megan's smile is getting a lot because she uses act® mouthwash. act® strengthens enamel, protects teeth from harmful acids, and helps prevent cavities. go beyond brushing with act®. for the first time in the entire trump russia saga clarity with something that can't be spun as fake news. this doesn't come from unnamed sources or deep state leaks and nothing that can be described by other than what it is, simple words from a string of e-mail from donald trump jr. and a family acquaintance with something to offer. from the opening e-mail dated june 3rd of last year, some official documents and information that would incriminate hillary and would be very useful to your father from a music producer named rob gold stone passing on information he says is from a russian pop star who is the son of a real estate

mogul known as the donald trump of russia. gold stone goes on to say, "this is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of russia and its government's support for mr. trump." that's the offer, dirt on hockey gathered by a foreign adversary to help him become president. trump's junior reply, if it's what you say i love it especially later in the summer and from there trump junior and gold stone go on to set up a meeting with what he calls the russian government attorney who is flying over from moscow. then in the next e-mail, the russia attorney. several more e-mails follow before donald trump looping in paul manafort and jared kushner. this is the plain and simple language from e-mails released by donald trump jr. himself as part of his evolving explanation of this meeting which "the new york times" first revealed on saturday. for starters they expose his

prior accounts of the meeting as untrue. he wasn't as he first said motivated to meet this woman out of concern for orphans. he certainly did contrary to how he described it on saturday discuss politics. the woman was not offered as some random an dwants of a friend as he first suggested but described as a russian government attorney with information from the russian government. she did not as some trump surrogates suggested on this program just get walked into trump tower. one of the e-mails discusses notifying security for notifying them she was coming. much of how donald trump has characterizes the meeting has been revealed to be true by his own e-mail chain. the larger narrative about donald trump senior, people close to him and russia. >> i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge, no person that i deal with does. >> this administration disagrees with all of the stories that claim that the president and his

campaign colluded with russia in any capacity. >> of course not. why would there be any contacts between the campaign? chris, the -- this is all a distraction. >> absolutely not. i discussed that with the president-elect just last night. those conversations never happened. >> there's no connection between the president or the staff here and anyone doing anything with russia. >> this is time and time again lie after lie. you notice, he won't say, well, i say this. we hear experts. his house cat at home once said this is what's happening with the russians. . it's disgusting, it's so phony. >> that was donald trump jr. after he had had that meeting. everything you just heard either gets dented or contradicted by these e-mails. no contact with russians? not true. no politically moat have aed contact with the russians? not true. no politically motivated with russians with ties to russian government? not true. donald trump jr. believed this attorney had ties to the russian government. these e-mails in very plain

english lay out even more, politically motivated contact with a russian individual with claims of ties to the kremlin promising information that would help achieve what is billed as the russian goal of hurting hillary clinton and helping donald trump. it is the first such encounter that someone close to donald trump has acknowledged and the president's eldest son certainly qualifies as close. so does jared kushner and paul manafort. it may turn out to be the only encounter or one of many. one that's clear the reaction from the white house is different this time. the president has not gone on a tweet storm so far. white house spokespeople have not vented their outrage at the media, haven't hollered fake news or issued a formal denial at all. only this late today from sara huckabee sanders reading a statement from the president and not doing it on camera. cameras were not allude to be on in the room. >> my son is a high quality person and i applaud his

transparency. and beyond that, i'm going to have to refer everything on this matter to john junior's counsel and outside counsel. >> the white house says the president did not know about the meeting last year which happened just one floor down from his office at trump tower where he happened to be at the time. as you know, as you saw, the president denies getting help from the russians. critics of the "washington post"'s fill bump for this, there's a moment from the stump that looks maybe a little different tonight in light of trump junior's e-mails. a speech his father gave four days after that first e-mail promising dirt on hillary clinton and two days before the meeting actually took place. >> i am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the clintons. i think you're going to find it very informative and very, very interesting. >> now, was that a tease related to what his son was hoping to

learn in this meeting? we don't know. he ended up delaying that speech more than a week. when he did give it, he took the usual shots at hillary clinton but didn't add anything new. this was two weeks after the trump tower meeting in which his son says the russian lawyer didn't deliver any dirt. donald trump jr. told fox's sean han at this time he did not discuss the meeting with his father and talking about his thoughts going into it. >> things are going a million miles an hour. wait a minute, i've heard about all these things. i should hear him about. this was basic information that would be -- i didn't know these guys well enough to understand if the talent manager from miss universe had this kind of thing. i wanted to hear him out. in retrospect, i probably would have done things a little differently. this is before the russian media. for me, this was opposition research. they had maybe concrete evidence to all the stories i'd been heathering about that were probably underreported for years, not just during the

campaign. i wanted to hear it out. it went nowhere and it was an apparent that wasn't what the meeting was about. >> did you tell it your father anything about this. >> no, it was such a nothing. there was nothing to tell. >> i wouldn't have even remembered it till you start scouring through the stuff. it was a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame. >> more reaction now. jim acosta joins us finding a very quiet 1600 pennsylvania avenue. what more can you tell us about the white house response today? >> well, anderson, there wasn't much response today. as you say, sarah huckabee sanders, the white house press secretary sean spicer was not at the briefing today. sara did the briefing today off camera. and she only essentially had that statement that brief statement from the president on his son about all of this. however, we should point out there were a couple other follow-up questions during the briefing. by and large she tried to deflect the questions saying you have to talk to donald trump jr.'s attorney about all of this. she did say in response to one question about well, you know,

there are people up on capitol hill talking about perjury and even using the word treason. sara huckabee sanders said the use of those words would be "ridiculous." we should point out for the third straight day tomorrow, the president will not have any public events on his schedule. that was the case today. he was behind closed doors, did not talk in front of cameras today. that was the case yesterday. that's going to be the case also tomorrow. the only time we'll see the president tomorrow is when he gets on marine one to start heading over to paris for his trip over to france at the end of this week. where he is supposed to hold a news conference on thursday. >> it's interesting to hear donald trump jr. in that clip on sean hannity say there was nothing to talk to his dad about. what is startling about in these e-mails one of the many things is that this is as far as we know the first time although it doesn't sound it's the first time donald trump jr. is hearing about it because he doesn't seem it react to it, you have in the

e-mail someone this guy goldstone saying this information came from the russian government and the russian government is backing his father. the idea that he would never have had a conversation either before this meeting after receiving the e-mail or after the meeting even though there was allegedly no there there, to point out to his dad, you know what, i got this thing that's claiming the russian government is backing you, i mean, that's kind of a bombshell in these e-mails. and it doesn't sound like it's the first time he's heard it. he doesn't really react to that. >> that's right, anderson. it raises all sorts of questions. one is, obviously, why did the president last week say that there may be other countries involved in the meddling in last year's election. i think if and when he's asked about this later on this week, he cannot say any more, i don't think, that there might have been other countries involved in the meddling in last year's election when you have e-mails going back from his own son and this music producer talking

about the russian government's support for his campaign. i will tell you i did talk to a former trump campaign adviser earlier today, anderson, who said you know what? we received a lot of opposition research from all sides during the course of the campaign. so you have to take into consideration that some of this just may be garbage in terms of what this person was offering donald trump jr. and his friend rob goldstone. make no mistake, this is the president's own son, not some contact, not some associate, not some low level staffer who went on a trip to moscow. this is the president's own son who sat down with an attorney from russia under the assumption that she had some kind of damaging information about hillary clinton. now, earlier today, one of the questions that sara huckabee sanders was asked, how does the president feel about this. here's what she had to say. >> i think that the president is i would say frustrated with the process of the fact that this

continues to be an issue, and he would love for us to be focused on things like justin mentioned, the economy, on health care, on tax reform, on infrastructure. and that's the place that his mind is. that's what he would like to be discussing. >> but of course, anderson, tonight, the president cannot call any of this fake news. news is coming from his own son. and there's just no other way to put it. it's pretty damning. > thanks very much. we're learning the details of the interactions between trump junior, gold stone and the russian attorney were not known to federal vectors till recently. evan perez joins us with that. how much or how little did the special counsel know about these e-mails and this meeting before the last few days? >> anderson, we don't know the fully exactly what they knew. but we know that the full extent of this was not fully known at least until very, very recently.

now, of course, the special counsel robert mueller and the fbi agents doing this investigation are going to be taking a look at there. they'll take a look at not only is the meeting donald trump jr. disclosed but also the e-mail interactions to see what exactly might have happened here. we don't know the if this is it the full extent. it this all the e-mails? that's that's something robert mueller would want to know. the fbi investigators have in the past year they've been doing this investigation have spent time looking at the business dealings of donald trump jr. as well as some of his associations with russians. as part of the broader investigation into russian med ding. >> also the question is, according to the e-mails there's a phone conversation between donald trump jr. and this russian pop star whose father was this wealthy real estate developer. i talked to the attorney. we'll play some of that interview coming up, the attorney for the pop star and his father who said two things.

in one he said there was no phone call and then he said to his knowledge there was no phone call. but the meeting with trump junior apartment russian -- jared kushner only recently updated his security form to reflect was there. is that the second time he's had to update his security clearance? >> right, he has now filed a second amendment to the form that he submitted to the fbi in order to get his security clearance which he is still working to get. he's got a temporary one at this point. so we know that jared kushner's lawyers filed this amended sf86 form in the last few weeks. and paul manafort had the already disclosed the existence of this meeting, i think it was about six weeks or so ago when they submitted 300 pages worth of information to senate investigators. manafort disclosed the meeting. kushner did the same thing about

three weeks ago, anderson, to the fbi and so now we have this information coming out publicly. it should be -- it's interesting to note, anderson, we contacted jared kushner's lawyers a couple weeks ago to tell them we were aware they had update fs 6 to note the existence of this meeting that had been organized by donald trump jr. we didn't hear much from them until the story appeared in the "new york times" over the weekend. >> it's amazing to me that jared kushner has now twice had to antidepressant his security clearance application. that's unusual. >> and that's going to be part of the issue here. that's part of what you see is going to be part of the focus here because not only did you not disclose it the first time but then the second time when you filed the information, you didn't include this meeting. why was that. >> evan, good question. i spoke about some of this and more with senator mark warner, vice chairman of the senate intelligence committee. senator warner, the detail of

the interactions weren't phone to the special counsel till recently. was your committee aware of these e plays before today or yesterday. >> i'm not going to comment what the committee knew or didn't know. but clearly this is a dramatic step forward in the investigation. and is the first time the public has seen clear evidence that not only was there an organized russian government effort that the intelligence committee has already validated to each out and try to downgrade clinton and help trump, but you've also then seen senior level officials from the trump campaign, his son, his son-in-law and the campaign manager welcome na kind of assistance. >> to you, these e-mails are critical. >> it absolutely is. we've seen a series of dots. i think those are starting to be connected now. i think there will be more to come. but it is a grave concern to me

that you've got the senior most officials in the trump campaign actively at least soliciting or being willing to accept at least information from a foreign government, in this case a foreign adversary russia in a way that would be interference in our elections. >> does it matter whether this russian attorney really did work for the government or not or is the key point that donald trump jr. according to these e-mails seemed to believe not only that this information whatever it was going to be came from the russian government but also she was described as a russian government lawyer? >> it's interesting not only was he excited to receive this information and the e-mail was explicitly clear that this was part of a russian government effort, but it even seemed like he was trying to time the release that have information by saying it would be great if we got this late summer. curiously enough, it was late summer when you saw much more of a dnc hacked e-mails come out

you. started to see information saying john podesta's e-mails would be forthcoming. the timing was curious in terms of the requests in terms of what mr. trump junior said. >> jared kushner according to cnn reporting has had to recently amend the information he gave to get his security clearance. do you think he should have his clearance revoked? >> i want to give mr. kushner the chance to talk to our committee before i reach those kind of conclusions. i do think it is strange to me that a meeting of this type that had been and we don't know whether mr. kushner actually saw this e-mail traffic but if he did see this e-mail traffic that indicated this meeting was going to be part of a campaign of the russian government to provide information that would be helpful to trump and hurtful to clinton, that mr. kushner wouldn't remember that meeting. >> yesterday, it seemed like a lot of surrogates for the president on air elsewhere were saying, well, you know, this kind of a meeting happens all the time.

this is just standard operating procedure. and that donald trump jr. didn't nope the identity of the person that he was meeting with. now we have these e-mails in which this person is described as a russian government attorney and this information is coming from the russian government. now we're hearing from trump surrogates well, donald trump jr. was naive to the ways of politics and didn't realize he shouldn't have had this meeting. > baloney. i got to tell you. you can't call a rookie mistake not having the knowledge that if you got an e-mail that acknowledges that at least on its face says we've got information that is part of a russian government effort to try to help his father, anyone with a lick of sense would know that you don't take that kind of help from a foreign government and particularly a foreign adversary. i would, listen, i'm going to try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt but the idea that somehow that would be a rookie mistake i find just not

believable. on any level. >> the president today in a statement praised his son's transparency was the word he used. is that a word you would use to describe donald trump jr.'s reaction to this? it seems like he's had a number of changes. >> he has changed his story repeatedly. again, this is a pattern that we've seen from a host of trump officials where they deny any kind of contact with russians till they see proof, until proof is shown. then they have to raemd their filings, amend their reports. why in the heck this administration that says there's no there there, why wouldn't they have come clean with all of this information to our committee when we started this investigation six months ago. >> i appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you, anderson. well, a lot more to talk about tonight. the panel weighs in. also what the lawyer for the russian pop star and his father has to say. a cnn exclusive. that's next. we're on to you, diabetes.

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donald trump jr. story continues to unfold late today in a cnn exclusive i spoke with the attorney for the

russian singer and his billionaire father mentioned in the e-mails. >> did your clients either of your clients ever speak to donald trump jr. on the phone about this meeting? it seems like according to the june 6th e-mail there was some conversation donald trump jr. tells gold stone in the e-mail to have your client call him on the cell phone after he gets off stage performing. > no such call occurred. >> so there was never a phone conversation between donald trump jr. and either of your clients? >> not that i'm aware of, no. >> okay. not that you're aware of, or have your clients denied that to you? >> as far as i know, no such communication took place. >> have you asked your clients if the conversation took place. >> i'm not going to tell you exactly what i spoke to my clients about. but i've been we're getting up to speed on the issues and addressing the questions as they come up. the answer is no such communication occurred. >> okay. so flat out no such communication occurred. you've said no such communication occurred and you're not aware of it.

you're saying no communication occurred. >> that's right. >> another piece of the puzzle here with the panel, kirsten powers, ryan lizza, steve hall, maggie haberman and jeffrey toobin. ryan it's hard to overstate just the importance of this just in terms of the progression of the story. there's still a lot we don't know and it's important to point that out. >> if this were something that was simply in isolation that is none of the events came after it, i could understand some of the defenses as no big deal, just meeting with someone to learn about the opponent's campaign. but it becomes a much, much bigger deal when looked at in the broader tapestry of what we've learned. weeks later at the republican national convention, the traditional view of the republican party was changed to be more pro-russia. after the election was over, the repeated attempts of trump advisers to hide, conceal meetings with russian officials. donald trump's strange defense of michael flynn, him firing the

fbi director. repeatedly defending putin, repeatedly going to bat for russia, repeatedly saying that the intelligence community's assessment that russia interfered in the election last year at the very least casting doubt on that assessment. so all of these facts put together make this meeting particularly explosive because you know, the e-mail, even if this lawyer didn't have any information and it was just a big setup to get in there to talk about sanctions, the fact that these campaign, senior campaign officials eagerly sought out this person and eagerly said saw an e-mail that described the russian government trying to help donald trump's campaign and instead of saying wait a second, this could be an issue for us to take to the fbi which is what several campaign officials told me today they would have done, they didn't do that. they said love it. let's set up the meeting.

> it doesn't matter really whether this russian lawyer has connections and doesn't matter whether she had information or they were disappointed with what they heard. what matters is donald trump jr. believed this was from the russian government and believed she was a russian government lawyer. >> i think that's -- you're right it does look worse with all of these other things. honestly, if this was the only thing that had happened, the fact that there is an e-mail that says refers to the russian government supporting the candidacy of donald trump and this does not seem to be a shocking revelation to donald trump jr., this is like a mid conversation. >> it's almost like a second reference. >> this is something he seems to have heard before. it doesn't seem remarkable to him in any way. there isn't any kind of like what? >> it's interesting, carl, that the attorney for the family says look, there was no phone conversation. i mean in the e-mails, donald trump jr. says that's a prerequisite for having this

meeting. he wants to talk to this russian pop star who i guess he's met before and he gives him a cell gets off stage. to wait till he >> there's real continuity to the tale. most important, this is about the son, son-in-law and campaign manager of the president of the united states willingly engaging in an opportunity to subvert the interests of the united states to a foreign power. embracing it willingly and enthusiastically according to the son of the president of the united states. the son of the president has cracked the cover-up. that is an extraordinary event. now we'll learn more about what the cover-up was really about. i don't mean necessarily an obstruction of justice but we now are at the question what did the president know about many of these events and when did he know it. >> matt, donald trump jr. has said and he said it again on hannity tonight that he did not talk to his father about this. do you buy that? i mean, if donald trump jr.'s

learning whether it's for the first time or he's heard it before that the russian government according to this e-mail is backing his father, and you know, according to his lawyer willing to provide dirt, does it -- is it credible that he wouldn't at some point say to his dad, the craziest thing happened today or last week, the russian -- this person says the russian government is backing you. >> one thing we know is that they've been prevaricating so far. so the fact that he now says i didn't tell my bad is meaningless as far as i'm concerned. it's possible. >> just in terms of his credibility. >> yeah. he hasn't earned the benefit of the doubt. so to speak. it's possible he didn't tell his father. that doesn't sound like m.o. he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would protect his father plausible deniability. it seems like my guess is, he would have told his father but i think the other.

>> we've heard throughout the campaign how his kids are his closest advisers. he talks to them several times a day. >> the other interesting thing people bring up for very good reason is that we don't know that nothing came out of this meeting. we assume because you know the lawyer says nothing came out of it. don junior says nothing came out of it. he's been lying about other stuff. we don't know nothing came out of that meeting. > maggie haberman, the "times" broke the story. just in terms of some process, i have two questions. donald trump jr. released all these e-mails. the president praised him for transparency. he's released a series of e-mails. the president praised him for his transparency. had the "new york times" contacted him and said we have these e-mails and then he went forward with these e-mails and also jared kushner, my understanding is three weeks ago or so he amended his security

request to get a security clearance with this meeting. can you say if he had been informed or questioned about this meeting or if he knew the "times" was investigating? >> whether jared kushner knew that the times" was investigating? to your first question, we reached out to the lawyer for donald trump jr. said that we were familiar with the contents of these e-mails and were planning to publish. we gave a hard deadline. donald trump jr. preempted it. i think there has been some frustration on the part of donald trump jr. and people close to him about how the last couple of days have gone in terms of the disclosures and in terms of sort of this slow roll, drip, drip. in terms of kushner, forgive me, i'm not sure what you're asking me. >> our understanding is that for a second time, he has amended the information that he gave in order to get a security clearance. he did that once earlier and then more recently he did that

to include this meeting that he hadn't previously discloses. i guess my question is, was he aware that you were investigating and therefore, that's why he amended this or was this just a coincidence? >> more broadly without getting into specifics about our reporting and the nature of it, jared kushner did amend as we understand it amended his security clearance form, his foreign contact disclosures i believe it was for a second time included some reference to this meeting. around the same time, paul manafort provided some more specifics to one of the congressional committees that is investigating whether there was any collusion between the russian government and the trump campaign and there was a reference to this meeting there, as well. so the e-mails came up at some point during both of those processes. >> jeff toobin, does donald trump jr. have any potential legal exposure here? >> potentially. but it is not at all clear that he does. you know, collusion which is

something we've talked a lot about is not a crime. there is no such crime as collusion. also, you know, all the lies that have been told to the american people, it's not a crime to lie to the american people. one possible offense that donald trump jr. might be investigated for is violating the campaign finance laws, the laws say it is unlawful to solicit anything of value from a foreign government. now, the question is, did he solicit something of value. we don't know what went on in this meeting. i think we have donald trump's word that this was a 20-minute meeting and a big waste of time. presumably there are e-mails describing what went on at this meeting. this is something that is certainly going to be of interest to director mueller and his team in determining what

he -- and you know, what went on at this meeting is very important. the other person who may have a problem is jared kushner because it is -- that form, the application for a security clearance is submitted under penalty of perjury. and if he only corrected it because he got caught omitting it, that is potentially a, you know, a legal problem for him. so i think jared kushner who is the one who has a senior job in the administration, he's the one at more risk, frankly, than donald trump jr. >> steve hall, long time cia officer focusing on russia, i want to ask you basically request two questions. a, how likely is it that u.s. have would have been an aware that potentially kremlin linked individuals were trying to connect with the son of the presidential nominee and secondly, if there was a phone conversation between donald trump jr. and this russian pop star, is it likely or possible

that that somewhere was picked up and is recorded somewhere whether either in the u.s. or overseas? >> well, taking your second question first, anderson. yes, it's certainly possible that the intelligence community may have intercepted nsa may have intercepted such a call although being it would be involving a u.s. person, you know, there would have been, we get back to the old masking issue. was the name concealed. but that's certainly possible. it's also possible that the intelligence community may have had some indication that the russian government was attempting to arrange this meeting but from my reading on this, i think it would have come up sooner if the intelligence community had been aware of it, but if you sort of rewind back to when this all happened last year, what this looks very much to me like is the russians at

the time had a very successful influence operation going. they had already penetrated cyber fashion the dnc databases. and i think the russian intelligence and the russian government said we should try for the trifecta here. let's see if we can't make a little bit of contact with somebody in the trump team just to see if they're willing to play ball just to have an initial conversation. there's no doubt in my mind that the lawyer veselnitskaya had to have been from the government because nobody else would have had the type of information she claimed aside from somebody with contact with the russian government. this sounds like the russians trying to go further in this operation and try to get a human angle to it in addition to the other stuff they were up to. >> the attorney for these two russian guys, the pop star and his father says that the pop star was basically making this connection to goldstone for the russian attorney. she was an acquaintance of his

and he was doing a favor because that's how things work and people do business. does that make sense to you, or is it possible that the father here has links to the russian government or does business? obviously he's very successful in real estate there and got the highest civilian order of merit given by vladimir putin. and that would it be normal that the russian government would use other people who are not directly linked to the government. >> sure, absolutely. this is -- this has russian government fingerprints and intelligence all over it. i mean, a standard operating procedure for the russian intelligence services in a situation like there, if you are reaching out to somebody a high level person in the trump team, you don't want to do it with an official person, with an intelligence officer or an official government person. you want to have a cutout. you want to have a link to a link to a link so you have deniability. you have some sort of plausible deniability to say sort of exactly what you're saying.

maybe it was just somebody who was a friend of a friend of a friend. the russians know we in the west have a tendency to want to think this is just business, just another meeting. yet, this is exactly how the russians especially the intelligence services operate. >> i want to thank everybody. we'll hear from political operatives how they see the latest revelations about the trump campaign and what that means for the future of this administration. healthy. yet up 90% fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. let's do more. add one a day men's complete with key nutrients we may need. plus heart-health support with b vitamins. one a day men's in gummies and tablets.

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after donald trump jr. tweeted his russia meeting e-mails this morning uniting a firestorm critique from both sides of the aisle, sara huckabee sanders stayed mum in an off camera press briefing. >> will you stand by a statement you said yesterday when you said our position is no one with the trump campaign colluded in order to influence the election. >> i do. i know you guys will get tired of it today and not to sound like a broken record but on all questions related to this matter, i would refer you to don junior's counsel and outside counsel. i'll refer to you outside

counsel and i don't have anything else to add. look the president gave a statement on the matter which i read to you. and like i've said, i don't have anything else to add beyond that. i'm not going to get into the details of anything surrounding this and would refer to you don junior's counsel. i'm not going to answer any questions on that matter. >> there's a bit of late news from capitol hill. chuck grassley is asking the department of homeland security and state department to look into how the russian attorney who met with donald trump did junior was allowed to enter the country. former republican congresswoman nan hayworth, paul begala gala, robbie mook and jeffrey lord. two things we've heard from trump surrogates is every campaign looks for opposition research and nothing to see her. what we've heard more is donald trump jr. was politically naive and just made a mistaking.

> right. if that's their story, they should stick to it. it's not going to hold. trump junior was the son of the presumed at that moment republican nominee. in that meeting also was paul manafort. decades of experience including experience with russians. when you get e-mail, you don't have to have a lot of experience when you get an e-mail that says russia and its government's support for mr. trump. when the russian government is an adversary of the united states, had always been in the eyes of republicans. mitt romney was ridiculed for saying russia was our chief geostrategic adversaries. at the time i was more upset about isis. it's not going to hold. you can't -- the notion that every campaign does it, i've been in touch over twitter with matthew dowd who ran bush's

campaign, spencer who ran romney's campaign, none of us have ever heard of anything like this. i base this on 34 years of experience in campaigns. >> congresswoman, when you were running, if you had gotten an e-mail from intermediary saying the russian government is backing you and there's a russian attorney who would like to meet with you to give you dirt on your opponent -- >> i would have been shocked because i was just running for congress. >> would you have had that meeting? >> look. >> would you have had that meeting. >> it would shock no one especially you paul, i'm sure, to know nor you anderson, you're a sophisticated man. politics is a tough and dirty business. >> you might have sat down with somebody who said they were from the russian government. >> i do not fault donald trump jr. for it. at his stage. >> with all due respect, you haven't answered the question. >> its an a very high stakes political campaign. i don't fault him for doing this. this is a nothing pick to use

van jones term -- >> would you have personally sat down with somebody? >> that -- >> i'll take that as a know. >> donald trump jr. did nothing wrong. >> contrast from reality. >> politics is full of all kinds of interesting situations. >> you would have sat down with a russian government official. >> if somebody said to anybody in politics, i have information that might be of interest, i don't fault anybody for sitting down and hearing the information. >> i do. >> in fact, here's a counter example. al gore's running against george w. bush. they're tied going to the debates. tom downey was going to play bush in the debate preps. he received unsolicited just opens the mailbox one day and there's the bush debate briefing book. someone in the bush campaign shipped it to tom downey. tom called the fbi right away. then he called the bush campaign chairman and said you have a traitor in your midst and recused himself from the debate.

i had to play this. that's what an honorable person does. donald trump jr. is not an honorable person. >> how come donna brazile -- the cnn debate about questions that were going to be published. at the time she accepted it. >> what she did was -- >> she accepted the information and passed it on to hillary clinton. >> what she did was incredibly sleazy. you are refusing to characterize anything about donald trump jr. >> i'm saying that donald trump jr. did nothing with that information. >> robbie, would you if a russian somebody russian said they were from the russian government and were sending a russian government attorney, is that business as usual? >> no, not at all. there's a lot of people who come up to campaigns with information. for example, when i was running hillary's campaign we had a lot of donald trump's former employees talk about how they didn't get paid, contractors who he didn't send didn't reply to

their invoices. guess what, they were american citizens. they were legitimately engaging in a debate about a candidate for office. if someone claiming to represent the russian government had reached out and said, first of all, we're supporting your candidate and second of all, we dug up some op o to give you, i would be petrified i would be in trouble. that's what's so crazy about this. layer on top of that how don junior went on tv and called me disgusting for saying the russians were involved in the election at all let alone meeting with him. they've lied so much they have no credibility on this. the other thing that's troubling to me, i disagree a little bit with one of your experts earlier. this thing was so bold, it was in jump blaine sight the whole time. we don't put the pieces together. this wasn't the russians taking another little step. they had been working on this for a long time. look at carer page the russians

were talking about the man one or two years earlier potentially bringing him on as a spy. they were work on this for a long time. paul mentioned paul manafort. long-time working for russian affiliates. they were coming from all angles on this. we have been too small and analyzed every little part and never pulled back and frankly noticed how big and how bold this really was. >> jeffrey lord, when president trump praises his son's transparency, do you believe what donald trump jr. has done is being fully transparent. >> unquevcally. >> he released the e-mail chain once he knew the "times" was prepared to publish. >> unequivocally i know don trump junior. unequivocal unequivocally. >> how is it transparent. >> i'm sorry. >> how is it transparent to say initially this was a meeting about orphans and then. >> he did not release his e-mail chain. >> once "the new york times" was

about to. >> anderson, talking about transparency, i just posted an article at the american spectator in doing my research, i came across an interview with dick morris at news max in september of 2016 in which he says president clinton personally in 1996 meddled and colluded if you will in the russian election to elect boris yeltsin. one of the major backers of yeltsin's opponents. >> you're going by dick morris? that's your source on this? >> decades later, we find a situation where bill clinton's wife is the democratic nominee for president. it had nothing to do with donald trump. we need to get into this, get them all out there. >> he got booted from the campaign? is he the best source on this. >> look, this is dick morris saying that president clinton get out there and testify. >> i've got to jump in here. what we're -- >> investigate. >> robbie, go ahead.

>> what we're saying is it's okay for foreign powers to interject in our elections and back a certain candidate because a president took a foreign policy position. i'm going to add on to this. it was hillary clinton. >> you're saying it was okay for an american president. >> it was hillary clinton, it was hillary clinton who called out vladimir putin for rigging his election in russia. it was hillary clinton who called out vladimir putin for human rights abuses. >> wait a minute. >> we're saying then if putin chooses to get involved in our election that's okay? that's crazy. >> congresswoman. >> anderson, it was hillary clinton who signed off on 20% of our nation's uranium. >> i being sold to a russian majority owned company. >> that's false. that's false. it's not true. might like to peddle fake news, that's not true. >> let's. >> that's a real national security issue. >> to paraphrase kellyanne conway, can we refocus on

actually what happened today. >> i read jeffrey's column and what he alleges, my old boss did, was phone up yeltsin and say you should run ads on this because he's a kd /* kibitzer. the russians hacked our country. john mccain called it an act of war. beneed to join together. what donald trump is doing is trying to divide us and he is siding with the enemy with russia. the russians came to his son and to his son-in-law and campaign chairman and said we have dirt on your opponent. they said great. they should have called the fbi. >> we've got to take a break. the investigation is ongoing. eric trump's theory is that some people can't stand that the trump family is extremely close and always support each other. talk about that, trump family values with two trump

biographers next.

megan's smile is getting a lot of attention because she uses act® mouthwash. act® strengthens enamel, protects teeth from harmful acids, and helps prevent cavities. go beyond brushing with act®. donald trump, jr. released his e-mails on twitter and there's been a lot of response including from the british politician who tweeted this -- also this from eric trump. -- joining us now two men who wrote books on donald trump. michael d'antoni and tim brian. the president's initial statements today said my son is a high quality person and i applaud his transparency. were you surprised by that. >> i was surprised it was such a

mild endorsement of his son. he ed the same kind of things about michael flynn before he was out. and i think just saying he's a high-quality person is almost throwing him under the bus. i would have defended my own son far more vigorously the idea that he's transparent to me that was an atta boy like you did the right thing, i think this was something he was directed to do. >> the white house has said now the president knew nothing with this until recently. in this e-mail chain donald trump, jr. is being told that the russian government is g backing his father there was no reaction to that e-mail chain that part of it. >> he was also told in the e-mail chain by rock goldstone should we tell your father about that, i can contact donald trump's long time gate keeper.

>> there's been articles that roena graph is the way to get to donald trump. >> right so that has exposed her and subpoenaed her beyond robert mueller when can the president know about the meeting and is donald trump, jr. being candid about that fact. >> donald trump is saying they are such a close family that they will support each other always is it possible donald trump, jr. would not have told his father or he learned or been told russia was backing this campaign before or after this meeting. >> i think it's highly unlikely. i'm 95% certain that this is a the meeting that donald trump now the president understood was going to take place. i'm sure he was told what happened afterwards. this is a man whose stock and

trade is information. he loves to gossip. he loves to know exactly what's going on everywhere. one of the things that donald jr. told me was that if you get 100 things right but one thing wrong you're going to hear about it the rest of your life from donald trump and he's very much aware of pleasing his dad. and back then there wouldn't have been any boundaries. this would have been very porous and i can't imagine he didn't inform his father right away. >> this was also during the time where there was a power struggle within the campaign, between duece ski and mall manafort and the trump kids towards toward manafort. >> and in fact donald trump, jr. played a leading role in pushing many lun duece ski out and getting back to the source of some of the information that's

gone to the new york time the great reporting they've been doing the last few days. >> right because they site three bhoem advise the white house. >> from law enforcement. which a lot of the major leaks have so far and the times are clear to say they clearly had white house sources. it's another example how divided and porous this add add administration is. >> why would someone with connections to someone to the white house leak stuff about donald trump, jr. >> because it's the keystone cops. this isn't a disciplined, goal-oriented unit. trump has never run anything that way his whole life and certainly not running anything that what. >> i think him saying the president never operated anything in a orderly fashion is

absolutely true. in the past the buck stopped with donald trump and it was a matter of his celebrity and profit. >> and you had to make the bo boss look good. >> yeah make him look good. and now he's the president of the united states there's a problem with if not focusing on the business of the united states of america what they are still focused on still is promoting donald trump'sim and and everyone's fighting for favored status within the administration. >> an they had are actually fighting a media war when they should be thinking of the legal battles they are facing. donald trump, jr. and his father are not thinking strategically about the legal consequences they are in. >> and even the fact donald trump, jr. gave an interview tonight on hannity. thank you both very much for your time.

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be informed about outages in your area. sign up for outage alerts at pge.com/outagealerts. together, we're building a better california. our breaking news the president eldest son is revealing what everyone's been denying for a year he revealed he did have contact with a russian in campaign capacity to talk about damaging information about hillary clinton that he believed was coming from the russian kremlin. all of the angles right now in a rather restrained white house. we are on capitol hill and in moscow we begin jim. we know donald trump, jr. received e-mail compromising information about hillary clinton from a russian