Leaving. Joining me now is democratic senator of virginia whos also the Vice President of the Senate Intelligence committee. Thanks for being here this morning. Thank you. Let me get your reaction to the resignation a few days ago. What do you make of that. Well, it is a consistent pattern we see of bill barr not acting as attorney general, protecting our whole country. Hes acting for the most part simply as an agent for donald trump and this investigation i feel like has added an odor to it the whole time. I dont know what durham will find or not but i would point out that you know, i wonder if hes going to then investigate the bipartisan Intelligence Committee because we came out 141 with a document in much more detail than mueller aligns the connections between russia and trump. I know its deep in the weeds and complicated but for the American People, in two sentences what are the conclusions of that report . Well, we leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions but factually a Campaign Manager for donald trump giving critical polling information. I mean, you can draw whatever conclusion you want from that, but that is unprecedented in that history of our country. One example and there are literally dozens and dozens others and i would advise your viewers to, you know, google it and take a quick read. Now, even though you said this was a near unanimous out of the Senate Intelligence committee, a near unanimous decision to put it out, 141, but overall on capitol hill in the u. S. Capital republicans are turning a blind eye. Theyre ignoring your conclusions. What do you make of republicans in general, the Republican Party completely ignoring the findings of the report, of your report . Well, whats disappointing is even if they want to try to whitewash what happened in 2016, i think its extraordinarily unfortunate that theyve not taken the recommendations to make sure that we dont have a repeat of this happening in 2020 and even the Trump Administration intelligence officials have indicated that russia is back, theyre back with a Disinformation Campaign against joe biden and one of the things i keep trying to push the Intelligence Committee is to come forward with even more facts, because the best preventative medicine against russian interference is an informed elect rat and i think there are mott facts that americans need to know as they see this russia Disinformation Campaign play out. As you just said, senator, the russians are back with a Disinformation Campaign. Theyre back in terms of trying to interfere with the 2020 election. The question i have for you then is, is the Trump Administration, is the federal government doing anything to fight that . We are. The Intelligence Community is better at pushing back, but you know, if youre chasing after disinformation youll always react it and in 2018 we were better about taking down some of the russian disinformation. I think we need to be more aggressive this year and at this moment in time and particularly as well as weve seen from other nations because russia does this all around the world. The best prevention is to inform your population about the russian techniques and that has not happened. The Intelligence Community i think wants that to happen but as weve i am continually concerned about the politicalization of the top leaders. Everyones been talking about bobs book rage. Whats troubled you the most about what weve learned from the book . Whats troubled me the most with 190,000 americans dead and tens of millions of folks who have lost their job partially due to the pandemic we didnt have to be here. The president clearly misled the American Public. People got sick and died because they did what you would normally do, listen to your president and he misled about the severity of the virus and here we are six months plus into the virus, we still have no National Plan on testing. We still have no National Plan on ppe and in a country like ours we should not be here and frankly, being more straightforward about the virus on the front end, taking the kind of federal responsibility to actually have a National Plan to secure ppe, have a National Plan on testing put in place a National Plan on a vaccination when it comes and it should come only after the science vets it, would be the appropriate response. Obvious think thats not the way donald trump has acted. Thank you very much for joining me this morning. Thank you, jonathan. And now joining the discussion. Mia wylie, professor at the new school and thank you both for being here. Natasha, let me start with you. This durham probe and the report thats coming out, from your reporting, where does it stand . Is it going to come out before election day . A great question, jonathan and we really dont know where it stands at this point. We know that according to reporting there has been pressure on durham to come out with a kind of interim report before election day, before he completes his full investigation kind of outlining some of the findings that hes made as port of this probe. That wouldnt be the final report. It would be something to hold us over until the final report and something of course, that the president could then use before election day and try to weaponize, but we know that durham has been traveling all around the world interviewing foreign governments along with bill barr. Bill barr has been intimately involved in this investigation about the origin about the russia investigation and we dont know what hes found yet. We know that its resulted in at least one criminal prosecution of one former fbi agent who altered a document but we dont know if more is going to come out of that or thats going to lead to more prosecutions but i think the thing that is alarming experts the most here is the possibility that in order to have some kind of impact on the election, perhaps, that he will come out with an interim report which is kind of, you know, in contradiction to long standing doj policy where you dont release something that could impact the election within 60 days. The other terms in terms of potential prosecutions, the president has made it clear, he thinks that Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted. Former president barack obama should be prosecuted and other high ranking officials. In the clip we showed, with the president saying it could be much more or not, or it could be much more. How seriously could we take it that a report companion out that says president obama should be prosecuted . Well, the attorney general has already said that he doesnt expect any criminal referrals to be made about the former president or about joe biden for that matter. Now, whether or not we take bill barrs word on that is another question entirely. But it would be a new step, i think. A real just intensification of the splittizization of the Justice Department if there were to be a recommendation of criminal charges against a president s chief 2020 opponent and of course a former president. Right now we dont have any indication that thats going to happen but its of course something that everyone should be keeping an eye on. Maiya let me bring you in here. Do you take bill barr at his word that thats not going to happen, criminal charges against Hillary Clinton or president obama former . I would certainly take him at his word that he doesnt currently have plans because the president has not yet forced him to try. I think what weve seen is the common pattern with bill barr unfortunately is that he has demonstrated himself to be someone who rather than putting the best interests of the country first, particularly when it comes to Law Enforcement has actually behaved as Donald Trumps defense attorney. We should remember here important fact is that remember when donald trump claimed that he wasnt firing james comey because he didnt promise him loyalty but because james comey sent out that october surprise in the form of a letter that claimed essentially that he was reopening an investigation related to Hillary Clintons emails . Remember that . Right. Because thats exactly what were talking about right now and donald trump himself as well as bill barr have made these statements publicly that we should expect at least some report prior to the election and i dont think theres any question about the fact that everything we have seen or heard including from career prosecutors is that they have been pressured to do things that benefit his reelection bid. Im reminded that our own Pete Williams asked attorney bill barr if this report would be released before election and the attorney general said he didnt know. Natasha let me get you on another issue and that is the reports that a whistle blower complaint that is a letter to the dhs council on friday asking for more information about a former dhs officials whies l whistle blowers complaints. And it is outrageous but for your National Security perspective, how damning and damaging is that . Well, it essentially amounts to if this was a whistle blower complaint is true, it amounts to a politicalization of intelligence which is extremely dangerous especially inflating threats posed by far left groups while essentially ignoring threats by far right groups which they have determined is a much bigger threat to the american homeland. Especially in terms of, you know, far right groups who are inciting violence and who are more likely to carry weapons. So this is a huge issue and that is exactly i think why this former dhs official chose to come forward now especially with regard to the issue of russian disinformation and russian interference, we had microsoft come out last week and tell us that russia was targeting over 200 organizations ahead of the 2020 election. And you know, thats not something weve heard from our own federal government. We had to have a private company tell us that. So the idea that this information is being with held from the American People ahead of 2020 is incredibly alarming and i think that thats what really drove this individual, bryan murphy to come forward and say look, this cant continue because we need to have a realistic picture of all of the Different Actors so that the public is well informed of what to expect. Youll be back in our next hour. Coming up, Bob Woodwards new book is sending shock waves across the world except with one very powerful group. Ill tell you about them after the break. Ill tell you about them after the break. We got no free pass. Everything we have, weve earned. The unmistakable lexus is. Get zero percent financing on the 2020 is 300. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Experience amazing verizon knows how to build unlimited right. Start with americas most awarded network. Im on my phone 24 7. Then for the first time ever, include disney , hulu and espn . Were a big soccer family. Handmaids tale. 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Its him thats totally the guy. Safe drivers do save 40 . Click or call for a quote today. That helps you master your backhand. Then you should be able to get a bank account that helps you master your budget. Virtual wallet® for Digital Banking from pnc. Its time to get more from your bank. History says, Fine Jewellery for occasions. We say, forget occasions. Fine jewellery for yourself. snap were mejuri, the new luxury. In that february 7th interview, its clear that the president knows what the stakes are, but hes not sharing that with the public at that time. Yes. This is the tragedy. The president of the United States has a duty to warn. The public will understand that but if they get the feeling that theyre not getting the truth then youre going down the path of deceit and cover up. By now youve heard about how department deliberately misled the American People about the grave threat that covid19 posed after privately admitting to bob woodward in early february that he knew the virus was quote, deadly stuff because its air born and therefore extremely contagious. The trumps admission on the real danger of the coronavirus does not happen in a vacuum. His conversation came just two days after trumps acquittal in the senate during his impeachment trial. Yet another example of trump emerging from one skcandal and jumping right into another. Just like the infamous phone call to the ukranian president asking for a favor came one day after Robert Muellers testimony was deemed a nonstarter and just as during his impeachment trial, Congressional Republicans continued to look the other way. Look, i didnt look at the woodward book. I will later, but i havent even seen what youre referring to yet. I hadnt read it. Ive not read it. I want to read it. Joining me now are tom nichols, opinion columnist for usa today and david jolly a congressman who is no longer with the party. Thank you very much for being here. Let me add one more voice to the denial chorus we just heard there. Take a listen to this. It was Lindsey Graham who helped convince donald trump to talk to bob woodward. Graham is supposed to be a republican so why would he do Something Like that . Heres the more important point to me. Im interested in what did joe biden know and when did he know it and what was he thinking at the time this coronavirus came on . Im sorry. Last i checked joe biden is not president of the United States. Why we go through this all the time but i am still mystified and ill go to you, david, first, because you are a former member of the Republican Party. Why are they doing this . Why are they turning a blind eye to a republican president who has done damage to this country . Yeah, look, i think we have to judge republicans behavior on two fronts. One is structural and run is reasons of character. On the structural we have an electoral system that is rigged toward partisanship. You have closed primaries and we have big money thats tied to partisan behavior so you see republicans doing the thing that reward republicans and dems doing the things that reward dems, but then you get to the real core of the question which is questions of character and jonathan, politicians either lead or they follow and were living through a generation of republican politicians right now who simply follow. There are very few leaders on capitol hill and we see that. The best politicians of any era are the ones that are willing to lose their jobs. The ones that are willing to draw Public Opinion in the direction of what reflects the character of the nation. Were not seeing that in the Republican Party and is why we can never overlook the republican majority that enables and celebrates this president. It is trumpism that has infected the entire party. Tom, let me get your reaction what youve learned in the reporting on Bob Woodwards book and what that says to you about the president , the party and the country. First off, its fascinating to hear members of congress say well, i Vice President read the book. Well, neither have i but you have ears, you have a television, every Senate Office, every Senate Office has a hundred televisions in it. You know what the president said. And you know, react to that but i think as david pointed out, the goal here is survival. The president s goal is always to kind of engage that lizard brain survival mechanism to somehow overcome the next terrible thing that hes done. The Republican Partys job is to keep surviving and to simply get to the next election, keep the Party Infrastructure intact and then every republican elected is basically living minute to minute saying how do i get from my office to my car without the president blowing up my career. And i think it is really important to say that a lot of republicans now, you know, every politician wants to get reelected but in that reluctance to lose their job that david talks about theyre now saying things that will be carved on their political gravestones. All this happened and you know, right on queue