A former Senior Intelligence officially spoke to today following the white house threat called todays announcement a watershed moment of the Trump Presidency and said, quote, if we have come to a point when we use the stripping of security clearances to deny free speech, we have crossed an american line and people need to act. He also said of the individuals named by the white house today who he knows well, quote, the danger here is that while traditionally former directors have not entered the political debate, they have been called nazis by this president and these guys feel there is a need to protect the community because trump has crossed lines that create danger. This former official added, quote, the standard for stripping clearances is the disclosure of classified information and none of these individuals have disclosed classified information. Theyre doing no more than exercising their First Amendment right to criticize a sitting president. Here to discuss the days developments, some of our favorite reporters and friends. From the White House Associated press reporter jill colvin, frank figliuzzi, former fbi assistant director for counter intelligence, spokesman for the justice department, and john heilman, nbc news and National Affairs analyst. Jill, let me start with you because youre at the white house. This looked like a question that Sarah Huckabee sanders was ready for, prepared for and had that list in front of her, knew exactly who the white house wanted to target for this punishment of stripping security clearances. Absolutely. And this very much looks like an enemys list, people of the president , the administration feel have been criticizing him unfairly. This all started actually with a tweet from senator paul. He was at the white house earlier today and he tweeted that he was going to be discussing the idea of stripping brennans security clearance. That followed as we all know brennan was deeply critical of the president s sit down with Vladimir Putin. He described that press conference in helsinki as, quote, treasonous and pauls suggestion was his clearance be stripped for allegedly using his clearance to make money and for improper means. The president sat down with paul and then you had sarah coming out to the podium not very long after and adding these other five officials to that list of people that theyd like to punish. Its notable so far weve heard reactions from two of those people, including the former fbi director whose spokesman says, in fact, his clearance was already stripped when he was terminated from his job as deputy fbi director and kind of poking at the white house saying, you think maybe they would have done their research before coming out here and announcing this. Frank figliuzzi, they never do their research. They also never fail to recognize the obvious, which is that at least when it comes to former fbi director jim comey, general michael hayden, andrew mccabe, at least half of the individuals on this list are republicans. So the idea that theyre targeting i think everyone on this list also with the exception of perhaps susan rice has served democratic and republican president s. So the idea that theyre now turning postpartisan into something with an entirely new meaning, its sort of post Republican Democratic president , this really is this loyalty strand or streak that jim comey writes about, that you and i have talked about. What do you see when you hear an announcement like today . I think that im sorry, jill, this was for frank. I apologize. I apologize. Nicolle, while this is really disturbing, what were seeing is not surprising because its the next troubling step on this downward spiral toward weaponizing and politicizing intelligence for political purposes. Once again, the president is putting his personal interests over the national interests. But we shouldnt be shocked by this because the gop and Congress Members and Intel Committee members have been slowly but surely doing this over the last several months. Theyve been demanding the names of sources and methods. Theyve been releasing memos and classified information that they selectively release. And now were seeing the president , against his political enemies, deciding to pull clearances. But what your viewers need to understand is as you just said, these former directors and executives routinely keep their clearance for at least a year, sometimes more. When i retired from the fbis head of counter intelligence, i kept my fbi clearance for about a year. There is a reason for that. Youre consulted on things that happen during your tenure. If a question or clarification is needed, youre called in and youre told, heres the current situation. What had you done about that and why are our allies doing this or enemies doing this . By pulling these clearances, he actually is weakening our National Security. And, john heilman, if you can weigh in both on the names on the list as well as the tactic itself, it seems once again to reveal a president who only views the american presidency as the coverage of himself. Some of the names on the list are republicans. Many of the names on the list are people who have no known partisan affiliation who have served both democrat and republican and in brennan, served republican administrations alike. Frank said the most important thing just now. There is nothing surprising about this. This is a president who has repeatedly over and over again to the point where we now dont really notice, talks about the press as the ends am i of temy people. In an tangible way has threatened to pull Network Broadcast licenses, threaten to draw white house reporters credentials. Its the same thing. He is beginning to, as he feels more threatened, as he feels more imperiled, he is beginning to draw up this enemy list. The enemies are the people who speak out against him and have power. Its not the rabble doesnt bother him. The fact there are democrats in the country doesnt bother him. Its the fact this came at the end of the last week. Its the way in which we talked about this on friday the way in which you could hear the collective Bipartisan National Security and intelligence establishment going oh, my god, what did we just see this week . And now on this monday that he would turn against them in a way that obviously disrespects civil liberties, disrespects free press, is an autocratic kind of move. The kind of thing youd see in a banana republic. It is not surprising in the least. I find it horrifying obviously. But that it happened on this monday after what happened last week does not surprise me at all. And this former intelligence official who does not step into the fray i spoke to immediately after this happened, he worked alongside all of the individuals on this list said what you just said, that this is a big step toward realizing the autocratic fantasies of this president. By the time we get to the end of the week hes going to want to pull dan coats security clearance. Exactly. There will be people in his administration who will say things that bother him, who laugh at him in someplace he thinks is offensive. Hell turn to them effectively, fire dan coats. Im pronot predicting anything. Dan coats, im telling you, we all know this is true, dan coats and john brennan and jim clapper and jim comey general hayden. General hayden and george ten en, anybody who has ever touched National Security intelligence in this country all basically had the same point of view about a lot of things that are going on with donald trump. And they all have the same point of view about the threat that Vladimir Putin faces or represents to our democracy. They all see, you know when they look up, he they see the sky, when they look down they see the ground. Donald trump is in denial the sky is up and the ground is down. Its not a coincidence the enemys list is introduced on a monday after a week of withering commentary from tray gowdy about the president s actions in helsinki. Its not after the week where he is accused by both parties of selling out the country. If you look at what happened after the meeting. You dont have to look hard to see a direct parallel to what the president is trying to do now. Look at what Vladimir Putin propose ed in that meeting. He proposed using the armsz of government to retaliate against critics of him. Bill broader and mike mcfaul. The kind of thing you expect to see from Vladimir Putin. The kind of thing you expect to see from erdogan in turkey. The kind of thing you never expect to see in liberal democracies. Thats what the president is trying to do here. Jill, let me ask you. The spin i heard from dan coats on one Senior Security official and one Senior Advisor outside the President Trump white house was the same. Coats has lost a step. They tried to present coats as someone with an attled mind. Is this all they have left . Are they at the politics of personal destruction to malign the credibility and character of people within the administration who dare to speak the truth about the nature of the russian president . Look, weve definitely seen a pattern where the president is angry about people he lodges personal insults, personal attacks against them. Also seen a pattern where the white house tries to develop distance between themselves and the person who is alleged to be offending. But what coats did there was pretty extraordinary. We have not seen that kind of criticism by a sitting member of the administration. And i think a lot of people dan coats has had a very low profile in this administration. One way not to purse off the president , to hang low, not be a distraction, take Media Attention away from the boss. This is really i think the first time a lot of us have really paid much attention to him publicly, stepping out on the public stage in this decision to criticize the president. And from our sources at the a. P. , the president was furious at that performance, that interview, adding it to a long list of other people hes infuriated with right now from reporters to members of his own party in congress. He feels have not been nearly Strong Enough in coming to his defense. And so at this point the president is in a very difficult position in his tenure and is really unhappy. Frank figliuzzi, can you weigh in on the optics of having someone like Jared Kushner and rob porter in possession of a security clearance when they shouldnt have been, and then trying to strip clearances from the men and women who have all of the information that this administration lacks, all of the Institutional Knowledge that this administration could rather desperately benefit from if they had the sort of confidence and bigness to reach out to these men and women . I think it makes it more transparent whats motivating things here. When someone who is accused of beating women, beating their wives, or significant others, when someone has been under investigation like Jared Kushner and maintains the clearance, we see whats going on here. The rules dont apply and i make the rules up as i go along depending on who i like and dont like. And what that does within the government, nicolle, is it makes it extremely hard for business as usual and to enforce rules against the rank and file and any agency who are debating their clearance, theyre disputing their pulled clearance. You cant possibly appeal this properly in this current setting where you can yank someones clearance or maintain someones clearance under these conditions. Frank, let me ask you one more. I had general hayden on Brian Williams program in january before the president was inaugurated. That was the time donald trump was tweeting things like this. Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to leak into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in nazi germany . His hot war against the Intelligence Community has been eclipsed in some way on his hot war against the fbi and robert mueller. But the war and the distrust of the Intelligence Community is very much ongoing. Weve had a lot of conversation biz how that manifests itself, that people, allies and frenemies may not want to share intelligence with us and its the most valuable kind of intelligence we get. Can you talk about what that looks like from the perspective of someone investigating possible collusion between an american adversary and an american president . Yeah. So, collusion, conspiracy, all of that goes toward mindset. So if youre sitting in muellers seat, for example, and youre watching all of this play out on a daily basis, all of this is fair game for further evidence, further pieces of the puzzle that goes toward establishing the president s mindset. So, the president clearly is not being well served by advisors or hes not listening to them because each of these retributive steps, attempts to lash out at political enemies show a mindset of i need to protect myself. I need to its essentially an obstruction mindset, right . And with regard to our allies, the business of sharing sensitive intelligence with us gets eroded every time they view our white house as some entity that cant be trusted with intelligence or will politicize and weaponize that intelligence. Were going to hear a lot twitter is already lit up with it and jill talked about it a second ago the notion of an enemies list. The person at the top was daniel els berg. Daniel els berg now venerated by the left was a guy who came up through the marine corps, had worked in the defense demps or bob mcnamara, had seen the vietnam war up close, understood what it was about, came out and worked for rand, not rand paul, but the rand corporation. Was a person the left despised. The person who leaked the pentagon papers and helped bring it down. Thats the kind of guy who is brennan, clapper, comey. Truth tellers. And people who know the stuff thats at issue from the inside, and they become more powerful voices because they know it from the inside, because theyre not and theyre not partisan. Theyre not partisan. That was the truth of els berg. Remember in 1973 was charged with espionage act and faced 115 years in prison. Thats where were headed. A lot of the per ills of watergate are misguided. We are in that moment right now and this is the beginning of a conversation that is going to go very quickly i think to that kind of draconian kind of retribution this president is going to bring against people who threaten him. I want to bring Steve Schmidt into the conversation. I wrant to reset for our viewers, the white house releasing a list of former National Security officials for whom they have now publicly stated they have under consideration the punishment of stripping these men and women of their security clearances. These men former cia directorrs, former fbi security director, all maintain security clearances for giving their expertise, giving their Institutional Knowledge to a president and the executive branch of government after they leave. Joining us now Steve Schmidt. Go, steve. Hi, nicolle. Good to be with you. I didnt think you needed a set up. What is the question for steve . This is a, this is a very dangerous day for american democracy. This is the move of an autocrat, not an american president. We dont strip security clearances for political reasons from members of the Opposition Party who have served all of their careers, all of their lives in defense of the country, have sworn oaths to the constitution, not to a party, not to the leader, but, you know, this is part and parcel. Trump began politicizing the Intelligence Services from hour one of his administration when he went to the cia Memorial Wall and talked about his inaugural crowds. This is just a culmination of his increasingly erratic behavior. And, of course, this occurs a week after he stood up next to the russian president and took the russian president s side in a dispute with americas intelligence agencies. And, of course, then forced his National Director dan coats to kowtow, publicly apologize, and essentially humiliate himself at the feet of the leader. So this is, again, this president s continuing abuse of power, his, his, his authoritarian instinct at full use here. It is alarming to say the least. Steve, let me play for you the president s recent attacks. This seems like something that was building up in him and really just came spilling out today. Lets watch the president with jeff glor of cbs news ticking off people he was mad about. Do you think any intelligence agencies, u. S. Intelligence agencies are out to get you . Well, certainly in the past. Its been terrible. You look at brennan. You look at clapper. You look at hayden. You look at comey. I have no confidence in a guy like brennan. I think hes a total low life. I have no confidence in clapper. You know, clapper wrote me a beautiful letter when i first went to office and it was really nice, and then all of a sudden hes gone hey wire because they got to him and they probably got him to say things that maybe he doesnt even mean. But no, i certainly dont have confidence in past people. You look at whats happened. Take a look at all of the shenanigans that have gone on, very hard to have confidence in that group. Steve schmidt, two more poeses of information to throw at you and then take it away. During the most controversial and really devastating periods politically after the iraq war took some of its, you know, most botched turns, there was never an effort i talked to three former of our former colleagues. No one was ever stripped of their security clearances of being harsh critics of the iraq war. No critics take away security clearances of the one that preceded it, no matter how harsh the political debate comes. An