tv Andrea Mitchell Reports MSNBC May 22, 2017 9:00am-10:01am PDT
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christian wall and the church of the holy sepulcher. any moment we're expecting a joints statement from the president and the israeli prime minister. but already, president trump has reopened that intelligence flap with israel while inferring to reporters ef never mentioned israel in the oval office meeting with the russians. >> cooperation is terrific. >> just so you understand, i never mentioned the word or the name israel. never mentioned it. in that conversation. so you had to know the story. never mentioned the word israel. >> the problem, no u.s. official till now has even confirmed those reports that the country's intelligence was compromised was in fact israel which has created a huge stir here in this country. a welcome fit for a king. an even grander reception at the president's first stop saudi arabia. as mr. trump moderated his
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anti-muslim rhetoric from the campaign, but called on arab leaders to unite against terrorism. >> drive them out of your places of worship. drive them out of your communities. drive them out of your holy land. and drive them out of this earth. >> and dance of diplomacy. the president tried but the secretary of state, he knew the steps. saying this wasn't his first sword dance. and joining hands opening a center to combat terrorism with a glowing orb that quickly lit up social media. and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in jerusalem today where president trump is launching a middle east peace initiative trying to prove he can accomplish what none of his predecessors accomplished. he's about to make his appearance with benjamin netanyahu. he may have made more of a
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problem for himself over the breach of intelligence with the russians. the russian foreign smin fer more than a week ago. >> the intelligence cooperation is terrific. >> just so you understand, i never mentioned the word or the name israel. never mentioned it in that conversation. so you had to know the story. never mentioned the word israel. >> joining me now nbc white house correspondent kristen welker traveling with the president, national correspondent peter alexander at the white house with us throughout the hour. and jeffrey go berg editor-in-chief at the atlantic with. kristin, the president seemed eger to correct what he said was a mistaken impression because he never mentioned but no u.s. official had confirmed that israel was the aggrieved country. it had been reported and confirmed by nbc but never confirmed by a u.s. official. now he has by implication. >> reporter: that's right. it is clear that the president,
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his administration concerned to some extent about the backdrop, the fact that he shared intelligence with russian officials and you're right, andrea. he did seem to confirm that fact today. but what was also notable is that he said he never mentioned israel in his conversations with the russians. of course, that's not exactly what's at stake here. the issue is the intelligence that he obtained from israeli officials that he then shared with the russians. secretary of state rex tillerson traveling aboard air force one was asked about this and asked if the president needed to apologize to the israelis. his response was i don't think there's anything necessarily to apologize for and if they need further clarification, she would be willing to give them that. they're really trying to downplay what has been a controversy leading into this historic visit, andrea, as you pointed out. this president has set a very ambitious goal of wanting to restart peace talks, you can
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seeding where his predecessors have failed. it is ambitious. he says that maybe it's not as difficult as some have made it out to be. but historically, that's obviously not the case. so he's trying to get these two sides talking again. but there is skepticism not only because of that intelligence sharing but also because of that big arms deal that he just cut with saudi arabia, $110 billion. and as a candidate, andrea, he had promised that he was going to move the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. now it doesn't seem as though that is on the table at least at this point. so a lot at stake here in this historic visit. a lot of skepticism despite the fact you have these optics that stress the optimism that both the u.s. and israeli officials are feeling today, andrea. >> and jeff go berg, let's gut through the symbolism, ceremony, red carpet both here and previously in riyadh and the royal welcome in by the saudis. let's cut through all of that and talk about the substance.
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you know better than anyone what it takes to achieve middle east peace and how many have failed in both political parties for decades and decades. is it possible that by. >> right. >> -- by solidifying his connection to the sunni arabs to the saudis and the 49 other muslim and arab leaders who were there in riyadh and by isolating iran, an enemy of the sunmy arabs and israeli that he can somehow create an environment that makes it easier for israel and the palestinians too achieve peace? >> right. well, you know, we've talked about this before. one of the reasons -- the reason that this conflict has been involved in 100 years, it might not be solvable. so every american president, i thought donald trump would be different in this, but every american president seems to come into office thinking that he's going to solve this problem. trump seems as impatient as anyone else. he is correct in saying that the
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unique situation we're in right now vis-a-vis iran that the arabs and israelis are align against a common foe creates some opportunities here, but the problems far outweigh the opportunities and so i don't mean to be too pessimistic about this, but the chances are very, very high that donald trump will not achieve middle east peace. >> and is it partly bylaws the palestinians do not have a strong leader that there's no strong adversary or is it because benjamin netanyahu now has a partner in the u.s. who doesn't pull back or pressure him to pull back on the settlements which are changing the landscape of the west bank which would be the palestinian state? where do you -- how do you apportion any kind of blame here? >> i mean, yes and yes, and yes, and yes. you have a weak and divided palestinian entity. you have a history of the palestinians not accepting offers of statehood when it's been on the table from 1948 on
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ward. you have the israeli settlement project which is really deeply embedded in the west bank where a palestinian state would be. you have large sections of both populations not believing in the possibility of peace. you know, the trump people, as you would expect, are treating this a bit like a real estate problem. and it's just not a real estate problem. at its core, it's the theological, psychologicalka, spiritual, political, of course. both peoples think they are victims. both peoples have equally salient claims to land and you know, we've been down this road so many times. it seems odd that the president -- first of all, it seems odd the president would choose this part of the world to go to on his first trip and odd that he would make in hopeless or mostly hopeless cause his main cause. >> peter, you've been tracking this president and his
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predecessor. you know what is at stake here. for him to come here to not go to to canada or mexico which is easy or easier, and to come here, is throwing a long ball to mix my metaphors. >> exactly. so to put this in some sort of a football term, this could be viewed as a hail mary pass in some bapz it's tradition, president obama went to canada. he went to ottawa in february after winning the white house. a one-day trip. president bush, george w. bush went to mexico for a day trip. this was heavily ambitious with so many stops throughout that part of the planet right now. obviously, jared kushner, a lot of this falls in his portfolio, a passion project for him. he's an orthodox jew as now is his wife ivanka trump by conversion. the president is diving head first into that region right now. i'm struck by what you led the broadcast with today which is those public comments by the president today. it does bear repeating that when the president said that he never mentioned israel, no one had ever said that he mentioned
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israel. his national security adviser h.r. mcmaster said the president couldn't have mentioned israel because he didn't know the source of the information. it was wholly appropriate what he talked about, that he never revealed sources and methods but it appears on this day he would now have publicly revealed a source and as it occurs on day one of the trip where he had been i think in the eyes of a lot of people throughout the region doing well so far by sticking to the script, it will be curious to see the way this off script moment plays there. >> and until now, he's been very controlled, not having news conferences scheduled. he's not meeting with the press. he hasn't spoken at photo opportunities. he hasn't been tweeting. some people close to him and who cover him as closely as you do say he looks tired. >> the bottom line i think here is they thought that by sticking to their script and not having the press availabilities where there were questions that would focus on other headlines of the day that include i suspect among other things the fact that his
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former national security adviser michael flynn we have now learned will be invoking the fifth and not be providing the personal documents that have been requested by the senate intelligence committee. this is another story that has dogged the president, the desire was to stay away from those. now he has the clash of story lines. the focus he wants on what's happening overseas on the focus of so many americans back at home on these investigations as we have a former fbi director robert mueller leading the investigation here. >> and one thing shouldn't be overlooked is what the president is doing here in israel and before that in riyadh is trying to isolate iran. and this as rouhani is re-elected in iran, jeff goldberg, i know it's dangerous to say that any iranian leader given their support for hezbollah and given their missile development is a moderate, but among the iranians' candidates at least, this is the leader who is at least committed to the nuclear
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deal and committed to economic reforms. is this the right moment for the world to be uniting, the sunni arab world and certainly the u.s. and israel to be uniting against iran? >> well, when i think about this issue, i think about it in the context of the thing that's not happening right now and what's not happening is donald trump is not trying to get the united states out of the iran nuclear deal. think about the dog that's not barking in other words. there's a lot of noise about iran from this administration partially that's just to separate themselves out from an obama administration approach that they didn't like, to differentiate between trump and obama. he's sticking to the deal which is 90% of what goes into our relationship right now with iran. you could argue, i could see the argument both ways. he goes before the arabs trying to make arab,/israeli peace. he understand the one things that units them is fear and loathing of iran. he's going to hit that hard. probably could have gone in front of an audience and said we
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understand there's a difference between the terrorists supporting iranian government and the people of iran who seem to want change and seem to want better relations with the world. that would probably be a more elegant way of approaching this. but he's doing things that are very traditional for an american president and he's also sticking to the obama game plan on the iran nuclear deal which is the headline. it's not the thing we're talking about but it's the headline. >> the dog that didn't bark. a great reference to a great story. thank you very much. jeff goldberg, peter alexander, kristen welker. and here in israel, as we've been saying the president is trying to isolate iran. that goes over very well with president netanyahu and the leaders just a few moments ago alongside prime minister netanyahu, the prime minister and the president were talking about iran. >> very grateful to the united states because iran negotiated a
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fantastic deal with the previous administration. instead of being thankful and saying thank you because they were in serious trouble, i think they would have failed. totally failed. within six months. we gave them a lifeline and we not only gave them a lifeline, we gave them wealth and prosperity. no matter what area we're in, we see yemen, iraq, no matter where we are, we see the signs, every sign whether it's it's soldiers, whether it's money and guns, it's -- and instead of saying thank you to the united states, they now feel emboldened. >> and michael is deputy prime minister in the office and former israeli ambassador to the united states. great to see you, thank you very much. >> always great to be with you. >> there's a lot to unpack here. >> yes. >> i know you're a member of the
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knesset and you obviously support the government position. let's talk about what the president is trying to achieve here but first, this intelligence flap, how big a deal is it. >> not a big deal here. it's not even making the news. it's making your news but not the israeli news. >> we've seen thing in the israeli news. talked to former mossad leaders who say it is. >> from personal experience, we have the closest possible intelligence relationship with the united states. and it's vast. and i don't know about this incident and probably different interpretations what the president says. at the end of the day, it's not going to affect our intelligence relationship. i think if anything, this entire incident underscores can just how important israel is to america's security and how important this alliance is to the security of the free world. >> there's no question that he israel and the support of israel and its intelligence operation is very, very deeply embedded in our security, in our national security. in talking to members of the
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intelligence community, my colleague and i in the last 24 hours have heard they think it's very significant. there was a shouting match last week between american intelligence and israeli intelligence officials here complaining about this breach. >> so i can't confirm that. i just know that in the world of intelligence, many things happen during the previous administrations. we had no shortage of events that were problematic, you know, there were reports that israel was operating in syria. we never took responsibility for those operations. to prevent iran from supplying hezbollah with precision weaponry. we never took responsibility but they managed to make it into the "new york times" not from us. not from us. the intelligence world is a sensitive and delicate world. a sure you there are no two intelligence communities that are closer than those between the united states and israel. >> let's just say when someone, some country intercepts an illegal arms shipment from iran
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to the syrians, somehow we always figure out who did it. we just praise the expertise of the israeli intelligence. >> i have no idea. >> the important thing is the bad guys do not get the advanced weaponry. at the end of the day, that's in israeli interests and american interests and i believe it's a global interest. >> and in fact, the kinds of weaponry that have been supplied to riyadh this weekend, a lot of it was in the pipeline already. you have the iron dome which was very helpful when gaza was attacking when hamas was attacking the israeli homeland. >> very appreciative to the american people. >> are you at all concerned about everything that went to the arabs this weekend. >> we have a historic commitment from the u.s. congress to ensure israel's qualitative military edge. i have it em blaze on the on my soul. the united states commits to israel to defend itself against any middle eastern threat or any combination of threats.
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the previous administration sold about $80 billion worth of military hardware to the gulf. that was figured into qualitative military edge. the united states will engage in an a dialogue with us how we can possibly meet any threats an rising from the entire region together. >> so if they get more than you get more. it all evens out in the wash. >> it has to be the quality. it's a qualitative military edge. >> let me ask you about the president saying that it's not as difficult as has been said to reach middle east peace. he said that after a meeting with abbas in the white house. is it going to be possible, can this president do what no president has been able to do? >> i earnestly hope we've had.many years of failures of successive administrations and the last six israeli prime ministers have tried to reach this peace, as well. a lot depends how you define peace. general mcmaster the other day
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talked about self-determination for the palestinians which is sort of a more general term, more an for fuss. it enables us a lot more space for creativity and discussions. if we don't locke ourselves into hard and fast formula, even before the negotiations begin, we have a better chance of moving forward. right now we are focusing at the president's request on materially enhancing the quality of life and for palestinians and the palestinian economy. i developed a program this week for significantly refusing the waiting time for palestinians over the allen bridge that connects jordan with the west bank, 2.5 million palestinians cross that bridge ye year but wait up to six hours to cross it. we put in a plan that will reduce that perhaps to a half hour. which translates into millions of work hours on the west bank which translates into a big boost for the palestinian economy. sometimes you can do little things and get great benefit. economic peace is not a
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substitute for real peace. but i think we can help generate conditions which are conducive to negotiating. if and it's a big if, if the palestinians want to negotiate. they haven't negotiated with us for eight years. we need negotiations without preconditions. we have a good understanding with the administration that should be is the case. >> ambassador michael orem, great to see you. peter alexander is at the white house. he's going to pick up coverage now for a few minutes. we'll have a lot more on this historic trip with peter and colleagues from jerusalem coming up. for now to peter at the white house. >> back to you in just a moment. back in washington, breaking news on the senate's russia investigation. the former national security adviser michael flynn, we're going to take you live to capitol hill. that is next. we're live right now on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. all finished.
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back now live on msnbc. breaking news from capitol hill where nbc news has learned the former national security adviser to the president, michael flynn, will invoke the fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination and will notify the senate intelligence committee today that heal not comply with the subpoena seeking personal documents in the russian investigation. nbc's kasie hunt joins us now from capitol hill. casey, walk us through this a little bit. you've had a chance to speak to someone close to flynn about the circumstances here. what is their argument for his
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making this decision. >> reporter: the source close to flynn con confirms he intends to not respond to the senate intelligence committee doing a broad investigation into russian meddling into the election. the deadline for him to comply with the subpoena was wednesday. they are a couple of days early in sending this letter over and letting them know. there had been a little bit of back and forth with the chairman of that committee, richard burr, last week that this was potentially the course of action that was going to play out. but it is officially now happening at this point today. so the senate intelligence committee can expect to receive that letter which will point out according to this source that the fifth invoking the fifth amendment is not an admission of guilt but designed to protect innocent people from self-incrimination or anything along those lines. so this person says that it would be highly imprudent for flynn to provide these documents considering that some members of
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congress have called for his prosecution or additional investigation at this point. peter? >> notable that president trump himself said that mike flynn should seek immunity during the campaign season, he said anybody who seeks immunity is acknowledging their own guilt. what is happening on the hill later today, that's mike pence making a short road trip to capitol hill today speaking about the budget with the expected rollout tomorrow. what more do we know about that budget and what we'll learn today? >> it's becoming a frequent quick trip for the vice president. we can hear him coming from our office here on the hill. he will be of course, the point person again for the administration in trying to wrangle lawmakers to support this budget. we are expecting it to be dropped off here at the capitol tomorrow. we may see some pictures of that happening. then we're going to hear some testimony from the administration later in the week, the omb director nick mulvaney. a couple things to watch for. first of all, medicaid. this budget includes deep cuts to the medicaid program.
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we, of course, know that president trump campaigned on not cutting medicare and social security. medicaid, of course, the program that takes care of health care for poorer low income americans. that is something that is likely to cause problems with republicans up here. we already know in the context of the health care debate the senate, there are many republican senator who's represent states where they've expanded medicaid. this could potentially be a real problem. another thing to watch, peter, the office of drug control policy. there are some grants in there we're already seeing bipartisan opposition to cuts to that based on of course, the opioid crisis. peter. >> kasie hunt on capitol hill today where even with the president out of town, the lawmakers continue their work. thank you. we are awaiting a joint statement by president trump and the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu that will take place at the prime minister's official residence in jerusalem. we send you back to jerusalem right now and andrea mitchell. >> thanks so much, peter. coming up, while we're waiting
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for the joint statement from the president and israel's prime minister netanyahu, here in jerusalem, we'll bring you the live. but first ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley is on her first overseas trip in neighboring jordan and craig melvin will join me next with his interview right here on andr"andrea mitch report reports"" live from jerusalem. boost. it's about moving forward, not back. it's looking up, not down. it's being in motion. in body, in spirit, in the now. boost® high protein it's intelligent nutrition with 15 grams of protein
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and u.s. ambassador to the u.p. u.n. nikki haley is also traveling overseas. she was at a refugee camp in jordan which is home to 80,000 syrian refugees in an exclusive interview, craig melvin, she says her focus is on syria, the worst humanitarian crisis since world war ii. you've been talking to a number of families. what have they been telling you? what were you telling them. >> overwhelmingly, every single one, they all just want to go home. that's what their prayer is every day is one day syria will be peaceful enough that they can go back. >> and joining me now is craig melvin in amman, jordan.
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an extraordinary scene. the fact you have seen the suffering in these refugee camps, jordan is incredibly hospitable to be putting up with this for years and years. it's a drain on their economy. and the population is almost as large as the population now of the country of jordan. >> that refugee camp that you just showed there actually right now, it's the fourth largest city in the entire country of jordan. 80,000 refugees. it has grown considerably since it first opened shortly after the war in syria started. some six years ago, andrea, as you know. one of the things that was especially striking as we walked through that refugee camp sunday and the ambassador comments on this a number of times, i think a lot of folks think of refugee camps, they think of tents and people just sleeping in tents and no running water. this is a fairly advanced facility. there's electricity. the housing structures are all
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solid. most of the folks in the refugee camp, they have jobs. there are a number of supermarkets, as well. there is believe it or not, albeit a small thriving economy, as well. but the ambassador said her hope is in the not too distant future, this is a refugee camp that can cease to exist because a number of folks have been allowed to return to syria. >> speaking of syria, you talked to her of course, about president assad in syria. play a little bit of that and i'll talk to you on the other side. >> there is no way there is going to be a little solution and peace for the people in syria with assad in charge. >> reporter: you're calling for regime change. >> what's going to happen is all the partners will call for change. >> reporter: are we going to lead the effort to call for the change. >> you're going to hear me talk about how awful assad is every chance i get. >> that's a promise a commitment that her predecessors made, as
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well. it is an enormous challenge given russia and iran propping up assad. >> reporter: she spent time talking about that, and also trying to, again, persuade russia to change its course with how it's dealing with the situation there in syria. one of the things also, andrea, that the ambassador said yesterday about bashar al assad, you'll remember she sort of grabbed the world by the collar early last month when she held up those pictures of the women and the children who had been killed using chemical weapons in syria. she said yesterday that her hope would be that these images that we saw then, these images that we continue to see come out of syria, that we don't get desensitized to these images. there's been a lot made of the trump's administration's commitment to cut funding to united nations. ambassador haley said while she
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is ambassador, humanitarian aid will continue at the same level with regards to where we are right now in syria. >> well, it was a wonderful that you could do this trip that your exclusive interview, your tour of the refugee camp. it's such an important reminder. the generosity of jordan to their syrian refugee neighbors is extraordinary. as well as the example of jordan and israel and having a peace agreement that goes back 30 years now. thanks so much, craig melvin in amman, jordan. coming up here, the president and benjamin netanyahu are set to deliver a joint statement at any moment. stay with us right here. you're watching andr"andrea mitl reports" live only on msnbc. it's not how fast you mow, it's how well you mow fast. it's not how fast you mow... ...it's how well you mow fast. woooh! it's not how fast you mow... it's how well you mow fast! it's not how fast you mow...it's how well you mow fast. they're not just words to mow by, they're words to live by.
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without asking your prescriber. get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing, fast heartbeat, extreme drowsiness, swelling of your face, tongue, or throat, dizziness or confusion. ask your health care provider if you're tresiba® ready. covered by most insurance and medicare plans. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ welcome back to our special coverage from jerusalem. moments from now, we are expecting to hear joint statements from president trump and israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu. but meanwhile, joining me is ambassador the former u.s. ambassador to israel, the middle east negotiator, form u.s. special envoy for israeli/palestinian negotiations now the executive vice president at the brookings institution and anchor ayman mohyeldin joining us from new york. >> ambassador, first to you. the president has said that middle east peace may not be as difficult as some have said. you've been there, done that.
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what advice would you give to president trump? >> well, i guess one of those have said it's very difficult. so it would be good to know why he thinks it's not difficult. we don't have an indication of that. i think that the president has not been immersed in the details. he's got people who are immersed in the details. his own envoy jason greenblatt and his son-in-law jared kushner. so it's not a criticism of him to say he's not involved in the details but because he's not involved in the details i think he doesn't understand how far apart they are. there's some value in him creating the impression that it can be done because after 18 years, without any agreement between the israelis and the palestinians, despite three previous presidents having tried hard and failed, there's a lot of despair out there. if he can generate a bit of hope, that's a good thing.
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on the other hand, he's got to be very careful because if he raises expectations and then they're disappointed, we've seen before that that can lead to a real setback and more violence. >> and secretary tillerson on air force one flying from riyadh was asked whether the president planned to to apologize for sharing israeli intelligence with the russians. i wanted to play a bit of his response because there is a new flap for both you and a man to comment on which is what he said earlier today, what the president said earlier today at photo opportunity with netanyahu. but this was tillerson on air force one. does the president plan to apologize for telling the russians the intelligence. >> i don't know there's anything to apologize for. >> but then the president went on as you both know to say to the press corps, you know, i wasn't mentioning israel by word or name when in one said that israel was mentioned it's been reported by "the new york times"
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but no officials ever said it. how would you imagine dealing with this, martin, if you were the ambassador as you have been, the negotiators dealing with intelligence? we understand denials to the con contemporary that israeli intelligence officials are very upset. >> the only way to deal with it at this point after what the president just said is press availability with the prime minister is to just pray and hope that it goes away. because there's to way of cleaning it up at this point. he's brought up the whole question of where the intelligence came from again, confirmed that it was israel in the process. and so it digs a bigger hole and the only thing is to try to convince him to stay away from it. and just hope it passes on. as far as the israeli reaction, they're doing their best to ignore it. i'm quite sure privately there's some concerns about it that they're working out at a higher
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level intelligence level with their counterparts in washington. but this is the kind of thing that i think they would all prefer to go away and hope in the future there would be greater respect for protecting the sources. >> and i wanted to also play for you, a man, what the president said in riyadh. the speech to 50 leaders of the muslim and arab world. >> we are not here to lecture. we are not here to tell other people how to live. the nations of the middle east will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves for their country. and frankly, for their families and for their children. >> and eamon, that is being interpreted as saying we're not going to talk to you about your human rights abuses and other things happening in your countries. we just want to deal with you on anti-terrorism and security
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issues. that has gone over very well with the sunni arab leader. >> a lot of leaders are welcoming there's an american president who is not going to patronize them, lecture them and to some extent as we saw in 2003 invade one of their countries to bring about their vision of what the middle east should look like with the iraq invasion. but there is an underlying principle to that which can work as actually counterproductive to the overall objectives of the united states which is to fight extremism. you have on one hand the president saying he wants arab and muslim countries to do more to fight radical extremism and terrorism but at the same time, so many of the policies these human rights positions and abuses of these governments are helping fuel the issues of extremism and making that the ability to recruit and to radicalize that much more if you will, easier for these organizations that are carrying out these attacks and recruiting people to fight in syria and
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iraq. so there is this kind of double speak that is confusing. this is a speech that was geared and targeted towards muslim leaders. i'm not sure it's going to resonate with the average person on the arab street or in the muslim street around the world. if i'm thinking of a young man who is perhaps thinking of joining or being radicalizes or joining a terrorist organization, i'm not sure the speech the president gave where he put american interests aligned with gulf and authoritarian leaders' interests bob values is going to do anything to deter those young individuals from going off and joining some radical extremist group or ideology. >> a lot to think about that indeed. ambassador, thank you both so much. and for now, we wait for president trump and prime minister netanyahu. let's go back to peter alexander at the white house. >> andrea, thanks so much. we'll wait with you. back here is, president trump and benjamin netanyahu will speak any moment. we'll take you there live when
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father jenkins, board of trustees, distinguished members of the faculty, my fellow honorees, guests, grandparents. >> more than 100 graduating seniors at the university of notre dame walking out of their own commencement ceremony to protest vice president mike pence. joining me now with washington post national political correspondent and jeremy peters, msnbc contributor. so notre dame has been the cite of protests of presidents and vice presidents in the past. someone close to the vice president said there were protests when president obama went there in 2009. these students were protesting the policies that the vice president pursued when he was
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governor of indiana. during his speech, he actually talked about recent attacks on freedom of speech on college campuses. folks, listen to this and we'll come back and ask about it. >> this university is a vanguard of freedom of the free exchange of ideas, sadly when free speech and civility are waning on campuses across america. while this institution has maintained an atmosphere of civility and open debate, far too many campuses across america have become characterized by speech codes, safe zones, tone policing. administration sanctioned political correctness, all of which amounts to nothing less than suppression of the freedom of speech. >> karen, someone close to the vice president told me this morning, the irony here is the vice president was pushing for people to have the right to speak freely. what do you make of this moment? >> i thought the topic of the speech was almost like the commencement address equivalent
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of a subtweet. he was addressing what was happening in front of him. i think that, you know, this was an interesting -- an interesting topic for a speech at a religious university, because of course, notre dame has been involved as you said in so many previous acts of protest like this. that's sort of become kind of par for the course with their commencements. >> jeremy, let me ask you if i can about the vice president's day at 4:30, he'll be on the hill meeting with lawmakers talking about tax reform. but mostly i suspect talking about the rollout of the budget expected for tomorrow. it was during day one, the day he came down that escalator and announced that president trump, then candidate trump said we're going to save medicare, medicaid, social security without any cuts. have to do it. now we're reporting there could be up to $800 billion in cuts to medicaid. what is the impact and how will this be received by lawmakers?
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>> $800 billion is an extraordinary sum of money. these cuts come at a time when republicans on capitol hill and hhs secretary tom price are defending their passage of the obamacare repeal and replace as an agenda -- or an item that would somehow improve medicaid coverage. so i don't know how exactly you improve it by cutting almost a trillion dollars from it. but these are questions that are not going to go away for republicans. as they go back to their districts, as they sit through these town hall meetings, what you're hearing is not a lot of questions about russia or the fbi investigation or jim comey, you're hearing questions about health care and these bread and butter issues that are at the front of voters' minds, although they might not always be at the front of ours. >> jeremy, karen, short
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president. >> yes, and we're about to hear from netanyahu and the president, of course. tomorrow, the president has his meeting in bethlehem in the west bank with mahmoud abbas. he will also go for a very brief visit to the holocaust memorial here, and eventually leave for rome where -- on wednesday, he will be meeting with the pope. so all three major monotheistic religions being visited by the president. first in riyadh, the birthplace of islam. and then, of course, here in jerusalem visiting the western wall today. and then going on to visit the pope. and there are tensions and possible pitfalls at every stop. a very ambitious trip, as this white house tries to recast middle east peace and tries to do something, peter, that no one else has done. so thanks to you for everything that you're reporting back home.
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there's a lot to report. we'll be following all that, as we stay here in jerusalem with live coverage, tomorrow as well. and make sure to watch lester holt tonight. follow our show online and on twitter. craig melvin is up next live from amman, jordan. the traveling show right here on msnbc. craig? >> hey there, andrea. don't go too far. we would like to come back to you in just a bit. craig melvin here from amman, jordan, where again any moment now, we are expecting to hear from president donald trump and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. any moment now, they'll take to the podium and make some remarks from the prime minister's residence. meanwhile, i am here in amman, less than an hour's drive from jerusalem. part of the massive nbc presence here in the middle east as we cover every facet of president
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trump's trip. i have been spending the last few days with you and ambassador nikki haley. it is also her first overseas trip as u.n. ambassador. i will have much, much more on our exclusive conversation and also what she saw in that massive refugee camp on sunday. we'll get to that in just a moment. more on that wide-ranging conversation. but let me bring in nbc's kelly o'donnell. she's traveling with president trump. she is just a stone's throw, if you will, in jerusalem. kelly, bring us up to speed on what president trump has done so far today. and also on what we can expect to hear from him and mr. netanyahu any moment from now. >> reporter: craig, this has been the second stop on the president's five-stop, nine-day trip and it's been framed in history with threads oh of what is new and different with the trump administration by the president and his team. of course, we
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