i'm looking for a little insight on this from david ignatius. e around the globe. he would arrive in riyadh or moscow or any other capitals around the world and be regarded almost as a head of state given his importance, and yet now he is being treated by the white house as if he were a gs-12. what's his future? >> well, his future is to chart. i think tillerson has been slow off the mark. i'm told he didn't want to be visible until he really had command of his brief. he's got a little bit of a skeleton state department. he hasn't got enough people in the top jobs. again, he didn't want to go off until he was fully supported. he is somebody who can be persuasive. when he speaks the kind of depth authority of american power comes through. he's been a global ceo. he knows people around the world. the same thing with jim mattis. we shouldn't talk as if this administration is simply donald trump. to the extent the world is reassured they see people in senior positions who they know have good judgment and they trust. somehow this process has got to wo

this is a speech that was first reported by david ignatius at the "washington post." he got the speech translated from russian. it's vladimir putin's cyber war senior adviser telling his audience in moscow last february, "you think we are living in 2016, no, we are living in 1948. do you know why? because in 1949 the soviet union had its first atomic bomb test and if until that moment the americans were not taking us seriously in 1949 everything changed and they started talking to us on an equal footing. i'm warning you, we have something in the information arena that will allow us to talk to the americans as equals. so the kremlin bragging last year about how they had a new nuclear-level information warfare capability that they were about to deploy against the united states. something that would bring america down, make america recognize russia's strength,

david ignatius. >> no. >> no.on li? >> some say stupid to not shake the hand of your most important ally in europe. >> they say he didn't hear it. it wasn't just her saying would you like to do a handshake. but everybody else was asking for it. >> it is, obviously, rude but what is american power? american power is the network of alliances that we have around the world that have been built up over more than 50 years. >> right. >> that give us strength. it's not just our enormous military as powerful as that is. it's the network of a shared power. you don't dis a dealkey ally. >> what could happen in that moment? what happened? why wouldn't he shake her hand?? >> why do you think he refused to shake her hand? >> the same reason he made the tweet to stick it to germany. >> i don't think he thinks that hard. >> he doesn't want to go back to steve bannon and say sorry, i wasn't tough enough on germany, maybe next time. >> bannon will get mad at him? >> does he think his base sits around all day thinking about angela m

>> david ignatius? >> you're a member of the armed services committee.rts of circulation of nude photographs of women members of the marine corps but, apparently, other services as well. and i want to ask whether you're troubled by the way in which the military has reacted to this, what this tells us about acceptance of women serving in the marine corps and other services, but just give us your sense of what you make of this. >> who is accountable? >> i sat in a hearing room yesterday for hours with the leadership of the marine corps and then in a closed session with the investigators that are doing the criminal investigation. keep in mind that the criminal investigators in the navy are the ones that uncovered this huge scandal as it related to bribery and kickbacks. these are good investigators and they are taking this very seriously. i have to say one of the things i want to see happen, i've written a letter to secretary mattis. i want them to pro actively go after this stuff in all of the services. the idea that a journalist had to uncover this, they

columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius joins us from washington. >> we will try to stop david from tearing up. >> utterly unemotional. >> thank god for all of you guys to keep me safe. >>> four days after president trump claiming that president obama wiretapped his phones. at a white house prebriefing yesterday, sean spicer said the congress will investigate what the president asserted as a fact on saturday morning. >> it's the white house's position that the president can mayor declarative statements about a former president basically committing a crime and the congressional committee should look into that and prove it? >> it's not a question of prove it. they have the resources and clearances and the staff to fully and thoroughly and comprehensively investigate this and issue a report as to what their comments are. >> president trump's tweet should not be taken to face value? >> no. he is just saying they have the appropriate venue. >> why would the president want congress to investigate for information he already has? >> i think there is a separatio

collusion is the worst place. >> david ignatius in d.c. has a question. david?ask you what for me is one of the mysteries here which is why the obama administration didn't move more aggressively back last summer when information about what the russians were doing was beginning to be clear. why didn't they do more? could they have deterred some of this russian action if they had? >> i think the big miss on the obama administration that they didn't understand the hacking drives influence. we were obsessed with hacking. hacking, hacking, hacking and investigations. they didn't understand the purpose of the hacking was to influence the campaign and harm russian propaganda so they could influence the campaign. i think that's the first time they've ever seen it an there's a disjointed nature in our government between the fbi's investigation and what the implications would be from an intelligence standpoint. i think now they understand it. when it happened back july, august of last year, they didn't know how to react and, therefore, were slow and didn't do anything. >>

hey, let's go right now to david ignatius. big day today. very big day today. he camp david accords and the first time i met him, calling me stunningly superficial. >> i put that first. >> mika's favorite moment. >> probably everybody's favorite moment. >> come on. that's how americans were reintroduced to him, his deadly accurate description of me. talk about the place that dr. brzezinski -- i don't want to embarrass mika here. >> happy birthday, dad. and he's watching, david. >> where he fits in u.s. foreign policy over the last 40, 50 years. >> one of the most effective national security advisers we've had in modern times. he is a brilliant man, to this day speaks in perfect sentences and paragraphs. i was lucky enough as a journalist to work with him and brent, another of the great national security advisers on a book that was bipartisan into what foreign policy should be published in 2008 before the presidential election. i listened as big talked about what was going on in the world, how to deal with it and came away after every session amazed by his brilli

hack i spoke with "washington post" columnist david ignatius. we heard the top republican on the intelligence committee say he's not seen evidence of what president trump tweeted about. is that damning? david: support for president trump's allegation weeks ago that president obama ordered a wiretap of his lines is crumbling. devin nunes, who we just soccer -- who we just saw was a close supporter of the white house and is in effect backing away from the allegation. i should note that he did also say today that it is very possible that people in the trump campaign, trump transition, were caught up in intercepts that were authorized on russian agents. so this story still is alive. it is just the specific order by president obama, no. laura: the president is keeping it alive himself. he said in an interview that more interesting items will come to the forefront in the next two weeks regarding his claim. what do you make of that? david: i think we will discover that incidental collection, as fbi and intelligence agencies were surveilling russian targ

joy reid of msnbc, soon peter alexander and i believe we have david ignatius with us. a lot of good folks to talk. hey, david, i see you. let's get into mike flynn. david, do you believe that the white house's line that he was a private citizen, this is what he did in his personal life, is a line that is good enough? >> i think the question of him having not registered at the time and now we're having a retro active registration tells us that there was something missing. the idea that a person who was on the way to being national securi adviser on election day would have published an op-ed pis in "the hill" newspaper advocating turkish interests, the turkish line, and not having disclosed that at all to the white house is hard to imagine. >> this is the national security adviser. >> right. and somebody who is also, let's not forget, considered for vice president as well. this is somebody who's been the principle national security adviser to donald trump really almost since the beginning of the campaign. somebody who is getting national security briefings. per a letter c

joined now by david ignatius. vid, what hit me when i heard this, a guy that can't shoot straight. why did we know this? >> why didn't anything get done about it? in fact, it turns out the transition team did know about flynn's activities, elijah cummings, the ranking member on the oversight committee informed vice president elect mike pence about the lobbying and cautioned him and the conflict of interest. the issue is, they didn't do anything about it. it is where vetting was almost unobserved. i think that's what we know is they have the information and they didn't act on it. they let flynn go forward. the issue is raised as he retro actively registers as a lobbyist. >> he was working for a foreign government, never told anybody. what if he was picked as head of national security and came out he was at work and been on the payroll of a foreign government all through the campaign and all the time he was advising and getting paid and working for somebody else. he was hiding. >> that would have been fatal. >> to wh

we have david ignatius, executive producer and co-host of the circus, showtime and analyst for cnbc news mark halperin. msnbc political analyst and former chair of the republican national committee michael steele and reporter for "the new york times" michael schmitt. >> we're going to take a moment. >> such an embarrassment. >> how do you put in context what happened yesterday. i saw a lot of reporters covering it almost at a loss for words. >> it's fairly easy to put into context. anybody that goes beyond this, i think for one side or the other is exaggerating. the first thing that came out was, obviously number one, donald trump was lying barack obama with the wiretap. >> we knew it but now for sure. >> we knew it but got confirmation from the fbi and justice department. they have absolutely no information, neither did clapper, neither did the republicans or the democrats that run the committee. you can put that aside. number two, the fbi is investigating donald trump and his team. >> wow. >> that's shocking. number three has to be the follow-up. there was only one person on election d

david ignatius, the national security columnist with the park ton post wrote about this earlier this year but the event itself happened last february, february 4th to 6th in moscow. so in terms of what was going on for reference sake, this info forum event in moscow happened, again, the first week of february last year. that means on our calendar, that was right at the beginning of the presidential primary, well before the presidential general election got under way but our contests had just started. and at that event, the first week of february last year, his senior adviser to russian president vladimir putin got up to make his presentation and this is what he said. he was speaking to a russian audience at a russian event. he was speaking in russian. this is the translation. "you think we are living in 2016. no, we are living in 19191919 i changed and they started talking to us on an equal footing." he then says, "i'm warning you we are on the verge of having something in the information arena that will allow us to talk to the americans as equals. i'm warning you, he says, that was

this is what david ignatius writes.to an agonizingly slow start as secretary of state. that matters because if tillerson doesn't develop a stronger voice, the control of foreign policy is likely to move increasingly towards stephen k. bannon. a truly frightening prospect and, of course, not exactly what the american people expected when donald trump selected rex tillerson as secretary of state. how can a guy who ran exxonmobil so efficiently for so many years, allow himself to be elbowed out smacas much as he h been elbowed out the past several weeks? >> every administration you see this dynamic. cabinet secretaries in the modern era have to fight to have the kind of influence that they think they are going to have when they sign on, because every function of every cabinet secretary is replicated in the white house and when you've got a president like this one who is the center of activity and center of all decision making it's going to naturally move towards the white house unless the cabinet secretary really asserts h

it was reported by david ignatius that the incoming national security adviser michael flynn was in touch with the russian ambassador on the day the united states government announced sanctions for russian interference with the election. did that contact help with that russian -- kind of moderate response to it? that there was no counter reaction from russia? did the flynn conversation help pave the way for that sort of more temperate russian response? >> i talked to general flynn about that conversation. they didn't discuss anything having to do with the united states' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against russia. what i can say is that those conversations that happened to occur around the time the united states took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions. >> but that still leaves open the possibility that there might have been other conversations about the sanctions. >> i don't believe there were more conversations ant -- >> okay, let's move on. >> i can confirm that those elements were not part of that discussion. >> what mike pence

it was reported by david ignatius that the incoming national security adviser michael flynn was in touch with the russian ambassador on the day the united states government announced sanctions for russian interference with the election. did that contact help with that russian -- kind of moderate response to it? that there was no counter reaction from russia? did the flynn conversation help pave the way for that sort of more temperate russian response? >> i talked to general flynn about that conversation. they didn't discuss anything having to do with the united states' decision to expel diplomats or impoese censure against russia. what i can say is that those conversations that happened to occur around the time the united states took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions. >> but that still leaves open the possibility that there might have been other conversations about the sanctions. >> i don't believe there were more conversations ant -- >> okay, let's move on. >> i can confirm that those elements were not part of that discussion. >> what mike pence

well, joining me now is susan page, washington bureau chief and david ignatius a columnist for "the washington post." susan, this story is -- well, in two regards, the first regard is there is a criminal investigation of the president of the united states. and all his people and all the names. now it's real. >> not since watergate have we had allegations this serious. we've had other times the fbi has investigated people close to the president. the scooter libbey case, monica lewinsky. but the fact that the fbi director was willing to go out there and say in remarkably direct language, more direct language than we expected to hear today that this investigation is going on is extraordinary. >> and also to say as a fact, as a bottom line dotting the i's and crossing the t's there is no evidence of any wiretapping ordered by president obama. >> comey directly rebuked president trump in his allegations against president obama. the other witnesses appearing, mike rogers rebuked trump for his comments about the british spy agency. i felt that today was a turning point. i think we now enter a differe

joining me on the round table is david ignatius, tamara keith, and tim mac. thank you, all of you.ligence agency -- >> national security adviser. >> national security adviser. now he's not. he was only there for two weeks. what's he worried about? why does he want immunity? >>le with, he was interviewed by the fbi when he first got started in the white house. we don't know the questions he was asked, but we do know that he gave an account of his conversation with russian ambassador sergey kislyak to the vice president, vice president pence, that turned out later not to be true. pence relied on it, went on television and gave an account that also wasn't true. so that's part of this. i think this immunity negotiation is something that has to cause concern in the trump white house, and for donald trump in particular because what michael flynn could talk about is how much he discussed these now questioned actions, conversations with donald trump. >> sure. >> that's the -- >> let's get to the heart of it. the russians wanted the sanctions removed, and he had a little problem telling the