Before those four tours in vietnam, before that remarkable tour in korea David Hackworth also served at the very tail end of world war ii. And the reason his career was able to span that distance, to span all those different conflicts over those decades is in part because he started really, really young. He used a fake i. D. To sign up in the first place when he was 15 years old. According to his New York Times obituary he, quote, paid a wineo to pose as his father to certify he was old enough to join the u. S. Army. He signed up at 15. In his career in the army David Hackworth was awarded ten silver stars and eight bronze stars and eight purple hearts. David hackworth was his name, one of the most decorated soldiers of his generation or of any generation. David hackworth was just 40 years old and a full bird colonel in 1971 when having just served those four hard tours in vietnam he decided back in the United States that he would go on tv as a serving u. S. Army colonel because he felt like he had something to say to the American Public about the vietnam war that this country was still in, that he had been fighting in for all those years. On june 27th, 1971, David Hackworth appeared on an abc news show called issues and answers. He called vietnam a bad war. He said the United States should get out. He basically made the case that it was unwinnable. It is a powerful thing in our country when a veteran, especially a decorated veteran like him decides to speak out about a war that america is currently engaged in. When David Hackworth went on tv in june 1971 and called vietnam a veteran at that point, i wasnt a veteran. He was still in the army. He was still serving as a very, very highly decorated u. S. Army colonel. So that decision from that position to make that dramatic pronouncement about war on the tv news, that was how the u. S. Army lost the best Battalion Commander i ever saw in the u. S. Army. After he made those public remarks criticizing the war David Hackworth got out of the army in 1971, he had to after criticizing the war as a serving officer in that way, at least he believed he had to. Gave up his medals in protest although they were eventually reinstated years later. David hackworth moved halfway around the world. He lived in australia and became a successful businessman there. Then he started writing books, acclaimed books about the u. S. Military and about our modern wars and ultimately he ended up coming back to the u. S. To become a military journalist. For a long time he served as defense editor at u. S. News magazine and he started to write a syndicated column for king features. In november 2004, a year and a half into the iraq war, David Hackworth in one of his syndicated columns, he broke the news that Donald Rumsfeld was using an auto pen, a machine or stamp to automatically sign more than 1,000 condolence letters that the Bush Administration had to send to families of soldiers who had been killed in iraq. They were machine signed, form letters. Pentagon initially denied it and then they repeatedly denied it, but David Hackworth turns out had him dead to right. He had great sources. He had interviews with a dozen family members who were next of kin to family members served in iraq. He found two pentagon concerns who were said to be indignant about rumsfelds decision even after they decided on anonymity. Once David Hackworth broke the story, other news organizations were able to follow his reporting, track down those letters. In fact, he was proven to be right. It was november 2004 when hackworth wrote that column. The following month, december 2004 it was leo shane writing stars and stripes, ivan med a medina, a new york resident, whose twin brother irving told stripes, quote, to me its an insult not only as someone who lost a loved one but also as someone who served in iraq. Illinois Betty Sullivan whose son was killed in 2003, she was incensed when she and her sons wife and her grandchildren all received the exact same condolence letter with the apparently stamped signature. Sullivan told stripes, quote, how many signatures does this amount to . For those of his wife and children and mother, no, no, no. So David Hackworth started off that reporting. The pentagon denied it, but hackworth was proven out and Donald Rumsfeld and the pentagon ultimately relented. December 16th Donald Rumsfeld put out a surreal statement which i should note never technically admitted it. I have directed that in the future i sign each letter. Okay. And the surrealness of that statement and the behavior of Donald Rumsfeld, it was a little snapshot of the george w. Bush administration on this issue. Beyond that personal strangeness from rumsfeld, this is not the issue on which you find a lot of dissent. You might find denial, but once it was known what they were doing, there really wasnt anybody in the country who didnt have the same feeling about what the Bush Administration had just bumbled into them there and what hackworth discovered they were doing. Who thought that was a good idea . You might have disbelieved it when you first heard the reporting. Once you found out it was true, callousness and impersonal treatment of soldiers killed in battle and their families back home. It is a hot third rail, not just in american politics but in american values, american ethics. The george w. Bush administration had also banned any public footage of soldiers remains being transferred home on flights from iraq and afghanistan at dover airbase. They said at the time it was somehow out of respect that they wouldnt allow anybody to see those dignified transfer ceremonies. There was a fierce fight about how that decision by the Bush Administration also shielded the public from the cost of the war by effectively hiding the loss of those service members. When barack obama was sworn in in 2009, he immediately lifted the blanket ban on that transfer. We are once again able to see ceremonies like this. He lifted that ban in 2009, february 2009 right after the inauguration. A couple years later in 2011 president obama changed the policy on the condolence letters further. They were sent to soldiers family members after a soldier dies in theater. President obama changed the rules around those in 2011 so in addition to writing those condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed in combat, president obama in 2011 also started sending the same kind of letter to families of soldiers who committed suicide in the war zone. Since, after all, those are war deaths, too. But this is just incredibly solemn, incredibly serious stuff for all the obvious reasons, right . Theres one thing a country should keep faith about. Its the thanks and respect to the families of the people who gave their lives for this country, right . If theres something that should be handled solemnly in this country. And, you know, if there ace anything that everybody can agree should be taken with solemnity and respect, it must be this. Today President Trump in the rose garden claimed offhandedly that president obama never called the families of Fallen Soldiers. When President Trump said that today nobody had actually asked him about president obama. Nobody had asked him about the policy and practice of calling families of Fallen Soldiers at all, but President Trump just threw it out there. Casually asserted that his predecessor never called the families of Fallen Soldiers whereas he, donald trump, he sometimes does. When President Trump was challenged on that plate tent falsehood by nbcs peter alexander, the president then immediately backtracked and said it was something he had been told, i was told that. He didnt know if president obama had called the families of Fallen Soldiers. He had heard he heard maybe he didnt. How could he know . Just something he had been told. Who knows if its true. Dont know. Whatever. So the president flippantly today throwing that out there and then half retracting it and not seeming to know or care about the truth even on that subject. That is that will go down in the annals of the Trump Administration, but in terms of the environment that were in right now in which this white house is operating right now, there also remains the original question that actually led to that falsehood and that fl flippancy. It has been two weeks since four american soldiers, four green berets, were killed in the west african country of niger. There are still things we dont know about that ambush. How dozens of isis fighters took them by surprise in an area of the country that was reportedly considered low risk. We dont know why it took an hour for a plane to come in. We dont know why one body wasnt recovered until 48 hours after the attack. We also do not know why President Trump has said exactly nothing about that ambush or about the deaths of these four american highly deck core raided, highly trained soldiers. America doesnt lose four green berets every day. This happened almost two weeks ago. The president has not even acknowledged that it happened. You know, to be fair, sometimes there is an important reason why Public Officials dont acknowledge combat deaths abroad or incidents in which american personnel are killed abroad. Sometimes there is something covert about the mission. Sometimes there is some other reason why a civilian official, even a military official cannot acknowledge that american deaths have happened in some country around the world. There are whether or not you think its reasonable, there are explanations for why sometimes those comments cannot be made. I mean, in this case that may yet be the reason why the president has said nothing, but weve had no explanation from the white house at all. I have to tell you, i was at a National Security forum this evening with the former defense secretary ash carter. I asked him if he knows of any operational reasons why the president couldnt acknowledge the deaths of these four green berets in niger. Secretary carter pointed me to the fact that the current secretary, james mattis, has acknowledged and tried to explain what happened with these green berets in niger and that means, de facto, theres no reason, no prohibition on u. S. Officials, civilian officials, not being allowed to talk about it. So the question remains, the question is sharpened, why the president has been pretending for two weeks now that this didnt happen. For the last two weeks he has not admitted this happened. He has said nothing about the loss of these four american soldiers. Today in the rose garden when he was asked he still had nothing to say about it. That was his chance, right . But what he came back with was this lie about barack obama never calling the families of Fallen Soldiers. There are hundreds of u. S. Special Operations Forces currently operating in niger. We have hundreds of troops operating in somalia. Somalia just suffered one of the worst recent attacks. The truck bombing in mogadishu, the death toll is over 300 people already. The size is 2 or 3 football fields reduced to rubble. In a civilian area. Nobody has claimed responsibility. Al shabaab said they would increase their attacks on civilians after the Trump Administration announced the stepping up of u. S. Military operations in that country. There is news that the u. S. Military will be running an evacuation drill for americans in south korea next week. This is a drill called courageous channel. You know, tensions are so high in the Korean Peninsula right now that they felt the need to issue what the New York Times called a rare news release stressing that the noncombat tanlt exercise is a routinely scheduled drill. Its scheduled from next monday through friday. Its aimed to train people to respond to a wide range of Crisis Management events such as noncombatant evacuation and natural or manmade disasters. What could that possible whether i be on the Korean Peninsula. That drill evacuation of american noncombatants will take place alongside military experts that will involve a u. S. Submarine and aircraft carrier. Nothing to worry about there. Nothing to see. New york times is also reporting today that north korea has become very, very good at offensive Cyber Operations now by which i dont mean good for north korea, but good. The north Korean Military a top tier cyber opportunity now. Now i have to cough for a second. Actually, i have to cough for more than a second. Allergies. Ill be right back. Whoa. This looks worse than i thought. Mike and jen doyle . Yeah. Time for medicare, huh. I have no idea how were going to get through this. Follow me. Choosing a plan can be supercomplicated. But it doesnt have to be. Unitedhealthcare can guide you through the confusion, with helpful people, tools and plans. Including the only plans with the aarp name. Well that wasnt so bad at all. Thats how we like it. Aarp medicare plans, from unitedhealthcare. Whstuff happens. Old shut down cold symptoms fast with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. Im very embarrassed to have had to have taken a coughing break. Now it looks like ive been crying for an hour and a half. You know what, i didnt have allergies until i was in my 40s. I got them in my 40s. I have no ability to cope with them whatsoever. Not that i envy people who have had allergies for their entire life. I feel like when you got them when you were 8 you figured out how to deal with them. Now every year whatever happens that brings on my allergies comes on in the fall. Its like im a goldfish swimming around the bowl seeing that castle for the first time. Oh, my god, castle. Shocks me every time. I have no ability to deal with it. So forgive me. I know i sounded terrible on the show on friday night. I realized i had to take a break for coughing, but keep hope alive. All right. As i was saying, New York Times had a remarkable report today on north korean National Security issues unrelated to their Nuclear Program and their threat on being able to rain artillery down on south korea. One of the things that north korea is very, very good at now is Cyber Operations. Weve known that north korea has maintained a hacking operation, a statesupported hacking operation for a long time now. Just ask sony pictures. But as a military operation north korea is now considered to be a top tier cyber operator. Quote, north koreas army of more than 600,000 hackers is undeniably persistent and improving. The North Koreans have also quietly developed a Cyber Program that is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars and is proving capable of unleashing global havoc. One former british chief says the take may bring the north as much as 1 billion a year, which is 1 3 of the value of the nations exports. So all the things that north koreas able to export to the world, theyre able to get a third of the value of that economic behavior. Hacking and information worker has always been an effective tool of actors that are weaker on other fronts. If north korea got good at it at the international level, the lack of transparency that we have, the opacity in terms of their goals as a country and their military operations makes the possibility that they have a very strong weapon in cyber a whole new level of threat from north korea that we sort of havent had our hands around yet and one for which theyve never paid any price thus far with everything theyve done up until now. So scary new reporting in terms of north koreas National Security capabilities. Were also simultaneously getting fwran granular detail to rebalance its relationship with the great powers in the world. Russias Cyber Operations, including the one last year against our elections. Yahoo is talking about a former member of the sbrer net research agency. Thats the st. Petersburg socalled troll factory. Theyre asked to troll. It was a key part against voters last year. Its part of where the Russian Election facebook ads came from. The trolls who worked at this russian spam factory were required to watch the tv show, house of cards. Also learned to undermine it, also learned never to sleep with your biographer. What we learned is interesting in terms of understanding how this all worked. Everybody who worked on the American Election at the st. Petersburg troll farm apparently had quotas for how many comments they needed to post on mainstream news stories. According to this guy who worked at the troll farm, they were told they were paid specifically to complain about Hillary Clinton in three ways. To complain about Hillary Clinton in terms of bill clintons scandal. To complain about Hillary Clinton being wealthy and to complain about her using a private emails. They were paid to complain about these things in the Comment Section of u. S. Newspapers. All of these things they were told to harp on, all of these comments that flooded news sites, social media, any time you had a political discussion, that online discussion was immediately flooded with the same antiHillary Clinton complaints. Even when they have no relation to what was being discussed. That constant online odd cacophony that so many of us have tlifd, we now know was that was a russian funded government effort to help him win from abroad. The Investigation Continues into whether that got any cooperation. Cnn reports on the folks who tried during the campaign to contact the russian hammers. That effort was let by a long time remember can. Those helpers have now reportedly been interviewed. One analyst recruited by peter smith told the committee that he believed peter smith was close to mike flynn. He told the Intelligence Committee that he, quote, believes peter sate may have been working, he was contacting government hackers trying to get more stolen stuff from Hillary Clinton so she could run into stuff. The Investigation Continues. It continues amid a National Security environment. Or to even bother to get the basics right. Im talking about the most serious solemn stuff that a government does is like notifying the families of the fallen. On the rush shah investigation we did just get some news, who is bearing the cost of this administration and the trurk administration . The dollars and cents costs. Thats very counter strategic for the president. That story is up next. When you think of saving money, what comes to mind . Your next getaway . Connecting with family and friends . A big night out . Or maybe your everyday shopping. Whatever it is, aarp member advantages can help save you time and money along the way. So when you get there, you can enjoy it all the more. For less. Surround yourself with savings at aarp advantages dot com. Dad molly, can you please take out the trash . sigh dad molly trash whoo mom hey, molly . Its time to go bell ringing class, lets turn to page 136, recessive traits skip generations. Who would like to read . molly i reprogrammed the robots to do the inspection. Its running much faster now. See . Its amazing, molly. Thank you. at Stanford Health care, we can now repair complex aortic aneurysms without invasive surgery. If we can do that, imagine what we can do for varicose veins. And if we can precisely treat eye cancer with minimal damage to the rest of the eye, imagine what we can do for glaucoma, even cataracts. If we can use dna to diagnose the rarest of diseases, imagine what we can do for the conditions that affect us all. Imagine what we can do for you. Weve been wondering if this is true for a while now. Today we got new reporting, new filings that show that, in fact, the Trump Reelection Campaign and the National Republican party are paying the legal fees on the russia investigation for the billionaire president. And also for the president s eldest son but theyre not apparently paying the legal fees for anybody else. In july we first learned that the Trump Campaign, not the trump family, the Trump Campaign, Campaign Donations sent be in by regular americans, thats when we first learned in june, that the Trump Campaign was paying for don jr. s russia legal fees. We learned they had repurposed Campaign Donations to pay for don jr. s lawyer. Then last month we learned the rnc was also chipping in to pay for the lawyers for donald trump jr. And also for his father, the president. Now today new filing from the campaign and, indeed, more money to pay the russiarelated legal fees for people named donald trump from the Trump Campaign coiffeurs to go along with the National RepublicanParty Headquarters as well. Maybe if you are writing checks to the Republican Party or buying red make America Great again hats from the Trump Campaign, you are happy to be footing those russia legal fees for the billionaire and his son. At least we can hope you are happy about that, because they are using your money for that. Its a remarkable thing. So far as we can tell, despite the large number of current and former Trump Officials who have had to hire expensive lawyers to help them in the russia investigation, everybody not named donald trump, jr. Or sr. , has to pay their legal fees themselves. The president and his son are using other peoples money to pay their lawyers. Everybody else, hey, if your kids got a college Fund Vice President mike pence is famously not wealthy. Jane mayers new profile says President Trump was reluctant to bring pence onto the ticket when he learned he had no money at all. He has a d. C. Lawyer and we asked him and his spokesperson how the Vice President is paying that lawyer, how hes paying his russia legal fees which are into the month, but we got no answer. On friday Reince Priebus stopped for an all day interview. He used to be the head of the National Republican committee. They have not answered for us whether party funds are helping him or anybody else who works on the campaign pay for their lawyers as well. Maybe he, too, is on his own. So far as we know, the Republican Party and the Trump Campaign paying for trump and trump jr. Thats it. The campaign and the rnc are paying for donald trump jr. And sr. So far as we know. So far as they will not tell us, but think about it for a second from the president s strategic perspective, right . Seems like an awful lot to ask people who surrounded you, people who worked for you, people who worked for you and fired, potentially asking them to bankrupt their own families in this investigation into the president and his campaign, an investigation which the president and his very wealthy family arent paying anything themselves while all the stock papers and Little People are told to suck it up. Its hard to justify the decision. Financially im sure it makes perfect sense to the president and she covers the issues. Ms. Scouton. Thank you for joining us. Pleasure to be here. Do we know if anybody else besides President Trump and his son are getting their legal fees paid for by anyone else . We have no evidence of that. The rncs next report comes out in a few days. Theyve previously acknowledged that the funds that they have paid in september were to help donald trump jr. Pleep for his testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee. We do know that some of the other people who got caught up in this, such as Michael Flynn, his family members have started a Legal Defense fund to on the rnc particularly, donald trump jr. Has no official role on the campaign and its hard to see if he was cut up incidentally, if he got swept up into this inquiry, the way that so many other staffers and supporters did, its hard to understand why the rnc would feel there was an in perfect rative to pay the legal fees for the president s son while not paying the legal fees for Reince Priebus, sean spicer or don mcgann who would seem to have more of a connection to the rnc. Try to think of their thinking here. Although donald trump jr. Did not have a Decision Making decision. The younger trump has said that he met with that russian lawyer because he thought that she had information that was useful about his president s rival. So he was i think that their thinking is he got caught up in this because he was part of the campaign whether he had an official title or not. He wouldnt have taken that meeting and wouldnt have testified before the Senate Judiciary committee had his father not been running for president. Do you know if the president s family has been involved at all in terms of the rnc going. If we know anything about the negotiations that led to this. There has been a lot of reporting back and forth about the internal conversations. I dont know to what extent the president and family reported the greenstick. Whoever the president is. When theres a republican in the white house, the republicans partying is there. The party has to act based on his wishes. Finance reporter for usa today. I appreciate your time. Its going to be proved to be a big dream. Thank you for helping us understand it. Youre welcome. Weve got much more ahead here tonight. The new yorkers jane mayor. I might be having another coughing fit. You at home in the break. Well be right back. Helen fand every year, we get a giwe split it equally. Except for one of us. I write them a poem instead. And one for each of you too. And one for each of you too. Helen cool. That actually yours. That one. Yeah. Regardless, were stuck with the bill. To many, words are the most valuable currency. Last i checked, stores dont take words. Man some do. Oh. alert beeps not everyone can be the poetic voice of a generation. I know, right . Such a burden. Pay back a friend day is october 17th. Get the bank of america mobile banking app today. By listening to an thiaudiobook on audible. Ame and this guy is just trying to get through the day. Keeping it together. Losing it. Upgrade your commute. Ride with audible. If you have moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis or crohns, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. 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Theres so many opinions out there, its hard to make sense of it all. Well, victor, do you have something for him . Check this out. Td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. That way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. Huh. Feel better . Much better. Yeah, me too. Wow, you really did a number on this thing. Sorry about that. Thats alright. I got a box of em. Thousands of opinions. One estimate. The earnings tool from td ameritrade. I tabut with my back paines, i couldnt sleep and get up in time. Then i found aleve pm. Aleve pm is the only one to combine a safe sleep aid plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. Im back. Aleve pm for a better am. Zwroo set to get a bhig boost from the president of the United States. Washington post writing that mike pence threw his weight behind ed gillespie by campaigning with him on saturday. The trouble though is that apparently mike pences weight may not register all that well in southwest virginia. Washington post describes that rally between pence and gillespie as only half filled. Organizers expected around 1200 people to show up but only about 600 people did. Trump administration right now is being sued over stopping obamacare subsidies. Theyre being sued over daca. Theyre facing International Pressure for disa vowing the nuclear deal. In addition to all of that, the Trump Campaign is under investigation from three congressional committees and the fbi special counsel for possible collusion. Thats an investigation that has expanded to include trump business dealers. Hes under investigation for obstruction of justice. Theres more to report every day on these investigations and the scandals that led to them, which churns up a lot of open speculation as to whether this president might for some reason or another get himself terped out of office before his term is up. The Vice President s legal jeopardy is discussed and real. He will help with the outside investigations between trump and russia. Were trying to filling it out. His involvement in the Trump Campaign, his role in response to the comey fire. So the Vice President has repeatedly made demonstrably wrong judgments. So the Vice President may be in trouble himself in these scandals and investigations. However long donald trump ends up serving as president , if you had to place a bet on it. The single most likely person to exceed him in office for any reason is still mike pens. That makes mine latest epic beast. She refeels that the Vice President s childhood nickname was bubbles. I never knew he was called bubbles. Jane mayers piece is called a deep did i have. None of that appears to have concerned the president who has had no qualms ormocing them out there for his social conservative views. Trump likes to let pens know whos boss. A staff member recalls him mocking mike penss relidge gi os city. When they met with him, hey, did you mike make you play . During a meeting with a legal collar trump belittled mike penss attempt to overturn row v. Weighed. Youve wasted all of this time and energy on it. When the conversation turns to gay rights, trump says dont ask that guy, he wants to hang them all. I should mention that the Vice President has responded somewhat to jay mayers response. Quote, the new yorker piece is unsubstantiated, unsourced claims that are untrue and offensive. Not asking for any specific corrections. No specific denial on the bubble thing. Joining us is jane mayer. Great to have you with us. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Let me give you a chance tonight first to respond to the statement from the Vice President s office. He said your piece is filled with unsubstantiated pieces. Is this something specific that they think is wrong . No, they are not. All i can say is we stand by our story. We feel very proud of the reporting. I have to say i feel one of the strengths to the story is how many people are on the record and how many of those people are republicans who have known pence for a long time including many from indiana. Anyway, you know, i think its just kind of a knee jerk thing they do. It seems to me that there are three sort of strands reporting here. Within the framework of if youre fantasizing about trump being terpted out of office. Its the general introductory framework but you describe us being very, very connect today the billionaire Koch Brothers and him being key to a lot that they want out of the strip administration. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. I was going to say, you also describe him and some quotes from his family that described him as not that bright or capable and ill let that go. The third point is that you describe his conservatism in a way that seems like its almost surprising to you. Everybody thinks of them as very conservative. Youre finding that his conservatism was more rad kalt and outside. Thats true. Everybody who knows anything about mike pens, he is the declined social arrogancism. I didnt realize until i went to indiana how far out of the mainstream his views are. Theres so many of his opponents are republicans in the state. The republican Business Community was absolutely up in arms. He took his position on abortion, it was so far out there. He supported having women have a feet tall barrier and also gave them an abortion if their fetus had physical anomalieanomalies. It was the far edge of things. Then on gay rights, really, this is where the Business Community became so upset. Businesses there have a hard time recruiting good staffers, good employees. They felt it was giving the whole state a black eye. Theres the religious freedom. Its giving businesses the right to say for religious reasons they could turn away guy customers. If there was such an outcry that the Indiana Business said we can never get anybody here, we cant get employees here. Pence has had to back away from it. You would think he would give it to you. Its been blind spotted by the whole thing. Thats another remarkable part of your reporting in terms of what dire straits he was in when President Trump picked him to be his running mate facing maybe a 5050 chance of being reelected in indiana. People having annual lated. It seems very incompetent as an indiana governor. A state that has economic trouble before and beyond the additional Economic Fund that that sort of was built in. He was incredibly impopular. It was a fluke. I had Newt Gingrich saying he thinks hes a shoe in to be the republican nominee whenever trump doesnt run. Next. And so its when the other things like that surprised you, the story how close it came and really in many ways wanted to. He kind of got pushed out of it. As someone said, led to pence. Surrounded by family and about. Can you sit and take a break and come back . Sure, sure. An epic profiler in the new yorker on mike pence and pence may have brought the russia investigation upon the Trump Administration with one specific bad decision. And thats next. Stay with us. Not just being in the military, but at home. She thinks shes the boss. She only had me by one grade. We bought our first home together in 2010. His family had used another insurance product but i was like well ive had usaa for a while, why dont we call and check the rates . It was an instant savings and i shouldve changed a long time ago. Theres no point in looking elsewhere really. Were the tenneys and were usaa members for life. Usaa. Get your insurance quote today. Whuuuuuat . Rtgage offer from the bank today. You never just get one offer. Go to lendingtree. Com and shop multiple loan offers for free free . Yeah. Could save thousands. You should probably buy me dinner. No. Go to lendingtree. Com for a new home loan or refinance. Receive up to five free offers and choose the loan thats right for you. Our average customer could lower their monthly bills by over three hundred dollars. Go to lendingtree. Com right now. Jane mayer has a gonzo new profile of mike pence in the new yorker which includes this remarkable reporting. Before pence took over the transition team, Chris Christie warned trump not to give a highlevel job to Michael Flynn whose financial ties to foreign interests triggered the russia investigation. When pence replaced christie, though, the door of the white house was open to flynn. Theres no indication that pence raised any objections about flynn to trump, even after congressman cummings from the Oversight Committee sent pence a letter warning about flynns failing to disclose in the campaign he did paid lobbying work for a foreign government. Trump not might not have been a subject of a sprawling investigation. Really. This is the danger of president pence. Jane mayer is the reporter in this piece. I have to ask you, if the mike pence mike flynn connection and the story about what evolved between them and the way that pences talked about flynn since the investigation has broken over whether that is well understood or whether theres more to learn there. I dont think it is well understood. I mean, i certainly didnt realize until i did this reporting that basically there was a red flag that was being thrown when around flynn by christie when he ran the transition and that when pence took over, what happened was actually it was ivanka trump turned to mike flynn in a meeting and christie was chairing it and didnt understand that flynn was even going to be there and suddenly ivanka trump turned to him walking into the room and said, general, what job would you like . And flynn just basically said, well, you know, id like to be secretary of defense or secretary of state but if i cant have that ill take National Security adviser which is, of course, what he got. So the all of the warning signs were ignored and ivanka trump, i think, was acting out of loyalty, loyalty because flynn had been loyal to her father and pence whose job it was to vet somebody of that that incredible importance to americas security, it was just a fundamental role of running the transition, is to make sure that these people are, you know, reliable, even. And not crooks. And people i talked to felt he failed that very basic job and that was kind of a beginning of some of this whole, you know, investigation. And the beginning of the even the obstruction investigation pursuant to the after the initial yeah. Because, right. Inquiry. One thing leads to the next and each time theres a key turning point, pence kind of goes out and misleads the public and its unclear really, was he doing it because hes a chump or as a kind of coverup but he keeps making misleading statements including after talking about why it was that comey was going to be fired. And hes right in the room planning to do it, pence is talking. I mean, trump is talking about why he wants to do it and then pence comes out and said trump did it because the Justice Department told him to. And so, there are people, people like larry tribe, the law professor, sort of suggesting this puts pence in legal jeopardy to sort of say he might be part of a coverup and obstruction of justice. Underappreciated truth about the Vice President. Absolutely. Jane mayer, staff writer for yt the new yorker, thank you for this and appreciate you being here. Great to be with you. Thanks. Well be right back. Patients that i see that complain about dry mouth they feel that they have to drink a lot of water medications seem to be the number one cause for dry mouth. I like to recommend biotene. It replenishes the moisture in your mouth. Biotene definitely works little bit of a heads up for tomorrow. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern tomorrow ari melber has a big get. He got a very hard to get, very provocatively interesting interview. Thats specifically relating to the russia investigation. Im a little jealous because i didnt get interview. Ari did. But im going im impressed. And im going to be joining ari, actually, on his show at 6 00 p. M. To talk with him about that big interview. You should check it out. If youre not usually watching at 6 00, you should watch tomorrow at 6 00 eastern. That does it for us tonight. Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. I would so love to make you jealous with a big get. Its so hard to do, though, because, of course no. You make me me vous all the time, big guy. Once a year. Once a year. I get somebody. Not true. Once a year maybe. If im lucky. You are very kind. Thank you, my friend. Cold there . Just a little cold im wearing