doing was essentially saying, hold on. don't retaliate. we'll take care of this once we come into office. now, the question is, why would he lie about this? and why would you actually make promises to a foreign government before you are in office? the right answer would have been, we hear your concerns, mr. ambassador, and we're happy to take it up with you at 12:30 p.m. on january 20th, but we can't until that time. and so now the question is, who else knows, and as we reported in the "times" today, my colleagues reported that, in fact, there were many others who were consulted about these interactions with ambassador kislyak. >> and as you said, you know, why does everybody keep lying about this if it's all very harmless. julia, again, big picture. remind us, why is it that the trump administration seems to have been trying to be nice to the russians? isn't that sort of -- the question is, all these moves