i think should be all of our expectations about what an american president should be doing, especially in times like this. john brennan, who was of course called a lowlife by the president. jill, the question is can brennan speaking like this cause other brennans to speak out? or if there were any potential profiles in courage, especially on the republican side, would we know about it by now? i think at this point everyone pretty much knows what the president s m.o. is. you know, there have been endless opportunities at this point for members of the republican party to stand up when the president goes after people like brennan or eric holder or any of the litany, the hundreds of people that the president has gone after now in his three or four years in the political spotlight. and that s something that we really have not seen happen. i also want to say the president s message today was one of calling for unity. he really kind of advocated this idea that we should have this new mome
doing, especially in times like this. john brennan, who was of course called a lowlife by the president. jill, the question is can brennan speaking like this cause other brennans to speak out? or if there were any potential profiles in courage, especially on the republican side, would we know about it by now? i think at this point everyone pretty much knows what the president s m.o. is. you know, there have been endless opportunities at this point for members of the republican party to stand up when the president goes after people like brennan or eric holder or any of the litany, the hundreds of people that the president has gone after now in his three or four years in the political spotlight. and that s something that we really have not seen happen. i also want to say the president s message today was one of calling for unity. he really kind of advocated this idea that we should have this new moment of civility in politics. and the idea that president trump is going out there with
interests. i think it s terrible for not just the brennans and clappers of the world, but the rank-and-file who have to think their service is unrelated to their views. i think it does, in fact, weaken us, make things more dangerous for us in a dangerous world. so for policy reasons it s a terrible idea. i want to point out something that i hadn t considered until today, until this was pointed out to me by aaron blake on the washington post at the washingt washington post. and he says it was from elie honig, who was on our air last friday. she argues that donald trump, if he decides to revoke the clearance of somebody like james comey, it s not necessarily just within his purview to do so, that he could actually run afoul of the law. listen to what elie said last week. what i don t know that everybody understand is it s a federal crime to retaliate
what now is the national counterterrorism center, the main entity in our intelligence community that analyzes threats from terrorist organizations. the brennans of the world, the sally yates of the world, career professionals defending our country are really expressing grave concern because what they see the president doing is not only seemingly utilizing those agencies to defend himself, but fundamentally undermining those institutions which defend us. this reaches back all the way from his very first day in office when he went to the cia, stood in front of the memorial wall that showcases the lives and heroism of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country and basically talked about how many times he had been on the cover the of time magazine. i think that set the tone for this presidency. it s been nonstop for the last 16 months. and, steve schmidt, like many things with the president, like the constant contacts we know about with the russians, donald trump doesn t hide
leads to these charges of racism and it s all based on falsehoods. i don t know if they are going to get over it i don t know if they re going to. brian: i will say on meet the press chuck todd did give chuck shuman a hard time after that that might be the case. i m not sure. other dangerous story was that happened with the cia. it turns out that among john brennan a lot of politics for a former cia director out of the job for one day. quote, after seeing the president speak in front of the memorial board there, the cia, all those names, those stars represent people that lost their lives. he said i m deeply saddened and angered at trump s display of aggrandizement at the memorial wall of the agency heroes and he went on. well, first of all, brennan had become a political operative withins administration. i think part of the problem were the brennans. i know the people who work forth cia from the days i was there.