she's yamiche alcindor, this is overheard. she's yamiche alcindor, this is overheard. yamiche alcindor welcome, nice to see you. - thanks for having me here. - i'm trying to think about your new job in this way. is being a white house correspondent at the moment the best job ever or the worst job ever? - in my mind it's not the best job ever because i think that there's a lot of jobs in journalism that are amazing, but this is one of the best gigs in town for sure. in dc i think it's the best job, because you have a front row seat to a history making president. before donald trump was elected, i said if we get him, he'll be the first reality tv president. i think that that's completely still true. i think if you are covering donald trump and have not watched the apprentice and do not watch reality tv, then you are absolutely doing yourself a disservice and you need to start doing that, because he is part of the culture and was born out of this culture. - that's like on the required reading list of the class, right? but i'm thinking, you know, we all grow up, well those

yamiche alcindor, thank you. s >> woodrufcial counsel robert mueller's recent indictment of 13 russian individuals again confirms russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 u.s. election through the use of social media. but intelligence officials stress that russia's attempts did not end back then. toy, u.s. attorney general jeff sessions announced the creation of a cyber task force that will look into ways to fight this sort of activity by foreign governments and interests. to walk us through what we know about moscow's intere and cowhat we may expect in thng months, is nina jankowicz. she is a writer and analyst who focuses on rsian disinformation came igns. s recently a fellow at the woodrow wilson international cent for scholars. nina jankowicz, welcome to the program. i want the quickly read something from last weekend's indictment from the mueller team. it states that the defendants posing as u.nss. perand creating false u.s. personas operated social medes pagnd groups designed to attract u.s. audience and

yamiche alcindor, so much going on. >> thank you. >> woodruff: as yamiche said, the president's broad infrastructure blueprint relies on states and local governments to find much of the money that would be needed for a trillpln- dollar-plu. it also would depend on a major infusion of investment from the private sector. we get some retion to this now from the mayor of los angeles, eric garcetti. he's also the chair of a task force on the subjector the u.s. conference of mayors. yor garcetti, thank you very much for joining us. let me just start out by asking, what's your overall reaction? they are talking about leveraging federal dollars to state and local dollars and the rest of it, something like one to five. >> good evening, judy, an any day that washington is talking about infrastructure is music to my eurs, but, of rse, the devil will be in the details. but we've got a yawning $5.4 trillion gap, and we want to get home to r tam ls quicker, cut traffic, we don't want to be on unsafe bridges, and we need the geeks gen

. >> yamiche alcindor and phillip rucker, yamiche, what was it like there today? >> today, like at the white house, i think that president donald trump's response was something that was i think incredible for this administration in that he wouldn't go on camera. there was no briefing today. he called a lid. unlike president obama who was on cameras and was known as the comforter in chief, you have a president governing by twitter. so some people think that the president has spoken about this, he's offered his concondolences, says federal officials can offer the state support. but this idea that donald trump, who is outspoken on so many issues, has yet to be in front of a camera to speak about this. i should tell you, i covered newtown, connecticut, parents there, after the shooting, were advocates for gun control, a lot of them are still in court as of last year trying to sue the maker of ar-15s because they think the gun manufacturers need to feel the heat and understand that they need to do something in this fight. as a reporter, there was a groundswell where pe

. >> woodruff: our white house correspondent, yamiche alcindor has been tracking all of this. yamiche, we heard sarah sanders mention sanctions. she said the president has upheld what was there under the previous administration, but there were also sanctions that congress passed against russia last year.wh e do those stand? >> well, sarah sanders made the point that there is still a process ongoing, and this white house needs time to impose those sanctions, but when i asked white house officials about them, they they had already been compliant with the law and they're doing all they're supposed to do. that comes as a bipartisan frustration. chuck schumer and peter king, a republican and a democrat, have put together and said theya this president to impose these sanctions, and that comes, of urse, as sarah sanders is making the point that president trump always believed that russiaeddled in our election, and that's simply not true. eatedlysident has re questioned russia's role in the elections. >> woodruff: let's ask -- let me ask you about the school shooting. the white house i

. >> yang: lisa joins me now from the pitol, along with yamich alcindor athe white house. let me turn to lisa first. ssa, developments and eve moving very fast up there. the house is poised to pass its spending bill. what's the state of play in the senate? >> right. the house any minute could act. the senate a very differen track. what we expect is the house to nass spendingill. it will go over to the syndicate, and they will take out the legislative scsors and probably cut out most of that bill, replace it with their own wversion, whiche expect could be this two-year budget deal, perhaps erasing spending cuts for defense and non-defense. staff is in talks on that right now, john. what happens after that, theyha sendnew bill over to the house, and there's a question trk, john. it's not clear iat will get the votes in the housing. there are criticisms of this idea of this spending cap bill from both the right and the left in the house tonight. >> yang: you mentioned in your taped spot that the psident is now attaching immigration to this issue. how is that playi toirn shoe

to help explain this, newshour white house correspondent yamiche alcindor, and whipple, author of "the gatekeepers: how the white house chiefs of stafne every presidency." ome to both of you. and yamiche, i'm going to start with you. i have two main questions, bute the first is: why did chief of staff john kelly continue tod deob porter, even after those photos were made available? >> that is probably the most important question when looking at whether or not john kelly will keep the crdibility that he came into office with.to i spokope kicks hud. she's someone who is supposed to be romantically engaged with rob porter. to woodruff: the white house communications dir >> yes, and she's supposed to be rob porter's girlfriend. she told me she could not answer any questions about how that statement was crafted that initially had john kelly calling him man of iegrity, but the reporting i have been doing essentially shows that hopes his very much involved in crafting that statement and than they were deng someone because they thought he had a good reputation and that his girlfriend was helpi

for the pbs newshour, i'm yamiche alcindor. >> yang: stay with us.ing up on the newshour: the spike in crime that's being blamed on migrants coming to germany. and, a new book from one of the newshour's own. but first, a billionaire casino magnate from las vegas steps down from his company after multiple allegations of sexual wrongdoing. as william brangham reports, it's not just of one of the titans of las vegas, but also a key player in national republican polits. >> brangham: stephen wynn helped turn las vegas into the multibillion-dollar tourist mecca it is today. as c.e.o. of wynn resorts,bee built the llagio, the mirage, the wynn hotel, emblazoning hisa na image on them, and the city. wynn was also the financerm ch of the republican national committee, and a big g.o.p. don c. but all the crashing down when the "wall street journal"y published a stleging a years-long pattern of harassment and sexual coercion by wynn against his employees. 7 e "journal" reported that one of them was paid allion settlement. wynn has denied all the allegatis agains

white house correspondent yamiche alcindor begins our covege. >> reporter: president trump was supposedo be focused on tax cuts. instead he started his day by going after a leading critic on the russia investigation. his target: california democratg adam schiff, democrat on the house intelligence committee. in early morning tweets, the president said: "little adam schiff... is one of the biggest liars and leakers in washington."sc he also accuseff of illegally leaking confidential information. schiff fired back, saying: "instead of twting false smears, the american people would appreciate it if you turned off the tv and helped solve the funding crisis, protected dreamers or... really anything else." rtthe president made no fuher mention of schiff or the russia probe, during his visit la, r to blue ashohio. the day's dust-up followed friday's release of the nunes memo, written by republicans on the house intelligence committee. it alleges the f.b.i. and justice department "omitted" vital information to obtain a special surveillance warrant for then-trump campaign adviser carter page. tod

yamiche alcindor, karen tumulty, thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: arrenewed attention on theul cts of diesel emissions. and, jesymn ward discusses her book, "sing, uuried, sing," as rt of our new book club. democrats may be uni opposing president trump, but nist night, they could not around a single message to respond to his state of the weion address. there were no than five democratic responses. one of those speakers was bernie sanders, the independent senator from vermont and former democratic presidential candidate. senator sanders, welcome. senator sanders, welcome back to the newshour, thank you for being here. i was going to start with the state of the union but i do want to first binge up this story that we are paying attention to tonight, this dispute that has broken out into the open between the white house and the department of justice, the fbi over whether to release this .odidential classif memo what are your thoughts about the issues thathare raised byis, issues df df. let'sl, first of all, understand this co

"washington post" columnist, eugene robinson, amy walter, yamiche alcindor and hugh hewitt.u feel like you know more or less about the safety of robert mueller's job? >> i feel as confused as i think most americans do right now. i think it feels a little bit like, you know, when you're in the supermarket and there is music in the background, it's there, it's a constant noise but you can't quite make out the song exactly. i want to go back to something else and do a 30,000-foot view about where we are and how we got here. none of this what we're talking about right now would have been possible but for two things. one, the gradual disillusion of faith and trust in institutions that's been happening over the last 10, 15 years. some of it by their own behavior, whether it was the catholic church covering up sex abuse scandals, sports covering up doping, obviously 9/11 and the weapons of mass destruction. some of it is that people as part of the institutions, even politicians, things are rigged, things are corrupt, right? people start to believe that. and then so donald trump did

. >> woodruff: our yamiche alcindor joins me now for more. che, what the white house wanted to talk about today was the budget and something else and we'll get to that in manet, but this lingering story is hanging out there, reporters asking how did the president, how did the white house handle this and why is this still going on? >> this is supposed to be infrastructure week. this is the white house's second try ate infrastructek and each time it's been overshadowec by thindal. we're talking about it largely because trump tweeted about it over the weekend. he didn't name rob porter, the other aide who resigned because of domestic violencega alons, but said people's lives were being destroyed and they needed due process. because nobody knew who, what is hase white house, th been an issue the white house il continuing to ith. john kelly said as soon as he heard about the allegations, 40 minutes later rob porter was out of the job. sarah sanders said it was actually 24 hours later rob porter resigned or wasrm ated and even that detail is murky.

let's bring in the roundtable, ken vogue, yamiche alcindor for pbs and jason johnson.at order, tell us, will this news be new to people? will it impact their thinking about the whole russian role? >> i don't think it will right now because republicans have worked so hard to discredit the mueller investigation, discredit the fbi. polls show that's working. that republicans believe that this is some kind of bias witch hunt that the russians didn't do nothing. do they really believe that? >> i think historically, and as we move on, this is document. >> remember sergeant schultz, i don't know nothing. i don't know nothing. how long can the republicans say i don't know nothing about the russians involvement in our elections. >> i don't think they can anymore. they can no longer use the narrative that says russia, this whole thing is made up. we don't know what's going on. they have laid out in 37 pages exactly what went on. so they can no longer say they didn't know. we were just watching president trump say did you see any russians in west virginia? the fbi said here are a

de for the pbs newshour, i'm yamiche alcindor. >> yang: the attention on this nunes memo goes back twoks, even more. and therere questions about whether some of that attention, at least on social media, has been coming from real users, or edwhether it's being ginup artificially.ng william brangham has more. >> brangham: in the days leading up to the release of that controversial nunes memo, there was a hashtag on twitter called #release-the-memo that became hugely popular. it was used by conservatives and allies of the president who hoped the memo's release would undercut special counsel robertu mueller's investigation. but a series of recent reportspo indicate that some of those twitter accounts promoting release-the-memo were fake, and some of them were linked to russian interests. thomas rid is at johns hopkins chool for advanced international studies and he's been examining how twitter and otr online platforms can b used by these so-called fake "bots" to spread information online. i welcome back to the bewshour". >> hi. ngham: so as i was describing, the #on twitter called #release

our panel white house correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche alcindor along with shawna thomas. powerhouse gang on a powerhouse day. phil, i want to start with you. i want to start with where donald trump is on this. we know because he has said it publicly in a hot mike moment, he 100% wants to release this memo. how did he come about this decision? we were told by sources he hadn't even seen the thing yet. >> hallie, our reporting is this decision was preordained. trump first heard about this memo two weeks ago when a pair of house conservatives, including congressman mark meadows, a close ally of the president, brought it up, sort of put it in his ear. from that point forward the president paid really close attention to cable news reports. he was particularly intrigued by an interview that congressman trey gowdy had at another network last week and felt almost instantly that this memo, releasing it publicly would help him, would help vindicate his claim that the russia investigation is a witch hunt, would undermine the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. so no matter what

william brangha will take an in-depth look at the charges, but first white house correspondent yamiche alcindor backstory, beginning with the president's reaction. >> reporter: president trump did not speak publicly about the bombshell indictment, duayng his weeken from washington. his venting, insteh , came througme 20-odd tweets since saturday. more than half were related to the indictment, or the russia investigation in geral. in several tweets, including one today, mr. trump blamed former president obama for not doing enough about russia's meddling. mr. trump also claimed he "never said rsia did not meddle in the election." but last july, in an interview with reuters, mr. trump would not say if he believed russia actually meddled in the 2016 election. . trump said then that h raised the issue with putin twice, and that putin denied any meddling. mr. trump then told reuters, "so something happened, and we have to find out what it is." special counsel robert mueller's indictment, against ternet research agency, other russian asciates and companies, alleges that russian entities did havea stra

yamiche alcindor, eugene scott from the "washington post," and sam stein, politics editor for "the dailystart at this end. trump was pushing it the nra line today talking about emotional problems, that's the soft that doesn't deal with guns. also the idea to arm teachers. he says you should be packing to use the term. in other words, on you, the teacher when teaching arithmetic orifice sicks they have a gun on them. every student. imagine schools where that would be a fighting issue. every student as a tough kid feels challenged by a teacher. i know you're armed. i know you're a tough guy. imagine the conversations that get started in the school. >> that's the traditional republican way. that's the nra way that the nra bought. the nra bought politicians to say that. >> do we ever have teachers packing walking around the classroom with a gun? >> to be fair, there were parents in there that also spoke about the idea they would want their teachers to be armed. it's an idea an that is out there, but obviously, it would cause shoot-outs obviously. >> when is a teacher allowed to shoot? becaus

white house chief of staff, michael steele, former spokesman for house speaker john boehner and yamiche alcindorfirst to you, michael. the speaker of the house, who will be introducing the president, is under real pressure now. the democrats have no leverage, they are just complaining about devin nunes, who is still the house intelligence chair. but have you ever seen anything like this, where a committee that has always been bipartisan is completely ripped apart in the fight over this memo? >> no. this is an extraordinary moment. i think that it's notable that not just mr. nunes but the speaker, the armed services chairman, are calling for the release of this document. i don't understand why it's not possible to share it with the senate. i don't know if that jeopardizes senator burr's bipartisan investigation with senator warner. i can't explain that. at the same time, it's very clear at this point that it's a matter of when, not if this document becomes public. >> the president clearly has signaled, as has john kelly and now the vice president, that they all want it to be released. jim, you ha

weekly standard" editor at large, bill kristol, and pbs "newshour" white house correspondent, yamiche alcindor. bill, let me start with you. where it comes apart for me is when john kelly said he heard something in november that the security clearance was being held up, but he didn't get any detail on it. that is just not conceivable, not just of a marine general, who happens to be the white house chief of staff, but pretty much of any human at all, who says, hey, there's a problem with security clearance, it's being -- >> but ali -- >> -- for someone to say, hey, what's the nature of the problem? >> go through the timeline. "washington post" on thursday, kelly learned in 2017. raj shah on thursday, he became aware yesterday. kelly on friday, 40 minutes later he was gone. sanders on monday, within 24 hours of resignation, had been accepted. it's lie on top of lies and it's the lies the that are causing the problem. >> i partly disagree with you guys. you are too focused -- you keep saying it's an unforced error. why is he lying? well, people lie for a reason. why is john kelly lying? because j

joining me is nbc political contributor, yamiche alcindor, msnbc contributor charlie sikes, conservativeio host and chris whipple, author of "the gate keepers, how the white house chiefs of staff define every presidency" and susan page, washington bureau chief for "usa today" . well, yamiche, first, to your reporting on this possible showdown between chief of staff kelly and jared kushner, who wins, do they both win, do they finesse this? what do you think is going on behind the scenes? >> if it comes down between jared kushner and john kelly, the answer is simply jared kushner has the relationship with president trump. he's someone who the president really, really trusts. he's loyal to him. at the end of the day he will t going to be the person the president believes in and picks over his own chief of staff. but the sources i've been talking to tell me that the president and chief of staff john kelly want this issue to go away. john kelly does not want to be going back and worth with jared kushner and he wants him to have this clearance so he can be out of his hair. >> chris, you wrote

anyway, eugene robinson, thank you, yamiche alcindor and david jolly. >>> is there any surprise that donald trump decided not to release the devin nunes memo? for trump it never was about transparence it is. it's all about politics and protecting himself. >>> now we're learning the number three official in the justice department left over fear she might be asked to oversee the russia investigation. she is worried about how strange that's going to be. >>> plus, with the trump takeover of the republican party complete now, how long can republican moderates stay in hibernation? how long will the lion stay in win iter? is there any republicanroom for an anti-trump republican to run against him? and more importantly, there any appetite for mood rat republican? >>> and trump increasingly has a problem with women voters. his job approval rating among women is plummeting. and defending an aide accused of spousal abuse is probably not the best way to turn the numbers around. this is "hardball," where the action is. [burke] vengeful vermin. seen it. covered it. we know a thing or two because w

[applause] >> i met yamiche alcindor nine years ago when she came to the post as an intern. fresh out of that other school down the street, georgetown. i was thrilled going to for mentors pick she was fearless, feisty and dogged, traces that make her the amazing pushes to the ash also like to say she just took a new job with pbs. she gave up a job at the "new york times" to go -- i know. [laughing] and she's also contribute to msnbc. [applause] whether it is discussing tax reform providing about rob order, you all know rob order, that you did know him before a couple of days ago, did you? trump former staff secretary resigned this week. darlene superville is a rockstar at "the associated press," her home for the last three decades. i know, she's like, did you have to say that? actually three decades ounce better than 30 years. >> but neither one. [laughing] >> the nyu graduate has covered former first lady michelle obama and she's covered white has since 2009. [applause] >> whether it's confronting sarah huckabee standards over the presidents treason comments or lashing out

conference, "new york times" reporter jeremy peters and white house correspondent for pbs news hour yamiche alcindortius, i want to go to you for one second. you get back from a trip to the middle east. tell us your take aways. >> joe, i traveled last week for four days in syria with u.s. special operations forces, this is the third trip that i've made in the last two years, i feel lucky to be able to say this. and what i saw was in the eastern part of syria where the u.s. has been fighting isis our soft forces partnered with the syrian kurdish militia have absolutely devastated this adversary. i spent a day in raqqah to see the level of destruction there as the u.s. and its partners had to root out house by house street by street this determined adversary, it was something i'll never forget. i saw on the front lines of what remains against isis in eastern syria where baghdadi himself was supposed to be hiding out that this fight is continuing. what was worrying me is what a it too battle space this has become. and what bad faith the russians seem to be exercising as the dominant military force in t