watch. does he resemble anyone else you have ever studied in a real decision making capacity? well, look, he is similar in some ways to what moneyball replaced in baseball, the kind of trust your gutt instinct. the old idea. even though it was possible to dig out data that told you exactly why a baseball player was valuable or if he was valuable, instead you deferred to some guy staring at a baseball player and saying i like that guy. we should get that guy. and it was quickly proven when people started to use data better that that was an inferior way to make decisions. and at the very least, you wanted information as a check on your judgment. so he does remind me a bit of the people that billy beane and the oakland a s general manager who is at the heart of moneyball ran circles around.
ability to watch himself that i think served obama and other presidents well trump just doesn t have. he has just given himself he scores himself. he grades himself. and he doesn t have and he s got you know, he s got the it s a delusional quality, right? what he will do is no matter how whatever he decides turns out, he ll tell himself a story that it was all a great success. so he is really not accountable to anything but his own feelings about himself. it s a very strange thing to watch. does he resemble anyone else you have ever studied in a real decision making capacity? well, look, he is similar in some ways to what moneyball replaced in baseball, the kind of trust your gut instinct. the old idea. even though it was possible to dig out data that told you exactly why a baseball player
senate judiciary committee were not as detailed as they should be and he will give them nuances and in effect correct the record and having looked at the rules, he felt that it was a right and just that he take himself out of this case. what that means going forward is that he will be a stranger to the case. he will not be briefed on the case, he won t have a decision-making capacity. as you indicated, the deputy attorney general, which is an acting position right now, will be that decision maker. here s what really jumps out at me. i want you to just step back and think about the timing here. the fbi is investigating russia s interference in the u.s. elections. so they re trying to collect a lot of data points. what we ve seen now is that then senator sessions, these were hits words, got a call out of the blue, a request from the russians to meet at his senate office. this is the same time we had the height of the hacking and release of the e-mails.
actually need to have a non-partisan effort for it. malcolm, one little clip from the new york times story said the national security agency which monitors the foreign intelligence services captured the communication as part of routine operations. how could it be possible that michael flynn, former head of dia, would not know his conversations with the russian ambassador were being monitored? i think with regard to the telephone call with ambassador kislyak, it was a matter of arrogance. when they took control of the white house through the transition, they didn t feel that anyone was going to do anything about their decision making capacity. he just made these calls and thought he was cutting the deals that he was cutting. but stepping back to the new york times article really quickly here because as you
dia, would not know his conversations with the russian ambassador were being monitored? i think with regard to the telephone call with ambassador kislyak, it was a matter of arrogance. when they took control of the white house throh the transition, they didn t feel that anyone was going to do anything about their decision making capacity. he just made these calls and thought he was cutting the deals that he was cutting. but stepping back to the new york times article really quickly here because as you know, i predicted all of this was going to happen seven months ago and that this is what nsa and the fbi were doing all of this time. and it comes out to play because i know i worked at nsa and, you know, this is not just our effort. we have allied intelligence agencies that give us cues and teps as to criminality or potential problems that are going on with person citizens and that manifested itself as