. >>> now lieutenant general robert ashley talks about the intelligence operations of his agency and a range of national security issues, including russian influence efforts. china's military actions, the syrian conflict and combatting terrorism. this is an hour and 25 minutes. [ applause ] >>> so my aide told me that i should just get up here and say great power competition, a.i., drop the mic and drop off. so, robbie, i've done it. you're welcome. i'll put that on your support form. good counsel from my subordinates. thanks so much for allowing this opportunity to speak to you today. i look forward to the questions. i just had a couple of things that i wanted to share with you before we get started in the q & a to talk a little about my last year which is my experience with dia. it's not reallyhe

emergency we don't like to have -- [indiscernible] futurest this afternoon lieutenant general robert ashley. he is the director of the defense intelligence agency. meore he formally -- excuse -- served as deputy army chief of staff. all aspects of intelligence, counterintelligence. battalionmanded the squadron with tours in iraq and afghanistan. our discussion also features two of csi us' finest moderators. the versus dr. seth jones -- the first is dr. seth jones. he is a senior advisor to the international security program. formally of the rand corporation. also, we have with us today juan zarate, senior advisor at csis, chairman and cofounder of the financial integrity network and a visiting lecturer in law at the harvard law school. --k announcement on q&a quick announcement on q&a -- on your seat should be no cards. if you have questions you would like to ask during the moderate on thetion, write them no cards. without further do, please join me in welcoming general ashley. [applause] lt gen ashley: my aide told me that i should just say great drop competition, ai, the mic, and walked o

intelligencense agency director general robert ashley talks about the intelligence operations of his agency. also he addresses a range of national security issues, including russian influence efforts, combating terrorism, and the syrian conflict. [applause] so i was told i should just stand up here and say great competition, ai, and walk off. i've done it. i will put that on your support. good counsel for my subordinates. thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak today. things starting in q and a to talk about my experience. it's not the last year because the da has been part of my growing up. , ite talk about the bio will be one year on the job. how's that going? its going pretty awesome for the people i work for. it's a phenomenal group of professionals. you want to surround yourself with people who are a lot of smarter than you. i am a work in progress. that will be continuing three years. genesis.ill be agency really ha to understand some of the context in which it was born under the time that surgery macnair -- that secretary mcnamara was secretary of defense. khalil t

ashley parker. and national political reporter robert costa. joining joyce and me on set, sam stein, politics editor for the daily beast. ashley, let me start with you. your excellent reporting about the twin crises. twin calamities facing this white house. what'd you make of the president's really uncorked and unplugged comments this morning about kavanaugh's accuser? >> well, a couple people put it to us, the president is someone who's been accused of sexual assault and misbehavior by more than a dozen woman so his natural reaction, he's not someone who's spoesespecially k for his empathy but have visual empathy for other powerful men in the sense he believes how horrible could it be to have your reputation ruined by one accusation. it's something he feels like he's been through. and also the president's natural instinct is to fight and is to double down. and so you've seen the president. his aides had really worked to try to keep him out of this kavanaugh debate. they said weighing in and public comments or tweets would not particularly help,

robert ashley talks about the intelligence operations of his agency and a range of national security issues, including russian influence efforts. china's military actions, the syrian conflict and combatting terrorism. this is an hour and 25 minutes. [ applause ] >>> so my aide told me that i should just get up here and say great power competition, a.i., drop the mic and drop off. so, robbie, i've done it. you're welcome. i'll put that on your support form. good counsel from my subordinates. thanks so much for allowing this opportunity to speak to you today. i look forward to the questions. i just had a couple of things that i wanted to share with you before we get started in the q & a to talk a little about my last year which is my experience with dia. it's not really the last year because dia has been part of my kind of growing up in the intelligence community. so as we talked about in the bio, the 21st director. on 3 october it will be one year on the job. somebody says, well, how's that going? it's going pretty awesome because of the people that i work with. it is a phenomenal gro

ashley parker, pulitzer prize winning reporter for the "washington post," jonathan mueller from the associated press, and one who has worked in the past for robert mueller. ashley, take us inside this west wing, inside this presidency, the mind of the president and those around him. what's your latest reporting? >> so the president is deeply upset. as you can see from his public comment and his public tweets are not that dissimilar from the sense he's giving privately. he's upset about the woodward book, he's upset about this anonymous op-ed in the "new york times." he feels like he's sort of being betrayed by someone incredibly close to him, so on the one hand there is a feeling of vindication, the sense that he couldn't trust anyone around him, and now he sort of believes he's correct. but he also feels this is a president who places himself at the center of every issue, so it feels deeply personal to him. within the white house and within the president's orbit, it's a little more mixed. there are people who, as jonathan writes in his great piece, are worried they may need to curb the president in, they need to focus him on this coming hurrica

seems like nafta is far apart according to robert lighthizer. ashley: a time limit?e get wrap sign? oscars start playing music. just me, he says. stuart: not like tv news where wear the little things in the ears and our producer -- ashley: wrap, wrap, wrap. stuart: one notable occasion i sat here started to sneak about a story, within 10 seconds. wrap, wrap. susan: welcome to our world. hello. stuart: dow industrials up 25 points. this is a market that is on hold. at 10:00 this morning we received some very positive economic news. consumer confidence sky-high, record levels. susan: highest since september september 2,000 the market is not responding to that. you could say the market is up despite it all. there is fractious political news in the background. susan: trade highlights and some of the headlines as well. stuart: but the hearings for judge kavanaugh, the -- ashley: rod rosenstein saga. stuart: that is kind of a negative i would say. ashley: yes. stuart: but despite it all market's up. ashley: doesn't matter. stuart: we have very good fundamentals. growth rat

ashley parker, pulitzer prize winning reporter for "the washington post." robert costa, national reporter for "the washington post." also happens to be moderator of "washington week" on pbs'. richard painter, former ethics lawyer for the bush 43 white house. good evening to all of you. ashley, i'd like to begin by highlighting a brief portion of the biline you shared tonight from "the washington post." the phrase, the sleeper cells have awoken circulated on text messages among aides and outside allies. it's like the horror movies when everyone realizes the call is coming from inside the house, said one former white house official in close contact with former co-workers. and then finally this summation sentence, the stark and anonymous warning was a breathtaking event without precedent in modern presidential history. i hesitate to ask, ashley, what else have you learned from inside in just the few hours since you filed that story? >> a number of things. first is that the president is absolutely livid about this. he is, you know, described to us as sort of a volcani

ashley: john roberts of fox news says he has not verbally resigned.g to be fire. that is what we hear from john roberts. "axios" reported he verbally resigned to chief of staff schedule kelly. fox news saying not districtly true. he is heading to the white house where he expects to be fired. stuart: this is toxic, i can't think of another one, toxic political environment. people on the left saying watch out, president trump is going to fire a lot of people. ashley: right. stuart: including maybe rosenstein and jeff sessions, attorney general. ashley: correct. stuart: back in their hearts i think the left wanted the president to fire rosenstein or session. ashley: because the resulting chaos and everyone coming and going at will? stuart: yes. ashley: it is interesting. blake brings up a great point. rosenstein was put in place because jeff sessions recused himself from the mueller investigation, which really infuriated the president. there is lot of speculation about jeff sessions' future. the deputy in charge of the mueller investigation because sessi

ashley parker and sung ming kim. national political reporter for the post, robert costa, former federal prosecutor now georgetown law professor paul butler. and joining us on set, charlie sikes, contributing editor for the weekly standard and host of the daily standard podcast. i love when we have a "washington post" staff meeting here at 4:00. and i know all three of you will jump up at once if something breaks. ashley, take us inside what was, for this president, that counts as message discipline. but he did seem to get out a little bit ahead of where mitch mcconnell and chuck grassley are in terms of saying everyone will be seen and heard. i understand some of the nuance on the hill is that they don't necessarily want judge kavanaugh, his accuser to both be on display like that. >> yeah, there's a number of people who are kavanaugh supporters who absolutely don't want a public hearing where they will say it sort of comes down to a question of credibility. and i think what you saw from the president today was fairly fascinating in that as we've discussed, this is a president who faces his own accusations. this is

ashley merchant. good morning. >> good morning. >> what information can manafort offer the special counsel and what exactly is the end game here? >> manafort can give a lot of information to robert mueller. i mean, he can really link together all the pieces because he was the campaign manager. he knows everything. he knows who was at the meetings, he knows who had knowledge of dealings with russia, dealings with the ukraine. he could put jared kushner at that meeting with the russians. he could put trump jr. at that meeting with the russians. he could also link the president to knowledge of what was happening with russia and efforts to collude to affect the election. he is a very vital, very vital piece in this investigation. i think sfashs tas far as the e we might see something as in watergate where there's a memo and the grand jury puts together pieces of the evidence, evidence built over month and there's a legal analysis as to how this could actually affect the president. what the legal ramifications are. what he could be subject to if he was criminally prosecuted and what all the evidence is that they've actually accumulated. >> we're going to talk about watergate in a sec

intelligencense agency director general robert ashley talks about the intelligence operations of his agency. also he addresses a range of national security issues, including russian influence efforts, combating terrorism, and the syrian conflict.