investigation. that upset a lot of democrats. it might have cost hillary clinton the election. who knows. you get to have a conversation about the tax code. you get to have a conversation about tariffs in china. you do not get to take men like bob mueller and jim comey who have done nothing but try to serve this country and the most extraordinary circumstances and using the apparatus of the white house, most powerful office in the land, and the republican, the republican national committee, the party of teddy roosevelt and abraham lincoln to trash the integrity of a good man. that s when you step over, that s when this country starts coming apart, when it is okay for the president and the white house and the storied republican party, i m a democrat, but you know what, i m enormously proud of what the republican party used to be. when those tools get used to trash the integrity of two good men, this country has gone over a cliff. but you also said this is classic washington. you don t
of nerve agent, all of this according to a u.s. official familiar with the test results. the samples apparently smuggled out of the region when people were brought out after the attack. we re not clear who tested them. not clear on the chain of custody and whether or not this will be the final piece of intelligence that leads the u.s. to take some kind of action. nsc, national security council meeting, scheduled here in washington later today. officials, top officials will meet again and discuss all the options and we do not know if they will, in fact, come to a decision on how to proceed. there is still always a possibility that they could take another route and go down the route of diplomatic pressure. kate? this puts to rest the notion that we heard from syria and russia, a hoax and fake news, that it was a chemical weapons attack, confirmation. barbara, thank you so much. still ahead for us, it was one of his most consistent campaign promises and one of his first acts as presid
what s being done to stop it from happening again. and inside the texas serial bombing investigation. the bombings in austin are terrible. local, state, and federal are working hand-in-hand to get to the bottom of it. this is mtp daily and it starts right now. well, good evening. i m chuck todd here in washington. welcome to mtp daily. buckle up. it s been a wild day of headlines involving russia, the president, vulnerabilities in our election system, bob mueller s probe, facebook, and the trump campaign s data operation. all of today s headlines, though, have one thing in common. they are seemingly alarm bells involving the integrity of our free elections and the foundations of our free democracy. so let s dive in. the president spoke with russian president vladimir putin today and he told reporters that he
an impeachable offense, as amy klobuchar laid out, if it was done without cause. that s an interesting new standard that graham wants to set. it was a new standard. also a bit of a fuzzy standard. i agree. you could say it was done in a hypothetical vein. he answered it, you know, if there s cause. so there s a lot of wiggle room there. i think what s striking is taking together all of the well, we wouldn t like it, or we would be assured that it s very passive language from the republicans. you just have to wonder, why will they not just go a step further and pass some kind of bill, some kind of stopgap that would actually stop it from happening proactively. because there s a pretty good chance, at least based on the amped up rhetoric from the president, that it s going to happen. why wait? this seems like a classic washington move, to be put it with the omnibus. you have to do the budget, sneak it in there as a thing, that everybody wouldn t object to. and yes, everybody
i think there s a real parallel to it is the d.c. sniper. yep. the tempo of this, the tempo of this and the way the capital region was kept in fear, the killing, the killing, and the purposeful killing at random, is very similar here. the method is a little different. that was a rifle, this is bombs. but the power that the killer gleans is a similar atmosphere. and one thing that was strong there, with chuck, and you ll remember, you lived up there, yes, sir. is every single citizen is on your side. and the commanders have to leverage that. we leverage that in the sniper case by reaching out, by using citizens to help us. really, it s the it was in that case, was the capital region against the snipers. and today, it s the austin region against the bombers. every law enforcement officer, every citizen, against the bombers. that s the strength, you have to leverage that.