that they re preparing for, quote, a new reality, particularly now that special counsel robert mueller is leading the investigation. but the new reality is that jared kushner is in the dead center of that investigation. back with us david frum and indira lakshmanan. david frum, this war room concept, which was old news because it was something that came out this afternoon, is now supposed to be the place where i guess the great brains of the white house who have no experience dealing with any of this kind of thing would somehow figure out how to spin what it was that jared kushner meant when he suggested to the russian ambassador that the trump transition team should be allowed to use russian communication facilities to communicate directly with the kremlin. when you have a good story, you don t set up war room. you invite the press in, and you take their questions until they get bored asking them. yeah.
that trump has done in this regard. but i think that setting up this what i m going to continue to call more like a crisis chamber is, again, a strange thing, that it s being led by the very guy who is the focus of the investigation. you know, we ll see whether he turns into a target. he is not legally a target yet. but the information is coming faster at us than, you know, than we can count. david, one of the questions that emerges from almost all of these stories involving russian connections is whose side are they on? whose side is donald trump on? whose side is jared kushner on? why would you want to use russian communication facilities if you really are on the united states side in the vladimir putin versus the united states challenge that certainly emerged in 2016 with the russians trying to hack our election and other
two key words that is a talking point from the white house there s no evidence of collusion between trump people and the russians. i don t know how people define collusion but going to the russian ambassador and telling them you don t trust the americans and want their communication facilities to communicate that sounds a lot like collusion with an adversary if in fact what kislyak was intercepted by the u.s. intelligence community as saying to his bosses in the kremlin, if it s true, unless he s just trying to sow some discord and cause some trouble. which they ve done in last two years. right. and the other is consume ant. what is the pattern about all the facts in the russian
leading the investigation. but the new reality is that jared kushner is in the dead center of that investigation. back with us david frum and indira lakshmanan. david frum, this war room concept, which was old news because it was something that came out this afternoon, is now supposed to be the place where i guess the great brains of the white house who have no experience dealing with any of this kind of thing would somehow figure out how to spin what it was that jared kushner meant when he suggested to the russian ambassador that the trump transition team should be allowed to use russian communication facilities to communicate directly with the kremlin. when you have a good story, you don t seup war room. u invite the press in, and you take their questions until they geboasking them. yeah. and indira, the war room concept of course is fascinating. they don t want to set up a war
the son-in-law, one of the closest people to the president. so i can t see how this goes away. also with the ongoing investigation of russia s interference in our elections. john, i want to turn to you. why are back channels typically established, and what type of scenario, and what are you hearing about the potential reaches why kushner may have wanted to create one in advance going into the white house with russia? there is no good reason for why a top advisor to the president of the united states would want to establish a back channel with the soviet union i m sorry, with russia, using russian communication facilities, none at all. now, back channel communications is a way of referring to informal communications, but what henry mcmaster said makes absolutely no sense. he says we have back channel communications. who is we? we is the united states government through various means. in this case, you had a top