Sitdown with former president george w. Bush, talking about a new book of his paintings, that pays tribute to military veterans, weighing in on donald trump, and opening up about regrets he may have about the decision to go to war after 9 11. I was heavy hearted when i made the decision both going to afghanistan and iraq. Because i knew that there would be some dire consequences. Our twopart sunday sitdown with president george w. Bush a bit later in the show. Lets begin this morning with the president s weekend twitter storm during which he accused president obama of wiretapping his offices here in new york. Nbcs casey hunt is live in West Palm Beach near the president s home there. Good morning. Reporter willie, good morning. President trump is already up and tweeting today about russia and the dnc hacks, but the focus is is still on those accusations he made against former president obama, without any evidence. This morning, more fallout over those explosive allegations from President Trump, without offering any evidence, the president claims president barack obama tapped his phones last fall, as the government investigated Trump Campaign contacts with russians during the election. This is what democracy looks like. Reporter in a series of Early Morning tweets saturday, he compared president obama to nixon in watergate and then took a moment to lash out at armnold schwarzenegger over the shows racings. President obamas spokesman released a statement saying, quote, neerng president obama nor any white house official ever ordered surveillance on any u. S. Citizen, any suggest otherwise is simply false. What president obamas statement doesnt say is there wasnt any surveillance in trump tower. We dont know that. No one has confirmed or denied that. Reporter the drama unfolding after attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself from any investigations of the Trump Campaign. Late last week, tense meetings in the oval office, and mounting pressure on capitol hill. Obama administration went way out of line or some judge somewhere said there is something to the idea of the trump russia ties. Either way, either of those two is pretty incredible. Reporter at some protests across the country, actual fighting. Americans as divided as ever over donald trump. Well, i think donald trump is trying to distract americas attention away from the fact that trump and putin have some kind of collusion going on. Im here to support President Trump. And to show him that he has our support. Reporter all of this is happening as two white house officials tell nbc news the president is preparing to sign a revised version of that travel ban as early as monday. Keep in mind, though, this has already been repeatedly delayed. Willie . Casey hunt, thanks, casey. Jeremy bash was the chief of staff at the Defense Department and the cia. Now a National Security analyst for nbc news. Jeremy, good morning, good to see you. Good morning, willie. Lets assume for a moment and well revisit this premise in a second that donald trump is on to something, that president obama as he claims bugged trump tower in the leadup to the election. Would president obama have the power to warrant surveillance of a private citizen . Absolutely not. After watergate, after nixon, Congress Passed a law that said whenever the executive branch wants to engage in wiretapping or surveillance of people inside the United States, they have to go to a federal judge and get a specific warrant. And, willie, i have looked at the warrant applications from my time inside the Intelligence Community, they are voluminous filings, done by career lawyers, and theyre presented to a federal judge and those federal judges are hard graders and they turn the Justice Department around all the time and say, go back and do more homework, bring me more evidence. Throwing around the term fisa court, fisa warrant. The federal Intelligence Surveillance act, 1978, as you suggested, and in response to nixonian domestic spying, how does it work exactly . What is a fisa court and how does it work . The fisa court is made up of judges from the federal courts who are appointed to serve on this special panel. And they work with the Justice Department, the Justice Department and the fbi go to them with a filing that says, we suspect somebody in the u. S. Is a foreign power, thats a term youll hear a lot, a foreign power, say working for the russians for example, this is whats done against spies fi. Sa, is it possible the nsa was listening to a foreign entity, say russians, and Donald Trumps conversations and those of his associates were swept up in that collection of data . That is another possibility, willie, which is that if the nsa was, for example, surveilling or listening to russians overseas, and the overseas targets were the target of the surveillance, and they happen to be talking to people in Trumps Office in new york, that could have been swept up, the Intelligence Community calls it inadvertent collection. When that happens, what happens, willie, is that americans privacy is protected, when those reports are disseminated, the americans names are blacked out. But thats different than what the president suggested here. He suggested his office was the target of the surveillance, and, again, in that case, you need a federal judge to approve that. And then the last option is that President Trump made the whole thing up. Jeremy bash, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Let me turn to chuck todd, moderator of meet the press. Chuck, good morning. Good morning. Wednesday morning when the reviews of Donald Trumps speech came in, the joint session to congress, they were glowing. Lets be honest. I think a lot of us said lets pump the brakes, we have been here before. We woke up saturday morning and found out what he does. This is exactly look, the russia story and this situation is consuming his presidency early on. Thats pretty clear at this point. This white house is not yet ready to embrace the need to figure out a way to better compartmentalize it. He wants to deny, deny, deny, obfuscate, create distractions, clear what the saturday tweet storm was. At some point, though, i think we are headed for some sort of special commission, special prosecutor, some sort of independent investigation because the tweet storm on saturday, i think that hes going to be a bridge too far for too many republicans on capitol hill, willie. I think they need an escape hatch and they need one badly and i think theyre going to be looking for an independent way out. Thats the irony, people saying, yes, hes creating a distraction with these tweets. Those tweets focused people on what may have happened and as you said, made it more likely that there will be an independent investigation, a special prosecutor. Look, take him at his word, and this demands an immediate investigation. Or dont take him at his word and it demands an immediate investigation because it either way it demands thorough and serious and a deep investigation. And i have to tell you, i want to echo something that ben sass sent out in a powerful statement all weekend long, we have a crisis of trust in this country with so many of our institutions, whether it is us, willie, in the press, or government institutions. And so to have our president make these allegations, we have to run them down at this point. It has to be run down. The government has to. So many of these folks on capitol hill, because if were ever going to restore trust, we have got to run down these allegations. Yeah, and, chuck, lets talk about the president s state of mind on saturday morning when he woke up and made these tweets reporting from bob costa, at the Washington Post today, that suggests donald trump was furious that attorney general sessions came out and recused himself, didnt think he should have done it, thought it was a sign of weakness. Thats thats donald trump going all the way back to when he first began his businesses and his empire in new york. Remember, his mentor in many ways was roy cone, an infamous attorney from the mccarthy era days and roy cone was one of those that always suggested deny, deny, deny, punch back, dont ever give an inch, and donald trump lived his business life, his public life, and his political life that way. And im not surprised that he is furious. I think he thinks now that by sessions doing what he did, that it opens the door for more problems and i think thats the way the president sees this and i think thats why he exploded at his staff. And may have opened the door further with his tweets this weekend, chuck todd, thank you as always. Chuck will dive deeper on meet the press this morning where hell be joined by senators Chuck Schumer and marco rubio. As i mentioned, were talking to former president george w. Bush a bit later this morning about his new book portraits of courage and the trump administration. I asked president bush what he would say if trump were to call asking for advice. I know you dont want to criticize President Trump. If he picked up the phone and called you and said, president bush, how am i doing so far, what advice would you give him . I would say, same advice i gave before, really hard job and i wish you all the best. It depends what he would ask. Of course i would answer his phone call. I want him to succeed. One bit of advice is you pick good people and empower them and make sure theyre able to give you their unfettered advice. Tillerson, mattis, these are all people i know and admire a lot. His take on immigration and the way the president talks about muslims in this country coming up in our next half hour. Some other headlines this morning, Vice President mike pence demanding an apology from the Associated Press for leaking his wifes private email address, publishing it, actually. News Service Published mrs. Pences email information in a story about pences resistance to record requests while governor of indiana. It did remove the personal information, it says, as soon as it learned the email account was still active. A new york man is being held without bail on terrorism charges after he allegedly tried to join isis in syria. Elvis sapejik faces charges of attempting to provide Material Support to the terrorist group. Federal prosecutors say he traveled repeatedly to the middle east and told police he planned to bring back an army with him. Air india says this morning its airline has set a world record by flying around the world with an all female crew. It is all part of a celebration ahead of this weeks International Womens day. The crew which flew a plane over the pacific from new delhi to San Francisco and back over the atlantic says it has now applied for a Guinness World record. A few nfl teams may be excited this morning for next months draft. Saturday at the nfl combine, where recent College Players showed their stuff, university of washington wide receiver john ross ran the 40yard dash in 4. 2 seconds. Thats the fastest time ever recorded at the combine. Now, earlier in the week, adidas had offered to buy an island, yes, an island, for any player who managed to break the record in their shoes, but here is the sad part, ross left to enjoy an Island Getaway on his own dime, he wore nikes when he broke that record. Now a check of the weather. If hes that fast, he may be able to buy his own island pretty soon. Ill say so. Helps, right . Notice how much everyone is bundled up today towards new york city, it is the coldest day of the entire season this morning. Right now, 14 degrees. Just look at this, boston 15. The windchill at zero. An hour or so ago you were below zero with the windchill. New york, 1 degree now at 15. Windchill at 3 in philadelphia. Oh, yeah. Feels like 5 degrees right now. So here is what were looking for as we go toward the afternoon. Just 30s. This is actually below average for this time of year, even for us. But, yes, i think we know by now, strange season, right . So it is in the going to be lasting long, already expecting 60s. Above normal tempe rain all across the bay area pushing through all the way from the north bay down towards the pence la, San Francisco, and also down toward the south bay. Heres a live look at that do lar radar. We are tracking some snow in the forecast you can see that falling along the sierra mountains. We are under a winter storm warning. We are expecting to see these showers stick around for the majority of your sunday with a chance of isolated thunderstorms into the evening. So this is what i was talking about. Look at the people behind us. Look how bundled up they are. Theyre freezing today. The studio never felt so warm. Got to get the tshirts and shorts out in a couple of days. Who can keep up. The highs and lows of the week including the little girl wrestler so imposing her little boy opponents run for their lives. And the robot that soon will have the rest of us running for our lives. Together, well study its incredible moves so we can be ready for the coming rise of the machines. Plus, our sunday sitdown with president george w. Bush on a project that highlights a president s heavy burden of committing troops to war and more on his take on the early days of the trump administration. All that and harry smith. As we go to break, the photo of the week, hollywoods biggest stars stunned when they learned of the best picture mixup at the oscars. The valiant taste times of death, but once uh, excuse me, waiter. I ordered the soup. Of course, maam. My apologies. Cmon, caesar. Lets go. Caesar on a caesar salad . Surprising. Excuse me, pardon me. Whats not surprising . How much money matt saved by switching to geico. Could i get my parking validated . Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® Everyone Wants to be cthe Cadbury Bunny because only he brings delicious cadbury creme eggs. While others may keep trying, nobunny knows easter better than cadbury. Usic the best things in life are free by sam cooke the best moment to be happy. Is the one happening right now. Life. Enjoy all of it. Whip through the highs and the lows of the week. Shall we . Got it. Our first high making an entrance on your first day on a new job. Confirmed on wednesday as secretary of the interior overseeing americas public land and national parks. On thursday morning secretary zinke commuted to work through the streets of washington on horseback. The new secretary was escorted by mountain United States park police were the ones that offered to help zinke into the office on his first day. How cool is that . If youre a navy s. E. A. L. Commander for 25 years, you get to work however you want to. Takes his job very seriously. Well done. Our next low goes to the feeling when you meet the robot that will soon be your over. Designed by the google team company, his 66 handle put on a terrifying show of skill and power. Displaying agility and speed and picking up and carrying a 100pound crate and showing off a vertical leap of 48 inches, which, by the way, the same of Michael Jordans back in the day and eventually heading outside where he descended stairs and a snowy hill before it rolled through the parking lot presumably stealing up a car and meeting up with the other robots. Should we just surrender now . Completely terrifying. Cool and then creepy. Its like this. Lets put that one away for a while. The next high from the pennsylvania preschool wrestling circuit. A 4yearold boy named isaiah going up against a 5yearold girl and he wanted no part of her. The gladiator shaked hands but as soon as the referee blew the whistle isaiah takes off running in circles away from his opposing opponent. She even pauses here for a second to look over at the grown ups with a, what am i supposed to do here . After one more chase isaiah ran out of gas and the little girl pinned him and got her hardearned victory. Its the first match of his life. Hes like how does this work . I so hope they know each other when theyre older so she can use that as ammo. Our next low is the speed of one recent 60meter dash that well loosely call a sprint but enthuse astically call awesome. Rogers racing down the track against a young whippersnapper, 92yearold dixon hemphill. It happened at the usa track and field masters championship. But in the end, its the 99yearold rogers with a burst of speed winning the race in a photo finish. The margin of victory, 0. 05. If only he had leaned at the finish line, he thinks he would have won. We need to rematch that one. I think they are. Its a tight race. No excuses. Hit the gym today, willie. If theyre doing it at 99, we have to be there, too. 5yearold best pals jax and reddy. Jax was due for a hair cut and asked if he could play a trick on his preschoolteacher and get the same hair cut as reddy. Figure they would pull one over on their teacher and see if she could know the difference between them if they had the same hair cut. She went along with it and pretended she was talking to jax. Great work by the teacher. Facebook post from his mom went viral. If this isnt proof that hate and prejudice is something that is taught, i dont know what is. The only difference jax sees in the two of them is hatheir hair the kids see the world the way it is supposed to be. Have a soft spot for them. The last low goes to the guy who fled police in a stolen pickup and caught some dukes of hazard level hair. This is in webster parish, louisiana. Before hitting a Drainage Ditch and creating a ramp for the 18yearold neighbor who launched him into a parking lot. The person in the car it la