Jared Kushner Downplays Russian Interference in 2016 Elections.
KEILAR: Multiple other investigations, with one key deadline next hour. CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports what one top Democrat is now calling open defiance by the White House.</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House testing the power of Congress today, resisting a wave of subpoenas from House Democrats and telling a former security director not to show up for his scheduled testimony on security clearances, leaving the hallways of Capitol Hill empty. Democrats are now threatening to hold Carl Kline in contempt. In a scathing statement, House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings said the White House and Kline "now stand in open defiance of a duly authorized congressional subpoena, with no assertion of any privilege of any kind by President Trump." Late Monday night, the White House told Kline to ignore the subpoena because it was unconstitutional. Democrats want to talk to him after a whistle-blower said he played a role in the White House overturning security clearances that were initially denied to some of the president's advisers, including Jared Kushner, who maintained today that he's done nothing wrong.</s>JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: I have adhered to every single one of the -- even one of the ethics waivers that they want me to kind of -- barriers that they want me to keep. I have done nothing that's kind of influenced any of my decisions.</s>COLLINS: The latest move part of the White House effort to stonewall Democrats, including filing a lawsuit against Cummings, after he tried to get the president's financial information. As the Treasury Department is expected to miss a second deadline to hand over Trump's tax returns. The special counsel's investigation is hovering in the background of all of this, now that House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler has subpoenaed former White House counsel Don McGahn.</s>HOGAN GIDLEY, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: I don't know what Jerry Nadler thinks he's going to get that Robert Mueller didn't.</s>COLLINS: Two days after the president's attorney made this claim...</s>RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.</s>COLLINS: ... his son-in-law and senior adviser downplayed Russian interference in the 2016 election.</s>KUSHNER: And you look at what Russia did, buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent and do it -- and it's a terrible thing -- but I think the investigations and all of the speculation that's happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads.</s>COLLINS: Kushner brushing it off as just a couple of Facebook ads, but, in his report, Robert Mueller said the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a "sweeping and systematic fashion."</s>COLLINS: Now, Brianna, that deadline for the president's tax returns is approaching within the end of the hour. But, today, the deputy press secretary, Hogan Gidley, said he does not expect the Trump administration to comply with that deadline, so get prepared for what could be a pretty lengthy court battle.</s>KEILAR: All right, Kaitlan Collins at the White House, thank you so much. So, Jared Kushner, he's saying that the Russia investigation was worse for the U.S. than a couple of Facebook ads. But I just want to be clear about fact-checking what went on during the election. The Mueller report found that as many as 126 million people were reached by the Russian influence campaign on Facebook, 1.4 million people interacted with their content on Twitter. And you had top officials like Donald Trump, then a candidate, as well as Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump's sons and more who were sharing some of that content. Mehdi does he get it?</s>MEHDI HASAN, THE INTERCEPT: Well, he gets it. He's just not being truthful about it, which is it's simple and you do a fact-check -- 126 million, which is 10 million fewer than the number of Americans who actually voted in the election. So, downplaying the involvement is helpful not just to himself and the White House that is under siege now in the post-Mueller world. But also what's also really irresponsible is, it amplifies, it legitimatizes a Russian propaganda campaign, which says, we really didn't do much. And then you have a senior White House adviser who also happens to be a family member of the president who says, yes, they didn't actually do much. And that's been part of a pattern, because whatever we can argue about collusion, conspiracies, all of that stuff, the reality is that Mueller came out said there was a sweeping and systematic interference in the election campaign. And we have heard nothing from the president of the United States or the White House condemning it. I have heard Trump attack Democrats, "The New York Times," CNN, the Mueller team. He has called them traitors. I have heard him angry at lots of people over the last week or so. Haven't heard him say a word about a Russian attack on U.S. democracy. Weird, that.</s>DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So just to be fair here, I didn't hear the Jared quote exactly, but...</s>KEILAR: He said -- he likened it to a couple of Facebook ads. And he said the investigation was worse for the country.</s>URBAN: So what I think -- to just kind of take umbrage with that point, I don't think he's downplaying what the Russians did. I don't think he said it didn't have any impact. I didn't hear Jared say that. What I heard him say was...</s>KEILAR: But you didn't hear...</s>URBAN: No, listen.</s>URBAN: No, no, look, I didn't hear -- but what I think he's trying to say is that two years of the investigation has done more -- the Russians have been more successful at sowing discord throughout the investigation. They have been more effective at making Americans doubt democracy because -- because of the ongoing investigation. They think it amplified it much broader and much louder than it normally would have been.</s>KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think Donald Trump has done a much better job of sowing discord by talking about building a wall and scapegoating LGBTQ people.</s>URBAN: No, no.</s>FINNEY: No, no, because...</s>URBAN: I'm talking about the Russians.</s>FINNEY: But the whole point -- but the point of what the Russians were trying to do was to -- and what they're very good at, what intelligence tells us is, they are very good at exploiting existing fractures. They're not particularly good at creating new ones. This is what they did in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. So, this president has done a very good job of also further exploiting and dividing those fractures.</s>URBAN: Well...</s>FINNEY: However, to the point...</s>FINNEY: Hold on. To the point about Jared, obviously, he's part of the propaganda, lying campaign coming out of the White House. What I find very disturbing, though, is that we know that Mueller had FBI agents embedded in the investigation to farm out additional intel about additional concerns with our national security, ongoing, right now. So Jared is basically saying, eh, that's nothing. If they take down our light grid or our energy grid, no big deal. It's just Facebook. That's what it makes it sound like.</s>URBAN: Yes, but I don't think that's what he...</s>KEILAR: What does it mean, though...</s>FINNEY: Because you didn't hear the quote, you don't know.</s>URBAN: OK.</s>KEILAR: ... when Jared Kushner is downplaying it, like, he looks ridiculous, because we know that's -- understandably, if he's going to throw his father-in-law a bone and emphasize what was -- what Bill Barr's decision was on obstruction, what was not certainly found by the Mueller investigation, but he could acknowledge the reality of what was found. It's not a couple Facebook ads.</s>MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, that's the thing. He should rely on the Mueller report on the parts that reflect well on the president, because the facts of the non-collaboration matter. He should talk about that in public. He should not downplay what Russians attempted to do, because it is a big deal, and it's something we should fix for future elections. And he -- but, of course, nobody in the White House listens to me about strategy of communications. But I do think he's not right about the investigation being worse. He does have a point about speculation. People speculated to the point of one of the heads of our -- former heads of our intelligence agencies calling him a traitor. That's a pretty big deal. And it actually is pretty damaging to democracy.</s>HASAN: His boss has called the Mueller investigation traitors, too. So, I mean...</s>HAM: So, tit for tat. That's fine.</s>HASAN: Well, the president of the United States vs. a retired intelligence chief.</s>HAM: But you heart Clapper and you don't like Trump.</s>HASAN: I can assure you I don't heart Clapper.</s>HAM: Both are actually bad behavior, is what I'm saying. And if we could just acknowledge that, that would be great.</s>HAM: Both are bad behavior.</s>HASAN: Both are bad behavior, but not the same, right? Speculating about what the president did, speculating about the president and what the president did is not the same as the president of the United States basically having no problem with a foreign government involving...</s>HASAN: ... where Trump has condemned Russian election involvement since the Mueller report came out? It's a simple question. Can you point to me?</s>URBAN: Let's go back to the Clapper point. If you don't think that the former director of the U.S. intelligence calling the president a traitor and an active asset for the Russians is a big deal, then you're not even on this planet. You're not on the planet.</s>HASAN: So, what planet should I be on where the president of the United States says nothing about a special counsel investigation that says that -- that says he benefited from a Russian involvement campaign? Has Trump condemned it? It's a very simple question, David.</s>FINNEY: Part of what makes the president's behavior so egregious is, it's not just the ongoing -- and it was a collaboration. They were more than welcome to have the...</s>FINNEY: Let me finish my point.</s>FINNEY: They were more than willing to have the information from the Russians.</s>FINNEY: They sought the information that had been stolen, while the president had ongoing business relationships and multiple contacts. I know Giuliani doesn't think that's a big deal.</s>HASAN: The Giuliani comments are much worse than the Jared Kushner...</s>FINNEY: Yes, there were. We know that for a fact from Michael Cohen that there was agreements signed. President Trump signed an agreement. Are you saying he didn't sign it?</s>KEILAR: Let's listen to Jared Kushner also talking about his reaction to that infamous Trump Tower meeting.</s>KUSHNER: Lindsey Graham told me, I have had the best text message in the history of text messages when I was in that crazy meeting in Trump Tower, and I said, get me the hell out of here, basically.</s>FINNEY: Does anyone expect Jared to be telling the truth, though, at this point? Come on.</s>URBAN: I mean, it's a contemporaneous e-mail. It's a contemporaneous text.</s>KEILAR: Why is he bragging? Why is he taking that tone?</s>URBAN: I don't know. I don't -- I didn't hear the question. I don't...</s>KEILAR: OK, you're not hearing...</s>URBAN: No, no.</s>URBAN: I didn't hear the question that was asked of him. I can only assume that, listen, it was a meeting Jared didn't want to be in, didn't think it was any big deal, and so he said, get me out of here.</s>FINNEY: But why not after that meeting say, you know what, there's nothing not right about this, we should probably tell somebody; we should tell the FBI or the CIA that the Russians are trying to help sway an election?</s>URBAN: Because they were naive. That's why.</s>KEILAR: My question is here about...</s>URBAN: They had never done this before.</s>KEILAR: Looking back, obviously, you can litigate all of these things, but this is the interview that Jared Kushner gave today. This is the tone that he took. Why is he talking about something so serious in -- what do you think the effect of him discussing it that way is?</s>HAM: I think, if you were to be charitable to him, which I'm not sure that I am in this case, that you would guess that he's emphasizing, oh, gosh, I got in this room and I want to get out. He's doing it in a flippant way, which I don't think is helpful to their message, once again. But they never listen to me.</s>KEILAR: All right, you guys, stand by. Someone who helped the Trump transition now says that he should be impeached. We are going to talk to him next. Plus, now we know where and when Joe Biden is going to unveil the worst kept secret in the 2020 race.