Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live 20170220

They ran on january 20th which allege that they have emails and transcripts now of intercepted conversations and financial records that show that the trump people principally paul monfort myself and somebody named carter paige who in all honestly ive never had of had contact with russians. No one has ever seen these documents, these are what the russians call assessments. You have never been to russia . Ive never been to russia, no contact with the russian state or russian intelligence. I had no contacts with people who might have been a gobetween without my knowledge. So thats your denial on the record. Thats my denial. You have known president for a long time. Take a listen to john podesta talking about you. Diplomats said post election they were talking to the Trump Campaign roger stone in august, foreshadowed the fact they were hacked by emails and those would be forthcoming, carter paige one of trumps Foreign Policy advisors went to russia before the Republican Convention and met with the person in the russian hierarchy responsible for collecting intelligence. The view is you have some inkling . At the time podesta and his m m minions were savaging of being aware of the activities in that part of the world and podesta the russian mob and the Clinton Foundation which you can still see it stone cold truth. That may be true, but that does not mean that i knew in advance that Julian Assange was going to hack his email account. You just put your finger on it. Youre talking about whether theres a large of set of allegations, but on assanges part thats a question about what you knew how you knew it. Yes. With regard to the october surprise what would be your forecast given what Julian Assange has intimated hes going to do . Well, it could be any number of things. I have communicated with assange, i believe the next pertain to the Clinton Foundation, but theres no telling what the october surprise may be. Was that implying then that you knew what was coming . No, the Clinton Foundation one did not have to be a genius to know, i said i have a common friend with assange who communicated with me and communicated with me. What i knew was that he had devastating information on Hillary Clinton that he would begin disclosing in october. You had not seen the emails . I never had seen anything in advance though the clinton thing was kind of obvious. Your view is that people who should know better including the New York Times should against you and thats unfair . No, the new york is seating too much credibility to the 17 intelligence agencies who have lied about torture in iraq, lied about benghazi, lied about iran contralied about the vietnam war, theyre political appoints, and at this juncture are obama were not going to resolve it. Were not. But at the same time there are people detracting you, for example you have attacked john brennan without any evidence saying hes some sort of mole for the saudis. I strongly urge you to read my book, i think he gets virtually entire chapter which i make my case. What evidence do you have . Evidence including interviews with some of his subordinates, read the book. Im familiar with a lot of your work. Talking about arabic cultures, in 98 put him in the station chief in saudi arabia. He refused to be sworn on a bible for his swearing in. He is fluent in the language. There are many in the Intelligence Community i find credible who believe he was flipped while he was there. He insisted islamic Terrorism Fund fundamentalism do you know how crazy that sounds that we dont know why he was picked. Snoeps looked at these claims and found the claim is unsubstantiated from a Single Source who resign from the the fbi. If i cited why shouldnt he be afforded the same respect. If i cited breitbart you would challenge me, snoeps, give me a break. I want to read with your book, you say donald trump is more like nixon than reagan, speaks for the silent majority. Hes a populist with conservative instincts. I think thats right. What do you think given that analysis is most important in this first term if he needs to improve from what the first month looks like . I think he should obvious live go to his strengths. Hes a builder. Hes pledged to rebuild our infrastructure. This needs to be done obviously in a creative way perhaps through bonds or other instruments so you dont take on additional enormous debt. So work with congress on that . Sdwr he nee he needs to. C the Corporate Income tax, program for inversion, across the board tax cu cuts. Youre talking about jobs, does he talk about jobs enough . You can never talk enough about it. Immigration is obviously has to be at the top of the list because of the potential danger to the country. The other thing i want to ask you about is the First Amendment protects wide speech rights. You have the right to say whatever you want and be who you are, but you have said so many misogynist i can and vile things about people in public life. Do you regret and do you want to change any of that . I call them two martini tweets. None over us are perfect. Im sure there are things you have done in your life that you regret, so take your opinion on me on my sum total of my work. I leave it at that. So when you say you dont want to talk about women anymore that way first of all im going to reject the name calling because thats what happened when you cant refute it you say bigot, racist. I spoke of specific people. No one is calling you anything here, im asking you about names you used. Regarding specific gender doesnt mean youre speaking anietany ethnicity. People say when you use the b word and c word thats antiwoman. Are the people who say this are feminists. One has to be a little overthetop to get attention, otherwise, no one is watching. Roger stone, people have been watching you a long time. We wanted to give you a chance to share your views and rebut ole of that story. Thanks. Thank you very having me. A lot to pick over there. David, your thoughts on the russia piece . It is certainly true as we look over the facts that the allegations have not yet been released with supporting document aary inquiry. The fbi is not going to confirm or deny its working at roger stone, manafort, paige or anybody else. I want the audience to know that roger who you and i have covered a number of years now and have written books on this that lbj killed jfk. I know people out there believe that but starts on his nonreality world, when talking about brennan being a communist spy. During the campaign he did say he had back Channel Communications with wikileaks, its pretty clear wikileaks was working some way with russia so i hope the next time hes on the show we can really get him to detail what those back channel so sources are. Thats part of why i played the sound. He makings several good points. Thats become more important as there have been more negative signals that what went down. But what they call a nonanonymous libber tatarlibbe i think david makes a couple of key points. One is that roger stone is a clown. I think youre interview reveals him to be a clown who has zero credibility. Hes spent most of his time to convince people about a crack pot, his denial of this is completely i fe completely irrelevant to the case. An emerging members of the Trump Campaign had contact with russians or russian agents, Julian Assange and wikileaks is acting on behalf of them. Roger stone not knowing that is a foolish, his denial is ig northe ignorant. The u. S. Intelligence community. You note that roger stone put quotation marks around the Intelligence Community much like around the president of the United States. But various agencies run by patriots, nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the United States of america, so the kiechbd clown show of roger stone should not be allowed to distract us from what is a very, very serious set of allegations investigated by the whole range of u. S. Intelligence sources in a very serious way. The other piece of it is is that the other individuals named in that article are not speaking out in great length. Mr. Manafort issued a response of denial and left it at that. Where does this all end if this is a fbi criminal inquiry. The fact that theyre not speaking probably means they have good council advisors. I certainly didnt hope the president to be associated with somebody like that but manafort left the campaign, carter page left the campaign. We are not talking about another portion which is really relevant which is that these are not the only people that the cia and fbi are investigating. Theyre investigating other ties and as you know donald j. Trump junior has had deals, Jared Kushner has had deals there. During the campaign you were judicious, there was the socall socalled dossier you did not release at the time let me focus on a key point thats not gotten some attention but not enough with the Michael Flynn resignation. He got in trouble with having a conversation with a Russian Ambassador, seeming to talk about sanctions and punishment for the hacking and either lied or didnt lie about it to mike pence and we still dont know what went within with regard to him and donald trump with this. I give Washington Post credit for this that his conversations with the Russian Ambassador in washington began before the election. Yeah. This is critical. Before the election we knew and the Trump Campaign had been briefed that russia was trying to hack the democratic party, probably to help trump but knew russia was behind the hacking and release of emails through the wikileaks, so while thats going on Michael Flynn the Top National Security adviser for donald trump is talking with one of the guys representing the scheme, representing putin here in america. I want to know what those conversations were about. Donald trump, sean spicer, anybody, explain that. Because if flynn was giving the russians any sense that hey, youll get a better deal with trump as president than you will with hillary that means he was concluding with and giving them all the more reason to attack american democracy. Michael flynn lied to the Vice President of the United States. Why did he lie to the Vice President of the United States . If there was no fire where there was smoke with Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn would still be National Security adviser, roger stone wouldnt be skirming around opposite you like he was a few minutes ago. Theres something serious going on. A lot of evidence about close ties and the only consistent element of Donald Trumps Foreign Policy has been a complete reversal of 75 years of u. S. Policy towards russia. Right. So you have to say why is this man in a place in Foreign Policy that no american Foreign Policy leader of the past 75 years has ever been . These are important weighty questions. You guys put them well. We wanted to give mr. Stone a chance to tell his side of the story. We appreciate your reporting. Thank you. First the Bowling Green massacre, then yesterday, the president now himself trying to explain himself today. We have a Political Panel to weigh in. I cant mention enough its not all russia today. Russell wilson will be in the building explaining why im a muslim too. Stay with us. Ways wins. Especially in my business. With slow internet from the phone company, you cant keep up. Youre stuck, watching spinning wheels and progress bars until someone else scoops your story. Switch to comcast business. With highspeed internet up to 10 gigabits per second. You wouldnt pick a slow race car. Then why settle for slow internet . Comcast business. Built for speed. Built for business. Donald Trumps Campaign style speech yesterday had sweedish officials puzzled what he meant by this. You look at whats happening in germany. You look at whats happening last night in sweden. Sweden. Who would believe this . Sweden. They took in large numbers and theyre having problems like they never thought possible. The evidence doesnt show much happened. But donald trump was suggesting it was linked to one german like experience. Trump on twitter saying this was all about a report he saw on fox, so hey, if he saw it in general, referring to crime rate rise in general. It is of course not the fist time he was asked to clarify exaggerated examples. Trump claims he wasnt reporting on terrorist attacks and continued to maintain that voter fraud and missing 3 million votes and promised an investigative order, and has not done that. Lets get to our panel. Fire away. This man is exhausting. I think what we really have to do as we said in the last segment is make sure we stay on the policy and not the man. He is a wrecking ball. Hes chaotic, behaves like a child and is a distraction and the more we follow him and his 4 00 a. M. Tweets the less were focussing on all the major issues. He has half of Goldman Sachs in his or bit. He says hes going to bring back coal miraculously after 50 years right. The most amazing thing on the policy side with mr. Stone, i kind of forgot oh yeah they ran the campaign, the jobs, you dont see much about jobs. We have now financed three weekend trips to florida in a row, right . This is a man who did nothing but tweet about obama and going golfing. This is someone who clearly doesnt want the job. Hes in over his head. The entire administration is in over its head and we have to keep pressure on the republicans to stand up to him and come up with something aside from these egregious orders that strike chaos. I was on the White House Press whatever distribution, list, they just transferred as far as i can tell they just transferred it to trump. Yeah, i get them too. You get them too. This is part of our new series, emails we get. Its not as boring as you think. Wait till you hear about my amazon prime emails. Im not going to go there. But they were all about potus going to golf course. We havent seen him. The pence ones were meetings with foreign leaders and if you didnt think you would think the golfer with us the Vice President and the guy talking to our allies was our president. It was like Crystal Clear for four hours. I want to report on the reporting terror, because it is a link to policy, yes, we have to keep the eye on the ball, always the case, but the misinformation combined if people think terrorist attacks happened when they didnt, thats going to affect how people perceive it. Radical islamic terrorists are determined to strike our homeland as they did on 9 11 as they did from boston to orlando to San Bernardino and all across europe you have seen what happened in paris and nice, all over europe its happening. Its gotten to a point where its not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very Dishonest Press doesnt want to report it. Why would the press not want to report it . These are the things for Trump Supporters they need to ask themselves a second set of questions not just why theyre supporting this man who is inflammatory and highly unqualified but why would the press not want to report a terrorist attack . These are sort of basic questions where i do see its not just about donald trump, i dont think hes intelligent but i do think the people around him and we have to blame this entire administration, the entire party why do they allow him to pla blatantly lie. Every time he says something we have to say mr. President , you have lied again, this is what you would tell a threeyearold or a 13yearold. Do you think thats more effective than giggling during a press conference . I think were in a moment where everyone has to be on guard and stand up and do their jobs. I have a job as a professional, you have a job as being a reporter. I realize the office of the presidency is very they get nervous, people change their attitude but this is also your job. You cannot get distracted by someone telling the equivalent of a high school joke and everyone is giggling just to get along, this is how we end up with a welcome of free press. Thank you much. Russell simmons in the studio, a special panel on the war with the press. Stay tuned. Trump administration continuing its weekend war against the media, saying they are the enemy. But could this be a distraction from larger issues within the administration . We are about the break it down, so stay tuned. Trump administration is attacking the press calling them quote the enemy calling for the doj the investigate the press. Sparking over who calls the shots. Some of these things were covered but about 10 coverage with bb netanyahu. We covered all of those live, everybody did. As soon as it was over the next 20 hours is all about russian spies. But you dont get to tell us what to do anymore than barack b obama did. He never said he were the enemy of the people. This white house picks so many fights with the press, it was one week ago Steven Miller called voter fraud and pressed for evidence an said it wasnt the time but said he would come back with more evidence. Im prepared to go on any show any time and say the president is correct 100 . We invited miller on today citing his pledge to go on any show, any wwhere, any time. Thats my letter to him, any time. He declined saying hes not available for interview. This is the strategy, talk tough, reprieve and change the subject. Trump specifically praised miller for the interviews even though he offered voter fraud, the courts having no legitimate travel ban, not true, but the challenge is the press has to fact check what becomes a layered cake of misdirection. We know he was wrong on two levels first the claims about to the voter fraud in New Hampshire and also about the claim to provide evidence. We would ask him about that today but hes not here. Washington post and margaret, your thoughts on what i just laid out . Its great to be here. I dont think we should be terribly surprised that Steven Miller didnt live up to his pledge to come on any show at any time. Because he wasnt particularly true in any way when he was spoking before, so holding him to his words seems like a pretty shaky proposition. Its disappointing that he didnt come on to defend what he said in the past but im not shocked either. Its not vegas, what you write in your article is that this is more than the type of exaggeration we sometimes see. You argue theres a fundamental question about how to deal with the public when theres rampant falsehoods. Right. I think the sunday shows should think twice before having liars come on time after time and this about the voter fraud which is absolutely no reason to think thats the case shouldnt be allowed to be continually repeated over and over. Eric do you agree . I do agree. One thing i would like to see at the very least certain people who have proven to be unreliable are not interviewed live for some of these shows. Take the time to fact check the claims made by the guests so they can present real time if he said something new untrue, they would have a graphic underneath pointing out he was saying something that wasnt the truth. If you have Steven Miller or kellyanne conway, you fact check and when you play the interview youre able to insert the Fact Checking at the moment so viewers know the various things they have said are not true and at some point i do think we have a reach a point where we question the value of having some people on who have repeatedly and consistently said things that arent true. If that was so easy, why isnt it happening everywhere . I think eric has a very good idea. But if people knew they wouldnt be live, they wouldnt go on the show. So youre talking about an access problem . Yeah, you have to put someone on on the sunday shows and everyone from the president down have shown to dispensing falsehoods. Occasionally we call them lies when we actually knew they were dispensing falsehoods. We cant just have panels on sunday shows. You have been reporting i mentioned you were in touch with steve bannon. We showed Reince Priebus complaining after Foreign Policy event theres all this coverage of the chaos, thats true up to a point and all of us have been known to cover certain things disproportionally, do you remember the plane . We covered the missing plane a lot. Some covered more. Thank you. Thank you. We all take our lumps but it is really rich for mr. Priebus to make the point, but when others are talking about the palace intrigue and here is bannon, on saturday night live, telling you the story is absurd saying he went ballistic, the story prompted immediate speculation with bannon or his minions in the white house, that doesnt exist without people in the white house talking to you . Correct. And the people who wrote the initial story who caused all the trouble had been hired by bannon at breitbart and has a personal relationship with bannon, which started all this speculation which was why would breitbart do a story like this that would cause trouble between bannon and priebus. Trying to explain what he means with energy and reporters. I think you should take it seriously and i think the media needs to not in every case, john, but the enemy needs to get its act together. The enemy . If the free press is to be able to speak to the american people, i think it ought to be accurate. Eric . Of course journalists are concerned about being the enemy of the people when a great many of us see our role as being the voice of the people. Were supposed to hold major institutions in check. Were supposed to be the voice of the little guy and go to the president , go to big corporations, go to big institutions and government and public life and say, you know, youre not being consistent. Or weve uncovered facts that reveal some troubling allegations. And of course theres concern that the public may be convinced not to believe journalists in their pursuit of these truths but i would also say it strikes me that donald trump has often done with the press. Sure. He uses both carrot and stick. He chums up to certain reporters, gives them access, he lets them know when they do reporting that he agrees with or finds favorable or enjoys and also criticizes them an tries to punish them when he finds stories unfavorable. Margaret, the final thought, this changing the idea of how to cover this president or steady kboe goes . I think we have to not be distracted and sometimes hear what the words are, it has echos of authoritarian language and something to be taken seriously. At the same time we are not the enemy and represent the american public. Thats the important thing to keep in mind. Not only are you doing your jo job, but also thanks all. Hiphop mogul russell simmons, the man behind the multiethic rally regarding the travel ban is here to explain his message next. Today protesters gathered in new york with a new message, i am a muslim too. Russell simmons has led this to combat what he sees is islamphobia. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I dont cla im of faith, most o new york really where we have a lot of tolerance and appreciation of each other, we can come together and were able to come together with buddhist leaders and other leaders to claim the sameness as religions but also as humans, it was a march, love fest, very beautiful march and we made a statement, i hope that the rest of america will see, that we want to protect our brothers and sisters, sometimes i think the media is doing the best they can, but we talk about the travel ban and know none of these people have killed anyone since 1975 and you can make many other claims the children, the toddlers who dont have locks on their guns have killed god knows how many people since 1975 and havent addressed that, so its seems to me we are playing on fear and i think thats how he got elected and adding to a very hostile relationship with some of the american muslim community. You are someone who has cultural power, economic power, media power, people want to talk to you on tv whenever you want to do it, but youre doing something in the streets which is important, why . I like to see the people come together. When you look at the crowd we brought out today let me sound like donald trump today. There were thousands of people. They came out and showed a comp group, and them seeing each other together means a lot, and us seeing them together means a lot for us. Its inspiring. I think this that is what we did. Im proud of the way it turned out, the mayor came and other people of note came, but everyone was of note, but parttime who people recognize, and, certainly, instagram, hundreds of millions of impressions from stars and people who have big media follow g ings, so that was helpful, last time we are a rally, it was helpful and shut down congressional hearings bf. After congressman king felt what was islamaphobia. They were not american or legal. Shoucht have been legal, and they shut down when Kim Kardashian tweeted that she was muslim for a day, and then that tweet traveled, and out to the cnn, everybody picked it up and it made people look at themselves and change what nay were doing. We hope this rally is the beginning of us working together. I will say something, donald trump did something good for us because americans, in this kind of instance, stand together. They are more unified today than they were as long as i can remember. They are today very unified in this giving others what we want for ourselves. That basic principle is now become a theme, and you see it in the womens march. You saw every kind of american, every religion. Every race. Every gender together. That is an inspiring rally, right . All they are there so many not women, all right, giving it to women, and they also felt this that they were all under attack, and, of course, in in instance, everyone is under attack. What youre getting at seems to be a difference in activism or advocate saying, ill hep someone else, oh, im helping you, you need help, but youre talking collectivism, were all muslim. The king of denmark did world war ii, he wrote when you look at the Inhumane Treatment of jews, you start worrying that such a demand might be put on us. We must clearly refuse such a demand to the constitution, and with regard to the jews forced to wear the star of david. If that is made, we would best meet it bull awearing the star of david. When one group is persecuted, its not to protect them, but to be a collective. Thats correct. That was the idea we wanted to put forth. We have to register, then well all register. It is really a very bad time, and we can talk in a religious group when our First Amendment group says we shouldnt be able to. Thats in the context of john mccain today saying, well, dictators shut down the free press. Im not yet saying donald trump is a dictator, but thats a strong statement from a republican senator. I wanted to read from something you wrote from november 11th, an entire generation of young people fear this country has just elected its first dictator. I cannot blame them for thinking that, however, i know you, and i have to believe you want do listen to outside people. You addressing someone you called, said an old friend, you have a history. What do you want him to hear today . Id like for him to know on many issues, theres other sides. Hes a good listener, probably not a great a reader. He listens. He took a meeting with al gore and Leonardo Dicaprio on the issue of global warming. He has to hear this as a president , the last president who could have saved the planet. Right . Global warming. Thats insane, right, listened, dont evolve on it. Crack down on factory farming and carbon now. You can if you want to be an independent president and be loved, tax beef. Tax beef and carbon. Do you recognize him based on the man you knew . We didnt talk politics. But you talked. Quite a bit about many subjects, but politics was not one of them. I never agreed with the politics i knew from him when we talked, so we shut it down. Thats okay. Friendships are, you know, i like everybody. I get along with pretty much everybody. Whoever, anybody. Fine. They have different opinions than me. Thats okay. I sometimes their opinions are valid and useful. Doesnt mean mine is not right all the time, but as president , you know, i instantly, you know, my alum went off and made a statement the day and he announced he ran for president , and id rather Kim Kardashian be president. Kims a theme today. Shes more a compassionate celebrity, reality star, and he was less compassionate and less likely to right. I have to ask this talking culture. Look at the grammys. Yeah. Was beyonce robbed . You know, i would say that she my favorite, for sure, you know, but, again, thats my opinion. I couldnt take a poll, but, certainly, shes pretty popular, and that album is very, very popular, and i liked it. To me, i would have chosen her. Why do the grammys misfire . Well, you know, i dont i think that we do have gate keepers in our entertainment business. Less in music than hollywood, for instance, who dont are not sensitive to the culture in the way the mainstream is. In other words, i think about the comedians in l. A. They play chocolate sunday, wild wednesday, terrible twos, more better mondays, no black agents existed anywhere ever. They cant discover them. You have these guys playing segregated rooms like the old days. Right now. Right. And funny ones, they are special, they dont get in the mainstream, and the mainstream gate keepers reach around them and pick the accessible comedians, and they are not so edgy and not culturely special. What do people in white suburban, cleveland suburbs, what do they want . Right. They are cooler than the hollywood gate coopers, so were leaving out a slice of culture, and finds music no matter what. Cant find movie stars, and gate keepers cant i have to shake your hand because were out of time. Thank you very much for being here. That was so short. Was it . I enjoyed talking. Okay, thank you. Well be right back. And safe driver, that help them save on their car insurance. Any questions . Yeah. How do you go to the bathroom . Great. Any insurancerelated questions . Mmhmm. Do you have a girlfriend . Uh, im actually focusing on my career right now, saving people nearly 600 when they switch, so. Wheres your belly button . [ sighs ] ive got to start booking better gigs. On mattress firmness . Fortunately theres a bed where you both get what you want every night. Enter sleep number and the ultimate sleep number event, going on now. Sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. She likes the bed soft. Hes more hardcore. So your sleep goes from good to great to wow only at a sleep number store. For 5 days only, save 50 on the ultimate limited edition bed, plus 24month financing. Go to sleepnumber. Com for a store near you. [and her new business i do, to jeanetgo. Jeanette was excellent at marrying people. But had trouble getting paid. Not a good time, jeanette. Even worse. Now im uncomfortable. But heres the good news, jeanette got quickbooks. Send that invoice, jeanette. Looks like they viewed it. And, tada paid twice as fast. Oh, shes an efficient officiant. Way to grow, jeanette. New. Get paid twice as fast for free. Visit quickbooksdotcom. Youve been watching special sunday night prime time coverage, email me if you want to see something next week. Well give it a look. Thank you and have a pleasant sunday evening. This sunday, the turmoil presidency. President trump back on the campaign trail thrilling supporters. People want to take back control of their countries, and they want to take back control of their lives. While at town halls, his critics worry. Ive felt like a passenger in a car driven by a drunk driver. This, after a week in which the president went off the Intelligence Community for leaking. The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake. Firing his National Security adviser. Because of what he said to mike pence. Very simple. Lost