to our authorities to prevent terrorist attacks. the consequences are really high. one of the most important things we are placed in charge to do is to make decisions not based on tv, not based on internet, based on facts. based on reality. you have been listening to house speaker paul ryan on the house floor talking about that fisa reauthorization fight that is happening right now. we expect that vote to be some time maybe in the next 20 minutes, maybe in the next 40 or so. we ll be watching that. as we wrap up today, we want to go quickly to our big picture. to the place where the arab spring first started. look at this, these are riot police in the streets of tunisia. damage from big riots that have been going on for the last three days now. protesting higher prices for basic goods, high unemployment rates, too. the government has been responding by arresting hundreds of protesters even sending in troops. tunisians seen as the largest
this program is so important and for the president to do this based on, as you said, his personal obsession and based on wrong information because the part of fisa that would apply to any kind of surveillance of his campaign aides is not this part that we re talking about. so absolutely, people were just mortified over this today. you re right. it does speak to i assume he must have been briefed on the importance of this vote. and it raises the question, either he didn t understand the briefing or perhaps he wasn t directly briefed this morning. but it s hugely troubling development. barbara, i m told he was briefed by tom bossert. that bossert, quote, had him in the right place on this bill. he was not in the building this morning but as soon as he caught wind of the president s tweets, in opposition to this legislation, he scrambled the jets if you will to get the president back in line. can you talk about just string together the president s world
surveillance tool and program in being able to foil terror attacks in the planning? section 702 is this part of the fisa law that allows the intercept of foreign nationals on foreign soil and to be able to use that if that person is communicating with american citizens in a criminal case. one example of where the section 02 collection was used was in the case of muhammad muhammad. this was the man who attempted to blow up the christmas tree lighting ceremony in portland, oregon. so that intelligence information, collection of those communications, was used to bring that case. so just one example. but on a daily basis, plots are thwarted and the picture of intelligence is put together through that collection. and andrea mitchell, i m sure you heard even more of what i heard from national security officials who really do make up the least partisan kind of group of alum, of former administrations. democrats and republicans who had similar roles in similar
your question is completely ridiculous and shows the lack of knowledge that you have on this process. can you explain i ve tried several times. i ll do it a tenth time here. look, the president supports the 702 but he has some very strong concerns about the fisa program more generally. again, this is why he put out a memo last week outlining such and why the dni director put out a new policy this morning. i m not sure what the confusion is there. i just you definitively are saying the president s tweet this morning was in your view not at all confusing and not at all contra you think that s an accurate statement. i want to be very clear about this. it wasn t confusing for me. i m sorry if it was for you. not confused at all. this morning s tweets from the president marked the second time in three days the president has contradicted his own position on a major policy issue. in fact, trump has said something to undermine almost every single piece of legislation he s got
was voted on before the main bill which would have reformed 702 which i would have said would have been a useful thing where the intelligence community would need to get warrants to get information about phone conversations between foreigners and american citizens. i think that s a good idea. i think that was in there. they have 24 hours to go to court to get i think that was that was not passed. the main bill was passed and didn t have that. but because of trump s confusion or whatever you want to call it, that put the kabosh on that note and people were afraid of not even passing the bill. what i want to go back to, the nature of sarah huckabee sanders response to hallie jackson s question. so we can all stipulate to the truth that it was dumb, that it reflects profound ignorance and risks the security of the country. lets us know a whole bunch of people don t know anything about fisa. one thing that s really striking is who is who are these people speaking to and for? s