There is no National Security interest more vital to the United States of america than the ability to hold free and Fair Elections without foreign interference. Thats why Congress Must set partisanship aside, follow the facts, and work togher to devise comprehensive solutions to deter, defend against, and when necessary, respond to foreign cyber attacks. That was Senate Armed ServicesCommittee Chairman john mccain opening todays hearing where the nations top intelligence officials discussed russias interference in the elections. Back with me is my panel. Michael crowley, what i wanted to ask you before we went to break is whether general flynn is emerging as a real flashpoint for people concerned about Donald Trumps ongoing skepticism and, again, trash talking of the Intel Community . Are people drawing a link back to general flynn and what robert costa described as some personal animus against some of the actors . I think they are. You heard Michael Hayden say it in the interview, larger concerns whether hes the right man for the job. Hes got Tactical Experience in a more strategic job. But i think its a mistake to focus too much here on the mechanics of the Intel Community and what trump is saying about how the intelligence is presented and what flynns role is here. Zoom back and just ask why is this happening . Why is trump constantly going out of his way to apologize for vladamir putin . To bat down accusations of malfeasance against vladamir putin . Going back a long time, i mean, going back to if you recall when the passenger jet was shot down over ukraine and there was a wide consensus that russia was to blame, trump said thats not proven. The larger question is, why does trump not want to see whats the answer . What are some of the theorys . You asked hayden that question and he sort of didnt go there. There are theories swirling around, you know, that you would reject if you got them in a hollywood screenplay. You would walk out of the movie. In theories, you cant talk about on tv because theyre unfounded but people in washington all have some rumor that explains it. But look, the things we do know very briefly, go back and look. There is a pattern of donald trump doing business with very wealthy russians. I wrote a story about trump selling a mansion for 100 million to a Russian Oligarch in florida. Ese arpele w come to the u. S. And buy highend real estate. That could be part of it. Russian money, we know thats part of the picture in the trump business. The last word here is, thats the question here. Not what is trumps understanding of how the Intelligence Community works. What is his thing with vladamir putin . We just dont understand it or see why hes doing it. Jeremy bash, if anyone could get to the bottom of it, wouldnt it be the cia . Yeah, but theyre not going to look at that question. Why not . I think this is the point, which is, i think the flynn stuff is interesting, but i think fundamentally whats going on here, the president elect is sensitive. Hes really sensitive. He believes that people are trying to question the legitimacy of his election. Right. Thats not what the Intelligence Community is doing. I think someone needs to crack through to him and say mr. President , we get it that you want to explain the legitimacy of your election. You can do that. That is an entirely separate question. Its not a question Intelligence Officers are trying to answer. We should totally separate it from this question about whether russia tried to influence our election. Lets value the Intelligence Community as professionals who are going to help defend the country. Once he makes that mental break, a lot of these problems are going to go away. Right now, his own conflation is driving a lot of this. The president elect himself is making this mental equation that i think he just needs to stop doing. Robert costa, who is that person, who is the trump whisperer who can disaggregate these two things . Its going to have to be up to the president elect to see how he receives this intelligence. Trump has taken a starkly different world view when it comes to russia. He also does not have a traditional view of the Intelligence Community. To many in that community, thats an unsettling reality. But those close to trump say hes not likely to change his mindset, easter in russia or the Intelligence Community any time soon, and this expectation that he somehow will acknowledge that russia did have a role in hacking an election, he is, as others have said, very sensitive about, again, my sources say its unlikely. Wow. Setting up for a real collision course even within his own party. Thank you all so much. When we come back, a clinton insider weighs in on just how far this story has come. Oh, thats lovely. So graceful. The corkscrew spin, flawless. His signature move, the flying dutchman. Poetry in motion. And there it is, the baby bird. Breathtaking. A sumo wrestler figure skating . Surprising. Whats not surprising . How much money heather saved by switching to geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Yet up 90 fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. Lets do more. Add one a day mens complete with key nutrients we may need. Plus hearthealth support with b vitamins. One a day mens in gummies and tablets. Welcome back to the 11th ur. Here with me to discuss the politics of this fight over telligence, general palmeri and alex kunitz. Theyre both dear friends, im a fan of both of them. Im a fan of people on both sides of the aisle. I remember the speech that secretary clinton gave in june about Donald Trumps fundamental lack of fitness for the office of the presidency, and primarily the commander in chief parts of the job. If you listen to general hayden describe him as intimidating the u. S. Intelligence community in taking actions that would make the cia reluctant to put agents in harms way because the president might not trust the product, how do you feel about the decision that voters made . It is still surreal to i went back and read hillarys speech, and it was surreal in even preparing that speech, because when you look at the totality of that speech, you think can you really say this about your opponent . Can you really say in june he is unfit to be commander in chief . Where do you take your argument from there and will voters accept it . Because youre basically saying youre disqualifying him. Will i give you ptsd if i play a little bit of it . Lets take a watch. I have to say, i dont understand donalds bizarre fascination with dictators and strong men who have no love for america. He said if he were grading vladamir putin as a leader, he would give him an a. Now, i will leave it to the psychiatrists who explain his affection for tyrants. Affection for tyrants. It was a gutsy thing to say. Why didnt it work . I went back and looked at the coverage of the speech. The coverage is not what hillary said, but that hillary gave a speech where all hillary did was attacked trump and people didnt cover her actual words. Its a bold thing to call your opponent unfit and to do it that early. And we worked really hard on that speech. But as we looked at the individual parts, all of it is what we feared would happen, and she needed to speak that plainly. And we felt good at the end of it like this was the right thing to do, even though it was unprecedented. And you see but thats now how it was covered. So its all in the coverage . I think that the in watching the hearing on russia today, somewhat so frustrated me is to think from comey to the press, people didnt take i think people thought hillary was going to win, and they thought that the russia hack, the notion that russia was behind the leaks, it was just all too much to explain to the public, and they were more concerned about protecting their own reputations. And that and covering the emails instead of what instead of the fact that this was all done at the behest of russia. Should the president have sanctioned russia at the time and focused his attention on this at the time . I dont know how it is when youre inside there yes, you do. You know how that is. The director of National Intelligence and the secretary of Homeland Security put out a statement on october 7 that this was russia and they were directing the leaks. So im not sure how clearer they could have been. That was an unprecedented and bold statement and i think its not surprising to me to see the press come back to the white house and say why didnt you say anything . But what also happened on october 7 is the access hollywood tape. Well, there was that. Marco rubio, alex, was himself in a league of one who he warned republicans not to use the wikileaks material. He said this is stolen material. These are stolen goods, and well be next. How did he come to make that extraordinary public pronouncement . He was out of the republican primary but still running for a Competitive Senate seat. Thats right. Marco is on the Senate Foreign relations committee, on the intelligence committee. Hes also very clear eyed about russia and putin, and what their goals are in terms of destabilizing the west for their own advantages. And so youre right, we were in a very Competitive Senate race at the time. This was a big issue that was unfolding in the National Race that was overshadowing everything, especially in a state like florida, which was a battleground state. And marco made the bold declaration, halfway through october that he would not discuss the wikileaks. This came up because we had several senate debates. We anticipated he would be asked about the wikileaks, because it was all the media was talking about. And he said after the debate that he would not discuss the wikileaks because this time it affected the democrats, but in the future it might affect us. And we cannot set the precedent where this sort of leaked material is fair game for partisan hacks. Alex, where do you think our party or the party formally known as republicans should be when it comes to putins russia and their aggression on their neighbors and their rampant hacking, if you trust the information from all the different institutions they sought to hack . We should look to the example Ronald Reagan set how about the example president obama set with sanctions he just announced, were those a good idea . I think they were weak, they were late to the game. They come after eight years now of largely failed policies, visavie russia and putin. Russia is much stronger now or Eastern Europe is much weaker now compared to the russian aggression after eight years of obama. So look, the Republican Party needs to be united and stand strong how does the Republican Party unite when the republican president doesnt accept the assessment of the Intelligence Community and the republican leader of the Armed Services committee is leading the charge to get to the bottom of it . That is the key question of the moment. A lot of republicans i think are scratching their heads, because donald trump did not win this election because of putin. I listened to a lot of donald trump stuff speeches during the campaign and i dont remember him talking about putin and russia on the campaign trail. This is not what got him elected president. So why he spends most of his tweets have been about the u. S. Intelligence, criticizing the u. S. Intelligence agencies, praising vladamir putin, praising russia when he has the chance. I dont understand why hes focused on this, which is very divisive for our party and not the topic that got him elected president , instead of focusing on the things that can unite republicans, like repealing obamacare, overhauling the tax code and so on. These two are sticking with me. Still ahead, joe bidens message today for donald trump. T ridea. [dad] alright, buddy, dont forget anything [kid] i wont, dad. [captain rod] happy Tuesday Morning captain rod here. Its pretty hairy out on the interstate. Traffic is literally crawling, but there is some movement on the eastside overpass. Getting word of another collision. [burke] it happened. December 14th, 2015. And we covered it. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum the tweets, just today he called the Senate Minority leader, chuck schumer, the head clown. Last week, he said, doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory president o. Statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition. Not in all caps. Grow up, donald. Grow up. Time to be an adult. Youre president. Youve got to do something. Show us what you have. Youre going to propose legislation, were going get to debate it. Let them vote in congress. Lets see what happens. That was Vice President biden tonight on news hour with a warning for the president elect. Alex, how did your boss, who acts very much like a grownup, how did he lose to someone who basically insulted and tweeted his way to the presidency . Thats a good question that ive spent the better part of the last year thinking about that. Im sure jen can relate. Seriously, marco rubio was sort of the establishments last hope, the last one standing. Hodid he lose to donald trump . I think marco was selling hope and optimism in a year where voters were really angry and wanted to send a message to washington. That is fundamentally why our message was beat by Donald Trumps message. I will give credit to donald trump. He ran a very smart campaign. It was lean, quick, aggressive. And he used the new social media in a way none of the other campaigns had done before and he continues to do. You just played that clip of joe biden saying that trump needs to grow up and not tweet. He needs to keep tweeting. Thats how he won this office in the first place and how he connects to the american people. I think thats a great asset for him moving forward. We can argue could the tweets be better, better timed, the topics be more on message and more effective. But i think he needs to keep tweeting. I think twitter is part of how he beat my former boss marco rubio and won the nomination and the white house. Respond to alexs outrageous defense of the twitter in chief. Having been in the white house before and another reaction i had to watching clapper today is theres two things about the Intelligence Community donald trump is going to find out. One, there is no entity on the planet that can inflict more damage on the president of the United States than the United StatesIntelligence Community. Explain that. Well, we saw evidence of that on your show when nbc news reported that u. S. Intelligence officials said they had evidence of russian officials celebrating when donald trump won. That was a shot across the bow from the Intelligence Community telling donald trump were going hurt you if you continue to do this to us. There is two things. A, no one can inflict more damage througheaks or they can withhold information, they can set him up and if there is, god forbid, there is some bad incident, they will not, you know, they have the press telling the story. And then the second thing is there are no bigger egos in washington than in the Intelligence Community. No better press relationship. Their press relationships are very deep and savvy and they know how to do this. I hope that the battle we see between the Intel Community and the president elect is limited to, you know, lets just have a shot across the bow i have to ask you one more question. Hillary clintons decision to attend the inauguration. After the break. Well be right back. Ever try something so good, you get hungry just thinking about it . At red lers big festival of shrimp, get your perfect pair for just 15. 99. Choose 2 of 6 new and classic shrimp creations, like bold new firecracker red shrimp. Exploding with flavor . Yeah they are. 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We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum its about moving forward not back. Its looking up not down. Its feeling up thinking up living up. Its being in motion. In body in spirit in the now. Boost. Its not just nutrition. Its intelligent nutrition. With 26 vitamins and minerals and 10 grams of protein. All in 3 delicious flavors. Its choosing to go in one direction. Up. Boost. Be up for it. I had to cut off my friend, jen. But im not going to let you to leave before you talk me through how Hillary Clinton gets herself out of the woods to Donald Trumps inauguration. I did not think she needed to go. Did you add vise her not to . I told her i dont think she needed to. I dont think its a problem. Who do you think convinced her . President obama . She always thought that, you know, for the moment it was first presented to her, i think she always assumed im going to need to go to the inauguration. Not because she was a candidate but because shes a former first lady and former president s go, and her former boss is going. So she thought thats why she i have a lot of respect for that decision. Im sure it wont be particularly fun. How is the rawness of the defeat, how is the process for her and for you . She is probably the least surprised she lost. She always knew i would have said that about john mccain too, in 08. I can imagine that. She understood what she was up against and just how it is for her in campaigns. It is but she did think in the end she was going to win. So i dont think its hard for my life or her life and in many respects our lives are easier and more enjoyable to were able to enjoy it. But shes devastated that she didnt get it done for the country and thats a very hard thing. Were going leave it there. Thank you so much to jennifer and alex. That does it for this edition of the 11th hour. Brian will be back weve got two excellent experienced lifelong journalists here tonight as our guests which is really good because this is a night when there seems to be a lot of news breaking into the evening hours. At just about 7 00 eastern time tonight we got a surprise outoftheblue announcement that former cia director James Woolsey has abruptly quit the donald trump transition team. Mr. Woolsey had been on the trump transition, we had no advanced word that there was anything wrong in that relationship or he might be on his way out. He was on tv as recently as yesterday speaking for the incoming administration, defending them on various matters related to his area of expertise. But for whatever reason abruptly and with no notice tonightam