emily: i want to ask you about it eric schmidt stepping down.epping down from alphabet. he is still on the board. there is questions about why this is happening out. is there something bigger at play? >> i don't know about something bigger. he stepped down from a larger role. he was sort of the ambassador, the secretary of state for google for years. the google ceo has become much more of a public face. eric schmidt was with the hillary campaign. he has been in d.c. since the election and fallen back a little bit. you have the general counsel, government affairs team. they got there. google does not have a global policy chief. they have an interim person right now. emily: that was mark bergen. be sure to tune in to our coverage of the world's biggest gadget show, including our interview with the sony ceo on tuesday. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." tune in each day, 5:00 p.m. in new york. 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. and remember, all episodes are live streaming on twitter. you can check us out. that is all for

eric schmidt was with the hillary campaign.nce the election and follmann a little bit. general counsel, government affairs team. they got there. google does not have a global policy chief. they have been interim person right now. -- they have an interim person right now. that was mark bergen. be sure to tune in to our coverage of the world's biggest gadget show, including our interview with the sony ceo on tuesday. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." tune in each day, 5:00 p.m. in new york. all episodes are live streaming on twitter. you can check us out. that is all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪ is this a phone? or a little internet machine? it makes you wonder: shouldn't we get our phones and internet from the same company? that's why xfinity mobile comes with your internet. you get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. so all you pay for is data. see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit,

. >> what about eric schmidt smith -- stepping down as executive chairman of have a that. the board but there are a lot of questions about why this is happening now and it did seem a bit abrupt, is this a bit bigger at play? >> i don't know that something bigger, eric has stepped down from the logical he was in. he was the ambassador of the secretary of state of google for years. the google ceo has become much more the public face. he was very much tied with the hillary campaign so his standing in the sea since the election has fallen a little bit. from what i have heard, he has not been as active, you have the general counsel and government affairs team. you have a big gap there, google does not have a global policy chief. it is unclear if they are really thinking about reevaluating their larger strategy in d.c. and globally in politics. >> interesting, glad to have you back. mark covers out of that for us. thank you so much for stopping by. >> be sure to turn into our coverage of the was biggest get his shot including our interview with sony, next to that. that doesn't f

eric schmidt was with the hillary campaign. since the election and follmann a little bit. you have the general counsel, government affairs team. they got there. google does not have a global policy chief. they have an interim person right now. it's unclear if there reevaluated their strategy in d.c. and globally. emily: that was mark bergen. be sure to tune in to our coverage of the world's biggest gadget show, including our interview with the sony ceo on tuesday. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." tune in each day, 5:00 p.m. in new york. all episodes are live streaming on twitter. you can check us out. that is all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪ shery: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. a new year brings a new assessment of global risks from eurasia group. distinguished guests delve into the details. >> the number one risk ceo's see out there is geopolitical. >> this transition from the u.s. is going to china. china is creating an altern

emily: eric schmidt is still on the board of alphabet.stions about why this is happening now and it did team a bit abrupt. is there something bigger at play? mark: i don't know that there is something bigger. he steps down from the role he was in. was ambassador for google for years. the google ceo has become much more the public face. he was very much tied with the hillary campaign so his standing the election -- standing since the election this fall a bit. from what i have heard, he has not been as active, you have the general counsel and government affairs team. you have a big gap there, google does not have a global policy chief. it is unclear if they are really thinking about reevaluating their larger strategy in d.c. and globally in politics. emily: interesting. glad to have you back. mark covers alphabet for us. thank you so much for stopping by. be sure to turn into our coverage of the world's biggest gadget show, including an interview with sony next tuesday. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." check us out l

i mean, there had to be a line there, and you see that line as going through google and eric schmidt, correct? >> guest: yes. i see that there was an effort on a broad scale among the people that shape narratives every day in the news the put fake news on the plate of americans. there was a plan, there was a rollout of this campaign. but it got out of their hands, and i think donald trump may be the only politician that could have done what he did. every time they called him that, he called them that. and pretty soon, "the washington post" -- who loved that phrase for a while -- was crying uncle and saying we need to stop using that phrase. so, you know, part of the mastery of donald trump in his own ability to turn around propaganda or initiate his own propaganda. >> host: sheryl atkinson's most recent book is called "the smear," and martha is calling in from wichita, kansas. >> caller: hello, ms. attkisson. i'm calling because i recently saw a program on hbo called last week tonight with john oliver, and on that program he was giving a story of the one-sided kind of national feed th

emily: i do want to ask you about eric schmidt stepping down as the executive chairman of alphabet.ard, but there are a lot of questions about why this is happening out. -- now, and it was kind of abrupt. is there something bigger at play? >> i don't know about something bigger. eric kind of stepped down from a larger role. he was the ambassador, secretary of state of google for years. the google ceo has become much more of a public face. tied to the was hillary campaign, so his standing in d.c. since the election has fallen a little bit. you have the general counsel, government affairs team. they got there. but google does not have a global policy chief. they have an interim person right now. so it is unclear if they are thinking about evaluating their larger strategy in d.c., and globally in politics. that was bloomberg technology's mark bergen. be sure to tune in to our coverage of the world's biggest gadget show, including our sony's ceo on tuesday. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." tune in each day, 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san fran

routinely with the defense innovation board about how to do things differently, and particularly eric schmidt i speak a bit with. i was just on the phone with him on monday afternoon asking him specifically what can i do differently to solve some specific issues. and that's helpful. we also are using our diux arm out there to set up round tables for me to meet with a variety of software companies, because that's where i'm focused right now. >> how long has diux been in business? >> for two or three years, perhaps. i have to get back to you on the specifics on that. i'm not smart enough to know that right now. >> that's -- that's not a lot of progress. >> i want to build on it. >> senator ernst. >> thank you, mr. chair, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. we had a great forum this last weekend. the reagan national defense forum, and secretary lord, i'm glad you were there. secretary esper and i sat together on a wonderful, wonderful panel. i think everybody was engaged at one point or another through those discussions, and it was very helpful to see so many people that agreed on som

part of their infrastructure for building smart economic systems that can compete for the future eric schmidtt this week and said by 2025 he expects that china will be ahead of the u.s. in terms of the ai race. the u.s. does have an advantage in terms of chip infrastructure, but we're not investing enough in education >> excuse my skepticism, but all over the world i see these governments that build, throughout europe, every company has its startup planet or startup nation and they're creating a new silicon valley. >> enterprise zone >> governments don't suddenly make a silicon valley. silicon valley came from something much more organic. >> you do have baidu, alibaba, these players investing strongly china's facial recognition systems, within three seconds you can find any one of the 1.4 billion people in china using facial recognition >> because it's a police state >> they do have the ability to push through initiatives like that they don't have to worry about civil rights, i guess. alibaba and baidu are investing heavily. >> all right the race is on >> congratulations on the book, selling

and eric schmidt and selected getting ready are for the soiree. the toughest ticket in town.oomberg surveillance ." i am tom keene at the world economic forum. francine, after that wonderful series, law of monetary she will be here in a bit. there has been a president that has taken over davos. some of the german papers -- something to see marine one come down onto the snow filled landing pad. four radio london, we are showing these german newspapers. this one a little more direct. i am probably not pronouncing it right -- there it is. trump first. at 8:00 a.m. new york time, we will see his speech. our matt campbell observed mr. trump as he went through the congress this morning. the assembled press. right now, we need a news briefing. let's go to new york city. here is taylor riggs. inlor: there is word that june, the president wanted to fire special counsel robert robert mueller. that raise concerns that the president would be putting himself in legal jeopardy. the "new york times" said the president backed off after the white house counsel threatened to quit. trump said t

president who has already raised questions i think back to that michael schmidt interview in which the president talked about how loyal eric holder was of then president obama and how he protected him. sort of implying that he didn't believe that jeff sessions does that for him. >> and in the context of their turbulent relations, sessions and trump, can you imagine if the president is in fact finding out from cable television this morning that the attorney general was just interviewed has week? boy, i mean that is a whole -- >> let me check my phone for any twitter feed. >> we all remember when the president took to twitter to dog his attorney general on social media and how upset it made allies of jeff sessions and some people were urging tim at that time to just resign and do the honk orable thing a honorable thing. but he weathered the storm. and you have to wonder if that in any way that personal relationship if it in any way shades the interactions that sessions had with mueller and the kinds of questions that he was asked and the kind of answers that he gave. >> do you think that holds water at all, matt, as somebody

eric holder had done for barack obama. you might remember last week president trump sat down for an inter view with michael schmidt while vacationing in mar-a-lago. he made similar comments about holder and obama. "i will say this, holder protected president obama, totally protected him. when you look at all of the tremendous real problems they had, not made up problems like russian collusion, these were real problems. when you look at the things they did and holder protected the president, and i have great respect for that." "the new york times" also reports tonight that mueller has corroborated fbi director james comey's claims that he felt pressured to drop the russia investigation. and then there's this shocking detail. quote, the president's determination to fire mr. comey, even led one white house lawyer to take the extraordinary step of misleading mr. trump about whether he had the authority to remove him kwts. hour leadoff panel tonight, kimberly atkins, chief white house reporter for the boston herald, and peter baker for the "new york times." peter, let's start with you, this is your colleague's reporting, lay it out for

ask all of you about this, he said in an interview with michael schmidt of "the new york times" at mar-a-lago, he said, i really like how eric holder protected president obama. no one ever suspected -- his whole misperception of what the justice department does seems to me to be a real vulnerability for him. >> absolutely. when he says things and is quoted on the record saying where's my roy kohn, think that goes to the pattern referenced in the "washington post" report. not one instance of him trying to shut down the investigation. it's the multitude of instances when he's trying to shut down the investigation. he's doing phone banking, calling the cia director, director of national intelligence, telling people to publicly support him and say he wasn't under investigation. if you notice, he's very specific in his denials. he says there's no collusion. he dint say i didn't obstruct justice. >> he actually doesn't even say -- he says i didn't -- >> i didn't collude. >> he doesn't even -- >> he's very deliberate. >> let me ask you, he's enabled by a corrupt republican sort of group of, i don't know, stooges, on the house intel

schmidt over the holidays? he thought mueller was going to treat him fair. and he went -- >> and that he admired the way eric holder protected president obama. >> yes, nice little -- nice little heads-up to mueller about what he's expecting. but it is the obsession with collusion, i think, one of two things. either he outwardly colluded or he's convinced himself that he's not vulnerable there and that's his safe place. but the obstruction of justice is extraordinarily hard spot for him given everything from instructing don junior and how to respond to "the new york times" about his meeting at trump tower with the russians to firing comey, to when did you know about michael flynn? he's been under oath before to testify in suits involving his business and has not told the truth in those either. so i think that gene is right about how ultimately this could be a major clash with the grand jury and a subpoena but you can also see at the same moment trump one day deciding i'm going to do this and calling up bob mueller and saying i'm going to do this. >> when he says no collusion over and over, we talk about tells

eric h. holder, jr., had done for barack obama. you might remember last week president trump sat down for an impromptu 30-minute interview with that same new york times reporter michael schmidt while vacationing at mar-a-lago. in it you might remember trump made similar comments about holder and obama. quote, i will say this: holder protected president obama. totally protected him. when you look at all of the tremendous real problems they had, not made-up problems like russian collusion, these were real problems. when you look at the things that they did and holder protected the president. and i have great respect for that. >>> "the new york times" also reports tonight that mueller has corroborated fbi director james comey's claims that he felt pressure to drop the russia investigation. and then there is this shocking detail. quote, the president's determination to fire mr. comey even led one white house lawyer to take the extraordinary step of misleading mr. trump about whether he had the authority to remove him. >>> our lead off panel tonight, michael crowley, national security editor and senior correspondent for politico. kimberly atkins, chief white house reporter for th