presidency. this is the first time the u.s. has indicted foreigners for a major election meddling plot, this is the first time a doj official has formally announced the charges, that s unlike, say, mike flynn or paul manafort, where we only heard from mueller s documents, they did the talking, not trump s appo t appoint appointees. but you see it there, donald trump s own appointment rod rosenstein, at the doj podium after briefing the president. you can t overstate what is happening right now. you are looking there at a trump official announcing charges against russians for helping the trump campaign. the indictment charges 13 russian nationals and three russian companies for committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the united states political system. including the 2016 presidential
companies. rachel: good morning, pete. pete: my head was so in the special counsel and collusion mode, griff jenkins, rachel campos duff duffy: griff: if you are just waking up and pouring that cup of coffee. if you only hear one word today it s the word unwitting. that is the key point of this. that these 13 russians that were indicted, they found that there were no knowing, unwitting of the trump campaign. in fact, rod rosenstein had this to say at that press conference. this is the key point. take a listen. the indictment charges 13 russian nationals and three russian companies for committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the united states political system. including the 2016 presidential election. there is no allegation in this indictment that any american was a knowing participant. there is no allegation in the indictment that the
role in the meddling. when he s in warsaw, he s saying russia is doing these bad things because that s what the audience wants to hear and needs to hear. on the other hand, the more he accepts what our intelligence agencies are saying is the united states was attacked by russia. we don t know the level of the influence that it had on the election outcome, but it was big. that undermines his credibility. he s trying to do two things at the same time. while he s doing that, he s undermining the creditability of the united states and the credibility of the united states. he s going to meet with president putin tomorrow. being a former kgb guy, when he hears the response from the president, what do you think is his read. he s going to say, we aggressively took on the united states political system. russia had a major win against the united states. the president of the united
discrepancy between the rhetoric we re hearing out of the white house, from the president himself, from his spokesman sean spicer and what we re hearing from the president s cabinet. you know, we ve got tillerson saying they re mucking around in elections. you ve got mattis calling russia a strategic competitor. there still is this discrepancy from what we re hearing from the president and the persons in his cabinet. well, you know, it s a sign of the system working, frankly victor. because you have cabinet members who are professionals, tillerson, mattis, these are respected individuals who didn t need the jobs that they currently have. and they re not going to sort of stray from the truth. they re going to sort of call it as they see it. the political staff in the white house has an entirely different agenda. the entire situation i must say would benefit from a little bit of silence from the president on down. every time he steps into this, every time he tweets, every time he tries
terrorist state. in the un security counsel would reportedly reach a resolution if iran reached an agreement. in that would make it harder to make a deal. including the 47 senators. iran s leaders criticizing the senators who sent his country a letter warning against a deal. he says he believes it shows the united states political system has disend grated and he talks about the collapse of political ethics. this coming from the man to ordered the shooting of protesters in the street. he also says he has doubts about the talks because americans are cunning and mischievous and they may stab you from behind. again coming from a man who is leading the country that has