hour that jared kushner will lose his access to top-secret intelligence. it's a move that politico says will, quote, prevent him from viewing many of the sensitive documents to which he once had unfettered access. nbc news has not independently confirmed this reporting but politico goes on to report that his security clearance has been downgraded. this following weeks of reporting of potential concerns raised in his background check . to help us answer all these questions our favorite reporters and guests. from the "washington post," white house reporter ashley parker. with us from harvard where he's a visiting law lecturer, juan z zerate. former deputy national security adviser to george w. bush. at the table, jonathan lamiere, associated press white house reporter. philip bump, "washington post" political reporter. z zerlina maxwell, now director of progressive programming for sirius xm. let me tell all the reporters at the table, feel free to look at your phones, take your calls and

bring us any news you're hearing on this rather remarkable headline, ashley parker. jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, has been under scrutiny since minutes after the election was won for i think his very earliest contacts with foreign governments, as he sought to fill out all the background forms that anyone going to work in the white house fills out. the sf-86. the more extensive form, it's been amend ed countless times. his clearance attorney, jamie gerelik, who was a very senior democrat at the doj, has departed him. he's now represented by abbe lowell in the special counsel investigation. he's someone at the center of every controversy facing this white house. he's also at the center of every ambitious foreign policy goal that this president has. today he has been stripped of the security clearance that permitted him to read the most sensitive piece of intel inside that west wing. the presidential daily brief. huge news for this white house.

>> that's right. it is huge news. you know, something we're racing to get a story up on, like everybody else, but basically, this was someone who had an interim security clearance, as we all discussed, and there is general kelly was going to make a ruling on friday that if you had this interim, you basically couldn't continue on and then there was a sense that there might be some sort of special carveout for jared kushner. obviously, we now know that is not the case. he is downgraded to secret which is, again, i have too admit, i'm not an expert on the varying levels of clearance, but sort of a deeply lower level that really does not give you access to that sort of classified information. again, to put it in context, this is someone who came in with such a large portfolio that there ended up being a punch line among his detractors, you know, the vending machine's broken, well, jared will handle it. just next week, bibi netanyahu is arriving in washington, d.c.,

and one of the issues that kushner is tasked with handling is peace in the middle east. it's an open question now how the security clearance demotion will affect his ability to do that. heportfolio, has canada in his portfolio, has china in his portfolio and the white house has sort of claimed he can still do the job he's always done but it's sort of hard to understand how that is actually the case in practical terms. >> juan, if you take the foreign policy headlines that jared kushner has made, he was the liaison with the chinese who were familiar with dealing with a political family. he's been one of the intermediaries in saudi arabia in the uae. he has dealt primarily with governments, used to doing family business, but that is not the american way. and what seems to have come to a dramatic collision here is general kelly's desire to have some order. some adherence to some norms.

and the norm in this country is that people like you and fill out our background forms and the fbi determines whether or not we are a blackmail risk to the united states of america. it seems that as of today, jared kushner has not passed that test yet. >> well, you're right, nicolle, he's played a seminal role in foreign policy, the face and voice of the white house and that's parent, obvioimportant, . what this means is he can't see top-secret information. he has a secret clearance still. he's not completely hobbled. as you say, what this does is signals that general kehl willy imposing a discipline on the clearance process. what's interesting here is the process hasn't sought to intervene which is good. demonstrates the president adhering to the internal discipline. there's a question, nicolle, for whether or not of purposes of particular issues, for particular meetings, the president could make an

exception and allow jared to see particular information that might be critical to that particular meeting or set of meetings. but you're right that he has been a critical voice on what are some of the most important foreign policy object if ives f the country and for those purposes you want people to have access to as much information as possible. information about the context. information about the individuals you'll be dealing with. and information about the negotiations that are under way in each of those contexts. especially when you're talking about secretive societies or those with whom we're playing high-stakes poker like the chinese, you certainly want lead negotiators or key interlocutors to having a ske ing access to t best information the u.s. government has available. and right now given this downgra downgrade, it appears jared won't have access to that. >> let me put you on the spot, juan zarate, should jared kushner ever have had access to

the pdb? h. >> well, again, the pdb is the president's. the president dictates not only the form and the content that he wants in it, provided by the intelligence community, but who then gets access to it. when i was in the white house, i would get access to parts if not all of it, depending on what president bush wanted to provide, so it really depends on the president's prerogative. there is a question, and this is a longer-term question, of whether or not jared will ultimately get his top-secret clearance or if the investigations under way or if other elements of the background investigation are so prejudicial that he's never going to be able to get that clearance again and if that's the case, then you have to ask, you know, should he have had access before? but certainly the president's in his prerogative to provide that information and given the role that jared has been playing, you would want him to have access to if not parts of the pdb, then

elements of things he was working on that were relevant out of the pdb. so i wouldn't completely fault the president or the process for that, but now that he's no longer -- >> let me interrupt you. >> -- cleared -- then you have to reconsider this. >> juan, how do you defend a process that had the most sensitive intelligence that exists in the united states of america in the hands of someone who not only hadn't cleared an fbi background check but was informed he likely wouldn't? if the rob porter scandal hadn't been made public, the white house never would have told us who was on -- i mean, we only know that jared kushner was looking at the nation's most sensitive secrets. we should remind people why you saw it. you were the homeland security adviser. you saw it because it was your job to run an interagency process to protect us from another 9/11 in the years of 9/11. that was your job. you had a reason to see it. jared kushner hadn't passed his background check, he hadn't been deemed to not be a threat for blackmail by the fbi which is the hurdle you have to pass. the fbi does not pass judgment

on your character, what kind of businessperson you were. their standard is whether or not you could be a blackmail risk for the united states of america. so i hear you, you're making a policy argument, but i'm not buying it. he did not -- it was not in the country's interest for someone with so many unanswered questions and questions that we never would have known about if they hadn't so brazenly allowed rob porter, an accused wife beater, to be handling classified information. are you not at all concerned about how this white house has dealt with classified information? >> no, obviously you want discipline around this process. i think the delay around this is troubling, and you're right that if it hadn't been publicly exposed, we may not be having this discussion. but what i'm trying to -- the argument i'm trying to make is in the initial days when white house staff is getting cleared through the process, when they all legitimately have interim clearances and they're being tasked with serious portfolios, you do want them to have access to information so at a certain

point, if it's clear that an individual's not going to be able to get that clearance, of course, then you don't want them to have access to sensitive information, but what i'm trying to say is at the start, you want american officials, and he is an american official on behalf of the white house and the president, you want them to be well informed and well armed with as much information as possible. he now doesn't have that at his command, and that will now weigh on what his responsibilities are and how the president deploys him zb him. >> so, jonathan, if john kelly was trying to make the case that the family is making a mess of the white house, he had ivanka trump saying that she wouldn't answer a question about whether or not donald trump's more than -- i think he has 19 credible accusers who've accused him of sexual misconduct, she wouldn't weigh in on whether or not they were telling the truth after having no problem of weighing in on roy moore's accusers, no problem weighing in on other milestones of the me too movement. she played the daughter card.

you've got jared kushner who's been stripped of a clearance. it's questionable. i understand what juan's saying, he's saying while a normal background check was going on, people need to be able to do their jobs. a normal background check does not last 14 months for the president's most senior officials. juan's i'm sure was done in half that time. so where does the standoff between the family and the kelly wing of the west wing stand? >> i mean, there's certainly been a growing rivalry between these two camps in recent months. chief of staff kelly has told people close to him that he's, you know, not totally sure on day to day what jared, ivanka, are doing in the white house. certainly when he first came into the position, one of his first moves was really try to establish clear lanes for them, restrict their access even to the oval office which is ivanka's case means access to her own father. and as we've gone forward here, you know, the kushner/ivanka trump camp has grown frustrated with some of these restrictions and have, you know, have moved at times to try to undermine the

chief of staff's power. but let's also remember, you mentioned rob porter which is how we suddenly have all those talked about clearances in the last couple weeks. it's been john kelly who's been on the spot in recent weeks. he was -- his grasp on his job became extremely tenuous in the last week or so. and only now, you know, with a little bit of cooling off period, he seems to have at least for the most be in place and he now has scored, if you're going to look at it as a rivalry within the west wing, a victory here. >> just attention. >> that's exactly right. it comes at a time, you know, let's remember the fall for jared kushner here, when he first came into the white house, you know, along with chief of staff then reince priebus and steve bannon, couple very powerful camps, he told others he was the first among equals. now he's the one who's lost his clearance. >> ashley parker, i know you got to jump. i can see the steam coming out of your phone from here. but you dropped a story, this is one of those days where we rewrote our lead a few times. you dropped a story about one of -- someone who isn't a household name in america, but

anyone who covers this white house knows josh, senior communications aide leaving the white house for a combination of personal reasons and geographic reasons. he was the mouthpiece of the press aide that dealt specifically with the outsize number of press inquiries for jared and ivanka. talk about the significance of his departure and what it intersects with both in the mueller probe and in the arc of jared and ivanka's political fate there. >> sure. so the person who left is josh raffel and he is not known to the outside world. he is a very well-known to any reporter who's written a jared or ivanka story. he he sort of aggressively argues for every word and he left today basically as you said for a combination of family reasons that are real, and also he's sort of been here a year. i will say as we wrote in our story before this jared news that his departure was certain to launch sort of palace intrigue and conspiracy theories as to why he was leaving, what

he knew was coming, why now might be a good time to get out. and, again, we can't say for certain that his departure today is correlated to anything that's coming but we can say that he is leaving at a time when jared kushner is under an increased level of scrutiny. it's for, obviously, the security clearance issue. it's for his contacts with foreign nationals and foreign governments throughout the campaign, during the transition, and in the white house. again, there hasn't necessarily been alleged wrongdoing that we know of yet but we understand this is something that mueller is looking into and it comes at a time when kushner is clashing and has, as john was talking about, increased tension with chief of staff john kelly. so it's a very precarious time for jared kushner and, you know, from a comments perspective, may be a good time for josh raffel to get out and probably a time he's desperately needed within the west wing. >> ashley parker, i know you have is to jump, i see you jumping out of your chair. >> thank you. >> promise if you drop anything,

sit back in the chair and share it us first. >> thank you. >> jonathan, i have to say, i cover this white house like you cover this white house. what ashley describes is exactly how josh does his job. that's part of the job that's normal. you're supposed to fight about every single word. he's one of the straight shooters in this white house. he's accessible. he does fight about every story, but when it's over, he goes on to fight another day. he returns your phone calls in the news cycle. i think he'll be missed. >> yeah. i've been on the receiving end of those angry phone calls that ashley described. no question josh raffel is a pro. there have been times when there haven't been that many of them working in the trying to get people to return your phone calls in a timely manner. he was not on the campaign. he has ties to the trump family. he has ties to hope hicks, when he came into the white house about a year ago. he's someone -- it was sort of an unusual arrangement that to have for jared kushner and ivanka trump to have their own spokesperson in the white house. there really weren't any soothe senior aides who had that. he is someone, though, who has

taken owenn a larger and larger role in recent month. he's worked for gary cohn. he's worked for others, key players in the white house at times. and he is someone whose name, though he's far from a household name, he is a name who has suddenly cropped up in a couple important matters relating to the russia probe in recent months, that he was involved in sort of crafting initial response to that meeting in trump tower and he was someone who was involved in the letter dictated on air force one. >> right. >> both things that are on bob mueller's radar. >> so he's not here to speak for himself, so philip bump, i would say the first time i think we covered him on this program when was his name was shared with the white house and list of i think six aides and what they had in common was they were that group of aides aboard air force one when the phony cover story was given to the press in response to inquiries about don jr.'s meeting with russians in trump tower. he was -- it came out in your paper's reporting and others, he

was on the side of more transparency. we know from mark carrallo's count in "fire and fury," that hope hicks and the president prevailed, said it will never get out, just say it was about adoption. so the press staff, i have to say, having been a press staffer, you are in charge of some of the most insignificant things like which tie your boss wears, to some of most seismic things like, like, you know, personal and professional. so, you know, when you look at a white house under investigation by a special counsel, you look at a white house, hope hicks is up on capitol hill today before a committee, every single person has, you know, a ripple effect. what do you think the ripple effects are of both kushner losing those clearances today and kushner and ivanka losing their top spokesman? >> as my colleague, ashley, said, it certainly is easy to sort of delve into this world of conspiracy theory, what does this all mean, why is it all happening now? which is totally fair, particularly given the position

that the mueller investigation, itself, is in. >> right. >> he's sort of wrapped up the whole manafort wing of it, the russian media -- >> which is the campaign wing. >> exactly. it's his entry into the campaign wing. there are still these outstanding questions about the role that jared kushner played, about this potential obstruction which wasn't just in michael wolff's book, it was reported by "the new york times" that hope hicks said this thing. these are significant questions. it's also important to remember jared kushner was always in a weird space. he's not paid. not a paid staffer. he's sort of the son-in-law of the president who got special clearance to come work in the white house. he's always been in a weird position doing a weird job. kelly last week sort of stuck a shiv in his back saying he can still do what he's been doing without the top-secret clearance which everyone interpreted as something of a dig. it's not really clear what kushner does. all of that said, though, because kushner is such an oddity in the white house, it's sort of hard to say what will happen next because it's always hard to say what will happen next in the trump white house. >> let me just respond a little bit to the idea that kelly was

digging at kushner. there is a very, very hot war going on with the jared and ivanka surrogates disparaging the kelly wing of the white house, throwing all of the rob porter scandal at the feet of john kelly, his deputy joe hagan, my former white house colleague. so there's plenty -- i mean, i guess, juan zarate, this place is still a snake pit. do you hear anything different? >> thanks, nicolle. no, i mean, you and i have friends who work inside there, and obviously they're doing their best. i think, you know, what you have is obviously the external pressure and the gaze of the media, you know, and the probe of the investigators pushing on what is still an administration that's relatively kind of in formation, still has fractures and we're seeing evidence of that. and so the pressure's still there. we've had friends leave, as you know, and we've had friends -- >> do they leave or do they sort of, like, crawl out bloody? >> those sticking with it -- yeah, well, the folks who are

sticking with it are doing so because they believe in the country, they believe in their mission, and certainly trying to help the president succeed. and you can't fault them for that, but it's a difficult environment to work in, and we certainly worked in a difficult environment in the bush administration, but this is very different, i think. >> very different, indeed. zerlina, let me get your thoughts on the breaking news we're covering that jared kushner's been stripped of his security clearances which seems essential to his assignments. john kelly tried to make clear he could still modernize the entire federal government. could be true but becomes a little more tricky. let me also get your thoughts having sort of interacted with the press, behalf of the clinton campaign. those don't become household names unless you're sean spicer, sarah huckabee sanders, and for good and bad reasons, but still a big deal for someone under constant scrutiny, under investigation by a special counsel, under investigation by at least two committees in congress to lose their top spokesperson and a skilled spokesperson at that. >> absolutely. i think that part of the problem

i've always had with jared and ivanka being in the white house, they don't have any experience, so it's not so much about the clearance, which is an important issue because it's a national security issue, but also the fact if you're giving him this large portfolio, based on what experience is he drawing from in order to achieve those ends? how is he going to tackle middle east peace if he has no foreign policy experience? what is he doing with all his business contacts particularly related to the reporting on china and his financial entanglements with china? i think that might be one of the reasons why he's not able to get the security clearance now. because if you're looking at all of the reporting that goes into the kushner company and his monetary relationship with china, and potential money laundering in that area, i think that these are questions that mueller is certainly looking at and i think they're related to the security clearance. i think that that's where this is going. >> all right. more questions than answers to start us off. when we come back, stunning new testimony on capitol hill about what's being done to prevent russian meddling from happening again. spoiler alert, nothing.

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and then there were two. two members of donald trump's national security team have now testified before congress that donald trump has directed them to do exactly, wait for it, nothing, to counter cyber threats from russia. here was donald trump's head of the national security agency and u.s. cyber command, admiral mike rogers, on capitol hill today. >> it as i understand, you said that president trump has never

ordered cyber com to take any action to defend or thwart russian attempts to meddle in the elections this fall. is that correct? >> i've never been given any specific direction to take additional steps outside of my authority. i have taken the steps within my authority, you know, trying to be a good proactive commander. because my view -- >> no one from the administration has asked you to take any additional steps? is that correct? >> i haven't been granted any, you know, additional authorities, capacity, capability. no, that's certainly true. >> rogers also testified that the white house's decision not to implement congressionally mandated sanctions against russia sends a signal to vladimir putin that the kremlin can continue to wage cyber war on the u.s. without retribution. >> my concern is, i believe that president putin has clearly come to the conclusion there's little price to pay here. >> bingo. >> clearly what we've done

hasn't been enough. >> none of this sitting well with claire mccaskill. >> the notion they came after us brazenly and that nobody can sit in that chair and say, we got this, you guys can do this, you give america's military a mission and nobody is better. >> right. >> the notion that you have not been given this mission to stop this from happening this year is outrageous. >> rogers becomes -- rogers becomes the second leader of a national security agency to testify in recent weeks he has not been instructed to take a tougher line on russia. fbi director chris wray was asked if the president had instructed him to punish russia or protect america from russian interference when he was on the hill. here's his response. >> has the president directed you and your agency to take specific actions to confront and blunt russian influence activities that are ongoing? >> we're taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt --

>> directed by the president? >> not as specifically directed by the president. >> an eye roll that will live in infamy. the million-dollar question that hangs over both wray's testimony and rogers' testimony today, why not? here's sarah huckabee sanders on rog roger's test moan now. >> he's the one with the power. the means. all he needs is a -- >> i disagree with the premise of your question. it's not just one individual. it's looking at a number of different ways. >> he's in charge of cyber command, why not give him the authority? >> nobody is denying him the authority. we're looking at a number of different ways we can put pressure -- look, this president as i told you last week has been much tougher on russia than his predecessor. let's not forget this happeneded under obama. it didn't happen under president trump. if you want to blame somebody on past problems, you need to look at the obama administration. the president is looking at all the different causes and different ways we can prevent it. as we find different ways we can

do that, we're implementing them. like you see with the money that was allocated from the state department, as you see with the conversations that the secretary from dhs is having. we're going to continue looking at different ways to combat it. i would imagine that will be certainly a big part of it. i can't speak to anything further on it right now. >> this is not about the past. it's about protecting intrusion in the next election. >> exactly. >> he said he needs the authority and he hasn't been given it. >> i can't speak to that specifically. i can tell you we're taking a number of steps to prevent this, and we're looking at a variety of other ways that we're going to continue to implement. >> is not going to tell you what any of them are. joining us now, a "new york times can thetime s" reporter. and juan zarate is also still with us. let me start with you, matt apuzop. last friday when bob mueller indicted 13 russians, i have to think that part of what is now

abundantly clear to this white house, part of the reason there's this obsessive desire and it was on full display on the president's twitter feed this morning, that this is all obama's fault. i was just a candidate. i wasn't running. is -- is a strategy in some sort of acknowledgement that we're going to find out a whole bunch of things that the russians did to meddle in our elections. that there's mor e to come than already disclosed about russia cease role in meddling in the 2016 election. and you see in these lifelong professionals like admiral rogers and chris wray an inability to lie. be outside of their sort of constitution to sit before congress and lie. so you saw it in the body langua language. i mean, i wasn't joking about chris wray's eye roll or admiral rogers practically leaning on the table while he's being asked why haven't you been given the authority to do anything? what does the prosecution or the investigation into russian interference look like? how did they see days like today

when you got admiral rogers saying, nope, no one ever asked many he to protect america or chris wray saying, nope, president never asked me to do anything, and sarah huckabee sanders standing at the podium saying it's all obama's fault? >> well, let me do two things here. the first is the most charitable and in some ways the most fair read of this is not like the nsa is sitting around with its, you know, sitting on its hands or the fbi is just sort of twiddling its thumbs. it's not like they need any -- the president of the united states to come over and tell them, hey, you know, russia, let's, you know, do our jobs on that one. so it's not like they need to be told to monitor and to try to protect american infrastructure. so in some regards, it -- the white house is right. you don't need -- the president didn't need to pick up the phone and tell him to do that. and they're also right that in the final months of the election, the obama administration did see this happening and they didn't want to act because they didn't want to be seen as taking steps to

help hillary clinton. so they deserved to be scrutinized as well. but on the flip side to that is, look, donald trump because he's so invested in the narrative of there wasn't any russian meddling or if it was, it didn't matter, any steps he takes to be seen as trying to blunt russian meddling could be read as undercutting his own argument. so he's kind of in a box. and this is why, frankly, the mueller investigation so enrages him because every policy move that he makes or doesn't make gets read through that prism and it should. look, the special counsel's been going at this for less than a year and look at the number of indicts he's racked up. >> many, many, many many indictments. david chris, let me read you something my former -- mine and juan's former colleague general hayden said. he said he's very concerned, that as extensive as the 2016 operation was, russian operation, it may have only been a probing attack from the russians testing for american weaknesses and seeing how much they could get away with. me believes what's coming in the

2018 to 2020 elections could be worse, much, much worse. let me just concede matt's point and say that every federal employee's always doing their job and they don't need the president to tell them to do so. but general hayden and others have described russian meddling as a political 9/11. and we all know what happened after 9/11. the u.s. senate voted 98-0 to pass the patriot act. we said never again in this country. so when we've been attacked, when a foreign adversary has meddled in our way of life in any form, and i'm not comparing an election to the tragic loss of life on 9/11, but the response justifies as robust of a fortification of our democracy, does it not? >> yeah, i think it does. i think admiral rogers was exactly right. the russians hear this as there's going to be no price to pay and effectively it's an invitation to do it again. i think hayden is right, they're likely to do even more as they move forward. this was a fult multifaceted

campaign. they're going to continue developing new facets and amping them up. and whether or not the president will admit or deny the collusion or the russian activity at all, it's reasonably clear on the public record that he hasn't provided strong leadership. he hasn't galvanized the federal workforce and his federal agencies. hasn't pushed them hard to do something aggressive to put a stop to this. and ironically, what you're left with is the most compelling action coming out of the u.s. government on this topic is coming from the criminal investigation of special counsel bob mueller. >> let me stay with you on that, and i had heard from a former federal prosecutor who was an ally of this trump white house that one of the clearest messages sent by bob mueller with those 13 dooiindictments y just referenced is he wanted to end the debate in this country about whether or not russian -- the russian state had, as its goal, interfering in the 2016 election. day did. it worked. full stop. do you agree with that assessmentment? >> well, i think that is a message that you draw from the

indictment. i don't think bob mueller is a message sender or a signal sender that p's not his style. he's an investigator an prosecutor. but in the absence of inany oth activity by the u.s. government to address this at least in public, his indictments end up filling the void and becoming as i said the most compelling statement of what is really going on here. >> juan zarate, that void is created by a president who always offers some condition when he's forced to concede that russia's role is what we all know it was in the 2016 election. the "washington post" reported in december that russia-related intelligence that might draw trump's ire is in some cases included only in the written assessmentme of the pdb. no one talks to him about it because they don't want to make him mad. "post" going on to report that trump doesn't read the pdb. if it's just in writing and he doesn't read it, then we're going to miss jared reading that classified information perhaps because it's not clear that the president even knows about it.

and philip bump points out in his piece today that every time the president acknowledges russia's role, he conditions it. that, yeah, it was russia, but it could have been the fat person in the basement. what would you make of this if you're just looking at it with clear eyes? what is donald trump's obsession with carving out russia's responsibility for what it did in our elections in 2016? >> well, i think the benign answer is one that matt provided which is i think the president doesn't want to fuel any suggestion that his election was illegitimate or aided by the russians and certainly doesn't want to fuel a narrative that there was collusion. right? so it -- for the president appears that this question of russian meddling, the attack on democratic institutions, the attack on the election by the russians, the probing, is part of a political narrative as opposed to what you heard today on capitol hill, which was a discussion around the national security implications.

obviously with a political tinge given the political environment. the reality is we need two different strategies here. one that looks at how we push back on the russians which they're engaged clearly in hybrid warfare trying to undermine american interests and power, as well as how we protect our electoral system and democratic institutions. not just from the russians but from others that have now learned from the russian example. i've written about this, testified about it. the real danger here is not just that the russians have perfected this art form, but that they've taught others how to do it as well. i think in some ways you heard director pompeo talking in these terms on the hill today. you've heard others talk about not just the russian concern, but others, and i think that's one way of attracting the president's attention around, away from the political narrative and back to the center -- >> why? why do that, though? because he can't handle the truth about russia, so just tell him it's guatemala? that's ludicrous.

i just -- i don't understand that explanation, tell him everybody does so let's do all this stuff to protect ourselves from canada. that's asinine. i'm sorry. >> no, no. you obviously have to focus on the russians. you need a russia-focused strategy in particular because they're doing this in concert with other activities in syria, in ukraine, potentially to meddle in elections like in mexico's election coming up in july. so you have to focus on the russians. no doubt. but what i'm saying is there's a reality to the president's reaction to this. and that means you have to look at where the vulnerabilities are for our system writ large. the chinese are looking at this, nonstate actors are look bing at it, iranians, north koreans. that's the reality, too. my point is you need two really focused urgent strategies that we're clearly not getting political messaging on and saw the intelligence leadership trying to demonstrate and describe at least on that form how they're trying to push back. certainly not enough and not with enough urgency and we lack the political leadership to

actually focus on those two strategies. >> matt, let me ask you about one more headline. sweden is taking on russian meddling ahead of the fall elections. i like sweden but i don't think of them as being tougher than the u.s. when it comes to russian meddling, looks like they're taking a tougher line against the russians to protect their own elections. they're doing things like training election watchers to spot and resist foreign influence. the biggest media outlets have teamed up to combat false news. political parties scour their e-mail systems to close hacker-friendly holes. a goal, to russia-proof sweden's political system so what happened in the united states can never happen in this nordic country of 10 million people. you know, can you just speak to how this looks like the -- what this looks like the world over? >> yeah, and part of this is optics, as you just said, but, look, for the fbi, for homeland security, the biggest concern in realtime, in the 2016 election, was that the russians were going to get into the election system

and were going to hack and around change votes and there's no evidence that we've seen so far that that actually happened. that was a huge fear. i mean, thankfully, i guess, the american election system is a mess held together by duct tape and band-aids, but, sort of makes it hack-proof. but, look, how do you -- how do you combat, you know, trolls? how do you combat fake news? how do you combat targeted micro-ads? i don't think it's quite as simple as we wish it would be. democracy's messy. that's why there needs to be a bipartisan conversation about how to do that. right now in conversation you're getting just a lot of yelling and not a lot of action. >> but you didn't just attack sweden, did you? i think if anyone can do it, sweden can, right? can we all agree on that? >> hey, absolutely. >> juan zarate, matt apuzzo,

david kris, thanks for being with us. today, one of those closest to president trump is sitting down in front of lawmakers investigating russian interference in the election. what we know about what hope hicks is saying and not saying on the hill. that's next. afi sure had a lot on my mind. my 30-year marriage... ...my 3-month old business... plus...what if this happened again? i was given warfarin in the hospital, but wondered, was this the best treatment for me? so i made a point to talk to my doctor. he told me about eliquis.

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hope hicks is the woman who has seen everything and been everywhere. from the outside, it would appear that she's treated more like family than staff by the president she serves. she's been by donald trump's side since the early days of his campaign and she now holds a post of white house communications director. what she's witnessed in those roles is of interest to everyone investigating, whether the president obstructed justice, and whether the trump campaign wittingly or unwittingly coordinated with the russians. she was on capitol hill today fielding questions from the house intel committee. her imminent appearance on the hill coincided with a morning tweetstorm from the president

quoting the best and brightest deflections from fox news and summing it up with these two words. "witch hunt." the panel's back. jonathan, just talk about all that hope hicks knows and all that she's seen and there are a couple of particular places where she's ensnared, one was what we talked about earlier, this cover story that was crafted aboard air force one. >> yes. >> that ended up being a lie told to the media. and the other is the testimony of mark corallo which we also talked about this hour who said that she said no one will ever find out. >> right. hope hicks in many ways is the original staffer and she probably spends more time with the president than any other aide. she is in the room for almost every major decision, she's often at his side or a short shout away from his desk in the oval office. so she's a person of great interest, obviously, to bob mueller, but also to the committees on the hill. what we understand today is that she followed the steve bannon playbook. where she refused to answer questions about anything that happened from the transition or

the time in the white house. that she was willing to answer stuff from the campaign, much like bannon did, but after that, cited executive privilege and said she would not talk further. >> and you made the point that while that may hinder the work of the committees, she's already spent her time with bob mueller. he knows everything she knows. >> right. she's already spent some time with bob mueller, who knows if she ends up spending more time with bob mueller. yeah, i think the bannon playbook as juonathan put it, wrks part because i think the trump white house isn't particularly concerned about the investigations on the hill. i think they tried to put pressure on house and the senate to wrap these things up quickly and republican leadership of the committees responded and is trying to wrap this up quickly to some extent. they understand there isn't much of a price to be paid, hicks and bannon. understand there isn't a price to be paid in stonewalling the house and senate. going to make the house and the senate mad probably over the short term. we'll see. jonathan's point about how she's the original staffer, i remember i got an e-mail from her probably a month or two, i wrote a lighthearted piece about trump's wall proposal before he

was a candidate. i got an e-mail, hi, i'm hope hicks. she's been there the entire way. like, when he landed that helicopter at the iowa state fair, she was the first one off. she's been there every step of the ware and it would be fascinating to know what she knows about went on. >> she's also not made a lot of public missteps. the controversy that surrounds her now around her recommendations, her participation in the response to the rob porter scandal, something you and i talked about on the air, but what she was involved in, and, again, whether she wittingly or unwittingly told corallo no one will find out, whether she knowingly passed along information from russians. i mean, you have to assume that bob mueller has a whole lot of e-mails, a whole lot of texts. >> right. >> whole lot of phone records. he knows -- if she passed along messages or tips from russians, the kinds of russians that were inside trump tower on the day that donald trump was there, bob mueller is going to get his

hands on that. >> absolutely. i think her lack of experience is exposining her to a lot of legal repercussions. one of the questions that i asked not just in terms of the air force one statement, when we talk about obstruction, we talk about donald trump. we should be talk bing about hope hicks, anybody else on air force one drafting that lie statement to the press and we should be talking about that under the framework of obstruction. or perhaps a conspiracy to obstruct justice because it took multiple people as a part of a conspiracy to obstruct the investigation into the russia collusion. so i think that there are a number of legal questions to ask as it relates to hope hicks that go far beyond just the question about what donald trump's mental state was. >> and jonathan, just tie this up for us, i mean, we started by talking about jared kushner losing his clearances. hope hicks is sort of an original band member. jared kushner and all the family, original band members. another original band member was named the chairman of the next trump campaign. >> it's been an eventful day. >> we ripped up our rundown

three times. >> brad pascal named to the re-election campaign. he's a texas-based digital media guy. that's his background. he got his entry into the trump world predating politics, that he did websites for the trump real estate company and eric trump's charity. and he is someone who was then drafted to help out with the digital stuff in the campaign. he and jared kushner are very close. he's tight with eric trump, eric trump's wife, lara trump, in fact, just appointed -- put out a press a release, another campaign official -- >> stepping up. >> he is someone -- though this is obviously sort of a difficult day for perhaps jared kushner in the white house in which his standing there is suddenly in question if he's lost his top-secret security clearance, it's someone on team kushner who is now running the campaign. a campaign that's, of course, let's remember, you know, last time around was marked by a lot of infighting. at least this time, the first victory goes to the family. >> i just want to point out that brad's role is significant in

part, donald trump wants an active political campaign. he likes going out, it gives him energy, feels like he gets to speak to the people. what pascal did is essentially give money to facebook to run a slew of ads, hundred s of thousands of ads in a course of a week targeting people. i think what we can see from this is in part, trump wants to start a full fledged, more full fledged advertising effort, campaign effort at this point in time. that's speculative. if you were going to do that now, brad -- >> let me push back a little bit, isn't that the kind of work that bled into the kind of efforts that 13 russians were indicted for doing? >> yes. there was a texas-based political consultant specified in that document. or in the 13 indictments that was released. there was a reference to a texas-based political -- >> there's a lot of people in texas. >> correct. but it's interesting because that indictment was specifically about the facebook and the

propaganda that russia was, you know, spreading during the campaign. i'm just flagging that. >> all right. flagged. flagged. we have to sneak in another break. when come back, are you in for treat now the infamous ""access hollywood"" tape joins us, he makes his debut as our new political analyst. he has more reporting on the trump organization. that's coming up. so that's the idea. what do you think? i don't like it.

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i have a no conflict of interest provision as president. it was many, many-years-old, this is for presidents. because they don't want presidents -- i understand, they don't mr. presidents tangled up in min nushia. i can run government and my business at the same time. i don't like the way it looks. i would be the only one able to do. that you can't do that in any other capacity. as a president, i could run the trump organization, great, great company, and i could run the company. i'd do a very good job, but i don't want to do that. >> but they certainly leave you plenty of time doing. that 13 months after don't worry about it, here with are, asking conflict of interest questions, joining us in today's washington woft on monday, panama federal

prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into the trump organization after the hotel majority owner said he had been blocked from his own property. with that, this bizarre standoff turned to theoretical sunday from the trump administration the private business might be investigated by a foreign deposit is a reality. they caught the security guard, video obtained by the washington post says it was a heated confrontation. for more on this wild still unfolding story, i want to bring in one of the journalists that reported this story, david steerns, she also a msnbc journalist. this story is wild. it reads like something that isn't real. can you bring us up to speed. what's happening at this hour in. >> okay. to back up a little bit. trump has this hotel that has his name on it in panama city. he doesn't own it. somebody operates it. somebody owns the hotel units. >> that guy, that miami-based

businessman has shown up, said trump i want you out, the hotel is doing poorly. i think your name is toxic in latin america. i want trump organization out of the building the trump organization said, no, we're not financial to leave. that was thursday. we've had this low level standoff. now it's escalating. the businessman that wants trump out is getting the panamanian government on his side the police and department of labor helped him get access to this building. maybe to help him fire some of the trump employees that were there. >> it seems like it's an american government respond in kind. it's the american state department or perhaps the congress department, whatever the appropriate agency is, you have an instant conflict of interest. this seems to me to have been the original concern about the president's name remaining on his company and his son's continuing to run it. >> reporter: that's right. so far, we have seen no evidence the u.s. government is involved

the white house hasn't commented. has the president been briefed about this. they haven't responded. there is two problems here one for the country, if the government gets involved. if there is a sense the trump organization is helping the organization out here. it's not good for the trump organization. they're put into a position where this guy is trying to breach a valid contract by them, he is making a stink and attracting intention, hey the president's business is down in panama in trouble with the authorities. >> is there any sense? panama is a good and reliable allie of the united states of america. is there any sense? do you have a wind how they are grappleing with what isle of in this individual's mine a legitimate business concern with the trump brand and the trump name? and an important allie in the occupation of america. >> reporter: it's been very interesting to watch this obviously, panama is an important allie in that region. i have soy say, what from i can tell, my reporters are down there watching this unfold. from what we can tell the

panamanians seem to have taken the guy who is trying to get trump out. police officers came to the hotel this morning, trying to get the owner in to try to get access to some of the building's rooms, like the security camera room, where the trump organization was blocking access. it seems so far the panamanian government has responded to this other guy the guy opposing trump and done what he wants. in fact, it's moved faster than i expected to do what this opponent of trump wants. >> i have to switch topics. so you won a pulitzer for your reporting among other things on the family foundation. now the ""access hollywood"" reporting. i feel if there was a canary in the mind, if there was a body of reporting, that sort of told toss this is exactly where we'd be 15 months in, it was yours. can you sort of speak to the broader conflicts of interest. you got don, jr. in india, the hawken condos and photo ops. ivanka who still runs an instagram account and sees herself as a brand and

ambassador for girls. i'm just the awe, i can't weigh in on the "me too" movement on behalf of my father. >> reporter: it's been one of the interesting story lines we've watched over the last year. you no ein theory, donald trump has given up day-to-day control of his business. don jr. and eric run it. donald senior still owns the business. it's his business. he can take money out. he doesn't run it day-to-day. don and eric jr. said they would stay out of politics. are very involved. don jr. is going around the world, giving speeches. eric trump is more in control of the company, he appears on "fox and friends." he makes tv appearances as a political analyst, talking about his father, praising his father. eric trump's wife, laura trump is a senior adviser to trump's re-election campaign. the family and organization are very entwined.

>> that set the trump organization set limits on itself, most notably they would turn away new foreign deals, anybody that came with a deal in a foreign country would turn that away. as far as we can tell, they are abiding by, that get around it, they are trying to revive seemingly dead foreign deals from the past. >> we are so happy to have you on that beat and the nsnbc family. we hope you will join us at the table soon. thanks for joining us. >> that does it for our hour. i'm nicole wallace. chuck is giving me the stink eye, because i am 17 seconds late. >> i wish i was giving you a stink eye, oh my god, it's 5:00, she's not back from break. if it's tuesday, i hear it's above jared's pay grade. >> tonight, downgraded, jared kushner loses some of his security clearance. does it really matter? the gun divide, how an