willing to share episodes large and small about the president s attention span, act to execute on basic policy but if i m correct, rosenstein is the first to be named. i don t think that s the case. i think bob woodward named a number of officials who pulled draft executive orders off the president s desk in order to thwart his attempts at doing something that was unwise. let me get to the real point here. which is that protecting bob mueller the special counsel and his investigation is what matters most to me. the president may well have grounds for a conversation with rosenstein. my concern is who would come next. given that the president continues to tweet and to speak in ways that threaten or undermine the independence of the attorney general, the department of justice and the reliability with which bob mueller may be able to carry out his investigation i think all of us in the senate, republican and
what i think gets lost in the hostility between the white house and the press and all the terrible things that the president has said about the press is that from a reporters point of view, there has been more information coming out of there either from the white house itself or from people near the white house, and, i mean, just the idea that we read draft executive orders that were floating around, but we can you remember that ever happening in previous presidencies? ant at this scale. early this is my fifth transition. i m the old guy at the table. it s my fifth transition in washington, and early there s always hiccups and always turf balgss and always sharp elbows. there are always examples of this in the new administration. the size, scope, and volume of this. to me the problem is the problem is that the white house doesn t have its act together about what they want to say and what they want to roll out in if an organized way that s been vetted with the people th
transcripts of three conversations with three different world leaders, the prime minister of australia, mexico, russia, all leaked. we have had more than a half-dozen draft executive orders, including some of them dealing with highly classified things like terrorist interrogation leaked to the press. we ve learned that general mattis was considering interdicting an iranian ship. we learned that they are considering sending troops to syria, all classified information leaked to the press. we have the fact that one of general flynn s deputies was leaked to the press. and at in addition to the flynn information, leaks, classified information going to the press. when people say we are worried about donald trump creating an authoritarian state, i am worried about the authoritarian application of a national security apparatus going after people they don t like, who s policies they oppose by leaking classified information. martha: as a suggestion,
security council in new york that could come later today. we begin the john roberts. let s start with the travel ban, the travel pause, whatever you want to call it. a defiant tone from the white house. good morning. the president not backing down one bit in his plans to increase the vetting of refugees or other visitors or immigrants who would come into this country. we don t know what they are planning at this point. they ve had the weekend to think about it. a couple of draft executive orders floating around for a while, one of which would abandon the obama era plans to close down the detention facility at guantanamo bay, cuba, and instead keep it open indefinitely. on the immigration ban the white house trying to determine the best way forward. the one thing they don t want to do is lose twice in court on this because the p.r. blow against the executive order could be irreparable. one option is to write a new executive order that was specific carve-outs for people
the federal government and with contractors for the lgbt community. that s great. but at the same time, we see these executive orders, draft executive orders being circulated that basically take the hull out of that boat of protection. so the executive order that president obama put into place is really a boat of protection for the lgbt from discrimination and these executive orders would actually gut that. you would be left with a boat with sides and nothing to prevent you from drowning. don t forget, donald trump also said that ted cruz s discriminatory amendment that would allow people to called the fada, that he would sign that, that s also something that would gut protections for lgbt people and give people license to discriminate. and the ability to allow religious organizations to participate in the political system with their tax exempt status, you know, if you listened at the prayer breakfast, he didn t even get that big round of applause from that, because most of the relig