republican electoral votes, 244 democratics, but the notable number there, 46 in the toss-up vote column. well, president trump facing backlash in the wake of a new york times report alleging that trump ordered officials to give son-in-law jared kushner a security clearance. it comes less than a month after ivanka trump exclusively denied her father s involvement in her husband s security clearance. there were anonymous leaks about there being issues, but the president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband s clearance. so no special treatment? no. joining me now, new york congressman adriano espaillat. thank you for joining me. tell me what this stands for and how it s been received in the likelihood of passage. which is a mechanism to ensure that top-secret clearance
in cohen s hearing, he discussed his last conversation with the president. let s listen to what he said. when was the last communication with president trump or someone acting on his behalf? i don t have the specific date, but it was a while ago. and what did he or his agent communicate to you? unfortunately, this topic is actually something that s being investigated right now by the southern district of new york. is there any other wrongdoing or illegal act that you are aware of regarding donald trump that we haven t yet discussed today? yes. and again, those are part of the investigation that s currently being looked at by the southern district of new york. what are the chances, katie, that could be related to pardon talks? listen, i m sure that the word pardon has come up several times during a conversation between donald trump and michael cohen, but was it brought up in the context of michael cohen getting a pardon, or did it involve other players that were involv
consciousness that the president let loose. and again, as you correctly point out, after a difficult week politically, and perhaps even legally, with the testimony from michael cohen, with coming home empty-handed from his summit with the north korean leader in hanoi, the jared kushner situation where the president is reported to have interfered and overruled top officials in granting his son-in-law a top security clearance. so, all that added up to a very frustrated president trump. you saw him take the stage there at cpac, and you could tell right away, when he hugged the american flag that was at the side of the stage, that this, indeed, was going to be something unrestrained, even by president trump s standards. let s point out a couple of things. i think it s important to point these out. he talked about the comey firing and how he had had a conversation with his wife because he said comey was a bad man. of course, he had told nbc s lester holt shortly after that that he did it, h
it overall? do you agree this was the ultimate kickoff to the 2020 presidential campaign for trump? remember, alex, that state of the union address where donald trump called for unity? yeah, i don t really remember it either. yeah. i mean, kevin s right, it is kind of a ceremonial kickoff to the campaign. but donald trump has been preparing for this moment, for this kickoff, literally since the day he became president of the united states. on the day of his inauguration, he filed paperwork to run for re-election in 2020. that s something unprecedented in u.s. presidential history. he s been raising a ton of money. he has a consolation of super pacs and various other outside groups promoting him. and what we re really seeing is that all poured into the sing lari larity, pouring that into the campaign for the next two years. so this is a significant moment in time and really stands to show who donald trump is and where his comfort zone is. he loves these kinds of events and he s be
him and throughout his administration. this is something that he s hit right on the nose ever since, again, he became president of the united states. and whether it s michael cohen, whether it s hillary clinton, whether it s the mueller investigation, whether it s some of the attorneys generals investigations, lawsuits. they go on and on and on and donald trump is going to have one response and one response only, which is to attack, attack, attack, and call this all a witch hunt, which he truly believes, if you take him at his word, he believes this is. but that s not going to matter if you have a position of great peril and the mueller investigation, and the report created from that, will kind of be the ultimate arbiter of where his future is going. it s going to be pretty darn close. and a lot of dominos will fall, particularly the big one in the u.s. house, which is whether democrats at that moment are going to decide to move forward with impeachment, which they are reluctant to