level volunteer, that he wasn t paid. there were a whole host of volunteers working for the trump campaign but they are really trying to make the case that no one took him seriously. i did speak with ty cobb who said the bottom line here is that no one was taking this 29-year-old seriously. kristen welker at the white house. pete williams, guys, thank you very much. you bet. joining me now is michael caputo, served as communications adviser for donald trump s 2016 campaign. nice to see you. good to see you. let s talk about the new revelations that have come out again having to do with campaign and what people remembered. before we get to that, i want to talk to you specifically. back in july after you testified before the house intel committee, you said you had no contact with russians. you said you never heard of anyone with the trump campaign talking with russians, that you never even heard the word russia and there was no discussion of
russia on the trump campaign. is that still how you would characterize your time with the campaign given what we know today? absolutely, no question in my mind. i would also add there s no collusion between the trump campaign and the kremlin. you know that 100% without a shadow of doubt that nobody within the trump campaign tried to collude in any way, shape or form, minor way, major way, with a foreign power with russia? i stayed with the campaign until the 20th of june in 2016. i can speak until that date. in addition to that i can speak to the character of my friends who i ve known for 30 years, paul manafort and rick gates and many of the other people on the campaign would never under any circumstances collude with russia to mess with our election. in addition, i know the character of donald trump, someone longer than just this election. he would never tolerate that
trump campaign lies about it and found out later. once said he never met with russians then admit he met twice with kislyak. members of congress are accusing him of misleading them. the constant lying and pretending i didn t remember this person, i didn t know what this person s name is, that makes people question you. carter page told nbc news he informed sessions in june 2016 that he was on his way to russia for a trip unrelated to the campaign. never one to miss an opportunity to deflect, president trump seized on a bombshell book about the dems to suggest that legendary crooked hillary is the one the fbi and justice department should investigate. let s dive right in. we ve got kristen welker at the white house. justice correspondent pete williams as well and then we ll talk with glenn and jake sherman. kristen, the president tweeted
having to tell the truth, nothing at all no, it doesn t. something you might not know about yet, michael. are you just confident there s not going to be something coming out you didn t know about that might surprise you? that s always possible but i have great confidence in the president of united states and paul nan ma fort and rick gates and others in the midst of this. i have zero confidence in jorng papadopoulos or carter page or others invited into this village of a foreign policy unit and attended this meeting and recommended that the president do something completely idiotic. the problem we have here is this, that campaign, you were there, i was there with you. it was really understaffed. the whole thing, donald trump became the republican nominee because of the hard work of five central people who were with donald trump from the very beginning and donald trump wanted to keep it that lean. the problem with that kind of
is some kind of idea that he thought it was a good idea to meet with putin, you re exaggerating things. this kid brought up a stupid idea with a committee of foreign policy advisers, some not even qualified to be there and donald trump never saw him again. i ll take you at your word for that, maybe he had nothing to do with the campaign going forward and somebody just trying to elevate himself. what i can t understand after that is the pattern of misinformation, the pattern of for getting these sorts of things, denying it and only being forced to reveal the truth when reporters find out more information both trump and sessions denied there was a connection between russia and campaign. that wasn t true. papadopoulos offered i understand that. campaign of march 31st at the meeting attended by both. number two, in march sessions said i never had meetings with russian operatives or russian