when you've got wayfair. so shop now! we're out of time but i want to thank the rev, al, sam, and most of all you for watching. "mtp daily" starts now. ♪ welcome to thursday, it is meet the press daily. i'm chuck todd here in washington. we begin with a story that has all of washington talking or more correctly whispering at the water cooler. and it do be a story that everyone everywhere is talking about for a long time. but we just don't know because there is so much we still don't know. and it is all about the unknown contents of a whistleblower complaint deemed urgent and credible by the intelligence

community's inspector general and our reporting indicates directly involves the president. michael atkinson appointed by president trump as inspector general has told congress in so many words that administration is not allowing him do his job. in letters to congress, atkinson said that he wants to tell them badly. because the matter relates to, quote, one of the most significant and important of dni's responsibilities to the american peel. but joseph mcguire and officials at the justice department basically overruled him. the ig told congress he was not being allowed to even tell them the general subject matter of these allegations. which we now know is the president. a former u.s. intelligence official told nbc news that, quote, this urgent concern involves a phone conversation by president trump. the "washington post" reports that it involves presidential communications with a foreign leader and some kind of a

promise. the president via twitter did not deny the reporting saying anytime i speak on the phone to a foreign leader, i understand that there may be many people listening from various u.s. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. adding knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that i would say something inappropriate? after meeting with inspector general atkinson today behind closed doors, adam schiff seemingly threatened to withhold funding from certain initiatives supported by the current acting dni unless the whistleblower's complaint is disclosed. >> we will look at whatever remedies we have including when the director of national intelligence comes to the congress for authorization to reprogram funds for one purpose or another, we will look to whether he is abiding by the law in making a decision about those requests. so we will use whatever leverage we can, but at the end of the day, we are determined to valley date the whistleblower process

to make sure people can expose wrongdoing. >> there are plenty of signs indicating this complaint contains something pretty significant, whether it is the inspector general's efforts to inform congress, the administration's effort to thwart them, the reports linking to discussions with a foreign leader or of course the president's nondeenl deninial d. but we haven't seen the complaint. we didn't know what he said or how this whistle blower even found out. and perhaps the bigger question, whether we will ever find out. and if it is something not to worry about, perhaps they shouldn't be afraid to disclose it. joining me now with the latest reporting is ken dilanian. also a couple people with firsthand experience in the ic, john mclaughlin and robert litt. so i think that i have three pretty good people on this. ken, the latest now, what is the

next steps to seeing where we are with getting this information. >> well, joe mcguire acting director who is really under fire here is going to appear in public next week before the house intelligence committee at their request. but nobody expects him to talk in any kind of detail about this complaint because he is really hamstrung. and by the way this is a former navy s.e.a.l. who has been praised on both sides of the aisle as a straight shooter. he is in a position where the justice department has essentially decided. >> it seems as if the inspector general at first during the first letter implied that the dni wanted to basically go forward but checked with justice first. is that the correct -- >> well, he is being criticized because some people believe that the law doesn't really provide for that, it just says once the icig decides it should go to congress, it is just a rubber stamp. but given that we know that it involved the president, did t. doesn't seem crazy that the dni

who worked for the president wouldn't want to run it by justice particularly because there might be a privilege issue. presidential communications with a foreign leader might be considered confidential. so when he did that, the doj apparently balked and issued an opinion saying no, this doesn't fall within the narrow confines of that intelligence whistleblower law and that is where we are. so he went to the hill and he was not able to talk in detail about the complaint. >> john, is this some the sort of raw intelligence? what is the type of things that an intelligence analyst would be seeing that could be -- that could come across his desk that would he go, oh, this doesn't make a lot of sense. what are the types of intelligence gathering materials that this could be. are these transcripts, nsa stuff, what is it? >> well, in all likelihood it is, a guess here, the transcript of something that the president said. these things circulate

freely in the white house once the president makes a phone call or if n. my experience it is not hard to find out what the president said on the phone. >> and every one of these conversations with world leaders, it is always fully transcribed? is that the type of stuff that everybody was getting this raw material? >> no, not everyone, but i had often been in the room or colleagues had been in the room to advise the president, listen in on the phone call. and then the transcript would be shared with a handful of people. it didn't go broadly throughout the community. >> the phrase urgent concern, is that significant. >> it is a significant phrase. it is used in the legislation. and it is hard to know because we don't they the substance of the complaint, what that is in this case. you know, and at the extremes here, if you are looking at on the extremes that would justify urgent concern for the intelligence community, it would be the president revealing something about a source or a method and so forth, which he has the right to declassify, but there is a fine line here

particularly if you are getting in to source identity. and at the other extreme on the privilege side, perhaps he said something of a policy nature that was exwleengregioegregious up something, what if he said to putin, don't worry about ukraine, i'm not going to give you trouble there. that would not be -- >> throwing out country ideas there, yeah. >> don't want to give ideas. but that would not technically be an intelligence matter. so it is the judgment of the whistleblower here about what is it that is worthy to surface here. so it is a judgment issue on many levels. >> robert, have you ever had -- did you ever deal with a situation like this? >> no, i'm not aware of anytime when this situation has come up. we obviously had a lot of dealings relating to which is whistleblowers, but never where the inspector general said this is something that needs to be transmitted to congress and the

dni refused. >> you say it very blankly. are you shocked that the dni did not take the advice of the ig here? >> i think that john mclaughlin is right, i think that if you assume that the reporting is accurate and this report implicates the president in some respect, i think that it is prudent for the dni to make sure that he is not out on that lim by himself and to check and make sure that others agree that it is appropriate to send it on to congress.and to check and make sure that others agree that it is appropriate to send it on to congress. as you noted, it is pretty clear the dni and his people are trying to send out signals that this is not our call, it is something that we were told to do. >> we keep preferring to this person as a whistleblower. does he have whistleblower protections? >> yes, this person now has whistleblower protections. >> how? >> because this person has done

everything in accordance with the statute that john mclaughlin referred to earlier, the intelligence community, the protection act and the orders that president obama and dni clapper issued for the protection of whistle blowers. >> because there has been some questioning -- are you saying if adam schiff subpoenas the whi whistleblower tomorrow, the whistleblower won't be breaking the law disclosing class filed firefighter if they testify on the hill? >> that is a really interesting situation. this is one of those areas where congress and the executive disagree. >> that is where i was getting at and that disagreement i assume limits adam schiff's -- i think that he why he went to money. it is an acknowledgement that subpoena isn't really helpful here. >> i don't think so. schiff suggested that he had a case and that judge might act quickly on it but historically

courts have been loath to referee these inter-branch disputes. so i think schiff is right to talk about the leverage of money. about you there is a context here that quite apart from this battle of the branches, we have a president who has been contempt chew us of the intelligence community and cavalier with secrets.chew us o intelligence community and cavalier with secrets. complaints to the hotline have more than doubled since donald trump took office. so there is a level of concern that we have not seen under previous presidents. >> if this were what i would call a normal administration, there was a way to get through this and in the statute there is discussion of something called an accommodation procedure. fancy word for basically getting together to figure out what we should do about this. >> and i thought about this this morning. in a functioning relationship between the intel community and congress, this feels like one of those moments where you would have gathered the gang of eight first, which is the four

leaders, four major leaders of the congress both parties, plus the heads of the intel committees and their ranking members, and you say guys, i know -- you sort of mash hash i. >> there are a dozen ways to deal with this. one would be to use the gang of eight that you referred to and another would be to show this information to the chairman and ranking and say here is why we have trouble with this. and you can have this part of it but not this part. you can't have a copy of it. and you can work through these things. but there needs to be some bipartisan desire to work through them. >> i want to put up a full screen here. this is the statute for the ig. upon receipt of a transmittal, director shall within seven calendar days forward such transmittal to the congressional intelligence committees together with any comments the director considers appropriate. i guess the question i have is, has the acting dni broken the

law here, is he following the law or if he doesn't do this within seven days, has he broken the law? >> it has always been the position of the executive branch going back for both president clinton and president obama at the time they signed portions of this law that despite the seemingly mandatory language of the law, this does not prohibit the president from exercising constitutional authorities to control the dissemination of classified information or privileged information. and so the executive branch would take the position that despite the language of the law, the president can say no, you may not disclose this if he has a valid reason. and then we get into the kind of tugging back and forth and exercising leverage that you were talking about a minute ago go. >> bob, i want to go more to privilege here a second. i had thought and maybe i misheard or misunderstood this, i had thought when it came to our surveillance if we were surveilling a foreign leader and we were listening in on their conversations that the minute that the president -- this was an nsa thing and the minute that

the president was recorded we didn't -- we didn't do it, you know? it was considered privileged. it wasn't considered sort of raw intelligence. is that not the case? is there a special way that is handled when we're surveilling somebody that is speaking to the president or a major cabinet member? >> i guess i'm not at liberty to talk about specifics of how we conduct surveillance. i will say it is not at all necessarily true that this came about as a result of an interception of a communication. >> fair enough. >> there are other ways it could have come to the attention of the whistleblower. >> i guess without getting into specifics, is there sort of a special way presidents and vice presidents are treated when you are conducting surveillance? >> yes, in the sense that you are not supposed to be going out and looking for communications

of the president and vice president. your targets are foreign intelligence. but if you intercept for example two officials of a foreign government talking about the president, that may well be of important intelligence value. >> bob can't answer this, but two officials told me that the rule is if a u.s. official is on the line they are listening to, they stop. >> that is what i had always heard. is that not really policy but sort of a norm, john? >> it is certainly practice. you know, a lot of things in government are practice. and there is probably a regulation that governs that. i don't know what it is. >> the larger issue here that i had heard and i think one thing that i would like to surface here before we finish this conversation is all of these episodes about leaking of american intelligence, whether it was what ken brought up with the russians, the fact that he put up that satellite photo with the iranian -- proving, hey, look what we did with the launch pad. that this has served to do two

things i've heard. one, our five eyes partners are not sharing the way they used to, that that is number one. and the second, internal u.s. analysts are being careful how they give the president bad news. >> i don't know the facts of those situations, chuck, but i did know on the first point you raised about reluctance to share by foreign partner, i've had at least one personally raise with me the question of whether it is okay. and i tried to offer some thoughts on how that person should think about it. i don't know about -- it is hard if me to think of the intelligence community withholding something from -- >> it is not a withhold issue, it is more of how do you deliver it. >> yes, how do you deliver it certainly. fair enough. there is another important point in all of this that i think we can't miss. and that is all of this

conversation about the whistleblower statute is probably going to discourage whistle blowing. in other words, if you are someone -- and by the way, this is an important part of the intelligence world that intelligence leaders support because it is part of the morale of the intelligence community. >> make sure their job if they found troubling stuff -- >> if you see something, say something. >> and they tried do the right thing and it didn't go out. people had to go for the media. >> and caught up in bureaucracy now. >> is that what you expect, fewer missal bl whistleblowers? >> i would hope not. we haven't yet seen how it plays out. it may well play out that the information comes out and appropriate action is taken. so i would ask people not to be discouraged now. as john said, if you see something, say something. >> bob is right. >> okay then. that is a good way to end it. i was told when we book bed you, bob, that everybody said well, bob is the best by to have on

anyway, so we should end with john saying bob is right. thank you for sharing your expertise. still ahead, what or who is behind keeping congress from getting access to the whistleblower's complaint. and later iran threatening all out war if the u.s. takes military action. we'll talk to a veteran and senator who has their own warning for president trump about his response. ident trump about his response i get it all the time.

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given the inspector general said this is urgent, it can't wait, which is a profound concern that we have over what we have seen over the last year which is a concerted strategy to run out the clock on any information getting to congress. here where it is urgent, that is simply not an option. >> welcome back. that was the intelligence

committee chairman adam schiff vowing action to get the whistleblower's complaint to the inspector general in the hands of congress. at the moment the congress is in the same place as us. they don't know anything about the nature of this whi whistleblower's complaint. our panel is joining us. heidi, the larger fight here of congress trying to say it is doing its job, it wants records, it wants this. and the white house's instinct is to whatever it is just stop it. put a hurdle, delay. where is this headed? >> you can put it in this category of just broader flagrant obstruction by this administration, but here is why i think this is unique. the house counsel right now is

immediately reviewing their options. they are so troubled by this. this ig, it is important to point out, is a trump appoint e. and he is saying that this is urgent, that there was a troubling promise made, he calls it a serious or flagrant problem abuse or violation of the law. so i do think that you have to put it in a separate bucket even though we don't know specifically the nature of it. is it part of a broader kind of emboldened flagrant violation and breakdown of the thunderstorms where the administration does not feel any kind of responsibility to give oversight, documents, witnesses, interviews to this congress? yes. and you saw that on display just yesterday as well with corey lewandowski refusing to answer any questions invoking some kind of privilege that is nonexistent where that will also lead to a court process. but according to my sources, they are hoping that this will

have some kind of a quick resolution because this does rise to a much higher level of concern. >> and i would argue this might be a political consideration on the when you say's part which is the longer they don't cooperate, the speculation grows, the more it sort of almost creates attention where perhaps they let some steam out of the valve here unless it is really something so bad. the more they resist, the more it makes you wonder why are you resisting so much. >> so on the glip side n thef speculation gets so out of hand so when the reality is revealed, there is not -- >> which is why i don't want to hear countries mentioned. >> this may be a no speculation zone, but there is a larger media ecosystem where that is not true. the other thing that i would say that i think should be a consideration is it just seems to me that having been around the block once or twice that we are going to know what the basic

gist of the complaint is. this is not going to stay secret being this high profile. >> and can i be totally cynical, i'll put up the entirety of the trump response on this. because in many ways trump is confirming it without confirming it. another fake news story out there, usually when he says the words fake news story, there is confirmation there. it never ends. virtually every time i speak on the phone to a foreign leader, i understand there may be many people listening from various agencies not to mention the other country itself. no problem. knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that i would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such potentially heavily populated he put that in quotes call. i would only do what is right anyway and only do good for the usa. i'd like to remind people of the leaks he has done, whether it was kislyak and the firing of comey and more importantly what he leaked was where an attack was going with syria. the second being the iranian

photo. i think at one point he was telling duterte where he had submarines. let's play this clip. >> one thing that we haven't mentioned is technology. they are wired so that we will know if somebody is trying to break through. you and you may want to discuss that a little bit. >> sir, there could be some idea to not discussing that. >> that was a great answer. >> i agree with the president. it was a great answer. >> we play all that because we know that there are sonl ways this president probably it is possible he didn't know he was disclosing something he wasn't supposed to disclose. i don't want to give him benefit of the doubt, but all we have to go through is all this evidence. >> people do not tell him things on the white house staff for fear that he is going to blurt it out. but getting back to the situation that we have here, i was thinking about the op-ed

that was written and sitting here a year ago and we still don't know who it is. and i think that it is very easy to imagine this is a white house that has managed to resist disclosing the president's tax returns very successfully. >> they filed suit again today. >> and is committed to this. and is not subject to the ordinary pressures of push and pull with economists. certainly not with the fact of a republican senate that has been unwilling to do the normal gang of eight things that you think about. and so i'm sorry to say that i can completely imagine a situation where this may well be a very serious matter, a matter that we ought to know about, where the administration just doubles down and barrels through and manages not to disclose this. and where if it goes to court,

this is the height of the situation where judges depending on who you get are going to be extremely, extremely reluctant to intervene in what is an inter-branch dispute. >> i'm not a lawyer, but depending on how serious this is and how quickly they get it to a judge, there are options like temporary restraining order, things where they could move it along more quickly in this case i'm being told. but, yes, more broadly a lot of things are caught up in the legal drag net right now and they are just kind of waiting in a holding pattern. >> i don't think that it is clear, i didn't get full confirmation that the whistleblower has all the protections the whistleblower needs. i thought it was interesting that bob litt said yeah, they already have the proteprotectio. so if they talk about it, are they protected, don't know. >> it has to be weighing on this person's mind. >> the executive does not accept

the power of the legislative and in fairness this isn't a donald trump interpretation, this was other presidents that also interpreted it that way. >> so outcome doesn't lie entirely on the courts. adam schiff has other -- >> as he said, the money. >> and he's been talking about that. so we'll see. but we have a tendency to try to think of all these things decided by the courts but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. >> he didn't just do this though. he got a lawyer. he got himself a lawyer and obviously got the best advice that he could before he kind of put himself out there. so this may be subject to some legal interpretation -- >> and we don't know the gender of the whistleblower. i know people hear hes and shes and we do not know the gender. >> girls can be whistleblowers too. >> that's right. the dni will testify next week. >> right.

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candidates have been talking climate change. you are looking live for instance at georgetown university here in washington, d.c. where they are in a bit of a break right now. but all day today and tomorrow, presidentials are talking with younger voters about an issue that is becoming increasingly important, two voters ahead of the 2020 election, in a recent poll 76% of adults say climate change is either a major problem or a crisis. just 23% say it is a minor problem or not a problem at all. here is what the candidates who appeared at the forum today had to say. >> think about people all over the world driven from their homes because they can't grow crops anymore. they can't find drinking water. they will go elsewhere. and what the cia and the department of defense tells us is this creates a major international national security issue. >> we need a solution that will endure. if we accept the political

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i think it is abundantly clear and there is an enormous consensus in the region that we know precisely who conducted the attacks. it was iran. i didn't hear anybody in the region who doubted that for a single moment. >> do you think there is an opportunity for some sort of peaceful resolution to this? >> certainly that is what president trump, what america always wants. we would like a peaceful resolution indeed. >> that was secretary of state mike pompeo responding after iran's foreign minister warned of all out war if either the u.s. or saudi arabia strikes iran. it is the latest escalation in a continuing ratcheting up of tensions and rhetoric. the pattern has become almost

familiar. the u.s. issues sanctions and iran retaliates. president trump is still weighing how to react and respond this time. stopping short of military action so far. but keeping all options on the table. joining me now, senator tammy duckworth, an iraq war veteran herself. senator, always good to see you. >> good to be on. >> and let me start simply with, look, it looks as if the president's decision to pull out of the iran deal, tighten the sanctions in order to get iran back to the bargaining table is not working. but iran appears to be doing these things. how you would you like this administration to respond? >> well, i want them to respond with maximum diplomacy as well as maximum pressure. there is no disputing that iran conducted these attacks. the problem that we have is that

this administration is not engaging in any diplomatic efforts to engage and reengage iran. they just keep ratcheting up the pressure and at some point we're going to get to a situation where it is going to explode and then you are seeing the response from iran each and every time you ratchet up the pressure. that said, you know, i do think that the sanctions are important to keep in place. i just want us to engage with iran diplomatically as well, not just solely the u.s. and iran, but alongside our allies as well. >> have you seen the intelligence that confirms this is iran yet? has the pentagon or has the trump administration shared that with the armed services committee yet? >> yes, it is made available to any senator who wants to look at it and i did that at 10:00 this morning. i went into the secure reading room and took a look and went through all of the report. and i have no doubts that iran indeed is behind this attack. >> what is left to sanction with iran? i mean it does seem -- is there

a point where we're sort of running out of sanction tools? >> well, i think that we're getting to a point where yes, it is running out of sanction tools, but also at some point iran is going to act in such a way that it will result in conflict. right now they chose to attack oil producing and oil production in saudi arabia. they did not attack the united states. so if we're going to keep up the pressure, then we have to engage diplomatically and give them a way out so that we can bring them back to the bargaining table. >> what is the way out? the president seems to be open to easing some sanctions temporarily to get to the table. i don't know if anybody in his own staff wants him to do that. he has said that. is that first step you'd like to see? >> well, that is a good first step. now he needs to order his staff -- after all they work at the pleasure of the president. you would think that he has some control over the staff that he put into place to start engaging

diplomatically. but again, let me just say this, i don't think that we should be doing this on our own. we should be doing it with our allies, folks that do have the ability to talk with iranians. i know prime minister abe has offered to help. >> i'm curious, you have made it clear and you made it clear eloquently yesterday the idea of using american troops to do the saudi's defense is something that you are not interested in. but what do you believe is the american responsibility when it comes to guarding the world's oil supply? >> i don't think that it is our responsibility. i think that we should be working with our allies, we certainly should be engaging with all of the folks who depend on the oil supply, not just with opec, but also with our nato allies as well. to make sure that we move together as an international community. we can't do this by ourselves. we can't be the world's

policemen. it is simply not our role. that said, we do have a responsibility to lead and part of that is to bring along some of our allies with us. >> do you think right now the president has any legal authority to strike iran without approval from congress? >> none whatsoever. he does not have the authority. this latest attack was against saudi. the kingdom of saudi arabia. it was against saudi assets. it was not against americans. >> would the shooting down of the drone, the american drone, is that enough of a rationale for a military response in the war powers act, do you think that there would be -- is that the legal avenue they would go and is that legitimate legal avenue in your view? >> i don't think that is a legitimate legal avenue. again, the way the war power acts, it is about imminent danger. what the president needs to do, if he wants to engage in

conflict, an rm aed carmed conf needs to come to congress. it is our power and ours only. article one of the constitution. >> yeah, amazing how many people about don't read article one these days. senator duckworth, veteran of the iraq war, so a lot of firsthand knowledge these issues of war and peace, thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me on. up next, ufos confirmed?

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with something that will unite all of us. democrats, republicans, independents. this could unite all of mankind and maybe some of unman kind. i'm talking about aliens. space creature, invaders or maybe just visitors. they are out there. or at least something is out there. the united states navy just con firmed to us that these three videos posted online and claim to show ufos do include footage of what the navy calls unidentified aerial phenomenon. so uaps, not ufos. but you get the picture. a navy spokesman says that the three video, one from 2004 and two from 2015, show, quote,

incursions into our military training ranges, they are targeting our military site, folks. so whatever they are, they have been here for more than a decade. anyway, the navy made this announcement at the perfect time. leaders from around the world will be gathering next week at the u.n. general assembly. it is the perfect time for them to discuss our united strategy to combat annen vags fr invasio distant planet. this is not even the first time the subject itself has been discussed in the hallowed halls of the united nations. >> perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. i occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. and yet i ask you, is not an alien force already among us?

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so come ask, shop, discover at your xfinity store today. welcome back. the maker of one of the most xhop assault weapons says it will stop making the guns for civilians. colt announced today, it would end the production and seam of its ar-15 rifles for civilians. the company says it is simply a

business decision and there is adequate supply of the high powered weapons in the market. they still insist it's a stout supporter of the second miami. trump says he is congress will work out any deal on new fun legislation any time soon. >> we're not moving on anything. we're going very slowly in one way because we want to make sure it's right. we're doing a careful job. we're working with the democrats. we're working with the republicans. our attorney general has done a fantastic job. he's in on it and looking at it very strongly. >> ma'amesh. i found it interesting when colt mag made their announcement, it's going to like like they were a indicate lateing. we still support the gun control and we're not doing this for any reason. >> they said it's temporary.

they're not doing this aerial. so i think it is possible actually the press release which doesn't mention anything but to say we're the strong supporters of the second amendment is telling the truth. >> ruth. >> i don't think people usually stop selling products that there is a demand for. just saying in a capitalist system. >> that's where i'm at on this. >> they shift production lines. >> sure, it was an interesting statement to make. the timing was certainly interesting. the president does seem to be, to have gone, wherever he was a month ago. he is nowhere near background checks anymore. >> i'm so surprised by this. i really thought it was going to happen this time. do you note the note of sarcasm in my voice? in case anybody missed it, we seen this movie before on the subject of gun control, he flirts with back checks and suggests he's there. then the nra goetz involved and

he retreats. >> that is precisely what we are seeing on this. we were talking about reboots. >> yeah. i thoughts it was fascinating. apparently it's bill barr that is doing some of the circulating of potential ideas and the white house going, these aren't our ideas. >> it's the white house legislative director. sorry. >> you want to talk about trying to get your head winning. bill barr, us aing the white house legislative shop. the white house says these aren't their ideas. >> it was a modern proposal. it was background checks similar to the manchin-toomey after new town and exactly what ruth said is what happened. a copy of it leaked through the "theically caller," a conservative news publication. the nra got ahold of president trump and they immediately distanced themselves from it. kind of the white house and bill barr. it's where we are after one of

these massacres, they flirt with something and say they're in a holding pattern. >> take a listen. >> a part of the problem that we have is because of beto o'rourke's statement about taking away guns. all of the a lot of republicans and some democrats now are afraid to do anything to go down that slippery slope. a lot of people think this is a way of taking away guns. >> ramesh,t the beto comment, which chuck schumer went out of his way to say not a single other democrat would utter. to me shows he is desperately trying to save manchin-toomey. i heard this from other republicans, pat toomey said beto o'rourke made it harder. it's made it an excuse. >> some democrats said it as welt and complained we will be hearing this quote. at the end of the day, it's not really the fundamental problem. it's not really the nra. president trump does not move

the congressional party to actually do things. i mean, he may keep the congressional party from standing up to him. but they won't actually pass legislation that they don't want to pass and congressional republicans by and large don't want to pass this edges wilegis. >> politically, i understand why the president, he's a transactional guy. he's basically been told you sign this bill, the people that are happy still won't vote for you. the people that are become the to be unhappy are the ones you desperately need to vote for you. >> the president sometime ago during round 1 or 2 or whatever of this discussion chided the congressional leaders and congressional members from being scared of the nra and told us he wasn't scared of the nra. just remembering that today. >> that's how he. that's how his mind works. what's nit for me. am i going to get credit for it? probably not so much. congress will get more credit for it. what's going to happen with my base? well, they're going to revote.

this is not in my interest interest you see a hint of this. he gets so worked up he doesn't get more on criminal justice reform. i feel that is a hint. and he looks at that and thinks that's the way it will be done. >> well, this is a sheer political calculation. >> i don't think he's wrong to say, i guess the question is, are there republicans who desperately need something running on guns? does corey gardner? does tom tillis need something? >> i don't know. i'd like to hear nor from ramish the notice it's a 93% of voters would like to see background checks strengthened and i had the impression, though i haven't been working this issue for a while, that, mcconnell didn't want to move because he was afraid of having the rug pulled out from under him from trump. >> i'm sorry. >> it is hard for republicans to

get to a unified position when the administration doesn't have a unified position to start with. >> by the way, the people that want to be moderate on guns already lost. that's something es else to keep in mind. that's all we have tonight. we'll be back with more on in the the beat" starring ari melber. >> good evening, we start with a mystery that affects everyone's possible national security. we have a whistle blower, a foreign leader, we have the president of the united states. this has gotten really different over the last 24 hours, because of what can only be described as serious new developments because of this whistleblower that we've reported on before, who we know according to donald trump's own intelligence community is credible. and this individual is trying to send a warning, basically to the congress, aka someone who can do something about this. because of these credible