GLENN: Let's go right to Erick Erickson, a friend of the program, a friend of the Constitution, and a guy who has just written a pretty intense and explosive article about, "I know one of the sources on the Washington Post story."
And, by the way, Stations, we're still waiting for McMaster to come out and to begin his press conference. We'll join that, if it begins.
Erick.
ERICK: Hi, there.
GLENN: How are you?
ERICK: I'm good. How are you?
GLENN: Well, I've been better. Trying to make sense of this. And I believe McMaster, however, he has been very, very careful with his words. And he was denying things that the Washington Post never even -- never even claimed last night.
ERICK: Right.
GLENN: So it was an odd response, I thought last night. But I believe him. I'm waiting for him to come out. And now I get this story from you, that says, "This is very credible. And it's worse than what is reported."
ERICK: Yes. So I -- I am friends with someone who works for the president, is -- was enough of a pro-Trump supporter last year, that he and I moderated our interactions because we so vehemently disagreed with each other in the election. And he is concerned enough, at this point, as are others within the national security apparatus, that they are under the impression they have to leak these things to the media for the president to pay attention to them because he is extremely defensive when anyone approaches him in person and tries to explain to him why he should not do the things he's done.
Now, someone this morning interacted with me and said, "Well, maybe the president's reaction was, he was upset because they should have told him ahead of time." And that was my reaction as well.
But according to the source, he said, "That's not the president's reaction. The president's reaction is, I'm the president. I can do whatever I want. And that it's not helpful."
This is worse in the sense that the president's conversations, I'm led to believe, with the Russians, provided them enough information through his bragging that they could identify the location of the source, how the source obtained the information regarding explosives and laptops, and could therefore identify specifically who the source was.
GLENN: So how do -- let's say McMaster comes out and says all of that stuff is not true. McMaster is a guy who has written a book on honor and integrity. How do you square that?
ERICK: I don't know that you can. There's clearly something going on inside the White House, leading to this disparity.
The information last night from McMaster, I thought, was most interesting in that he denied a lot of the rumors and speculation surrounding the Washington Post report, but did not actually deny what the Post, the New York Times now, and other outlets have actually reported. So I'm going to be very interesting to see how he parses his words in this press conference.
GLENN: So if he says -- you know, if he verifies -- I can't imagine he's going to, but if he would verify what you just said or based on what you know -- I mean, I don't know who your source was, that was in the room? They were in the room?
ERICK: No. Was not in the room. There were very few people in the room. Was out of the room and in the post-meeting briefings about what took place in the room.
GLENN: Okay. So if -- McMaster was in the room. If he says -- let's just say he verifies what your source says, should President Trump step down or be impeached?
ERICK: I don't think it's impeachable. And that's the problem. Gross incompetence is not one of the areas for impeachment in the Constitution. And I think we have to take that literally. If the president wants to release information to the Russians, he legally has the right to do it.
The problem is that it undermines our relationships with our allies and our ability to collect intelligence from other sources and could potentially put the life of a source in jeopardy. But it's perfectly legal for him to do it. That's the problem here. And that, I suspect, would be General McMaster's answer here, is that everything the president did was legal. And he's absolutely right.
STU: I mean, Erick, you have to think, if he's getting this venue and making this statement, there's no way he's going to say anything other than completely back the president.
GLENN: Correct.
STU: Now, I believe McMaster is a really honorable guy, but, I mean, he would not have this venue to come out and theoretically clarify all the things that he kind of left hanging in his previous statement, if he wasn't going to say something supportive of the president. Am I wrong on that?
ERICK: That would be my reaction as well, which is why I'm very interested to hear what he has to say.
GLENN: So, Erick, you didn't really answer the question. You did answer -- here comes McMaster.
Real quick. You didn't answer the question. Should he be -- should he be asked to resign?
ERICK: You know, if everything about this story that I'm being told is true, I think the president needs to consider the good of the country and not necessarily the good of him liking the phone system in the White House.
GLENN: Okay. Erick, thank you very much. Erick Erickson from theresurgent.com.