Trump’s grade on the economy tumbles from B to C

Yahoo Finance Video

May 14, 2020 at 11:04 AM

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, Alexis Christoforous, and Rick Newman discuss the political storm brewing in Washington.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: While the nation struggles to deal with COVID-19, a new political storm is brewing in Washington. Declassified documents show more than a dozen Obama administration officials asked to see just who was secretly mentioned in several intelligence reports, finding out that it was Trump advisor Michael Flynn. Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman is here with us. Rick, break this down for us.

RICK NEWMAN: This is Obama gate, Brian. Aren't you outraged? I mean, come on. Start pounding the table here.

BRIAN SOZZI: You're the columnist. Go for it, man. Go for it.

RICK NEWMAN: Here's the deal. Intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NSA, they are not allowed to identify US citizens in the United States when they might pop up in foreign intelligence gathering, which does happen. So they noticed that some US citizen was having conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States in December of 2016, and it sounded like it was somebody who was a member of the incoming Trump administration. So there's this procedure in place called unmasking, so those identities normally are masked, so nobody can know who they are, but there is a procedure called unmasking where if it's important, you can say we really need to know who this person is.

And apparently, the Obama administration did say we need to know who this person is. It turned out to be Mike Flynn, and there were several people, probably a couple dozen inside the Obama administration who had access to this unmasked intelligence that includes Vice President Joe Biden and some other cabinet secretaries, Secretary of Treasury, the Attorney General, people like that. So the Trump administration says this is a huge scandal. Democrats say it's a nothing burger. I'm having trouble getting upset about it myself, because it did turn out that Mike Flynn was having-- he was the incoming national security advisor-- was having conversations with the Russian ambassador, and he was lying about it.

He lied about it inside the Trump operation. He lied about those conversations with Mike Pence, who was going to becoming the vice president. And then, of course, when the FBI investigated him, he lied to the FBI about those conversations. And by the way, Flynn was only the national security advisor for two weeks, because he got crosswise with the vice president over this very issue, which is why Trump fired him.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So Rick, I mean, when all is said and done, is this really just a distraction or an attempt at a distraction over President Trump's handling of the pandemic. I mean, we can't forget that we still have an election scheduled in the month of November.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, it's clearly a political ploy, probably for two reasons. Number one, since Joe Biden was one of the people with access to this unmasked intelligence, Trump is obviously trying to paint Biden as involved in some kind of conspiracy to torpedo Trump even before he got into office. And second, Trump is trying to distract Americans from what's going on with the coronavirus crisis, and horrible recession, and all the criticism of his continued slow response to the crisis. So it's a deflection maneuver by Trump, and it's also an attempt to smear the guy he's going to be running against in the 2020 Presidential Election.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And about the election, Rick, I know you and I talk a lot on our "Electionomics" podcast about how this pandemic is impacting people's view of Trump and the upcoming election. What are the latest polls telling us about how Americans feel regarding his handling of the pandemic?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, there's this interesting gap between Trump's approval rating, which is around 44%, and the portion who say they disapprove of his handling of the crisis. So there are people who approve of Trump overall but disapprove of his handling of the crisis. It's not a huge gap, but it's meaningful. Remember, this election could be close coming down to a percentage point or two in five or six swing states. So it appears there are some people who think Trump is, they kind of approve, but they might feel it's time to have somebody else as president. In national polls, Biden leads Trump by about six percentage points, but that's six months before the election still, and it's really the swing states that matter more than where Biden stands nationally.

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, Rick Newman, really strong bow tie game today, baby.

RICK NEWMAN: Obama gate!

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, Rick Newman, Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist. We'll talk to you later.

RICK NEWMAN: Bye, guys.

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