for bloomberg opinion and author of the book trump nation. ashley, let me start with you. intelligence community is usually reluctant to wade into domestic politics, viewing their voice as something to preserve for times of war or grave national security crises. i m told that they view the trump presidency, the encroachment into the intelligence community and their work the disdain they show for their work product, and sort of the obliteration of norms as dire enough to warrant their participation. well, it s a striking group, a strikingly bipartisan group of former intel officials who signed that letter and striking the fact that they were willing to take the president on so publicly. i think one thing that s interesting there is you see a disconnect between these members who are willing to speak out and lend their voice which as you pointed out is something they
i was not a cheerleader either times that he ran for president, but i admired he tried to shame the republican party for being so craftily political when it comes to putin. he said we are taking a country that is small and doesn t innovatate and cites nothing and turn them into a super power by being divided among ourselves. that criticism is there and should be levelled at republicans who are cowering when being asked a frank question. should russians have the ability to meddle in our elections? you can believe donald trump would be president anyway and say but i will never let the russians interfere with our political system. i thought his comments about politics, this is something i heard privately from white house aides have been the losses his parties have suffered on his watch. what he called the inability and the limits of the
putin s russia, he may find strange and surprising allies in john mccain, lindsey graham and marco rubio. i would add that marco rubio said the same thing obama said today about stolen material in the midst of the heated campaign. marco rubio who was running for a competitive seat in florida warned republicans not to use the podesta e-mails. he said we might be next. russia may hack us next. i asked kellyanne conway in the final weeks of the campaign if she was comfortable using the stolen e-mails and put it on wikileaks and she said yes, we are. this is something i think the president started unwinding and i hope former presidents find themselves sometimes very reluctant to wade into domestic politics. i hope keeping an eye on putin and russia is one of them.
down of what he believes he accomplished. you heard him absolutely having no second thoughts about the way he handled this russian hacking situation. he set out to make sure there were never any questions about the integrity of this, defending essentially his decisions in syria. a president was nearing the end of his term here and is going off to put down more thoughts that he will share with the american people. chris jansing in the white house briefing room where we witnessed the longest ever news conference by this president. our political director chuck todd has been watching and listening with us in washington. if you love movies and or politics, it is sometimes impossible to watch these things and not hear the words of aaron sorkin about the hard work of the presidency and the real work of the presidency and the view from the cheap seats. his words, not the president s.
political system as envisioned by the founders. sometimes they give a disadvantage to democrats, but the truth of the matter is if we are speaking to what the american people care about, typically, the popular vote and the electoral college vote will align. i guess part of my overall message here as i leave for the holidays is that if we look for one explanation or one silver bullet or one easy fix for our politics, then we are probably going to be disappointed.