides tools that help you make the right investment and benefit choices. so you can reach today's financial goals. and look forward to a more confident future.
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i think he's having a midlife crisis i'm not. you got us t-mobile home internet lite. after a week of streaming they knocked us down... ...to dial up speeds. like from the 90s. great times. all i can do say is that my life is pre-- i like watching the puddles gather rain. -hey, your mom and i procreated to that song. oh, ew! i think you've said enough. why don't we just switch to xfinity like everyone else? then you would know what year it was. i know what year it is.
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ma ryan's who lost reason. >> 21 years old, sergeant alec langdon, 23. captain benjamin moleton, 27. and casey, 26, and another 28 years old aboard the super stallion chopper when it crashed outside of san diego on tuesday. the cause of the crash remains under investigation at this time. our thoughts are with all of their families. john. >> john: terrible tragedy. back to the top story, await the first white house briefing since special counsel hur's damning report. kerri urbahn, so many things to go over in this case, but let's go back to what we were saying just before we went to the break
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and that's kamala harris coming out against robert hur in this report. listen to what she said. >> so the way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous, and so i will say that when it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw. >> john: special prosecutor appointed by the attorney general, the report was presented to the attorney general who reviewed it and passed it on the white house, she rolled all of that up in a big ball and threw the doj under the bus. >> i wonder if the white house press secretary is going to talk about the independence of the doj and how they stay out of everything after that comment,
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it gets hard to do when were your bosses are making comments like that, and john, we talked about this before, reminded me somewhat of when the president talks about how his son is innocent over and over again, and attorney general is his direct report. and so there's no way that one can't construe these comments as directed, obviously, towards doj and even a warning or a message, but separately i will say her point about gratuitous information in the report i tend to agree with that. we saw this with the mueller report, hundreds of pages for what, for no charges, and on hur and biden, and the special counsel investigation we saw this with comey on clinton. and why the reports are problematic for the department of justice. doj is a black and white world, you are guilty or not guilty,
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the reports allow the department of justice to trash people, ruin their administrations and end their reputations, oh, but no charges. i'm not sure that's fair, no matter whether you are a democrat or republican. >> john: on the subject of fairness, what biden said initially yesterday afternoon when asked about the report, he was focusing in on what he thought was the differentiation contained in the report between what he did recording classified documents and what donald trump did. listen to what he said. >> i was especially pleased to see special counsel make clear the stark distinction and difference between this case and mr. trump's case, continuing to quote, most notably, after given multiple chances to return classified documents to avoid prosecution, mr. trump allegedly did the opposite. >> john: clearly he read deeper into the report before that 8:00 news conference last night. but on that point, biden willful retention, compare it to the trump indictment, 32 counts of
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willful retention, biden gets off. >> there are some -- however, always my concern, i've been thinking about this for some time, when merrick garland appointed two special counsels looking at the same issue and i thought ok, what happens when these reports cross his desk and there are different outcomes. the good luck trying to convince the american people that your special counsels are operating in an even handed way neutrally and applying the law and distinction presented in the trump case, i think he's going to have a tough time convincing the american people that willful retention in biden is no charges whereas it does with trump. >> john: a guy named liam morrison, 8th grade in
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massachusetts, there are only two genders, he was told to go tomorrow, and then came back with another that said there are censored genders. i'm fighting back. i'm not sure why they act as though speaking up causes any trouble. everyone seems worried if somebody says what they think somebody else is going to get upset. i didn't go around pushing my opinion on anyone, all i did was wear a t-shirt. alliance for defending freedom is bringing this case. what are your thoughts about it? >> i used to work at adf so when the press released popped up, interesting free speech case. fundamental issue that students don't lose constitutional rights when they walk through the doors of the schoolhouse and nondisruptive private student expression is protected under the first amendment and the problem for the school here, during pride month, they encourage students to wear pride gear so encouraging to wear t-shirts or put out messages on
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really the same issue. this kid, i don't think it's during pride month, he wore this t-shirt that said two genders, and then he came back and said there are censored genders and they said it's not good either. i think the school will run into constitutional problems. and these are the kinds of cases that sometimes make their way up to the supreme court. >> john: could have broad implications across the country. >> sandra: all right, so john, adding to the drama at the white house this hour as we do await this white house press briefing, it will be the first since the release of the special counsel hur's report on the biden classified document situation, also the first since the president spoke last night in that contentious newser. ian sams, we have just been told, will be joining karine jean-pierre at the podium in that room. obviously this is important because he is a big part of the messaging on behalf of the white house, spokesperson for the
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white house, and if you remember, john, he was the first to announce that president biden was being interviewed by the justice department special counsel when that happened. the investigation into the classified documents. the that came from him. that was when we learned from sams it was voluntary and conducted at the white house on a sunday and monday, so and we should probably get the briefing shortly. >> john: the fact that ian sams used to be the white house spokesman, and the appearance there is an indication that they are prepared to answer a lot of questions on this hur report and i would bet that based on what we saw with the vice president just a short time ago that the talking points from the white house today, this afternoon, are going to be this is prosecution malfeasance, inappropriate, how dare he do that.
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i have a dollar riding on that. see if it's the way it goes, sandra. >> sandra: now this. >> when you get 5 or 6 victims in an urban lake, all of whom share the same characteristics, all in a short period of time, something's going on. >> john: an entire community rattled by a spring of mysterious deaths at a texas lake with speculation growing that a serial killer may be involved. we will speak to the long time partner of one of those victims coming up next. >> sandra: and a warning for americans seeking love abroad, why the state department says using apps to make connections could be dangerous. my plaque psoriasis was so bad... i couldn't get my hair done. my psoriasis was all over. then my joints started hurting, found out it was psoriatic arthritis. who knew they could be connected? for me, cosentyx works on both. 5 years and counting.
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white house press office there they are all in line and all lined up on the same talking points. ian sams, who used to be the spokesperson for the white house counsel's office, will probably be leading that part of the briefing regarding the robert hur report. we'll see what the talking points are from the white house here, i expect they are going to get a lot of questions, sandra, about that report that came out late yesterday. >> sandra: we will get to that as soon as it is underway. terrified locals in austin, texas, are convinced there's a serial killer lurking downtown and targeting people after police retrieved another body from nearby lady bird lake this week marking the 10th grim discovery in just 18 months. jonathan christopher hayes clark was found in the lake last april and nearly a year after his death his family is still searching for answers. joining us now is reagan
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apariciho, his long time partner and mother of his child. we can't imagine how difficult this has been for you. i know you are searching for answers and something does not feel right to you, you've been telling the local news media there. what do you believe happened to him? >> i believe somebody put him at the lake. i don't believe he put himself there. it's just -- i mean, i really have not had any back-up as far as city of austin or austin police department helping in that way but i know for sure that he was put in that lake and he was killed. >> i want to put up a map so people understand lady bird lake, if you have not spent time in austin, you know this is a big part of that city, it's got a jogging trail, walking trail, people go biking around there, it's right downtown, showing proximity to the capitol, it's
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on the lake, reservoir, whatever the technical is, but the latest body was found in the same vicinity as the other grim discoveries. so, does that lead you to any conclusions that they're all being found in the same area? >> i mean -- i'm not really sure. like i said, i've been doing my own investigations with what i can find, but again, i haven't really had too much help from the austin police department or any back-up, but i do believe there is someone putting these people in the lake. >> sandra: ok. so, there's this question of the water -- i was just there in november. i walked lady bird lake with my family, and i noticed it's very shallow and one of the bikers on the trail was asked about that and said this. listen. >> it would be hard to see how this could be an accident. it's pretty shallow water here, signs everywhere, it would be hard to see an accident.
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i think if that was like the reason given, it would be hard to believe. has to be something going on. >> sandra: reagan, could your partner swim? >> yes, chris could swim. >> sandra: and what time of night did he go missing? >> i last saw him sunday, easter sunday, from there i don't know where he went or what could have happened. >> sandra: and how much time after that were you notified that his body was found? >> i was notified sunday along with his mom, and he was found saturday, on the 15th. >> sandra: can't even imagine and now ten families who have gone through this. and what disturbs paul mauro, we had him on the program as the latest body was discovered, we had him on the program earlier this week, disturbs him the most about the details emerging. >> what is really troubling, the victims share the same signature t, male in their 30s and 40s.
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they have said there's no serial killer involved here. i'm not sure how they could be so sure. >> sandra: many local reports there's been a woman that people have called the police on for spiking drinks, particularly men at the bar, drinks of males in that age group. what have you been able to find in your own investigation looking into this? >> i did hear about that. again, i'm not too sure because everything that i've been doing, i've been doing on my own. like i said, i do believe there is someone out there, whether it's a woman, a , or whoever it is, i know that someone is putting these people in the lake. >> sandra: reagan, everyone can understand you certainly would like some more answers to his disappearance and death, of course. and we are certainly covering the story. it is just too many, too many that this is happening, so many residents are, say they have been terrified by this. thank you very much for joining us and we'll definitely follow up with you.
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>> thank you. thank you for having me. >> john: white house briefing about to start as president biden's competence comes into question. how will they navigate the damning special counsel report. plus this. >> we said anything over 80 we would be happy with -- 98% -- >> sandra: trump clinching a major win in the nevada caucus. are we seeing all of this inch closer and closer to a trump-biden rematch? we will put that question to karl rove when he joins us next. people tell me they'd love to buy gold. but because it's gold - they think it must be complicated. it isn't. not with rosland capital. with rosland... the entire process from start to finish is built on one concept... one... keep... it... simple. rosland capital - a trusted leader in helping people acquire precious metals.
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there's nothing better than a subway series footlong. except when you add on an all new footlong sidekick. we're talking a $2 footlong churro. $3 footlong pretzel
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and a five dollar footlong cookie. every epic footlong deserves the perfect sidekick. order one with your favorite subway series sub today. (vo) if you have graves' disease, your eye symptoms could mean something more. that gritty feeling can't be brushed away. even a little blurry vision can distort things. and something serious may be behind those itchy eyes. up to 50% of people with graves' could develop a different condition called thyroid eye disease, which should be treated by a different doctor. see an expert. find a t-e-d eye specialist at isitted.com >> john: karine jean-pierre just starting the white house briefing, special counsel robert hur's report raises questions
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over whether the president can be trusted with national security issues. we want to bring in karl rove, former white house deputy chief of staff and fox news contributor. harold ford, jr. had this to say earlier. listen to this, karl. >> this was a tough night for the president, and i think many in the democratic party, which is my party, are going to have serious questions going forward about what this means. this last night will be the closing act in a campaign against president biden as we get to november. >> john: with that, hold the thought, ian sams, white house communications is coming up to the podium to answer questions about the report. listen. >> explored every theory special counsel decided that there was no case there. notably he said this would be true whether president biden was president or private citizen. the special counsel's assignment when he was appointed was to dernl whether any criminal conduct occurred. he found it didn't. that was the finding. the case is closed. i want to read you something
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from none other than ken starr, who most people in this room will remember independent counsel who investigated former president clinton. after that investigation what he said to congress, what i see the conclusion as being is just a determination that no criminal charges would be brought, period, full stop. that is it. it's all over at that stage. that rings true here. special counsel report goes on at length about the president's unprecedented cooperation in this case. i want to share a few things about that because i think it's very important. one, when the classified documents were found, it was self-reported. the president directed his team to ensure that any classified documents were returned immediately. why did he do that? because the president takes classified information seriously, he always has. he did not intentionally take classified documents. he understands documents like that belong with the government. he never, never made any attempt
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to obstruct. 2, he took unprecedented action to get the special counsel what he needed. he opened up every room in his family home and his beach house for comprehensive fbi searches, first time in history. he sat for two days of interviews, an interview i'll add and the president talked about this last night, took place the day after the brutal attack on israel. the president was managing an intensive international crisis, you just heard the vice president talk about this. he answered dozens of follow-up questions in writing. 3, he did not exert executive privilege over any contents of the report. he was transparent, nothing to hide. there was a long intensive and in many ways, yes, excessive investigation. but for context, you should all remember, in the case of former vice president mike pence, who had a very, very similar incident occur right after
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president biden, the case was closed within a few months. it was a brief, one-page letter to mike pence. but in this case, there was a 15-month investigation, special counsel interviewed 150 witnesses. he sought and obtained 7 million pages of documents down to emails about moving trucks during the transition in 2016 and 2017. he spent more than three and a half million taxpayer dollars exploring every possible theory that he could, and what was the result? he reached the inevitable conclusion, based on the facts and the evidence, that there was no case here. and this is important to think about in context of how this report is being viewed and by many of you being covered. this is the first special counsel investigation ever that hasn't indicted anyone. every theory was explored. but the facts and the evidence disputed them.
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the decision was that there was no case to be made. in that reality, we also need to talk about the environment that we are in. for the past few years, republicans in congress and elsewhere have been attacking prosecutors who aren't doing what republicans want politically. they have made up claims of a two-tiered system of justice between republicans and democrats. they have denigraded the rule of law for political purposes. that reality creates a ton of pressure. and the facts that the evidence don't support any charges, you are left to wonder why this report spends time making gratuitous and inappropriate criticisms of the president. over the past 24 hours, legal experts and former prosecutors give their analysis. former attorney general eric holder said the report "contains
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way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with long standing doj traditions". the former acting fbi director said he had overseen many cases like this and "you have to have explicit evidence of willful retention of these documents and that is just not present in this case." the former fbi general counsel who i'll add was also the lead prosecutor in the special counsel mueller investigation said it was "exactly what you're not supposed to do, which is putting your thumb on the scale that could have political repercussions." that's the assessment of seasoned professional law enforcement officials and prosecutors with deep experience at the department of justice. unfortunately, the gratuitous remarks have made headlines and caught your attention, they are wrong and inaccurate and truth i want to repeat one last time, i know it's hard to wade through
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400 full pages, 1, the report lays out example after example how the president did not willfully take classified documents. the report lays out how the president did not share classified documents with anyone. the report lays out how the president did not knowingly share classified information with anyone. on page 2, which i know you all read, the report argues that president willfully retained materials, but buried way later on page 215 the report says and i quote "there is in fact a shortage of evidence on these points." 200 pages later. put simply, this case is closed because the facts and the evidence don't support the theory here. the comments that experts are saying is out of line are inappropriate and should not distract from the fact the case is closed and the facts and
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evidence show they reached the right conclusion. with that, i'm happy to take questions. the president>> the -- the president was briefed by his lawyers. >> and mentioned again, saw some of the characterization gratuitous. does the president still have confidence in merrick garland after selecting hur to be put in this position? >> if the president spoke last night, i can't remember which of you asked him what his thoughts were on the appointment of the special counsel and he answered that i think thoughtfully and powerfully, i don't have anything to add beyond what the president said. >> does the president support the release of the entire transcript of the interview to put to rest some things you think are overlooked. >> we are dealing with classified materials in that conversation.
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there are classification issues there. i don't have announcement on releasing anything today but there are classified stuff and we have to work through it. >> once you work through, redacted version, would the president support the release as long as you can obviously keep what needs to be kept secret secret? >> we'll take a look at that and make a determination. >> thanks, ian. two questions, first, you said the topper the president takes classified information seriously and the president said last night he never discussed classified material with anyone, but the special counsel report said that on three different occasions he did discuss it with this ghostwriter. i understand it did not meet the bar for prosecution, but how do you reconcile the president's statement with what's in the report. >> sure, if you read the full report, it gets into the three instances. three instances out of 250 pages of evidence that they are talking about criticizing. i think it's important to look at those three examples. two of them are his own notes to
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himself in his personal diary that he was reading about to his ghostwriter for his memoir, for a memoir about his life after his son died, and he was reading these passages he had written to himself to share information with him and he took pains and how sensitive some of the information was and we should be careful with it, and the passages from the diary to the ghostwriter, the information is not in the book. and second, an allegation of willfully taking classified document that he talked about with his ghostwriter, that's false. as the president talked about last night, he was again talking about a handwritten letter that he had sent to president obama and faxed to him about the afghanistan troop surge. these are the president's own personal writings, you know, the president's own diary notes to himself and an important thing to think about here.
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plenty of historical analogs. the most notable, ronald reagan, diaries were a subject of a lot of attention in the country. the justice department knew president reagan's diaries had classified information in them, he took the diaries home, he read them to people, shared the physical copy of the diaries, joe biden never even gave custody of his notebooks to anybody, and they never even asked for the diaries back, why is that, historically, back to the beginning of the country presidents keep diaries. we should want our presidents to be thoughtful and deliberate about the decisions on the most consequential issues of our time and we have entrusted presidents to be safe keepers of this information and expressed great gratitude, including many of you in the press, when presidents
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share through books and other things, insights into their decision-making and historical context. i think it's lost in the shuffle of all this that the president did what all of his predecessors had done, take notes for himself, diary of his own daily life so he could think back on big moments of the time. and so you know, those -- that's important to know about this allegation that there was -- >> sharing, your contention because the president rewrote classified material in his own words and then shared it with somebody who didn't have the security clearance for it, that it was ok? >> well, let's look at the report. i understand, it's long, 400 pages, i'm not sure how many people in this room have read the entire thing. page three, what everybody is asking about and understandably, says "mr. biden shared information, including some classified information with his ghostwriter." if you go to page 248, the report says "we conclude that
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the evidence does not establish that mr. biden willfully disclosed national defense information to his writing assistant." that's in the report. conclusion made based on the evidence and something else i want to add, on page one of the report, says the president willfully retained classified documents related to afghanistan. page 215 of the report, it says "there's in fact a shortage of evidence on these points." on page five of the report, everybody read that, "mr. biden's memory was significantly limited." but something that everybody should make sure they see. elsewhere in the report he says "we expect the evidence of mr. biden's state of mind to be compelling" pointing to him providing "clear and forceful testimony." that's his comments on his state of mind later in the report so important to take the report in its totality and understand that
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in that report the facts and evidence refute the theorys that are floated they explored. >> i think maybe we disagree on -- [indiscernible] one other thing i wanted to ask about, his attorney said they were going to work on the process to make sure that none of this happens again. obviously the potential that this administration has less than a year left. wondering if you could -- >> don't say that. >> what the timeline is on that, what you guys are considering for that type of -- >> fair question. something that this issue a year ago brought to light is that this is an unfortunately very common occurrence in our country, the national archives has talked about how 80 different libraries and collections just in the last decade or so have called and said oh, we found classified documents in these papers, and they have a process that you are supposed to turn those back in. but then you know, we had the issue with president biden immediately after that, the issue with vice president pence and i think it's important to
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understand that this is a common occurrence and the president thinks we should fix it. he gave all the documents back. he knew he did -- that the government should be in possession of the documents and what we are going to do, appoint a task force to review how transitions look at classified material to ensure there are better processes in place so when staff around the building are rushing to pack up boxes during a transition, the same time and up until the moment they are governing and doing matters of state, they are going to make recommendations that's going to be fixed and appoint a senior government to do that. >> 2017 he had classified material downstairs, he boasted about it. >> in your advocacy here and in the president's counsel writing back to mr. hur, you are saying that there were gratuitous comments, false pieces of information. how is the american public supposed to process this

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