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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  March 20, 2017 10:00pm-11:01pm PDT

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topping this hour in 360. in washington, new security restrictions on certain flights coming into the country. the reason behind them, they'll take effect tomorrow. so what exactly is this new ban involving? >> officials telling me that the trump administration is preparing to make this announcement that specific flights from certain regions, namely the middle east and africa that have direct flights
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to the united states will have new security measures, and we're told that will mean that passengers getting on board those flights will not be allowed any electronics larger than your cell phone in the cabin of the plane. >> so you have to check the bags. if you have a computer or anything larger than a cell phone or tablet, you would have to check that. >> right. it would have to go into the belly of the aircraft. this is for flights coming from very specific countries in the middle east and africa with direct, non-stop service to the united states. >> do we know what prompted dhs to make the change? >> they are not saying much on the record. barbara starr, from her pentagon sources telling her they believe this ban is related to al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, aqap. they also know that aqap has actively been trying to build these undetectable-type explosives and get them on board a commercial aircraft. they also know that after that yemen raid that happened
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recently, they gleaned some additional information that contributed to their ongoing concern about aqap's effort to create these undetectable explosives and here we are. >> they have had sophisticated bomb makers. they were able to put a device in a printer. >> that's the concern. you may have airports that don't have the checks and balances that we have in the united states. perhaps, if aqap has moved forward with their bomb making they could perhaps get past the controls at some of these airplanes. >> thank you. appreciate it. now the hearings that electrified this town and much of the country, james comey testifying before the house intelligence committee and revealing for the first time that the question of ties between trump associates and russia is the subject of a criminal probe. our criminal justice correspondent has been covering this.
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let's talk about the wiretapping claim, explain what the fbi director's message was on that. >> the fbi director did not mince words when he said there is no information in the fbi or justice department to support president trump's claim ton twitter that his phones were wiretapped under the order of president obama. now, at the time, when those tweets went out, director comey wanted doj to publicly refute the claim, which we know didn't happen. the director seized on the opportunity today and put himself at odds with the white house which continues to stand by this claim. in that context, this is an extraordinary rebuke. >> about the ongoing investigation, however did the director go? >> he acknowledged for the first time that the fbi's investigating possible coordination between the russian government and the trump
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administration. it was in the same time frame that carter page visited moscow to give a speech. that visit has been under scrutiny by the fbi. page claims he went as a private citizen and did nothing wrong. the fbi is looking into repeated contacts between paul manafort and the russians and michael flynn's contacts. investigators are trying to determine whether they unwittingly or wittingly worked with russians in some capacity to try to influence the election. of course they've all strongly denied any wrongdoing, anderson. >> both republicans and democrats on the committee today focussed on different topics. >> yeah, it was certainly a partisan hearing, with democrats focussing on collusion with trump campaign associates and russians. and the republicans focussing on whether it was a crime regarding michael flynn.
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at one point a congressman insinuated former obama appointees could be the source of the leaks without providing any evidence. it's clear both sides of the aisle had their own agendas today. >> pam brown, thanks. in kentucky there's a rally. jeff zeleny is there for us where the president finished speaking a short time ago. i understand i didn't have anything directly to say about comey's testimony. >> reporter: anderson, he didn't. it was a rare moment of restraint by this president when he had a rally of some 20,000 people or so, the true believers cheering him, supporting him on, and he did not mention all the events of a consequential day in washington. now we've not seen his white house shying away from any of this is at all. sean spicer was going aggressively after the fact that there's any news in this at all. he said there simply isn't a
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change in this, but at the end of this day as pamela was just reporting, the fbi confirmed it's investigating him. this is one of the only times i can think of that the president decided to stick to that teleprompter and not go after something that clearly is hanging over them so aggressively. >> it was fascinating at the white house that they basically didn't try to walk back or qualify the president's allegations of wiretapping by the obama administration at all. >> reporter: no, they didn't. and the reality is, you have the fbi director is really one of the last people standing in washington except the president himself, who says there's simply no evidence of this at all. sean spicer is saying, look, there should be more investigation of this. this is not finished. congress needs to keep looking into it. but at the same time, they're not hopeful or eager for a widening investigation into the actual merits of the russian probe. that is what, you know, the house and senate intelligence
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committees started looking at before this shiny object happened about 16 or 17 days ago or so. but the white house clearly trying to pivot tonight. it's one of the reasons that the president, flying back to washington as we speak, with mitch mcconnell, he wanted to talk about health care. the first vote comes on thursday. even though they want to change the subject, the russian subject is sticking with him for as long as we can see coming. >> jeff zeleny, thank you very much. we'll hear from leon panetta, coming up. and experts weigh in on moscow's potential motives in all this. t. well, a 103 yeah, 103. well, let me ask you guys. how long did it take you two to save that? a long time. then it's a fortune. well, i'm sure you talk to people all the time who think $100k is just pocket change. right now we're just talking to you.
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he served as white house chief of staff in the clinton administration. secretary panetta, you heard director comey testify that the fbi has no information to back up president trump's accusation that then president obama wiretapped him. but the white house is standing by their claim. can you make sense of their position at this point? >> no, it's difficult to make sense of this insistence that despite all of the facts, despite the findings of the house intelligence committee, the senate intelligence committee and today director comey's testimony that there's absolutely no evidence to substantiate that allegation. why the white house would continue to persist boggles the mind. i just think it's, you know, it really does affect the credibility of the president of the united states to insist that something that is totally untrue
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is somehow true in his own mind. and i just think it's hurting his ability to deal with all of the other issues he's got to confront as president. >> also for the white house, for their official presidential twitter page today to tweet out just a blatant falsehood, suggesting that what comey said is that there was no evidence that russia influenced the election process, which is not at all what he testified to. they were talking about voting, russians going after voting machines, getting into voting machines in various states, which there's no evidence of at all. but the idea that they might not have influenced the election process, that simply was not the testimony. >> anderson, i think the fact that the president continues to tweet out whatever he thinks is just, it's irresponsible of the president to do that.
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you know, he's not, he's not a teenager. he's not somebody who's just tweeting for the fun of it. he happens to be the president of the united states of america. and very frankly, when you're president of the united states of america you have to be very careful about what you say to the american people and to the world. i just think that that kind of behavior is, again, impacting his credibility as president. >> and we should point out, we're not even sure if he tweeted that or if it was from somebody else, because it was on the white house official twitter page. there was also confirmation from director comey that the fbi is looking at coordination between the trump campaign and the russian government, including possible criminal acts. the republicans point to james clapper who said he saw no evidence of such coordination by the time he left before the inauguration january 20th th. clapper put out a statement today saying he wasn't aware of any intelligence gathered after that.
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do husband -- his comments give you any thoughts of if there's any fire there? >> we're in a highly politicized moment on this issue, where almost any word is going to be interpreted either by the republicans or by the democrats. i really think everybody needs to take a deep breath and allow this investigation to proceed. i think it is, it's important that the director of the fbi indicated that he is going to pursue an investigation on the russian issue and the russian hacking and the influence that they tried to implement in our election and the possibility of collusion with the trump campaign. i think we ought to stand back, not jump to any conclusions, but allow that investigation to proceed. >> you know, talking about partisanship, this committee
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today, it was like there were two different committees, democrats and republicans asking completely different questions. the democrats at times were talking about stuff that's on that dossier, which we're not reporting on, the details of it. republicans focussing primarily seemed about on leaks. in terms of leaks and who's behind them, should that be as an important part of this investigation as the republicans on the committee want to make them? >> well, obviously, the director of the fbi indicated that he is investigating those leaks and as well as i'm sure the intelligence agencies are investigating them as they should. and ultimately, they, too, will ultimately reach a conclusion as to whether or not there was somebody responsible for those leaks. >> secretary panetta, always enjoy talking to you. >> thank you, anderson. >> we bring our panel back.
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phil mudd, mary katherine ham, dana bash, and mike rogers, kiersten powers, paul bigala and jack kingston. chairman rogers, you know the house intelligence committee quite well as former chairman. what did you make of today's hearing? >> i thought it was a swing and a miss for a couple of problems. one, we never talked about why the russians engaged in any way, shape, or form in an operation to influence american election, it was a bad idea. the democrats took their track of laying out in the court of public opinion why they felt certain trump officials were guilty and trump was guilty, that wasn't the purpose of the hearing. and the republicans spent a lot of time talking about the leaks themselves. so i thought it was a real loss to the american public, where they could have been schooled or educated or at least exposed to information that they might not be familiar with about how
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aggressive the russians have been and are. >> there were some questions about sort of russian strategy, disinformation and things like that. >> clearly, if you look at the news cycle, that was not the news, that just wasn't the headlines. and i think it's important that americans understand exactly what the russians are up to. i mean, the big winner in today's hearing? vladimir putin. we've communicated to our adversaries and allies overseas that he has this outside, this big, national world figure, where before, i mean, this is a guy who was losing about ten years ago, and now it looks like he's winning around the world. and that's a dangerous thing. >> for folks who don't spend a lot of time watching hearings, it does seem incredibly polarized. republicans asked about leaks. democrats asked all about russia, and it seemed like there were two different committees. >> two different committees, two different hearing, different goals. the republicans, and you saw
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devin nunez who has now taken your job as intelligence chair try to focus on leaks at the top and the bottom of the hearing, whereas the democrats, their focus, obviously was to try to connect dots that frankly aren't connectible yet. we just don't know the answer yet. >> they were relying on that dossier at certain points. >> that's true. it's unfortunate, because there could have been a lot more discussed about what happened, why things happened but it was almost irrelevant what the members of congress asked based on the explosive headlines that we heard from the fbi director himself with regard to not just the idea that the president was flat wrong when he said that trump tower was wiretapped by his predecessor. not just that oh, by the way, i'm formally saying that i'm actually, that the fbi is actually investigating, but also
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saying that there's a real problem with accusing the british intelligence of doing what they did and so on. >> david, do you really believe today was crossing the rubicon in a way. >> i do. i think that especially on the president's credibility. because it was such a nascent example of someone who went out and slimed his predecessor and was called on it. and my good friend mike, i must tell you, i didn't think putin won today. i think the united states came out better, because it shows you're going to be held accountable in our system. the president was taken into account for lying about the wiretapping, and now whatever, we have an investigation under way, a serious investigation under way with the fbi for people meddling in our elections. i do think what adam schiff, i thought his opening statement was one of the highlights of the whole thing, but he went to where you want to go, and that is, give us the pattern that the
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russians engage in. and then he said, now let's talk about the people who have been involved with this. don't they come close to fitting a pattern? i thought that committee could have another full day or two on what the russians are up to, how they do it, where they go. bringing the french after their elections, bring in the germans after their elections and really understand what the russians are trying to do. >> are they held accountable? >> no, i think the americans are held accountable. >> they focus so much on trump officials and not so much on the russians and whether or not they should be hold accountable and whether or not more sanctions should be in place. >> i really think the committee did not come out ahead. when mike was chairman, you guys always met behind closed doors. we never knew quite what you were up to, but we respected it, and it was a bipartisan committee. today it boiled down to politics. a question that i would like to know is who was, who won when general flynn had to resign?
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was that a victory for russia? did they pop corks over there and say we got rid of the son of a gun by cleverly releasing the discussion? there was no kind of -- what really happened here? general flynn had to resign. is somebody celebrating. >> was there a motivation to get him out? those are the kind of topics that were not discussed today. >> there should be stuff done in private. for example, the criminal investigation should be conducted in private and not leaked as it was with hillary clinton. congress has oversight issues. it's why so many want to see a non-partisan, 9/11 commission, looking at the policy. the policy. what is russia, why has our president undermined nato. why does our president deny russia being in ukraine at all and accept the annexation of crimea?
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why does he say we're not -- >> that sounds very nonpartisan. >> every one of those questions. >> why should we hate somebody we disagree with. like paul begala. >> it's a very big deal. >> i think it's fair to say the democrats could have done more in terms of talking about the leaks. but we all know that leaks happen in washington all the time, good or bad. a lot of people would say that's bad. what doesn't happen all the time is russia trying to interfere with the election. you could argue that one of these two things is really a little more momentous than the other, and the fact that the republicans didn't seem to have any interest in it at all is concerning. >> i'm sort of team deep breath with secretary panetta. the good news is there is an investigation that the fbi is doing and the it's their job to do that. and so -- and they're actually fairly decent at it. so i think it actually is better
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to have that conclude and to have it be a clear conclusion instead of this like leak competition we have going on, which doesn't inform the public and does not help. and as far as the credibility issue goes, i agree with you on trump, but there is this part, too, where the american public goes, look, they were reading the "new york times" magazine piece where ben rhodes is bragging to america about the iran deal, and they're like, wait a second, we had a credibility issue before, which is one of the reasons they let trump slide. >> i'm a cia guy here. everybody lost. vladimir putin lost. he believes if trump wins, maybe we can gain some leverage. the president has less leverage to move on russia now than he did a couple months ago, the american people lost. the next time the president tweets, if we have a disaster, as we will, regarding terrorism on american soil, and the president says isis is responsible, people like me are going to say, i don't trust the president's credibility. final point. the american people lose on the electoral process.
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at some point the fbi has to come back and say were people involved with the republican party involved in the disrupting the electoral process? we can't let that die. we need answers. we'll take a quick break and focus on these russia questions with a pair of experts. more on how sean spicer tended to refute what james comey said today on capitol hill.
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white house efforts to discredit or discount the revelations at the hearing today start add with tweets from the
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official presidential tweet. it started with the president's personal one and then the official one which comey debunked in realtime. then sean spicer said it's not true, and at the same time when it comes to the wiretap allegations, sean spicer said the jury is still out. he also went onto talk about the leaks and the obama administration. >> director comey told the house intelligence committee that certain political appointees in the obama administration had access to the names of unmasked citizens. such as senior white house officials, senior intelligence officials. before president obama left office michael flynn was unmasked and then illegally his identity was leaked out to media outlets. despite the fact that as the nsa
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director said unmasking and revealing individuals endangers national security. >> that press conference afterward was just fascinating. spicer saying paul manafort had little to do with the campaign and was only there for a short amount of time. paul manafort ran the campaign. >> i've said this a couple times before, but i think it bears repeating. we've probably all worked with sean spicer and knew him in his former life. and that is not the kind of work that we know that he has done in terms of speaking the truth. i mean, he is so wrapped around the -- >> like the stories of richard simmons being trapped in his house. [ laughter ] like what do you, it's like he's a hostage. i knew sean spicer, he was a nice guy. i don't know who that person is. >> he wanted this job. he's very dedicated. >> he's got new suits. >> he's got really nice new suits, a very famous person playing him on "saturday night live."
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but when it comes to what his job is, it's to make sure that the president is okay with his performance that he gives every day, and for sean spicer, the white house spokesman for president trump, that means to have reality, what's happening in the real world and then what he says from the white house podium. >> there was an article in the post or the times saying spicer speaking, according to a reporter watching the news conference every day, the president sets a time aside in the schedule to watch the briefing. >> it's must-see tv in the oval office. >> they've turned it into the worst job in washington. normally they are attached to reality, the press secretary. but here you're through the looking-glass, and you're having to get orders from somebody about what you're going to go
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out there and say, and you never know what you're expected to say, because you're always expected to say whatever served the president well, not what's true. and you get lost in that world. this must be a nightmare for him in some internal way. he's going to have ptsd after this is over. >> i've known sean a long time, he's a tough guy. and i now "saturday night live" wants to think they're getting him excited. he's a very animated person. he would be telling paul how great texas a&m is. that's the way he talks. >> we can talk about that. >> but that's the way he talks. but the other thing is as republicans, we know that the media world isn't exactly the home court for donald trump or anything donald trump. and so, when he goes out there, day after day, he knows that no matter what trump does, he's going to be pounded by it. >> congressman, you would never, ever get out there and say oh, i'm sorry? paul manafort? he just had a small role in the campaign. i mean, come on. that's one example that is so not real.
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>> i heard it reported tonight he joined the campaign in march or april. i had no idea of that. i believed it was corey lewandowski until may. if somebody asked me, i would say that's correct. he came in essentially to do the delegates at the cleveland convention. it was a short-lived stint. >> do we have the video? >> and i would say this about paul manafort. did you see the statement he issued? it was very, it was unequivocal. i have had nothing to do with this, anything suggestion is absurd. >> nothing to do with the campaign. >> that's what we're talking about. >> if you're the least bit guilty, you don't go out there and issue the kind of statement he did today. i have it. we'll pull it up. >> i want to play a video. at a certain point, i feel like we were all there. we met paul manafort, he was running the campaign.
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if only we had a video of some of paul manafort's appearances on tv or references to them. we do. let's look at them. >> i have fantastic people. paul manafort just came on. he's great. >> paul was amazing. he helped us get through the primary process. >> i brought paul in pause smart friend of mine who knew him well said he is fantastic. >> paul manafort remains as our chairman. >> mr. manafort. >> brings a professional in like paul, helped us grow the campaign. >> everything that paul did for the campaign was one less thing i had to do. >> paul manafort. >> he was fired. >> very small. >> very limited role. >> you said i was fired. doesn't mean he didn't have a role. >> he had a role, it was short-lived. i think you guys are picking on my man sean. >> let me tell you something. we went in with questions, whether you're a democrat or republican, saying there's a
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legitimate debate about immigration in this country, about the iran nuclear deal. there's a debate about health care reform. and we have a man who comments about how many people showed up at his party. he screws up the initial, the initial program on immigration, and now he's claiming that the british were involved that hacking, and supporting the former president to wiretap his building. i think americans are saying, and polling supports this. we have interesting debates. the president represents. this other stuff let me be clear. wtf, enough with the twitter. get on with the program. enough. that's what i see. >> it was the democrats who brought the brits into the debate today. just to remind everybody. >> the problem is not spicer, okay? everybody likes sean spicer. he's destroying his career, i couldn't care less. he's destroying the credibility of the united states of america, though, and there's a moment when the president will use the words "on my order."
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that means i am launching. i am deploying. and by god, we have to believe our president and white house when he says that. and that's what sean and the president are killing. >> believe me. we're going to take a quick break. the senate intelligence committee is also looking into the wiretap claims of trump. and possible ties to the associates with russia. you're going to hear from the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee next. ou e last quarter... it's no wonder everything seems a little better with the creamy taste of philly, made with no artificial preservatives, flavours or dyes. made with no artificial preservatives, at crowne plaza we know business travel isn't just business. there's this. 'a bit of this. why not? your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we're all business, mostly. like paperless, multi-car,e and safe driver, that help them save on their car insurance. any questions?
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well, it was a remarkable day on capitol hill with president trump being rebuked by the head of the nsa, all of this happened during the questioning about president trump's wiretap claims. next week, the senate committee is going to hold its own hearing seeking answers. i spoke to the chairman before airtime. senator warner, comey says there is no evidence that president trump was wiretapped. as far as you're concerned is the issue put to bed now? the white house doesn't seem to think it is. >> i would hope so. we've had the intelligence committee in the house, democrat and republican intelligence committee in the senate, democrat and republican, we've had the fbi director all say the president's tweet was untrue. and i wish they would get over it and move on. and then what we've done is rather than apologize to
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president obama, we see the administration continue to kind of be in this hole and dig a deeper hole when they've now had some of them attack our most loyal ally, great britain. and you've seen the amount of outrage that created in the uk. >> do you think they should apologize to great britain and president obama? >> i absolutely do. it is, i think this president needs to understand that words or tweets for that matter. they matter when you're president of the united states. you can't go about and make reckless claims that perhaps he could do in business or he's done as a candidate. you can't do that as president of the united states. we have the intelligence community. and i was happy to see, again, both democrats and republicans come out. you had fbi director comey who from the very first said this was a spurious claim, and, again, the white house, you know, when you're in a hole, stop digging. but this white house doesn't seem to get that message.
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>> were you at all surprised to hear how far the fbi director went, to confirm the existence of the investigation into possible links between the trump campaign and the russian government. it seemed that not even the chair of the committee was told until a few weeks ago. >> i've been aware of some of this information. that's why i said this investigation is the most important thing i've taken on in my career. we know the russians massively tried to interfere why our election. they hacked and released information on a selective pay sis to help one candidate over another. there were literally 1,000 internet trolls. this could overwhelm some of the search engines and people were getting selected fake news that would come up with russian propaganda. and now we have a series of investigations, and it seems like from just the intelligence committee, it feels like almost
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every week there's another cloud that emerges, and, you know, the administration can't have it both ways. if they say they've done nothing, then they should cooperate with this investigation, because this cloud is now definitely hanging over everything this administration's done. >> there is such a partisan divide in the meeting today. it almost seemed like there were two separate hearings going on, one aimed at collusion between russia and the trump wane, and the other focussed on leaks. is the same divide present on your committee as well? >> we've had a very broad bipartisan approach. i am very proud of my republican colleagues who have been adamant in public and in private that we're going to follow the intel wherever it leads. >> does it concern you that the white house in the midst of the hearing today, on the president's official twitter account put out information which completely
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mischaracterized what director comey said and still has not taken it down. >> anderson, every day and week i think i'm not going to get more surprised by what this administration does, but boy, oh, boy, every day and week there's a new surprise. this is not the way you operate. i heard some of the comments today, in effect dismissing the role that paul manafort played in the campaign. this is the guy that was campaign manager for months during the campaign. >> he didn't have a big role. >> i just don't get it when the fact, you know, i think the role of the media in terms of getting out facts is more important than ever. and all of us as americans have to be a little more discerning. i'm not here to relitigate the election. i'd like president trump to do well. but by using and misusing his twitter account and his
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spokesman, you know, my concern is what happens when there is an actual national crisis, what happens when he may have to take action against north korea or some other threat, and the only source of that information is coming from a white house spokesman or a presidential twitter account that has proven to be more often wrong than right. >> senator mark warner, thank you very much. >> thank you, anderson. >> that was taped earlier today. just ahead, at today's house intelligence committee hearing, james comey outlined why russia took steps to hurt hillary clinton. and what they stand to gain or lose. the first eye drop approved for the signs and symptoms of dry eye. one drop in each eye, twice a day. common side effects include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when applied to the eye, and an unusual taste sensation. do not touch the container tip to your eye or any surface.
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a short time ago, president trump rapped up a rally in louisville. without mentioning the extraordinary hearing on capitol hill testifying before the house intelligence committee james comey debunked the wiretapping claims. here's what director comey said about russia's reasons for potentially meddling. >> the conclusion that active measures were taken specifically to help president trump's campaign, you had that by early
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december. you already had that conclusion? >> correct. that they wanted to hurt our democracy, hurt her, help him. putin hated secretary clinton so much that the flip side of that coin was he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated so much. as the summer went on and the polls appeared to show secretary clinton was going to win, the russians sort of gave up . >> director comey could not say how long investigations are going to last. certainly a lot to discuss. steven, can you explain why? we heard from comey why putin's view of proximate cause donald trump would be preferable to
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hillary clinton? >> if you look at candidate trump visavy russia, i heard that most russians who want to be part of crimea -- so purely on the basis of what his positions were, it seemed to make sense if putin had to choose, it seems he would go with trump. >> they were unusually lud in their intervention. it's almost as if they didn't care if we knew. it was very noisy. their intrusions in different institutions. >> i thought that was
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fascinating. >> it struck me because i haven't heard it said that way. i mean you usually think the russians are going to be sneaky about any type of spying, intervention, whatever. here he's saying its noisy. so you ask yourself why. i mean there's many reasons but it can bead one in which they're saying hey, we can do this. look at us. >> and it's a message to us. >> well, to other agencies across the united states. and as comey later went onto say, it's a way of creating some chaos and kind of getting people very disturbed by the fact that the russians were, you know, involved in our election. which would make people very fearful and think, gee, if the russians can do this what else can they do? >> so what we've been told is
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throughout the summer there's a lot of uncertainty that the u.s. is picking up a lot of intercepts. within the kremlin, within the government what do we do? should we go through with this, how can we influence the election? they probably saw at the end of the campaign, trump was going to lose. if you're looking around and if that was russia's goal wrash to create chaos, you have a complete division there. and you really do have americans at odds over these issues. so you've got to think what we've succeeded -- >> so do you think this is victory to russia? >> yeah, i think this is victory on different levels. they're probably happy right now, putin and others in russia. i'm like, okay, if we can get
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anything out of that that's great. but then you look at what you get out of it. well, let's give it a shot. what's to lose? if you give a shot and think oh, it's probably not going to work out and then it actually did work out. and on top of this now you've got this -- chaos might be too strong of a word. but it's the gift that keeps on giving win after win. >> and you also have a white house which has alienated the british by bringing in the -- >> and the germans. >> yeah, and the germans. >> i was checking in today, rt, which is russian tv, their international brought casting did not cover it live. i went into rt, tried to do the search for trump. one of the stories was actually
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insulting and making fun of the coverage out in tweeterville about him and what he said about president obama taping, you know, wiretapping. and it was mocking trump. this is not good. but i think they do not know where this is going. their idea perhaps that this would all work out and sanctions would be ended -- it's not working out. >> i heard you say that president trump's unpredictably is kind of fueling concern in russia. >> you kind of stumble into the success. but you're doing this to undermine american predictability. you now need to strat jz around this. you don't know what the
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adversary is going to do, how do you strat jz this? >> if president trump had wanted to change policies towards russia the question is now can he -- i mean is that something his administration can even do? >> there's no policy. that's the problem. and what policy or pronouncements are out there, there's really contradictary. you have the president saying one thing. you've tillerson saying another. it's very incoherent. and i don't think they really understand and nobody does, what is the policy. >> i appreciate you being with us. thank you very much. we're going to be right back. more news ahead. court's in use bros, wait your turn. what are you guys up to? people love progressive's name your price tool so much
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we'll be here again tomorrow night, the confirmation hearings for supreme court nominee neil gorsuch. already quite a day and night. continues now my friend don lemened can with cnn tonight. >>ing news on the worse day so far. this is cnn tonight. i'm don lemon. and comey says he has no evidence to support president trump's infamous claim he was wiretapped by the obama administration. president trump's response, nothing. speaking of a cheering