where he could reach people. his benefactors, the mercers pulled their financial support. fox news puts out a statement that says we re not going touch him with a ten-foot pole. they said we re not going to hire him. that seems to be what everyone is saying. without patronage, without a megaphone, what does he do? that s unclear. i think he wants to stay involved in politics but he has at this point not vessel to get his message out. he was using breitbart to articulate this nationalist populist version of conservatism and make that popular. now that he has no proximity to trump, no billionaire benefactors funding endeavors, it s unclear how he will stay relevant in politics. it s hard in this day and age with technology and you can launch things on your own, it s hard to shut someone down if people want to listen to them. do you get the sense there is a
fusion gps. that is the firm behind the opposition research on donald trump and the russians during the 2016 presidential campaign. that research that is known as the trump/russia dossier. now, some of its pages reveal that the dossier s author went to the fbi because he was afraid that then candidate trump was being blackmailed. and a short time ago, president trump tweeted his frustration over the whole thing. he said this. the single greatest witch hunt in american history continues. he went on to say, republicans should finally take control. and we have a lot to break down here with cnn s manu raju, live for us on capitol hill with more. manu? reporter: yeah, this is certainly angered the president, the release of this transcript, which caught republicans by surprise. dianne feinstein joining with her democrats in releasing this transcript yesterday of glenn simpson, the cofounder of fusion gps, discussing his decision to hire that former british spy,
trump, his continued efforts to discredit nonpartisan investigation of what happened with russia. that s what this testimony was about, what the dossier is about, and what we should be pursuing. we should be pursuing what actually happened here. let the facts go where they will. and i think that s what this transcript release helps us to determine. without any judgment on whether this was right or whether this was wrong, it s a unilaterally move. and it signals a break with the republican judiciary committee chairman, chuck grassley, who we just heard from. what kind of indication is this that the only hope for finding a bipartisan decision on the russia election meddling is going to come from the senate intelligence committee, and from no other committee on capitol hill? well, i think what we re going to find is that the mueller commission and investigation is going to show what the facts are.
swathe or at least an enthusiastic nich out there that would want to hear what he has to say where he could somehow put up some sort of show online or something? that s going to be interesting. i think he did alienate a lot of people when he went after the president. he made a mistake in the president s followers for steve bannon followers. and if you look at the comments, for instance, over the past few days on breitbart, people are kind of going against bannon himself. so i m not sure. i m sure there s some audience he can reach. real quick, what message does this send to other people who cross trump. do not cross trump. bannon learned the hard way if you cross trump, it s not good news for you. like i said, mistaken the trump fan base for his own fan base and wasn t a good idea. it s interesting. great reporting. appreciate it. oliver darcy with us here. up next, a live look at the white house. right now, president trump is holding a cabinet meeting.
chris footopher steele, that dit together that trump/russia dossier and his decision to brief the fbi of something that was very alarming, something that could potentially lead to blackmail of a presidential candidate, according to glenn simpson. the president just went after dianne feinstein on twitter saying, the fact that sneaky dianne feinstein who has on a number of occasions stated that collusion between trump and russia has not been found would release testimony in such an underhanded and possibly illegal way totally without authorization is a disgrace. must have a tough primary. now, the earlier trump tweet that you read was that trump mentioned that republicans need to regain control of the investigation. the man who s in charge of the senate judiciary committee investigation, chuck grassley, just emerged from this hearing and i asked him, should he regain control of the investigation, as the president said. this is what grassly said.