This is the movie of comic books, like hes playing a president. Hes doing this thing, which hes talking away action heroes talk, not the way president s talk with the power of life and death in their hands. Weve turned to the north koreans and kim jongun, if he takes a provocative measure, if he fires on guam, i think were going to take Military Action. Im almost sure the president cant retreat from this position. Once military blows are exchanged, i think the chance of going to allout conventional war are significant. He still doesnt have a usable nuclear capability. I dont think were going to go there. But i do think the president is saying hes prepared to go to nuclear conflict. One of the more chilling moments on this network today. And with that, lets bring in our leadoff friday night panel. Welcome to all. Matthew, can you walk us through the evolution of Donald Trumps language of this week . First of all, we note that we can only hope the expression Locked And Loaded translates approximately, at least, in north korean, just as they promised today in one of their statements to reduce us to jelly, probably in english, that means some version of a pulp. But these are the kinds of things that diplomats worry about. Yeah. I mean, you have this increasing bellicosity, which is no surprise from the north koreans, but it is a surprise coming from the american president. And you have language that is at once both startling and juvenile. He talks about how we could have a good or bad solution. How if the situation continues, theres going to be big trouble
for north korea. Thats the kind of language a parent uses when scolding children. So i think its bizarre for american diplomats to be hearing this, its bizarre for the American People to be hearing this. And we can only imagine what theyre thinking over in north korea. And matthew, the points been made that what the north Korean Leader craves more than anything is recognition. That hes been talked about at this level of play, an entire week now by the new american president has to be, if profiles of him are at all true, satisfying on some level. Hes getting a ton of attention on an international stage. And mostly from our president , from donald trump. You know, the president yesterday obviously thought his public appearances went well, because he was out there today talking in front of the cameras. And while this rhetoric might be alarming to some in the international community, the president thinks its going well, because he keeps going out there and saying these things. Robert, i watched you with Nicolle Wallace this afternoon. And you, having come to know you a little bit, seemed genuinely shaken by this week. First of all, my president , our president is saying things that no other president has said before. To the other guests comment, kim jongun is now on the same level as donald trump. Or donald trump has lowered the presidency to kim jongun. Im not sure exactly whats worse. It feels like, brian, that our president is playing toy soldiers where hes in the backyard and hes playing with these toy soldiers and moving them around. Its not juvenile. This is chilling. This is not about his base in pittsburgh. This is about moscow, berlin, this is about guam, this is about tokyo. To think that the president doesnt understand that his words have weight, to think that this president doesnt understand that millions of people are literally figuring out how theyre going to hide under desks and garages and so
forth is really sad. Its really sad that the president seems to be so cavalier about this. Well show our audience later in the broadcast the Civil Defense warnings that people in guam woke up to in their Morning Paper and on leaflets this morning where this is very serious business. And endeara, on top of that, tonight we get out of nowhere venezuela. What do you make of it . It is stunning. I mean, you know, at first i had to when i was listening to the Press Conference, i had to check my ears and say wait a second, first we were talking about the possible war with north korea, now were talking about possible Military Actions in venezuela. I mean, Military Action is always supposed to be the last resort, not the first thing you jump to. And weve gone from the president barely talking about venezuela at all, to introducing it in the conversation saying all options are on the table. Thats not to say what is happening in venezuela, which is
what the president points out is a close neighbor and it is a serious crisis going on there. But this is what diplomacy is for. We should have been paying attention to venezuela a long time ago. Theres a lot that happened under the chavez regime that led up to where meduro is now, but you dont threaten Military Action right away. Its bizarre. I really dont know what hes thinking, and as he said, its almost like playing a president on television, saying oh, you better not act up, or im going to do this. You over there dont act up or im going to do something to you, too. Ive spoke on the a lot of european and asian diplomats. All of them are stunned at the language that donald trump uses, and the simplicity of it that everything is very bad or could be good or really great people. There was a report in buzz feed how diplomats are playing word bingo when they hear donald
trump talk because he only has a couple of phrases they use and they ticket off the list. It sounds funny, but its kind of sad. We need more complex thinking than just a few Stock Phrases that he thinks are going to make people act the way he wants them to. Weve done Video Mashups much the same way. Matthew, a question about style over substance. But its nonetheless germane. Weve gone days in this administration without seeing this president. Theyve gone days of white house briefings without us being able to see them. Suddenly, though, more than once a day, an availability to take questions. A point we made here on the broadcast, it puts enormous pressure on that days small press pool around the president , and they have done a magnificent job, these two days in recalling questions that for months we have wanted to ask but have not. So im just curious as to what
this change in policy is. Can this be any aspect of the arrival of general kelly as Chief Of Staff . First of all, major props to the reporters there, like you said, ive been very impressed by the work theyve been doing on behalf of everyone in the media. Im not sure if this can be attributed to general kelly. Weve long known that President Trump considers himself his best messenger. We know he wasnt that happy with sean spicer or the Communications Shop at large. We know he likes being out there defending himself, and like i said, even when other people think that didnt go well at all, clearly he thinks they went well. He appeared in front of the press two days in a row, promised a Press Conference on monday. For him this is a lot of fun and he likes being out there being his own spokesperson. Robert, i heard tom friedman say last night he has no doubt the president has good people around him. He named mcmaster, mattis, kelly for starters. His doubt is whether or not theyre a team. And that is a critical question. If you notice what the president is always out front with his staff. In other words, his staff are usually scrambling behind him. I think the president enjoys chaos. The president enjoying being on the offense, and he really enjoys basically saying look, im the president here. I won. I won pittsburgh. I won paducah, you did not, so im not going to listen to you. This president is a very emotional thinker and sometimes a very irrational decision maker. So this indecisiveness is part of his dna. This is what got him in the white house. The question is now that hes the leader of the free world, is this in our best interest, and it really is not. The staff is doing a good job, but the president is a tiger and they cannot control this beast. And this man who says nothing by accident, deletes nothing by accident, had a chance to support the leadership in afghanistan today and did not, took a pass. Thats right. Which again, the loyalty is about himself and his family as weve seen. The amount of turmoil weve seen out of the white house and his close staff. Youre a friend as long as you suit him and then hes willing to get rid of people. So i think the generals who are Running Afghanistan should be a little worried about their position. I do want to follow up on that whole comment about, you know, he won pittsburgh and paducah. You know, brian, im from pittsburgh and i just want to point out he didnt actually win the city of pittsburgh. The pittsburgh went about 80 for Hillary Clinton. But one thing we didnt mention, which i think is a really interesting story that came out is that Foreign Policy publishing this memo, this ousted National Security counsel
official, who talked about essentially you remember how Hillary Clinton was famous in the 90s for talking about the vast right wing conspiracy against her and her husband. This guy is talking about an allwing conspiracy. According to rich higgins, this aide to donald trump, everyone is against the president. Marxists, bankers, globalists, deep state, the heads of the republican and democrat parties. And mcmaster is a National Security adviser just said this is crazy and forced the guy to resign. Apparently the reporting indicates that donald trump himself was mad when he found out the guy was forced to resign. Apparently he agrees with this. That is frightening that the president has that kind of a belief, the paranoia, that everyone is against him. I think thats something that we should be concerned with. It goes back to him feeling that hes coming off well in these repeated Press Conferences. Indeed. And its another chilling story,
that one in tonights new york times. Our great thanks to our initial panel tonight. Thank you for joining us on a friday night. Coming up after our first break this evening, guam preparing itself as President Trump taunts the north Korean Leader, as americans begin to wonder what exactly is happening here . The 11th hour back on a friday night right after this. We check our phones 85 times a day. So it only made sense to create a network that keeps up. Introducing xfinity mobile. It combines americas largest, most reliable 4g lte with the most wifi hotspots nationwide. Saving you money wherever you check your phone. Yeah, even there. See how much you can save when you choose by the gig or unlimited. Call, or go to xfinitymobile. Com. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. This man will not get away
with what hes doing, believe me. And if he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat, or if he does anything with respect to guam or any place else thats an american territory or an american ally, he will truly regret it. And he will regret it fast. I want to show you what the people of guam woke up to this morning, and remember, 168,000 residents of guam. U. S. Citizens all. Theyre living under the threat of north korean missiles arriving off their shores in some sort of show of force. This is their local paper, the guam pacific daily news. They ran an article today. Its listed on tear website tonight, an article called missile threat tips. Just some solid howto advice for Civil Defense in the event of a missile launch. Here are the guidelines. Dont look at the flash or fireball. As blindness may result. Take cover behind a concrete structure, if possible. While flight time is 14 minutes,
thank you for your question. Very vulnerable. Having served in guam, the u. S. Has zero good Military Options against north korea. Any Military Scenario can spiral out of control, leading to a large loss of life, not just in guam, but also in south korea. Thats what makes a president s statements so reckless. He needs to stop backing into the u. S. Into a corner where we have no good Military Options and try diplomacy. Jack, this is what youve been saying. There are no good options. We keep hearing this phrase, you know, protective strike, an advanced strike by the u. S. Remind folks how much firepower is focused just on south korea. Well, there is an almost unlimited number of Artillery Tubes and rockets that are very, very close to the Demilitarized Zone and all of seoul, between 25 and 30 million koreans, theyre all in range. Our forces are considerably south of that. But all that notwithstanding, theyre all at risk. And by the way, the war isnt over. Theres no armistice. Theres just a ceasefire, the war that started in 1950. Its actually legally still going on. I want to run some of the sound. The president did call the governor of guam, youre going to see the governor taking the call on his speakerphone, the voice youll hear is the president s. Uh, theres no word on whether or not the president knew this was going to be televised and put up on the web
uh, theres no word on whether or not the president knew this was going to be televised and put up on the web tonight during that conversation. During which the president assured the governor tourism was going to increase tenfold when this was all over. Congressman, youre also on foreign affairs. And so i want to ask you what must our allies, especially in the pacific rim, be thinking . The problem with the Trump Administration is not only do they have a lack of a strategy in many areas, including north korea, but they set up conflicting statements. So earlier, you had Rex Tillerson basically saying the time for talking might be close with north korea. And then the president starts doing this tirade of very provocative statements. So its very confusing to world leaders. What i want the Trump Administration to do is get on one page, so that we know what the administration believes. And the president has said that he thinks its good to be unpredictable. In foreign affairs, thats really stupid. You dont want to be unpredictable, you want to be clear. Jack, you have said we will know this is serious if we see the evacuation of a quarter million americans. We have about 100,000 military dependents. 7th fleet is there, so they can evacuate american dependants. Nothing is going to happen, or we dont know if anything is going to happen, until we hear the canary in the mine. And that is the evacuation of military dependants. When that happens, you can have a high degree of confidence that we have a high degree of confidence that theres going to be action there. The president today did alter the threshold by saying an overt threat would bring about u. S. Action and, of course, any movement on guam would as well. So thats the world were looking at on a friday night as
we head into an august weekend. Our great thanks tonight to Congressman Ted Lou from joining us from Southern California and colonel jack jacobs, thank you both. Coming up, the president said it was sarcasm when he thanked Vladamir Putin. But back in washington, Robert Mueller remains hard at work. Thats next when The 11th Hour continues. Stand up to chronic migraine with botox® botox® is the only treatment for chronic migraine shown to actually prevent headaches and migraines before they even start. Botox® is for adults with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month each lasting 4 hours or more. Its injected by a doctor once every 12 weeks. And is covered by most insurance. Effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or Muscle Weakness can be signs of a lifethreatening condition. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Dont take botox® if theres a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For a limited time, you can qualify for two treatments at no cost. Stand up to chronic migraine. Talk to a Headache Specialist today. Were you being sarcastic when you thanked Vladamir Putin for expelling 755 diplomats from russia . In order to reduce our payroll, absolutely. I think you know that. In fact, i was just speaking to the secretary and were talking about coming up with an answer when, rex, tell me. By september 1. By september 1, well have a response. But we have reduced payroll substantially. A lot of people talked about the fascinating body hang wage on display this afternoon. That was President Trump earlier today flanked by members of his National Security team, in bedminster, new jersey. And his thanks to Vladamir Putin yesterday for expelling 755 u. S. Embassy employees, thanked him because it helped him to reduce payroll. The president said today, a day later that had been sarcasm. Here with us tonight to dig into these comments and the latest headlines circulating on the Russia Investigation are matthew miller, msnbc justice and Security Analyst and former Chief Spokesman for the u. S. Department of justice. Jack sharman is with us tonight, a Criminal Defense Attorney who served as special counsel to the House Banking Committee for the white water investigation. Matt, because you were the won who soonest ago was a federal employee, i thought you would want the chance to speak up on their behalf. 755 people, some of them russian nationals, but a good Many Americans trying to rush back to get their kids in school, find a place to live because theyve been uprooted from russia. Our government said nothing about their hardship or this news until the president thanking Vladamir Putin. Yeah. You know, i think the president was telling the truth today he was being sarcastic, but that doesnt make it better. It was an insult to those career diplomats, many who have served in iraq and afghanistan. Many have endured surveillance by putins government while in russia. The president implied they were surplus, and it was just as important what he didnt say. He didnt say one word about Vladamir Putin again taking an action that weakens u. S. Interests. This comes back to the biggest underlying problem with his relationship with russia, and that is he always has put his personal interests ahead of the countrys interests. Whether its encouraging the russians to obtain Hillary Clintons emails, whether its criticizing Career Intelligence agents who found the russians interfered in the election or encourage Vladamir Putin by never once taking him on in public. For all the talk about what bob mueller is investigating, this isnt that complicated. A lot of the scandal is hiding in plain sight. Jack, matthew is right. It keeps roaring back, in part because of actions or omissions by the president and his team. So let me ask you this. Since the russia news this week was mostly this manafort raid, what does it tell you about the
mueller investigation, even though it was several weeks back now . Well, the execution of a Search Warrant in a Business Crime context is unusual. It is designed to send a message, often to the subject or the target that the prosecutor is serious, in a situation like this where there are concurrent congressional investigations. It may also be a message that the prosecutors are not going to rely on or wait upon the congressional investigations. Matthew, i want to read you a quote. This is from the daily beast on the subject of blame. Headline team trump shivs paul manafort. Why did that suddenly appear in print, matt . I dont know. But its a very dangerous game that those aides to the president are playing. Its clear what bob mueller is doing here. The key to cracking open a big case like this is finding a cooperating witness. Hes putting pressure on the two people who have the most individual criminal liability. One, paul manafort. Two, michael flynn. Thats exactly what he was doing by executing this raid on Paul Manaforts house and putting pressure on Paul Manaforts soninlaw, trying to get him to flip. Bob mueller is clearly trying to work his way up the chain in this investigation to get manafort, threaten him with jail time, make him nervous and get him to cooperate against the president. For the president s aides to be criticizing manafort, they want to keep manafort close right now, not push him away. A team with a sophisticated Criminal Defense Attorney and operators would tell them to cut that kind of stuff out. Jack, talk about how cooperation as a legal notion can differ on the eye of the beholder. You can be a witness like mr. Manafort and say youre cooperating and maybe feel like youre cooperating. The prosecutor may not share that opinion, even the day after you come in to talk to them. In this case, it looks like he had lingering doubt that there was something in the manafort residence. Absolutely. It happens all the time. The witness may believe that he or she is cooperating in a layperson sense, that is im meeting with you, im answering questions and giving you documents, im looking at documents that you provide me. Whereas the prosecutor may understand cooperation to be, is what the witness telling me believable to me . Is it helping my theory of the case . And you have that discussion
frequently with prosecutors. And it can lead to sometimes more drastic results when the two sides cannot agree on what cooperation really means. Jack, when people knowing your resume ask you how much power does a guy like the special counsel Robert Mueller have, whats your answer . A great deal. Certainly in our experience, when i was working on the House Banking Committee with judge starr and his staff, they were always very professional and thorough. On the other hand, they made it clear that they were the prosecutors, and that they would not defer to congressional investigators and lawyers, but rather would discharge their constitutional duty using the tools available to them, such as a grand jury, which of course, Congress Cannot Avail itself of. For this case, it looks like the Deputy Attorney general chose the by the book guy from central casting, Robert Mueller. Our thanks as always to matt miller and jack sharman. Great to have you on the broadcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Another break for us. Coming up, reaction to all this from the man who ran the Ethics Office in the Bush White House. Were back with that right after this. Crohns disease. Youre more than just a bathroom disease. Youre a life of unpredictable symptoms. Crohns, youve tried to own us. But now its our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active crohns disease. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. Stelara® may lower the ability of your Immune System to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. Before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. Before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flulike
symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. Alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion, and vision problems. These may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. Some serious allergic reactions can occur. Do not take stelara® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. Were fed up with your unpredictability. Remission can start with stelara®. Talk to your doctor today. Janssen wants to help you explore Cost Support Options for stelara®. The president today in bedminster, new jersey, talking about venezuela. He said the u. S. Not ruling out a military option. He did not elaborate. When we heard that, we kind of assumed our next guest was set off like a roman candle. Lets bring in richard painter, chief white house ethics lawer under george w. Bush. Richard, what did you make of the addition of venezuela to the hot zones the u. S. Could see action in . Well, first of all, it makes no sense to talk about Military Options in venezuela. Venezuela has not threatened the United States. Theres just no justification for that at all. And no one would support us on that. And President Trump is not going to do it unless hes absolutely crazy. So what hes done is talked about an option that hes not going to use, that no reasonable president would use. And that destroys our credibility in this north korea
situation. The world needs to understand that when the United States talks about Military Action as an option, we mean it. And there are situations in which you do have to talk that way. But venezuela is not one of them. That was a very irresponsible comment, and makes our position with north korea that much more tenuous. Richard, i want to share with you and our audience the Radio Interview this week with a white house aide named Sebastien Gorka. The best we can do with our waning time on the air tonight is to tell people if youre interested, read his background on the web tonight. Hes a white house aide, unlike any other white house aide in modern times. He did an interview this week. You may recall Rex Tillerson, secretary of state, had some kind of mollifieing comments about the north korea situation. Gorka was talking about tillerson when he said this. So on bbc radio, a white so on bbc radio, a white house aide spoke that way about a man fourth in line to the presidency, richard. What would have happened you worked on the white house staff 43. What would have happened had this happened in another white house . Well, we wouldnt have been in that situation in the bush administration, because i dont think Sebastien Gorka would have qualified for an internship in the Bush White House. I dont know how he got into our country with his ties to fascist groups over in hungary. Im shocked to see him in this white house. Hes not qualified for the job he has. And for someone like him to be mouthing off about the secretary of state, when we are in a diplomatic crisis, is irresponsible. So anybody who acted that way in the Bush White House would have been fired on the spot. To your area of expertise, i wanted to read this instead the hotel with its namesake is charging more for its rooms than most or all of the cities other hotels. Richard, who do we see about this, this hotel kind of famously made the president his own land lord . Well, yes, its a very
profitable operation. Its certainly been made very profitable by the thats correct that President Trump is over there in the white house. Because all the lobbyists want to have functions over there at the hotel, book the ballrooms and then the white house people will come on over there and maybe even the president will drop by. Youll certainly get people coming over from the agency who want to meet white house people. And thats a very good Watering Hole for wall street lobbyists and anyone else. Its a great business operation. My concern is whether that is consistent with the legal requirement and the lease that nobody who works for the United States government, no federal official should get a share in the profits. I think that term has been violated. There are serious concerns of the emoluments clause of the constitution. Just the perception that the president of the United States gets a cut when people are organizing all these parties to get access to the United States government. It certainly doesnt look good. Richard painter, who was the Ethics Lawyer in the Bush White House, and we always hasten to add a life long republican, thank you for finding time to come on our broadcast. When we come back, how many times can this or any president or any white house employ the i was only kidding response. Obviously Everybody Knows i was being sarcastic when i said it, but where are those emails . Why did she delete those emails . Can you say whenever the the president says something we can trust it to be real . If hes not joking, of course. Were trying to cut down on payroll, and im thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. Small sampling of controversial comments uttered by this president , all of them have with your life in common. We were later told they were meant in jest as the president expressed his thanks to Vladimir Putin was meant sarcastically. Matt, do you think this cuts cleanly along liberal matter, Coastal Label Nabobs and the trump base who are untroubled by
the wording . With i dont know who it troubles and doesnt trouble. Hiss base has shown theyre willing to put up with a lot, but it cheapens the language of the presidency. Whether its a joke or not, president s have limited options when it comes to what theyre allowed to joke about. And Police Brutality and Diplomatic Retaliation from a major geopolitical foe, they were offensive to folks serving the country overseas. Whether it was a joke or not, u to wonder why the president feels he can go say these things. Robert, given especially your membership in the Republican Party and your experience in what used to be Classic Cal Republican politics. You could argue there are two menstrual to the success of
Donald Trumps life as president. One of them is named mueller, the other is named mcconnell. Why do you think hes trolling both Guys On Social Media . Because hes a bully. Its been very successful for donald trump for the last 60 years that hes been in new york as a businessman. What he doesnt understand is the nuance of politics. That is man who controls your legislative fate. Lets talk about all things that the president campaigned on, especially Supreme Court justices. Mitch mcconnell is that gatekeeper. The last thing you want to do is hit the beehive. Matthew, the role of mcconnell has me thinking what the president also said today about tax reform and cuts and infrastructure. Where are these bills hes talking about . Well, the timelines keep changing. We get promises and those dont come about. They said tax reform time this fall, maybe november, december. As you know, tax reform not just tax cuts is extremely complicated and its hard to see them coming up with something so quickly. And infrastructure as has been documented in the media, that plan isnt going anywhere. President trump said hes been working very hard on it, but its a mystery to us and republicans in congress. If there really is a News Conference on monday, perhaps we can add these to the list of questions. We appreciate it. Up next, the man who looks dreamily at the president when they are together. Is he also looking to be president someday . Mike pence has set up a pac. Hes often the bridge to traditional republicans as they are known. The the times quoted he wants to be ready if theres an opening in 2020. It did was asked today by your own Peter Alexander about the possibility of a pence candidacy. Do you think your Vice President will be a candidate for president in 2020 . I dont think so, no. I dont think so at all. Hes a good guy. Hes just left for colombia and other places. Hes been a great ally of fine and a great friend of mine. About the republicans aiming for the 2020 elections, it was john mccain who recently said to the new york times, quote, they see weakness in this president
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