But can it stop the flow of drugs coming in from mexico. I went to the busiest border in the world to find out. And diversity in hollywood. Look at the hopefuls ahead of tonights oscars right here in the city of angels. To voice your opinions on our pulse questions today, grab your laptop. Grab your phone. Log on to pulse. You can vote as often as you like throughout todays show. The issue of russia will not go away. The kremlins influence on the u. S. Election and whether anyone on president Trumps Campaign had contact with russian officials continues to take center stage. The former chair said friday a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate these matters. But today on meet the press. Senator tom cotton had this to s say. Well, i think thats way, way getting ahead of ourselves here, chuck. There is no allegations of any crime occurring. There is not even an indication that there is criminal n investigations underway by the fbi. If we get down that road, thats a decision that attorney general sessions can make at the time. All right. So this brings us to our first pulse question today. Agree or disagree a special prosecutor should be investigated to investigate russias alleged per peeps in the 2016 election. Kelly, so russia seems really to be monopolizing the conversation here. But when it comes up, the president continues to change the subject. He points the finger at the media and he tweeted this afternoon. He said russia talk is fake news played out by the media in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks. So what are you hearing from the white house on this . Youre right. This is a sensitive issue for the president who tries to bat it down and the russia question is a couple of Different Things. When president obama was still in his office, he and his government said there was clear evidence that russian hacking did try to interfere with the 2016 campaign season. We saw that with breaking into email accounts and so forth targeting democrats in particular. Now there is a question that is unresolved. Were there affiliates, associates, people in the realm of Donald Trumps association. That is under investigation, unclear and it is the matter that makes this white house uncomfortable. We see the chief of staff who says he was told by the second in command at the fbi that a particular news story saying there was russian intelligence connections was overwritten, overstated. Trying to get help from the fbi and a couple of key members of congress to refute those stories. And thats where we are. What would a special prosecutor do . There is no evidence of any crime here, crime referring to contacts between my associates of the president to figures in russia. The cyber hacking a separate matter. And, so, it does get murky. One of the things thats politically so explosive about this is that the president has not been as sort of arms length about russia as most president s have been. He has left questions about how close he is to russia. And we dont know if there will be this kind of an investigation. So thats where we are. A special prosecutor is a very big step. Democrats think it is appropriate. Most republicans at this point say too son. Jac jacob . Interesting to hear from isa, though. We know the president has a very busy week to come, including a speech to the joint session of congress. It is not the state of the union. What is it exactly, and what can we expect. Reporter even before that tonight, while your city is celebrating the oscars, the president and first lady will have all the nations governors invited to the white house. So there will be some pomp and ceremony here at the white house. But the speech will address an point session of congress. It will look like a state of the union address, but when a president is newly elected it is not referred to under that heading. But it will have a lot of that feeling talking about ideas for what the president wants to do and advisors say hes still working on the speech. But he will explain what hes accomplished. A lot of that having to do with executive actions. Some have been controversial, as we know and trying to talk about what he needs a partner in congress to do, things like tax reform and dealing with the health care law. Things where Congress Really has to be involved in order to accomplish something. So it will also be a chance for him to give a blueprint for what he thinks the Trump Presidency should look like and the kind of achievements he hopes to have. So it is going to be sort of heavy on policy, but in Broad Strokes and i think well all be looking to see what the tone is. Dark in imagery, will this be more optimistic . That will be a big challenge. And also feeling somewhat kind the Campaign Never ended. Kelly odonnell with us from the white house. Thank you so much. Lets now bring in our panel. White house reporter for politico, professor of science at college, and the former speaks man ted cruz for president. Lets drill down on this. In a new nbc wall street journal poll out today, 53 say congress should investigate alleged contact between the russian government and the Trump Campaign and about the statement amount, 54 say congress should investigate russian interference in the election. A little more than half of these people say they want an investigation into russia. If congress does appoint a special prosecutor here, whats the downside for lawmakers here . There isnt really much of a downside except the fact it will definitely dominate the headlines and there will be leaks and subpoenas and the russia story will continue to dog the trump administration. Lets not forget they havent put forward any legislation yet to the congress. So this whole russia investigation will definitely avert a lot of energy and attention from the congress towards actually pushing the legislation that donald trump promised during the campaign. The thing is unless we do have an independent prosecutor looking into this, i dont think the American People will be happy with brushing it under the rug. They want answers. And probably the only way to do that is to get a special prosecutor. But it will dominate the headlines. You will hear a lot more screaming from donald trump about the media, thats for sure. What do you think . House intelligence chairman said the house would not engage in a witch hunt and he said this is almost like mccarthy revisited. What do you make of his statement . You know, i think it is a step too far to say that the idea of thinking about appointing a special prosecutor is a witch hunt. That is not at all what this should be. What we need is we need a thorough investigation from an independent authority into what happened, if anything. And again these are big question marks. So the person who should want this the most is donald trump. He should want a thorough vetting of exactly what happened. There is no right in this country that we hold more dear than the right to vote. We need free, fair transparent elections. Any thought of outside external influence into that is something that needs to be thoroughly investigated. And you cant assume that the administration is going to be able to investigate itself and have that investigation, even if it is fair, accepted by the American Public. We need a special prosecutor or an independent investigation in this. And quite frankly, congress, who is charged with investigating the white house and the administration is going to have a difficult time because of the ties between many of the Congress People in charge of these committees and the white house. Thats why you send it off to an independent investigator. Let them handle it. Let them come back and talk to the American Public about exactly what they found. Thats how this should be handled and thats probably how it is going to be handled in the end. Let me get your take here. As you heard me talking about on friday. He said he was open to appointing this special prosecutor. I want all of us to listen what he had to say. Were going to ask the intelligence committees of the house and senate to investigate within the special areas. Now, we need an independent prosecutor . You cant have someone on the campaign and who was an appointee. You need to use the special prosecutors statute and office. So, ron, what is your take . Is Jeff Sessions too close to the president and to the white house as well . I remember seeing him out on the campaign trail with the red hats. Should he be taken out of the mix on this . You know, i know senator sessions, and i know senator cruz speaks extremely highly of senator sessions or now general sessions as a person who is highly ethical, has a strong understanding, you know, and extremely wellqualified. The attorney general is a very ethical person. We have two Different Things that are being mixed up here. One is an investigation, which is taking place right now through the fbi, which is a part of the Justice Department. And what the congressman was speaking to is should that investigate be taken place apart from political appointees of the president because regardless of whatever the outcome of that investigation is, there are people who could say, well, it wasnt completely objective and so on and so forth. The separate part is that of a prosecution, and there are no laws that have been violated here at this point by anyone or not even the allegation that any laws have been violated by anyone. And, so, thats a completely separate story. Congress is investigating this, both the senate and house intelligence kmicommittees are going so. It is wrong to say that that process is somehow flawed because the democrats and the republicans on those committees receive the exact same information and at the end of the day the certain public are going to know what the russians were up to. And its important that the American People understand this and the russians know we know because this very same type of tactics they were engaging in in 2016 are the same tactics they have been using in Eastern Europe to mess around in germany, to interfere with the french election. This is part of their hybrid warfare under putin, and that needs to be exposed. I want to talk about something a lot of us have been talking about. The president said he would not be showing up to the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Here is what was said today about the president not going to this dinner. Watch this. I think it kind of naive to think we could all walk into a room for a couple of hours and pretend some of the tension isnt there. You know, one of the things we say in the south, if a girl scott egged your house, would you buy cookies from here. I think this is a pretty similar scenario. There is no reason for him to go in and sit and pretend like this is going to be just another saturday night. All right. We only got a couple seconds left, but i want to get everybodys take here about the president not showing up. My thoughts are that actually he would be the one on the stand. He would be the one lampooning the press. He could change the situation and the dialogue between us at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. It is a good way to break the tension. It would have been nice to have the president there. But at the end of the day, if he feels like he is the victim and would not enjoy himself there, its probably for the best. All right. How about you . I think the president is doing the right thing. I have long advocated that journalists should stop going to this. I think the cozying up between the state and the white house is not something that serves the president well and i think the president is right to say he shouldnt be going to this given the circumstances. And ron . I think this is an inside the belt way event and people outside of the 202 area code will not pay any attention to the fact the president is not attending this dinner. It is probably the right thing for him to do at this time and keep the focus on what he needs to be doing, bringing his message to outside the belt way. There you have it. Thank you all so much. Have a great rest of your sunday. And to you at home, we have been asking you guys agree or disagree a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate russias alleged interference in the 2016 election whachlt do y election . What do you think . Coming up next, we will have more on who was behind the push for that special prosecutor and why some lawmakers say Jeff Sessions shouldnt be allowed to lead an investigation. Well be right back. President today dismissing questions about his teams possible ties to russia. A short time ago he tweeted russia talk is fake news played by the media in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks. Sounds familiar. The white house today is rejecting the need for a special prosecutor to replace Jeff Sessions as Congress Tries to learn what went on, if anything. Here is sara hukky sanders. The fbi has already said this story is b. S. Those are their words. They came to us. We are putting that story out there. I thisty American People deserve to know the truth and thats exactly what it is. There is nothing here. Just because reporters Say Something over and over and over again doesnt make it true. Did they say b. S. Or Something Else . We have been asking you, agree or disagree a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate russias alleged interference in the 2016 election. Go to pulse. Msnbc. Com america. With us a former fbi double agent and the author of how to catch a russian spy a. Lets start with you. It was pointed out that in that interview, fbi director comey hasnt spoken out about russia. Do you think the fbi could get to the bottom of this on its own without a special prosecutor . It is important to tamp out what the fbi is investigating. They are investigating the Counter Intelligence component of this to see if there is any crime that has occurred. That is one part of this. Were talking about the special prosecutor is the larger investigation of russias involvement in this. This was an Information Warfare investigation. All right. I want to ask you because honestly, when i have no idea what im talking about in the legal word, i go to ari. The talk of this special prosecutor really took off this weekend on bill mar, and hes a republican. Sara huk by sanders today said i dont think were there yet. So legally, are we there yet . Well, whether were there depends on what kind of conflict of interest the Justice Department substantively thinks exists. So obviously having even friends of Jeff Sessions a republican say there may be a conflict is important. Again, a conflict doesnt mean you have done a bad thing. It means your relations or situation are such that it would be difficult for you to choose between two conflicting interests. Thats why a judge cannot pass a judgment on a defendant who is a family member. It is not to say that that judge isnt fair. But rather thats a ridiculous and impossible to put a person in. So does Jeff Sessions have the requisite independence, given his closeness politically to donald trump, given the central roll of the election, given his alliance and political endorsement of the Trump Campaign from before he was attorney general. The other point thats important to keep in mind is the fbi finds evidence and facts. The prosecutor decide whether or not there is grounds to charge. And thats a decision that involves judgment. It is not always black and white. The reason, the reason you would consider a special prosecutor here would be to remove any doubt. Not about those underlying facts which basically federal agents are going to do the normal investigation anyway, but about the decision to move forward, expand investigation or ultimately try to charge to insew late the doj from that. There is a lot of good arguments that it would be more indepent dent, that it would be clear and give the public more confidence. What he is saying there about the fbi gathering evidence and facts, you have been on the inside when you became this double agent for the fbi. Whats the process here . How could they get proof of the russians working with the Trump Campaign . Thats exactly the point, is that the fbi and the doj, they investigate the crime. There is another part of this that is not just the criminal, you know, potential alleged criminal involvement between trump and the russians. The other part of this is the russians themselves, Information Warfare campaign and i would posit that perhaps there is a practical reason for this not to go to the doj. We need to figure out what the russians did, how they did it, what assets they used and that needs to be released to the American Public. That is going to be a larger effort that does not sit just with the fbi. It will involve the 17 Intelligence Community agencies and i think there is the potential to have agency bias if we just leave this with the doj. That is a strong argument this should be taken out of the fbi and puts into a much larger investigation that is going to look at what russia actually did. All week long we have been talking about reporting that the white house tried to get the fbi to counter the reporting that was coming out on this, and former cia director john brennan was asked about this yesterday. He served under both parties. Lets all watch this. The white house needs to understand that the interaction with the fbi on criminal investigations is something that really they need to steer clear of. Certainly when i was in the white house for four years and the cia, any engagement about an ongoing criminal engagement was ver boat tent. They were also asked to knock down these reports. Are there legal lines when you hear that that are being crossed . Probably not based on what we have heard because there is communication allowed. Bu