relation to this investigation, but the idea that you would have to amend it more than once seems extraordinary. well, that s right. especially in respect of this meeting, given what appears to be its significance. and so, you know, if you have hundreds of meetings, as his attorney said he has, and you forget one that seems to be of minor consequence, fair enough. but this meeting seems to be of major consequence in political terms, and that s one that you don t leave out. the other thing, anderson, that strikes me as very interesting, is i can t, in my mind, yet decouple the adoption conversation from the help get dirt on hillary clinton conversation. because it seems to me that there s the possibility that the conversation goes, we will give you information with respect to hillary clinton if you can deal with the sanctions issue, which is adoption is just a proxy for sanctions. and so, if they re tying dirt
numbers in accordance with the strategy. it s now been reported that a memo from h.r. mcmaster said it s now limited at 3,900 and no more troops, regardless of the strategy. can you tell us if that s true. i m not aware of that specific memo but i will check into the specific details of that and circle back with you. can you tell us how seriously the president considered the idea of using private time trackers to augment u.s. personnel on the ground in afghanistan, as opposed to u.s. military personnel. i know that we feel it s important to get input from all perspectives, and all of the right people were part of that process throughout, and any conversation. look, we ve used contractors extensively over the last 16 years. currently, there are tens of thousands of contractors that are bravely serving alongside a lot of the u.s. military and coalition forces, and we re finalizing the review fully of
the russian government did want to give information or wanted to remember to the trump campaign s interest in receiving information, is this a way that they might go about doing it? yeah, you re asking exactly the right question, anderson. if i m the russian intelligence officer who s responsible for this operation, and it would be normal in the russian context for the russian special services, their intelligence services, to be the ones behind this, what you re going to look for is, okay, we need to find out whether or not the trump team, as, you know, prior to the election, is actually willing to play ball, is willing to have at least a conversation. the russians are very well versed in our sort of western business approach. oh, it s just a meeting, it s just, you know, it s just a blue sky session, we re not really talking about anything serious. and they know that that s how westerners come at this, and so it would be very normal for them to find somebody who s not a specific mem
to this matter or several matters. all of the appropriate parties have been a part of that conversation and part of that discussion. second question. jared kushner was apparently forwarded the same e-mail. is he still is his security clearance still valid right now? as always, we ve never discussed the security clearance of any one more. yesterday, you said you d check back to us on the status of the how the president views the u.s./russia relationship. so, is russia friend or foe. again, i haven t had a chance to have that direct conversation. i ve been a little preoccupied with other things. but i certainly will check on that. policy question on afghanistan. so, has the president, through h.r. mcmasters, notified the pentagon that he is reasserting the cap of 3900 additional troops to afghanistan, initially as reported that he had given the pentagon and general mattis authority to increase the troop
what astonishings me, though, anderson, is given the fact that there s been so much focus on the russian investigation, how is it that the president hasn t had a conversation with his own son about his involvement at this stage in the campaign? i mean, it s just it defies belief. the white house is saying that the president had no knowledge of this. the son would have called the father up and said, the russian government would like to meet with me. is it okay to do that? i mean, i can t believe that that kind of contact wouldn t have occur. i want to bring in john, former white house counsel to nixon during watergate. john, do you think it s possible at some point the president wasn t informed about this by his own son? if his son has just been informed that the russian government wants donald trump to win as president of the united states, i mean, it s possible, i suppose, that his son would not tell his father that, but that seems like pretty big information.