so here s the breaking news. cnn is learning that robert mueller s team is using help from rick gates on their central mission of investigating the trump campaign s contacts with russians. back with me carl bernstein and phillip mudd and john dean. phil, in the court documents, mueller devolved rick gates had direct contact with a russian military asset in 2016. so how does he go about finding out what they discussed and what the russians then did with that information? look the conversation isn t just about rick gates. if i m talking to rick gates, i have some questions. number one, who directed you to do this, number two, who did you talk about, speak about with
russians. back with me carl bernstein and philip mudd. phil, in the court documents, muler devolved rick gates had direct contact with a russian military asset in 2016. so how does he go about finding out what they did with that information? look the conversation isn t just about rick gates. if i talk to rick gates, i have questions, number 1, who directed you? number two? who did you talk about, speak about with this in the campaign. i want to see your laptop, your cell phone, if you tell me in terms of your contact with the russians, i want to know whether it is reflected in your calendar to your laptop. there is a bigger question, it s not only what contact rick gates had with the russians. i want to know in conversations with him. clearly, he is cooperating. who else was aware of these conversations? who else was in contact? was there a tone around the campaign that said it s
counterintelligence perspective raise my antenna. sam, you are agreeing? you want to respond? in is an amateur hour the russian operative didn t have to work very hard. you look at this reporting about the russians having contact with campaign officials at the republican convention. the russian didn t have to try to get meetings with the campaign officials like we ve seen happen in the past. campaign officials were actively seeking out meetings with the russians. they were doing their job for them. you have to wonder, for example, why would you want to meet with a former spy? why would you want to meet with the russian ambassador to the u.s.? what were you talking about other than something that didn t have to do with this sitting administration? steve, if what sam says is correct, i mean, some people would look at that and say, well, isn t that in some way coordination. i don t know if it rises to the level of collusion. but if you are reaching out to, you know, russians, would
that was two weeks before the olympics. i ve waited an entire lifetime to compete at the olympic games, and this came out after i did an article on what were my thoughts on mike pence leading the u.s. delegation. i m pretty sure mike pence didn t know who i was an hour before that article came out, and that he wanted to meet with me right after, i think that s fantastic that this article got his attention, but it wasn t the right time. how about now? now is the right time. the olympics are over and i mean what i said, and i agree with so many people that you don t get to make any sort of change if you don t try to at least reach across and have the opportunity to speak. what conversation would you want? what would be the goal? the conversation i really don t have anything personally to say to mike pence. the conversation isn t for me. it s for people whose lives have
been burying their kids for a long time. because guns have been in their communities. parents have been grieving because they ve been putting their babies in grounds. when kids were organizing to because their children, their friends have been put in the ground. they have been experiencing ptsd because they ve had to bury their friends, right? this is not start small. it s an outsized influence of a small group of people who want to keep their guns, while people are having to bury their children. so donald trump can perform. politicians can try to stay elected. at the end of the day, those children organizing, those children walking, marching down the street, this is a new moment. we re going to push it. and it took some certain kinds of people to die for us to get this question on the table. you mean white people? but there have been a lot of people dying because of guns, stephanie, a lot of folk getting killed because of guns. this conversation isn t going