Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) blasted President Donald Trump at a MoveOn celebration in Washington, DC on Thursday.
The host of MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" laid out an in-depth theory that President Donald Trump appears to have a pattern of accepting conspiracy theories that are only propagated by the Kremlin.
Maddow recounted how it seems to have begun only two and a half weeks into the Trump administration -- and has continued into this week.
She said the latest episode, "now turns out to be something maybe more worrying, maybe even worrying to the point where the new Democratic Congress might end up taking a look at this."
Trump's initial conspiracy theory was that Poland may invade Belarus.
"The only people in the whole world who were saying that was a potential problem that people ought to look out for, the only people who were talking about that as a possibility, were Vladimir Putin's government," Maddow reported. "Putin's government at that time was running a military intelligence disinformation campaign to try to mess with Belarus by convincing Belarus that Poland was about to invade them."
"That was a made-up thing that Vladimir Putin was pushing as part of an information warfare offensive against a country that Russia wanted in its orbit -- absolutely obscure and in-fact made up," she noted. "And that is something that senior-level Trump national security aides took up of them arriving at the White House."
The second example was Trump's claim that Montenegro may start World War III.
"The only place on earth that has been pushing any line like that -- that Montenegro is unusually aggressive and will start World War III if allowed to join NATO -- the only place on earth articulating that is the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin," Maddow reported.
"So where did he get that from, right? Who planted that?" the host asked. "Where are you hearing this stuff?"
Maddow explained how it happened again when Trump discussed his views on Russia and Afghanistan during his cabinet meeting.
"Where is the president getting this stuff?" she wondered.
Maddow then interview former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who brought up additional examples of the pattern.
Watch part 1:
Watch part 2:
On Thursday, following the swearing in of the 116th Congress, President Donald Trump held a surprise press conference. Surrounded by border patrol agents, Trump once again made his case for a wall along the Southwest border.
On CNN Thursday, panelists analyzed the significance of Trump's timing. Republican strategist Ana Navarro saw right though the President's rather transparent strategy—one in which the media is implicated.
"He wants to hijack the narrative," Navarro pointed out, noting that instead of talking about the myriad investigations bedeviling the Trump White House, the panelists were talking about the President's presser.
"Instead, for 30 minutes, we're talking about what Donald Trump wants us to talk about. Which is Donald Trump," Navarro said. "His favorite subject in the world."
Watch:
President Donald Trump held a kind of in-person Twitter rant in the press briefing room Thursday. He told those assembled that he has overwhelming support for his U.S.-Mexico border wall and has received calls, tweets and letters. At least one of those statements isn't true.
"The people of our country want it," Trump said Thursday. "I have never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance for border security, for border control and for frankly the wall or the barrier. I have never had anything like it in terms of calls coming in, in terms of people writing in and tweeting and doing whatever they have to do. I have never had this much support and we've done some things as you know that have been very popular."
According to conservative CNN commentator Bill Kristol, Trump couldn't have gotten calls of support from regular Americans because the White House switchboard is closed due to the government shutdown.
It's possible Trump has received calls from conservative media personalities that have access to Trump's cell phone, but everyday Americans don't have access to contact him that way.
A CBS poll revealed that the majority of Americans do not want the border wall, particularly if Mexico isn't going to pay for it, as Trump promised. A poll taken over the last week by Reuters said that 50 percent of Americans blame Trump for the government shutdown and only 32 percent of Americans blame Democrats.
See the short clip below:
As Democrats retook control of Congress on Thursday, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance explained how investigations into President Donald Trump could present "a fatal blow" to the administration.
MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" with guest host Katy Tur explained what the Trump administration will experience while facing congressional oversight.
"He's going to be facing some very serious investigations, it is a brand-new world for him," Tur reported. "Investigations and oversight that he did not face in the last two years with the Republican-controlled Congress."
"This Congress ... looks like it's loaded for bear at this point in time," Vance observed. "Nancy Pelosi has brought over an experienced former DOJ lawyer who left shortly after this administration began, a guy named Doug Letter, who was in DOJ's civil appellate division."
"He'll run a tight shop, subpoenas will start flying," she continued. "This will be a serious investigation -- it won't be a witch hunt, it won't be scattergun."
"A normal presidency might be annoyed, but could withstand it. This presidency, it could be a fatal blow, frankly," she added.
"It's not just the president himself, there's going to be investigations potentially and subpoenas coming to the president's own family," Tur reminded.
"I think that's right," Vance agreed. "Certainly Congress will be interested in the activities of all senior Trump officials, including Ivanka [Trump] and Jared [Kushner], but also we know that there's this double-threat at least coming out of the Southern District of New York."
"Maybe a triple-threat coming from the New York Attorney General -- with folks looking at the [Trump Foundation], at Trump Organization and with Trump's children running those entities," she explained. "Because he refused to put his assets into a blind trust, there is no telling where these investigations could legitimately go."
"And investigations potentially have very serious consequences," Tur added.
Watch:
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted at 4:07 p.m. EST that she would hold a press conference at 4:10 p.m that same day. After being over ten minutes late, Sanders held the first briefing of 2019.
It was expected that Sanders would use the opportunity to shift blame of President Donald Trump's shutdown to Democrats, who took power just hours before.
Neither CNN nor Fox News knew what the press conference would be about, but it was assumed she would answer questions about the president's proposal to end the shutdown.
Republican CNN commentator Ana Navarro suspected prior to the briefing that it was more about deflection of the Democratic Congress than anything.
President Donald Trump surprised the press room by coming in to do his own press briefing. It's the second time Trump has spoken to the press this week. He began by congratulating Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for her win and pivoting to speak about border security.
He explained that he has gotten more support over his demand for a wall over the past several weeks. As a fact-check, the vast majority of the American people do not want the wall. At the same time, 50 percent of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown, while only 32 percent blame Democrats.
He let current and former members of the border patrol speak about the need for a wall and then refused to take questions.
CNN's political panel called the press conference nothing more than a stunt.
"Donald Trump couldn't stand it that Nancy Pelosi was the center of attention today," said Republican Bill Kristol.
See the video below:
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asserted incorrectly that NASA had sent a probe outside the Milky Way Galaxy to observe an object called Ultima Thule.
Although Ultima Thule is located within our Solar System's Kuiper belt, Kilmeade repeatedly insisted on Fox & Friends that the New Horizons spacecraft left the "galaxy" during the journey.
"NASA believes it was formed during the birth of the Solar System," a Fox & Friends newsreader announced on Thursday.
"Those are ice crystals that look like a snowman," co-host Steve Doocy commented upon seeing a photo of Ultima Thule.
"How great is it that we left our galaxy?" Kilmeade asked, leaving his co-host speechless.
"We are so bored with our galaxy, we've left," he added. "We're beyond Pluto."
"Where do you think we are right now?" Doocy wondered.
"No, we haven't left," Kilmeade said, failing to clear up the confusion.
"We're sending pictures from other galaxies!" Kilmeade exclaimed. "We've left. I mean, how great is that?"
"Beam me up!" Doocy complained.
"Space exploration," co-host Ainsley Earhardt added. "Thank you for that insight, Brian."
For the record, Ultima Thule, which is located inside our Solar System, is about 4 billion miles from the Sun. Our Solar System is located as much as 70,000 light years inside the Milky Way Galaxy, making travel outside the galaxy impossible with current technologies. The nearest galaxy is millions of light years away from the Milky Way.
Watch the vide below from Fox News.
During a conversation with Fox News personality Sean Hannity, the president of the United State's defense lawyer explained his prediction for the end of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigations.
Giuliani offered his analysis of Donald Trump's detractors.
"These people are on a moral high ground," he argued. "They can just any means for their end, which is to save the country from Donald Trump and put it in the hands of Hillary Clinton or someone else."
"When does this end?" Hannity asked Rudy Giuliani.
"It ends when he files his report and we can answer it," he replied.
"Will there be a Giuliani report?" Hannity asked.
"Damn right there be a Giuliani report," he answered. "Our report will be the definitive report."
"The president did nothing wrong," Giuliani argued.
Following the detainment of American Paul Whelan on espionage charges, intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance predicted they "will make his life miserable," until there is a spy swap prisoner release or he signs a confession.
Nance is the author of two books on Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election (2016) and The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West (2018).
He was interviewed on MSNBC's "The Beat" with Ari Melber on Wednewsday.
"There are some people now, like former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, asserting that perhaps this arrest was something else," Melber noted. "Maybe retribution for the U.S. capture of accused Russian agent Maria Butina."
"Hostile government detention is when a foreign government has decided to capture an American citizen and use them for leverage in a geopolitical game," Nance explained. "That's what's going on here."
"I agree with former Ambassador Michael McFaul, this is clearly about getting their subcontractor-spy Maria Butina out of hock," he said.
"What the Russians intend to do, is they going to is break this individual -- they are going to make him sign a confession," he predicted. "The best people in that country will work him over."
"He just doesn't understand that he's a pawn in a game that's been played by countries for years," he concluded.
Watch:
President Donald Trump's "ego and racism" are driving his decisions to continue the government shutdown unless American taxpayers pay for the wall -- that he had promised Mexico would fund.
During an appearance on "Meet the Press Daily" with guest host Katy Tur, MSNBC contributor and New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg explained that "Democrats don't really have a negotiating partner."
"They have a president throwing a tantrum because he wants the approval of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and other pundits on the far-right and doesn't really feel any urgency about getting the government working, because as he said -- even though I don't think it's necessarily true -- he thinks most of the people that aren't being paid are Democrats," she explained.
"So I think he doesn't feel this sense of crisis over what's happening," she concluded.
"I think what he cares about this wall -- not metaphorically and not really, I think, even about border security -- but he's desperate for this for his own ego and his own racism," she continued.
"That makes it really difficult because it's not really policy issues, this is just about a narcissistic man having a fit," she added.
Watch:
The former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation explained on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" how Donald Trump's hush money payments could constitute impeachable offenses.
NBC News national security contributor Frank Figliuzzi joined guest host Chris Jansing to discuss the president's legal defense as Democrats prepare to take control of the House of Representatives.
Host Jansing asked Figliuzzi how Democrats could "best play their hand" in Congress.
"I think they'll carefully pick and choose their battles," he suggested.
"One of the things I predict you'll see fairly early is a sharp look at acting Attorney General [Matt] Whitaker," he predicted. "What were the circumstances by which he was appointed to that office? What discussions occurred about perhaps impeding, constraining in some way, the Russia investigation? I would expect that to be up near the front."
"Then I think they're going to move on to some of the civil concerns, civil charges that might exist around the foundation, the Trump Foundation and the state of New York and the state Attorney General," he continued.
"I think they'll likely stay clear of pending criminal investigations. I hope they ... stay clear of the Mueller inquiry, but we could still see crimes that even lead to impeachment as they discuss the payments to women," he argued.
Trump's longtime attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, has implicated the president as being part of the conspiracy for the hush money payments.
"This is a done thing. Cohen has pled guilty. He's been sentenced," Figliuzzi reminded. "This is something that's fair game."
"If they tease that out, we could see impeachment offenses simply coming out of the money laundering and structuring and wire fraud and bank fraud regarding those payments," he explained.
Watch:
Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer emerged from the White House Wednesday after a conversation with President Donald Trump about ending his shut down.
Pelosi said that she has given Republicans in the Senate every opportunity to simply approved the bill that they previously passed unanimously with a voice vote, but they simply won't do it.
"We have given Republicans a chance to take yes for an answer," she said. "We have taken their proposals unamended by any House bipartisan amendments, but just staying true to what the Senate has already done. Our question to the president and to the Republicans is, why don't you accept what you have already done to open up government, and that enables us to have 30 days to negotiate for border security?"
She explained that Democrats have already been committed to protecting borders. In fact, Democrats gave Trump $1.4 billion for border security previously and he only spent six percent of it.
"It's the oath of office we take to protect and defend," Pelosi continued. "It has been very important to us, and we have committed resources to it. When we were in the majority. And we'll continue to do so. So the bottom line is very simple. We asked the president to support the bills that we support that will open up government."
Schumer noted that he asked the president why he wouldn't end the shutdown and Trump couldn't answer.
"I asked him directly," Schumer told the press. "I said, 'Mr. President, give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown of the eight cabinet departments while we are debating our differences on homeland security?' He could not give a good answer."
Watch the video below:
MSNBC host Hallie Jackson argued on Wednesday that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was trying to be "relatable" to young people in her potential run for president because she drank a beer from her own kitchen.
On her Wednesday show, Jackson parsed a recent talk that Warren gave on Instagram.
"It seems like she's trying to be relatable," Jackson observed. "Right? But that's kind of backfiring for some of the 'youngs' [because of] moments like this in Warren's live stream."
In a shot taken from Warren's Instagram video, the Massachusetts senator announces, "I'm going to get me a beer."
"Her supporters liked what they saw," Jackson admitted. "Her critics hated what they called pandering to millennials."
Watch the video below.
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