With russian spies. Basically, you know, treasonous type accusations. We have now all kinds of people looking into this. I can assure you, and ive been, ive been approved to say this, that the top levels the of the Intelligence Community have assured me that that story is not only to inaccurate, but its grossly overstated, and it was wrong. And theres nothing to it. And so if i can say that to the american people, then what does it say about the story . The next day, chris, the wall street journal puppets out a story that says puts out a story that says that they have Anonymous Sources that say that the Intelligence Community is purposely cutting out material from President Trumps briefing materials that he gets every day. That then proved to be untrue. All the agencies put out a statement saying it was totally inaccurate. Then we get chris okay, all right. Listen, i get that you dont like reince, i get the fact that you dont like what is it, chris . Chris first of all, you made some news there at the top, and i want to follow up on that. You say, because you said before you werent part of the campaign, so you couldnt speak to that. You say that the Intelligence Community says that there were no contacts between anyone in the trump campaign, any associate of mr. Trump and any, anybody involved as a russian agent as to the campaign and collusion in the campaign with russia. Is that what youre saying . Yeah. They told me absolutely. They have made it very clear that that story in the New York Times is complete garbage. And, quite frankly, they used different words than that, okay . Chris who is it that said that . Who is it that said that im not going to tell you. Chris well, wait a minute, reince, you just complained about unnamed sources, youre using an unnamed source. Well, because i didnt ask for approval to use their name, but i will tell you this, when i say toplevel people, i mean toplevel people, okay . Chris so no collusion whatsoever, anybody involved with trump and anybody involved with russia in the 2016 campaign. No. And if you look at devin nunes comments in the actual paper on the record chris chairman of the house intelligence committee. He was briefed by the fbi, and what did he do . He turned around and went on the record and said that this story is complete garbage, okay . Chris okay, but heres the rob, reince, heres wait a minute. Heres the problem. I dont have any problem with you complaining about an individual story. We sometimes get it wrong. You guys sometimes get it wrong. I dont have any problem with you complaining about bias. But you went a lot further than that, or the president went a lot further than that. He said that the fake media not certain stories, the fake media are an enemy to the country. We dont have a staterun media in this country. Thats what they have in dictatorships. Okay, listen, chris, its not just two stories. Then its fold up by 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of other cable stations not necessarily fox that all day long on every seven minutes are talking about russian spies, talking about the Intelligence Community, talking about how me and steve bannon dont like each other and whats kellyanne doing, all this just total garbage, unsourced stuff. Listen, theres nothing wrong with background. Boater reporters need reporters need background information, we need to communicate with reporters and give them context. All im saying though is if youre going to come out with this story that says russian spies are talking to your campaign, my god, i mean, you actually i think you should in some cases or in most cases actually have a named source. Look what weve done. Weve repealed tpp, we have signed a coal bill to save the coal industry, we named neil gorsuch, we chris and you know what, reince . We covered all of that. We had the neil gorsuch wait a minute. We and all of the other cable channels had, covered live the announcement of neil gorsuch right. Chris covered live a lot of these other events, covered live for an hour and 15 minutes, but heres the problem chris, hang on. Hiring freeze [inaudible conversations] chris the enemy of the american people, it makes it sound as if youre going against him, youre going against the country. Heres the problem, chris. The problem is that, youre right, some of these things were covered. But you get about 10 coverage on the fact that you had a very successful meeting with bibi netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the u. K. , the Prime Minister of chris we covered all of those News Conferences live, everybody did. Yeah, sure. Yeah, right, but as soon as it was over, the next 20 hours is all about russian spies chris but you dont get to tell us what to do, reince. You dont get to tell us what to do any more than barack obama did. Barack obama wined about fox news all the whined about fox news all the time, but he never said that we were an enemy of the people. Let me tell you something, he said a lot of things about fox news, chris. I think you ought to go check the tape. He blamed you for a lot of things, and im surprised as someone from fox that youd forget all the shots that he took chris no, he took the shots, and we didnt like them. Frankly, we dont like this either, you know . He never went as far as President Trump has, and thats whats concerning, because it seems like he crosses a line when he talks about that were an enemy of the people. That is concerning. I think you should be concerned, i think under be concerned you should be curved about mainstream news outlets that are acting Like Washington daily gossip magazines instead of the way it used to be where youd get a few sources on the record. Yeah, youll these some background and maybe, yes, youll need some Anonymous Sources, but to accuse an organization of being in Constant Contact with russian spies is outrageous. And every day its something different, its some other source that is absolutely untrue. Instead of talking about the things that are going on chris all right, can i ask you about another that we are doing every single day. Chris i need to ask you another question about russia, which youll be delighted to answer. In his News Conference this week, President Trump defended former National Security adviser, now form be, retired general Michael Flynn and his phone call with the Russian Ambassador. Heres the president. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts. So it certainly would have been okay with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if i thought he wasnt doing it. Chris i want to be precise here. The president doesnt think theres anything wrong with his pick. He wasnt then in office, for National Security adviser calling the Russian Ambassador to talk about were going to review and perhaps lift sanctions precisely on the day that president obama imposed those sanctions because russia had interfered in the u. S. Election. He doesnt think theres anything wrong with that . Well, i dont think theres anything our Legal Department looked at this too. I dont think theres anything wrong with the subject of sanctions or new sanctions coming up. I dont think that that in and of itself is wrong, and i think thats what the president is saying chris im talking specifically about this phone call at this time. And the Legal Department chris youve got president obama who is so outraged i dont know why youre so hot here. I mean, its fine that youre going bananas here, chris chris im not going bananas yes, you are. Its ridiculous. Chris it seems odd that the president of the United States then, barack obama, imposes sanctions because he says russia had interfered with, undermined our election, and youve got mike flynn calling the ambassador saying, well, dont worry about it, well review the sanctions. You dont think theres anything wrong with that . You dont know he said that. What the president is saying that if the subject of the new sanctions came up, that in and of itself is not a problem. You know, how does when you have a National Security adviser thats calling 30 different leaders a day, there are a lot of topics of the day that come up. What are these people supposed to do chris why did the acting attorney general, sally yates, warn the white House Counsel, don mcgann, and why was it called into a meeting, and you met with bannon and the president , why did all of that happen . What do you mean, why did it happen . It happened because sally yates alerted and gave a heads up, it was later determined that there was no investigation ongoing. We looked at the matter, the Legal Department determined that there was nothing illegal that happened in the conversation, but then the issue turned to whether or not Michael Flynn was being honest and direct with the Vice President , and ultimately the president determined that it was an unsustainable situation, and he fired or he asked for the resignation of mike flynn, i mean, thats what happened. Chris reince, let me ask you about that timeline, if i might, because the acting attorney general notified the white house on january 26th about discrepancies between what flynn had told Vice President pence about the call and what transcripts showed flynn had actually said. But while the president and steve bannon and you all knew, the Vice President didnt find out til he read it in the paper on february 9th. Question why didnt you, as chief of staff, tell the Vice President over the course of 14 days . Well, look, here is what happened. Yates came in, gave a heads up to the white House Counsel. White House Counsel looked at the matter. The next day or the day after the investigation was closed and no longer going on, then the issue shifted to whether or not something was done that was wrong. The Vice President was then looped in on the situation, and we talked to the Vice President about whether or not Michael Flynn was being honest or not. The Vice President knew that there was an fbi interview, and then ultimately we decided after about ten days bringing the Vice President in that we decided that he wasnt being honest. That is the timeline. It happened very quickly, chris. Chris but the Vice President says he didnt know for 14 days that he had been misled by Michael Flynn. No. The Vice President knew that we were what the Vice President didnt know, i believe, was that sally yates gave an initial heads up to don mcgann. But once that, once the next day came and that investigation was closed, chris, that topic didnt come up again. This whole conversation shifted to whether or not Michael Flynn was honest with the Vice President. Chris okay. He was then looped in on that conversation, and it was determined that he wasnt. Chris okay. That was it. Chris okay. One final question [laughter] well have a better conversation next time, reince. The president all right. Chris is now trying to find a new National Security adviser, in fact, hes interviewing a number of people today. At least two candidates have reportedly been passed over because they wanted more control over how the National Security council operates. Question is the president insisting that a political operative, steve bannon, play a major role in National Security which appears to be a concern for some of these candidates . Yeah, no. The answer to that is, no. And the answer to the first part of the question is, number one, the issue with admiral hardward never came up, and we havent really gone down the road with general petraeus. But as to the staffing at the nsa, the new nsa director can do whatever that, he or she wants to do with the staffing at the end chris but when you say nor, are you say no, are you saying the new nsa director can say i dont want steve bannon as a member of the National Security council . The president has said very clearly that the new nsa director will have total and complete say over the makeup of the nsc and all of the components of the nsc. And there is no demand made by President Trump on any candidate for nsa director chris including steve bannon be, because its very unusual to have a political operative in that role. So those reports that youre citing, those are more fake news stories that are completely untrue. Weve never put demands on an incoming nsa director. The nsa director can do whatever he or she wants to do with the nsc and the makeup of the nsc. And the president has been very clear on that topic. And again, here we go, talking about more news articles that are not based on fact chris you know what i did, reince . Our word doesnt matter. Chris i asked you about it, and thats how good reporters find out whether something is true. Because youre a good reporter. [laughter]