Revealing anything privileged tomorrow or wednesday. And then spicer was deflecting on russias role by arguing that maybe election interference is more of an issue for Hillary Clinton than vladimir putin. Why Arent We Talking about the influence other influences on the election . Why Arent We Talking about Hillary Clinton getting Debate Questions ahead of time . Thats a valid attempt to influence an election. Spicer is citing an email there that showed a democratic operative on cnn appear to share Debate Questions in advance with clinton, an email revealed by the underlying russian hack. Now trumps aides would apparently prefer to take shots at Hillary Clinton than address the Foreign Policy dilemmas theyre facing right now. Its easy to see why. Its pretty easy to blame your competitor for everything. That is, of course, what 2016 was a about. But 2016s over. This is 2017. Its not a test. Its about to get much more difficult for donald trump. Joining me now former cia
operations officer and a 2016 independent president ial candidate, evan mcmullen. What do you think of what were seeing here and this bizarre inability to deal with what might be negative information about srussia separate from wha you do about it by the Trump Administration incoming . Well, i think we have to ask ourselves, the entire country, why is donald trump and his team working so hard to protect russia in the situation . Its clear russia worked to undermine our democracy, to influence our election. The Intel Community came out unanimously in october and said this is what russia is doing. But you dont need to be an Intelligence Officer to know that. Russia is doing the same thing here in our country its done in europe and is still doing in europe and germany, for example. That is funding groups like White Supremacist groups, White Nationalist groups, using Internet Trolls that they employ in russia, supporting their
skeptical thats true. I think its not true. You have a nice way of saying hes full of bs. What do you think your former colleagues in the Intelligence Agencies are thinking when donald trump seems to use every time this issue arises to sort of get into their biggest embarrassment on iraq and sort of cast doubt about the entire integrity or the competence of the entire operation. Of course theyre unhappy about that, but i think that speaks to a much deeper source of tension between the Intelligence Community and donald trump. That is that donald trump wants to align our country, his administration, with the very country that is attacking our democracy, the Intelligence Community and the National Security community in general warned against him, warned against this Policy Approach during the election, and thats not going to change. Theres a very deep source of tension there. But donald trump continues to
it. And so he denies it, says we should move on. And ultimately he says because theres no other way ive got information that you dont have. But im not going to tell you for a few days. So what happens . Then we in the media talk about it for a few days, repeating his claim to know things that no one else does, half of america believes it. Half of us dont. But to his audience, they believe it. And weve carried that message in the media. So he has won, a on playing us by doing this. We have to call him out when he knows what other people dont know allegedly, we have to ask where did that information come from. You said half of america, we have to fact check that, i believe 46 . Evan mcmullin, thank you for joining us. Up next former u. S. Ambassador to russia. First, mr. Ambassador, your response to what i was just discussing with evan and your view of where intelligence and
diplomacy meet here. Well, intelligence is a major part of diplomacy, a major part of our developing a Foreign Policy. In a few weeks President Trump is going to be working with these very people that hes saying very distrustful things about. I want to remind your viewers that the vast majority of the people that work in the Intelligence Community are not political appointees. Theyre professionals that will be there january 20th working for President Trump. Mr. Ambassador, when we look at the sanctions that are currently being deployed against russia, when trump comes in, do they just continue automatically . What does it take for him to change them . Yes, they do continue. It will be incumbent on him to be proactive to change them. If he chooses to do so. And in doing so i think hell have to explain to the American People and to his own a
administration i want to keep emphasizing that these people will be working for him come january 20th, why he is reversing it. Maybe there will be an argument. I look forward to the new intelligence he allegedly has. Maybe theres some reason for it but right now i think that would be a very difficult thing for him to do without explaining his actions. You mentioned the intelligence he claims to have. What would he have . Either he has something that is from the Intelligence Community and we spend about 17 billion a year trying to get the best possible, or he has it from some other nonpublic source, would that be a russian source, or what other source would there be for special intel that is not within the cache of what they already have within our 17 agencies . You know, to be honest, i have no idea. I hear that. It disappoints me. I wish he would spend a little more time learning about our intelligence and learning do
a deep dive in Counter Espionage and maybe understand these things better. Maybe he has some source from somebody who provided wikileaks with the data. Thats a conspiracy floating out there on twitter and facebook, but i guess well just have to wait until tuesday to find out. What do you think about his wider habit here of saying we dont know, quote unquote, things we as a government or a country do know . Why is that so important to him and does it remind you of anything youve seen abroad in the way some leaders sometimes seem to prefer the Conspiracy Theories of the street to whats actually knowable . Well, hes denying it because he worries it affects the legitimacy of his election. Of course if more people believed that the russians influenced our election, that would delegitimate his electoral
victory. Hes been elected. The Electoral College has spoken. Everybody is preparing for him to be sworn in. I think it actually would help him to put this behind us if he acknowledged the facts. I think we need a bipartisan independent commission so we get all the facts and all the facts, by the way, of how the Obama Administration handled this intelligence challenge during the election. And so that it could be wrapped up. Everybody knows the facts. And then we get on with doing the things we need to do to prepare for the next election cycle. The russians have tremendous capability. It will be better in 2020. Other actors will have capabilities in 2020. Not pretending we werent attacked. Right. The other big Nuclear Story here is north korea as an aspirational power. Here is what donald trump wrote on twitter. North korea just stated its in the final stages of developing a Nuclear Weapon capable of reaching parts of the u. S. It wont happen end quote. How does that declare Tiff Statement compare to the actual bipartisan process over two administrations to have some kind of constraint of their ambition . I work here at stanford with george schultz, the former Secretary Of State for Ronald Reagan, and he always talks about never make a threat unless youre ready to deliver on it. And what troubles me about that tweet is hes now made a Declaratory Statement about policy. I dont know if hes done the homework to know he could implement the threat hes just put out. Wow. Well put and thank you for your time, a. M. Bmbassador michael m. As always, appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Still ahead, donald trump it continuing to conduct Business As Usual. His private resort Selling Hundreds Of Thousands of dollars in tickets this weekend. That was for the new Years Eve Party with the President Elect. Well explain whats wrong with that after the break. Grid every day. And we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression, including Preservision Areds 2. My doctor said Preservision Areds 2 has the exact Nutrient Formula the National Eye Institute recommends to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd after 15 years of clinical studies. Preservision areds 2. Because my eyes are everything. What are you doing . Getting your quarter back. Fountains dont earn interest, david. You know i work at ally. I was being romantic. You know what i find romantic . A robust annual percentage yield thats what i find romantic. This is literally throwing your money away. I think its over there. That way . Yeah, a little further up. What year was that quarter . What year is that one . 98 thats the one. You got it nothing stops us from doing right by our customers. Ally. Do it right. Lets get out of that water. Throughout the bush years Vice President dick cheney was repeatedly accused of conflicts of interest over Halliburton Oil which got lucrative contracts in iraq. Imagine if cheney had not stepped down from his job as hal burton ceo before taking office. It would have been technically legal. They are not formally required to commit a day job. That has many people literally long i longing for dick cheneys method. Donald trump is not even stepping back from Business Activities that would literally be really easy to skip. Take a look at this weekend, for example, when trump headlined the new Years Eve Party at his
maralago resort. This is not just his raycation home. This is a business. It charges 100,000 for annual Membership Fees excuse me, a onetime membership and another 14,000 in annual dues. Hard to keep track of because its so expensive. Some of the value comes from selling tickets to the big events like new years eve festivities. Tickets for the maralago Party Started at 500. A spokesman told reporters the event was sold out, 800 attendees. Those tickets alone would land somewhere north of 400,000 in revenue for maralago. There is something abnormal here many people want to normalize. That 400,000 trump banked in one night is the amount the
president earns in a year. Its not chump change. Its real money. As trump tweets and tries to distract his way through this transition, its the money hes making in this basic situation, m mixing his roles as President Elect and as head of a private company, at the very least he risks the appearance of mixing government work meant to be in the Public Interest with his family business. Now according to reports attendees at the new Years Eve Party included quincy jones, actor sylvester stallone, and fabio. Who needs no introduction. Did any Foreign Government officials buy their way into the party or any lobbyists . We just dont know because this was a private event on private property. The most secret event the president can even attend. If the money were going to the rnc instead of the trump organization, every attendees name would be public under federal law. If this were even a white house reception it would be public under federal law. We do know trumps Business Partner from dubai attended the
party. Cell phone video showed trump giving him a shoutout during his speech and a spokesman for the transition said they had no formal meetings or professional discussions. Their interactions were social. That may be true. There may have been only one Business Partner in attendance. Or it may not be true. As long as donald trump keeps spending time Generating Revenue for his companies, he will continue raising questions and conflicts that could cast a cloud over his presidency and, more importantly, over the independence of his administration. For more, im joined by the chief Investigative Reporter for politico who has been on the story, ken vogel. Ken, the money here. Why does it matter if the President Elect is at this event generating this revenue . Well, it certainly creates the appearance, ari, that what he is doing is essentially selling access to himself. Sure, this club maralago has
had these types of events before at major holidays, on new years, on christmas, on thanksgiving. What it hasnt had is a featured guest who, by the way, is the President Elect of the United States of america. So the way that they explain this is just Business As Usual. This is the way maralago conducts business. And forget about the money that trump receives from this. And would have received whether he was President Elect or not. The specter he is essentially allowing anyone who has the money to either buy a member ship or the access to someone who has a membership who can pay for a ticket to Something Like this creates the appearance of forget about the possible Business Partners who were in there or the celebrities. Its the people who want to get access to trump. Its an amazing deal for any potential business person. Or a person who wants to do business with the United States government, special interests, lobbyists. You could just imagine going
down t lhe line for those this would be an amazing deal. Look at the contrast here. He ran a campaign saying because he has money and a business he wont be beholden to these interests. That was a big Selling Point for him. A lot of people believed it, naively or not. He will fundraise less. And theres a truth to that. But that truth seems to be dwarfed by what was on display this weekend which is the business actually makes him more beholden than Campaign Money and, as weve been saying, is less traceable, less transparent. And its also much trick iie for him to extricate himself or there to be transparency around. Lets say given the benefit of the doubt and saying he goes to the extreme end of divestiture, hes still going to vacation at maralago, even if he has maralago in a blind trust or he doesnt really know whether his businesses or portfolio includes maralago he knows someone is paying money to this entity that is so closely associated with him that may or
may not be in his portfolio, that may or may not be in the blind trust that his kids may or may not oversee and here they are sitting on the couch or the patio with the president of the United States. Its a complicated situation. Cant easily extricate himself from it. Lets stipulate thats what people who care about good governance, ethics reformers, journalists and people who think about these issues, thats what theyre concerned about. Lets put that to the side then and then look at the actual trump teams response. What are we learning about where theyre at . This is a guy who said he was going to hold a big announcement to clean this up. Things were going to change. The kids would be in charge. Said all this stuff. When you looked at his actions, not the announcements, the announcements he never game, hey, whats the matter . This is just Business As Usual. Does that tell you theres something wrong if they think Business As Usual is okay when hes the President Elect . I mean, its a little bit of a sign of where their head is at
as they try to grapple with this incredibly complicated situation where they try to put to rest these concerns about conflicts of interest and try to find a sustainable system Going Forward for separating himself from his business. In a way i cannot for the life of me figure out how it can be done in a way that will satisfy sort of the Good Governm