it, and i think we have to account for the fact that there are other additive elements on top of this. on one extreme, you have the theory, which i think is still a bit outlandish that he is a manchurian candidate, that he has for years been a recruited asset of the russians and now this is all coming to the fore. but on the other extreme, something i think is much more likely if not probable is the fact that donald trump wants to leave office, wants to leave the presidency in good graces with vladimir putin because he and his family have used the russian market, have in fact relied upon the russian market for years. so whether it s manchurian candidate or this financial conflict of interest, the end result is the same. vladimir putin has leverage over donald trump. and as we saw this week, he is going to exact that in any way he can. i want to know one thing. you re in touch on a daily basis with your former colleague. you re out there at this conference in aspen with the entire nat
community s conclusion that russia s meddling in the 2016 election took place. it could be other people also. circumstances russia still targeting the u.s., mr. president? press, let s go. make your way out. then just yesterday, we learned putin has been invited to washington in the fall. the white house also had to back off the president s suggestion he would be willing to let russia interrogatory americans, including former american ambassador michael mcfaul. and today politico is reporting it this way, quote, trump s disastrous performance since his news conference alongside russian counterpart vladimir putin has sent west wing morale to its lowest level since the charlottesville fiasco almost a year ago. staffers are considering accelerating their departures in the wake of the president s equivocations on russian meddling in the 2016 election. here with us to talk about it jill colvin, white house reporter for the associated press, and brian bennett, senior
understand what it is they saw, to rationalize it, to explain it away, to speculate on what kinds of kompromat the russians could have on trump. when the answer, like infidelity or death was staring them, us, in the face, yes, putin has something on trump. he helped him win. that s the kompromat. ned, do you agree? do you concur? do you say at least it s possible? well, brian, i think that s an element of the kompromat. in fact, it has to be because as we have heard from jim clapper to other experts out there, it is in some ways unlikely that donald trump would be our commander in chief today were it not for russia s multipronged assault on our election. after all, this election was decide by some 70,000 votes in three swing states that were particular targets for the russians. so i think that s a part of it. but i also think that may not be
been trying to catch up with the president s repeated walkbacks over the last few days of his positions on russia, and the week is bookended here with the russia news, a remainder of all the things that are still out there hanging over the administration in the legal realm. so it s just been a stressful week for this president. i go back about a month. being around the president as he was traveling, interacting with him a bit, you could see he was really ebullient. he thought that the mueller probe was fading, the public didn t care about it. he felt great going into and certainly coming out of the singapore summit, was excited about meeting with putin. and this week has really been a difficult reminder to him that sometimes his instincts are wrong and also that there may be a limit to what republicans here in washington will put up with given the rebuke, the broad rebuke that he got from his own party this week for his comments related to putin. to matt apuzzo, unconditional permiss
exile, admittedly. what is morale like in the trade of intelligence? well, it s a good question, brian, because i think we focus far too much on the standing of senior intelligence officials. will director coats go or won t he after this week? what to make of chris wray, the fbi director. look, have i been in touch with my former colleagues in the intelligence community, and there is a profound sense of demoralization. just as i was trying to make sense of monday s press conference and proceedings, i got an e-mail from a former colleague of mine. the first line of which was what in the hell are we doing? and it wasn t a question about policy. it wasn t a question of what are the state of relations between washington and moscow, brian, it was an existential question that he as a member of the intelligence community posed. why are we in these positions, in some cases risking life and limb when we have a president who is quite ready to side with