Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. It is now under way. The director of National Intelligence said in a recent speech that the Warning Lights are blinking red and the Digital Infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack. And here we see the incursions coming. Russian hackers have now already targeted at least three candidates in this years 2018 midterms. Reports one of the targets is missouri democratic senator Claire Mccaskill. So highway donald trump doubts much of this is even occurring, his pentagon chief does say there are secret actions now underway to combat it. What is the government doing to halt russian interference in the next elections . Yeah, im not at liberty to explain what were doing in that regard. Just rest assured there are actions under way to protect our elections or to exposeness
now the question is whether trump lied about the worst possible thing, not the pr afterward, but whether donald trump took actions or
That and whether he can help prove it, thats an open question. We also know on the day that donald trump junior formally accepted that meeting, candidate trump touted the big upcoming speech about hillary clinton. I am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week, and were going to be discussing all the things that have taken place with the clintons. I think you will find it very informative and very, very interesting. Candidate trump did not make that monday speech. As trump now repeats his denials about any advance knowledge of the meeting, it is critical to note this is a meeting that team trump already lied about. His own lawyers often admitting to mueller trump dictated that misleading statement about the meeting originally. First they lied about what happened in the meeting. Then they lied about the defense of the meeting. Which he was choosing to offer,
even though he also claimed he didnt know anything about the meeting. Now the question is whether trump lied ab
Trump got updates on the whole of government approach his administration is implementing to safeguard our nations elections. The president has made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors. That kind of Paper Statement is a contrast to trumps actual words in helsinki where trump sided with the russian president over his own Intelligence Agencies on the question of whether russia interfered in the u. S. Election. That was the Press Conference where putin brought back an idea these two leaders had apparently talked about, a joint u. S. russian Cyber Security group to investigate Russian Election meddling. Sort of like having el chapo join up with the dea to fight drug trafficking. Now this quite absurd plan to team up with the only country whose own agents have been charged for 2016 interference first came up you may remember all the way last summer when trump wrote that he and putin discussed
Card witness. Has already revised his initial testimony in the president s dealings with ukraine. Sondland has arrived and will be before the committee in a moment. Late yesterday we had a hearing that lasted deep into the night. Well see how far we go today. Welcome back to continuing coverage on the fox news channel. Im bill hemmer. Good morning, bill. Im sandra smith. Lawmakers are expected to double down on a phone call with the president. Team fox coverage back with us now. Chris wallace, bret baier, Martha Maccallum and bret baier. Well be with you guys throughout the entire day. Ken, we have an oping statement from Gordon Sondland. There are a lot of skipped areas in 23 pages. Opening statement will last at
least 10 minutes. From what youve been able to glean off of this, in a quick speed read what do you see as critical for sondland . Right. It looks as if there may be a bombshell or two in this. Thats what were looking for. Lets see what he says. He could revise this up to the
the ukrainians. they were concerned, obviously. you wanted to help prepare the vice president for the meeting by letting him know what you thought was responsible for the hold on the security assistance. that s fair. do you recall anything else the vice president said other than nodding his head when you made him aware of the fact. i don t str a read-out of the meeting so i can t remember anything else. it was immediately after this meeting between the vice president and zelensky that you went to speak with yermak and you told him similarly that in order to release the military assistance they were going to have to publicly announce these investigations. much has been made of that meeting. it wasn t a meeting. everyone got up after the bilateral meeting between president zelensky and vice president pence and people do what they normally do. they mill around, shake hands, and i don t know if i came over to yermak or he came over to me but he said you know, what s going on he