very close ties with russia. it is going to be a really interesting 100 days for sure. evan, to you. i mean when i first read, you know, yesterday this was breaking that the united states was expelling by sunday, by the way, these 35 what they re essentially calling spies posing as diplomats for the united states and shuttering these two quote/unquote compounds in maryland and new york. i thought, why were they allowed to be here in the first place? this is what happens in, frankly, in the spy business. the united states knows people inside who work for the russian embassy and the consulates who they believe are spies. they follow these people around town. they make sure that they know what they re up to. they spy on them every place that they can. so, when at times like this that you have tensions that flare up, especially between the united states and russia. you already know who you are going to kick out of the country because you already believe these people are here under fa
part of the reason he did this today was to box in president-elect trump. that would be very unfortunate if that were the motivating if politics were the motivating factor. we can t help but think that is often true. kellyanne conway continue saying if donald trump will reverse the sanctions once he takes office. thank you so much for the reporting. we have a discussion about this and bring in matthew chance, bring him back and moscow evan perez in washington, as well. and welcome washington bureau chief for daily beast jackie kucinich and seleaney ze zito. before we get to all of that and especially the news about the retaliation. how unprecedented for the president to announce this publicly now? why is he doing this just weeks before the election? i ll start with you, jackie. president obama had to do
announced by the obama administration against russian agencies and expulsion of dozens of spies that u.s. officials say were posing as diplomats. let s get to evan perez live in washington with the very latest. good morning, evan. good morning, don. with only three weeks left in president obama s administration he is firing back at russia for their alleged meddling in the u.s. election. 35 russian diplomats now have less than 72 hours to leave the country. u.s. intelligence officials say they were spies posing as diplomats. the expulsion part of a massive crackdown by president obama against russian alleged cyberattacks. also includes shutting down two russian compounds located in maryland and new york. what these individuals were doing were basically collecting intelligence. intelligence officers operating here and using these compounds for intelligence collection purposes. reporter: the u.s. sanctioning nine russian individuals and entities,
providing the information responsible for the leaks. and that s a source of some concern because the intelligence community has concluded with high confidence that they re doing so to try to destabilize our democracy. that s something that, obviously, the president takes quite seriously. takes quite seriously, evan. but didn t do anything about it for two more months. why? well, i think jackie had mentioned that just now. she s sort of, you know, i think one of the things that was happening behind the scenes is, frankly, the obama administration folks thought that hillary clinton was going to win. and if you remember during the campaign, donald trump was already calling this a rigged election. so, there was a lot of concern that if you do this during the campaign, that donald trump will have an excuse when he loses that the white house was essentially trying to help hillary clinton. it turns out, obviously, they were wrong.
individual of this inner circle because nothing happens in russia without his knowledge or approval. reporter: meanwhile, the white house looking to take covert retaliation, as well. saying, these actions are not the sum total of our response. the u.s. says it is ready for any response from russia. we can anticipate a response of some kind. but the truth is that we enjoy the greatest capabilities of any country on earth. that s offensive and defensive. and obama has also declass y declassified intelligence to help cybersecurity companies in the u.s. and abroad identify, detect and disrupt russian cyberattacks in the future. poppy. evan perez, great reporting. do stay with us, we want to get to all this analysis in a moment. first, president-elect donald trump dismissing the u.s. sanctions against rush frau months. the president-elect has denied that the u.s. intelligence communities conclusions with russia meddling in the election