tv Ana Cabrera Reports MSNBC February 21, 2024 7:00am-8:00am PST
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lower. longer. leqvio® right now on msnbc, breaking news. the supreme court set to announce decisions any moment now. we are waiting on a critical ruling involving former president donald trump, can states kick him off their ballots in the next election. we are live outside of the supreme court coming up. plus, the final three days before the south carolina gop primary, two candidates left, nikki haley arguing that she is not running for second place as donald trump teases a potential vice presidential pick. >> are they all on your short list? >> they are. >> and when can you -- when can we expect that you will announce your choice? >> you would like to get somebody that could help you, and honestly, all of those
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people are good. they're all good, all solid. new fallout after a russian american ballerina is detained in russia. a new warning on how dangerous it is for u.s. citizens to go there. ♪♪ hey, everything, good to see you today. good morning, i'm yasmin vossoughian in for ana cabrera coming to you live here from new york. breaking news this morning, the country anxiously awaiting decisions from the supreme court to come down any moment now. we don't know which cases they're going to rule on today, but we're waiting for a major decision regarding former president donald trump, whether colorado has the power to remove the 2024 republican front runner from the primary ballot because of his efforts to overturn the last election. states like maine, they are closely watching this one as that state also booted trump from the ballot, and a second issue as well, still on the justices' plate to decide anytime, trump's request to stop the election interference case
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against him in washington hoping the justices will agree to decide whether he's immune from criminal prosecution. want to bring in from outside the supreme court is nbc's ken dilanian, joyce vance is a former u.s. attorney in alabama and an msnbc legal analyst. lisa rubin on set with me and an msnbc legal correspondent. ken, start us off. we're waiting for these decisions. anything drop so far? >> not yet, yasmin. we don't know which one of them will drop. we're expecting to see this colorado decision. so interesting that in both of the cases you mentioned, you know, the plaintiffs are essentially asking the supreme court to make a hugely consequential decision that would affect the presidential election. we heard the arguments a couple of weeks ago, and it seems like there was a consensus among liberal and conservative justices that they were skeptical of the idea that donald trump should be excluded from the ballot in colorado and potentially elsewhere because he engaged in insurrection under the 14th amendment. liberal justice elena kagan sort
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of let the air out of the balloon when she first spoke during the arguments and said to the colorado plaintiffs, i think your problem is whether it's fair that one state should decide this question for the nation. and other liberal justices were also skeptical. essentially they coalesced around the argument, liberals and conservatives that the 14th amendment really was designed to take power away from states after the civil war, particularly confederate states and so the idea that it could now impose -- a state could impose on the nation an idea that a presidential candidate could be excluded from the ballot did not seem to fly with them. of course we'll have to see exactly how this shakes out. we're also awaiting a potentially consequential gun control decision as to whether a person who committed domestic violence can legally possess a firearm. those are a couple of the big ones we're watching for. >> lisa, i want to start with the immunity kind of ruling that we're awaiting this decision,
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and that would be -- and correct me if i'm wrong here, the supreme court deciding if they're actually going to take this up. we have this decision from the d.c. circuit court. they could say we're either going to take this up or kick this back, the larger d.c. circuit court. >> i want to peel back a little bit. the actual application that trump made was solely to stay all proceedings in the lower court. now, the court can take that and convert it into essentially a petition for review by the supreme court, and there are some people who they it might. rather than going through full briefing on the question of whether to review it. right now all that's in front of them is a request by trump just stay all lower court proceedings so we can then have briefing on whether you review the case on the merits and then we can hold oral argument, and of course trump's position is you should do this in the ordinary course. you should take your time. this is extremely consequential, and what the special counsel's office is asking you to do on behalf of government is rush
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this along at a pace that is undeserving. i think there are people who are very much eager to see the supreme court resolve this decision, who would disagree with that that this is not, in fact, rushed. that this is a court and a body that is capable of acting within four days as they did in bush v. gore from the time of the florida's supreme court's decision to the u.s. supreme court decision with a briefing and oral argument and an opinion in between: that whole thing took four days, so the notion that we should spend months trying to brief this and then hold argument and then the court makes a decision in the ordinary course, jack smith's side is saying we don't have time for that. >> this is about the american people. jack smith's side is essentially saying this is about the election. he's wanting to rush it along essentially because we're inside of an election year. does that politicize his argument at all, do you think? >> i would say jack smith's argument is the public has an interest in a speedy trial, they are entitled to all the information before they cast
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their ballot. it's trump's folks who are saying they are politicizing this. they are showing an appearance of partisan misconduct here by appearing to rush this along. but again, the retort to that is we don't have a stake in the outcome one way or the other in terms of the election. we just want all the voters here to understand what it is and who it is that they're voting for before they're called upon to make that decision. >> joyce, i want to talk about the colorado ballot ruling as well, and the justices in their oral arguments and i'm sure you agree with this as well, seemed somewhat skeptical throughout that hearing, and i want to play a little bit of what we have from that and then have you react on the other side. >> for an insurrection there needs to be an organized, concerted effort to overthrow the government of the united states through violence, and this -- >> so the point is that a chaotic effort to overthrow the government is not an
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insurrection. >> we didn't concede it was an effort to overthrow the government either, justice jackson. this was a riot, it was not an insurrection, the events were shameful, criminal, violent, all those things. did not qualify as an insurrection. >> i'm just getting word in from my executive producer that it seems as if we're not get thing colorado ballot decision today or a ruling on the immunity case as well because usually these decisions drop around 10:00 a.m. two decisions did in fact drop, but neither of them obviously were the ones that we were really looking out for. joyce, if you would, react to the sound i just played for folks. >> right, so it's an important piece of sound from the argument. this is a decision that the court will make very likely on legal grounds. the issue of whether trump is an insurrectionist is a factual decision, and the colorado trial court held a five-day long hearing before making that finding. on appeal, appellate courts typically defer to factual
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findings made by the trial court because the judge who hears the evidence and sees the whites of the eyes of the witnesses is in a better position to make that sort of a decision. sometimes it's a jury. sometimes it's a judge. in this case it was a hearing before a judge, and the supreme court would only reverse that factual finding if they found that the judge really abused her discretion, really made clear error when she decided that there had been an insurrection and that trump was a part of it. now, the court could use a different definition of insurrection than the one that the trial court used, but i think that's unlikely. you know, yasmin, to ken's point, though, about our belief that the supreme court will not remove trump from the ballot, i think that that's borne out by the timing here. the colorado secretary of state asked the court to move quickly because she had to get ballots printed in time to go out for the super tuesday primary. if the court was going to remove trump, i think we would have
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seen a prompt ruling. the fact that they're continuing to let this linger suggests to me that folks reading the tea leaves are correct and trump will remain on the ballot. >> talking about timing here because we're not getting these rulings today, when could we expect to hear more about this, especially the immunity one? >> reporter: the supreme court moves at their own mysterious pace, yasmin. it's unclear. it could be any day, it could be next week. obviously there are some time pressures on this, the reality of ballots and elections looming. the justices will do what the justices will do. >> lisa, you talk about the argument being made by jack smith in this immunity case. i want to read to you from this 40-page brief that jack smith submitted in which he says a president's alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity
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from federal criminal law. what do you make of that? >> i think that's jack smith's elegant way of saying bad facts make bad law. in december he asked the supreme court to directly intervene. he wanted to leapfrog the d.c. circuit and have judge chutkan's decision immediately reviewed by the supreme court. but at this point, i think what jack smith is wary of is future repercussions here. they don't want the supreme court to make a rule about pres precedential immunity using donald trump. whatever they decide here may not necessarily be limited to the facts in front of them. if you decide, for example, that presidents have no immunity in a criminal context under any circumstances. imagine that trump is reelected and decides as he has often
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warned/threatened that will happen, that his department of justice is going to are prosecute all the people that he perceives as having been responsible for him being in this position including our current president joe biden. joe biden is not a person who has the personal resources that donald trump has. you and i could sit here and debate how much donald trump is worth, but at least we could concede he's -- >> do we really know donald trump's personal resources? and does he have much left after what's happened last week? >> not clear. but i think kurn currently right now as it stands, donald trump would have enough money to defend himself if he weren't going into the coffers of his leadership pac to pay his legal fees. >> got it. >> the question is should somebody like a joe biden who's been a public servant for decades have to defend himself on a meritless case because the supreme court decides on these facts that presidents aren't criminally immune. >> joyce, at what point is this
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immunity decision going to come down too late in which the jack smith trial doesn't happen before the election? >> yeah, it's a really good question, yasmin. this case, this appeal is more a question of timing than the result. i think everyone expects that the court will ultimately find that trump does not have absolute presidential immunity for criminal acts committed while he was in office. obviously a contrary finding would just open the door for any president including joe biden to do all sorts of things to remain in office. so that criminal issue is the timing. judge chutkan has told trump that she would guarantee him a certain amount of time to prepare for trial. that probably means that she can't set the trial any sooner than three months following the return of this case to her jurisdiction. as lisa pointed out, this is all about a stay. i think we have to add three months to the date that this appeal terminates and that means the longer the court takes, the
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closer to the election we might get. at some point she'll be out of time to get the trial in before the election itself. >> thank you for that, joyce vance, lisa rubin, ken dilanian. donald trump's latest comments about the death of alexei navalny and how he's trying to make it about himself. plus, the biden administration is leveraging new sanctions against russia over navalny's death. do they have much bite considering all the other sanctions we've unloaded on russia? we're back in just 60 b seconds. . . s . liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. that's great. i know, i've bee telling everyone. baby: liberty. oh! baby: liberty.
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how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪ 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 and a five dollar footlong cookie. every epic footlong deserves the perfect sidekick. order one with your favorite subway series sub today. welcome back, everybody. we've got three days left to go until south carolina. both candidates with their gloves off ahead of the republican primary on saturday. no matter what happens, nikki haley says she is staying in this race past the south carolina contest, even as she faces growing questions about what she hopes to accomplish. >> some people used to say i was running because i really wanted to be vice president. i think i've pretty well settled that question.
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>> well, i settled it about three months ago. everybody knows you're not supposed to lose your home state, shouldn't happen anyway. she's losing it big. i mean, really -- i said bigly and bigly too. she's losing it bigly. >> bigly. i want to bring in nbc news correspondent garrett haake, former democratic congresswoman from maryland, donna edwards and former republican congressman from florida, david jolly. give us the bigly stuff that's happened so far this morning, does it work? where are we this morning? >> well, yasmin, look, yesterday this speech from nikki haley made it clear that she's not going anywhere. she's going to stay in this race and keep fighting it out despite the fact that the math for her politically is bad in south carolina and only continues to get worse in the states that follow. but she made an argument in that speech that despite the strength donald trump has within this republican primary, she believes he is the only republican candidate who would lose to joe biden in a general election again. >> i refuse to quit.
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>> with south carolina's republican primary looming, nikki haley is vowing to fight on, even if she loses to former president donald trump on saturday. >> i'm not going anywhere. i'm campaigning every day until the last person votes. >> reporter: the former u.n. ambassador is running 28 points behind mr. trump in her home state, according to a new poll of likely south carolina voters. despite the former president's dominance, haley says mr. trump is the only candidate president biden can defeat, pointing to unnamed republicans who she says publicly embrace mr. trump even as they privately dread him. >> i feel no need to kiss the ring. i have no fear of trump's retribution. >> reporter: haley growing emotional speaking about her husband michael, a national guard officer deployed in africa, and a recent target of mr. trump's mockery.
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>> what happened to her husband? where is he? he's gone. >> i wish michael was here today, and i wish our children and i could see him tonight, but we can't. >> reporter: the former president on fox news overnight attacking haley. >> she's down by 30, 35 points, and everybody knows her, you're not supposed to lose your home state. shouldn't happen anyway, and she's losing it bigly -- big, i mean, really, i said bigly. i don't think she knows how to get out actually. >> reporter: both haley and president biden have assailed mr. trump for his refusal to condemn vladimir putin after the death of kremlin critic alexei navalny in russian custody. the former president alluding to his own legal problems. >> navalny, a very sad situation. it's a horrible thing, but it's happening in our country too. we are turning into a communist country in many ways. >> reporter: asked whether he'd
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rather face trump or haley in the general election, president biden brushing off the question. >> oh, i don't care. >> the other newsy nugget from that town hall where donald trump was asked who might be on his vp short list, he asked about six specific names, including three former rivals, vivek ramaswamy, and tim scott who got most of donald trump's praise. it's not clear to me whether that's a function of south carolina voting saturday or whether that shows scott's position in that, but there will be lots of time to figure that one out. >> i want to play that moment for folks when he was asked about a potential vp pick. let's listen. >> tim, you're better for me than you were for yourself, but he's fantastic, and he's fantastic person. >> one of them was of course vivek ramaswamy, he's made a big splash, ron desantis, tim scott, byron donald and a big presence here for tulsi gabbard.
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very interesting. and kristi noem as well i should say. are they all on your short list? >> they are. >> and when can we expect you'll announce your choice? >> the one thing that always surprises me is that the vp choice has absolutely no impact. it's whoever the president is it just seems. >> what do you make of that? pence brought some sort of political legitimacy that donald trump at the time necessarily didn't have. right? does he have a point now it's not going to have any kind of impact on his ticket and his potentialn? >> oh, absolutely. look, in 2016, the party still had questions about donald trump, even after he secured and locked up enough delegates, i believe, coming out of the indiana primary. you had people like mitch mcconnell and paul ryan say i'm not there yet. you had major republicans not
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yet endorsing their presumptive nominee, and there were a lot of questions about donald trump's fitness for office, rightly so. mike pence was that establishment religious right candidate who kind of shored up donald trump's bona fides. after four years of seeing how donald trump would reign in the white house, also after he successfully has crossed the traditional and passed orthodoxy of the republican party and re-created the party in his image, the vice presidency does not matter. i mean, i think the most distressing and telling part about the list and even those who aren't on the qualifications that are required to be his vice president. you have to an apologist for russia and vladimir putin and you have to be an election denier from 2020, and you have to say that mike pence did something wrong and you would have done something else. that is a dangerous time stamp of where we are in donald trump's republican party and where we are as a country.
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>> i'm glad you bring up this idea of being an apologist for russia. i want to revisit, congresswoman, the comments that the former president made about alexy navalny and how he's equating himself? >> even if you appeal, you got to put up escrow money. that's a lot of dough. >> it is a form of navalny. it is a form of communism or fascism. navalny, a very sad situation, and he's very brave. he was a very brave guy. that's a horrible thing, but it's happening in our country too. we are turning into a communist country in many ways and if you look at it, i'm the leading candidate. i never heard of being indicted before. >> this is a man who has publicly praised vladimir putin, who is being pointed at as being responsible for alexei navalny's death, the president has said that specifically. this is a man who has praised
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vladimir putin's policy decisions. he has called him a friend as well. what do you make of the comments he's now making about alexei navalny and putting himself in the same boat as him? >> well, first of all, there is no shame when it comes to donald trump, and these comments really -- i mean, we keep seeing things that reveal who donald trump is and these comments about equating himself with alexei navalny really reveal who he is. he's a selfish entitled man. he is an apologist for russia. in those comments he never once criticized or blamed vladimir putin. he doesn't even say his name when it comes to alexei navalny, and i think it's instructive that there are so many republicans out there going down this line of apologizing for putin. i think it was liz cheney who called them the putin apologists, and that's what the republican party has become, and donald trump is the ring leader.
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but, you know, overall, his selfishness and the idea that he also equates the united states with russia, with authoritarianism, with the, you know, cruelty of vladimir putin, and he says that that's what's happening in the united states. he fundamentally doesn't understand where we are, and he doesn't understand where the american people are. >> so david, nikki haley has now consistently now gone after donald trump, especially on his kind of foreign policy talk when he praises vladimir putin, and especially because he was kind of silent about alexei navalny i believe until just two days or so ago. what do you think her ultimate objective is for staying in this race for so long? >> that's a great question. not to be brash, but nikki haley has had zero impact on the republican primary, and she will have zero impact going forward. donald trump is running this race and winning it wire to
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wire. so why is nikki haley in? is it just that this is the capstone of her career so she's going out as the top contender to donald trump? does she have plans to retake the party in four years or is she ultimately going to entertain a no labels ticket? who knows why she's doing that. the question becomes where do her voters go, and where -- nikki haley may not have an impact in the primary, maybe she does have one in the general election because a number of nikki haley voters have said sure, i'll support trump when he's the nominee. nikki haley is giving fuel to these voters who are saying there's an alternative to trumpism. there's an alternative to this apologist approach to russia. there's an alternative to election denying. there can be a return to sober leadership domestically and abroad, and those voters are saying when nikki haley's out, i just might pull the lever for joe biden. and that is the most consequential part of the nikki haley campaign is the voters. where do her voters go. >> former congressman david
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jolly, former congresswoman donna edwards, thank you. garrett haake, thank you as well. could president biden's support for bibi netanyahu come to haunt his foreign policy, i'm going to speak to two experts calling for course direction. new details about the dual national ballerina detained in russia over allegations of treason as the u.s. shares this warning. >> if you're a u.s. citizen, including a dual national, residing in or traveling in russia, you ought to leave right now. ought to leave right now. what? i don't do that. this reminds me of my bike. the wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. have you sereally? look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank. -hey! -hey! brought my plus-one. jamie?
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we are back with some breaking news out of washington, everybody. moments ago the president's brother james arriving on capitol hill. he is set to testify about his business dealings. it's part of a house republican impeachment inquiry into the president. we're going to have much more on that later on this hour. first, though, we have new details this morning about another american detained in russia. ksenia car lena, a 33-year-old ballerina who lived in los angeles is a dual national and is now being held in russia on suspicion of raising funds to support ukraine. the white house saying it cannot comment on her case, but that it's dangerous for any u.s. citizen to be in russia right now. that warning as the white house also says it will impose new sanctions on russia tomorrow in response to the death of opposition leader alexy navalny.
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i want to bring in richard engel to talk more about this. you have new sanctions here, richard, you have another american now held in russian custody, more pressure on the u.s. to aid ukraine as well. have we reached an inflection point with u.s. and russia relations? >> reporter: well, inflection point would suggest that it is about to change or could go to a new -- a new place. i'm not sure that it is, but we've certainly seen much more tension right now. you mentioned this case of the latest dual national who was picked up in russia, ksenia. she was -- is accused of treason. she faces a potentially long prison term. she was brought into the courtroom. she wasn't just detained recently. she was detained several weeks ago. she was brought into the courtroom, first appearance
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shackled, blindfolded with a hat pulled over her eyes. according to her former employer in the united states, she's accused of having raised money for ukraine where i am right now, which russia would consider an enemy state, does consider an enemy state. that's why they're charging her with treason. we're talking about $51 according to her former employer. that's how much she's accused of having donated to ukraine. so a nothing amount, and i think it goes to the tension here that the fact that she was brought out in court, just a few days ago we had the -- a judge, another judge in russia reject an appeal by evan gershkovich, the journalist who has been long imprisoned in russia, and the biden administration is preparing to announce more sanctions. the eu just announced sanctions on russia today on nearly 200 individuals and entities that
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are connected to procuring weapons for russia. the uk also announced sanctions on prison officials at the penal colony in siberia where alexei navalny died mysteriously late last week. we're seeing aggressive moves from the biden administration, from europe, from the uk as well, so is it an inflection point? i don't know, but it certainly a very -- a period of extraordinary tension where the diplomatic gloves and niceties certainly have come off. >> held in russian detention for just $51. unbelievable. richard engel, thank you. appreciate it. i want to move now to the israel-hamas war. the u.n.'s top court in the hague hearing a second day of arguments about the israeli occupation of palestinian territories one day after the u.s. vetoed a u.n. resolution calling for an immediate cease fire in gaza. also, these global concerns are mounting about a looming israeli
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offensive into the city of rafah with aid groups warning civilians they have nowhere left to go. i want to bring in ambassador alon pinkas and david roth kot who is a columnist for "the daily beast." together they wrote a piece about the u.s. response to the war, how one error may haunt biden's foreign policy legacy. welcome to you both. ambassador, let me start with you on this one and part of what you both write, the biden administration's initial mistake was embracing a dangerous, profoundly unreliable foreign leader bibi netanyahu who heads a reckless and extremist government. the secondary error that the biden team is making after the catastrophic consequences of its policy it's seeking to fix the mistake, not by undoing it, but by augmenting its policy with
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incremental measures. is it too late at this point for course correction, ambassador? >> no, not at all. not at all. just needs to be done. you know, in biden's credit or in biden's defense rather and the administration's credit, they have warned against the government, this government as early as december of '22 when mr. netanyahu formed it, and when he launched a constitutional coup to install an authoritarian system throughout 2023, biden was lived and outspoken more than once and, in fact, reframed from inviting mr. netanyahu to washington. then the war broke out in october, and that obviously is the topic of our conversation and the topic of david and my article. no, it's not late at all. once the biden administration realizes, a, the basic argument that they may have, you know,
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hedged their bets wrongly in thinking that if you hug netanyahu, if you embrace netanyahu, you will thus have more leverage, and that's been proven wrong, and once they realize he may be taking them for a ride in terms of the grand plan, the so-called biden doctrine for the middle east and we'll sort of say yes and then water down the plan, and then again say reluctant, yes, and the administration would be content and happy and mistakenly think that they reeled them in, which they most certainly will not, then they can correct the course. >> david, you talk about how this is a tried and trusted foreign policy team. you go so far as to say this may be the best ever in history in who we're dealing with from the secretary of state to the president himself. president biden has had as we all know a very long relationship with benjamin netanyahu. he knows exactly who he is.
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you write, netanyahu had absolutely zero meaningful incentive to suck come to u.s. entreaties or admonitions. he's a liar, exploiter and malignant narcissist, just like his u.s. political ally trump. is this something you feel they overlooked going into this? >> they either overlooked it or down played it too much. everybody who knows benjamin netanyahu knows his track record, knew that he would take advantage of the u.s. but behind the scenes and in public, ultimately contradict u.s. policy. he doesn't want a two-tate solution. he does not want peace. he does not want an investigation into the real origins of this war because he would be seen as responsible. he does not want the war to end because it will allow him to ta
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-- stay in power. each one of these things runs against u.s. interest as does blocking humanitarian aid, as does not taking sufficient care with regard to civilian lives. and so we say, alon and i say, we have to acknowledge and we can't take small steps away from it. we have to restore certain core principles, like the principle that all aid is conditional. the president has aid in this case it is not, but it must be. we can't support all israeli activities all circumstances, even if we want to support many of them and continue to show our support for the israeli people. and so this requires an acknowledgment that where we have come thus far is wrong, and it requires us to make these measures publicly including, as we both suggest, the president going to the people of israel directly because he's probably the most popular politician in israel and make his case to
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them, go around netanyahu just as in the past -- >> david, make his case to them about the leadership of israel? make his case to them about a two-state solution? make his case to them on what? and why is it the president's responsibility to do that? >> well, it's the president's opportunity to do that because the president can help take advantage of the fact that israeli public opinion runs heavily againstnetanyahu, and i think that he can explain why the united states supports a two-state solution, why the united states seeks not just the return of hostages and the end of hamas, which of course we all seek, but new leadership for hamas and to directly imply we need new leadership in the palestinian authority and new leadership in the israeli government. he's got to take the reins out of the hands of netanyahu and stop giving him opportunities
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to upend u.s. policy and interests in the region. >> ambassador, david just spoke about conditional aid. aid is not conditional to israel, and correct me if i'm wrong, it's never been -- there's never been conditions attached to the aid that the u.s. provides israel. what is the likelihood -- what is the likelihood they would change course on that? they would change policy course on that? >> well, it is conditional in that all foreign aid must be consistent and compliant with american law. there are some members of congress who wish to make it also consistent with international law. but i need to emphasize one thing. i'm israeli, david is american, you're american. joe biden is obviously american. i don't want the president to pressure israel. i don't want military aid to be conditional. all i want is for israel to be more in line and more aligned with american interests because
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american interests and american success are by extension israel's interests and israel's successes. so what we're looking at here both david and i is a prime minister who went astray in terms of how attentive he is and how careful he is not to infringe on american interests. what the administration is doing right now is what david just suggested and that is down playing it. now, i think that if you -- you know, if you put it in capsule form, yasmin, the president's love for israel until now outweighed his disdain for mr. netanyahu. it's time to mow balance the two. >> ambassador alon pinkas, thank you. david roth kot, thank you as well: the recent contacts and fbi informant indicted for lying about president biden and his son hunter is alleged to have
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politicians... "he's bad. i'm good." blah, blah. let's shake things up. with katie porter. porter refuses corporate pac money. and leads the fight to ban congressional stock trading. katie porter. taking on big banks to make housing more affordable. and drug company ceos to stop their price gouging. most politicians just fight each other. while katie porter fights for you. for senate - democrat katie porter. i'm katie porter and i approve this message. all right, welcome back. so right now on capitol hill, the president's brother james testifying about his business dealings as part of house republicans' impeachment push into the president. that hearing comes as we're learning new details about a witness central, by the way, to this impeachment inquiry, key really to this impeachment inquiry. a former fbi informant who has
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now been indicted for lying to the fbi about the president, and his son hunter who was in federal court late yesterday. nbc investigative correspondent tom winter is joining us now with more on this, alexander smirnov, he is central to this impeachment inquiry launched by the republicans here. and now we're learning of possible discussions, conversations he had with russian intelligence. >> i think we can remove the word possible because when he was taken into custody by the fbi when he was arrested on valentine's day, he told them, in fact, according to yesterday's detention memo that, yes, the information i've been pushing around about business person number one, who we know to be hunter biden is, in fact, from russian intelligence. that's what he told the fbi. so i think at this point you can remove the word possible from that sentence. >> it's happening. >> i think with respect to republicans, there's a number of different things that they've looked at and they've talked about and when they expand the show to three hours, we could
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probably cross all of them. that's not meant to be derogatory, there's just a lot that they've put out there. but as far as this, this was the thing they had that drew then vice president biden and hunter biden and a foreign business entity together and the allegation here, at least the recording from this individual, smirnov is there was an nexus, an official act in exchange for cash. now that's completely gone away according to federal prosecutors. they said look at the time line of what he was telling us back then versus what he's telling us now and put together these various meetings and what he's told us, it's very clear this individual was passing information that wasn't true. a couple of things to keep an eye on here is what was going on with respect to congress, who told them about this raw reporting from this person. this wasn't included in any sort of official indictment or anything like that. >> who was the initial contact, we don't know that. >> right, so who was telling congress that this individual
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existed and this was the information he's funneling. i think that's an important question. >> i can i ask you one last thing, something you and i were talking about when we came from commercial break, what this really kind of underscores. we saw the death of alexei navalny, we're hearing about this and the lengths to which russia will go to to infiltrate these various investigations. we see this ballerina in custody for possibly $51 in which she was trying to raise for ukraine. what does this tell you? >> we need to understand that russia operating completely differently from us. they have the benefit of time. they are not worried about election cycles. they are not worried about who said what on "morning joe" this morning, they are not at all concerned about it. their primary focus in everything they do is for the domestic audience. that's the first thing we need understand based on my years of reporting for them. and they'll adapt. things aren't going so well in ukraine, we'll throw more soldiers on it and try to come around to it a different way. we need to try to continue to influence u.s. elections.
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let's see if this guy can get information funneled through the fbi to congress. all different sorts of permutations there. they're not done. >> they find a way in. tom winter, thank you. coming up next, golden state senate showdown. who made the biggest impact in california's final primary debate last night and could a former l.a. dodger, the soul republican in the race, come out of left field, and upset the race? we'll be rk. of left field, and e race we'll be right back. rsv can seriously impact breathing, even for the best performer. protect yourself with pfizer's abrysvo... ...a vaccine to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older.
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all right, welcome back. want to get fight for california's open senate seat. four candidates duked it out on stage last night in the final debate before the march 5th primary. for the late senator dianne feinstein's seat. i want to bring in steve patterson in los angeles to talk more about this. give us the big moments from last night. >> reporter: this is one of those jungle primaries. the top two candidates in march regardless of party affiliation move on to this knockdown, dragout battle in november.
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what is happening is the experts say a lot of this is beholden to the mechanics of the race. adam schiff is by far the front-runner in the latest poll, polling at 28%, he's raised more money than anybody else, he spent a lot of that money attacking the guy in second place, who just happens to be the republican political novice and dodgers legend steve garvey and a lot of the experts watching this are saying that is being cynically done because what he's doing is raising garvey's profile, making sure he's shored up that republican consolidated vote, which is great for garvey. the guy only raised about $600,000, he could be that second person in november except for the fact that republican, the electorate is only about a quarter of the electorate in the state. so what we have is a lot of people following their battle plan, making sure they're not offending their bases, and sort of reintroducing themselves. here's what we saw last night. take a look. >> a dysfunctional washington needs a leader like myself, a new face with new ideas. >> i know you, i see you, i want
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to work for you in the united states senate to make life better for you. i know what it takes to fix our democracy and to protect our democracy. >> i am running to shake it up. i'm not going to offer you the status quo because the status quo has been unacceptable and not enough for millions of americans. >> senator feinstein was a giant in this state, because she had the ability to take on the big fights, but she also had the ability to get things done. she worked with people throughout the state of california to deliver for californians everywhere. this is what i'm going to bring to the senate. >> reporter: and that's not to say the candidates didn't spar on immigration and the war in ukraine, and the war in israel. and it is not to say there wasn't some sparring on campaign donations, but did it move the needle? this race is getting very late. yasmin? >> steve patterson, thank you. coming up in our next hour, everybody, new comments from donald trump about something he's calling migrant crime. we're back after a short break. stay with us. igrant crime we're back after a short break stay with us
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