tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC February 23, 2018 6:00pm-7:00pm PST
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indictments for paul manafort, a guilty plea from rick gates. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> good evening, chris. have a great weekend. >> you, too. >> thanks for you at home for joining us, as well. what did you do this week? today is friday, since last friday, any significant accomplishments that you would like to brag about? did you have a big week? if you are robert mueller, over the past week since last friday, you have unsealed 89 new felony criminal charges against 17 different people from ricky alex van der zwann to the last two days of legal cannon blasts concerning trump campaign chair paul manafort and trump deputy campaign chair rick gates. i don't know what robert mueller has been doing for the past week other than filing these 89 new
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felony criminal charges against 17 people but even just that activity of his that we can see in public, i would say that makes this a pretty good contender for busy week when it comes to the special counsel's investigation. just today alone has been head snapping in terms of how much happened all at once, just since yesterday. just rick gates has been charged with 23 new felonies on top of the eight he was already facing. he then had his entire legal team replaced. then he got a new lawyer. then he had all 31 felony charges pending against him dropped. then he pled guilty to two new, brand-new felony charges and then he signed on to a sweeping and sort of intimidating cooperation agreement with the government in which among other things he pledges to go undercover for them if they ask him to. can rick gates go undercover for anybody anymore? now that he's this famous for what he and paul fan fomanafort
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gotten themselves into? if you have tried to follow each new step of this as it has rolled out even just over the past day, it has been a little hard to follow but days like this i am very, very grateful for the very smart people who work with me on this show and thanks to a very smart staff here and us reading until our eyes bled, we have read every word of what has just happened in terms of these legal proceedings and this is the trump deputy campaign manager. when it comes to the trump campaign there for a lot longer. manafort is pushed out 2016, thereafter rick gates stayed. right through election day in
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the transition he was a senior official and then he was the number two official in the trump inaugural committee. he was frequently seen at the white house protrump outside group and long standings and committee. the national republican committee. people talk about him as manafort's deputy and a long-standing business relationship and proceeds the trump campaign. in terms on his role for the investigators you might have seen what and who he might have been exposed to in the time of a trump as a presidential candidate. rick gates is potentially witness to a lot more than manafort ever saw. he was just there for a lot longer for a lot of extra parts of this, the trump presidential
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era that manafort ended up missing. rick gates becoming oca cooperating witness is a big leap forward in terms of how much of a window the mueller investigation is going to have into all different phases of the trump candidacy and presidency. rick gates plead guilty to two felonies. one of them is lying to the fbi. interestingly, this guilty plea for lying to the fbi is not for something that happened a long time ago but really, really recently. his lie to the fbi which he pled guilty and admits to is something that happened earlier this month, february 1st 2018. a lie about a meeting a few years ago that relates to him and paul ma that fo manafort wi lobbying for a foreign power. rick gates reportedly has had a very hard time making this decision about whether he would plead guilty and cooperating with mueller's investigation. abc news obtained a letter gates
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wrote to friends and family telling them about his guilty plea. he talked about agonizing over that decision and not wanting to do this. but when he made that false statement to the fbi on february 1st, that appears to have started a collapse for him. that same day, february 1st, his three lawyers at the time told the judge in his case that they no longer wanted to represent him. so really unusual move at the time. we didn't know why they suddenly wanted to withdraw from representing rick gates. there is since a lot of confusion and conflicting reporting about gates' legal representation. the court is stewing over this request from his lawyers for three weeks since they first said they wanted to quit him. now it all seems clear that the reason all of his lawyers sought to get rid of him, sought to withdraw from his case that day february 1st is because that day, february 1st he told a lie to the fbi and it is an ethical
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importa'mperative to withdraw ie representing a client who is lying and you can't do anything about it. it's also a terrible thing to do. i mean, i'm not talking ethically or because what it says about you as a person that you lie. i mean, it's a terrible thing to do strategically for your own criminal case. if you're in the middle of a plea negotiations with prosecutors and fbi agents and tell them something that is provably false in the middle of the plea negotiations, at that point they push back from the table and go we sunk your battleship like that's what they are desperately waiting for you to do because as soon as you provably lie to them in a play negotiation they got you. once you lie to them, you lose immunity from prosecution for everything else you've already told them over the course of your negotiations. lying during a plea negotiation is a terrible move. if rick gates didn't realize what a bad move that was, robert mueller's prosecutors decided to
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make that crystal clear to him yesterday when they indicted him for 23 new felony charges on top of the ones he was facing. yesterday they hit him with more new felonies than they through at paul manafort and that blast seems to have done the trick. now gates is pleading guilty to that incident of lying to the fbi and also to a broader conspiracy charge, conspiracy to defraud the united states. for that charge, they appear to have lumped together to have combined a whole bunch of other allegations he was facing from the earlier indictments but again, the previous indictments basically disappear. the government is not going to proceed with the 31 from f 1 fe was charging him with. instead, he'll plead guilty to the one conspiracy charge and lying charge and in so doing, he signs a cooperation agreement that looks like a nightmare scenario, not only for him particularly if he was having a
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hard time deciding whether or not he would do this, but the cooperation agreement he just signed is probably a nightmare scenario for a number of other people, as well. i don't know if you've seen the actual documents here. this is from the plea offer which we got access to today. this was filed openly with the court today and the plea agreement is written in the form of a letter to the guy who is now rick fwat's lawyer. cooperati cooperation. your client should cooperate fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly with this office in any and all matters as to which is limited to, the defendant rick gates agrees to be fully debriefed and to attend all meetings at which his presence is requested concerning participation and knowledge of all criminal activities and
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agrees to furnish to the office, special counsel's office all documents and material that may be relevant in the defendant's position or control. the government also agrees to participate in undercover activities pursuant to the constructions of law enforcement agents or this office. the defendant agrees to testify at any proceedings in the district of colombia or elsewhere as requested by this office. your client acknowledges and understands during the course of the cooperation, your client will be interviewed by law enforcement agents. your client waives any right to have counsel present during these interviews and agrees to meet with law enforcement agents and government attorneys outside the presence of counsel. your client should testify fully, completely and truthfully before any and all grand juries in the district of colombia and
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elsewhere. at which your client's testimony may be deemed relevant by the governmen government. ouch. this is a very thorough agreement to cooperate. testify to a grand jury, testify to trial, show up whenever we need to. go undercover, give us everything you got and be here every single time we want to talk to you. if he fails to live up to this agreement, whether or not they ever decide to go and bring charges against him just this plea agreement he signed today gives mueller's office tons of leverage over rick gates. just what he's pleading guilty to affords a maximum prison sentence. even under the sentencing guidelines that account for him not having a previous record and all the rest, the filings today make clear that under the sentencing guidelines, these two charges he pled guilty today, yeah, there is a maximum prison term of ten years but
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realistically, they would be looking to put him in prison for somewhere between 4.5 to six years and there is no federal parole. they are saying that's realistic time. that's what he could realistically be looking at serving. now, they don't have to put him in jail for four and a half to six years for these things he pled guilty to. the court could decide to give him nothing or probation. all depending on how well he cooperating with robert mueller. if he does what they want, the court may very well say rick, you're free to go. but if he blows it or if he holds anything back from them or if he lies to them or refuses to testify, refuses to hand something over, boom. done with nothing else filed he would be going to prison right away for let's start with four and a half years. for context here in contrast, the cooperation agreement that mueller did with mike flynn, that puts mike flynn's jail risk at zero to six months.
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what's hanging over rick gates right now is multiple years starting right away and he's already signed for it. so this cooperation deal that he signed today, these two charges he plead guilty to, this is put together as a very serious package for trump's deputy campaign manager. and therefore put as huge spotlight on what gates could possibly give mueller for his on going investigation and here is the part of it that i think is really important and i will just say so much of this is happening so fast that i'm not sure this really important part of it has sunk in yet. but after marinating in these legal filings and reporting today, in my opinion, i think this is the most important piece. in yesterday's indictment of manafort and gates, special counsel's office spelled out in intense detail a two-part scheme but manafort and gates. part one we already knew about from the first time they got indicted back in october. part one was the older stuff
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from 2006 to 2015 and before the trump presidential campaign. phase one manafort and gates were raking in tens of millions of dollars working for proputin interests overseas, special counsel's office says they illegally hid the money offshore and disguised organizigins and d taxes on the money. those are the charges associated with what mueller's office calls phase one. what was new in yesterday's indictment about manafort and gates was phase two of their scheme. which you can think of as the donald trump for president time. the second part of their scheme according to mueller's indictment started in 2015 and ran until, quote, at least january 2017, which was of course the inauguration. in yesterday's indictment, that second part of the scheme, 2015 to 2017, that's a time when manafort and gates have stopped raking in millions of dollars from their work for proputin interest overseas and instead
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according to the indictment they are engaged here in a mad scramble to get their hands on cash, a lot of cash. millions of dollars in cash in a very short period of time. in late 2015 and early 2016, right up to the point where manafort and gates joined the trump campaign, they weren't trying to earn new business for their company, at least not that we know of from this indictment. the way they were trying to get money is they were trying to use the assets manafort had. they were trying to use real estate assets that manafort had in the country to try to extract cash from those assets. they were going to bank after bank after bank putting up manafort's various houses and apartments to try to get cash and multi million dollar loans. why do they need all that cash? i don't know. but according to the indictment, they were trying to get lots of loans from lots of different banks simultaneously and according to the indictment,
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they were breaking the law in their desperation to do it. they were falsifying documents to make it look like he had more money. they were inventing page invoices to make it look like they had more money come income and doctors documents. the bookkeeper from manafort's company was turning them down for some stuff they were trying to get the bookkeeper to do and started faking these documents themselves. the details of that mad scramble for cash, that was the basis for all the new bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy felony charges that manafort and gates got hit with yesterday and that apparently pushed fwgates to pld guilty and manafort is facing the charges alone because gates decided to save himself and flip for most of the charges against him being dropped. still, though, in terms of the overall plot here, not just thinking about the legal liability but how does this fit into what happened to our country, we don't know why paul
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manafort was in such a mad sk scramble for cash in late 2015 and 2016 but here is something to reup, to reread in light of current developments. this is from last summer, july 2017. quote, financial records from the secret of tax haven of cypress where paul manafort kept bank accounts during his years working in ukraine and investing with a russian oligarch indicate manafort had been in debt to prorussia interests for as much as $17 million before he joined donald trump's presidential campaign in march 2016. remember when all that stuff broke about him being in debt in really heavy debt until the time he joined trump's campaign? up close in the moment this looked like a very complicated story. nobody has bank accounts in cypress and their own name. it's all shell companies associated with shell companies associated with blah blah blah but disentangling it, what it looks lick from bank records, up until the time manafort joined
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the trump campaign, right up through that time when he's having the mad scramble to try to get his hands on millions of dollars in cash, he was in debt to russian interests to the tune of about 17 million including $7.8 million that he owed to a charming fellow named dapaska. right before manafort joined trump's campaign, manafort was in hawk to this guy for nearly $8 million. now part of this scheme that was described in yesterday's indictment is that sometimes manafort and gates would call something a loan when it was really just money being paid to them and that was part of the tax evasion scheme. in this case with this $8 million, it really looks like that wasn't disguised payment.
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that looks like a loan or at least it looks like he expected to get that money back from paul manafort and rick gates and we can tell that because he tried really hard to get it back. in 2014, this terrifying russian oligarch sued. they were supposed to be investing in something together but they run off with millions of dollars of his money and in august 2015, he moved the lawsuit from the cayman islands to the u.s., to virginia. he was really going after manafort and gates for millions of dollars that he says they stole from him and they needed to pay back. again, august 2015, they depose paul manafort and rick gates and that case as deripaska is after them. he's not allowed to come to the
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united states because of the organized crime ties and he has people working for him all over the place including people talking to the press about this case he's pressing against manafort and gates but then manafort and gates sign on to be chairman of the donald trump for president campaign and all of a sudden again, the pressure seems to go away. quote, early in the presidential campaign deripaska's representatives accused him after fraud. after trump earned the nomination, deripaska's officials said he would no longer discuss the case and we know something was going on during the trump campaign while they were chairman and deputy chairman, something was going on between them and deripaska during the campaign while running the campaign. quote, on the evening of april 11th, 2016 two weeks after trump hired paul manafort to lead the
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campaign, manafort e-mailed his old lieutenant who worked for him for a decade in ukraine. manafort wrote quote, i assume you have shown our friends my media coverage. kilimnik responded absolutely, every article. manafort asked how do we used to get hole. has ovd operation seen? ovd, oleg. his campaign chairman paul manafort asked for briefings. paul manafort made the e-mails again conskon consta manafort w the july 7th, 2016 e-mail quote if he needs private briefings, we can accommodate.
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quote, on july 29th, a week after trump acre acre secement accepted the nomination, appeared to be a meeting he held with oleg. we spent five hours talking. i have several important messages from him to you. he asked me to go and brief you on our conversation. it has to do about the future of his country and is quite interesting. let me know what dates and places will work even next week. i can come and see you. manafort's response was tuesday is best. and then august 2nd was indeed the next tuesday and che came t deliver the important messages to the man who was running the trump for president and they met at the grand havana club in new york city. so according to bank records, paul manafort owed this russian guy nearly $8 million and this russian guy was really coming
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after him for it. and simultaneously for some reason, paul manafort at the time was really scrambling to do anything he could to get his hands on millions of dollars in cash and this is right up until the point he joins the trump campaign. he then joined the trump campaign, the pressure eases off a bit in terms of this guy coming after him for the money and he starts communicating with this guy he owed the millions of dollars to. can we use my position on the campaign to get whole? can i offer him a private briefing? he accepts meetings to get important messages from this guy about the future of his country, his country is russia. a month after manafort reportedly met with chim, we no know from the indictment of lawyer alex van der zwann that rick gates referred alex van der zwann to the same guy meeting with manafort to bring him the
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messages from oleg. one of the things he lied about is communication with rick gates. rick gates in september 2016 sent van der zwann documents with an encrypted app and he put him in touch with consta teen kiliminic. rick gates was connected to the mad and illegal scramble for cash right before manafort and gates joined the trump campaign. he was part of the initial deals that insured that debt. he was in communication with kilimnic managing communications between manafort while running trump's campaign happening during the trump campaign while they were the top two officials running it. manafort seems to have been
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trying to trade on his influence in the trump campaign to get whole with oleg back in russia. there have been a lot of forgive me, a lot of dumb hot takes on the rick gates guilty plea today about how that's oh, too bad for rick gates or too bad for paul man thmanafort, nothing to do wh the trump campaign, though. whatever rick gates will tell the mueller investigation about and traded 31 felony counts for is not about hiding money offshore and buying antique rugs in alexandria. clearly the mueller investigation has proven they have all they need to bring felony prosecutions about that stuff. what gates was in a front row seat to see, what he was part of with a better vantage point than anybody else on earth was the central question of what was actually going on between the trump campaign and russia? and now he's mueller's star
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cooperating witness. ta-da. like i said, what did you get done in the past week? that's what mueller did. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ (vo) you can pass down a subaru forester. but you get to keep the memories. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. (avo) get 0% apr financing on all new 2018 subaru forester models. now through february 28th. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient
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issued a one-sentence statement saying it would not comment on matters involving manafort and rick gates as the pattmatters between them and special counsel are dated. that is despite today's new indictments and guilty pleadings specifically referencing events during and after the trump campaign following the guilty plea from trump deputy campaign chair rick gates today, the top democrat offered a different take and said quote, rick gates is in a position to observe the inner workings of the campaign and special counsel looks into potential coordination between the trump campaign and russian government, gates could prove a key source of information on these and other issues. joining us now is the top democrat congressman adam schiff of california. thank you for being with us
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tonight,appreciate it. >> thank you. >> why do you think gates could be a key source of information on the central matter at hand here? >> well, you have paul manafort who is the campaign chair for a period of time and then you had corey land also played a role during the transition and thereafter. so he's in a position to see, you know, the whole length and breath of what was taking place. he traveled on the presidential plane for a period of time and he is obviously facing extraordinary liability and one of the messages that mueller was sending through the charge on the false statement and the other actions that we've seen him take vis-a-vis paul manafort is he's not going to tolerate any non-sense. the worst thing for rick gates right now would be to agree to cooperate and then be found to
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be less than fully forthcoming. so that means that gates is going to have to tell bob mueller everything and hold nothing back and he could have a lot to offer as you were pointing out at the very time that the russians are making over tours to the trump campaign and don junior in the meeting in trump tower, you have manafort reaching out in the opposite de to facilitate more money and you have a guilty plea in connection with essential ligates and manafort obtaining money from pro russian interest in ukraine, millions of dollars worth of it, laundering that money and lying about it. so there is enormous liability facing them both and gates in a position to talk about it a great deal. >> congressman, in the past week we've just seen a remarkable
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amount of activity from the special counsel's office. i probably got the math wrong and it was a little hard to add it all up but by my best count i think we've seen 89 new felony charges brought against 17 people in the course of a week and now of course, we got the deputy campaign chair pleading guilty. through all of these legal proceedings, the filings and indictments and charges we've seen over the past week or so, aside from the question of the legal jeopardy any of those folks may be facing, big picture, do you feel like the special counsel's investigation has now told us more than we knew before about the central question, about the russian attack, about whether they had help? do we now understand more from the filings than we did before about the main plot line? >> oh, absolutely and i think that was really part of bob mueller's intention. if you look in particular the indictment, vis-a-vis the russians, he told in more dethal
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than -- detail than i expected to go into the level of detail because just giving that kind of detail gives the russians some information that they can e verse reverse engineer and reverse engineer and when that was produced, how did the americans know so much? he wanted to tell the country as well about this russian attack on our democracy. these very detailed charges now i think also tell manafort just how much the special counsel knows, just how much liability he faces and the statement manafort issued today was very telling lake so many figures in the campaign and facing liability or even in the administration, they have an audience of one in their message and i think the audience of one for that manafort statement today was the president of the united states. it was basically a laviolette o
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saying give me a pardon. i'm standing by you but he's obviously facing enormous liability and now an insider cooperating and i think the detail of those indictments show him as well as the country just what these guys were involved with. >> congressman adam schiff, the top democrat joining us from california tonight. thank you very much. much appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> we got much more ahead on this friday night. i feel like we haven't even started. stay with us. to run this busine. but i really love it. i'm on the move all day long... and sometimes, i don't eat the way i should. so, i drink boost to get the nutrition i'm missing. boost high protein nutritional drink has 15 grams of protein to help maintain muscle and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d. all with a great taste. boost gives me everything i need... to be up for doing what i love.
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it started yesterday as we reported, the first national bank of omaha, one of the biggest banks in the country would no longer issue the nra credit card. today a whole slew of companies including hotel chains like best western and wyndem hotels, metlife announced they are ending their business relationships with the nra. you can imagine the pressure on the remaining list of companies that have deals like those with the nra that haven't dropped them yet. the nra wants you to think they always win. they like to be seen as an an insuranceb invincible lobby and today they lost a huge fight about gun
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laws. the central kind of thing they fight for and that they say they can't be beaten on but lost a big one today, a fight that really ought to be national news and i think it will probably end up being a national model and that's next. don't we need that cable box to watch tv? nope. don't we need to run? nope.
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aaron fise, scott bagel. >> this was a vigil tonight in newtown, connecticut for the 17 people who were killed in parkland, florida a few days ago. it means something different when it happens in new town compacom compared to everybody else. the protests and walkouts and vigils have put pressure to bring about gun reform. they specifically pressured the nra and its grip on electoral politics coast to coast but here is something you should know
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about the loosening grip. this week, both houses of the legislature and state of oregon passed a bill that changes gun laws in that state. people convicted of codomestic abuse or stalking belongs them. the bill closes a loophole that allows convicted domestic abusers to buy and own firearms if not married to or living with the victim and they don't have children together. a week and a day after the massacre in parkland, this bill passed that would restrict access to guns. it got bipartisan support. gun control measures of all kind no patter how modest are met with ipassioned opposition from the gun lobby. this bill prevailed thanks to very personal pleas from oregon lawmakers representative jeanine soleman talked about her father may have had a gun, she and her mother would not be alive today.
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jeff bark erk talker talked abo domestic abuse cases, memories he tried to suppress. state senator floyd talked about his sister whose death he said might have been prevented by this new law that oregon just passed. >> the majority of mass shootings, 54% involved instances of domestic violence. in my own situation involving my sister, her murderer was her boyfriend. her murderer was her intimate partner. her murderer was her domestic abuser. her murderer killed her with a handgun. >> so this bill was actually introduced in the oregonless sl -- legislature but 24 hours after the shooting, the oregon house
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of representatives passed it and when the governor of oregon chapin cha championed this bill, she invoked the singular nature. she said quote it took the voices and outrage of youth devastated by gun violence to hold decision makers' feet to the fire. joining us now from washington d.c. is the governor of oregon kate brown. thank you for joining us. appreciate you being here to talk to us. >> good evening and i'm dell li -- delighted to be here tonight. >> you were a strong supporter of the bill. i was interested to see this bill was proposed before what happened last week in park lala florida. do you think there would have been momentum or where with all to get this bill passed and signed without the change that we've seen over the past week, the national organizing? >> this is legislation i introduced to close the domestic
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partner, the intimate partner loophole in oregon. i introduced it obviously before the florida shooting. it is work that we have been doing gradually and increate mentally in the state since i became governor. the first year i was governor we signed a comprehensive legislation. last year i was able to sign into law the extreme risk protection order which enables family and friends to petition courts and take guns away from those who might be a danger to themselves or others and i introduced this legislation to close the intimate partner loophole. we certainly had good support as you said, the opposition is well funded and they are well organized. but we have courageous legislators in oregon, both parties, representative jeanine soleman, senator floyd speaking
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out in favor of the bill. i have to say unfortunately what happened in florida last week moved it along much more quickly. >> there is such a wide range of not just opinion and political ranker over gun laws. there are so many different ways to approach the problem of gun violence in this country, and when i think about the low-hanging fruit, the policies that seem like they would be most feasible to enact that would address the largest part of the problem so much gun violence, so many gun deaths particularly of women are caused in domestic situations. women, violence policy center says 93% of women killed by men in 2015 were killed by someone they know. this is the most day recollect wa -- direct way. >> rachel, this is an epidemic. since i became governor the last
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two years, we've had 66 people die as a result of domestic violence. half of those deaths were caused by guns. 4.5 million women in america have been impacted by gun violence through a domestic partner or a spouse. it's absolutely unacceptable. when there is a restraining order in place we need to be able to take away guns. >> governor kate brown of oregon. thank you very much for your time tonight. i have a feeling that what you've just done, what you and the legislature have just done will be a national story and model with these politics right now. thanks for joining us, governor. >> thank you, rachel and i have to give a shoutout to the students in park laland, florid. they are giving hope we can change this and make a difference. >> right on. we'll be right back. i'm your phone, stuck down here between your seat and your console,
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from day one, alyssa worked in the barack obama white house. her job was basically to run the entire operation of the white house campus. it's a big job. she decided what went in the president's daily schedule, coordinated responses to national emergencies, vetted new hires up to the cabinet, managed the president's international trips.
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she's been described as one of the most influential people of the obama era. she was respected and felt to be incredibly good at the job. she was so essential to the minute by minute mechanics of the white house she had a secure system installed next to her bed because she had to be available every day. pretty much everything the president had to know to get through his day, she had to know as well. she almost didn't get there. there was a glitch that happened when she went to apply for her security clearance at the start of the obama administration. she wrote a piece about it for vice. quote, it was friday, october 5, 2008 i was having a panic attack. i was working as the director of scheduling and advance for barack obama's presidential campaign but the crisis before me had nothing to do with a bad debate performance, travel schedule or staff member saying
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something stupid to a reporter. i was freaking out because i love to smoke weed. that day someone got their sf 86. she says, i grew up listening to the grateful dead in the '90s i went to the university of vermont, what do you think my answer was. she said shortly after you fill out the application, an fbi agent came to interview you about the answer. she asked how many times have you smoked pot? yes, more than 20. more than 100? yes, more than 100. more than 500? just write unknown. they were satisfied with more than 500 would be fair. because she told the truth,
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because she didn't lie about the 500 plus times she had smoked pot, she did get her security clearance. she was honest. she had had to agree to random drug testing throughout her time in the white house and she stopped smoking pot. and she was able to get her clearance. skilled, hyper competent dedicated staff who turns out to be good at her job nearly misses crucial white house gig because so much pot. but it ends up being also very serious foreshadowing about what is happening tonight in this white house, and that's next.
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today the trump administration announced a new round of aggressive economic sanctions against north korea. it's a big enough deal that the white house sent an envoy to brief the president of south korea in south korea on the new sanctions. the person assigned to perform this sensitive task is ivanka, the president's daughter. awkwardly the president's daughter is one of dozens of white house officials who have not been able to get a permanent security clearance. nevertheless, she's briefing the south korean president herself on the new north korea sanctions today. today was the deadline set by the chief of staff by which everybody at the white house who couldn't get permanent clearance, as of today they were supposed to lose interim
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clearance today, presumably that would include the president's daughter, as well as her husband, jared kushner, who gets the top secret presidential brief every day, meets with leaders, gets the trade deals, tasked with personally negotiating mideast peace all without being able to pass his fbi background check to get a permanent security clearance. and he still doesn't seem to be any closer to getting clearance. "the washington post" reported that deputy attorney general rod rosenstein this month alerted the white house that significant information requiring additional investigation will further delay kushner's clearance process. the president could just decide to grant his son-in-law any security clearance he wants to. but the president said at the white house today he's not going to get involved. he's going to let white house chief of staff, john kelly, make the call on classified
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materials. well, according to "the washington post," john kelly said he's uncomfortable with the clearance. he said, quote, he would not be upset if the son-in-law and ivanka trump left their position as full time employees. so what does that mean? what kind of job does jared kushner have as of tonight? what about ivanka trump briefing the president in south korea. does she have a job when she comes back. it's going to be a fun weekend. no one has ever fired the son and daughter before without having a say in it. that does it for us. we'll see you on monday. now it's time for the last word with joy reed. >> that's right. >> here's a vieshl reminder if you kept the news on this weekend, joy reed. >> i might have a jo
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