hill today as he and other top intel chiefs held a classified briefing with lawmakers on russian hacking. democrats angry over comey s actions not holding back moments after that meeting. all i can tell you is the fbi director has no credibility. obamacare, will it stay or go? the senate the senate has laid the groundwork and in 45 minutes the house will have its turn with one question still unanswered. what will replace it? let s start with the intense scrutiny surrounding the fbi and its director. james comey was on the hill today amidrevelations he s the subject of a major justice department review. the inspector general announced thursday it would investigate broad allegations of misconduct in the fbi s handling of a probe into hillary clinton s e-mails. today comey joined top intelligence officials for a closed door briefing from members of the house on russian hacking. some of those lawmakers emerged from that meeting expressing a lack of confidence in the fbi
occasions, the president-elect has denigrated the intelligence community, has called their integrity into question. has basically said he doesn t believe the intelligence on russian hacking, notwithstanding, that is the consensus view of the agencies. we have only seen the smallest concession. bret: what clapper said. the statement went as far as their conversation. you would have to be oblivious to the tweets over the last few weeks and the statements from donald trump that think he has been anything but disparaging of the men and women in the intelligence community. bret: he talks about the politicization of the leadership of the intelligence community, not the men and women who work inside intel protecting the nation every day, correct? bret: i think that is a distinction you are making. i don t think he s made the distinction. we have to go by the way he communicates which is through his twitter account, it has been i think devastating to the intelligence community. continu
states. i don t think it s ever appropriate to focus on something like religion as the only factors. if putin likes donald trump, guess what, folks, that s called an asset, not a liability. the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we deal with, with mr. putin, and we recognize that he is trying to break the north atlantic alliance. as far as hacking, i think it was russia. well, russia, but, you know what, could have been others also. general kelly, do you accept the conclusion of the intelligence community regarding russian interference in our election? with high confidence. this was an aggressive action taken by the senior leadership inside of russia. well, i think it s pretty sad when intelligence reports get leaked out to the press. this allegation is that the agency itself has become political siize politicized. do you believe that? in my experience, i have not seen that. i have very high degree of confidence in our intelligence commu
leader, as you saw with maxine waters. not, it seems, over russian hacking but, instead, on his handling of hillary clinton s e-mails. i can just put forth nye my confidence in the fbi director s ability to lead this agency is shaken. do you still have confidence in fbi director comey? i want to. i have concerns. let s dive right into today s news with our correspondents. joining me from the hill is kasie hunt, peter alexander in our washington news room and steve kornacki joins me on set. some say comey cost hillary clinton the election. what are democrats going to do? are they going to call for comey s head? reporter: at this point, we re seeing a lot of anger on the part of the democrats. it s bursting out into the open here on capitol hill. of course, fbi director comey has been on both the senate and house side in the last 24 hours for a totally different reason, or at least a somewhat different
it s an interesting dynamic, one i haven t seen in my 25 years in politics. one thing is clear, going forward, donald trump is going to dominate every news cycle over the course of the next four years. i imagine there will be very few evening newscasts where donald trump is not mentioned in the first five minutes of the broadcast because he s really mastered this. i m not sure the media has decided how to cover it. the idea of what russia did in terms of the russian government and hacking, i think that s a completely separate issue. but one which, of course, was an important one during the course of the campaign and will be investigated going forward. that s a separate issue but also the business conflicts. the office of ethics says donald trump has not done enough to separate himself from his businesses. what do you think the democrats can do, the republicans can do,