sally yates, that was not her reputation. i think it was very interesting what we show there, the different responses to the collusion question. clapper who was the dni and did not have visibility into the fbi investigation said, he didn't know about collusion. yates who was at justice obviously. did have details about the investigation said i can't talk about that. to me, that is incredibly revealing. >> one thing that the white house hasn't really talked about. and the question that sally yates isn't able to speak to, is when she warned about mike flynn to the time he was actually fired. >> when you go back to the original reporting, what was said at the time, was that there was a bit of a grar area. it would have been insane for the white house to have just gone and immediately fired general flynn on the spot without having done their investigation and review all the facts. i think it was good they took their time and got this right. >> i don't know if isolating is the right word, he was sitting in on some key meetings, he

sally yates testified today. not only did the justice department have prove flynn lied but the russians did too. is it a dream come true for russian intelligence? >> if all the statements are accurate, yes, it would be an advantage to the russians. i think we're looking at the wrong election. if you want to make sure we don't have a russian take over, we've got to do something to these voting machines, 25% have no paeper. they'reobely electronic. so once they're hacked you can't do an effective recount. it's utmost urgency to get them fixed. we can go back anytime we want and do whatever you want. it doesn't matter. we might learn stheng and that would be good but the mane thing is to protect the system from hacking in the next election. russians are not interfering -- >> i thik people would like to have a system where you have checks and balances with the system and then you can go back and do a recount. >> there was a hearing today. james clapper spoke and sally yates spoke and specifically talking about the ve

yates in one of their meetings according to sally yates. listen to this. >> one of the questions that mr. mcgahn asked me when i went back over the second day was essentially, why does it matter to doj if one white house official lies to another white house official? and so we explained to him it was a whole lot more than that and went back over the same concerns that we had raised with them the prior day, that the concern first about the underlying conduct, itself, that he had lied to the vice president and others, the american public had been misled and then importantly that every time this lie was repeated, and the misrepresentations were getting more and more specific as they were coming out, every time that happened, it increased the compromise. >> okay. so, according to her, white house cgahn, asked why would the doj be concerned if one white house official lied to another? is that the right question to be asking? >> well, it's an odd question. looks like he was searching for what the underlying crime or activity or interest of the ju

sally yates was fired and now for the first time in her only television interview she's speaking out. the white house has called her pa partisan and opponent to the president now she wants to set the record straight. what did you think when you heard director comey had been fir fired? >> i think this is a really troubling situation there's serious questions about the timing and motivation of the president's action. >> what was he like. >> jim is obviously he held my position deputy attorney general and we had a common back ground and i found him to be shoez boater but he would speak his mind. i don't want to go much more into it other than that. the explanation seemed to changes on what is an hourly basis seems there's only one truth and we better get to that. >> he. >> the idea of a direct yoor of white become asked for some sort of loyalty pledge is that appropriate? >> not to him individually our loyalty should be to the people of the united states and no one and nothing else. >> why isn't loyalty to the president something that should be pledged. >> because our oath is to uphold t

sally yates that was not her reputation. one quick point what matt was talking about. it was interested what with showed the different spoons to the collusion question clapper can be the dni did not have visibility in the investigation saying he didn't know about collusion. yates who was at justice did have visibility into the fbi investigation said, i can't talk about that. to me that is incredibly revealing. >> jason i mean one of the things though the white house hasn't really talked about and the question wasn't answered today because sally yates isn't able to speak to it 18 days from when she warned them about mike flynn to the time he was actually fired, why that length of time. >> well if you go back and look at some of the original reporting some of the things said at the time was that it was a bit of gray area. wasn't completely clear what exactly happened in the conversation, what exactly was said. also backed up by what general flynn said in his public statement. it would have been insane for the wlous to have gone and immediately fired general flynn right o

that is not what sally yates said. she said lying. so we know that sean spicer is not telling the truth in the first part of that answer. but he gets into the particulars. he says that don mcgann, the president told don mcgann to find fought there was anything criminal or anything in the underlying conduct that was worthy of review. and sean spicer says that was immediately determined that there wasn't. >> while the fbi was investigating flynn at the time and might still well be. but the key thing here when he says that, he is not really taking into account not just that sally yates said that flynn had been lying, but that sally yates had said he was susceptible to russian blackmail. i mean, that may not be a crime, but nevertheless, it's a serious matter. and so this is not a heads-up if the acting attorney general comes to the white house and says your top national security adviser is vulnerable to russian blackmail. i think you ought to do something about it. so he, you know, spicer -- this is a cover-up. he was covering up the ess

sally yates telling congress she alerted the white house. that general michael flynn could be blackmailed by the kremlin. >> general flynn was compromised with respect to the russians. >> president trump, predictably responding to her sworn testimony with a tweet storm. i want to begin with pamela brown. thank you for joining us. former acting attorney general, sally yates, says she warned the united states that michael flynn could be blackmailed by the russians. listen to this. >> the russians also knew about what general flynn had done. and the russians also knew that general flynn had misled the vice president and others. not only did we believe that the russians knew this, but that they likely had proof of this information. and that created a compromised situation. a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. >> so, having listened to that, pamela, break down some of what we heard today from sally yates and from the former director of national intelligence, james clapper. >> she laid o

sally yates testify today. and not only did the justice department have evidence that flynn lied to the vice president but that the russians did, too, and could blackmail him. as a form head of the cia, is it a dream come true to have a former national security advisor in that position? >> well, if all these statements are accurate, yes, it would be an advantage to the russians. but if you don't mind my saying so, i think we're looking at the wrong election. because if you want to make sure we don't have a russian take over of american votejerk we want to make sure we protect our electoral system, we've got to do something to these voting machines we have now, 25% of which have no paper. there are only electronic. which means once they're hacked, you can't do an effective recount. it is of utah most urgency to get voting machines for our next election fixed. we can go back any time we want and look what happened in this past election. form election council offices, it doesn't matter. we might learn something, a

the former acting attorney general, sally yates, the same sally yates, of course, who refused to enforce the president's travel ban and lost her job because of it. she will be testifying along with the former director of national intelligence, james clapper, before the senate. and while we don't know, of course, what yates is going to say, we do know that expectations could not be higher. her testimony's expected to contradict how the white house has described her warnings about the president's national security adviser, michael flynn, and his contact with russian officials. and this morning, the president has something to say about all of this and tweets in part, blaming obama with this one. let me read it. "general flynn was given the highest security clearance by the obama administration, but the fake news seldom likes talking about that." president trump also targeting the witness with this one -- " @sallyyates under oath. if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to white house counsel." with that, let's get to cnn's chief national s

who is sally yates to you? and put on your bipartisan hat. how did you think she conducted herself as a witness? >> sally yates entire background is as a career prosecutor who eventually was appointed to a political job, not a partisan job but a political appointee. as u.s. attorney. her background really is prosecuting terrorists, prosecuting corrupt officials from both parties. and she eventually became deputy attorney general. i think what i saw working with her is what a lot of people saw today. someone who is calm, someone who is resolute, someone who is fearless. the question she got in her confirmation hearing that i thought was relevant and came up again today. if you ever as the attorney general are asked to do something that is wrong, will you tell the president no? if you are ever faced with an issue that's tough will you go to the president and raise it? that's what she did. and i think that's what people saw today. >> probably notable that question was asked by then alabama senator and now attorney general jeff sessions. and the

sally yates is a classic career prosecutor. she spent years as a line assistant attorney general in georgia, prosecuted the mayor of atlanta, prosecuted the bomber terrorism case of eric rudolph, the most far reaching case the justice department had. she became u.s. attorney at the beginning of the obama administration. there are 93 u.s. attorneys across the country. when there is a vacancy, either at the deputy attorney general or the attorney general level, all 93 think they're the leading candidate. she is the one that donald trump and eric holder picked as the leading candidate. she was the leading prosecutor most respected by people, and you saw her at the confirmation hearing where she was supported by democratic senators. >> jeremy bash, for those people not watching "billions" this season, what is the job of u.s. attorney like? how is it regarded in the federal system? >> it's the pinnacle of law enforcement of the prosecutorial system. in atlanta, those people are responsible for working day in and day out with career

to probe sally yates. on how the interview went and what was the scope of the investigation. she rightly shut him down. that suggests there's underlying criminality here and perhaps there's exposure on michael flynn's part which would explain why he's seeking immunity. >> the president is sticking by flynn, saying nice things about him. whereas others in the white house seem oo be trying to put distance between the president and michael flynn. we don't know if michael flynn talked to the president or president-elect about his conversation with the russian ambassador or if donald trump knew in advance. we don't know if there's something there. >> he's an orphan from everybody except donald trump. i think it tells you something about donald trump, which may be a good trait, although maybe an extreme trait in this particular case, which is that he was warned by president trump don't hire this guy. there were people on his initial transition, i've been told, who said to the president-elect, you know, you reall

sally yates came here on the 26th of january. then she informed the counsel's office that there were materials that were relevant to the situation. it wasn't until about seven days later that they had access to those documents. after that time they did -- what you should do frankly, is an element of due process. they informed the president right away after they were informed of her giving us a heads-up and ultimately the president made the right decision. i guess the question or the point that i would put back on you is, somebody came over, gave us a heads-up on a situation, told us there were materials. we were provided those materials seven days later. reviewed those materials. underwant a p underwent a process of reviewing the situation and ultimately the pred ma president made the decision and it was the right one. >> you're saying the president stands by that decision and he made the right decision but why does he continue to defend mike flynn? >> i don't think -- it is not a question of defending mike flynn or not. >> he sa

government in former acting attorney general sally yates says yes. two, on trump business ties to russia, that according to the former director of national intelligence james clapper possibly still part of the investigation on the issue of collusion between trump advisers and russia. no definitive answer ruling that in or crucially ruling out but again on flynn sally yates contradicting president and white house spokesman. >>. >> we felt like it was critical to get this information to the white house. >> in a hearing sharply divided, former acting attorney sally yates sharply contradicted the white house version of events, regarding fired national security adviser michael flynn. yates told senators she gave the white house a forceful and detailed warning that flynn lied when he denied discussing u.s. sanctions with the russian ambassador. >> we walked the white house council who also had an associate there with him, through general flynn's underlying conduct. the content of which i obviously cannot go through with you today because it's classified. b

sally yates was later giving some warnings. even as glor ra reporting even some transition officials were saying this is not a good idea. hold that thought. we'll listen to sean and then we'll get back you to. >> nmove this up a little bit. i appreciate your flexibility today. so that the pool can cover the vice president as they welcome honor flight veterans to washington on the anniversary of "d" day. the vice president is hosting more than 120 veterans as part of national military appreciation month and public service recognition week he lighting the trump's administration commitment to our military and public service. also today the vice president secretary price, secretary shulkin all attended an event on the scientific opportunities in medicine. key leaders from government, the private sector discussed the united states comprehensive bio medical landscape and further educated white house staff on in important topic. the meeting was organized by the national institutes of health and was led by direct dr. francis collins. l

who is sally yates to you? and put on your bipartisan hat. how did you think she conducted herself as a witness? >> sally yates entire background is as a career prosecutor who eventually was appointed to a political job, not a partisan job but a political appointee. she eventually became deputy attorney general. what i saw working with her is what a lot of people saw today, someone who is calm, someone who is resolute, someone who is fearless. the question she got in her confirmation hearing that i thought was relevant and came up again today. if you ever as the attorney general are asked to do something that is wrong, will you tell the president no? if you are ever faced with an issue that's tough will you go to the president and raise it? that's what she did. and i think that's what people saw today. >> it's notable that question was asked by then alabama senator and now attorney general jeff sessions and the clip of that is fairly remarkable. >> it is. and i don't think that's the context he had in mind, obviously. he was thinking of presi

to probe sally yates. she rightly shut him down. that suggests there's underlying criminality here and perhaps there's exposure on michael flynn's part which would explain why he's seeking immunity. >> the president is sticking by flynn, saying nice things about him. others in the white house seem to be trying to put distance between the president and michael flynn. we don't know if michael flynn talked to the president or president-elect about his conversation with the russian ambassador or if donald trump knew in advance. we don't know if there's something there. >> he's an orphan from everybody except donald trump. it tells you something about donald trump which may be a good trait, although, maybe an extreme trait in this particular case, which is that he was warned by president obama don't hire this guy, there were people on his initial transition i've been told who said to the president-elect, you know, you really need to be careful about flynn, and i was told that he always said back to them, on the

we'll see sally yates appearing before the senate committee. >> sally yates at 2:30 this afternoon. we'll be leading into that with a host of coverage and also this white house press briefing, which you're watching with us on the left hand side of your screen, where sean spicer is set to begin. let's talk with matt miller and jeremy bash. matt, i want to get your reaction to nbc's exclusive reporting, that the president of the united states warned donald trump while he was in transition less than 48 hours after the election that mike flynn was not somebody that he should be hiring. >> i think it's stunning. if you think about that meeting, this is two days after the election. donald trump comes into the oval office, gets briefed by president obama about some of the country's most important secrets, some of and president takes time to tell trump is that you should not hire mike flynn. mike flynn had worked in the obama administration. president obama presumably was speaking from experience. president trump ignored that warning. it was just one of many warnings. some public, some priv

yates earlier today, ask sally yates under oath if she knows how classified information got in the newspapers soon after she explained it to white house council. trish, the cameras will be trained on yates on capitol hill. trish: very interesting. blake berman, thank you so much. joining me right now for all analysis, former cia officer buck sexton and gina and stewart holiday. good to have you here. buck, you're a former intelligence guy. i'm going to start with you here. she's plain training that she somehow gave the information this heads up, that she actually gave them information that was relevant to general flynn whic shou have nt him running for the hills but at the same te if that information did exist, why the heck did he have hearing in the obama administration to begin with? >> well, we have to know what the information was that was passed along in terms of whether it was just we don't trust this guy, we don't like him or if there was greater specificity, that hasn't been made clear. anybody afacilityuated with the obama administration that doesn't like general flynn or have concer

sally yates was a career justice department employee. she is somebody who prosecuted many very important cases, eric rudolph, for example, and others. she also went after democratic politicians in your hometown of atlanta, and she got a lot of democrats upset with her. even and including john lewis, who evan perez, our now colleague who back then was working in 2009 for "wall street journal" did a story he showed me yesterday, that that story said john lewis was trying to block her appointment because he was afraid she was a republican. yes, she was working for the obama administration but obama was the guy who was the president. she had also worked for other administrations technically because of her job as a career justice department official. the other thing about the heads-up. to me, heads-up is hey, mom, put on cnn, i'm going to be on brooke's show. not oh, my gosh, there's a matter of national security and your national security adviser could be compromised by the russians. you need to know this. to me, they are very different. i t

yates on president's trumps original travel plan and sally yates came prepared. that amazing moment after the break. >> and given the fact -- and tell the president. >> i can tell you the loyalties and constitution. >> two years ago sally yates was repeatedly questioned about her loyalties. but then she did refusing to defend president trump's first travel ban. for that, she was fired and accused of betrayal. then the trump administration itself ended up withdrawing and rewriting the travel ban any way after numerous courts backed yates interpretation ruling it unconstitutional. yet despite that fiasco, republican senator decided to relitigate yates' decision not to defend the order regardless of the recommendation of the office of legal counsel. >> i find it enormously disappointing that you, somehow, vetoed the decision of the office of legal counsel with regard of the lawfulness of the president's order and decided, instead, that you would count erman the executive order of the president of the united states as you happen to disagree with it as policy matter.

who is sally yates to you? and put on your bipartisan hat. how did you think she conducted herself as a witness? >> sally yates entire background is as a career prosecutor who 50e67b9ually was appointed to a political job, not a partisan job but a political appointee. she eventually became deputy attorney general. what i saw working with her is what a lot of people saw today, someone who is calm, someone who is resolute, someone who is fearless. the question she got in her confirmation hearing that i thought was relevant and came up again today. if you ever as the attorney general are asked to do something that is wrong, will you tell the president no? if you are ever faced with an issue that's tough will you go to the president and raise it? that's what she did. and i think that's what people saw today. >> it's notable that question was asked by then alabama senator and now attorney general jeff sessions and the clip of that is fairly remarkable. >> it is. and i don't think that's the context he had in mind, obviously. he was thinking of pre

they don't trust sally yates. that's a judgment about whether mike flynn could be blackmailed, not a fact. then we have a president being so confidence in his judgment that he steps in it all the time. if you look at these characteristi characteristics, 18 days doesn't seem like that. i'm betting the president is saying, don't worry about it. i just him. he's okay. >> we don't know if president obama knew what kind of investigation was going on of michael flynn when he talked to him. we don't know if don mcgann communicated to the president. sources around the president suggest that they were all figuring out what to do about mike flynn. do you think part of the answer could be that every time they hear about russia, earmuff is go on and they don't pay it any mind? >> i think they certainly believe that every time russia comes up it is a political salvo. there is obviously a defensive crouch that the trump administration has been in from the beginning. but let me add one point here, that we, as compelling as sally

right now on "msnbc live," what will sally yates say? we'll soon find out when the former acting attorney general takes the hot seat answering questions about russia and what she told the white house about michael flynn before she was cut loose by the president. >>> trump tweeting some shade earlier this morning ahead of yates highly anticipated testimony. also at the capitol, health care shifts to the senate. but the debate on the highly controversial house gop plan isn't cutting it with the number of senate republicans. one, even vowing to start from scratch. >>> and france goes with macron, defeating le pen in the election. we are joined live to discuss how they turned the tide against a wave of nationalism across the west. >>> good morning, everyone. i'm chris jansing in washington, d.c. and we do start with a highly-anticipated hearing on capitol hill in the russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. sally yates will talk publicly about her warnings to the trump white house about former national security adviser michael fly

just as sally yates did. if he wants to contradict her testimony, then let's get some more evidence in. but let's do it on the basis of the evidence. not on the basis of she's a political hack, no, in fact, she worked there for 27 years for both republicans and democrats. you know, you can go either way on that. i happen to think that the white house when the president of the united states, barack obama, goes and warns the incoming president about something, he brings up a particular name, my understanding has been that when he went in, he warned him on national security grounds not to appoint general flynn. you would think the president-elect at that point would blow the whistle and bring his group in and say let's figure this out, let's go deeping. when the acting attorney general comes to you twice and calls you on the phone, that's a five-alarm fire that person is trying to bring information to you. people from the justice department who did not necessarily share the views of the president calling and say

he served under sally yates. he also left the justice department january 30th, the day his boss was fired. i know you are not in the habit of doing interviews. thank you for doing this one. >> thank you for having me on. >> you were right in the middle of everything at the justice department for the last the sisters, working two years as sally yates' prince deputy? >> that's correct. >> you've seen a lot of critical, sensitive, classified matters in your time. can i ask you how it felt today watching this hearing, watching her handle questions about this matter? >> sure. i was gratified today that the american people got to see the woman i saw up close every day for two years. sally yates is a paragon of character, integrity, judgment. she had a 27--year career at the department of justice and really exemplifies the best of the justice department, following the facts and the evidence and the law and doing the right thing. i think folks who watched her testimony today got to see that in her and that's what i saw e

you want to hear from sally yates? >> good evening, brian. this is a picture coming more and more into focus. from sally yates we heard just how hard she tried to tell the white house that they had a member at its highest level who may have been compromised by the russians. former dni clapper talking about more details of russia's interference campaign. something that bothered me, the gravity of this attack is also becoming clearer. the republicans on the committee who wanted to talk about anything but russian meddling was very concerning to me. i really hope that we find a way for both republicans and democrats to care about this and make sure we're never in a position like this again. >> you're part of the overall investigation, democrats in the minority party right now, republicans control both houses of congress and the white house. are you confident that you have all that you need, all that congress needs to pursue a thorough and fair investigation, people have been saying independent commission, select committee.

what might we learn from sally yates? >> i think you'll learn whether it was a haeeads up or somethin else. all indications is it will be a great deal more than that. i think it will be probably the most important thing we learn. you know, it's just a reminder when john mccain said this story was a centipede there are so many different angles of the relationship between the campaign and russia and any possible collusion to try to destabilize that base clu there basically there's a lot of fuel here. none of this is going away any time soon. >> second topic, the white house memo proposes 95% cuts to the office of national drug control policy. they would be seen as the tip of the sphere in terms of the opiod epidemic. how do you reconcile the promtss of taking this on? we came back from new hampshire where the president went to the fire house and said i will be there with you with a 95% cut. >> not only a 95% cut, but if you look at what's happening in the health care bill passed last week with medicaid, in kentucky, for exa

many questions and revelations from yesterday from sally yates. here is what we still don't know this morning. was there collusion between the trump team and russia in terms of trying to affect the election? >> she said she couldn't talk about it but not to take the fact she can't talk about classified information to mean yes is her answer that, yes, there is collusion. clapper said, once again, there wasn't. he also said i didn't know anything about the investigation. i may not know the facts. >> so we still don't know the answer. there are all sorts of congressional probes. >> right. but the president tweeted these assumptions that clapper had once again proved there is no collaboration. if anything the former head of the dni went further to create doubt about what the situation may be. he said he didn't know not that there is no proof and we don't know the distinction. >> we don't know the extent. we don't know how classified information got out. lots of republican lawmakers are focused on that. >> yates and clapper said they didn't know how it

he served under sally yates. he also left the justice department january 30th, 2 day his boss was fired. i know you are not in the habit of doing interews. thank you for doing this one. >> thank you for having me on. >> you were right in the middle of everything at the justice department for the last the sisters, working two years as sally yates' prince deputy? >> that's correct. >> you've seen a lot of critical, sensitive, classified matters in your time can you ask you how it felt you to today watching this hearing, watching her handle questions about this matter? >> sure. i was gratified today that the american people got to see the woman i saw up close every day for two years. sally yates is a paragon of character, integrity, judgment. she had a 27--year career at the department of justice and really exemplarilyifiesed the department of justice and the law and doing the right thing. folks got to see that in her and that's what i saw every day working with her. >> the administration, the president specifically

>> sally yates doesn't know the whole picture there. what she does know is that white house counsel, don mcgann, one of his reactions was rather astounding. why does the justice department care whether one white house official lies to another? she answered, of course, it's a problem because mike flynn could be blackmailed. so she doesn't know what happened inside the white house. we just know from our reporting that mike flynn did his job for 18 days until the story leaked to "the washington post." and that's when the trump administration moved to fire mike flynn. >> ken delaney live for us. thank you. >>> senator ted cruz had pointed questions for sally yates as well. cruz had questioned yates about refusing to implement the controversial travel ban, a move that led to her firing. >> are you familiar with -- >> not off the top of my head, no. >> whenever the president find that the entry of any alien or class of aliens into the united states would be detrimental to the interest of the united states he may, by proclamation and for any p

sally yates, let's play hardball. >>> good evening, i'm chris in washington. sally yates testified that the former national security adviser, michael flynn, was compromised in regards to the russians when he misled the vice president and the media about his conversations with the russian ambassador to the u.s. yates, who was fired by the trump administration, said flynn made himself vulnerable to blackmail. >> the russians also knew about what general flynn had done and the russians also knew that general flynn had misled the vice president and others, because in the media accounts it was clear for the vice president and others they were repeating what general flynn had told them. and that this was a problem because not only do we believe that the russians knew this but they likely had proof of this information. and that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser, essentially, could be blackmailed by the russians. >> well, this morning president trump tried to distract from yates' testimony ahead of time accusing her of lea

first, the conversation with sally yates. yates put out an article that if yates would run for governor of georgia as a democrat. i asked her if she had spres in r running for governor or getting into politics. >> are you going to get into politics? >> no. >> there's pundits that say you've been approached by folks in georgia about running for governor or some political office? >> i read that. i haven't returned the calls. i'm not running for governor. >> the president watches a lot of tv the cable news. if he's watching, is there anything you want to say to him? >> i don't think so, no. >> after 2 years in the department of justice, is it strange to have your career defined in the public consciousness, by the last week of your career? that's base -- >> yeah. >> people see you on the street. they recognize you. they recognize you as the person who testified or who took the actions you did on the executive order, were involved with michael flynn. you had a career before that. is it strange to be defined by the last couple days

we are awaiting for sally yates to testify on capitol hill. that's going to happen within ten minutes about what she knew about michael flynn. it is the most talked about this afternoon. we'll talk with senator john kennedy next a member of the committee that will grill her moments from now. plus what's next on the agenda for healthcare? >> the premiums will lower. we're trying to get premiums lower, more choice, more options and the individual to go into the market and choose. ♪ the sun'll come out tomorrow... ♪ for people with heart failure, tomorrow is not a given. but entresto is a medicine that helps make more tomorrows possible. ♪ tomorrow, tomorrow... ♪ i love ya, tomorrow in the largest heart failure study ever, entresto helped more people stay alive and out of the hospital than a leading heart failure medicine. women who are pregnant must not take entresto. it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren. if you've had angioedema while taking an ace or arb medicine, don't ta

how much of an alarm bell did sally yates ring? do you think it's more serious than the white house revealed so far? >> it potentially could be. that's why we're all going to be glued to the television. >> 2:30 eastern. >> set your tivo if you haven't already. that's the reason that the president is trying to you, you know, put in in the most explicitly political lens that he can before the hearing begins. he wants everybody tuning in to realize this is an obama appoint appointee, became a little bit of a hey radio to left when she refused to execute his order on immigration. it's fascinating. this has the potential to do damage in the administration, at least in the news cycle. but it has the potential to be a star turn for sally yates. and i think the left is every bit as glued into this as the right is. >> something we hope to get more information on today is whether mikchael flynn was freelancing when he talked with russian ambassador or doing so at the direction of president trump. talk about the distinction. >> it's great dis

tonight the white house taking aim at former acting attorney general and career prosecutor sally yates. on the heels of her senate testimony that she urgently warned white house officials that then national security adviser michael flynn would be subjected to russian blackmail. >> what if we had just dismissed somebody because a political opponent of the president had made an utterance, you would argue it was pretty irrational to acting in that manner. the president ultimately made the right decision. >> reporter: white house spokesman for the first time acknowledging don mcgann looked at toerls about flynn that prompted concern seven days after the doj warning but flynn continued to stay on in his role as national security adviser and was involved in key decisions for 11 days. the white house saying flynn deserved a full review. >> did the white house put any security restrictions, was he limited in terms of access to class night information, national secrets or anything in any way? >> i'm not aware of any. the decision that we made was the right one. the president made a decision. he

host: sally yates the focus of yesterday's hearing. the former acting attorney general was eventually fired for recusing -- refusing to defend president trump's original immigration a second order. -- executive order. [video clip] >> is it true that the office did conclude that it was properly drafted? >> yes, they did. >> and you overruled them? >> i did. your authority to overrule the office of legal counsel when it comes to legal determination? >> cap is of legal counsel has a narrow function, to look at the face of an executive order to determine whether there's some set of circumstances under which some parts of the executive order may be lawful. they do not look beyond the face of the executive order for example, with statements made contemporaneously or prior to the execution that may bear on its intent and purpose. that office does not look at those factors. in determining the constitutionality, that was an important analysis to engage in. i thought the department of justice had a long-standing tradition of defending a presiden

on question after question, both james clapper and sally yates hid behind classification. one would hope if this matter continues and we are certain it will, somebody somewhere will say we need to see this stuff. the american public needs to see it. whether you are talking about transcripts of what mike flynn said in his conversation with sergey kislyak, whether you're talking about requests for unmasking, all of these things are being debated without the benefit of the public seeing what is the substantive claim. >> bret: "new york times" had a piece saying mr. obama, who had fired general flynn as head of the defense intelligence agency, told president trump he would have profound concerns about mr. flynn becoming a top national security aide. it goes on to say that flynn's name came up about personnel. the concerns were largely about his mismanagement. he goes on about warning trump about flynn. here is sean spicer today. >> it's true that the president, president obama made it known he wasn't exactly a fan of general flynn. it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, gi

yates on president's trumps original travel plan and sally yates came prepared. that amazing moment after the break. break through your allergies. try new flonase sensimist instead of allergy pills. it delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances. most allergy pills only block one. new flonase sensimist. and given the fact -- and tell the president. >> i can tell you the loyalties and constitution. >> two years ago sally yates was repeatedly questioned about her loyalties. but then she did refusing to defend president trump's first travel ban. for that, she was fired and accused of betrayal. then the trump administration itself ended up withdrawing and rewriting the travel ban any way after numerous courts backed yates interpretation ruling it unconstitutional. yet despite that fiasco, republican senator decided to relitigate yates' decision not to defend the order regardless of the recommendation of the office of legal counsel. >> i find it enormously disappointing that you, somehow, vetoed the decision of the office of legal counsel with

instead of firing mike flynn they fired sally yates and kept mike flynn for 17 days. >> sally yates only technically worked for the administration about ten days and sounds like the white house is already trying to paint her as this democratic operative. if she's got facts like this to back her up, what does that mean for the white house? >> she came into the justice department as a career prosecutor in georgia under the administration of george bush 41. served her career as a federal prosecutor, rose to united states attorney general and deputy attorney general, oversaw the investigation of the russian meddling since last summer, since the summer of 2016, and she was in an acting capacity as a holdover from the trump administration. she was doing her job telling people in the white house about an effort by a foreign power to meddle in our election and the possibility that somebody in the white hoe was talking to the russians about that issue. would think the white hous and the president and their seor team would be very concerned about this. >> all right. you would, but president trump

they didn't need sally yates' warning. everyone close to donald trump was warning donald trump and everybody around donald trump that was flynn was bad news before the election, after the election. donald trump was his fiercest advocate. fought like hell for him, more than anybody else. let everybody around him know that flynn was going to be the perch around him. everybody talk about how great general flynn was. the chorus of praise for general flynn around this president was unanimous. >> general flynn was a warmup act during much of the campaign. this is what happens when loyalty croes with paranoia. we all know donald trp vy loyal. the paranoia comes from barack obama and the white house saying beware of general flynn. the facts of this case are such that sean spicer was wrong on two accounts. one, you have to get a renewed security clearance if you're going to be national security adviser. it's a jump up. that's one thing. >> it's wrong on a million counts, every time he gets up there. >> the second thing is i think,

the former acting attorney general, sally yates, the same sally yates, of course, who refused to enforce the president's travel ban and lost her job because of it. she will be testifying along with the former director of national intelligence, james clapper, before the senate. and while we don't know, of course, what yates is going to say, we do know that expectations could not be higher. her testimony's expected to contradict how the white house has described her warnings about the president's national security adviser,

sally yates talked about why she believed it was urgent to tell the white house michael flynn had been misleading. >> we were concerned that the american people had been misled about the underlying conduct and what general flynn had done. the russians also knew about what general flynn had done, and the russians also knew that general flynn had misled the vice president and others. not only did we believe that the russians knew this, but that they likely had proof of this information. and that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. >> reporter: and sally yates also said the white house requested information from the justice department, but yates says she's unaware if the white house ever received or reviewed that information since she was fired just days later for refusing to defend the president's first travel ban executive order. now, there is still some uncertainty about whether the white house counsel relayed all of this information about michael flynn directly to the president, and if he did

sally yates said she couldn't say because it was classified. it tells us nothing. she repeatedly said don't infer anything from the fact that i can't talk about it. that doesn't mean the answer is yes or no. he didn't move the ball very much. he looked like he exercised bad judgment, flynn. it didn't advance the ball much on the unmasking and not on -- not at all on collusion between russia and the trump team. >> bret: if "the washington post" doesn't do the story getting leaked information about flynn on that call, does michael flynn, is he still national security advisor? sticker that's a good question. we'll probably never know the answer. we know that the sequence of events, she issues a warning to the white house counsel. word of the warning leaks and gets into the press. it shouldn't have, but it did. next thing you know, flynn is gone. you can make the case it looks like they wouldn't have fired him if it hadn't leaked out but we don't know that. bottom line is, he's gone. >> bret: she was fired for not going forward with the executive order, standing up aga

clapper and sally yates. what are you listening for afternoon from sean spicer? >> i'm listening for sean spicer to justify why, after sally yates told the white house that michael flynn was lying and that he was going to be a problem and that their national security adviser might have been compromised by the russians that they still kept him on for something like 13 days. i think the administration needs to understand and make people understand why that decision was made because it goes to the heart of how this administration functions, whether or not they're vetting people properly, what are the decisions they're making in regards to people who to russia. that all goats to the heart of it so i would be surprised if sean doesn't get up there and start talking right away about salary yates or somebody's going to be peppering him with questions about salary yates and specifically what she told the white house. >>> . >>> let's take a quick break. we haven't gotten our two-minute heads up from the white house. they're roughly 20 minutes later. sean spicer heading to

you worked with sally yates and you understand what can and cannot be said. is this because general clapper was not briefed on the fbi? how much do we read into his saying "i can't comment on that. >> in the questions that sally yates said, she was not trying to imply that the answer would be yes. i don't think we can read into jim clapper's answers. especially when you look at his first answer, he was very deliberate. he said not in the course of the assessment. she saying there is something else i have that i don't want to say. lindsey graham says he now wants to investigate trump's business ties to russia. >> nick price, an investigation into the president's business ties takes us in a whole different direction than the information question of hacking. >> yeah, as he said, this avenue was not included in the intelligence community assessment released in january. this is something that probably would not be in intelligence channels, something more in lawsuit channels. something that if there is a special prosecutor would be right for his or her prosecution.

and, former obama deputy attorney general sally yates set to testify about michael flynn next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust-- supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thanks for joining us. emmanuel macron has won one of the most divisive and acrimonious political campaigns in french history in the run- pulist marine le pen.ht-wing projections give macron what analysts are calling an" emphatic" victory over his bitter

when we saw sally yates today, as ken said, what a compelling witness she was. she and clapper side by side, i think represented everything that is noble and impressive about the national security establishment that has taken a beating recently from president trump. they really were nonpartisan, fact-based, not making wild accusations, very conservative in this non-political sense about what they were willing to say. when you see them making these arguments and yates in particular, i find that to the extent that the white house was relying on the theory that you raise there, i find it hard to sympathize with that going up against sally yates who made such a compelling presentation and must have been very compelling in person in her meetings with white house officials. >> i totally agree her presentation was one very straightforward. seems like the white house dropped the ball enormously. i'm trying to figure out if the white house was sorry their head or willing to do anything to try to help their friend, general flynn and that's what we're getting to the bottom

there is a request from sally yates' email. if these unmasking requests were legitimate, we may find out how it leaked. that's criminal. >> interesting wording actually. there is a question from one of the senators to sally yates about the possible compromising of michael flynn. her answer was that he may have been compromised, that was her concern. from a prosecutor's standpoint, that seems to me a little bit stronger. >> it is a stronger statement because she's going out of her way that she made a conclusion with determination, based on evidence or facts that she had. that was her assessment but then the flip side, there was collusion, et cetera. why is it that she saying -- where are the facts? it could be different but where is her evidence to substantiate that? other than her strong word and specific choice of words, what is she basing that on? >> what'd you think about the headlines today? >> sally yates put on with people, that she did not only warn the right house directly wt flynn. was he subject to be blackmailed by t