tv Deadline White House MSNBC February 5, 2018 1:00pm-2:00pm PST
1:00 pm
that does it for me. i'll be around for the evening to just sort of make sense of this whole thing. but for now we are going to -- we've got -- the closing bell is ringing now. let's see if we've got a shot of the stock market that we can go to. we're listening to the closing bell as it happens. losses are increasing at the close. philadelphia eagles. oh, yeah. fly eagles fly. that's the best i can leave you with at 4:00. let's hand it over to my friend, nicole wallace, on "deadline white house." >> alli, i heard you say live by the sword, die by the sword. i wonder if you can come down and join us and help us understand exactly what that means. >> i will. >> okay. we've got a seat for you. >> i'm on my way. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. we're covering breaking news on more than one front this hour. we'll start with the dow suffering its biggest point drop in history, extending a sell-off that started friday. "the new york times" putting it this way. "if the momentary market sputter turns into something worse, it could become awkward for president trump.
1:01 pm
he has repeatedly claimed credit for the surging stock market and gave the markets a high-profile mention at his state of the union address last week." david leonhart of the "new york times" joins us from washington. phil rucker, white house bureau chief for the "washington post," and politico's michael crowley are all here as well. david, let me start with you. you make the most sense. you sort of write about this intersection of politics and the economy. can you speak to what has happened today, people tuning in right now, feeling panicked about what they see the markets do? can you speak to the real world implications of today's headlines? >> yeah, so the first thing i would say, nicole, to everyone out there is when you hear journalists like me confidently tell you why the stock market failed, don't believe us. no one knows most of the time exactly why the market rose or fell. that's why we use phrases like animal spirits. and so yes, it seems like people are getting nervous about a slowing economy but we're not sure. so that means we're not sure when this is going to end. it could be that political chaos
1:02 pm
is playing some role in the market jiters. maybe it's playing no role. and i think that's why it's so dangerous for president trump to have taken all this credit for the stock market because he's effectively suggested that he can control the market. and not even a president can understand or control the stock market. >> ali velshi in his hand-off, i don't know if you heard him say this, he said live by the sword, die by the sword. >> yep. >> but it seems like he's made his bed, he's going to have to lie about. i think the topic he tweets about most often is the trump economy, and i have to say from interviewing voters this is the thing that voters give him the most credit for. do you think there will be any effort to use his twitter handle or use his influence to try to sort of put the toothpaste back in the tube when he sees what happened today? >> there may be. i think in the end it's probably reality that matters more than how any president describes economic reality. and so we have always seen that
1:03 pm
in ways that are actually unfair voters give presidents too much blame and too much credit for the economy. right? george h.w. bush lost his job over it. jimmy carter lost his job over it. bill clinton was able to keep his job despite all of the problems in his presidency. and so i think no matter what trump is doing or not doing i think on the margins it's a real mistake for him to try to claim credit. but my guess is if the economy starts to weaken there's probably not much the president can say that would make people feel better about the fact that the economy's weakening. and the flip side of that is if the economy remains strong it really is going to put kind of a floor under his support. >> and i wonder if you could stay with us because ali velshi has just joined the table and i always need ali velshi's brain but never more than on a day like today. now, this is -- i've been watching you for the last hour. i was changing out of my jeans and sweats but i was riveted. but this is the largest point drop ever.
1:04 pm
>> yes. >> why shouldn't people be scared? >> well, so that's the problem, that regular people who do have investments in the stock market have logged in and see their investments go down, they've seen that for the last couple of weeks. and while a lot of people don't own stocks, it is a bit of a proxy. this big board and this stock market is a bit of a proxy for how we feel. now, the fact is we don't have any signs of the economy weakening. it's strengthening, building on a strong economy that the president likes to take credit for all the time. but we're not seeing weakening and we're not seeing weakening signs anywhere else in the world. however, as you know from your administration, recessions happen. business cycles happen. for all the technology in the world, we haven't figured out how to stop that from happening. and it's not that far along back that it's not in people's minds. so they get freaked out by this. if you look at your 401(k) today, generally speaking it is higher than it was on january 1st of this year. now, you've lost pretty much everything, but it's just been a month. it's not crazy. we have forgotten how stock markets operate. they're supposed to go up and down a bit and overall they gain
1:05 pm
6% to 10% a year. we've seen 20% and 30% gains without a pullback. so it's hard to rationalize it but you shouldn't. this is really a collection of pullbacks that have all happened in the course of a few days. the question is momentum. once you see these pullbacks and the average investor, our parents and our brothers and sisters start saying i don't want to be left holding the bag, they start selling out and then it accelerates and it accelerates and that's how you get a market drop. we're not there yet. we don't have a lot of telltale signs, the velocity of the sell-off. we don't have panic. you don't have reasons for this. earnings are still strong. the economy's good. but the market is psychology. a stock is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it and today they're willing to pay less for it. >> now, you -- i'm sorry, go ahead. >> sorry, nicole, i was going to say there is a vulnerability here. i'm not going to make any predictions about the stock market. but there is a vulnerability, which is stocks are really expensive right now. relative to the long-term underlying earnings of companies. and that means i think there's less margin for error and there
1:06 pm
is a greater chance people are going to get nervous and say whoa, maybe these stocks p really wront aren't worth as much as we thought they were a few months ago. >> david, i'll put you and alli on the spot because you both referenced your third or fourth potential factor, a destabilized political environment. i just want to ask you, the president was just in davos, and his case for foreign countries where otherwise things might be a little strained, really is the strength of the american economy. he sits across leaders from countries who are not happy with the direction we're taking on trade, not happy with the direction we're taking on immigration, but it is the strength of our economy that brings them to the table. i wonder if you can speak to what today's stock market drop looks like on the world stage first, david. >> well, again, i want to just reiterate that i don't know why exactly the market is doing what it's doing and no one does. but having said that, i do not think it is good for the american system or the american
1:07 pm
economy to have a president calling out members of congress as little so and so, to have a president who is constantly making up his own facts, which is another way of saying lying. this just isn't good. it does not instill confidence in the country or in the world about the functioning of our government. and i don't know whether that had anything to do with today's market fall. i think it didn't have much if it had anything to do with it, but i think it's not good. i think it leaves us less room for error, and i think it makes people more nervous that if there is a crisis this white house isn't going to be able to deal with it. say what you will about the obama administration and the george w. bush administration. they were very different. both of them were extremely serious about dealing with the financial crisis. and it would have been much, much worse if they had not dealt with it the way they had. i don't see any reason to have confidence that this administration will be able to deal with hiccups, small or large, in the markets the way that those two administrations did. >> that's the single scariest thing you've said all hour. phil rucker, let me bring you in
1:08 pm
on that because the president tweeted i think about 15 minutes ago, "thanks to the historic tax cuts that i signed into law your paychecks are going way up, your taxes are going way down, and america is once again open for business." it sort of reminded me of the tweets he sent out on election day and the day before election day, and to his credit they worked but i wonder if this message is a sign of things to come, that he's going to now start cheerleading for the economy instead of against the fbi. >> well, that's a good question. he has been a cheerleader for the economy all along, and it's interesting, the stock market measures, it's really one of the only numerical measures that he's pointed to of his presidency. he again and again and again for the past year has said the media's not covering the stock market but look at it, the numbers went up by however much every day and every week and he would claim credit for that. he would say the stocks are improving because of trump. and now he's in this position of the stock market falling. and he's going to have to be careful what happens in the future because as ali and david
1:09 pm
were just saying he has really no control over the way this market's going to go over the next few days. >> david and ali, we're always grateful to have you but especially today. you got the bright red flashing s.o.s.s. thank you so much, my friend, for being here. >> my pleasure. turning now to the other breaking news this hour, we are waiting for that vote in the house intelligence committee on whether to release the democratic memo that's expected to counter what the fbi described as material omissions of fact in a republican memo released friday. we will be joined by a member of that committee shortly. first the president's motives in releasing sensitive classified material over the objection of his own fbi director's grave concerns are now clear. >> but did we catch them in the act or what? you know what i'm -- oh, did we catch them in the act. they are very embarrassed. they never thought they were going to get caught. we caught them. we caught them. so much fun. we're like the great sleuth. >> good god.
1:10 pm
speaking of instability. trump's smear campaign against the fbi is one he's pursued with gusto since the gop memo was released, tweeting this attack against the top democrat on the house intel committee. "little adam schiff who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in washington, right up there with comey, warner, brennan and clapper. adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. must be stopped." funny, "must be stopped" is what director wray said about the release of the nunes memo. schiff responded to the president, "mr. president, i see you've had a busy morning of executive time. instead of tweeting false smears, the american people would appreciate it if you turned off the tv and helped solve the funding crisis, protected dreamers, or really anything else." the white house also weighing in on the process they will undertake if the committee votes to release the democratic memo this afternoon. >> if they vote to release this democratic memo, what will the president do? >> the president will use the
1:11 pm
same methods, same mechanisms to go over that document just like he did over the republican memo. in fact, you'll remember we talked in great length about the president meeting with his team and white house counsel, also with members of his national security team to deem whether or not the contents of the republican memo threatened national security at all. he will do the same thing and take the same painstaking care to look at the democrat memo as he did the one from the republicans. >> you remember that process included the president putting the odds at 100% that he'd release it before he'd even read it. >> you must release the memo. >> oh, don't worry. 100%. can you imagine that? >> yes, sir. >> he'd be -- he'd be too angry. >> we want to bring in democratic congressman jim himes of connecticut, a member of the house intel committee. thanks for spending some time with us. let me ask you what is your prediction on how this vote will go down here in about 50
1:12 pm
minutes? >> i'm pretty confident that the house intelligence committee will vote to release the memo. we've gotten that commitment from a number of republicans. so i do imagine that that happens. i was just chuckling there about the extensive and detailed process that the president undertook to do his part in terms of the careful evaluation. of course him saying he was going to release it before he'd even seen it. hey, if he wants to do that with the democratic memo i'm all in. what i do worry about, of course, is that it would surprise me frankly if this president looked at that memo, realized that it was a refutation of what he held up as proof that somehow, you know, people were out to get him and then he allowed it to be released. so i'm standing by for white house noise and white house obstruction around releasing this other memo. >> i talked to a u.s. government official, a trump appointee in the d.o.j. world who's very eager for the democratic memo to come out, and for this individual who is a proud republican, serves a republican president, it's an odd position for him to be in to be eager for your memo to come out to rebut
1:13 pm
and defend the professionalism and the conduct and the ethics and the integrity of the fbi. talk about the shifting politics and the position that your committee is in to really set the record straight on behalf not just of chris wray who was public in his objections but to every member of the fbi who's been smeared by the president's attacks. >> yeah. and it doesn't surprise me one bit that you were talking to a senior department of justice official who really wants this out there, who is also a republican. look, the american people really need to understand that senior officials at the fbi, at the department of justice, and junior officials and rank and file, of course they have their political opinions. we all do. but that doesn't necessarily mean that those opinions influence the work that they do. and by the way, if it does influence the work that they do, they get castigated for doing, it the way those two agents were taken off the investigation when it was found that their bias was expressed in tech. so what was happened here of course is that the president has tried to make this about some
1:14 pm
crazy secret democratic-driven cabal to keep him from becoming president or to damage his presidency despite the fact that jim comey is a republican, bob mueller is a republican, you know, jeff sessions is certainly a republican. rod rosenstein, republican. i mean, so what we really need to do here, nicole, is to realize that these entities are comprised of people with political opinions and partisan affiliation but they're very, very good people who put their job and the country ahead of whatever party label attaches to them. >> were you aware of christopher wray, the fbi director's request to brief your committee before the first vote on the republican memo? he was not permitted to do so. but did democrats get to weigh in? and were you in favor of being briefed by director wray before that first vote? >> of course we were both aware and in favor of that. in fact, we made a motion in the meeting to allow the department of justice and the fbi to come in after having a moment to
1:15 pm
reflect on the allegations in the nunes memo. because remember, sunday night or something, the head of the fbi director, of the fbi reviewed it. and to have a conversation about what was true and what was not true. if that had happened there would probably have been less damage done to the federal bureau of investigation. there certainly would have been less damage done to devin nunes's reputation now that the memo is out there. but look, nicolle, you know, this oversight in the congress is not about firing memos out of committees. there are careful hearings, witnesses coming before the committees, being asked questions, dialogue back and forth, conversations with inspector generals. that's oversight, and that's critical. firing out a partisan memo without letting the target of that memo even respond to it, the american people understand that that has nothing to do with oversight and everything to do with a nasty partisan campaign to back this president's fantasies. >> i'm not going to ask you about the memo because it's still classified i understand and there's a process that you have to go through, right? if it passes your committee, the white house has five days to release it, is that right? >> that's correct.
1:16 pm
>> but i want to ask you about some of the public reporting about what the memo achieves. i understand, again, from justice department sources that what the memo achieves, it erases what chris wray described as the material omission of fact. it puts into context the way that the information gathered by former british intelligence officer christopher steele was used. that the judge was not unaware of his politics, if you will. and it was also described to me that informants are all flawed. to be a criminal informant is not to be a nun or a schoolteacher. so can you talk about what your memo's release would achieve in terms of helping to clear the fbi from this nunes trump smear campaign? >> yeah. no, i think it's an extensive memo and i think what it will do for people who care about truth, fact, and reality, which sadly seems to be a declining percentage of the american population, they will look at it and they will say, okay, it may
1:17 pm
be true that the steele memorandum or elements of the steele memorandum were used as part of a much larger fisa application. they will learn that it is not true that either the judge was hoodwinked here. they will also learn that just because a source, as you said, just because a source has a and ias, that does not therefore mean that what the source says is untrue. the whole nunes memo relies on the notion that simply because the fusion gps was paid for by the clinton campaign and paid for by the dnc -- by the way, of course this is an effort that started with a republican opposition research attempt -- that it is somehow compromised, wrong, and not legitimate. look, i do a lot of opposition research myself just the way any elected person does. >> you're well versed in the art -- and anything that's untrue is of no value to you either. >> it's of worse than no value. yeah. >> let me ask you one question.
1:18 pm
wittingly or unwittingly, to quote former director brennan, devin nunes made clear that the entire russia investigation, far from being a hoax, was started by george papadopoulos, as "the new york times" has recently reported, mouthing off in a bar in london. so if the whole effort by devin nunes was to exonerate donald trump, it had the opposite effect by simply making clear that carter page was someone who had been under surveillance on and off from 2013 on, years before he ever joined the trump campaign, and that the counterintelligence investigation into trump's campaign began with another interesting character, george p papadopoul papadopoulos. so what do you think the net effect is once the smoke has cleared of the actual release of the nunes memo is? >> well, nicolle, again, inasmuch as facts and reality matter, and they don't matter to chairman nunes, they don't matter to the people in right-wing media who are simply trying to defend this president at all costs, here's the three key facts. as the memo itself said, this
1:19 pm
investigation was under way for months before the fbi sought a warrant for carter page. when they sought that warrant for carter page, carter page was no longer working for the trump campaign. and oh, by the way, that was in october of 2016 they sought the warrant. so the information they would have gotten back from that warrant, whatever intercepts, whatever information, would have arrived in fbi offices well after the campaign. so basically, if you just think about those three facts, which are indisputable facts, and in fact in the memo, you see that the argument that there's somehow some conspiracy to damage this president or to keep him from being elected, you know, on the terms of the memo itself it doesn't stand up. >> congressman jim hymes, interesting times. thank you for being here. please come back. we appreciate you. >> thank you, nicolle. >> let's get to all of this with our reporters and guests. frank figlusi, now an msnbc national security analyst. matt miller former chief spokesman for the justice
1:20 pm
department now an msnbc analyst. and former republican congressman david jolly of florida. phil rucker and michael crowley are still here. let me start with you, phil rucker, because we started this conversation with some of the stock market carnage. we're now in sort of what is an after action reality of the nunes memo release, and it doesn't seem like a clear political win for the president, especially if you've now got republicans saying the memo's release does not do what donald trump says it does. four republican members of the house intel committee saying over the weekend that it does not exonerate donald rupp in the russia investigation. and you just heard the congressman saying he predicts there will be a vote to release the democratic rebuttal, if you will. in less than an hour here. >> that's right. president trump is going to have to be faced very likely with the decision about what to do with that democratic memo assuming the house committee votes to release it. he's going to have to review it as you were discussing earlier
1:21 pm
and decide whether to approve it to be released publicly. but this is not the clear win that trump thought it was going to be. he tweeted over the weekend that he was -- it totally vindicated him from this russia matter. but we now from our reporting that chief of staff john kelly when he first read the memo late last week told the president that it just was not as compelling as it was being sold by trump allies out there, that it's just not the smoking gun. that a lot of trump allies and republicans are saying it is. >> frank figlusi, i don't know if you heard the sound at the beginning of the show but we played donald trump talking about ooh, we caught them, like? big crime was uncovered. to met only person being investigated for potentially committing the crimes of obstruction of justice and potential conspiracy to collude with a foreign adversary is the trump campaign. >> yeah, i heard that. and i heard him saying that boy, there are some embarrassed people at the fbi. but i have to sell you, if indeed this democrat memo gets out i really think the
1:22 pm
embarrassment's going to be in that house intelligence committee. i really think congressman nunes should be embarrassed by what's happening. and i wonder if the very same people in congress and in conservative media who've been saying that sunshine is the best disinfectant, that we all should be seeking the truth, that we should all be transparent, if they're going to be fighting as hard to get that democrat memo out there. and then let's play this out. what happens if the president doesn't sign off on this release of the democrat memo? what does that do to chris wray at the fbi? >> yeah. >> does it force him to come out publicly and start refuting bullet for bullet, line for line, the nunes memo? and ironically put him in a trap where he now appears to be very political, which is the last thing an fbi director ever wants to do. so trump needs to be mulling this over right now. i'm sure he is. but either way it puts the fbi really between a rock and a hard place. >> frank, i want to ask you about some reporting i had over the weekend from the fbi that this process is so sacred and
1:23 pm
the idea that all these individuals had signed the fisa application, sally yates, jim comey, rod rosenstein, that the idea that awful them were part of some corrupt cabal is, a, bonkers and, b, incredibly demoralizing and has a material effect on the people who have to assemble fisa applications and try to gather permission from the secret court to surveil criminals, that it could affect a source being willing to let their information be placed on a fisa application if they know that the republican chairman of the intel committee and the president can just declassify it willy-nilly. can you imagine that scenario? >> yeah, first of all, i don't think we can pretend anymore that this is not impacting morale within the rank and file of the fbi. i truly believe it is. but even on a larger picture it tends to look -- to threaten the most important tool in their toolbox, which is the fisa technique. and the reality is i hope the
1:24 pm
democrat memo speaks to this. there's at least between 10 and 30 people who have to sign off on a fisa affidavit and at least 10 of those are lawyers. so it starts in the field office with the chief division counsel signing off on it and the head of the field office. it goes to headquarters, where general counsel looks at it and they sign off on it. it goes to d.o.j. and the lawyers in the national security division look at it and sign off on it. and they ask a ton of questions. and the footnotes and addenda that's attached to that with all of the multiple sourcing to each and every line is attached to that. then there's in-camera questions in the judge's chambers. i've been in those judges' chambers over 20 times at fisa court. and the give and take and dialogue that occurs between the clerk and the judge asking questions line for line, all of that needs to play out. the public needs to understand you don't attach a dossier, staple it to your affidavit and send it in for approval. >> so matt miller, can you weigh in on how they got this so
1:25 pm
wrong? because it sounds like if the president put the odds at 100% that he was going to release the republican memo before he'd even read it according to his own spokespeople it's not clear to me how he goes about refusing -- i mean, do you think he's going to release the democratic memo? let me ask you that first. >> i think the answer to that question really depends on whether you think donald trump is capable of shame or not. i don't think he is. it's extremely possible that he looks at this democratic memo, finds that it hurts him, hurts the case that he's been trying to make, and decides not to release it. in fact, i somewhat expect that's what he'll do. >> so where does that leave the fbi? which we know is eager to correct what are material omissions, a document that gave the director of the fbi grave concern with its release. where do you think that leaves the relationship not just between the fbi and this white house but the fbi and the attorney general who didn't exactly have the director's back? >> i think that all of those relationships are extremely frayed right now.
1:26 pm
the fbi has been put in a very tough place not just over this but going back really since january of last year now, since donald trump took office. i mean, we have to remember, before he ever started launching public attacks on the fbi he was launching private attacks on the independence of the fbi by asking the director to answer a loyalty pledge. so he has been putting the fbi and the justice department on pressure publicly and privately for over a year now. and what the people in the field have to really ask is that the leaders of the fbi and the leaders of the justice department will do two things. one, that they will stand up and defend the institutions and that, two, privately they'll go to the president and say mr. president, this isn't appropriate, you have to stop. ideally, the person that does that is the attorney general. that's the person who owns the relationship with the president and is supposed to be the one that can stand up to him. we have not seen that happen, to say the least. we've seen jeff sessions kind of do the opposite. and there's no sign that that's going to change anytime soon. so it really falls unfortunately
1:27 pm
to chris wray. so far we've seen him do it privately and really defend the agency. but he has a lot on his back now to carry that load. >> let me play for you, michael crowley, something that former director brennan said this morning on "morning joe" when asked sort of about this intersection which we know is the president's ultimate achilles' heel. one trump aide described the fbi simply as collateral damage, which is tragic when you think of all the sort of fallout that matt and frank have described. let me play you former director brennan this morning. >> do you think that the investigation is winding down as some people have suggested? >> well, in some respects i think it's still winding up, as bob mueller continues to investigate. i think there's a lot of information there that bob mueller's been able to uncover and now as he pursues this i think in the coming weeks and -- the weeks i think are going to be very important. over the next several months i think it's going to be critical. and if the republicans are going
1:28 pm
to continue to pursue this partisan path i wonder what's going to happen if bob mueller's report comes forward with some compelling information about violations of the law. >> all right. you think he knows something or you think he just knows a little about bob mueller? >> i think more likely he knows a little about bob mueller, particularly when it comes to obstruction because he doesn't have inside into the actions the president took after he took office. look, donald trump has often said he has nothing to worry about. he's saying to people why can't you wrap up this investigation, there's nothing there, i didn't do anything wrong, there's no collusion, there's no obstruction. so why this furious counterattack against the investigation itself? why these constant threats to fire the investigators? why this seeming sense of almost panic around this investigation? occasionally a trump lawyer will say in the press we want to talk to bob mueller, he can come in and ask whatever he wants. and immediately you start to get this pushback from trump associates who say whoa, whoa, whoa, don't sit down and talk to mueller, it's not a good idea. so i guess my --
1:29 pm
>> you're right. anthony scaramucci and chris christie were both on tv almost within 48 hours of his lawyer saying sure we'll cooperate. >> now, to some degree that's a reflection on trump outside the context of russia, that you never want donald trump speaking under oath fudge avoid it because we all know what sort of statements he's prone to making. but i do think you really get a sense that trump is terrified about where this investigation is going. i think it's absolutely true that mueller seems to be ramping up, not ramping down, and he wants to get out of this somehow but it's just not that simple. and i think even if he were to use the nunes memo as a pretext to fire rosenstein, to fire mueller, that's not the end of the story. and in fact we've seen that people like don mcgahn think it would only make his plight that much worse. so in really is no easy way out for trump but he seems to be kind of experiencing this cognitive dissonance where he thinks there might be one there, must be something he can do, he's lashing out. but it's not going to save him. >> david jolly, let me play you
1:30 pm
what republicans said after the memo was released, after donald trump started talking about how it vindicated him from the witch hunt. they didn't think it did exactly that. let's watch. >> i think it would be a mistake for anyone to suggest that the special counsel shouldn't complete his work. i support his work. i want him to finish it. >> bob mueller should be allowed to turn over every rock, pursue every lead so that we can have trust in knowing what actually the russians did or did not do. >> you are in favor of the memo coming out. do you agree that it vindicates trump? >> i think this is a separate issue. >> look, russia tried to interfere with our election in 2016, with our without a dossier. so you need an investigation into russia. you need an investigation into trump tower and the cambridge analytica e-mail separate and apart from the dossier. so those are not connected issues to me. they may be for other republicans but they're not for me. >> david jolly, republicans getting religion when they see a
1:31 pm
pile of media coverage that depicts them all as stooges and accomplices for this president in his efforts to smear the fbi. am i being cynical or were these men trying to walk back a vote and act like they didn't know what the president was going to do with the nunes memo? give me a break. >> sure. look, at a bare minimum they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. they knew they were politicizing this investigation when they released the moment. and look, i think it was foolish what they did because they took the focus from being on donald trump and the investigation to now being on congressional republicans. and the question is have they done near permanent damage to their own credibility? nicolle, there are political decisions that get made in the arena and there are moral decisions that get made. what the house gop did was make a moral decision to attack the credibility of law enforcement, to attack the credibility of investigators, to attack the credibility of the fisa court. the smartest thing they can do is to let bob mueller do his job.
1:32 pm
recall a year ago when bob mueller was being appointed, one of the rationales was to take the focus of the russia investigation and put it over here on a quiet shelf and let republicans get back to the republican agenda. they have completely blown that. this politicization has undermined not the credibility of law enforcement but the credibility of the republican party. >> phil rucker, let me give you a quick last word. i know the president thinks this was a clear win but are you picking nip sense from anybopick i ing up any sense from anybody at the white house that they should have picked up a pen and -- so the blowback from the republicans on the intel committee wasn't so harsh and so sudden? >> well, nicolle, some of the concern last week was this memo was being hyped up in the media so much, we were covering it so intensively before its release, that it would land like sort of a dud and wouldn't have the impact that they worried about. and there was also concern at the white house that this completely overshadowed the president's state of the union address, which was last tuesday.
1:33 pm
it feels like a year ago. but it was pretty well received by critics. and nobody's really talking about it now. so the president hasn't been able to milk that speech and that moment for what he could have. so yes, there is some concern at the white house about it. >> i wonder if they're trying to take out the part where he takes credit for the stock market. we'll be watching. matt miller and phil rucker, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> when we come back, is the law and order president rebranding the gop as the party that stands against law enforcement? it's stupid policy but it may also be deadly politics. also ahead, where's jeff sessions? while chris wray was front and center in the high-profile fight with the president over releasing confidential information, jeff sessions was large lly awol. i accept i don't conquer the mountain like i used to. i even accept i have a higher risk of stroke due to afib, a type of irregular heartbeat not caused by a heart valve problem. but whatever trail i take, i go for my best. so if there's something better than warfarin, i'll go for that too. eliquis. eliquis reduced the risk of stroke better than warfarin,
1:34 pm
plus had less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis had both. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily... ...and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. i'm still going for my best. and for eliquis ask your doctor about eliquis. ♪
1:35 pm
1:36 pm
1:37 pm
refusing to investigate themselves, refusing to acknowledge that there were serious problems. if you remember, last week doj sent me a letter that we were going to destroy national security. so all of that wasn't true. >> that's not true either. devin nunes, marching republicans into battle against the fbi and the department of justice in what represents a role reversal for the gop. as the "washington post" puts it, "once the party of law and order, republicans are now challenging it." phil rucker and robert costa writing, "the fbi, the justice department and other agencies are now under concerted assault by republicans, facing allegations of corruption and conspiracy that have quickly moved from the fringes of the right into the mainstream of the gop." and according to axios and survey monkey the attacks from the right are infecting voters' opinions. a new poll finding that not even 40% of republicans approve of america's main federal law enforcement agency. a stunning turn for the law and order party.
1:38 pm
let's bring in the rest of our panel. from the daily beast, politics reporter betsy woodruff and former clinton campaign adviser now director of progressive programming for sirius, sirlina maxwell. michael crowley and david jolly are still with us. i can't even watch that without wondering who got hit in the head and why -- how is this the republican party of 2018? >> it's a huge departure from the way that republicans have traditionally talked about law and order. that said, this is actually fairly characteristic for nunes to push kind of perplexing theories about the federal government. two years ago he was saying that the pentagon was full of detestable liars because they didn't want to put an important intelligence base on an obscure portuguese island in the middle of nowhere that happened to be one of nunes's favorite vacation spots. so this is characteristic for him to sort of take these theories that most people see as very divorced from reality and act like they're indicative of sort of a vast conspiracy. >> a right-wing national
1:39 pm
security former official that i know from my past life in republican politics said to me if someone was going to uncover a vast deep state conspiracy it ain't going to be devin nunes. >> a former justice department official who i talked to the other week said that when nunes was named to be the intelligence committee chairman by boehner a couple years ago folks in the intelligence community were really nervous about it because he wasn't seen as someone who was a heavyweight on these issues. >> but far from being a heavyweight, is there a concern that he's not exercising the oversight but simply acting as a surrogate and a stooge as his home town paper described him? >> yes. and one thing that's really fed that concern is the fact that he's not doing intelligence oversight in a bipartisan way. traditionally the intelligence committees are sort of the last haven for a bipartisan kumbaya feeling. >> in good times and bad. >> exactly. >> during all the controversial post-9/11 policy reviews they were -- either the whole committee was on board or the
1:40 pm
whole committee was in violent rejection of a policy. let me put up something from the piece i referenced. the "washington post" also writes, "devin nunes tried to discredit the fbi. instead he proved it's on to something." if nunes was trying to cast doubt on the basis and motives of the fbi's interest in page and his campaign he failed miserably. far from demonstrating the fbi was out to get trump the memo suggested the trump campaign could have had an active russian spy working as a foreign policy adviser." why isn't the trump white house thanking the fbi? this was my question last week. we missed pieces from the plot, right? carter page was first under surveillance in twl2013, years before donald trump named him as an adviser. and carter page went around the world talking about how trump would have better relations with russia. why wouldn't they want to know if he was a russian spy? >> well, i think that it's not just one russian spy. there could have been two russian spies because in the memo, which is only four pages
1:41 pm
and in those 3 1/2 pages they acknowledge that the investigation was launched because of george papadopoulos drinking in a bar and also about carter page's suspicious activities. and so i think the fact that there were two people with these interactions and knowing something -- because the intel community is a place in which they understand what putin is doing, they understand the methods that the russian intelligence officers may use to try to infiltrate a campaign. so the idea that this was implausible for people in the fbi, that seems unrealistic to me. but i think that donald trump trying to argue there was no there there and you have two suspected spies in your campaign, like the hillary clinton campaign we didn't have any russian spies just hanging out. >> additionally, one thing that a former high-level fbi official told me earlier this afternoon is the idea that carter page being wiretapped was some sort of crazy conspiracy is totally foreign to the way these things work in the fbi. he said there's a likelihood that more than 100 investigations like this are going on right now.
1:42 pm
it's extraordinary that it was connected to a presidential campaign, but this kind of wark is par indicates they don't understand how this type of foreign intelligence works. >> and i guess i reacted with such horror -- it's my understanding this is the first time ever that someone under fisa surveillance was outed and named by the declassification of a document from the president over the grave concerns of the fbi. i mean, there's a scandal here but it's not what devin nunes is talking about on "fox and friends." >> but at the same time it's not that surprising because the politics of conspiracy is so fundamental to trump's political
1:43 pm
rise. i mean, he's been talking about -- i don't know if he uses the phrase "deep state" quite as often as his supporters in the conservative media do, but basically his theory is that there is this bureaucratic establishment that's out to get him that's subverting the will of the american people, that's anti-democratic. this is the entire narrative of his rise to power. the role reversal, by the way, really is so stunning. nicolle, you probably remember at the peak of what we refer to as the war on terror in the 2010s when "the new york times" reported on the fisa surveillance program and the allegation that the bush administration was surveilling people without proper legal authorities, conservatives were talking about sending editors of the "new york times" to jail. i mean, they were completely -- >> they never -- >> i'm not saying the white house used that language. but i do know conservative outlets were saying that. >> let's stop there. that's a great point. do you know who one of the biggest defenders was of post-9/11 counterterrorism policies? sean hannity.
1:44 pm
>> exactly. so black is white now. it really makes you question the sincerity of what people are saying now. maybe it was that they weren't sincere then. but it seems to dovetail much more conveniently with the politics of this president's kind of conspiratorial worldview. >> can you think of any instance where an fbi director has gotten into such a public fight and lost? it's legend now that jim comey and bob mueller were going to resign if bush renewed a controversial counterterror policy. but they won. can you think of an example where an fbi director has made public his grave concerns about classified information being released and lost and stayed? >> no, i can't. and even the episode that you referred to i think leaked out much longer -- much later after the fact, not in real time the way we're seeing now. so it was pretty well -- the lid was kept on it pretty well at the time. i can't think of any precedent for it. >> comey's resignation threat didn't come out for years. the fact was that the fbi was at war with the white house over this mammothly important situation and comey and bob
1:45 pm
mueller, who was involved, kept it completely under wraps. >> you know who else was involved? christopher wray. david jolly, let me ask you to weigh in on this sort of conspiracy theory being made. i think it's a steve schmidt quote in the piece i've been talking about. the idea of the conspiracy theorists which even when i was a republican we made fun of them and called them the tinfoil hat wearing loons with the black helicopter theories. they were the fringe of the fringe. they are now not just the mainstream of the republican party but the president of the united states is a conspiracy theorist. >> sure. and you have republican congressional members talking about a secret society that they think is part of the deep state. look, in a game of wits between the fbi director and the house intelligence committee i'm putting my chips with the fbi director. what we have seen from the current intel committee, which is a departure from the past, is not only the politicization but the inability to back it up. devin nunes had to admit to a reporter that he hadn't read the
1:46 pm
fisa application. he said he recused himself but he really hasn't. this is part of an ongoing war, you know when you started this segment, how they're attacking the fbi. it used to be republicans garnered votes with their conservative base by attacking the department of education, the epa, and the department of health and human services. they've now added law enforcement to that. and that is a terrible platform for one of the major national parties to be running on. >> the other agencies aren't doing much better. all right. when we come back, there's a lot of anger. that's the blunt assessment of one law enforcement official about the impact of the president's relentless attacks on the fbi.
1:49 pm
josh campbell isn't a household name. but when he announced his resignation from the fbi in an op-ed this weekend he captured the sentiments of many. "my resignation is painful," he writes. "but the alternative of remaining quiet while the bureau is tarnished for political gain is impossible. these kinds of attacks by
1:50 pm
powerful people go beyond mere criticism. they could destroy the institution. although those critics' revisionist supporters claim their ire is reserved for institutional leadership and not the rank and file, it is the fbi agent on the street it is the fn the street most severely affected as public support for federal law enforcement is sacrificed for political gain. let me start with you. i was reminded that fbi agents don't just count on people respecting the fbi when they are out in dangerous environments in this country but they operate all over the world. what is the real world implication of this assault on the fbi? >> yeah, this is almost the worst thing that could happen to the fbi which is -- it's being perceived as political. i have to tell you, fbi agents go there entire careers without ever trying to disclose publicly how they vote or what their political leanings are and they do it for a reason. it is hammered into you from day
1:51 pm
one that you must publicly appear to be a-political and neutral because you are working public corruption cases and in the community and people and neighbor lz can't know what way you are going. they just need to know you are doing your mission. so the repercussions of the public perceiving and the world perceiving that the fbi is politicized has deep, deep lasting repercussions. the recutem of informants and sources, imagine sitting across the table from a foreign government intelligence officer and you're trying to recute him or her to betray their country and work for team america and you look at them and say can you promise this will never be public or my name won't come out for political reasons and that trust has been undermined and i'll bet you there are recruitms sensitive foreign government recruitments coming to their fbi agents right now saying get me out of here. i don't understand what is happening to your agency. >> and i'm told there are inf m
1:52 pm
informant who don't want their material included on fisa applications applications, there is already a real world implication to this document. >> and if the fbi decides not to pursue some fisa applications. we can't have that. and it is critical to our national security. and i would become concerned about trusting relationship between heads of counter-terrorism in the fbi and the hill and the oversight committee. so when they go there and give a briefi briefing -- as i did when i was assistant director, you have to have a dialogue with that committee. and they often asked me, frank, after a briefing, what can we do to support the fbi, what legislative is necessary to make sure you could protect america and if that trust isn't there and that dialogue is not there,
1:53 pm
america is ill served and you talked about the fbi director being pitted against the president and a winner and a loser and the american public is the loser when this kind of disarray happens and the winner in my opinion from a counter intelligence background, the winner it the russian intelligence. they are doing a very good job of creating chaos. >> and john mccain was his observation on friday. i want to show everybody a little bit of sound this afternoon while we were covering all of this breaking news. here is the president a little bit ago talking about treason. >> you're up there and you've got half of the room going totally crazy riled, they loved everything. they want to do something great for our country. and you have the other side even on positive news, really positive news, like that, they were like deaf and unamerican.
1:54 pm
unamerican. somebody said treasonous. yeah, i guess, why not. can we call that treason? why not. they certainly didn't seem to love our country very much. but you look at that and it's really very, very sad. >> so now he's obviously never seen the state of the union on tv. >> it is all about one side standing up and sitting down throughout the entire speech. i saw that part live and i was yelling at my tv, which i do fre frequently when he is on the screen, but what -- bothered me most, when he goes off the cuff, he goes into la la land and i can't follow but he is talking about the cnbc -- the cbc did not look happy or talking about the drop in black unemployment. as a black person, which i am, i have to say that the idea that black people should be grateful to donald trump who said racist
1:55 pm
things all of the time for a drop in black employment when it is still double white employment seems to be evident -- evidence of why we don't like him and why he has such low approval ratings among black people and people of color. because you have overt racist policies and rhetoric and now he's saying why don't you clap. look at all i've done for you and it feels insincere and disingenuous. and it is not true. president trump contributed to that drop. >> and it is beyond irresponsible to throw around the world treasonous when it is possible he had someone committing treason on his campaign staff but also -- his racism is so latent. what she is saying -- he wants to be thanked for everything that anyone gets and he doesn't want to be blamed for any harm that anyone suffers. it is beyond delusional. >> nicolle, this is a moment
1:56 pm
that is easy to smile and laugh at. but it is a grave and serious comment by the president of the united states. it reflects a significant level of ignorance, it suggests a flirtation with certain authoritarianism, but even worse, we have to look at the silence of the republican party. who is so quick to dismiss this. the previous comment about releasing the memo and what it looks like on the world stage, we are less safe because of the actions of the house gop releasing that memo. we are less safe as a nation because of a political party that refuses to speak back to a president who flirts with the comments about treason. >> david jolly, you put it perfectly. we'll sneak in the last break. thank you for being --. the rest of us will be right back. .. or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement
1:57 pm
in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. he gets the best deal on the perfect hotel by using. tripadvisor! that's because tripadvisor lets you start your trip on the right foot... by comparing prices from over 200 booking sites to find the right hotel for you at the lowest price. saving you up to 30%! you'll be bathing in savings! tripadvisor. check the latest reviews and lowest prices.
2:00 pm
we're out of time. thanks to michael crowley and betsy woodruff and david jolly. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" starts right now with katy tur in for chuck. >> i love the monday. you are just across the studio. >> we're going to ino vat -- innovate a walking handoff. >> and then i'll trip and it will go on youtube. and if it is monday, t -- no me, no problem. tonight memo versus memo. democrats want their version out but will the president try to stop it. >> i'm concerned he won't sign off. i'm concerned that he will try to redact or change the memo. >> plus a
234 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
MSNBC West Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on