under a false name, blasting the likes of ben rhodes and chelsea clinton. the obama administration arrested eight of the 13 people who have been prosecuted under the espionage act for leaking secrets. obama setting the record for prosecutions against leakers. perhaps obama senior adviser dan favor said it best. of obama he said this. the president is always frustrated about leaks. i think anyone who leaks has to pay the price. you said it, pfeiffer. you said it. and president trump weighing in just moments ago asking this on twitter. are the investigative quote unquote journalists of the "the new york times" going to investigate themselves? who is the anonymous letter writer? that is the question, isn't it? joining me now, congressman todd rokita of indiana. congressman, good to have you with us. let's start with this -- would you endorse the president doing what his predecessor did, that

you look at numbers like that, ben rhodes, does that guarantee a blue wave come november?k it does. the fact of the matter is people in midterm elections often wrote against the party in power. that happened to us in the white house in two times. president obama did not have numbers anywhere near what president trump currently has. these are abysmal numbers heading into a midterm election. you also see enormous energy on the democratic side. you see a diverse and young group of candidates stepping up. you've got president obama coming in, trying to turn out the voters who voted for him. we see all the elements in place for a very good day for democrats coming up in the election. we have to work to turn our people out. these elections are won on turnout. that's why president obama's been back out on the campaign trail. >> let's talk about that, because i thought of you on friday. i listened to you in illinois. your old boss jim mecino, said he actually teared us when he listened to president obama. as you watched and listened to the presidented on friday, what did you think

who is a political analyst and host of "washington week" on pbs, and nbc political contributor ben rhodess former deputy adviser to president obama, and frank kazluzzi who is a former assistant for counter intelligence at the fbi, and chuck rosenberg is former u.s. attorney and former r senior fbi official. so we have all of the experts here. and fill rucker, to you, because we are waiting for what the president is going to say, and he was asked if there should be a reopening of the fbi investigation, and as i understand it, the white house has not ordered that, and so the allegation from dr. ford, blasey ford is going into the background report. you had a chance last night to talk to joe biden, of course, who chaired the judiciary com t committee on anita hill, and what did he have to say? >> yes, that is right. it is interesting, andrea, because he said that first of all at the time of her testimony, he believed her allegations about sexual harassment about clarence thomas, and biden came under criticism as you will remember for the way he handled the hearings and for intense and the pe

. >> join willinging us now, ben rhodes former deputy national security adviser to president obama and author of the world as it is, a memoir of the obama white house, yamiche alcindor, all three of political analysts. thank you for being here on a friday night. ben, i'm led to believe you might have been at a surprise party that was thrown for you. you could have called us and taken the night off. >> we all have kids anyways now so we're much less interesting than we were years ago. >> the president says a lot of things that because he repeats them, there are people who believe them. polls show anywhere 18% and 4an 40% of people start to believe the stuff the president says and one of the things he's saying is this anonymous op-ed may be a national security issue. we have asked all of our national security experts about this, none of whom can identify what the national security issue might be. >> yeah. it is the mindset of an authoritarian. criticism of him is somehow a threat to the national security of the united states. it is not. there's no threat in that op-ed. there's no crime i

saudi arabia in the night there ben rhodes we know that call it is currently considering and we've had support in asia and europe and elsewhere so it has been actually a very strong movement of solidarity in our favor but because of the size of the shortfall we still have a very critical amount of one hundred eighty five million to mobilize in order to close the shortfall and. our un human rights council report is highlighting concerns of a cambodia's recent election in which the ruling cambodian people's party won all one hundred twenty five seats before the vote the main opposition party was dissolved and its candidates jailed the un special rapporteur run a smith says this calls into question the genuineness in his words of the words of the vote she says she is particularly concerned by reports that voters were threatened and intimidated after they called for a boycott smith says it was encouraging to see opposition figures like kim saw her released from jail but noted that they remain under judicial supervision special rapporteur is calling on cambodia's government to make concerte

i mean i always like to say this, the one trick ben rhodes has he likes to point back to 2003, march 2003, the iraq invasion and say we're not going to do that again. okay. but the world is a complex place and you have to play the hand you've been given. you decided you were going to try to undo the 2003 decision in iraq. the world doesn't work that way. you have to play the hand you were given in 2011. what we're talking about in afghanistan is the same lack of will or same lack of commitment. basically people are saying we've been there 17 years, are we going to be there forever? make those arguments. those are easy to make. i want the same people to recognize is, what the day after an american withdraw looks like. think about it. are you going to own the humanitarian and national security consequences of that withdraw the day after, right. these people who make these arguments they don't. i don't know what the answer is, but make the calculations here explicit, right. what america has decided we don't want a big footprint overseas that comes with cause, bottom line. >> i have the

the one trick ben rhodes has his he likes two-point back to 2003. you have to play the hand even given. and by 2011 you decided you were to try and undo the 2003 decision to invade iraq. have to play the hand you been given. what were talking about in afghanistan now is the same commitment we had been there for 17 years. what we can do. be there forever. make those arguments. what the day after american withdrawal looks like. are you on the security consequences with that. i don't know what the answer is to all of this but let's make the calculations hereak explicit. we don't have a big footprint overseas that comes across bottom line. the key problem to solve his political order in iraq, syria and lebanon. that is a center of gratitude -- gap gravity of the fight. we have that. for everybody in the region the fight is the iranian alliance system versus everybody else. what we need to do is we need to think of success not as in nd but as a dynamic process and the key to that process is putting together a coalition of states have the ability to prote

these are the people who supposedly, as you just said weren't ready for obama as ben rhodes said.. who forgets who actually trucks their goods who makes this country. there are people out there working for a living tired of being talked down to by elitist goofballs in the coastal bubbles they live. in no, we were ready for barack obama. barack obama wasn't ready for america. >> dan, tell us how you really feel about this. >> i know. i need to open up a little more. ed: i live in washington i will stand up for is that and should jeff sessions -- >> i speak from experience. i was a secret service agent under barack obama. i resigned. i didn't retire. i didn't take my benefits and my healthcare. i'm not looking for anybody's pat on the back. i just disagreed strongly with the direction barack obama was taking the country and so i walked away. this op-ed writer is a coward. is a church. i'm actually horrified that a scintilla of my tax dollars, if it's one one thousanthousand of a cent is pa. if you believe grievances are legitimate air them under yo your own name and make the case do

i like to say the one trick ben rhodes has is if you like to point back to 2003, the iraq invasion and say we're not going to do that again, okay, but the world is a complex space and you have to play the hand you've been given. you decided you were going to undo the 2003, the world doesn't work that way. you have to play the hand you're given but what we're talking about in afghanistan is the same lack of will or commitment. basically, people are saying we've been here 17 years, are we going to behere forever? make those arguments . those are easy arguments to make. but i want those people to recognize what the day after an american withdrawal looks like. are you going to own the consequences of the day after? the people make these arguments don't. i don't know what the answer is all of this but late let's make these calculations explicit. what america's decided is we don't have to big have a big footprint overseas, that comes withconsequences. >> i've got the answers . so the key problem to solve is political order in iraq, syria, lebanon. there are other ones but that is the center

nan nancy pelosi, ben rhodes, david axelrod, jim acosta. madeleine albright. chuck todd and john lovett. all left winging political types. that's all that was suggested. forget the fact that there are no republicans or conservatives on that least. no singers, no athletes, no celebrities. she's a 20 something female staffer. didn't even get taylor swift, chris pratt, cristiano ronaldo or kim kardashian. all she got was the suggestions that i had on the screen. it's one thing not to promote conservatives even though donald trump is the most successful twitter user in history of the site. say what you want about what he tweets, but president trump has utilized twitter in unprecedented ways to get around the traditional news media. i would think someone in your position would be celebrating that and him rather than trying to undermine him. how do you explain how a female 20 something year-oldssomethingn an e-mail address and an area code. why did she just get liberal suggestions? >> the 202 number is all we have -- >> i get you don't have much information on her.

i saw ben do activism his entire youth. when he got the rhodesther, i remember he said very pointedly, ben, i'm afraid you're getting the scholarship so you'll no longer be a threat to them, whoever they are. ben has always stayed true. when i got in trouble with my show and all these things, he was like my confidante. i would have him help me through very challenging personal and professional problems i had and like a rock for me. for the state of maryland, couldn't get any better. >> you're saying when you were in south africa, taking a break from a career in the u.s., you were relying on him. what was his counsel to him? >> i think that's kind of private. the bottom line, i trusted him enough at a time i didn't trust anybody. he's never betrayed my trust. the trust in politics on public office is something the country desperately needs, especially this time, he's a very trustworthy person. the fact a guy like this could possibly sit in a seat like the governor's chair is very exciting to me and makes me feel more faithful and hopeful what our