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tv   MSNBC Live  MSNBC  July 15, 2017 12:00pm-1:00pm PDT

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donald trump jr. has kept quiet since a televised interview earlier in the week. construct grassley wants him to testify before the committee. kelly, is the white house saying anything about donald jr.'s potential testimony? >> reporter: not at this point. except that they expect that all of the people involved related to the courthouse will cooperate. this is one of those things where the white house will say in the business of its agenda and issues relating to a sprawling russia investigation to the attorneys who are designated for each of the players, whether it's donald trump jr., jared kushner, who serves as a special adviser to the president. the president's own outside legal team. so that's where it gets difficult to get answers from the white house directly. we did see today how the president sort of weaves into
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some of the other things he wants to be talking about a. part of the president's strategy has been to say there is nothing to see here. following up on his son's own comments, the meeting didn't come to anything of value for them. that's very separate than all the issues whether they should have taken the meeting, what the legal ramifications may be, how this brings the issue right to the president's family. strategically the president is trying to downplay it. today in a tweet talking about the stockmarket, referred to the russia hoax story. hoax is certainly an interesting chose of words. he had been doing that long ago. now there are specific instances where we have family members and those close to those engaged with this meeting and a former russian military and counter-intelligence officer, hoax seems to be a word that may not be the best choice from the president. but that's his attempt to downplay, diminish it, suggest to supporters there is no big deal here. as you mentioned the president
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is at his golf club today where they are playing the u.s. women's and the u.s. open. this was something the golf course was able to secure as a big event before the president was even if officer. so this is something that's been on his calendar for a long time. we are told by our colleagues close to where the president is now the white house people as we refer it to. the rotating group of journalists, that he has been interacting with the crowd a little bit. watching the action that's unfolding this afternoon. so it's a day where he is enjoying one of his fate past times while he is also trying to put the russia investigation to the side. stephanie. >> meanwhile, we are learning the president has added another lawyer to his legal team. what do we know about this new lawyer? >> reporter: well, we had been hearing reports about this today it is official with an official white house announcement they are adding ty cobb related to the baseball player of the same name. he is a veteran attorney in the
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area. he has had experience like this. he is coming inside the white house, not a part of the private legal team we have been talking about but an official white house employee who will be referred to as the special counsel inside the white house. he will take some questions from congress and handle some of the document requests the interview requests, all of the inquiries that will come from the investigations on capitol hill and so forth dealing with this issue. stephanie. >> with any luck you will get to play or watch some golf this weekend. thank you. just as the president's legal team is growing this weekend with the new white house special counsel ty cobb, the list of people in that donald trump meeting is growing as well. nbc confirms six people were in the room. take a look at the small photo in the middle of your screen, that's russian lobbyist rinat akhmetshin. abc news first reported his
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involvement. his presence and russian resume are giving critics a quest for answers between the trump campaign and the kremlin. national security reporter ken delaney broke that story. he is in washington. take us through who akhmetshin is. i read he is saying she a dad in d.c. who rides his bike around and takes his kid to school. why is he drawing this scrutiny? >> he is all of those things, he is also a washington-born fixer in the military, he served in a counterintelligence committee hunting for spies in the younger days, he moved to the united states, became a u.s. citizen and has worked in washington in the shadows, in corporate intelligence work, has represented russian olegar accounts and interests. he has been working on the magnitsky act. which is on the same side of the
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kremlin. although he claims he is not employed by the kremlin. up with of his presence is because it was concealed. we broke this story a day off don trump jr. western on and says i told you everything about the meeting. then this emerges about this other figure here. with an interesting and colorful resume. so you can just bet that bob mueller and other investigators will look very closely at his presence at the meeting and at the meeting, itself. >> turning to the meeting, he was in that meeting with the moscow lawyer and a translator. do we have a sense how big a role he might have played and do you have a sense if we will ever learn what happened in that meeting? >> reporter: well, that's a really good question. unless from is a written record or an audio record t. trump team claims very few records exist and they sant say for sure who else was in the meeting. so he worked very closely with
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the lawyer on this anti--magnitsky act. that's what he said his role was about that meeting. although he said she did all the talking. none of that squares with the e-mails that we saw from rob goelts, a music promoter with russian olegar accounts can ties to the russian government. that's why this is getting so much scrutiny and don jr. instead of calling the fbi took the meeting and said, we'd love to have the help of the russian government and derogatory information about hillary clinton. so that rally, intelligent experts look at this say don't worry so much what happened in the meeting. we'll get the fact that the russian government offered help and the trump organization accepted it. >> thank you so much. let's take it as a legal fallout from these latest analysts, a george town law professor and
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former prosecutor. some call this meeting a smoking gun. do you see really at this point with what we know any evidence of criminal wrongdoing here? >> absolutely. so christopher ray, the fbi nominee's confirmation hearing last week. he was asked, what should you do if are you a politician and you get a call from a foreign operative about asking for help, if you need help. he says the fbi nominee says you need to call the fbi. the fbi investigators federal crimes, national security breaches. with potential federal crime here had to do with company faw. it's against the law to solicit from a foreign national. so the questions would be, does this opposition research count as a contribution and does what donald jr., manafort did count as solicitation? i think bob moouler has a critical case to make they are
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in investigation of this law. >> president trump came out and said, look, anyone would have taken that meeting. the defense has been, there was nothing to it. it was no beg deal. nothing came out of it. why are we doing this? >> so president trump has often said first that he knew nothing about this meeting and then later he kind of hedged saying, well, i might have known a little bit. i'm not sure he's the most credible person. when we look at how information gets out from this, it's from great reporters at nbc, the "new york times," walk post. all they can do is make people talk through their power of persuasion. special counsel mueller has the power of subpoenaeing people. he can force people to come and talk. i think at some point we will know exactly what happened at this meeting. >> you also said that don jr. lied about this meeting. could that potentially be a bigger deal for him legally done the road? >> it's a cliche, it is always the coverup. when we look at trump jr., i'm trying to be transparent.
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he's trying to be transparent, why did he first say no meeting occurred between him and the russian, then okay maybe a meet og kurd, it was just about adoption. then that's not right. it was me and my boys kushner and manafort. then, okay, maybe there were actually eight people there. at some point special counsel mueller is going to be like why is he not being forthcoming. it sounds like he has something to hide. >> so the story has been changing, don jr. found himself in front of the senate intelligence committee. what happens then if the story he tells them shifts a couple weeks down the road? >> he's got three bad choices. one is he can tell the truth which further implicates him into this financial campaign fraud issue. whether he's guilty of breaking federal law. if he lies, he's going down for perjury or providing false statements to the fbi. if he cakes the fifth, i don't know how the president's son can
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go before the senate and say, i refuse to answer any of these questions on the grounds it might incriminal fate me. >> just very, very quickly, how much time should bob mueller be given to reach an end to this infiery? >> they're great journalists, but as long as it takes. it might be a year or two years it probably will be. >> so people have to be patient. all right. but they're not. >> yeah. >> thank you very much. e-mail addresses, phone numbers and home addresses, personal voter information, published by the voter fraud commission. even after states vowed to protect them. next, how does this happen and the effects it could have on upcoming
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>> we can be babies, but you take a look at the registration, have you illegals, you have dead people. have you this. it's really a bad situation. it's really bad. >> so that session that president trump decided to set up a commission to handle to investigate voter tirado but ignited a bipartisan firestorm by asking all fist vaits states in the district of colombia for personal voter education, birth dates and partial social security numbers, so far 48 states are not complying with the panelist request. on thursday the white house published a 112-page document of mostly critical comments from voters about the president's voter fraud commission. by doing so released e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses. and concerns over cyber security are on the rise, one in four registered voters saying they may skip future elections over fores of hacking. >> that means 59 million voters
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could stay home on election day, according to a new survey by the cyber security farm carbon black. jane tim is following all of this for abc that understand so much for joining me, you know, there is no evidence to support president trump's claims of voter fraud. so why don't states just turn over these rolls to this commission and we can move forward on this? >> you know a lot of estates can't release these voter roles. there is data that says you can release this you can't have that. some say they can't use them for commercial purposes, so what happens when this voter role gets put out on the internet and released. they take that and target people that way. this is a complicate i complicated thing. states have in the past put together voter roles and say where do we see people that registered in both states, but the problem, you come with a lot
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of false matches. i think that's what advocates who worry about people being disenfranchised worry about these voting roles, when you put everybody towing, you will get a lot of matches. it doesn't mean you will get voter fraud, many campaign staff were registered in multiple states. it means you will have names that match. if you have jane tim and jane tim mondays, i might come up as a match. our birthdays are the same. you know how many john smith's names are on voter roles? quite a few. you worry about that da da that after it gets sent out. >> trying to shore up our voting process, make sure it's secure, certainly is something every american can agree is a good thing. i guesspy questions is, did this commission kind of bungle it. the rollout in reaping out to the states the way that it did? >> you know i think time will tell whether or not they bungled it or not. >> all these states saying we
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aren't going to turn over our information. >> you have to be careful, 46 may partially comply. you may see names and birth dates going out. there will be data. it is not every state. with a fair amount of blue states saying they will not release this data, but i think what's superimportant here is, yes, voter integrity sounds great and important. we all want our elections to be absolutely secure. but we see almost no evidence in comprehensive reviews of our ballots, we see no evidence of fraud they are looking to find. they are looking for something that every other researcher that tackled this says i can't fine it. there is a study that says a billion ballots and found 31 cases of voter tirado. a lot of cases are looking into those 31 people. >> a lot of state thought it was serious. the secretary of state jay ashcroft took an hour-and-a-half
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to explain it to voters. explain it to us and what was the reaction to it? >> these laws are completely complicated. it doesn't take an hour-and-a-half. it takes 45 minutes and a lot of questions go out in missouri there are three ways to vote, walk in with your driver's license, most people probably do that they say, hey, i'm jane tim, i'd like to cast my ballot. if you don't have that, you can sign forms saying unpenalty of personalry, you are who you say you are. or you can do a couple other ways where you can sign a provisional ballot and come back with your provisional i.d.. it's complicated. if it takes 30 minutes to explain it, people who have i.d.s, who have no problems getting to the ballot on election day are concerned. all the states, 400 miles on that day, there were people who all have licenses, not a single person there is likely to be disenfranchised. they were worried, are you sure this won't be a problem?
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what if my license has my old address? will that be a problem? >> the law is complicated. the fear is people won't reach out and try and fix these problems and go vote or get to the polls and say sorry, you can't vote. this is disenfranchisement. >> we all agree we don't want voter fraud. we should all agree we'll people who have a legitimate right to vote should get to the polls. thank you very much. we appreciate it. next, stunning video out of florida, families were evacuated after their homes were swallowed up after a giant sink hole. >> i was so scared. we came outside, it was like collapsin
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collapsing.. in central florida, authorities are closely monitoring a massive sinkhole that swallowed two homes and a boat. this morning officials says the sink hole has stopped expanding for at least 17 hours. 11 homes were impacted and
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several residents have evacuated the area as a precaution. nbc has the latest. >> reporter: this morning the landscape in this land o. lakes neighborhood forever changed as a massive sink hole threatened to take even more. >> citizens, we know there is a high level of anxiety. >> panicked neighbors called 911 as the sink hole quickly grew on friday. >> there is a sink hole next to our neighbor's house, it's swaul localing it completely. >> reporter: earth and water snapped the homes. >> we we heard the noise. >> reporter: family forced to flee, taking what they could. he won't be able to go back to his home. >> right now, we don't have nothing to pack. we don't know where we are going to stay at this moment. >> reporter: but sink holes aren't unique to florida. parts of other states are
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susceptible to sink holes, including texas, kentucky, missouri, tennessee and pennsylvania. >> we see them all the time. but something of this magnitude is rare. >> reporter: the sink hole guy works to reenforce homes and prevent situations like these. he says there is one silver lining to all of this, no one was hurt from if this would have happened in the middle of the night when a family was sleeping, we would probably be dealing with a much different issue today. >> terrifying pictures there. turning now to health care, a vote on the health care bill could come next week, there are already two nos, one more would put the latest in jeopardy. one thing mitch mcconnell is hoping to overcome. i had frequent heartburn, but my doctor recommended...
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. welcome back. i'm stephanie dpovg live at ms nbc headquarters in new york. here's what we're watching at this hour. attorney general jeff sessions asked the supreme court friday to block a hawaii judge's decision to loosen the rules on
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president trump's new travel ban. the judge ruled that grandparents and other relatives must be added to the list of close family members who can still fet visas to travel to the u.s. the supreme court has given hawaii until noon tuesday to respond to the justice department's motion to block the judge's ruling. three people are dead and dozens more injured after a high rise building without sprinklers caught fire in honolulu. the building was built in the '70s before sprinklers were required. and earlier today at wimbledon, venus williams lost her chance to set a record after she was beaten by spain's garbine muguruza. too bad for her. >>. questions continue to surface about the latest gop health care proposal. two insurers asking mitch
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mcconnell to remove ted cruz's aemtd amendment to sell premiums with less benefits. they call it unworkable in any form. this morning, president trump addressed health care in his weekly address. >> i am pleased to report that we have very, very close to ending this healthcare nightmare. we have so close. it's a common sense approach that restores the sacred doctor/patient relationship. and you are going to finally have great health care hat a lower price. >> this weekend, top trump officials, including vice president mike pence, o & b director nick mulvaney and health and human services secretary john price are in rhode island trying to garner support at the national governor's association gathering. >> the simple truth, though, is,
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obamacare is imploding all across america and working family and small businesses are paying the price every day. there after being unveiled on tuesday the senate replacement bill is already facing resistance on the hill with kentucky's rand paul and maine's susan collins already coming out in opposition. >> the bill doesn't repeal obamacare. >> i'm very disappointed because i have been very vocal about my concerns. >> at last count number ruse senators are on the fence regarding its approval. we are joined from the governor's meeting in providence, rhode island. what's happening there? >> reporter: reaction from the governors is definitely not nearly as positive as i think the white house would like to this health care bell. democrats, of course, unanimously opposed to it as you would expect. even among republicans, very few, if any, are smoking out in
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favor of the bill. most are undecide. that's even after this big push from trump white house officials coming here lobbying the governors. a lot is focused on brian sandeval, a mad rot in nevada, i spoke to him earlier after he came out with a meeting with the health secretary. he told me he still wasn't decided on that he is being watched closely, his senator, dean heller, a key vote, even conservatives i have spoken to are not sold on this bill, take a look at what governor matt meade told me. >> i'm talking about republican colleagues. i think there are questions as to how it will work, how it will affect our state, congress and administration needs to know it is us, we the governors, that will be, have the responsibility to make sure the citizens of our states are in a good position. so it's like so many things in congress, we hope they are listening to the governors for republicans, democrats and
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independents on this issue that is critical to the health of not only our citizens but frankly the health of our economies. >> as the governors said, they are key to this they will be the ones to implement the program, especially medicaid if it changes, we'lling a conservative state there. the governors are certainly making their voices we heard, stephanie there the senators are no doubt listening to them. thank you so much. for more on this i am joined by republican strategist and a democratic strategist liz smith who served as the former democratic manager for president martin o'malley. noel, i will turn to you first, i want you to give ne fair read here on whether or not this is going to pass the senate. c'mon, just give it to us straight. >> okay. well, you know what, i will give it to you straight because you ask, i'm not going to maneuver around here. i'll tell you, i do not think it's going to pass. i'm going to tell you why. and it's one word, it's unity.
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i'm really, really sad we have the house, we have the senate, the presidency, we have a lot of republican governors, but we're not -- we don't agree. a lot of it has to do -- jan byrd, a former governor of arizona was on this morning on another network. she was saying one of the things she thought would be smart was to separate medicaid from the exchange and maybe you might get some bipartisan support. everyone agrees on one thing only, obamacare is not working. impts not good, right. what we don't agree on is how to repeal and replace it. that's where we are not having the unity. i wish we could all love something and get it through. we have made a promise and the rnc chairman ro da romney mcdaniel, she's right. we made a promise. donald trump ran on this and so did a lot of other senators and governors, we ran on the promise to repeal and replace.
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while a lot of democrats don't even think you know with premiums jumping and insurance people pulling out, a lot of people will agree with us. but everybody is looking to the republicans to come up with a plan and what's happening is we're not meeting everybody's needs. and i don't really think we can do this and maybe liz will agree unless we have some bipartisan support. >> well, lids, the obvious question is, where are the dra itself? what are they do something are they sitting back and say let's watch the republicans burn? or are they going to step up and get involved in this conversation? because at the end of the day, we're talking about the healthcare of this country. >> yeah, well, for years, democrats have been saying this is not a perfect law and we do need to fix it. i agree with noel we need a bipartisan consensus, i think one thing that would be really smart is neighbor e maybe if they turn to a bipartisan group of governors who say help us come up with the right ideas t. reason mike pence is lobbying people, dean heller and people like that, he needs their votes.
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also because they are the once on the ground having to implement these laws, and the reason and back to again what he said the reason why there isn't unity here and why, you know, even after years of promising of years of repealing and replaceing is there is still a bad bill. it would take millions of the health care roles, it would have drastic cuts to medicaid funding and big drug companies and big insurance companies, no one wants that. the american people still support obamacare. they want to see fixes to it. they do not want to see millions of people kicked off the health care rolls. >> i know you spent a lot ton of time, this is enormously complicated to the point of being maddening. i want to turn to what we mentioned in the intro. >> that is this cruz amendment. so now have you the cruz amendment which got him on board, now you bought the the insurance companies saying we can't work with that. can you simply describe what that is and what it would do and
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why don't insurance companies like it? >> well, you know, ted cruz has -- is very smart. when it comes to cons spushl lala tons tushl law constitutional law, he's a genius, when it comes to health care he may be missing the poet. it's not saying anything bad about at the tited cruz. i like him. i think the along and short of this is, it's not a great bill. like the republican party, i'm a republican. and i want to see us succeed, because if he succeed on health care, then we all succeed, but it's not a good bill and if it was a good bill, then all the republicans would be in unity and with this caveat that ted cruz has put in and interest people they don't like it, so they're saying it's not good. so they want to pull back on it. if they can amendment that, it's still not going to pass because rand paul and susan collins still have difficulty. a lot of this is centered around
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medicaid. >> it is. just quickly. what effect do you think this health care process is going to have on 2018? >> well, we've already seen democrats go on the offensive on it and republican, especially gubernatorial candidates, ducking on this issue and the numbers for the health care bill could to not be any worse, we seen the approval rating somewhere in the range of 12 to 20%. >> that is not something republicans will be able to run on. it gives democrats the offensive, for years it was seen as liability in critical races. >> liz, thank you guys so much. >> thank you. >> thanks. protecting victims of sex assaults and those wrongly accused. next, we action from educationing is betly devos' attempt to change the way cases are investigate on college campuses. richard liu been here at 2:00, talking to netflix's "to
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>> education secretary betsy devos is stirring controversy over the trump administration's push to roll back guidelines on vecking campus sexual assaults. devos sat down with three groups affected by title sexual assault survivors, students of accused, who are accused of sexual assault and college administrators, telling reporters that today was a time to listen to all sides of the debate. >> no student should be the victim of sexual assault. no student should feel unsafe. no student should feel like there isn't a way to seek justice. and no student should feel the scales are tipped against him or her. >> the meeting came a day after candace jackson, the acting head of the department's office for civil rights, told the "new york times," quote the accusation, 90% of them fall into the
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category of we were both drunk, we broke up and six months later i found myself under a title 9 investigation because she just decided our last sleeping toke was not quite right. jackson later apologized saying, as a survivor of rape, myself, i would never seek to diminish anyone's experience, my words in the "new york times" poorly characterized the conversations i've had with countless groups of advocates. what i said was flippant and i am sorry. joining me now is jess davidson managing director on "end rape on campus, inniinc. itself what did you say what did she say? >> thank you for having me today t. meeting was mostly secretary devos listening to the voices of survivors. i think that's appropriate, given the first time she's met with survivors of sexual violence during her tenure. we were calling for these meetings since she was a
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nominee. thursday was the first time she sat down with survivors, unfortunately since she spent most of the time listening, we have little indication of what she is doing next and what she is thinking. ehope those stories influenced and impacting her. sitting there in the meeting as an advocate, they certainly influenced and impacted me. >> what did you make of the people she invited to that meet something did she have the right group there? >> i think in the first meeting, the right groups were in the room, it was end rape on campus, national law center, national transgender equality. it represented some of the diverse experiences of survivors of sexual violence. unfortunately, i have some concerns about the second group that she met with. those that were representing the wrongfully accused. now, as an advocate for survivors, i think it's very important that people know that i want due and fair process for survivors and for the accused. but by giving equal time to the group and some of the groups that she invited, the department is creating this false
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equivalent between the two issues. and while we know that false rape reports do happen, they happen very rarely, only between two and eight% of the time as found by the fbi. that's the same report right as any other crime, meanwhile, one in every five women, one in 16 men and significantly higher rates for lbgt and transgender students are being assaulted on campus. i'm worried the way they present the meetings says to the public they cease these issue bs as equally serious. >> that just doesn't hold with statistics. >> all right. jess davidson, thank you so much for your time. we're going to turn to an advocate for the wrongly accused, she's co-president of families advocating for campus equality. you attended the meeting thursday for betsy devos, advocating for students accused of sexual assault. what was that like?
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how are studentsry acting to betsy devos? >> that's the first time students wrongly, there are varations on what that means, who are wrongly accused on their campuses had met with debtcy devos. it was a very powerful meeting. these students have suffered a lot. i know it's difficult for some people to understand how they could be suffering, but the reason is they believe they're incident and their whole concept of the justice system in which they've relied their entire lives, being told, do the right thing. you will be fine, collapses when they are found responsible for something they haven't actually done. we had a lot of tears, sobbing from young when e men. we also had a young woman who had originally been a rape victim and was falsely accused by another woman of sexual assault on her campus. so it was a very interesting meeting. i felt both candace jackson and
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secretary devos were very interested in understanding the perspective of not yu the wrongfully accused by also victims as they should be. >> what do you do with being wrong for the protection of sexual assault victims the obama approach under title 9? what needs to be changed? >> i don't know that i would say the protections are wrong. what i think the problem was the pressure that ocr or office of civil rights put on campuses. it was done in a very punitive and coercive manner, which made campuses feel as though they had to be careful about their adjudications and at some campuses, not all campuses, it made them err on the side of finding students responsible, because if a complaint was filed at ocr by a person who had been found responsible, we had one decision that enter time that
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katherine layman was in charge in favor of an accused student. whereas if a victim files a complaint, they're put on that list of shame before any investigation is even conducted and colleges saw this. they saw their odds of being if trouble were higher if they found students not responsible. >> all right. thank you very much. >> you are welcome. next, back to that meeting in trump tower and the two new people now said to be at the sit-down with donald trump jr., cared kushner, palm manafort and the russian lawyer. reaction on the growing scandal.
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are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. it's absurd and, you know, there's no basis to it. >> did any adviser or anybody in the trump campaign have any contact with the russians who were trying to meddle in the
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election? >> well, of course not. >> can you say whether you're aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with russia during the course of the election? >> well, i told you, general flynn was obviously dealing but he was dealing as he should have been. >> during the election? >> nobody that i know of. >> this conversation has never happened. i hear people saying it's like a fact on television. it's not only inaccurate or false but it's dangerous and does undermine our democracy. >> that's just a smattering of the denials that the president and his team have denied about ties to russia. and one week ago we learned that donald trump jr. had met with a russian lawyer to find dirt on hillary clinton. joining me now, our usa washington correspondent and political correspondent for erin, let me start with you.
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how damaging are these meetings to the white house, in the short term and long term? >> this is an issue that hangs over the trump administration. the details come out in a drip, drip, drip and those drips are flooding the white house and making it very hard for him to come out of this cloud to give him attention and enough momentum to push his health care policy. >> paul, the president continues to call the russia investigation a hoax. you have don junior's lawyer saying this is really much to do about nothing. who is winning the narrative battle at this point, do you think? >> well, their stories keep being dedunked as they go along. he did meet with the russians
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and we're discovering that a russian interpreter was in the room. you would think that that would be clear. the stories continue to spool out here and there may be something there that they are hiding. it doesn't prove anything. it doesn't prove that they did anything illegal but coast doubs on any story that they give us because the story has turned out to have holes in them. >> erin, a lot of the attention has been on don junior but you've reported that this could be the most harmful for jared kushner. how so? >> stephanie, there are a couple of issues that don't touch the other people in the room. he serves in the administration today and the legal experts that i spoke with say this chain of e-mails -- and remember, that chain was forwarded to jared kushner. it could open him up to legal
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trouble. >> paul, donald trump jr. sat down with fox's sean hannity this week. it will be a different story if he has to testify before congress as chuck grassley wants. how explosive could that testimony be but also how dangerous could be it for don junior? >> it's very dangerous on both sides. if he doesn't testify, the assumption is that he's hiding something. if he does testify, everything that he does under oath can be used against him. if he testifies in public, it gives us an opportunity to parse to see whether or not his story holds water. it's a very rocky road for the trump administration going forward. it's not just don junior. it may be jared kushner or paul manafort. who else is going to have to go before congress and tell a story under oath and will that story
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match up with the stories they've been telling for the last six months. >> behind the scenes we're learning that they've hired a new lawyer and the legal team is changing. talk to me about that. >> this is troubling for the trump administration. look at the sheer number of lawyers who have coalesced not only around the president but around donald trump jr. and jared kushner. they have several people leading these charges. who gets all of these people together in a room and says, tell me exactly what happened so we can put out one definitive narrative. these details, especially ones that just don't add up to past statements, are hufrting everyoe in the administration and it's going to cause infighting. >> do you think there's a point down the road where the white house comes out and says this is actually a big deal, we really do need to treat this seriously, that the message from them changes? >> i don't know. they are obviously treating it
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enough if they are lawyering up everywhere. this is not an administration or a president, frankly, who has ever apologized for anything. it is not their m.o. it is entirely possible that they say -- and we've seen some indication of that from the president recently, that they do say we are concerned about meddling in elections. we're concerned that russia was involved. that's about as far as they are willing to go. i don't know that they can come out and say, okay, we agree. it's a serious problem that we were involved in talking to the russians before the election. i can't see how they ever say that. >> right. erin and paul, thank you both for joining me. appreciate it. >> thank you. that's all for me this saturday. thanks for joining me. i'm stephanie gosk. next, my colleague richard lui will have the latest on the controversy. plus, the republican's push to pass the health care legislation. stay with us. terface.
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a very good day to you. i'm richard lui in new york. new revelations of donald trump jr.'s meeting with russian officials in june of 2016 inside of trump tower and what we are now learning about that meeting as white house scrambles to run damage control. also come coming up for you at this hour, the health care battle, the obamacare replacement bill is in jeopardy as they try to keep more senators in their states from coming out against the latest version of the health care bill. more on that just ahead. we'll start right now with seven days of shifting stories from the trump campaign all on the crucial meeting with a lawyer working with the russian lawyer and donald trump jr. six people in that meeting have been confirmed. the others, the lawyer working with the russian government, a lobbyist brought by the lawyer who was a russian sergeant and a translator. it began las


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