ron brownstein, david sanger and philip mudd.on brownstein, reaction. >> yeah, the last one especially. that's very powerful testimony. the question the white house has never sufficiently answered is why it took so long to act after the warning that the acting attorney general provided. of course the action only came after the underlying question was revealed in the "washington post." it really goes back, chris, to this core issue. we've talked about this before. on election day, between a fifth and a quarter of the people who voted for donald trump said they were uncertain he had the temperament or the qualifications to serve as president. they want to change, they were willing to take a changes. certainly what happened over these three and a half, four months has tended more to reconfirm than dissolve those doubts. it sharpens the question on the place where there's the most leverage, congressional republicans who have by and large chosen to lock arms around him, emphasize areas of their agenda when they agree and not exercise

david gregory and david sanger. us sarah westwood, white house correspondent for washington examiner. good to see all of you. david sanger, you heard angela merkel there, said the time we could rely on the west, completely rely on others is over. germany's foreign minister put an even finer point on it. let me read what he said. short sighted policies of american government stand against the interests of european union. the west has become smaller. at least it has become weaker. what's the significance of all this? >> alisyn, these are remarkable comments from our closest allies. think about this trip the president took, where he arrives in saudi arabia. he's treated like a visiting king. the relationship is in incredibly warm. he gets to europe with more traditional allies and it's a series of alienating comments on both sides, and some alienating actions. why is that important? a few things. first, the united states since the end of world war ii has always been a leader of the atlantic alliance. that means not onl

we have political analyst abby phillip and david gregory and david sanger. david gregory, what are the potential impact of the testimony from yates and clapper today? >> i think they will both be limited in what they can say. from yates, she will contradict from white house officials about the warning they gave about general flynn. i think the white house will make it clear they acted swiftly once they knew he was not truthful. the remaining questions are what extent did he advise the president. to candidate trump, the views he shaped of russia at the time. to say nothing of contacts that were not appropriate. i feel we're on the margins here even with clapper and what he can say in open session. what we know is what we have been talking about now for weeks and months. that is that there was consensus of a russian attempt to interfere with the election and at the very least the trump folks were cavalier about if not worse. >> it is interesting, abby. even trump transition officials wanted michael flynn shown these classified documents from the obama administr

david gregory and david sanger as well as host of "smerconish" michael smerconish. >> david, what could we learn from sally yates today? >> i think there is a big question about whether michael flynn was a contained problem or whether he is a gateway to learn more about potential contacts with the trump campaign and russia. what is revealing and what yates can really speak to in detail is what she learned of the intelligence she gathered with phone calls with the russian ambassador and the same time the obama administration was leveling sanctions for the 2016 campaign interference. that is important as well as if the white house was really honest about everything that she was telling them based on the intelligence that was being gathered at the time. we also learned more broadly about from james clapper about what back-up they had for intelligence assessment about the russian interference. >> david, you have the one bucket. collusion bucket with all of the threads. you have the other bucket. you could argue other than senate judiciary. it goes to the head of oversight. what can clapper

also david sanger, the national security correspondent for "the new york times." i'm pleased to have both of them on this program. david sanger are you writing about both subjects tomorrow morning, i assume, in "the new york times." let's start first with the north korean missile and exactly what they know about that and how far have they come. and how serious is their success in getting better and better with each test. >> well, i think the most important thing, charlie, to know here is that while president trump has said that he's getting the cooperation of the chinese, that the chinese are putting new pressures on the north koreans, the north koreans are just stepping up their testing program. and they're stepping it up in the most interesting way. so the, their biggest concern is not doing something that would prompt president trump to take some kind of preem tiff military action. or something that would so horrify the international community that it would actually union fie everybody on the sanctions. and that would be dropping the icbm just off of the west c

i want to bring in david sanger. i want to get back to the panel. president can declassify, david, right, anything he wants but this was a president going off script. so what does this say to our allies around the world who are sharing this information with us? >> well, i think, don, you hit the right point from our reporter, greg miller. the president has an original classification authority meaning he can declassify anything he wants just at whim so there's no legal break here. the sin here, if it took place as described is he revealed information he wasn't at liberty to reveal because it came from an allied service or cooperative partner service and in this case a service that made it clear they could not share further data if this kind of information leaked. clearly it went to a sensitive source of theirs. so to some degree it's less what the united states or the russians think about it and more what the service that actually shared this data with the u.s. thinks about it and whether or not they could cut off future cooperation. that's the critic

[cheers and applause] host: please welcome senator chris murphy, rep adam schiff and david sanger. >>> thanks, very much. i'm david sanger from "the new york times" and delighted to be here with senator murphy and congressman shif andchiff and have a discussion about russia and other issues in the news. i wanted to start, though, just with what we had on the front pages today. somewhat remarkable situation where the president had his meeting with foreign minister lavrov and kislyak last week. we learned about the details in large part from photos that were issued by task, because we didn't actually get in for any of those. that apart we have now red a set of descriptions of the conversation which seems to suggest that the president didn't issue any -- didn't reveal any sources and methods but described a fairly sensitive intelligence around a program that concerns the isis ability to put laptops on computers that could be loaded up with explosives and seemed to suggest the city in which some of this was learned and so forth. so you sit on intelligence and are familiar with the differe

[laughter] david sanger, ben rhodes, thank you very much.e will be right back. ♪ charlie: joe dimaggio is widely considered one of the best ballplayers in history. in his 13 years with the new york yankees, he got batting titles, hit 361 home runs, and played in nine world series.his 56 game hitting streak is a record that still stands. while the record is still known, joe dimaggio remained a fiercely private man, revealing himself to only a few.dr. rock positano was one of them. healedted him to treat a injury that had plagued him for decades. the man became good friends. dr. positano looks back on that friendship with his new book, "dinner with dimaggio: memories of an american hero." pleased to have rock positano back at this table. i am pleased to consider him a friend, and pleased he mentioned me in his book. why dinner with dimaggio? positano: it took me 17 years to get back to this table. [laughter] thank you for allowing me to come back. charlie: you've finally wrote about you wanted to write. dr. positano: that's true. charlie: and

david sanger, it sounds as though he's not paying much creed to all the new reporting on jared kushner and jim sciutto's new reporting about these intercepted communications. >> he's probably not, alisyn. what's interesting about the tweet, he's sent out others in previous weeks and months that were close to word for word the same. we tend to separate out, i think, among all of us who are covering this, my colleagues in the "new york times," and certainly yours at cnn, we separate out two different issues. one is what happened in the election, whether or not the president was lawfully elected. i don't think there are many people -- there are some, i don't think there are many who legitimately disagree that he was legitimately elected. we don't know if the russians had any influence on the actual outcome. then there's the question of what the russians were trying to do, what they tried to do influencing the campaign and later on whether or not there was any collusion with anybody. in the president's mind, he tends to seem to merge these two and take any discussion of the russian activit

also david sanger. ,i am pleased to have both of them on this program.ou are writing about both of these subjects in the new york times. let's start with the north korean missile and exactly what we know about that, and how far have they come, and how serious is their success in getting better and better with each test? david: i think the most important thing to note here is that while president trump says he's getting the cooperation of the chinese, that the chinese are putting new pressures on the north koreans, the north koreans are just stepping up their testing program. they are stepping it up in the most interesting way. their biggest concern is not doing something that would prompt president trump to take some kind of preemptive military action, or something that was so -- would so horrified the international community that it would actually unify everybody on sanctions. that would be dropping the icbm just off of the west coast or something. instead, they are doing a series of tests that are going high up into space. this one went up 2000 kilomet

. >> quickly, david sanger, back over to you, on the nature of the briefing. what did you make of that? >> well, it is interesting, because what the not so subtle message out of mr. spicer's reference to the outside counsel is that this has moved outside of the political realm and into the legal realm. that is why they are leaving all of the answers to the counsel. i think that mr. spicer has concluded that he doesn't want to be responsible for saying anything that could affect the legal case against the white house staff, ultimately against the president if there was one, and i can understand why he would not want to be in that position. it does remind me a little bit of what happened in the clinton white house though where they have successfully walled off the questions of impeachment from the policy operation, and it enabled the clinton white house to actually get back on track, and get reengaged with policy. >> on the agenda that they keep trying to bring up, and have those accomplishments despite all of the noise from the outside, and all of the very, ver

. >>> please welcome senator chris murphy, rep adam schiff and david sanger. >>> thanks, very much. i'm david sanger from "the new york times" and delighted to be here with senator murphy and congressman shif achiff and hav discussion about russia and other issues in the news. i wanted to start, though, just with what we had on the front pages today. somewhat remarkable situation where the president had his meeting with foreign minister lavrov and kislyak last week. we learned about the details in large part from photos that were issued by task, because we didn't actually get in for any of those. that apart we have now red a set of descriptions of the conversation which seems to suggest that the president didn't issue any -- didn't reveal any sources and methods but described a fairly sensitive intelligence around a program that concerns the isis ability to put laptops on computers that could be loaded up with explosives and seemed to suggest the city in which some of this was learned and so forth. so you sit on intelligence and are familiar with the difference between revealing sou

at any different point in an interview that david sanger and i did with him about foreign policy and the campaign you could have come away thinking he was an interventionist or an isolationist. you just took the quote on their own because term contradictory. so i think he has this sort of set of base, i don't mean political base, impulses. but it's almost like it's not particularly well defined, you don't know exactly what it means. i don't know if he exactly knows what it means other than as a feeling. >> rose: he also seems to believe as other politicians have, if you put me in a room by myself with xi jinping. >> that's exactly right. there's a level of hubris to him, obama did the same thing. this president said something pretty similar. it does not work that way. he was very struck this week when he, i mentioned before about the jaw dropping quote. it was something that was seemingless now but striking for a president and especially a president in the first hundred days where he talked about how hard this is. it's really striking, much more work than his old job. a because he ne

. >> -- push, not to disagree with david sanger who knows this issue well, to say, identi've g a lot of intelligence officials reach out to me tonight to push back on the idea that the president can declassify anything willy-nilly. yes, he can, there's nothing illegal about it. in terms of the way it is done, it's not just the president can fly off and reveal classified information and it's all okay. they say there's a process, it must be streechbategic and the example they give, david would now this better than me, was 1983, russians shoot down kao007. president reagan after a process made a decision to reveal the signals intelligence that gave the u.s. confidence that it was russia who shot down the plane. he conferred with his advisers and made a strategic choice. to announce something without that kind of process to a country such as russia, intel officials describe to me more disclosure than a declassification. >> it's dangerous. go on, david gergen. >> we need to be very clear if anyone else in the government dis-clo clowclosed information to the russians as described, it would

ben rhodes rhodes served as the national security adviser for president obama, david sanger is the nationalespondent for "the new york times." >> they're doing a series of tests that are going high up into space. this one went 2,000 kilometers, 1400 miles. and then it's doing a very sharp prabula and coming down. it landed only 400 or so miles from the north korean coast. so that replicates the re-entry of an i.c.b.m.. so they're putting together the component pieces of what it would take to demonstrate that they could send a missile much further without actually prompting that kind of military response. >> rose: ben rhodes, how concerned should we be? >> well, i think we should be very concerned, charlie. as you said, with each test they get better at this technology. and, of course, the principal threat to the united states, beyond our allies south korea and japan, is if they can miniaturize a nuclear war head and fut on an i.c.b.m. that can reach the united states. we have a steady escalation theft and it's not clear what we can do to responsible spnd to it. >> rose: what what was the ob

thank you all. [ applause ] please welcome senator chris murp murphy, adam schiff and david sanger. >> thank you very much, i am from the new york times and i am delighted to be here with senator murphy and congressman schiff discussing of other issues in the news. i want to start with what we had on the front page today. so some what remarkable situation where the president had his meeting with prime minister lavrov alast week, we learned about the details from photos issued because we did not get in for any of those. that part, we now read a set of descriptions of the conversations. the president did not reveal any sources of methods but describe a fairly sensitive intelligence around the program that concerns the isis ability to put laptops on computers that could be loaded up with explosives and seem to suggest the city and which some of this was learned and so forth. congressman schiff, since you are familiar with the difference between revealing sources of methods which nobody -- describe in the program in some details. tell me which part of this we should be concerned about and

joining us now david sanger of the "new york times."t's your reaction to the president's latest tweet going directly against germany? >> wolf, it's a little bit of a strange fight to pick because the germans are on a schedule to get up to the 2% of gdp contribution that they and other members of the nato have committed to. they're not supposed to reach that level now for six or seven years. that was the agreement. it's not a binding treaty. he is right, i think, to keep pressing this issue as president obama did and president bush did before him. the question is, by putting on all of these additional discussions of burdens and not discussing the u.s. commitment to europe, the european experiment, the european unity, or everything the united states and europe have done together since world war ii, is he actually undercutting part of the america first element? because you can't do america first by yourself. >> he also complains that there are too many german cars here in the united states. i want you to listen to angela merkel responding

david sanger, let me give you a chance to respond to this, as a reporter, as someone from the media, as a reporter for the "new york times." >> sure. thanks, erin. yes, there are anonymous sources involved in this and if you go back over the obama administration, the bush administration before that, you're going to see anonymous sources, but that's not the issue. the issue is do we fichundamenty believe i story. but this came from a note taker. this isn't even a participant in the conversation. the stories earlier in the week were jim comey's account versus president trump's account. it's the official note taking that took place during this whole thing. secondly, the white house has not disputed the facts, they have just put a different interpretation on it. they have said that the president's comments meant that it reduced the pressure on him that was keeping him from conducting the diplomacy. people are going to have to decide whether they believe that interpretation of events or whether they believe the interpretation of events that erin was exploring with senator blumenthal, and

david sanger is with me, selena zi zito. we have new breaking news i want to share. this is from our dana bash. when it comes to whether jim comey is going to testify, a source telling dana that there is a special prosecutor, it is unlikely that james comey will testimony about the memo. they now say this shuts the whole thing down. that's the gop source to dana that he will not want to testify in front of congress. so obviously, that is crucial. and then this source -- i think this is interesting. i want to get your reaction to this, john, who has been in regular contact with rod rosenstein telling dana that he was so angry and exasperated with the trump white house. they believe he's throwing trump overboard. he was so angry last week that he was considering packing his bags and moving. john, obviously very significant. this is coming from our dana bash, it is a senior gop source. this is one person's rendition but it is a pretty stark statement about the state of mind of the deputy attorney general. >> it is very >> it is very stark and it is overloaded because th

thank you, all. [ applause ] >> please welcome senator chris murphy, rep adam schiff, and david sanger. >> thanks very much. i'm david sanger from "the new york times" and delighted to be here with senator murphy and congressman schiff and have a a little discussion about russia and other issues in the news. i wanted to start, though, just with what we had on the front pages today. somewhat remarkable situation where the president had his meeting with foreign minister lavrov and kislyak last week. we learned about the details in large part from photos that were issued by task, because we didn't actually get in for any of those. that apart, we've now read a set of descriptions of the conversation which seem to suggest that the president didn't issue any -- didn't reveal any sources and methods but described a fairly sensitive intelligence around a program that concerns the isis ability to put laptops on computers that could be loaded up with explosives and seemed to suggest the city in which some of this was learned and so forth. so congressman schiff, as you sit on intelligence and are