who has spoken to the president many times over the years and is under scrutiny over his contacts and his talk about wikileaks. roger stone appeared over the weekend and said he would not testify against president trump. there s no circumstance under which i would testify against the president because i would have to bear false witness against him. i would have to make things up, and i m not going to do that. i ve had no discussion regarding a pardon. the only person i push for a pardon for is marcus garvey, who should be pardoned post dlposth and i ve written the president about that. not paul manafort? i ve had no discussions. the president is distracted by it. it s casting a cloud over his president presidency, especially over the last week, jim.
in washington. it s a critical moment in the early weeks of the trump presidency. the president going back to the drawing board as you see the flags and the marines out there positioned for the arrival of japan s prime minister, and today that meeting with japanese prime minister shnz shnz about to come at this hour, after the president made a key concession to china in a late night phone call. feeling the political sting of his first big judicial defeat, the unanimous decision from the ninth circuit casting a cloud over the administration s temporary travel ban. joining me peter alexander and nbc justice correspondent pete williams. peter, they may go to rewrite, a lot of anticipation for the arrival of the japanese prime minister. reporter: exactly. you can see the color guard honor guard behind me as they anticipate the prime minister s arrival, only the second time it
gives him an opening to score a political point which is the media is somehow biased or out to get him. i think it s especially important in the trump incoming trump administration that the media is a fierce crusader for what is true and what we can prove and that is why buzzfeed airing an unverified dossier is so damaging because we don t know if it s true and trump thrives in a culture where we don t really know whathe facts are. he can just sayn the one hand or on the other, and the media needs to say, no, there are things that are true, there are things that are accurate, and these facts will hold donald trump accountable. i d like to have known what the cnn reporter s question was, by the way, we could have talked about what it meant. buzzfeed s editor in chief ben smith was on meet the press daily. here s how he defended his decision to release those documents. i think there was an when you would be the gatekeeper for information, you would say to your audience, trust u
change. presidents don t let you raise your hand anymore. they have a list of names. john heilman, i miss you. please come on again a lot. robert costa, my favorite. thank you, sir. from bucks county, pennsylvania, robert costa and the washington post. coming up, trump s pick to be secretary of state also faced tough questions today. both democrats and republicans also about his ties to russia. and marco rubio was leading the way grilling tillerson over vladimir putin and the deaths of some of putin s political opponents including some press who died. we ll see. also, plus a dramatic second day of test moimony from turn s pick to be attorney general, john lewis took the stand today to make the case against jeff sessions. is it enough to derail sessions nomination? coming up at the half hour tonight as i said, a hardball special report, trump and the media. the president-elect held his first press conference since winning the election today and a wild, often intense affair.
telling you, but you should trust us. i think you could say that was a good era or say that was a bad era. that is not the present day. when you have an object that is in play, that is having consequences for the way our elected leaders a erers acting to ask the question of why should i suppress that? there are then good reasons. once it emerges as it did last night in the public conversation that there is this secret document floating around full of dark allegations we will not repeat to you, that i feel like in this era you have to show your readers what that is. andrew sullivan, what do you make of that defense of putting out this information, even if this gentleman didn t actually believe it was true? i think it s pathetic. it s not what you do when you re a journalist. you verify what s true and what you can really prove. there are some things you don t put out there. i don t agree with julian assange who s now apparently the best friend of donald trump. yeah. that, in fac