Look at this headline at the Washington Post tonight. Bomb cyclone to blast east coast before polar vortex uncorks cold late this week. Happy new year. Happy bomb cyclone. I mean bomb and cyclone both sound bad. Not only did i not know that was a thing you have to worry about, who knew thats a thing you have to worry about in the weather . Bomb cyclone. Happy new year. Wow. And, in the wake of the east coast storm that were getting, theyre saying the cold in the wake of the storm will be 20 to 40 degrees below normal for friday and saturday. So, like i said, long underwear. You and me both. Im not ashamed. This new year is starting with literal bluster in the form of this extreme weather but bluster also characterizes the new year of news so far. Kim jopg unand north korea is ringing in 2018 by simultaneously offering talks with south korea about his country hopefully being allowed into the olympics next month. And hes announced, quote, the entire u. S. Territories are within our firing range and the Nuclear Missile button is right there on my desk. This is not a threat, but reality. President trump responded to that tonight by saying, quote, north Korean Leader kim jongun just stated that the Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times. Will someone please inform him that i, too, have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and powerful one than his and my button works. The president essentially daring the leader of nucleararmed north korea to prove that his button works. This is our world now. Meanwhile, protesters in iran continue to defy live ammunition and arrests and now threats of execution by their government as they take to the streets to protest. The immediate catalyst for these iranian protests appears to be an economic cause rather than any one Political Action by the iran yan government, but the response of the government to the protesters may well become its own catalyst for further and more widespread protests in the streets of tehran and around that country. If that government continues to react with disproportionate force and panic that they have shown thus far, they will likely spar even more protests that have even started. Thats at least how these things tend to go in the world these days. That said, iran often finds a way to write its own very specifically iranian history. So, im not sure anybody knows for sure how things will end up with these big street protests. The Trump Administration taunting the iranian government over the protests now and taking the protesters side. Thats one of the wild cards for that scenario. The fact that the iran statements from the president today came alongside an apparently out of the blue insult from our president to pakistan, i mean, that i mean, that just makes everything all the much all that much harder to read. Nobody knows where the president was going with his antipakistan out of the blue outburst today. But it did result in pakistan summoning our ambassador, resulted in street protests in pakistan and pakistan protesters burning the u. S. Flag. Presumably that is what they wanted, for some reason. Hard to say. There is a lot to get to tonight. A lot of stuff that your own government did over the holiday break that they didnt put out any announcements about. Well report some of that. Including talking with someone who the president just fired without warning, without any notice at all. But we have to start tonight with a little breaking news, it is not often that news breaks on the opinion pages of a major newspaper, but that is what has just happened tonight in the New York Times. Within the past hour, the New York Times has posted this from Glenn Simpson and peter fritch. The two reporters that founded a washington d. C. Based Research Firm called fusion gps. Now, fusion was a lowprofile Research Firm until a year ago. A year ago this month. When buzzfeed published a dossier of alleged russian dirt on donald trump and his campaign. Detailedal gagtss about the russian government intervening in the election to help trump win. That dossier was compiled by a respected former mi6 british spy, Christopher Steele. But the firm that paid him to do it was fusion gps. Now, the Trump White House and trump supporting republicans in congress have since tried to make that dossier itself a scandal. Theyve tried to make fusion itself a scandal. They tried to discredit the whole special counsel robert muellerled investigation into the trump potential collusion with russia, they tried to turn that into something that is discredited by its association with the dossier. But two things have now just happened. They are putting a real wrench in those works in terms of how the republicans are trying to fend off the russia investigation and the Mueller Probe in particular. Now, one of them is this new oped which has just dropped at the New York Times website in the past hour. Like i say, its weird for news to break on the opinion pages of a newspaper, but there are a few bombshells here. First of all, fusions founders are calling for the release of the transcripts of their 21 hours of testimony before three different congressional committees. Now, if you have been watching the show for awhile, youll remember that this is an issue that weve been following for awhile. We first started talking about the transcripts after glen simpson gave ten hours of testimony to the Senate Judiciary committee. Now, senator Chuck Grassley is the head of that committee, and he said publicly at the time that, yeah, the transcript of that testimony would be released to the public. He was asked about it at a town hall at home in iowa and said the transcript would be need to be cleared through fusion, cleared through their lawyers to make sure there wasnt anything in there that needed to be redacted, but once that process was done, he didnt see any reason why that transcript could not be released to the American People. Now we reported several weeks ago that that process was complete, that that review to see if anything needed to be redacted from the transcript, that was done. So, we reported several weeks ago that senator grassley was free to release that transcript like he said he would. He has not released the transcript. Now, the whole reason we made an issue of it, the whole reason that ive been talking about it on the air, the whole reason ive been interested to see it and i think you would be, too, is because this was ten hours of sworn testimony behind closed doors, so, we didnt get to see it when it happened, but it was ten hours of sworn testimony about that trump russia dossier by the firm that commissioned it. And the firm at the time said that they stood by the dossier, they stood by it verse rasty. The republicans said its dodgy and trash and anything associated discredits the fbi, if they use the dossier at all to start the investigation, heres the guys that paid for the work that led to the bodossr saying, actually, we know better than anybody whats in there and we stand by it and giving ten hours of sworn testimony to back it up. Wouldnt you want to see what they had to say to back it up . When we first found out there was a transcript and fusion would be okay with it being released, obviously, we wanted to see it. We wanted to see what testimony these guys were able to give to support these claims. Well, we still havent seen those ten hours of transcripts, nor have we seen transcripts from the other two republicanled committees where fusion has been called in to testify. But again, tonight, in the New York Times, fusion is calling for those to be released and they are putting some icing on that cake. Quote, we walked investigators in these congressional hearings, we walked investigators through our yearlong effort to decipher mr. Trumps complex business past in which the steele dossier is but one chapter. Republicans are refused to release full transcripts as they selectively leak details to Media Outlets on the far right. Its time to share what the company told investigators. And then in this oped just released tonight at the New York Times, they do that, at least, they share some of what their company has told investigators, and this is all stuff we have not heard before. This is all new. Quote, we suggested investigators look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding mr. Trumps businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip. Reportedly, our bank records, meaning fusions bank records, are the only bank records the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed. Also, quote, we told congress that from manhattan to florida and from toronto to panama, we found widespread evidence that trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious russians in arrangements that often raised questions about Money Laundering. Likewide, those deals continue seem to interest congress. Also, quote, we explained how from our past journalistic work in europe we were deeply familiar with the political operative Paul Manaforts coziness with moscow and his financial ties to russian oligarchs close to putin. Yes, we hired Christopher Steele, but we did so without informing steele whom we were working for and gave him no orders beyond this basic question why did mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a police state that most serious investors shun . What came back shocked us. Mr. Steeles sources in russia, who were not paid, reported on an extensive and now confirmed effort by the kremlin to help elect mr. Trump president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it though the fbi. We did not discuss that decision with our clients or anyone else, instead, we deferred to mr. Steele, a trusted ground and intelligence professional with a long history of working with Law Enforceme enforcement. We did not speak to the fbi and we havent since. After the election, mr. Steele decided to share his intelligence with senator john mccain. We helped him do that. The goal was to alert the u. S. National Security Community to an attack on our country by a hostile foreign power. We did not, however, share the dossier with buzzfeed, which, to our dismay, published last january. Were extremely proud of our work to highlight mr. Trumps russia times. To have done so is our right under the first amendment. The public still has much to learn within a man with the most troubling business past of any u. S. President. Congress should release transcripts of our firms testimony so that the American People can learn the truth about our work and most importantly, what happened to our democracy. Again, this is coming tonight from the two founders of fusion gps. They say they have given these republicanled committees in Congress Information on trumps relationship with Deutsche Bank, on business dealings by the Trump Organization that raised questions about Money Laundering. They said they did not want the dossier published. They said the russian sources for Christopher Steele in the dossier were not paid. They say they didnt want the dossier published when buzzfeed published it. They said they did help get it into the hands of senator john mccain. They said they did not meet themselves with the fbi. And then theres this one last thing. Quote, we dont believe the steele dossier was the trigger for the fbis investigation into russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary committee in august, our sources say the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the fbi had received from other sources, including one inside the trump camp. Now, that last claim, from this, again, oped place, weird place to break news, but thats where its breaking tonight, that last claim, that the steele dossier wasnt what started the fbis Counter Intelligence investigation into whether or not the Trump Campaign colluded with russia, we are now learning, tonight, that the guys behind the dossier told the senate that in august, maybe thats why the republican s in the senate dont want to release those transcripts. But we had a big new piece of public reporting that corroborates that, as well. Thats not from the oped paging, but from the reporting pages of the New York Times. This bombshell story, which doesnt just say that the dossier isnt why the fbi started its Counter Intelligence operation, this New York Times story explains what did lead to the fbi Counter Intelligence investigation. According to the times, trump Foreign Policy adviser george papadopoulos, who is now cooperating with the mueller investigation, according to the times, he got drunk in london last may and on a drinking binge at in kensington, in london, he told a top australian diplomat that russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton and thousands of stolen democratic emails. Now, that washes over us now because we now know of course thats true, but of may of last year, nobody knew that. In may of last year, even the dnc didnt know that their emails had been stolen. But russia knew that they had stolen them, russia knew they had hacked into the dnc and apparently this guy papadopoulos from the Trump Campaign knew it, too. And bragged about it. And who knows if the australians even believed him when he first said it. On this drunken evening in london last may. But two months later, when russia, in fact, started circulating its stolen democratic and Clinton Campaign emails, well, then, australia realized that this drunk brag gert had some inside information. And the australians called the fbi. Quote, the hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump Campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the fbi to open an investigation in july 2016 into russias attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trumps associates conspired. It was not, as trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former british spy hired by a rival campaign. It was firsthand information from one of americas closest intelligence allies. So says this new reporting from the New York Times this weekend and so says the firm that paid for the dossier as of just about one hour ago tonight. Joining us now, mark mezetti from the New York Times. Nice to have you here tonight. Thank you for being here. Thanks, rachel. Good to be back. Let me see if i understand the both the drama and the implications of this pretty incredible piece of reporting that you guys have now publi published. The drama involves the sort of Human Interaction between this campaign adviser, george papadopoulos, and a australian diplomat that didnt react initially to what papadopoulos was mentioning. Part of what you guys report is there was a delay of a couple months before australia saw this as important enough information to deliver to u. S. Authorities, right . Right. So, the drinking session in london happened in may of 2016. This was a couple weeks after, according to mulers documents, papadopoulos learned about this russian dirt, the dirt that russians had on Hillary Clinton, from this london professor who apparently is some kind of russian cutout. So, he talks to the australian in may of 2016, but its not until two months later, july 2016, when downer, in a cable, relays this to other parts of his government and then that is relayed to the fbi. And that is one, as we said, of the driving factors that leads the fbi to launch the investigation, the end of that month. Now, its around the same time as we of course remember when these dnc emails are leaking out on the eve of the democratic convention. So, it is possible that we havent confirmed this yet that this becomes public and the Australian Government realizes what it is sitting on and it notifies the u. S. Government. Because what was damning here in particular was the timing. As i said, now were hearing, oh, the russians had tons of stolen emails, they had dirt on Hillary Clinton, we heard so much about that, it kind of washes over us, but in may 2016, there was no Public Information that anything had been stolen, that the russians had been involved in any sort of Disinformation Campaign about clinton. That would have been that would have either sounded crazy or at least sounded like news at that time, right . Right, i mean, certainly it was not, people were not focused on it at all, nearly to the extee extent that we are now, have been for the last year. I think, you know, papadopoulos mentioning this, it may not have raised the alarms, you know, as it did a couple of months later. Why this drinking session happened, why papadopoulos met with the australian is still unclear. Remember, he had just been named two months earlier as a member of trumps Foreign Policy team, so, its possible that, as a man living in london, some dip low malts from, you know, close American Allies might want to get a feel for the candidate and his team, but, again, thats a little bit of speculation. Whats obviously more important is the information that was conveyed and where it went from there. Now, one of the crucial questions here, if mr. Papadopoulos does, as you reported, if he did have advance knowledge of what the russians had done, intervention into the election, he think about that months before any of that was public, the question is whether or not he was a loan actne actoe shared that information with the Trump Campaign, if he discussed that information with the Trump Campaign. You do say at one point in your reporting that while he continued to, for months to try to arrange meetings between the Trump Campaign and the russian government, he kept Senior Campaign advisers abreast of those efforts to set up a meeting. But do we know if he was in communication with anybody else in the trump world about his information about what the russians were doing to intervene in the campaign . We know from both documents that muellers put out, as well as some emails that we quote in our story, that papadopoulos was keeping the campaign, including Stephen Miller and others, informed about what he was hearing. Particularly about trying to set up a meeting between trump and putin. The day after he hears about these emails, he sends a note to miller, basically saying, im hearing some interesting messages about this possible meeting. Now, i should be clear, there is no public evidence now yet that he told anyone in the campaign about the emails or this alleged dirt. The mueller documents are silent on that. It was in october when these documents came out, where we first learned about papadopouloss role and we first learned about that, that he had been told about this dirt and these thousands of emails. But those documents are silent on this issue of, did he tell anyone and its still a little unclear. One last quick question for you, mark, and its about a speech. From your reporting, mr. Papadopoulos was trusted enough to edit the outline of mr. Trumps first major Foreign Policy speech on april 27th, in an address where the candidate said it was possible to improve ties with russia. He to he said it could be taken as the signal to meet. What does that mean . Good question. I mean, read one way, it means, you know, he is trying to broker this meeting, which he thinks is going to basically make him in the campaign, hes starting out as an adviser, very low profile, no one really has heard of him, and if he brokers this meeting, its going to be big for his career and his life in the campaign. Now, its possible read that one way, hes, you know, the speech which gave some positive signs about where trump would be if president towards russia, that hes using that as, you know, a signal that trump wants to meet putin for, you know, maybe nothing nefarious, maybe just a Public Meeting to discuss policy and other topics. It is certainly cryptic, its certainly something well be looking at further, but at this point, its a little bit of speculation what really he means there. Mark, readhot reporting here, thanks for helping us understanding what it means. Okay, thanks. All right, big night, lots to get to tonight, well be right back. Stay with us. 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Even among just republicans, 75 of republicans were against it. But on december 14th, they went ahead and did it anyway. This was, of course, the Net Neutrality decision. That vote happened december 14th. Whether or not you particularly care about that issue, whether you care about your cable company, your Internet Provider having the able to control what you see and what you use online, the point is, when the Trump Administration made this change, human beings did not want them to make that change. Im sure a lot of companies did. But the American People were 83 opposed. And this happens in politics. You know, you do see government officials, congress, president ial administrations make decisions that are wildly at odds. But in that particular vote, there was really something odd about it. Turns out something had gone haywire with the system of Public Comment about that rule before they voted on it. The fcc received about 22 million comments about that issue before they took their vote. Thats a huge amount of comments. And there was a certain degree of public transparency. You could access them, you could see what people were submitting. First thing people noticed when they started looking at those 22 million comments that there were a whole bunch of duplicates. There were hundreds or thousands or in some cases, hundreds of thousands of times. Maybe thats just a predictable abuse of the online forum to submit the comments but it turned out not to be just the duplicates. Next thing people noticed was there were a lot of comments that were sent in under obviously fake names or no names. Then the next revelations got even stranger. Turns out more than half a million email addresses in russia were used to submit comments on the Net Neutrality rule. What does russia care about the Net Neutrality rules . Right . Russian computers appear to be the source for hundreds of thousands of comments, both for and against the rule. Why did they do that . Then came the even more unsettling revelations that a lot of the comments sent in by what appeared to be real americans, people with names and email addresses, those comments, which were overwhelmingly in favor of the Trumps Administration position, in favor of getting rid of Net Neutrality, a huge number of those appeared to have just been faked. That was more upsegt than comments turning up with no names on them or named donald duck or something. These were real american identities, real American Peoples names matched up with addresses, phone numbers, email addresses that matched up to real people but those real people hadnt submitted these comments. So, like on june 2nd, donnie in lake bluff, illinois, wrote to the fcc saying that obama was ordering a control of the web that was an exploitation of the open internet, and that was kind of a crazy argument for killing Net Neutrality, but what was crazier about that comment is that donna, in lake bluff, illinois, at that specific address, she is someone who died 12 years ago. So she did not submit that comment. Somebody hijacked her identity including her name and address in order to create the false appearance of support for what the Trump Administration did with that rule. And that appears to have happened hundreds of thousands if not millions of times in the comments that were accepted by that federal agency before they made this deeply unpopular decision to kill Net Neutrality. So, again, whether or not you care about it as an issue, the Trump Administration voting to scrap it when 83 of the public disagreed with them on that, that was a little weird. What was really weird was learning about this whole universe of fake Public Comment that was created around that decision including stealing the identities of real americans living and dead to make it seem like there was support for the Trump Administrations decision that didnt exist in nature. That was a weird thing about the Net Neutrality decision last month. Now it turns out it was not an isolated incident. The wall street journal did the front line reporting that exposed that weird stolen identity stuff around the fake comments on the Net Neutrality decision. Now, theyre reporting that it is happening again. This time, on a role related to the financial sector. One of the reforms developed during the Obama Administration after the wall street crash was something that was designed to prevent wall street firms and Financial Advisers from conning old people out of their retirement savings. And the proposed fix was very, very simple. It was something called the rule. Heres the rule. Any investor handling somebodys retirement account has to act in the best interests of their client. Thats it. Thats the whole rule. If youre managing somebodys retirement money, you have to manage their money in a way that benefits them, not you. Thats it. Thats the whole rule. Lots of things about wall street and banking and Financial Regulation are complex and controversial. This is not one of those things. New rule, cant screw the client. Its very hard to argue against that rule. That rule to protect old people from getting conned out of their retirement savings, that was supposed to be in effect right now. Trump administration appears to be against it. They blocked it, they decided to delay it, because they wanted to obtain more Public Comment on the matter. Well, now the wall street journal reports that, again, somehow, mysteriously, the Public Comments being submitted about this thing are fake. Quote, consider the experience of robert schubert, a pennsylvania salesperson. A comment posted in his name on the Labor Department website opposed to the rule says, i do not need, i do not want and i object to any federal interference in my retirement planning. In an interview, mr. Schubert said the comment is a fraud. He said he didnt post it and he doesnt agree with it. Quote, im disgusted that people can post comments using my name. So, wall street journal hired a firm to Contact People whose names appear in these comments, whose names and addresses appear on this website, supposedly because theyve offered their Public Opinion on this rule. They interviewed 50 people about their supposed comments on this rule. 40 of them. 20 out of the 50 people said their comments had been fraudulently submitted. That wasnt something they did. So, this is somehow, somebody somewhere, obtaining americans names, email addresses, addresses and phone numbers for real americans, but then hijacking those peoples identities to submit Public Comment, to make it seem like they are making Public Comments in favor of the Trump Administrations policies. And then the Trump Administration presumably is using those Public Comments to justify what they intended to do with that policy in the first place. So, as i said, wall street journal has been in front on the reporting on this strange new we no, maam unanimous. They said they have identified the fake comments and real americans names at five different agencies now, all agencies considering rule changes that could have a big effect on peoples lives. So, 2017 was an unsettling year in american politics, right . Whether or not you like the results of the election, whether or not you like the way the Trump Administration and republicans in congress have been approaching things since theyve been in control, i think for most americans, it is fair to say, left, right and center, that it has been a little unnerving to realize that there are unseen forces at work in our politics, right . It was a year ago this week that the director of National Intelligence released the declassified version of that assessment that russia intervened in our president ial election to help trump and hurt clinton. American politics has always been hard ball, and americans through our political processes have made some good and bad decisions since our founding, but there is something discombobulating, something a little nauseating to know that our american fate just isnt being decided by the more or less rational decisions of our fellow americans. Its weird for us to realize that there are forces we cant see faking our political processes. Pretending to be us when they are not us. Now that we know its happening in an ongoing way, the election wasnt a oneoff. I dont know who is faking all the Public Comments on Trump Administration rules changes. But if our political processes, all these different levels, are being faked, live and dead americans are being impersonated to effect our politics, is it better or worse if its Foreign Intelligence Services or maybe, you know, special interests and lobby lobbyists . Or just hackers for hire . Your call. Whats weirder . Whats worse . Happy new year. In the wake of the revelations this year of russias involvement in the president ial electi election, a group called the alliance for securing democracy put up a website that tracks onlike activity of about 600 twitter accounts that appear to be linked to the russian government to influence our election last year. And to continue to influence american politics and Public Opinions since trump was elected. Just as we dont have a lot of clarity as to why hundreds of thousands of russian email addresses were contributing comments about Net Neutrality, i think its also hard to see on any given day what exactly russia is trying to accomplish with their ongoing efforts to influence, you know, online discussion about American News and politics throughout this past year and moving forward. But even if on a daytoday basis we dont know their exact motivations, exactly what theyre trying to accomplish, and sometimes it seems muddy or contradictory. We can see they are still active online targeting us, and we can see it in part through tools like this russia influence tracker on twitter. The most recent snapshot they showed was from last month, just before the Roy Moore Senate election in alabama, about 14 of the time, these kremlinlinked twitter accounts were posting on the issue of Sexual Misconduct, which is a very big topic in american politics, then and now. These twitter accounts had a very specific angle on it, though. Half their tweets on Sexual Misconduct defended roy moore on that subject and the other half attacked democrats on the subject. The most prominent theme from these kremlinlinked accounts last month was the fbi, trying to discredit the fbi. Secondmost prominent topic discussed by these accounts was National Security adviser mike flynn pleading guilty. These kremlinlinked accounts had a very specific take on the guilty plea. They attacked media organizations for reporting information about flynns guilty plea. They focused on a Conspiracy Theory that blamed the Obama Administration for flynn cont t contacting the russians. And, again, there was the focus on the fbi, nearly half the kremlinlinked accounts tweeting an the flynn plea last month were ctrying to discredit the fbi. So, again, if you feel weird and unsettled by american politics right now, theres a reason for that, right . This isnt normal. We are used to having debates and fights among ourselves. Raw cause, even occasionally insane or extreme fights. But were used to having these debates and fights specifically among ourselves, among americans. But now in our generation, in our lifetimes, this year in our politics, there is a whole other type of player, a foreign influence that is impersonating america, americans, throwing peanuts from the peanut gallery, trying to skew our american fights and does agreements in ways they think weaken us and theesh help them. And their presence is unnerving. But it is also sometimes poorly disguised. We can sometimes see what theyre doing. And we can see from their online behavior what their influence operation is trying to do now is discredit the fbi. Knowing that, seeing that thats what russia is trying to do is an important part of regaining our bearings and not being discombobulated anymore. Once you know thats what theyre trying to do, though, it does put a whole new cast on the fact that their efforts appear to be gaining some traction since President Trump has been in office, obviously, hes fired the fbi director, james comey, but over the holiday break, we also learned that the fbis chief counsel has been reassigned for unknown reasons. We learned that the fbi Deputy Director will be retiring, which doesnt sound like a big deal until you realize hes 49 years old. Hes come under sustained political attack from the president himself, from republicans who support trump in congress and from the conservative media that supports trump. Fbi is under attack from the president , from the president s republican supporters in congress, from the president s conservative media supporters and also from the ongoing russia influence operation that is still around since the election. Whats different now is that the fbi is starting to bleed out. The fbi is starting to shed its top officials. In the face of this pressure. And a process that seems just as likely to appease these attacks as it seems to slow them down. At the Holiday Season and the face of the brutally cold temperatures not just here for the holidays but been here and arent leaving all over the eastern United States, spare a thought for your local letter carrier, right . Your local Package Delivery person. Lordy have they had a tough few weeks. Always tough this time of year, but this year, with this weather, whew. Around the holidays, usually people are very excited about all the packages that get sent and received at this time. This Holiday Season, though, a handful of very important americans got a package from fedex, without warning, that contained bad and inexplicable news from the Trump Administration of a mass firing. And that weird Package Delivery is next. Stay with us. I tried hard to quit smoking. But when we brought our daughter home, that was it. Now i have nicoderm cq. The nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release Technology Helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. Its the best thing that ever happened to me. Every great why needs a great how. Executive order number 12963 signed by president bill clinton in june 1995 that set up a new president ial Advisory Counsel on hiv and aids. Set up in 95, since then, every president since clinton has kept it going. Rotating slate of doctors and medical professionals and People Living with hiv offer advice to the president and his administration about how the federal government can better respond to the aids crisis, how they can better educate the public and offer Better Health care to People Living with hiv and all the rest of it. Started with that executive order. 22 years later, two days after christmas this year, it all ended. With a fedex delivery, with no warning and no explanation, every Single Member of the president ial Advisory Counsel on hiv and aids received a better from the president via fedex letting him or her know that they had been terminated effective immediately. Now, as i said, there was no warning of this, and the white house has made no Public Comment about why it did this or if or when they plan to replace all the people they can. For the foreseeable feature, the president ial Advisory Counsel on hiv and aids still exists, but every single seat is empty. One of those seats used to belong to gabriel maldonado, former member now of the president ial Advisory Counsel on hiv and aids, and director of the hiv and aids group called true evolution. Nice to have you here tonight. Thank you for having me, its an honor. Well, likewise, thank you for your service on the president ial Advisory Commission on hiv and aids. Did you have any idea you and your fellow commissioners were about to be fired . No, it really caught me by surprise. Especially, its been nearly a year weve been serving in this administration. And there was no clear indicator that this dismissal was happening. It was a shock to me. I know there were some members of the Advisory Counsel that decided they did not want to serve under mr. Trump and resigned earlier. I can imagine that may have been a source of friction. Was the counsel meeting . Were there policy disagreements . Was there any sort of c confrontati confrontation . Yeah, we definitely continuing meeting and moving as business as usual. I searched as cochair of the Disparities Committee making plans for initiatives and policy recommendations i wanted to put forth next year. Like any counsel, we had differences of opinions, we have different ways of approaching Public Health and how we see hiv and aids policy. I would definitely say that our counsel were strong architects man of us were contributing authors of the National Hiv Aids strategy, which strongly supported and included with the Affordable Care act. When you talk about fundamental differences, many of us on the counsel had fundamental differences from the direction that this administration seems to be taking. Now, my impression of aids policy at the National Level over the last couple of decades, since the cowl seunsel was firs created, its one of the few issues in which democrats and liberals, People Living with aids, the gay community, might actually find a few nice things to say about george w. Bush. The counsel in particular and the work of the National Aids policy, the National Aidsrelated policy was seen, i think, particularly because of the bush administration, as being not the most partisan thing in the world. Certainly there were differences of opinion, differences about how things could be funded, but a lot of the partisan heat, at least from my sense, had been removed. Absolutely. Hiv and aids is not a partisan issue. Its a human issue. Its a human rights issue. Its a social justice issue. It crosses all boundaries, it does not discriminate on the base of religious, race, even immigration status. As a person living with hiv myself, i can say that my hiv does not have a term limit. You know, it doesnt expire or leave when new administration goes or comes. My hiv and for the 1. 2 Million People in this Country Living with hiv this is something that we have dealt with for the last 30 years and will continue in the foreseeable feature to deal with for many administrations to come, and so, to put political ideology of parathat san ship in the forefront, its stagnating the Health Outcomes for those of us living with hiv. Gabriel maldonado, now very recently a former member of the president ial Advisory Counsel on hiv and aids, thank you for helping us understand this story. Will you keep us apprised, if you if, in terms of the future of the counsel, but in terms of whats going to happen with this standoff. Id love to hear from you again. Absolutely, rachel. Thank you very much for having me. Take care. All right. A lot of things the Trump Administration has done policywise are sort of honestly typical republican things, things that the republicans in Congress Might have wanted to do anyway. Getting rid of the aids counsel doesnt make sense in partisan terms or any terms with continuity in recent american politics. I dont know why they did this. Maybe some day theyll tell us. Well be right back. Ll so we sent that sample off to ancestry. My ancestry dna results are that i am 26 nigerian. I am just trying to learn as much as i can about my culture. I put the gele on my head and i looked into the mirror and i was trying not to cry. Because its a hat, but its like the most important hat ive ever owned. Discover the story only your dna can tell. Order your kit now at ancestrydna. Com. From godaddy in fact, 68 of people who have built their. Website using gocentral, did it in under an hour, and you can too. Build a better website in under an hour. With gocentral from godaddy. 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And then look what happened right after he made that announcement. Mitt romney moved. The little location tag for his twitter account had said massachusetts, but then orrin hatch retired and now bingo, mitt romneys twitter tag now says hes from utah again. Amazing how that happened. Tomorrow, two new members of the United States senate will be sworn in, both democrats. Doug jones, the first democratic senator from alabama in more than two decades. And tina smith, who is the Lieutenant Governor of minnesota, she will be finishing out the term of minnesota democrat al franken, who left the senate today after Sexual Harassment allegations. Both jones and smith will be sworn in tomorrow and neither of those is a pseudonym. Well be right back. Steyer the president s National Security adviser guilty. His Campaign Chairman under indictment. His soninlaw secret talks with russians. The director of the fbi fired. Special counsel Robert Muellers criminal investigation has already shown why the president should be impeached. You can send a message to your representatives at needtoimpeach. Com and demand they finally take a stand. This president is not above the law. Grandmas. Aunt stacys. What are the reasons you care for your heart . Qunol coq10 with 3x better absorption has the 1 cardiologist recommended form of coq10 to support heart health. Qunol, the better coq10. No one burns on heartburn. My watch try alka seltzer ultra strength heartburn relief chews. With more acidfighting power than tums chewy bites. Mmmmm. Amazing. I have heartburn. Ultra strength from alka seltzer. Enjoy the relief. We are out of time for tonight, i do just want to recap briefly the breaking news that we had at the top of the show tonight. News breaking in a weird place on the opinion pages of the New York Times. The founders of fusion gps tonight releasing a lot of new information in this oped, including their belief that the dossier that they commissioned, created by Christopher Steele about allegations involving donald trump and russia, they believe that dossier was not the source of the fbi Counter Intelligence investigation into the Trump Campaign and russia. The founders of fusion also saying that they handed over to Congress Information about potential Money Laundering involving the president and his businesses. They are also calling for congress to release the transcripts of their testimony before three good evening, rachel. As you can see, a you know, when a guy takes too many days off from work, this beard thing happens. And rachel, its been out there on twitter for or against the beard. Got an overwhelming response. I think it was like two trillion in favor of the beard and amazingly two trillion opposed to it. So its a tie that you have a to break right here and now. You can tell me what to do. And this will either be here tomorrow or not. Its completely up to you. I well, i was going to say im 100 in favor of the beard. I am 98 in favor of the beard