i spent four years working at the nsc. you wouldn't bring intelligence to the nsc unless you had high confidence of it. the nsc is not an intelligence agency it's a policy-making body. that's the first thing. obviously there's been sufficient -- that people take it seriously. the array of options people were looking at to simply sanction. i say you go to putin, if no americans had been killed, knock it off. if any american is killed, then russian troops in ukraine or the middle east are going to pay a price. i'd be very direct. putin doesn't want that. the one thing putin doesn't want to have is on russian television, russian troops coming home in body bags. the foreign wars are unpopular, controversial in russia against the backdrop of the economy doing badly, against the backdrop of covid-19. why would he do that, either he thought the united states would not retaliate or this would be the last nail in the coffin to get the united states out of afghanistan, which we've seen happening anyway with a unilateral withdrawal.

this is confusing and disturbing, but you have the nsc confirming they are assessing, not final, buteports it was in the president's daily brief. why did the president not know about it? and why having worked on the nsc, why would they not have briefed him on this as it was being assessed? isn't this important enough given our relationship with russia and the fact he is advocating for putin to be readmitted to the g7 to have told him about it? >> andrea, the facts are still a bit murky at this point, but i think it is clear that there was some intelligence gathered earlier this year indicating that the russians were providing some time of support to those taliban elements, to carry out attacks. now, the role of the intelligence community was to assess the credibility of those reports, and to see corroboration, and if krauberrated, credible, would freed to be brought to the highest levels of the u.s. government up to and include be mr. trump. certainly the security adviser needs to be apprised of this. it's not surprising to me the russians are trying to stymie u.s. oels objepolicy ob

the nsc is not the president.emocrats -- i read majority leader hoyer's press release, basically putting all of this on the president and saying he hasn't taken any action? he wasn't even briefed. so they're already saying that he didn't do the things he shouldn't have done as president and he didn't know about it. he wasn't officially briefed about it. already this is political issue where you have intelligence insider feeding information to "the new york times" when even our intelligence community can't agree upon it. david: can we find out who that insider is? >> i hope so. but i can guarranty you it will take matter of time before the information is out there but i would love to know who that is and under what authority he had the ability to speak to "the new york times." if he didn't have the authority to speak to the press he should be punished for leaking that information to the press. david: who would punish him? >> whoever he works for. whoever his direct supervisor is. david: would you have any authority

say that ellen knight is not qualified even though she's in charge of prepublication review at the nsce points that people close to john bolton have said to me if she's not qualified to do it and you have to pass it on to somebody else, what is the purpose of even having this prepublication review in see what the judge says about this. they may have a high bar here. >> all right. john roberts, thanks so much. let's get reaction now from ari fleischer. fox news contributor. ari? are you there? >> i am here. >> dana: hi. i'm sorry. i can't see you. something -- something seems -- >> i'm here. >> dana: i can hear you. tell me what you think about the timing of this? i know you and i probably have a similar thought about a book like this or any book coming out while a president is still in office. your thoughts. >> dana, there's a long history and a good history of people writing books about the presidents for whom they worked. it serves history for insider to tell it. there's two sides. the henry kissinger side, the robert gates side. people of stature that have written books after the pr

bolton's attorneys say they got the ok from the nsc. president trump's attorneys are saying absolutely not. that is where the legal battle is headed. it is interesting, because book publishers have used this as a strategy, the nsc signoff supportto drum up for the book. it gives it more juice and publicity. -22.s almost a catch to: i am young enough remember the pentagon papers. from what i can read it is widely understood that the book is going to go out. you are going to read your book cover to cover, i'm not. fine, but he is going to give up the money, i guess. how bizarre is this, is what i'm saying? kevin: it's interesting that john bolton is incredibly savvy. what you just said is a really interesting dynamic, where one could make the argument that he potentially -- i don't want -- i have no reporting to back that up and i don't want to put things out there, but if you want to make money and the book still comes out the context of the book would still be made public, and that is of interest. francine: what is in the book? more con

and i should also point out that the man was then reclassified in the nsc is a devin nunes person inhe nsc so there is a very heavy hand by people who are hand maidens to the president on this intelligence process. >> michael steele, there are a lot of senate republicans who care deeply about -- there's a lot of senators, period, who care deeply about this treatment of the uyghurs but quite a few senate republicans have been very outspoken, mar co rubio. it's like, pay no attention to what you're seeing over here. i'll just concentrate on, well, i got the action i wanted. is that -- is this more of what we should expect on the reaction to this bolton book? >> probably. i mean, look, there's a couple things going on here. one, this is a uniquely damaging account of the presidency because it's a known figure on the right, a long-time fox news contributor, figure in previous republican administrations, attacking the president for failing to live up to conservative ideology, conservative priorities. whether it's on venezuela, being tough on china, holding them to account for their mistre

the intelligence community didn't brief the nsc in the white house that's a problem. if the nsc was briefed and didn't tell the president as he says, he, vice president and chief staff meadows that's a problem too. an issue that we will hear more about. howie: the times story national security council debated options on discussing to putin which suggests substance to the story. mollie: actually it's impossible to know because it's anonymous sources making claims and i kind of question why people keep believing "the new york times" when it claims anonymous intel sources about anything. this is the same paper and in some case it is very same reporters who publish the completely false and ridiculous russia collusion. now taking a step back, it's unlikely that you will get confirmation or denial from intelligence sources on this. you might remember a couple of months ago when the media claimed falsely that kim jong un was -- was brain dead or had been killed and -- or had died and that was just not true. so not commenting doesn't necessarily mean anything. in this case, y

i was an nsc senior director. it's my job to consume intelligence. spend an hour every morning doing that. and you ask yourself in that position, what do i know after reading this? who needs to know? and did i tell them? and if this is in the book, russia has a change of policy to target our troops and put bounties on our troops, the president needs to know. general mccaffrey could not be more right. the chief of staff, everybody reading that intelligence needs to be batting down the door to say, mr. president, we have a problem. and next time you speak with vladimir putin, you need to say something about it. >> brett, which part of this endangers u.s. troops more? the fact that this is where -- that the russians are so brazen that they're, one, transferring money from gru-linked accounts to the taliban not taking more care to hide the money. they certainly must know we'd go looking for it. or that the russians now know that trump, when it is known, when it is revealed, that russians pay the taliban to slaughter u.s. soldiers did nothing? >> well, it

they just recently released documents tonight and affidavits that says the nsc has determined that the information in the manuscript is classified as confidential secret and top-secret levels accordingly. the publication release of the room where it happened would cause irreparable harm because of the disclosure of instances and classified information in the manuscript which recently could be expected to cause serious damage or exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the united states. i went back, i think it was a month before he was fired and i have a whole series of articles, i don't have time for them all, in an interview with my former colleague greta van susteren. this was before he got fired, president trump is not going to make the mistakes of prior administration here, let that succumb to the idea that if you give them automatic benefits you automatically count on them following through with their commitments. the president gets criticized for being soft on russia and i'm still waiting to see evidence of that period is authorized us to take very strong action ag

investigator, and plenty of other things to do, i referred this to the lawyers and i told others on the nscff who talk to the lawyers, i told other white house advisors of my concern but i tried to focus on my job, it's easy from the outside to say that was wrong and maybe it was a mistake. i can only tell you what i did for the purpose of trying to move the country in the white house in the right direction in terms of policy. >> maybe it was a mistake as you reflect back? >> it could be, i'm certainly aware i made mistakes and i tried to discuss them in the book, it was hardly perfect, there were things that i could've done better, i'm not sure on this score, and it shifted the president's view on all of this in part because he was hearing from so many people from outside who did not understand how the government was actually run and that were influencing him. it is not always clear as events go on and it may simply be unacceptable, unprofessional, and presidential. knowing of the time that ukraine is a good example, exactly what was happening and ride right of areas that ira others might

its leader, admiral timothy ziemer, left bolton has maintained that he was simplytreamlining bloated nscs, and that it did not rt america's pandemic response. but lastear, stephen morrison headed a bipartisan effort to address america's pandemic response capacity. his report, released in november 2019, recommended the pandemic response team be moved back to the white house. >> we live in an era in which we're seeing increasing rapidity od increasing velocity and increasing impacthese new pathogens coming at us. this is the condition of our microbial universe today. >> a sars-like virus has now spread into japan. m e than 10,000 people died from h1n1. a >> the iat you would disband your capacity willfully at the whiteouse, aware of the developments of the last two decades, which were convincingly that we needed to be prepared, and far better prepared, on ais cont and sustained and coherent basis. >> smith: what's the explanation that would be ven? >> well, i can't speak for i presume that they wanted to over, out of t white house, to the secretary of hhs and to those who worked underneath

i did refer this to the lawyers and i told others on the nsc staff to talk to the lawyers . i told other white house advisors of my concerns. but i tried to focus on myjob . it's easy from the outside to say that was wrong and maybe it was a mistake. i can only tell you what i did. it was for the purpose of trying to move the country and the white house in the right direction in terms of policy . >> host: maybe it was a mistake as you reflect back ? >> guest: it could be. i'm certainly aware i've made mistakes and i try to discuss some in the book. it was hardly perfect, there were things i could have done better. i'm not sure on this score it would have shifted the president's view on all this in part because he was hearing from so many people from the outside didn't understand how the government was actually run that were influenced. and it's not always clear as events go on that something is verging on the illegal. it may simply be unacceptable , unprofessional, unpresidential so knowing at the time that ukraine's good example, exactly what was happening in a wide variety

r., thinking about in the nsc we had a number of people talking about technologies and implications who really didn't have that much depth of understanding of the technology? that's my experience is that these issues now are evolving, and these emerging technologies, the repetitive of change records whole new set of people and it were part of to break the model. you can't come up through the civil service or 20 20 years oe military for 20 years. you have to have a new set of experiences and rep to break people in laterally. where to create a different incentive structure to get the right kind of people at the table. that's also no small thing but that's what's going to be required to compete in this new era. >> that was one of the big findings, the tech track. with to make it easier for people to serve the government. your career is i think the model of that, the army and the private sector and then treasury and national security council and now at bridgewater on the way. people who have that broad range of perspectives on this problem and know-how, to use your words, know how to integr

>> i had a number of conversations about it within the nsc. >> bret: anyone like white helwhite houseef of staff mick mulvaney or white house counsel or anyone? >> there were conversations as there were about other issues that they did brief the white house white house counsel and attorney general on. there's a certain point where everyone hears these things in the white house that become, and that's a real part of the problem in the trump administration. it happened so often that it dead and sensitivity. >> the other when you point out from the g20 meeting was, this talk about the uighur concentration camps, three training camps. you say the president essentially said it, go ahead and build them? >> right. that is what was reported both out of stock and previous conversation between xi jinping and the president by the interpreters who heard it being said. >> bret: but you're sure that's what was said? because that's eye-opening, if true. >> it's consistent with his approach to human rights in china generally. even though for example he recently signed a congressional legislation whic

>> first of all, let's talk about his reputation, everything that happened leaked out of the nsc.s no surprise that somehow all of these stories didn't leak when everything else was leaking. i have to say that everyone should be troubled by someone who is unwilling to testify under oath but is willing to speak under a book deal and to mel this is exactly what's happening, they say salacious stories in order to sell books, there is no other explanation for this because clearly this is not the president trump that we know and we had all sorts of signs that john bolton was going to go his own way anyway. >> laura: it was a disastrous pick, bolton didn't agree with any of trump's views about drawing down forces and in one part of the book he just is enraged that trump didn't want to bomb the heck out of syria after they shot down our unmanned drone, the president decided after looking at the projections for collateral damage and death, he said, to many body bags. to me that's a president who is in control of the data and know that and says you know, i want to hold off, that's prudent.

i was on the nsc staff during the last days of the nixon administration and during the whole watergate affair. i was in the white house on loan from cia at the end of the carter administration when we were in trouble in a lot of different ways. but no, i don't think i've ever seen anything quite like this. >> bret: two crises in a row. the pandemic and the situation we are facing across the country in the wake of the george floyd killing. you've said the you are actually for some changes, including name changes for some military bases. in "the new york times," you called to replace those names and the quote they said "is a a long-time soviet scholar, you added, i'm very sensitive to the notion of rewriting history." but yet you think those names should be changed. >> i think the names should be changed. i think it's a question of placement and time and we don't want to be in a position of celebrating people who were in fact traders to the united states. when it comes to statuary and so on, that kind of thing i think belongs in museums rather than in places where it appears that we are

data or that intelligence and that information as it flows through that chain of command through the nsce president. we had policy makers making serious decisions releasing taliban fighters back on to the battlefield. we have the -- talking about the g7. the peace deal that many argue is not a great deal, we're just given a lot to get a little. all of that needs to be informed by what the russians are doing. they are not our friends there and may in fact be paying people to kill u.s. soldiers. that's a problem. >> obviously will hurd last night, former cia operative, he wants to make it clear to the american people that if this is happening this is a chaeng in what's the russians are doing. not being our friend is different than the bounty payments. when it came to the president's defense here being no one told me about it, which forget the fact that doesn't add up with the reporting out there, congressman hurd's point was this, which was where he thought the president's anger should be placed. >> if something this sensitive was out there, i'd be pissed that nobody brought it to me or di

i have records of people from the nsc, including biden representatives, telling ukrainian officials tof-war, on donald junior. the press covered this up. it is all there. all the proof is there. our prosecutors are too frightened to prosecute it. they prosecute republicans. they are afraid to prosecute democrats. liz: quite a story. thank you for coming on. you are always fun to have on. good to see you. >> you are welcome. liz: come back soon. i am elizabeth mcdonald. you have been watching "the evening edit" on foxbusiness. does it for us. we hope you have a good evening. thank you so much for watching. join us again tomorrow night. ♪ but ♪ [ cheering ] >> the original hoop dream. >> these really are the rules here -- 1891, james naismith. granddad's signature. >> incredible. >> one family's heirloom... >> you think your great-grandfather could ever envision that the game he developed could be what it is today? >> ...goes on one wild ride. >> he starts looking around and thinks, "oh, my goodness. where are the rules?" >> no. >> it's a national treasure with a big price tag. >> you pa

you have both the nsc, odeon i, noting what damage this does not only to the safety of our troops which is paramount but the ability of the united states to aggregate information from our allies and have assets and get this valuable information. >> members are going after trump? is that what you are saying? >> secretary mcenany: it is possible. if that is the case, it is absolutely despicable. >> are they taken any action on the audit of the ic? what steps are you taking? >> secretary mcenany: the doj has done several credible referrals. 88 in 2018, 104 on average per year under president trump. we do take those steps. we do have a president who ultimately when it comes down to the safety of our troops, he hasn't taken impulsive actions, he takes deliberate action. we saw that in a protecting of our troops. at the same time, when you had iran who shot down a drone, he chose not to shoot back in that instance. it was a measured response. ultimately the ultimate way to protect american troops is to not get into needless foreign wars. this president is on record for decades of opposing for

so if it wasn't verified, if it wasn't corroborated, if it wasn't all that serious, well, the nsc staff was already looking at response options. we've talked to a number of officials across the government about this, and what they say tonight is it's a little bit still mistie phiing wphiing, th involves the fate and death of potentially u.s. troops on the front line. it involves their families perhaps wondering if their loved ones were killed at the behest of russian cache being spread around. there's quite a bit to be answered here. why wasn't the president told and why if he was told didn't he express more interest in finding out what's going on. >> the white house national security advisor explained the briefing gap in a statement monday writing, and i'm quoting here, because the allegations in recent press articles have not been verified or substantiated by the intelligence community, president trump had not been briefed on the items. >>> national security advisor was one of the officials who briefed a group of republican lawmakers at the white house monday about the russian bounty

i have records of people from the nsc, including biden representatives, telling ukrainian officials to man-of-war, on donald junior. the press covered this up. it is all there. all the proof is there. our prosecutors are too frightened to prosecute it. they prosecute republicans. they are afraid to prosecute democrats. liz: quite a story. thank you for coming on. you are always fun to have on. good to see you. >> you are welcome. liz: come back soon. i am elizabeth mcdonald. you have been watching "the evening edit" on foxbusiness. does it for us. we hope you have a good evening. thank you so much for watching. join us again tomorrow night. ♪ >> she's a jet-setter in the golden age of travel... >> pan am flight attendants were iconic. >> did she fit the bill? >> i think shecreatedthe bill. >> ...bringing back these from around the globe. >> indonesian, african, chinese -- they came from everywhere. i thought she was a smuggler, which made it even more exciting. >> what?! >> are they just silly trinkets... >> is there a big market for beads? >> there's a big market for beads. >> this is

if that information is confirmed to be classified under this new nsc, then they can use the doj criminalsecute him and my final point is for the salacious content aspect, if he thought that the president was unfit to serve, why is he waiting now in a book? anonymous and the op-eds and everything else. >> jesse: dana, does this remind you of scott mcclellan? he worked for bush and wrote the bad book and then he was a man without a party. is that going to be john bolton? >> dana: it's slightly different. scott mcclellan's book came out in the second term, so the reelection had already happened. second, scott mcclellan was quite a young man. bolton is 70 or 70 at the time when he took the job. in some ways he didn't need to worry about his future career prospects. i think bolton is basically a guy who said nobody has ever liked me in washington, and he doesn't care. so he's written this book. he's got a lot of questions that are going to come towards him. i'm not surprised -- i don't think the media is embracing him. they are taking this information and running with it but the democrats are

so if it wasn't verified, if it wasn't corroborated, if it wasn't all that serious, well, the nsc staffdy looking at response options. we have talked to a number of officials across the government about this, and, erin, what they say tonight is it is a little bit still mystifying why the president hasn't asked more about this. this involves the fate, the death of potentially of u.s. troops on the front lines. it involves their families, perhaps wondering if their loved ones were killed at the hands of russian cash being spread around afghanistan. there is still quite a bit to answer here, why wasn't he the president told and why if he wasn't told doesn't idn't he ex more interest in finding out what was going on. >> very real questions, barbara, thank you. to will hurd of texas, obviously a congressman on the committee here and former undercover cia agent stationed in afghanistan. so you understand this in a way that pretty much no one else does. you heard barbara's reporting. it was in the president's daily brief, he may not have been audibly briefed about it but it was there for him t

and the nsc looks of this book is a classified information.his real damage that can be done and for what? self-promotion and publicity of a failed nsa director. speak on vanessa oil -- >> kayleigh: is not lost confidence in all. in the speech i read heredia said clearly the president put up this morning we stand with the venezuelan people and their fight for freedom. i would also not out of the president has been on maduro by recognizing one white out. when you compare that to the biden administration you had the former vice president joe biden you actually met with the venice were alien dictator and complemented his hair. according to yahoo! news if i had your hero to be to be president of the united states the former vice president said. when you compare the actions of this president we've stood against socialism and on the side of freedom. i'm finally one thing that i just want to put out that was handed to me, a whopping 7.7 million total viewers change into fox news to watch the rally on saturday night. big numbers. thanks much, guys. >>

will say is i would ask the question of the audience and of people, why -- if everything leaks at the nscre, every conversation, most transcripts, every little thing leaked, why wouldn't any of these salacious stories leak now. why are we just hearing about them when they're packaged for a book deal? i think that's a serious question. the other thing is you have to understand you didn't run for president. your name wasn't on the campaign poster. nobody voted for you. and so john has a real problem when it comes to these issues because whether it's the issue of kosovo and serbia which i'm the presidential envoy for and john had an idea of land swaps. he was pushing this idea of land swaps between kosovo and serbia. that wasn't president trump's policy and we had to walk that back. whether it was talking about war with iran or not trying to follow through on a peace deal with north korea, john has his own ideas. he's been around foreign policy for a very long time. i think he was us frfrustrated he didn't have his ideas and that's a conflict. >> reporte . >> i totally understand that. but a

and we'll look at the nsc has said about it. bolton said that the president pleaded with china to help him win election by buying agricultural products in swing states. we should note, the classification process, it removed bolton's direct quotes of the president on that issue, but left the account in. so is the account false or true of the president pleading with xi to help him in the election? >> i think it's john's sort of whimsical spin on what actually happened at the meeting. i was at the meeting. secretary pompeo was at the meeting. secretary mnuchin was at the meeting. did the president talk about the chinese buying more american products, yes, he talked about thae that every time he talked to president xi. would it be good for the country and thus good for the president's re-election chances? yes, it would be. but to put those two statements together, that's bizarre and i think that's why you saw pompeo respond the way that he did. importantly, jim, you can't ignore -- >> wait, you can call it bizarre, but he -- bolton

ambassador bolton has worked in full cooperation with the nsc in its prepublication review to address supports his first amendment right to tell his story of his time in the white house to the american public. we will see if that gets published. if it does, imagine the sales. don't go anywhere. "all in with chris hayes" is up next. >>> tonight on "all in" -- as protests push the president on police reform, congressman hakim jefferies on whether the trump executive order means anything. and then san francisco mayor london breed on the changes she's already making in her city. plus, armed militia on the streets of albuquerque and a protester shot. new mexico's governor will join me. and dnc chair tom perez on his plans to fight voter suppression in 2020. "all in" starts right now.

it could be nsc meetings and more.he larger question is, even if it was provided to him, michael, based on his track record, does anyone have certainty that he digested the intelligence? he has a track record of not getting intelligence briefings and, frankly, trashing intelligence throughout his tenure. so saying he wasn't briefed on this intelligence doesn't answer the question about whether the intelligence was or was not available to him. >> and during this whole time, i mean, he then announces a drawdown on u.s. troops in germany, which helps vladimir putin. suggests putin comes back into the g7, which helps putin, all while this was known to the u.s. as you said, you dealt in national security in the white house. we all saw the republican reaction to benghazi. i mean, never-ending investigations. when iranian officials killed one contractor, donald trump took out soleimani, the leads of the quds force. in any other administration, this would be a major event, warranting action, would it not? >> oh, most certainly

service and knows the government and how it works ant the interagency process which is important for the nsc be willing to take on the challenges. from my conversations from him and his public statements, he always had disagreements with president trump before he went into the white house. as far as his views on warmer ties with russia and any kind of trusting relationship with beijing. and a number of other things. he was very skeptical about trying to forge any peace deal with north korea. he very much wanted to withdraw from the iran nuclear accord which is something -- >> hang on one second. we have to go to atlanta to the district attorney in fulton county. let's go. >> before we started today, i wanted to acknowledge mrs. miller who is the husband of rayshard brooks. she is here today with her attorney and after we make our presentation, she is going to make some remarks on mr. stewart. we also have with us today three witnesses from west memphis, tennessee, and they are here with their lawyer sean williams and we are also going to ask mr. williams to address you as well. so, we have d

the post is saying there was a high level nsc meeting about this in march to decide what, if anythingout it. but i can tell you, we at nbc news are getting pushback from credible disinterested sources that this may not be as big a deal as some are making it out to be. that it may not have ever gone anywhere and that, in fact, there may have been a decision to factor it into the african peace talks. they were providing weapons and intelligence to kill americans and the previous administrations put that aside and still cut a peace deal. these are the things that happen in the shadow war between russia and the united states and it doesn't necessarily mean there was a conspiracy by the president to tamp it down. that's what we're trying to learn. was this briefed to president trump? was it included in written briefings he didn't read? these are all questions we have, stephanie, that remain very much unanswered at this point. >> it's not just us who have these questions. we're seeing lawmakers on both sides of the aisle demand answers. i want to share what a few republicans had to say. you

people on the nsc staff, from the centers for disease control, national institutes of health, in those early weeks were waving red flags that this could be a real problem. the president didn't want to hear anything about it. he didn't want to hear bad things about china, he didn't want to hear anything that could impede the trade deal or indicate the chinese were covering up flat out lying about what was actually happening with the coronavirus and china and he was worried about the impact on the economy. so it was a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil approach that cost us a lot of time. and that cost the potential to mitigate some of the effects of the disease we're seeing now. i characterized it as an empty chair in the oval office and that's what i think it was. >> the president instead of talking about coronavirus talks about a lot of i ddivisive soci issues. he retweeted a video featuring somebody driving a golf cart that has trump 2020 signs on it. and yelling white power. what is your response to that and why do you think he does this so often? he enflames racial fissures i

think the point is, separate from it just being inside a book, to me, as someone who served at the nscer bush, under obama, if this came across our desk, something that was so important to our strategic relationship to russia, so potentially important, i would say, hey, mr. president, i'm just making you aware of this, especially since the president has been on the phone with vladimir putin over five -- i think at least five times since march 30th. so they have had lots of prep, lots of time talking about russia, getting him ready for these calls, and it's just hard -- and that's what i spent my time asking in this meeting is, how could it be that you didn't feel like this was relevant to talk to him about? >> what are the answers you got? >> well, i just -- i think that they went back to this idea that there wasn't a clear picture on the intelligence, and i get it. you know, you don't want to take the president something that may be wrong, but on something like this, when you're engaging and the president is thinking about reaching out to russia again, inviting them to be in the g7, y

president's daily brief, it is explained that it's going to be put there by the intelligence community to the nsc, the national security council at the white house before they put it in there. the point is, because the ic is basically putting there because they want to flag it for the president. they expect then that he will be briefed and they expect that there will be some follow-up questions from the national security council and from the president and his national security adviser so the fact that that didn't happen because the president said he was not briefed on that effectively demonstrates that there was a breakdown in the traditional system here. >> yeah. >> the other thing that i think is northern to note is that the white house has sort of boxed itself in. that's because they have said the president wasn't briefed because this information wasn't fully verified, but not everything that goes into the president's daily brief is always fully verified. sometimes they just need to put it the there because they want the president to be made aware of it, and the other thing that i'm reporting

members were sympathetic because of the german feeding programs, and more trusting of the quaker's, the nsc the which was a relief organization, they have members who are sympathetic. but because there were minders there, they were loath to speak out honestly and fearfully. it really is, the quaker's that went in the government general it isn't really a trip into the garden of the beast. that may be the best way to put. that they were fearful. one of the quaker's was injured in an automobile accident on the way to poland. in his diary, he says he was worried they be used for german propaganda and he was worried that they wouldn't be able to see what needs were. but in fact the germans were open to eight from america at that time because in 39 and 40, before the invasions that follow in the spring, they are looking for positive propaganda about their invasion of poland and the fact that they might be able to cut a deal with great britain. so, they are open to propaganda. hoover and his people demanded, yes we want the polls to be fed, but you also have to feed the. jews it took some time for

brits and probably, peter, most important to me, the fact that we know it was the subject of high level nscal security council policy deliberations this spring is a clear indication to me that the white house is just spinning. they are playing semantic games when they say the president was never briefed. when they say this information is not credible. they're trying to muddy the waters by doing one thing especially. trying to muddy the distinction between the intelligence community's consensus around the veracity of this reporting and the intelligence community's level of confidence in this reporting. departments and agencies can all agree that something happened, is most likely to have happened. agree with an assess pmts they can have varying levels of agreement. this is the dynamic in the january 2017 assessment on russia's attack on our democracy. it doesn't mean an intelligence agency believes russia didn't do it. they have slightly different levels of confidence and that's what we're seeing here. >> ned, i want to ask you about the president's relationship to vladimir putin in a second

i worked at the nsc under bush and then under obama.port like that, at a minimum you would have a memo slapped on top by the national security advisor saying mr. president we're looking into this, but i wanted to make you aware. here's what we're doing to follow-up and i'm going to get back to you on it. in the meantime let's think through our options with russia right now to confirm what we're looking at here. the fact that didn't happen, it wasn't flagged in that way just raises my eyebrows. i can't imagine a report like this isn't going to the white house without it being in the presidential daily brief. that's something i wrote as a cia analyst, i briefed to multiple presidents in the oval office. with something like this, if there's a body of intelligence that would go directly to the president, even if his staff didn't feel like they needed to flag it. >> gene robinson has the next question. gene? >> congresswoman, some of your republican colleagues were -- have been briefed on this intelligence. apparently the president still has

. >> smith: but in after trump tapped john bolton to head the nsc, the pandemirespse team was reorganizeders were reassigned. its leader, admiral timothy ziemer, left. bolton has maintained that he was simply streamlining bloated c operations, and that it did not hurt america's pandemic response. but last year, stephen morrison headed a bipartisan effort to address america's pandemicon re capacity. his report, released in november 2019, recommended the pandemic response team be moved back to the white house. >> we live in an era in which we're seeing increasing rapidity and increasing velocity and increasi impacts of these new pathogens coming at us. this is the condition of our microbial universe today. >> a sars-like virus has now spread into japan. >> more than 10,000 people died from h1n1. the idea that you would disband your capacity willfully at the white house, aware ofhe developments of the last twos, decahich were convincingly that we needed to be prepared, and far better prepared, on a consistent and sustand coherent basis. >> smith: what's then explanatat would be ven? >> well,

he'll be the economic consultant to nsc 68 which we read a few weeks ago, feels like years, few weeks ago, where he argues to win the cold war we need to keep the national defense. he trims it away from its connection to kind of working class radicalism and retargets it around national security interests. does this make sense? so bill has an argument which we talked about earlier, which is at the end of ideology comes about in part because the idea runs out of steam. the big ideas have gone away. you can make a case in some ways they haven't just gone away but the history of mccarthyism and the red scare and the cold war confrontation changes what it looks like in the u.s. so it's focused much more around national security than around social expenditure. yeah? >> when keysling moves away from social spending does he have a trickle down theory that if you spend the money on defense, some of it will go to the workers? >> yeah. >> so he's just figuring out a different way to do it? >> in some sense that would be an argument. what -- we're at some level and i've read more books. you're tr

director as the nsc senegal, and- and contributed toward the u.s. strategy toward sub-saharan africa signed by president obama in 2012 that led to the recognition of the somalian government for the first time since 1991. he spent two years abroad working in nigeria from 2008 to 2010. with that, we will get started and let me talk -- turned to ambassador linda thomas greenfield for her remarks. ambassador thomas greenfield: i think i am unmuted. thank you, chairman, and members of the community. i want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify testify before you today on the issue of covid-19, an important issue for many watching this disease as it spread globally. you will hear from my colleagues about the health impact of the virus and the political impact and security impact. i would like to share the social impact. it is a double edged for africa. in addition to the obvious health challenges, like elsewhere, it has had tremendous economic effects. according to the world bank, covid-19 is likely to drive sub-saharan africa into it firs

number two, if there were these nsc meetings, how could the national security adviser, who is supposed to advise the president on national security matters every day not bring it up? that does not seem credible to me. three, i would remind you that the fact checkers over at "the washington post" in their book the introduction starts with 16,000 falsehoods i believe. so against the back drop of that, why should anybody give them the benefit of the doubt that this is true? but finally, i want to really stress this point. if it is true, that is also incredibly shocking. first of all, as charlie just said they have not denied that this happened. that this intelligence is not true. and they had every chance to do it and in that statement it never says that. so think about that. they have incredibly shocking information they're not giving to the president all the while while the president, one, is calling vladimir putin. that's a great point. when i got those packages to call putin or medvedev, the intelligence was in the call package and two, he's made a decision to invite vladimir putin to

this accountable entity would not, i repeat not replace the efforts of the nsc. we put these ideas forward in the bipartisan bill, and have invited all those who wish to participate to do so. this has to be a bipartisan effort. it's not too late to get back on track and restore the long-standing tradition of bipartisanship that has characteristic, characterized every successful u.s. global health program of the past 20 years. it's not too late to focus our efforts on addressing the current covid-19 pandemic overseas in a manner that saving lives and protects the united states from future waves of infection. there is no doubt that this will happen again. we've been told that the bat population particularly in wuhan area in china contains about doesn't viruses. this, of course, the pandemic was caused by one of these viruses jumping from one species to another, from a back to a human being. what happened after has been greatly debated, but we know the result, we know it wasn't good, we know there were failures along the line and we know we can do better. there's no

. >> there were biodefense experts who remained at the nsc in other offices. but there was nobody at a senior level who could have the president's ear who was an expert in public health and global pandemics. >> reporter: trump officials say they were following their own highly detailed pandemic response plans, and insist those plans were more useful than the playbook. but jeremy konyndyk says we still weren't moving fast enough. >> i think if we'd been following the playbook there would have been planning under way from late january for the kind of physical distancing measures that might need to be applied depending on what we saw the virus do. >> reporter: we do know that alarm bells were going off. since january, officials from the cdc, homeland security and other federal agencies had been talking to outside experts who warned we were falling behind. in an e-mail chain with the subject line red dawn, they discussed what we should be doing. a senior medical adviser with veterans affairs wrote, "i would drop almost everything we are now doing and prepare for i