hackers were targeting the dnc and other democratic operations. by the way, as candidate trump was publicly calling on the russians to publicly hack hillary clinton s e-mails. we don t know the contact or motive before the conversations, but the word they happened is a big real development. we should note the kremlin and donald trump this morning are calling it fake news. cnn s jim sciutto has been working sources all day, all night on this story. jim, bring us up to speed on where we are right now at 9:01 eastern time. i should knnote calling it fe news without the president or the white house responding to the substance of the reporting which we ve asked them to do. let s get to what the reporting is. one, two things caused alarm, raised red flags in u.s. law enforcement and intelligence. first, the volume and frequency of the communications between trump advisers and the russians. communications happen during campaigns, typically at a much lower level and much less frequent than what they saw not for me to judge. i it depends on where the investigation goes and what his party and the democrats hold him accountable for. i think on the collusion, no evidence of collusion. the context is important and this is what officials keep reminding us. these contacts were not happening in a vacuum. it s not like they were contacting a u.s. ally repeatedly or china, another country. these were repeated contacts at the most senior level in the midst of an unprecedented cyber attack on the u.s. election system, political organizations, parties, individuals, et cetera. that context adds to the alarm and concern why. why have those contacts in the midst of what was going on. that s something that s a legitimate question. it hasn t been answered yet, and it s the kind of thing that the white house and others have to give a substantive answer to, and they haven t done that yet. i hope people are listening to you, jim. you re talking about the frequency of it and the high level of the conversations. that is true li remarkable. if i can take another step back and talk about, again, why this all matters when we re 27 days, 28 days into the administration. general tony thomas who runs special operations command, he was speaking, and he said something that i think raised a lot of eyebrows about the overall situation 28 days into this administration. he says our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. i hope they sort it out soon because we re a nation at war. as a commander i m concerned our government be as stable as possible. kimberly dozier, you re incredibly well sourced in the community. i m not sure i ve heard a general speak like this before, talking about the stability of our government. in fairness to general thomas, we did catch him off guard at a conference where he was speaking yesterday and asked him what do you think of the turmoil. he answered honestly. that said, he also said from his perspective, special operations raids, missions, et cetera, were going forward without delay, without hiccup. but he expressed disappointment with what happened with mike flynn. and others in that community are saying they can handle this for a while, the wheels will keep turning. but if there s a major sustained crisis, the wheels could start coming off in terms of the decision process which is why they say they need somebody in charge at the national security council as soon as possible, to keep this on the level. we have a russian spy ship now off the u.s. coast. there are going to be questions about, okay, what is the u.s. strategy and policy for that, and who is guiding the ship? philip, to you, senator john mccain echoed a little of hat the general said. to sum prize what he said, when you see you don t know who is in charge, he calls it a dysfunction of the trump administration, significant dysfunction in the country s national security apparatus. obviously important note to that, john mccain doesn t exactly love the president, but this is significant. that s exactly right. we have to consider this russia situation is not happening in a vacuum here. you have a lot of other factors that are coming into play to create this feeling of upheaval in the administration. just over the weekend, president trump was dealing with the north korea situation in an open air dining room at his golf club in front of an audience of all sorts of people who could hear what he was saying. he s had very testy conversations with world leaders including our allies like australia. you have a lot of foreign leaders, ambassadors i ve talked to over the last few weeks who are very concerned. they don t know who is in charge, they don t know who to talk to, they don t understand what direction this administration is going. so i think it s incumbent now four weeks in, on the trump white house officials, to really take control of this situation and project more an air of competence and confidence. great reporting, jim, to you, pamela brown and evan perez. coming up, the trump administration facing many questions this morning. will congress ask them? lindsey graham raised the possibility of a select committee. will others follow suit? a key member of congress joins us next. this happens as the white house awaits the arrival of benjamin netanyahu, due to arrive shortly. the two have been effusive in praise for one another. you can bet or you can hope president trump will face questions about this new report on russia. i suppose we ll have to wait and see who he calls on. we ll discuss coming up. why are you checking your credit score? you don t want to drive old blue forever, do you? 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(child giggles) symbicort. breathe better starting within 5 minutes. get symbicort free for up to one year. visit saveonsymbicort.com today to learn more. news that senior trump advisers were in constant communication with russia sparked a strong response from republican senator lindsey graham who pushed for a select committee to investigate. listen. here s the question. if there s contacts between the trump campaign and russian intelligence officials outside the norm, that s not only big league bad, that s a game-changer and i would change my view as to what congress should do. if there are contacts between trump officials and russian intelligence operatives during the campaign, we need a joint select committee in congress to get to the bottom of it and also look at trump s business ties to russia if it is true. i can tell you this, congress is not fake. there are real members of congress up here, republicans and democrats who love our country and are going to make sure that checks and balances that have been in place for 200 years work even when the president s in your own party. here to discuss with, republican congressman ron desantos, member of the house oversight and foreign affairs committee as well as the freedom caucus. he join us us from a loud capitol hill. thank you for being with us. i hope you heard senator lindsey graham raising the possibility of a joint select committee in congress to investigate the russians connections between the trump campaign. what s your take on that? do you agree with the senator? i think what we theed to do is let s get the transcript from the communications and also get the 302, if the fbi did interview him so we can see what the truth is and what s simply innuendo. a select committee is used when there s overlapping jurisdictionment we did it in benghazi because you had four different committees investigating it. i think this matter falls squarely within the intelligence committee. it should be very easy to get this transcript and get some of the information from the fbi to see what did flynn does, did he do anything wrong and obviously how did he communicate that to the white house. what would you have to see then, congressman, in that transcript that would tell you, okay, a select committee is needed. as you noted, in the benghazi investigation, you called for a select committee, a special council to investigate hillary clinton s e-mails. what do you want to see in the transcript to tell you what s needed. benghazi we had four dead bodies, we had susan rice go out on the sunday shows and concoct a false store richlt we weren t getting any information from the administration. it was in the middle of the campaign. you clearly had a terrorist attack there and the stonewalling. some of the stuff about the russian contacts, i read the new york times article, and they said there was no evidence that there was coordination. it undercut the splash she headline a little bit. congressman, with all due respect, you don t have answers from the administration today. they re not even responding to jim sciutto s reporting and calling it fake news and saying the leaks are the issue here. one more point, as recently as january 15th we had mike pence saying there were no conversations. yesterday we had sean spicer denying conversations. that doesn t appear to be the case. the story from the white house doesn t appear to be based on reality. i think we would get, if you get the transcripts from flynn s conversations, you can see what they discussed. on one land, discussing the sanction, although i m opposed to decreasing sanctions on russia, i want to increase sanctions. if they discussed it, that s not a criminal offense. they re an incoming administration and can say hey, here is where we re looking to go. if that s what they discussed and flynn wasn t honest with people in the white house, that obviously will be an issue. how then the white house handled it, i know supposedly the doj went and reported there could be an issue. i m not sure how that checking out either. they may have done investigation. i think those are a lot of questions that the white house will answer. remember, when en we tried to investigate things with obama s white house, we wanted to investigate the iran deal and ben rhodes s role, we didn t get anybody because they re going to claim executive privilege. we have to focus on the agency action, what the fbi knows and what the intel committee knows. on executive privilege, this happened before he was president, so it isn t at all clear no, but you re saying once flynn reported it and the vice president was told something else, they were already in office as an administration. there s a question in the press about, okay, why did they wait a couple days, what were they investigating? i don t know the answer to that. it would be hard for congress to be able to get there, whereas we can get the transcript from flynn s communications, potentially get the fbi and we should get, and chairman nunez in the house is working to get the information about who is leaking all this stuff. you really have a concerted effort to undermine the sitting president. that is not the appropriate role of the intelligence committees, to act as political actors and to do selective leaking. on that point, nunez is calling for an investigation into the leaking but not into the russia connections here. i wonder if you re in agreement with senator rand paul who came out yesterday and said i don t think it s useful to do investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party. he went on to say you re not going to get anything done, like obamacare, et cetera. do you agree regardless of party, do you agree that s a good frame of mind helpful to the american people to say maybe it s not the best thing to investigate our own party. our job is to investigate facts. when there are legitimate issues like flynn s conversations, we should get the truth for the american people. that s our job. at the same time a lot of my democratic parties, nancy pelosi was reading fake tweets from mike flynn supposedly. they re very upset about the election, throwing everything against the wall seeing what will stick. yes, we have a responsibility to get the facts. let s get that transcript and see what actually transpired. if you don t get the transcript, congressman, what s your next step? i think you ll have chairman nunez investigating in the house, and i support his efforts. and the senate intel committee is investigating broader than just the leaks and i think they re well positioned to do it. we ve done things on the oversight committee in the past. any time we get into the classified communications, we basically hit a brick wall and it gets referred to the intel committee. congressman, we appreciate you joining us this morning. thank you very much. thanks for having me. still to come, democrats have a message for attorney general jeff sessions, step aside. why some lawmakers say he should recuse himself from an investigation into michael flynn next. one in 30 boomers has hep c, yet most don t even know it. that s because hep c can hide in your body silently for years, even decades, without symptoms and it s not tested for in routine blood work. if left untreated, hep c can cause liver damage, even liver cancer. but there s important information for us: the cdc recommends all baby boomers get tested for hep c. all it takes is a simple one-time blood test. and if you have hep c, it can be cured. be sure to ask your doctor to get tested for hep c. for us it s time to get tested. it s the only way to know for sure. democrats are calling for attorney general jeff sessions to step aside into any investigation into national security adviser michael flynn. the white house council cannot lead this investigation, and the new attorney general cannot be jeff sessions cannot be the person to lead that investigation. it s not an investigation that should take place by jeff sessions. jeff sessions, too tied to the campaign, too tied to the president. it needs to be an independent or a special prosecutor. with us now, democratic congressman benny tomlinson. nice to have you on. thank you for having me. do you believe attorney general sessions should recuse himself from this investigation and any investigation surrounding michael flynn? i don t think there s any question. attorney general sessions was intricately involved in the campaign, made serious political positions as he moved into the campaign. and so for the american people, i think it s absolutely essential for the integrity of his office and for the american people to know exactly what s going on. so step aside, independent prosecutor. i m one of those individuals asking for an independent commission to look into this situation. so democrats are interested, the american people are interested in finding out exactly what went on. congressman, you released a pretty scathing statement yesterday. you said president trump campaigned on hiring the best people, but the unnecessary chaos he s brought the american people in the first three weeks is bordering on sadistic and is clearly a threat to national security. what else do you have that it s harming national security? well, what i can t tell you is what i received in a classified setting. there s a lot going on. so much of what they ve done in the white house has put us at risk. so for the issuance of that statement is to say, look, we need to pause, look at this situation and fix it. the white house is in disarray, there s competition among staffers against each other, and it s not good for the safety of this country. back to you saying no question jeff sessions shouldn t lead any investigation having to do with flynn, he was a sitting senator, the first sitting senator to endorse donald trump as a candidate. he was involved in that role in the campaign as a senator. then he was nominated and confirmed as attorney general. what makes it so different than the close ties between former attorney general eric holder and president obama, for example, that you believe jeff sessions can t do his job? i think if there had ever been a question of impropriety on the part of someone in the obama administration, i think attorney general holder would have stepped aside. with the question of president clinton meeting with the former attorney general, she stepped aside on the investigation of hillary clinton. i think what we have to do is look at it and give the public the clearest view, unbound, unabridged view so they can see exactly what s going on. for attorney general sessions to be involved in this clearly puts a cloud over whether or not an investigation can be conducted fairly. to push it aside makes a big difference. congressman, aside from the fact that it s reporting, again, extensive contacts between the trump campaign and russian officials, michael flynn s contact with the russian ambassador discussing sanctions. do you have any concerns about how this information is coming forward, the fact that there are apparently leaks from the intelligence establishment? any time you have a president saying i know more about what s going on in the world than the intelligence community, it raises serious questions on those professionals who do it every day. are you saying he asked for this? well, you know, these individuals don t see party. they do a good job. i ve served on the republican and democratic administrations, and we always look at the professionals just like that. we don t impugn their integrity, we don t impugn what they do. i think the president made a mistake by trying to dumb down the professionals in the intelligence community. and so what we have now is clearly that community saying, well i don t know if the intelligence community is providing this information. all i know is thank god for the press because otherwise members of congress are not getting it. to the crux of john s question, it sounds like you re saying he deserves it a bit. that aside, do you believe it s appropriate for any member of the intelligence committee, no matter how mad they may be at the president for things he said, to leak this information that is intercepts with adversaries. i don t want you to i m not trying to say that. what i m saying is the president, by saying this, creates conflict within his own departments. whether or not they leaked it, i have no information. all i have is, for whatever reason, members of the press get the information before members of congress. we or interested as members of congress to find out exactly what went on. i know there are transcripts of some of the phone calls. as a mem were of congress, i d like to see those transcripts in a classified setting to know exactly what was said. you know, we still have the logan act which says private citizens can t conduct foreign policy. so there are some conflicts going on that i think this independent commission can clearly resolve. we should note, your republican colleague, ron desantis was on a few moments ago and said he d like to see the transcripts as well, wants to make them public. you should get together on that. congressman bennie thomson, thank you for being with us. thank you. a very big moment at the white house, donald trump meets with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. a lot of questions about that. will he confront the russian controversy head on? 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control suits me. go national. go like a pro. we have not heard directly from president trump about the new reports of campaign contacts with russian officials, nor have we heard from him since michael flynn was pushed out of his job at the nsa. as chairman, national security adviser. we ll hear from president trump shortly when he holds a joint press conference with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. we ll carry it for you live. these are leaders who like each other a lot. they have traded compliments many times. today they ll pat each other on the back in person. elise labott is live in washington with more. what a shift this will be in the relationship between bibi netanyahu and president trump. there are questions about two-state solution, not to mention iran, that the two men have to talk about. reporter: that s right, poppy. i think everyone is describing this meeting today, going to be a love-fest between prime minister netanyahu and president trump, really trying to rekindle their relationship after eight years of acrimony with president obama. i think initially they re still in the honeymoon phase. president trump has been clear about his unequivocal support for israel, but i think as the two leaders start to get together and go down the road and talk about whether there should be a two-state solution, what prime minister netanyahu could do to deliver on some of these things, i think, you know, you re always going to find that relationship does tend to get a little tense. the issues on the table today, iran is really front and center. that s one of the main issues that prime minister netanyahu wants to come speak about, not just the nuclear deal, but also trying to curb iran s other behavior in the region, particularly in syria. he also wants president trump s help in terms of normalizing relations with the arab states. that s something israel thinks is very important. syria will also be on the table. i think what prime minister netanyahu is going to find, unless he s willing to give a little on the palestinian question, those other things like normalizing relations are going to be very hard. president trump said a lot of things on the campaign trail. i think now the realities of governing are going to start to hit him, and the more he hears from arab leaders and jared kushner who he s designated to be his peace envoy, if you will, is hearing from these arab leaders, look, we want to work with israel if you re willing to bend on the palestinian question. elise labott in washington, thank you so much. obviously this meeting comes at a key time for both leaders, benjamin netanyahu and president trump. downing us, daniel kurt ser, former ambassador to israel under george w. bush. ambassador, thank you for being with us. the white house held a background briefing yesterday and let it be known that president trump will no longer insist on the two-state solution as the ultimate goal for middle east policy. how big of a statement is that, and is it the right decision? well, john, on one level it s not that meaningful because in practical terms the objective is peace, and that s what the white house statement said. but if the white house believes that there really is an alternative to a two-state outcome, then it hasn t done its homework. previous administrations have tried very hard to pursue all kinds of options and have thought through many different possibilities. you always come back to the two-state reality, because that s the one that the two peoples want. we see it in polling, we see it in the attitudes of governments. so i think the white house will come around at some point. they may be sending this signal more for netanyahu s political purposes back home, so as not to give him trouble with the right wing of his coalition. if the white house does come around and focus on the two-state solution as you note, there are still many, many questions, especially questions palestinians raised about what netanyahu means when he says a two-state solution. does he mean an independent and equally sovereign state in places like gaza, east jerusalem. that s an important nuance if you re going to get the white house on the same page as a netanyahu administration. there s no indication either from the campaign or since that the administration as assimilated the reality that there are two parties who have to negotiate peace. there seems to be a predisposition to support the israeli position. there s a lot of interaction between israeli officials and the administration, very little interaction so far between the administration and the palestinians. the report today that the cia director is meeting with mahmoud abbas, the palestinian president. but there needs to be an intensive discussion on both sides of this conflict to understand both their narratives and their requirements. the white house has backed off a little bit on some of the more stint jent stands that president trump made during the election season. he s no longer talking about moving the embassy. he may still want to do it, but not saying it every time he talks about israeli, moving it to jerusalem. he s been critical of settlement construction. why do you think he s backed off? i think he s come to realize there s a difference between campaigning and governing. you walk through the doors of the oval office and you start to see different sides of the question that you were able to portray rather simplistically on the campaign trail. it makes for a good sound bite during the campaign to say let s move the embassy to jerusalem. every candidate for president in the last 30 years has said that, and every one who has been elected has come to the conclusion that that would not be wise if we want to see progress in the peace process. i think slowly but surely there is this educational process taking place, and maybe over time the administration will adopt a position that is more solidly based on the fact that they ve got to deal with two sides to this conflict. we re fascinated to get your take on the fact that it doesn t look like it will be secretary of state rex tillerson trying to negotiate a meefd peace deal, it will be 35-year-old son-in-law of the president jared kushner. there was a big new york times piece over the weekend. he has certainly background in this. the question is does he have the depth of knowledge. what do you make of the move that the president has tapped him to try to get the greatest deal done, if it s possible to get it done, he thinks he s the one to do it? the good news based on previous experience is that kushner would obviously have the full backing of the president, and we ve seen experiences in the peace process where even secretaries of state sometimes go out without the president being fully committed. so that s a good part of this. kushner would have to do a lot of homework. but when he walks into the radio, i think israelis and palestinians would understand he s got the president behind him. on the other hand, it would be equally wise for mr. kushner to make sure secretary tillerson is very much a part of this process. an envoy travels once in a while. state department representatives are there 24/7 and can be helpful to a great degree to a special envoy s work. all right, former ambassador daniel kurtzer, thank you very much. they weren t dismissive of the idea that jared kushner secretary of state after secretary of state after secretary of state. at least you know he has the president s ear. president trump s pick for labor secretary and budget director in jeopardy after republican senators refusing to green light their nominations. the gop s leadership last-ditch effort to galvanize support is next. especially for people with heart failure. but today there s entresto®- a breakthrough medicine that can help make more tomorrows possible. tomorrow, i want to see teddy bait his first hook. in the largest heart failure study ever, entresto® was proven to help more people stay alive and out of the hospital than a leading heart failure medicine. women who are pregnant must not take entresto®. it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don t take entresto® with an ace inhibitor or or aliskiren. if you ve had angioedema while taking an ace or arb medicine, don t take entresto®. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high potassium in your blood. tomorrow, i m gonna step out with my favorite girl. ask your heart doctor about entresto®. and help make the gift of tomorrow possible. of tomorrow possible. knows how it feels to seees your numbers go up, despite your best efforts. but what if you could turn things around? 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i think it s very troubling. i m not going to comment on this case. there s lot on this nominee s background, comments he s made, that are very troubling and should be to all of us, about someone whose job is going to be to protect workers in the workplace, whether it s the ads that he has put out there, comments he has made in the past, issues of sexual harassment, comments he s made about women. reporter: will you ask him about the oprah tape in the hearing? i haven t decided. reporter: expect the defense to be, if he s asked about that oprah tape, he will point to his ex-wife, who said she regrets doing it, and only did it to get a free trip to chicago. mick mulvaney, donald trump s pick for budget director, sources are telling me that thad cochran, senate appropriations chairman, has not yet decided whether to support him because of his concerns over mulvaney s views over defense spending, after john mccain also raised concerns. we could be viewing another 50/50 tie in the senate. mike pence would have to break it. manu raju for us on capitol hill. the big question on capitol hill is the news of the day, russian contacts with the trump campaign during election season. what will congress do about this? in just a few minutes we may get a better sense. there s going to be a bipartisan news conference, scheduled to be on russian sanctions. you can bet it will turn to the idea of investigations. stay with us. you wanna check yours? scores don t change that much. i haven t changed. oh, really? it s girls night they said business casual. i love summer weddings! oh no. yeah, maybe it is time. maybe i should check my credit score. try credit karma. it s free. oh woah. that s different. check out credit karma today. credit karma. give yourself some credit. as one of the most popular comedians on television during the 60s and on the part 60s, t is one of those showcased in cnn s the history of comedy. is it easy to be sexy and funny at the same time? oh, yes, very easy. [ laughter ] it may be easier for you, carol. carol burnett is the single most talented woman or purchaerr ever. she could do anything. she started on the gary moore show and became a big star. people forget just how much she was a part of the culture at one point in time. i did not think that i would want to ever could ever host a variety show. welcome to our first show we re doing, i m excited and happy that you re all with us tonight. looks like we have a nice full group. could you bump up the lights so i can see? ooh, gorgeous! they had an image of a fellow in a tuxedo coming out and doing a monologue, and will they take a woman doing this. i said, i hope they ll take me for at least 13 weeks. and it worked. it worked for 11 years. i never thought it would go that long. of course you can watch the history of comedy tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. right here on cnn. the next hour of cnn newsroom begins right now. good morning, everyone,
intelligence he suggestions. that s the big argument. this has been such a contentious issue we saw the whole drama play out with the house intelligence committee and their top republican leader devin nunes came, saw the material. out of the protocol of that committee and them adam schiff, came and looked at the same material. there s answers about this coming from the white house first from the deputy press secretary who says there was no attempt to keep adam schiff responsible. . not that i m aware of at all. i think the bigger point is there s something there. we d love to come see it which is exactly what we said. it turns out if there s something of substance for him to know about, we want him to see it. frarjly i think if there wasn t something of sub stns, he would have walked out that moment from the white house and come out and declared that this was a big waste of time and a big dog and pony show. he didn t do that. he doesn t do that. it s very telling in what he probably saw on friday. it certainly is an attempt to disstrakts it to hide the origin of the materials, to hide the white house hand. the question is, okay, why. and i think the answer to the question is this effort to point the congress in other directions, basically saying don t look at me, don t look at russia, there s nothing to see here. i would tell people whenever the pretty used the word fake, it ought to set off alarm bells. so that tension is still there, alex, between democrats and republicans on h issue. there won t be any quick answers. we know that what s happening takes time and will largely be done out of public view and the senate committee, it will also take months. tomorrow they re going to begin the first of their interviews behind closed doors, investigative-type interviews, not a hearing, to help them plot their strategy about all of these different buckets of russia questions, the interference during the campaign, which include some of the cyber attacks as well as any contacts that might have existed between trump associates and russian operatives. today is the president not only tweeting about russia and the surveillance issue, he talked about health care. s notable because we had thought the president was ready to move away from the health care considerations after such a big disaster with not being able to pass the repeal bill. today the president is on the golf course with rand paul of kentucky and the budget director mick mulvaney. rand paul was very much against that bill that went nowhere, so to those democrats facing re-election in 2018 and whether they make the calculus that joining filibuster will ultimately hurt their prospects, especially in a state carried by donald trump, which is why you have joe manchin of west virginia and heidi heitkamp of north carolina being the two who sads they will continue to vote for kneel gore such. others will be michael bennett of colorado, john tester of montana and joe donnelly of indiana who could also decide there s no upside to blocking this particular supreme court nominee. i think they re under a lot of pressure at the same time from liberals who certainly want them to hold that seat vacant, who believe at the end of the day, anyone appointed by donald trump will not fit on the iej local cat trip of the party and that could force mitch mcconnell. potential long-term implications, what are they if the republicans trigger the nuclear option and what about the poijtd should we be putting all our eggs in one basket. is this something we should be looking to given that antonin scalia was a moderate conservative? clearly neil gorsuch, the way of the conservative, is not really outside the mainstream. the problem for democrats he carries the taint of trump. to sabrina s point she s right right. there is no percentage for a democratic senator. no advantage in saying i voted to confirm a trump nominee to supreme court. now, if the nuclear option is triggered, obviously that means its is in future easier for whatever party has it and that s the whole debate. whether that was a good or bad thing. okay. sabrina, also making headlines, trump turning on his own party and trump s meade kra director now urging a primary tee feet for one free thom congressman, that being justin amash. why do this? why is the president motivated to take on members of his own party? i think it s not own only nonproductive to take on your own party and why the health care plan failed is because donald trump is unable to secure support from members of the freedom caucus in part because e was using intimidation tactics in privacy meetings and he wasn t taken seriously the concerns offered by the republican leaders in the house. so you also have to keep in mind, the replacement plan only pulled at 18%. when it comes to the president using the bully pulpit, whether you re a moderate republican or with a simple act of a phone call by chairman nunes. all he has to to is pick up the phone, call the committee back together, share that what he knows from this by be czar handed back-and-forth with the white house thing. also begin to s&p some documents which will help us get at the truth and i have used as an example, we need to see paul manafort s tax records, his bank statements, his e-mail records and his phone records in order to find out some of what may be the money laundering charges that were in the new york media outlet. so one phone call, we could get this back on track. barring that happening you re among the chairman recusing himself to try to ensure a fair investigation. are you reassured at all to even some degree now that ranking member adam schiff has got an chance to see the same documents he has? you know, alex, i feel like i m watching this all play out in 3-d. the truth of the matter is with his early morning tweets and bizarre behavior, it s though they want us to look everywhere but that where we should look. let s just remind everybody. h is about the russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and thor is for the truth about whether or not there were trump operatives or people within the trump orbit who coordinated or colluded with the russians and furthered that objective. most importantly, let s remember, the russians haven t stopped this. they will to it in france, in germany, and russian again. russia wants western democracies weaker so they can be stronger and so their billionaire oligarchs can be richer. how did you react when you heard chairman nunes got his sources from within the white house? what do you make of that? ham-handed. i said that earlier. he should have shared that earlier with the ranking manyship and all the members of the ranking committee. it takes us off focus. i m remembering by a dog from up who keeps getting disstraktsed by a squirrel. we re not goej ing to do it. how do you commit to the public that your commity s investigation is fair and that this is not just all about politics. we can only do this in time and only if chairman nunes will live up to his responsibility and get us back on track. but, alex, remember, it s not just about the house committee. the senate committee begins in earnest and it looks very impressive. the fbi is investigating this. you know what we haven t talked about? i wouldn t be surprised if the prosecutors are going to look into this, the whole sorted affair. thank you so much for your time and insights. enjoy the game monday night. go,izatiizatio zags. coming up, the nur surprise with the president trump s sweep next. i don t get it. i use whitening toothpaste. what do you use? crest whitestrips you should try them! whitening toothpaste only works on the surface. but crest whitestrips safely work below the enamel surface . to whiten 25x better than a leading whitening toothpaste you used the whitestrips i passed the tissue test. oh yeah. would you pass the tissue test? see for yourself with crest whitestrips. they are the way to whiten. once your asthma is well controlled, your doctor will decide if you can stop breo and prescribe a different asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. do not take breo more than prescribed. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. ask your doctor if 24-hour breo could be a missing piece for you. learn more about better breathing at mybreo.com. ambassador. her comments come just days before chinese president joins. so, mark, with a welcome to you, let s get right to it. how exactly is china getting there? what is the role here? how is it happening? well, jared kushner has established a very busy channel of communication with china s ambassador to washington. they ve exchanged a lot of e-mails. he has actually sent jared kushner suggestions for what a joint statement could look like that the two countries could issue after the meetings with president trump and president xi. they were also the two that cooked up the meeting. so i think the chinese have concluded that jared kushner is the most efficient way to get to the president. the chinese president is always expert at trying to find the most efficient ways to establish influence with the white house. it s kind of note worthy that this is the one that makes the most sense. we saw the president. he said the upcoming meeting is going to be very difficult. he pointed to the massive trade deficits and job losses. so what do they each want from each other? president xi above all wants to establish a relationship with the new american president that got off on tough footing if you recall a couple of months ago and then publicly questions whether he was going to adhere to the principle of one china. so i think the chinese want to take the measure of president trump, and for them being welcomed by his club at florida confers kind of a prestige to the president of china. if you recall the prime minister of japan was also hotted by the president in mar a la fwoe. so that s, you know, in the chinese sense, it s important. it gives the chinese president face. on the american side as nikki haley said earlier, the push will be to exextract a pledge from china, that they ll use north korea to try to get them to curb their nuclear and ballistic missile programs. we ll seethat works or not. i want to turn to an article. who are they and why are that so important to the trump administration? these are diplomats, career diplomats, who have served in multiple administrations. i focused on these three because each of them were appointed to highly visible important jobs, in some cases doing very sensitive work. the nature of the work and the roles they ve played have made them valuable even in the trump administration. they came in determining to clean house. and yet for different reasons, each has proven to be valuable and playing important roles. but with no attempted to remove them by anybody? it s not quite that clear. in the case of lempert, it has been hard for her in part because there are people in the right wing and israel and the american jewish community who identify her with the policies o the previous administration that were viewed as being tough on isra israel. but he has concluded, h gentleman, jason greenblat that she is valuable. knows players and those on the palestinian side and he s asked her to stay on and help investigation. okay. from the new york times. come see us again. thank you very much. greeting the president, house supporters and opponents, how they think mr. trump is handling the job so far. what powers the digital world? communication. like centurylink s broadband network that gives 35,000 fans a cutting edge game experience. or the network that keeps a leading hotel chain s guests connected at work, and at play. or the it platform that powers millions of ecards every day for one of the largest greeting card companies. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. remember here at ally, nothing stops us from doing right by our customers. who s with me? we re like a basketball team here at ally. if a basketball team had over 7. i m in. 7,000 players. our plays are a little unorthodox. but to beat the big boys, you need smarter ways to save people money. we know what you want from a financial company and we ll stop at. nothing to make sure you get it. one, two. and we mean nothing. the warning to america s sanctuary city. comply or else. how far will the trump administration go to get them to comply? a leading opponent for the sanctuary crackdown joins me next. then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. she also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. woman: for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain and improve function, so i feel better. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don t drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don t drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. new york. breaking news. an avalanche of water has swept through a small city killing at least 200 people. rescue workers are searching through debris and pulling apart rocks to try to find people missing or injured. it s happened in moccoa near the border of ecuador. coming up in the next hour we re going to talk with a red cross official and get the latest. msnbc has been on the road gauging reaction across towns in trump country. we went to somerville, north carolina, this weekend. talk to us about what the residents are saying. good morning, alex. we re in south carolina this morning. we ve been to several town halls. this is the flower festival to try to gauge some thoughts on where the trump administration is right now politically in the minds of the people. we ve been from colorado to kansas, across the country and back on the east coast and particularly wanted to ask about russia and whether that s changed our opinion about the trump administration at all. here s what a few of them said this morning. that s bucket malarkey. i don t believe none f that grab. they fweefb to blame somebody. i feel like they ve photo bring our country together as a whole and focus on more reality and work on name calling and ridiculing each other and fighting. i worked all my life since i was 15 and you ve got to do what s right for us. it s not the people who have. it s the people who are in the middle. you know, i m a middle of the road person and income. she says still focus on the broader agenda. for a lo lot of these people they re correctional officers, waitresses, power washers, people who voted on trump. they say this is malarkey the democrats put forward in order to take away from the efforts of jobs and veterans affairs. they said, yes, the trump 5d ministration may be something but when it comes town to something, a lot of them are saying, we still want tup. if you look at his approval rating, they want him week after week. nine out of ten republicans stand by donald trump. what we re hearing from people is tup is not a legitimate president. their issues are still very much legitimate, which is something we have not heard democrats come forward and put their own policy path forward which a lot of these people note. they say, republicans and democrats should be teaming up to work with donald trump to push his agenda forward. alex? okay. so, vaughn, here folks are talking about russia. that may not be something that affects them in their daily lives. to you get the sense that they re appreciating donald trump as president because of things he has accomplished or intends to that will change the way they go about their days? i think you said intends to is the exact word. if you look a the approval ratings of donald trump, even speaker ryan up in wisconsin, donald trump is far and above away from where the approval ratings are at. they said, republicans and democratsty not put their own two feet forward in order to pass deal that donald trump put forward as part of his agenda that okay. vaughn hillier in south carolina. thank you so much. well, the trump administration is turning up the heat on sanctuary cities, those who refuse to hold them in custody until federal officers arrive now stand to lose federal funding in keeping with president trump s executive order. with us now is texas attorney general ken paxton who supports the order. good morning, nice to see you. only one mayor is changing in court. here s one of his arguments. the tenth amount of the constitution says that the federal government cannot specify how local governments must go about enforcing federal law, yet that is exactly what the president s order does. that was not in your state, my mistake. it was in the city of seattle there. what do you say to that? it s federal law. they re obligated to follow the law. we have a bill based on the same problems. we have a sheriff who will not enforce federal and state law and we re concerned about the safety of our citizens. i want to question you about the safety in your cities. are you worried that the immigration laws will erode trust, people within immigrant communities and thereby thwart theable for police fighting crime and trying to get thing done in those communities? my greater concern is the fact that the sheriff is releasing illegals who have been convicted of crimes in the community when she s supposed to be releasing the federal agents. so as somebody who spends a lot of time, i don t see any upside to that particular policy. i don t see how it benefits citizens who have committed illegal crimes staying in our county. again, back to those within our community who tried to work on the trust and not have suspicious behavior from those there to help them get rid of crime in that community, you don t worry that this law will erode that. i m more concerned about the safety of my citizens in released convicted felons and other criminals in our community who otherwise should not be in our community. there are other ways to solve the crime problem than having people stay there. is this all in reference to the lawsuit in dallas where the immigrants in ta state, they ve sued the city, claiming a violation of the fourth amendment? so what i m referencing is what s going on in travis county where our sheriff is an elected official. her obligation is to follow the federal and state law and she s refusing to to that. it s what s motivated our legislature to react. i think it s our legislature who will handle that and potentially some of that legislation actually imposed some kind of penalties on elected officials who don t know the law. certainly you do know the law and violation of the fourth amend is what it s all about in the city of dallas, that people are being held without warrants. there s not enough probable cause there. to you have any concerns about that? i have not seen any situation where that s occurred. if that s occurring, we ll address that. what we re addressing in texas and what i think the administration is addressing is this commonplace problem we re starting to experience where we have cities and municipalities. that s what we re trying to address. do you think this goes all the way up to the supreme court? you know, who knows. it certainly could. it could be an issue we see ultimately by a full court. yeah, i think it s very possible you see that. all right. texas attorney general ken paxton. thank you for your time, sir. you too. thank you. thank you. coming up, ivanka trump s new role in the white house and how unusual it is to have family working the west wing and how he weighs in on the free speech and how some of his rallies got rough last summer. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. if you re still just managing your symptoms, talk with your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. and you re about in to hit send all on some embarrassing gas. hey, you bought gas-x®! unlike antacids, gas-x ® relieves pressure and bloating fast. huh, crisis averted. i just had to push one button wto join.s thing is crazy. it s like i m in the office with you, even though i m here. it s almost like the virtual reality of business communications. no, it s reality. introducing intuitive, one touch video calling from vonage. call now and get amazon chime at no additional cost. when a fire destroyed everything in our living room. we replaced it all without touching our savings. yeah, our insurance won t do that. no. you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance ivanka trump is now officially serving as an unpaid family employee in the white house which means she eastbound by government ethic standards including a law prohibiting conflicts of interest. a move comes after they cried foul. her official title is now assistant to the president. but how unprecedent is this? msnbc s savannah sellers is going to join us and give us answers the all of this. have we seen this before? actually we have seen this. we ve been reporting all week on the new official white house. west wing office. she will not be taking a salary although she is eligible for it. i went and talked and asked real people what they thought about this. is this crossing the line, is this nepotism, or would they want their own daughter advising them. here s what i heard. i don t really have an issue. there s been many times in the past it s been done in other administrations. i think it s nepotism at the highest level. if i took one of my two daughters and said, hey, we re going to give them a job about it would be considered as whole will appropriate. daddy, i have a problem, you can help me? it seems like it could be a little problematic. wh what are her qualifications other than she s the president s daughter. it s right down the middle. sort of three categories. either not being okay with it, being okay with it or because it s ivanka and they want her influence. first son or daughter influence is not something new. going back a little bit, julie nixon eisenhower, she was instrumental in nixon s campaign. she was sort of tasked with speaking. also an ma roosevelt, another first daughter who played a pivotal role in her father s presidency. she was very important in the last years of president roosevelt s presidency. she started traveling when her father could not or her father would choose her instead, for examp example, many the conference to yalta. john eisenhower also and he did accept a salary. there s an even more recent and relevant example. let s take a listen. the most relevant parallel here between ivanka trump having an official office in west wing and having an official title is actually to the example in early 1993 of first lady hillary rodham clinton being given a west wing office and being tasked with heading president clinton s health care reform effort. so you heard very similar to ivanka, the west wing office, given a real task. she also did not accept a salary. but some think of hillary clinton as a government servant where ivanka was not. but they work very closely. they have their whole life where her business has been under the trump umbrella. what s really interesting is we get at nepotism. if you look at this, the higher you get up to 7, the better. that means no influence of nepoti nepotism. enormous at 1. the u.s., we fall in about the middle. we we re closer to influence than no influchbls we fall in the middle amongst countries all over the world. and finally one thing i was hearing from people is they were frustrated by it because they feel that in the real world this would not be okay. they would not be able to give their son or daughter a job. now what is actually very interesting, i looked at some census data, and actually 22% of americans by the age of 30 will actually be worker for same employer at the same time as their father. 6% will work at the employer their father left. this is so interesting. i mean i love it. you ve ton such exhaustive research and put a perspective on it. 22 today, i think that s anecdotally for sure. thanks for that. president trump commented a short time ago. does he have a point or is he just trying to deflect attention. tastes. honey, what do you want for dinner tonight? 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ask your doctor about prolia® today. were involved. an investigation is being conducted by the fbi into possible coordination with the trump campaign. that is really, i think, among the most serious business the country has serious business the country has to do right now. and the white house seems to be toing everything it can to point in other directions and say do not look here. there is nothing to see here. that was adam schiff, ranking member on the house sbel where she knows committee, accusing the trump administration of trying to deflect attention away from the probe into its ties to russia. let s bring in howard dean and susan. hi, guys. good to see you on a sunday. hello. susan, how do you respond to that? is the white house really try ing to interfere? they re tryi ining deflect a making on their own agenda. the it is taking away from the issue of these leaked documents, which should never have been done and the unmasking of american citizens. they actually have a good argument and one that they could go forward if they would just stop getting in their own way and if donald trump would just stop tweeting about it. let s go to what happened a short time ago, the real story turns out to be surveillance and leaking. find the leakers. does he have a point, howard? kind of seems like trump associate, maybe the president himself, were surveilled. so isn t it important to know why how? yes, it is important to know and no, he doesn t have a point. this is the classic, the classic diversionary tactic. the issue here is not if there are washington leaks. there were a lot during the obama administration. people always complain about them. the real issue is what susan said it was. have the russians done something to undermine the electoral process in the united states and does as it looks, mean that trump was helped deliberately by this. i was astonish eed this week wh we found the russians hacked into jeb bush and marco rubio s campaign. i agree with susan. he s not going to get away from this if if fbi does their job. zpl appears that americans really care about it. susan, is there legitimate reason to believe that nunes cannot run a fair investigation? well, i think he basically has one more shot leading this investigation. that means he has to basically come clean with all of the members of his committee, let them see everything he shared with congressman schiff. have another open hearing, go back to the agenda, because before all of this started with him going to the white house, there seem ed to be b some good bipartisan support. so, i think that that would be his best bet. otherwise, people are just going to look at the senate right now, which is going forward in a good bipartisan fashion. do you think that is proba e possible? you can t undue what is done. there seems to be a a lot of tension and fair amount of bad blood between the side there is on the house intel committee. it s with committee members and including republicans. there are a lot of republicans who are very frustrated with with the press conference that nunes had prior going white house and after going to the white house. they didn t want him to do that. now, he has to actually mend fences with everybody. build up some trust and i do think he could be given just one more chance to do it right. but if he doesn t get these public hearings done quickly, if he doesn t share the intel with the rest of the committee on monday or tuesday, he s then going to be ineffective. look, howard, the russia questions. they ve been hanging over the president even before he took office and only seem to be growing. can he make them go away. well, depends what the truth is is. my problem b is that i actually think there s a lot more there there. because putin is doing this all over the west. this is his attempt to undue what we would call liberal democracy. he s not in the american sense liberal, but a democracy based on maximum input from citizens and he doesn t like those, so his major aim is to disrupt the west and the best way is to make america weak. so, if that s the case, this isn t going to go away until we find out what the truth is. i have to disagree with soouns. i think nunes is done. i think the hois how s may be done partly because the way they re made u. most of the stuff that gets done is going to get done in the senate. because of the 60-vote rule and i do think warner and burr are running so far what i peer peers to be b pretty good nonpartisan process. nunes is not going get a second chance. he looked like a clown. can we take a look at all the controversies, you ve got michael flynn. obama surveillance claims. all this, isn t it going to hurt his ability to govern if it hasn t already? i ll argue the problem is his ability not to hire enough people at the lower ranks. he has not goat goth his deputy secretaries in place. his white house lizes. government running. that s what we needed to do. these investigations could be a prop for the rest of his term. i don t know the answer to that, but i know that one the things he can do to help himself is to start running this government and run ining it effectively an working on the things he can control krol and not hurting himself with out of control tweets. got to wonder why he hasn t hired more people. loyally the front and center in any of the hiring he will have. but there are hundreds of positions still open. thousands in fact. i think you mean the hundreds that require senate confirmation. what s so staggering, when you have to think of the work the senate has to do. so, michael flynn s immunity request. do you think he gets it and if he does, how significant is it? not yet. this isn t about michael flynn. this is routine fbi process. they re not going to give him immunity unless they know basically why they want the immunity. flynn and his lawyer, who s very cler clever, is wave iing this around. flynn has done stuff that s om semirelated. for him not to register as a foreign agent then after the fact, reveal he got a huge amount of money from the turkish government, which doesn t have much to do with what s going with russia, that s a major violation. so far, the fbi is going to have to find a whole lot more that they want. in order to give him immunity. susan, does he get snit. i agree with the governor. not at this point. he hasn t shown he has worth getting immunity for. yes, the it s what the lawyers should do and he should ask for immunity to go forward, but his own words have come back to haunt him all week. it is in fact embarrassing. all right, guys, we ll end on a note of agreement there. thank you so much. always good to see you. thank you. some help for flint after the city s devastating water crisis, but will it be enough? 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after we finished the kitchen floor. [laughter] bill: caution, you are about to enter the no spin zone. the factor begins right now. bill: hi, i am bill o reilly. thanks for watching us tonight. the brawl over sanctuary cities. that is the subject of this evening talking points memo. as you may know, the federal government is threatening cities that do not cooperate with homeland security with the loss of federal grant money. now, the city of seattle, suing the feds over that, the first of many lawsuits, i believe. the basic problem is that cities like chicago, seattle, new york, los angeles, san francisco, do not want to hold illegal aliens they ve arrested until i.c.e can pick them up. though cities want to release the aliens on bail or their own recognizance. talking points believe that is dangerous and irresponsible. if there is a federal detainer play to that constituency. and to the federal government, which now wants to enforce immigration law, because president trump made out a hallmark of his campaign. you have two opposing forces with little chance of reconciliation. it should be noted that the federal appeals courts have never required local governments to comply with detainer requests. it is optional. if you can t be arrested if you defy a detainer. an official can be arrested if he or she defies a warrant. finally, to make things worse it is comply with federal law, the trump administration will now withhold money from them in the form of justice department grants, that means cities like seattle, which receives millions of dollars to beef up local law enforcement, and institute safety programs, may no longer get that money. which is why seattle is suing. the whole thing is a giant mess and reflects the huge division in this country. will sanctuary cities be forced to comply? doubtful. but they will pay a price. that s the memo. now come the top story, an interview with the attorney on him. they ignored it in denver, and a few weeks later, he murdered and robbed an individual in the area. so, you don t have to be a criminal but that is our top priority. bill: this man did not have a criminal record when you ask for a detainer. but you know he was a member of a gang and the city of denver stillwater and told him. then, he got out and he murdered someone. i m talking about the millions of illegal aliens working the farms in california and florida and working as chambermaids or whatever. you don t have a squad or a crew going after them, do you? no, you are correct. that is not where we a i.c.e is focusing its efforts at all. we are doing a lot of good things, for example, it looks like the entries at the border are down 60% just because of president trump s strong leadership. as we continue to build a wall and beef up our forces then bring in more judges, we ll be even more successful they are. that is the way to solve this problem. if we stay at it, we can create a lawful system of immigration, one that admits 1 million people lawfully every year and one that we can be proud of as a nation. bill: we don t want anarchy. now, is there any other way to pile up punishing story cities other than denying them the justice department grants, which will hurt them a little bit, but it certainly not going to put them out of business. you have heard the rhetoric from rahm emanuel and de blasio in new york and the mayor of san francisco, they will defy you. is there any other punitive measure that the trump administration is thinking of taking? we don t want to take any measures. we want to see the city s comply. i was pleased that miami complied. i was pleased to see the president of the maryland senate to reject a house passed bill and save maryland would not be a sanctuary state. he said that unequivocally. he s a democrat. i think a lot of these leaders need to get, here from their constituents. you are right, it is not going to devastate their budgets. we don t have that much money that will be controlled. it is a signal. bill: is there anything else that is being discussed in the trump administration to punish the sanctuary cities? any other denying of funds or anything else? we are looking at other possibilities that would be detrimental dash go bill: can you give me an example, mr. attorney general? i am not prepared to give that now. bill: oh, come on. the no spin zone. you are discussing other things that you will do or possibly do. in the future, we can put requirements right now, under the obama administration, they sent out grantor notices that required people to a search there in compliance with the laws and threats and cutting off of various funds if they didn t comply. we ll continue to for precede that and go further. bill: if you get into the transportation area, but it will be lawsuit after lawsuit. there s limits on what you can do. bill: i want to ask you one question about the russian investigation, what you recused your cell phone. is there a liaison in the justice department that is working with the fbi, actively working with the fbi right now? yes. we do have persons within the department of justice that work with the fbi every day and there are persons working on all the cases. bill: okay. you have contact. you will, of course, know what is coming back and forth. what i am recused on, i do not bill: even a whisper in the hallway or anything? you won t get anything? [laughs] i do not. bill: finally, loretta lynch was your pier in the obama administration last year. did you speak with her on the way out? she did things a lot differently than you are doing them. that is for sure. we changed a few policies, no doubt. she is a very gracious lady. she wrote me the nicest letter when she left. i called her and we had a nice conversation about it. she had already left washington by the time i assumed the office. she is a special, wonderful lady. we had a great conversation. bill: final question for for you. the leakers in the various agencies, federal agencies, you guys zeroing in on them? do you think you will have some indictments shortly? i expect we ll get to the bottom of some of this. this is not right. we have never seen this kind of leaking. we have never seen it s almost as if people think they have a right to violate the law. this has got to end. probably will take some convictions to put an end to it. bill: do you foresee a indictment shortly? i want predict that. i will take that very seriously. what is happening now is not correct on my stop. bill: mr. attorney general, we really appreciate it, anytime you want to stay something, i hope you come to us. thank you very much. thank you. bill: next on the rundown, as mentioned, judge jeanine pirro, outrage over the illegal alien court situation. there were hearings in controversy today, new controversy, colonel peters has some thoughts. those reports after these messages. allergies with nasal congestion? find fast relief behind the counter with claritin-d. 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(vo) go national. go like a pro. bill: outrage of the week segment. immigration court. are you ready for this? in denver, courts wait times can drag on for more than five years. in texas, average wait time, almost three years. currently come across the country, more than a half million immigration cases are pending. here in new york city, judge jeanine pirro, you see her saturday and sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. why are you outraged by that? because what we are doing, we are in the system, it is set up, so, in the end, there is no way to get out of this hole. right now, we have got an immigration system, with the influx for example in 2014, an additional 160,000 immigrants who came in from central america. president obama put those at the head of the line, pushed everyone back, and the interesting thing is, the cases that were pushed back, they will get lost. witnesses are going to be lost, there is going to be files that will be lost, people will essentially disappear because they know the system is not going to the curious thing, 161,000 that were pushed to the front of the line, 41,000 of the 67,000 resolved, had been sent back. even matt 161,000 had not completely been resolved. it is just getting more and more and a hole. bill: there aren t enough judges, first of all, right? immigration judges. right. bill: there is no urgency in the part of the system to bring these people in and figure out whether they should be allowed to stay or have to be deported. but now there is an urgency. what we are seeing with the trump administration, the promise of law and order at the roles implemented now by the department of justice, as the general just indicated, now, what we have our judges who are going through the detention centers. we know longer have the obama catch and release. we now have judges going to the detention centers, immediately making a determination as to deportation, and getting them out. they also understand, the immigrants understand, we are going to get caught, why pay a coyote a $10,000 bill: about 60%. what about the people who don t show up? a lot of the people who come in here, migrants, illegal aliens cover whatever you want to call them, they are giving a desk ticket or something, you have to come back now. but they don t. they don t. bill: what happens to them? nothing. bill: do they go on a computer, a i.c.e computer, a system, a database? do you remember last year, the obama administration accidentally removed the names of all of those who were wanted in the immigration system? bill: idol or member that. i do. bill: that is why you are on the program. that is why you were the host and i am not afraid bill: you are saying that there was a giant erasure of people who didn t show up? of people within the system. these cases get lost, the files get lost, the people get lost, we don t have the resources. right now, we need 520 judges and we have 301 immigration judges. we don t have enough judges, we don t have enough courts. all we can do now is stem the tide. we cannot deal with what is already here. they have been flowing all over the country. we don t even know who they are or where they have been flown to. bill: anarchy reigns and they are trying to stop the flow coming in and take care of it after that. but still, if you are an illegal alien, the odds are, you are going to stay. unless you commit a heinous crime, you will stay. unless you commit a heinous crime, you will stay. and with the sanctuary cities, unless we hurt them where it hurts, and the pocketbook, i really believe that that is the decision to withhold federal money, unless they agree bill: more money than the justice department has. you would be surprised. that is law-enforcement money. if you are not safe, you are not going to be happy. bill: the judge. directly ahead, if you watch the cable competition, you would think that the president would have been charged with a crime of the russian deal. more controversy.vi we will tell you about it when we come back. recommended by dentists. biotene. for people who suffer from a dry mouth. don t take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily. .and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. i m still going for my best. and for eliquis. ask your doctor about eliquis. the trump administration by saying that his members of the campaign colluded with putin to undermine the election. it would surprise me if there was no coordination with his campaign. i don t want to believe that is true. at this point bill: what facts? he doesn t say. and he wasn t even asked about it on that filthy channel. today, there was a hearing in the senate and new information about who showed congressman devin nunes classified information on the white house grounds, joining us from washington, fox news strategic analyst, lieutenant colonel ralph peters. first of all, john robert sent this to me, and this is so crazy what is going on now. i say that because it is being used as propaganda rather than fact. apparently cover the national security council, they have an office in the white house, came across a number of instances where numbers of the trump campaign, including the president himself, showed up on intelligence wiretaps, that is transcripts of the recorded secretly recorded conversations. two white house guys called nunes, the head of the house intelligence committee, to the white house, to look at the stuff, to look at nunes said he had a shocking stuff, but he said it had didn t have a thing to do with russia, shocking, shocking brady dr. president trump about it. okay, that is what happened. is there a scandal here or something that you are saying is our security expert that i am not seeing? there is a sort of scandal in the fact that this wasn t the national security council sourcing these documents. it was a couple of trump appointees assigned to the national security council. this wasn t h.r. mcmaster. he was clearly another attempt to divert attention from the main issue, which is the question of whether or not vladimir putin s regime was able to penetrate the trump campaign and potentially the administration? bill: will get that into a minute. it s important, if donald trump and some high member of his transition team are caught on wiretaps, as you know, i do suppose to be blanked out, now, they are on transcripts and the intel agencies. i think that is an important story, is it not? i think it is a b.s. story and it is phony and no one will release those. i will tell you, unlike so many of the instant pundits out there, i actually work in the intelligence world for over two decades. we take great care not to include the names of u.s. citizens unless they are under some sort of serious investigation. so, if those names were not blacked out in the transcripts, that tells me that these people were under serious investigation, perhaps the fbi investigation. as another red herring, it diverts attention from the primary issue. that is where congressman nunes, this week and last weekend this week, he stepped on more banana peels and a caterpillar. bill: he s not handling it methodically, that s for sure. don t we think there is a possibility i don t want to be like the other cable stations and rakes by speculation they are sick a political component inside of these agencies edge of the wiretapping, they don t like trump, they don t like his people, if they can put them in an embarrassing position and leak it to a newspaper, they might do it. isn t that in play here? no. i think that is untrue. if people are able to tell who voted for trump, you would find that people in the intelligence agencies, the rank and file people, probably voted overwhelmingly for him because they despised hillary clinton. political appointees of the top are another question. our intelligence agencies, not case conspiracy theories. they are patriots who defend this country every single day, they don t spy on americans. back to congressman nunes, all he had to do, when he took that call from the white house was to say, yes, i ll come over and i need to bring my counterpart, the ranking member with me. bill: i told him that he shouldn t have gone to the white house, he should have gone to a neutral location. is there anything in the russian investigation, which the senate delved into today, that has caught your eye? again, it is all speculation at this point. we know the russians dented. but was there cooperation by anyone? we don t know. anything that caught your eye? there are two crucial questions. crucial to the security of our country in the sanctity of our elections. the first has been answered. intelligence communities are unanimous based on hard evidence that extensive evidence that putin did interfere in our presidential campaign. the question that remains unanswered is whether or not the putin regime was able to penetrate the trump campaign. on that, we have so far, the public, you and i, only have circumstantial evidence, all the meetings with paul manafort and flynn and paige and gordon and now, jared kushner, with the russians during and after the campaign. that is circumstantial evidence. but it is not business as usual. the number of meetings and contacts, there is a lot of smoke there. bill: paul manafort was well before the campaign. and during. bill: the other ones were i don t know. bill, please. bill: if that is a hard-line couple we have to wait. to be fair, we have to wait. the trouble here, the scandal really for me, is that both sides are politicized. every american cares about this country and the legitimacy of our elections. every american bill: do you think the fbi will find out what happened? i m encouraged by the senate s attitude but you are absolutely right. the people that will get to the bottom of this, it may take a long time, the fbi working with the treasury. they will follow the money. bill: i didn t meet anybody. no russians. nothing. i m clean. i don t know, you look a little russian to me. bill: nope, not me. irish. a long way from moscow. colonel, thank you. plenty more had the factor move zola had this evening. ted koppel and others believe that cable news and for an particular fox news are harming america. what does group bernie goldberg think about that? later, spring break craziness underway. watters found some college kids rejecting that. they are doing good stuff at their time off. we hope you stay tuned for those reports. ooh. psst. hey. where you going? we ve got that thing! you know.diarrhea? abdominal pain? but we said we d be there. woap, who makes the decisions around here? it s me. don t think i ll make it. stomach again.send! if you re living with frequent, unpredictable diarrhea and abdominal pain, you may have irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea or ibs-d - a condition that can be really frustrating. talk to your doctor about viberzi. a different way to treat ibs-d. viberzi is a prescription medication you take every day that helps proactively manage both diarrhea and abdominal pain at the same time. so you stay ahead of your symptoms. viberzi can cause new or worsening abdominal pain. do not take viberzi if you have or may have had pancreas or severe liver problems, problems with alcohol abuse, long-lasting or severe constipation, or a blockage of your bowel or gallbladder. if you are taking viberzi, you should not take medicines that cause constipation. the most common side effects of viberzi include constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain. stay ahead of ibs-d. with viberzi. i have age-related maculare degeneration, amd, he told me to look at this grid every day. and we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression, including preservision areds 2.said preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula the national eye institute recommends to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd after 15 years of clinical studies. preservision areds 2. because my eyes are everything. cities, and on sanctuary, there are 432 per 10,000. but, the study also said that sanctuary areas have a lower unemployment, higher household income by $4,000 a year. we were people under the poverty line. so, as of the chicken or the egg? is it because it is a sanctuary city or is it because bill: i don t believe the study at all. i think it is bogus. my opinion, we have an obligation to present it a second study done by whom? by the university of california, by riverside. they say there really isn t any difference. bill: no difference. although, they think violent crime is up a bed. basically, no different. they studied 54 cities from 2,000 2002, that is him sanctuary city starting to be developed, they found that is some crime went up. san francisco, where kate steinle st. louis, milwaukee, st. paul op. down, washington, baltimore, new york. they say most people are concerned about deportation. overall, it s a wash according to them. bill: the third study was from a group that doesn t like illegal alien permissiveness. the center for immigration study. pretty shocking. they tracked 8,000 illegal aliens who were in the system at one point. they say of those 8,000, 1,867 were rearrested after they were bill: 8,000 illegal aliens were arrested, the center got their names, and tracked their behavior after the arrest, what was percentage? 23%. some, bill, wherefore crimes like rape, child abuse. they were led out. they were free to get back on the streets. bill: the recidivism rate was about 22% federal so they find? they also want through the people who were released, 63% were a threat to public safety. so, it looks like at one point, releasing people who were threats, who were recidivists bill: that is what the center come but they described in that one. that is their records, they were convicted or they were charged with in some cases, violent crimes, left back out bill: 63% elect back out. many of them did it again. bill: now, there is a man named daniel ramirez medina, shannon bream, who was swept up by ice february 10th outside of seattle. he was kept in confinement, big story out there because he is one of these dreamers from under president obama s act that will leave these people alone. he came to the united states with their parents are relative, it is not their fault they are here. what happened to medina? it sounds like immigration officials were actually going after his father and we are told that the father, according to i.c.e, was deported eight different times. he has served time for a felony drug conviction. they happen upon the sun. he got brought in. they say he has a gang tattoo. his lawyer say it is not a gang tattoo come with a tattoo celebrating where he was born. they say that the immigration agents, he admitted to gang ties. that is disqualifying under the special program that you talked about. bill: if i remember correctly, he said i used to hang with at my california but i came up to washington state to get away from them. the bottom line i hate the bottom line at the end result is, the judge let him out. he is out, right? he had been after a bond hearing before by the immigration judge. he turned it down because he is a separate lawsuit against the department of homeland security and federal court. he was positioning that chose to let them out. they are letting his lawsuit proceed but they wouldn t let about. bill: so, medina and his lawyers are suing i.c.e for bringing him in the first place, although he was caught with his dad in the same house, or they were living together, and his father was a convicted felon wih eight deportations on his sheet. now, medina is suing. bill: he is out now. apparently, i.c.e said there is no check in, he is not wearing a monitoring he has a hearing in may. bill: he can dream the day away. he wasn t employed, by the way. he got a job. he is a young son and he is unemployed. bill: he is out and we appreciate it, guys. thanks very much. when we come right back, bernie goldberg and a very provocative question. is cable news harming america? bernie is next. here you go little guy. not getting in today. not on my watch. pests never stop trying to get in. we never stop working to keep them out. terminix. defenders of home. the uncertainties of hep c. wondering, what if? 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yes. does it feel like a feeding frenzy? yes. does it sometimes cross into hate, criticism? yes. so, are they polarizing america? yes. but you leave out a couple of very important things. the first thing is, that by any rational standard, donald trump has said and done so many things that are on presidential that he is handing ammunition to his enemies. as bad as they are, when they cross into this hate, donald trump isn t an innocent victim. in the second thing you leave out is the polarization is a two-way street. there is plenty of slobbering in certain places in conservative media over donald trump. and that also contributes to polarization. everybody is taking sides. bill: i don t think that is as harmful. if you look at president bush and then president obama, you had a bat. you had some slobbering and you had some criticism. you had back and forth. i lived through both of those errors. nothing like this. there are conspiratorial lists now on cable television, given hours to weave these you saw my commentary a couple weeks ag ago. donald trump is on a grassy knoll. he is really sasquatch. they are just on and on, no boundaries at all. just totally different. bill, you are right about that. i watch because it is part of my job and i sit there and i say, these people are nuts. but i think you give them too much credit. look, donald trump won the election with 46% of the fourth. that is what it was a choice between, donald trump and hillary clinton. there is no choice that s history. now, the only choice is between approve and disapprove. according to the latest gallup poll, donald trump has 35% of the vote. that is terrible. bill: is something interesting happened today, overwhelmingly, americans believe that he will improve the economy. if he does a year from now, he ll be up in the 50s. i don t even care about the political aspect of it. i don t care. i do. let me finish my point. he is down on the daily tracking poll, he is down to 35%. maybe a little higher, who knows. but at the terrible number. he is losing people who voted for him. bill: because of the health care debacle, though. it is in context. look, this is the key. and this is ted koppel s thing. he believes that we come at the fox news channel, because he is basically a social liberal, i don t think he is a crazy left-winger, but we are harming the nation because the nation now looks to us rather than to straight news. it has never been straight, you know that, they always slanted the news left at the networks. on, ted. but we, we are the bad, bad people. i will give the last word. go. well, i think ted misses a point and he is right and another point. the point he misses is that cable has given a voice to knowledgeable people who have something important to say that ted s network and the others never allowed to say. that is number one. and he misses that. but the second point he makes about how cable is polarizing america, cable didn t start the fire. cable didn t start the polarization. that was around before cable even existed. bill: pouring the oil. because people are choosing sides. people go to the side if they like trump and that side if they don t like trump. that is adding. bill: it used to be, he respected, those of us who had a clear-eyed, respected point of view, opposite hours, now, you have to hate them. that is what cable news has brought and it s terrible. bernie, thank you. watters on deck. it is spring break time. this year, we are not going to show you drunken kids passing out on the beach. watters has a story that is actually inspirational. next. inflammatory substances that cause nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. for relief beyond the nose. flonase. bill: back of the book segment tonight, watters world. for decades, cooked college students have use their spring break vacation to party hard and sometimes embarrass themselves. there is another take on this. students from the university of delaware and other schools are working at charleston, west virginia, this spring to improve the lives of people in the area. watters zeroed in on one man whose house was severely damaged by flooding. what are you doing out here for spring break? i m here with the university of delaware spring break program. we are here fixing up a house in napa last year. how much time each day do you spend working on this house? we are here for about nine hours a day. nine hours a day? and you are not getting paid? no. most freshmen at the university of delaware are at a beach doing booty shaking contests and you are here building homes. i don t think i m missing much. this is much better, to be honest. bill: was made you want to do volunteer work for spring br? i have been doing it since i was six. i firmly believe that giving back to the community or any other community is great. -volunteering a lot throughout my life and of all natural to you is my spring break to come and do something like this. it is the most rewarding thing i can do. did your parents make you come here for spring break? absolutely not. really? no. are you here for how long? just one week. and your friends are out funneling beers on a beach? i definitely miss my friends. but this is such a great opportunity, i am making new friends every day. do you find that some of your friends in college judge you for doing something like this? they judge you in a positive light. everybody looks up to everyone that goes on these trips. all my friends are really supportive of it. they helped me make the decision of the come on the trip. being away and getting to cut that all off, we don t really have reception here, i don t have a phone to see what people are doing. it is really nice to actually leave that all behind and do what is really important. it is really rewarding. we work really closely with the home owner, preston, he is awesome. when did the students come help you out? they started three weeks ago. they had a group coming into the living room floor, the back porch. i am not going to quit my day job. [laughter] i m appreciated how appreciative of the students are you? tremendous. there is no words you can put in and say that college students are going to come to west virginia to help me instead of going somewhere else to party and stuff like that. it s just great. we are just screening this two buy for to put up a frame for the wall. we had a lot of leakage and water damage. they are putting a tin roof on, because it leaked in five different places. that helps out a lot. when the flood came through, just destroyed everything. know that i have been here, i think i have become more attached to the community and it is nice to help the community as a whole and as an individual. thank you very much. i would tell you to behave what you are all doing a very good job of that. always remember one thing. i am watters and this is my world. bill: so, here is watters. now, the man who owned the home, he is poor, right? he is very poor. he broke his neck and his back. now, he is on disability, cannot work. bought the house four years ago, then come with a flood destroyed everything. they hooked up with these college kids and they have been working there almost 95 every single day. they have done 20 homes over the course of spring break. and this appalachia service project has done a lot of great work for a lot of poor communities in this area. bill: when we make fun of the kids and all of that, the best thing is, no cell phone service. [laughs] that s good. bill: get away from it for a little while. great story. will you run some of this on saturday night? we will run a little bit of that. we will do a maxine waters investigation. bill: oh, keep me out of it. you are out of bed but we will let her have a little bit of it. bill: jesse watters, 8:00 p.m., saturday night. the factor tip of the day, more health. the tip moments away. little girl: daddy! trapped by your unrelenting nasal allergies? [ meow ] [ sneezes ] try clarispray clarispray provides unsurpassed relief. it s 24 hour, non-drowsy and prescription strength. free yourself with clarispray, from the makers of claritin. but i learned a thing or two from some pretty good teachers one look at me and you can tell i m from the old school bill: right on. now, the mail. unfair. i didn t mean to offend you but if i am in your circumstance, i do not buy anything on credit at that rate unless i absolutely have to. cash only. the smart thing to do. come on, tony. i have the same friends i had in first grade. regular folks. don t give me that kind of elitist stuff. they do that because they lost the argument. they use the r word to marginalize, right out of the rules for radicals. your brand people who disagree with you in a negative way. you demonize them. that is why this is going on. i am reminded of this quote, show respect even to people who don t deserve it. not as a reflection of their character but of yours. good quote, andrew. the brutality of that time was very hard for us to fathom. excellent, andrew. you go to a good school. regis is a good school. also robert samuel and the contributing factor podcast had me on. posted up there right now. you can access that on billoreilly.com or itunes. no relation to looney tunes. factor tip of the day. we have been very successful here at the factor . american veterans who need help, we have raised millions of dollars and partnered up with folks who directly help veterans in a variety of ways. this coming saturday on long island, an event in the country can get free law advice on anything. the program runs from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. but you must make an appointment. we posted the phone number on billoreilly.com and the email address. if you are a vet and one free legal advice, you will get it. factor tip of the day. that is it for us tonight. please check out the fox news factor web site, different from billoreilly.com. please spout out about the factor from anywhere in the world, name and a town if you wish to opine. word of the day, do not be
compared hitler to bashar al assad. is that enough to stop calls for him being fired? in the driver s seat. my one on one sit down with ford s ceo mark fields. his message to the president and his vision for the future of the auto industry. good morning, everybody. i m ali velshi at msnbc headquarters in new york. rex tillerson and sergey lavrov have ended a high stakes meeting in moscow. the two are scheduled to emerge at the top of the next hour and hold a news conference. we know that there has been tense talk over syria. today s meeting comes on the heels of a newly declassified white house intelligence report that accuses russia of helping cover up that chemical attack in syria last week. president vladimir putin saying in an interview today, quote, where s the proof of syrian forces using chemical weapons? there is none. end quote. putin also says relations with the u.s. have, quote, degraded since president trump took office. president trump had his own criticisms of vladimir putin. in an interview this morning on fox business. frankly, putin is backing a person that s truly an evil person. and i think it is very bad for russia. i think it is very bad for mankind. it is very bad for this world. frankly, if russia didn t go in and back this animal, you wouldn t have a problem right now. he was going to be overthrown. we have all this covered with our nbc news correspondents in moscow and at the white house. let s begin with nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely, live in moscow. bill, what can you tell us about this meeting between secretary of state tillerson and his russian counterpart foreign minister lavrov? good morning, ali. approaches may be different. listen to the word tactical. i don t think rex tillerson went into that meeting banging a table, giving an ultimatum to russia, that it should give up its relationship with president assad. but he will be saying, look, tactically, you can be with assad in syria, but strategically, is that a great place to be, in terms of your global position in the way the world looks at you? as i say, we ll get a read oout from a news conference to be decided. we ll stick close to you. interesting to point out that issue, that rex tillerson putting on the table that perhaps there can be tactical differences but strategic alignment. bill neely for us in moscow. let s go to peter alexander at the white house. peter, it has been a busy 24 hours for you. yeah. what more can you tell us about let s start with the declassified report that accuses russia of helping cover up the chemical weapons attack in deflecting blame from russia. the simplest of terms beyond that, they said this was a unique opportunity for russia, ali. in their words, they said, this was their chance to stop their disinformation campaign. peter, we re going to come back to you in a little while because we have several stories happening, and you ve been on top of the story with sean spicer and his apology for remarks he made at the white house press conference. don t go too far from your camera. back to the issue of international affairs, secretary of state rex tillerson is meeting with his russian counterpart and it comes as the white house faces brand-new questions about the trump campaign s ties to russia. the washington post is reporting the fbi obtained a fisa warrant to monitor trump adviser carter page. i m joined by one of the journalists behind the reporting. washington post national security reporter, adam. thank you so much for being with us. let s just talk about this for a second. what is your understanding from your reporting of what led the fbi to request a fisa warrant in the first place, as it relates to carter page? right. we know that donald trump, when he was a candidate, named page as one of his foreign policy advisers in march 2016. page has spent time in moscow. there s been new documents that came to light. buzzfeed broke the story a couple weeks ago that page had engaged had been in contact with a russian intelligence officer who he apparently thought was a diplomat back in 2013 timeframe. so what was happening is, you know, as the fbi and other intelligence agencies were seeing that the russians were intervening in the summer of 2016, in the presidential race, they were trying to get a handle on what are the relationships between members of potentially this new administration s team, in this case, carter page, and the russians? so as you probably know, a fisa requires they basically have, you know, cause for believing that there is this connection. so they had to provide evidence of suspicions of those connections to the fisa court judges, who then have to decide whether or not to issue this warrant. so if a viewer is watching tv today, they are hearing some people say, wow, you just never get a fisa warrant unless there was something really serious involved. we re hearing this from members of congress today. then other people say, actually, it is a secret urt. we don t really know what would lead to a warrant. do you have any sense of, you know, whether there s wrongdoing involved? what we do know is this isn t i this fisa warrant is to collect information on carter page. it is a fisa warrant to monitor carter page. in order to get the warrant, they need to provide evidence of their suspicions he was acting as a foreign agent for russia. sort of, you know, helping russia behind the scenes. so there could be that there was an incidental connection that involved carter page. we don t know what was in the application that the fbi and justice department brought to the fisa court in order to get this. but, you know, clearly, i think it is important to keep in mind that a parent is not conclusive proof of anything. there are plenty of warrants that are issued to monitor people that, in the end, it shows there was a lot of smoke and no fire. so i do think it is important to keep in mind and not to get ahead of ourselves here. on that note, i want to read a statement that carter page gave us at nbc news. here s the part of it that is relevant. there had been prior reports, but i was so happy to hear that further confirmation is now being revealed. it shows how low the clt clinton/obama regime went to destroy o democracy and depress distants who didn t agree with their failed foreign policy. is this idea that carter page had a fisa warrant in some way connect to or validate donald tru trump s discussions about trump tower being wiretapped? if carter page was the subject of a warrant, there could have been other collection because he was talking to people of the trump campaign. obviously, i think there is a you know, this is not something that, as far as i know, is brought by white house officials or anybody else. this is a decision seeking a fisa warrant is something decided by a judge who, you know and that judge is, at least as far as i know, not under political pressure from the administration. in this case, the obama administration. i realize that the way he is responding to this news, maybe it is the way other people might also choose to try to perceive this. certainly, based on everything i know about how the fisa court operates, you know, this is not something that is even briefed to members of the white house before a fisa is brought. this is the kind of thing that is very closely held within the fbi and within the justice department and shared with some officials in the intelligence community as part of the process. adam, we re always smarter for talking to you. thank you for joining us. always a pleasant. thank you. i m joined now by two special guests. angela stent is director of the center for eurasian, russian and eastern studies at georgetown. 2004 to06, she was national intelligence offic for russia and yraa at the national intelligence council. her latest book, u.s./russian relations in the 21st century. also joining us, military analyst kevin. he is also the executive editor of the website, defense one, which provides news and analysis on defense and national security matters. these two know a lot about these topics. thank you for joining me. angela, i ll start with you. often times when there is a major diplomatic meeting like the one today between secretary of state tillerson and his russian counterpart and maybe vladimir putin, it is set up so there can be obvious accomplishments to come out of the meeting. as bill neely reported at the top of the show, that doesn t seem to be the case today. no, i don t think anyone had those kind of expectations going into this meeting. i think when it was conceived and announced, before the chemical weapons attacks and the bombings in syria, it was an attempt to normalize relations, since relations at the end of the obama administration with russia were really so bad. so i think the agenda there was no designed agenda that they knew they were going to come out with a statement that everyone was going to agree to. this is really exploratory. obviously, what you saw wbr id= wbr8380 /> was the discussions of what the soviets /b> called frank and business like. that is to say, very tough talks. i think at the minimum, they can come out and jointly agree that they need to find a solution to what s happening in syria. that would already be an accomplishment. we don t know whether that s going to happen. yeah, we re not sure we re talking about getting that done. let alone finding achievements on that. kevin, it seems the big demand today by secretary of state tillerson will be that russia end its support of the assad regime. i can t imagine there are many chances of that, but does he have any leverage at all? well, the leverage, i think, is the u.s. military presence in syria. inching toward the end of the isis war, which i think just becomes an inching closer to the final, you know, what s going to happen with assad and the rest of syria. and that s, i think, a peculiar point. just yesterday, the pentagon took great pains to say once again, despite last week s air strike, the isis war is separate from assad, separate from the syrian civil war. but within hours, by the end of the day, john mccain and lindsey graham put out a joint statement saying the time has come to end the bifurcation. that those two cannot be they re inklinked. because iran backs assad, and as long as assad is slaughtering the syrian civilians, the civilians have no chance of defeating isis or a resolution for a greater syria against assad. interesting point you make, kevin. angela, i d like your take on this. people like to draw this distinction. that we re fighting isis, and isis poses a threat to the rest of the world. the assad regime doesn t. and that s a civil war. the united nations takes that view, by the way, and hence, doesn t do anything about bashar al assad, as well. do you agree with kevin s take, that maybe we shouldn t be maybe we shouldn t be drawing such a clear li? that s john mccain s take. ohn mccain s take that kin has given us. well, you know, why does isis have support in syria? what assad has done to his own population and the past years have fueled recruits for islamic state. therefore, you can t draw a distinction between them. the russians do. they re not interested in fighting islamic state. they re interested in keeping bashar al assad in power and consistently deny any connection between what he s done and the growth of isis. so, you know, i think you can t say these things aren t connected. and kevin, i want to be clear, you were conveying that it is john mccain s take. you agree that these lines don t make sense? well, it s not that i agree or not. i think anyone can see them starting to come together. again, isis just loses territory, raqqah is waiting on the horizon. what then? we ve written a lot about this. everyone keeps saying, what then? what s supposed to happen next is a non-military path to peace. something wbr-id= wbr10180 /> that brings everybody to the table. i even asked secretary mattis yesterday at the pentagon, where s the new counterisis plan we were supposed to get, that trump demanded in 60 days? it hasn t come. they both put brakes on that to say, look, this is going to take time. tillerson, two weeks ago, had the meeting in washington with all the other foreign ministers of the counter-isis group. they have to find a way to peace. those you can separate them on the battlefield. the pentagon and the u.s. military can say, we are not at war with the syrian government. we are fighting isis in syria. but the rest of the government, the rest of the world, sees through that to know the entire conflict has to end somehow. i wish i could talk to you guys for an hour. i hope you come back. this is an important conversation. any time. thank you very much for your contributions. kevin is the executive editor of defense one and angela is the director of the russians, eurasian studies at geortown. sean spicer apologizes for saying, wrongly, that hitler did not use chemical weapons on his own people. this morning, growing calls for spicer to be fired, including from nancy pelosi. i ll get new reaction from the democratic congressman ted lew. i made a mistake. i m owning up to it. you know, this is obviously, i would expect or hope that everyone understands we all make mistakes and ask for forgiveness. meta appetite control. it s your glass of willpower that helps keep cravings. .far, far away. feel less hungry with the natural fiber in clinically. .proven meta appetite control. from metamucil. at red lobster s lobsterfestime. any of these 9 lobster dishes could be yours. so don t resist delicious new lobster mix and match or lobsterfest surf and turf because you won t have this chance for long. there s no other way to say it. i got into a topic that i shouldn t have, and i screwed up. the whiteouse pre secretary sean spicer, as if we have to introduce him. he must be the most well-known white house press secretary in the world. apologizing again and again for his comments yesterday, comparing bashar al assad to hitler. here it is. he used chemical weapons in world war ii. you know, you had a you know, someone as despicable as hitler who didn t use chemical weapons. he tried to clarify his comments, even to peter alexander, who joins us again live from the white house. there s a lot of backlash for the comments. i remember it was happening in real time as he said them. add he tried several times in the press conference to clarify his remarks. almost making them worse every time he did it. then there were calls for sean spicer to be fired. he apologized. you were one of the people to whom he presented his apology on camera. what are you hearing now? i think what s striking more than anything in this episode, ali, is the fact an apology from this white house isn t just rare, it is almost unheard of. the fact he came out as soon as he did and did publicly apologize on cable television, apologized in a conversation that we had, interview with nbc news, as well, and again as part of the apology tour. he did it this morning with our colleague. in effect, saying, it was a mistake. he s sorry. that he let the president down. that there is no comparing atrocities. what is striking to a lot of people, including myself, is how subdued and perhaps even humbled sean appeared on this day. he said, among other things, the fact this is happening during such a holy week with the jewish holiday of passover right now, with easter coming up this weekend, that he said he himself even felt pained by what he had done. the words he had used and the harm they had caused. during our conversation yesterday, i asked him, specifically, about this comparison between bashar al assad and adolph hitler. here s what of what he said. well aware of what he did. but, again, it was a distinction that didn t need to get made. they both did horrendous, heinous things to innocent people. to make any comparison is regrettable and a mistake. i asked him specifically if the president had asked him to apologize. he said the answer was no. ali, at the end of the day, it is more than this one instance. it is a broader question about the credibility of spicer and ultimately the white house that s at play here. remember, a matter of days ago, he said the u.s. would be prepared to strike if syria used chemical weapons or barrel bombs. if that was the case, it d be a dramatic escalation of the u.s. involvement in syria. he clarified and said there was no change in the u.s. policy. they ve been using barrel bombs for years on their own people. sean seemed to do the right thing by apologizing and apologizing quickly. why they don t know the basics is puzzling. peter, thanks a lot. twice in a show. a treat for us. what does the democratic congressman think of this? is the apology enough for him? plus, my one on one sit down with ford ceo mark fields. you have to look at not only the regulatory environment, you have to look at customer requirements and really be obsessed around the customers. looking for clear answers for your retirement plan? start here. or here. even here. and definitely here. at fidelity, we re available 24/7 to make retirement planning simpler. we let you know where you stand, so when it comes to your retirement plan, you ll always be absolutely.clear. time to think of your future it s your retirement. know where you stand. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, isn t it time let the real you shine through? introducing otezla, apremilast. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it s a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. some people who took otezla saw 75% clearer skin after 4 months. and otezla s prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don t take otezla if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. otezla may increase the risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. side effects may include diarrhea, nausea, upper respiratory tract infection, and headache. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you re pregnant or planning to be. ask your dermatologist about otezla today. otezla. show more of you. counterpart, sergey lavrov which a parent apparently didn t go all tt well. took three hours. what do you make of this? i m pleased that putin is meeting with rex tillerson, but it s going to be an interesting discussion. because the trump administration has no strategy in syria. you have nikki haley saying we want regime change. secretary tillerson saying we need the people of syria to decide if bashar should stay in power. and then others are saying the policy hasn t changed. it is not clear what discussion this is going to be with putin on syria when the white house doesn t have its story straight. at some point, if there is force involved, this happened in 2003, you and your fellow members of congress are going to have to be involved in this. so you must have thought this through to some degree. what in your opinion is a strategy that we should be employing in syria with regard to the refugees, with regard to what assad does to his own people, with regard to russia and iran, strategic interest there, and with regard to isis? if donald trump truly cares about the beautiful babies of syria, he wouldn t ban them from entering the united states as refugees. we need to absolutely make sure that refugees, children, women, senior citizens fleeing is syria need to be able to come to the united states for safe haven. he also needs to come to the united states, the president, and seek authority from congress before more action in syria. that s where the constitution stands. last time obama tried that, congress didn t authorize use of force in syria in 2013. that s because in a democracy, congress under the constitution is vested with the war making powers and the people through their elected represents, decided that syria was not a critical national security interest. i have yet to see donald trump describe to the american people why we are engaged in a civil war halfway around the world. if donald trump can make the case, he can get the authorization. what s your view of it though? if it is seen as a civil war, a view the united nations takes, does the world and or the united states not have a role that involves a military in a place like syria? the united states has been at endless war for over a quarter of a century. i think the american people don t want to send in ground troops to syria. if you don t have that option, really, you need to resort to diplomacy. i hope there is a peaceful resolution of all the countries involved. i think sending in a massive number of ground troops would be a very bad idea. quick question. would you support military action in syria if it did not involve ground troops? we have some ground troops in there already but if it didn t involve fundamentally ground troops? as a veteran, i know we have an awesome military, but it is really stupid to use military force without a strategy. i could support the use of force, but the president needs to come forward with a strategy first. representative, good to talk to you. good to join us. thank you. up next, my interview with ford s ceo mark fields. and i ll speak live with steve rack ner. are we seeing a trump bump in the economy? wheni broke almost everyent bone in both my legs. when i came home from the hospital i needed to be able to recover. tempur-pedic allowed me to do just that. because i don t have the average body type anymore i feel like my tempur-pedic really conforms to my body shape. power is not giving up, it s choosing to thrive. tempur-pedic sleep is power. find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic.com before fibromyalgia, i was a doer. i was active. then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. she also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. woman: for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain and improve function, so i feel better. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don t drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don t drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. this morning i sat down with the ceo of ford motor company, mark shields, here in new york. he s here for the auto show. as the head of one of the big three auto makers, he s come under pressure from president trump, tweets and all, to keep american jobs in the united states. in january, the president tweeted, quote, thank you to ford for scrapping a new plant in mexico and creating 700 new jobs in the united states. this is just the beginning. much more to follow. this morning, i asked fields how all that pressure factors into the decision that ford decisions that ford is making now. as a business, we re always looking at the business environment. we make investment decisions based on what s right for the business, but also being cognisant of, you know, what s the tax policy, what s the trade policy, so we can maximize the returns for our shareholders while bringing great products and services to our customers. the president called on you and other manufacturing ceos in what he calls listening visits to try and establish what it is you most want. what s the message from you and others to the president about what you most need to continue to prosper and keep jobs here? from our standpoint, first, free and fair trade agreements. that ll help export even more for the united ates. comprehensive tax reform. we do have a tax corporate tax rate here, this is uncompetitive versus the rest of the developed world. we feel it needs to be addressed. regulatory certainty. again, we make long lead investments, so the investments we re making now really anow us for products coming out three, four, five years in the future. having the regulatory certainty is important. for instance, under the obama administration, fuel efficiency standards increased. now, they have been lowered under this administration. do you all sit around and say, oh, now we don t have to make cars at that level of fuel efficiency, or are you worried there will be another administration that may increase them? as our standpoint as a company, we are committed to improve fuel efficiency, both for customers and the environment. and we re making big investments in lelectrification, 13 new electrified products. as a company, our sustainability strategy is not just about reducing ce 2 emissie ining co2 reducing fuel company. though the president is asking to reinstate the midterm review, which was the agreement back when we agreed to the fuel economy requirements in 2011, that s not going to change how we invest in the business going forward. you have to look at not only the regulatory environment but customer requirements. be obsessed over the customers. our customers are telling us around the world they want better fuel economy and our approach as a business is, let s have our vehicles will as easy on the planet as possible. one of the things you re working on is that you just came back from china and realize the world is an urban place. america is slightly less urban and urbanizing less slowly than the rest of the world. you see your future in cities. cities need different things. they don tctually need people buying as many cars as we all did. you have a strategyround the shared economy and reducing the number of cars on the road. tell me a little about this. our strategy overall is to, i d call it, fortifying the profit pillars, trucks, suvs, our performance cars. transforming the underperforming parts of the business and emerging in the mobility, elek triificati electrification. we re seeing the growth of megacities. 10 million sort more people. there will be 40 of them in the next 15 years. there s maybe 28 today. more people. the issues of pollution and just changing consumer habits around not only owning but owning and sharing. so we re looking at that as a business and saying, what does that mean for us? so we love our core business of, you know, designing, developing and selling great truck trucks,e also see a huge opportunity in this area of mobility, almost the monetization of the usage of our products. and so we re going to cities these days and we re asking them, what are your transportation and mobility issues? and what assets can we bring as a company to help that? what that will do for us is, yes, it could mean less vehicles in cities, but it could open up new business opportunities for us in terms of a dynamic shuttle, autonomous vehicles, that we currently don t have today. you end up solving a solution for a city because cities want to solve they want better flow in their cities, but they also want less congestion and less pollution. we help solve that by putting more, for example, dynamic shuttles on the street, which take 25 cars off the road for every one shuttle. then it also offers us a business opportunity to grow. you re here because you re launching a new product. you have the ford lincoln navigator. yup. tell me about this vehicle. we ve all known the navigator for a while, but you ve had a lot of success with the lincoln brand. mm-hmm. we have a lotincoln brand. we ve grown it a l the last four years. grew it over 70%, almost more than double the injury. how is that? lincoln was the car you got picked up in with a driver. how did you make it into something people wanted for themselves? it is a luxury brand. beautiful and elegant. also, personalized experiences. warm experiences that match. that served us really well. we have launched in china. we re the fastest growing car luxury brand in china. we gained share here in the u.s. this year, the first quarter last year. now, we re building on the momentum, introducing the new lincoln navigator, which is our flagship suv. it s the most luxurious we ve navigator we ve ever done. it tries to combine modern luxury with advanced technology and these personalized experiences. if you re very small, you can t get into a lincoln navigator. it is about the biggest car there absolutely is. i m here with steve, by the way. if you don t know steve, you should. this is a guy who has who served as president obama s car czar, among other things. i wanted to talk to him about that. but the lincoln thing was an interesting conversation with him. because some people think i m not going to say myself but some think lincoln is an older person s car that picks you up, particularly if you get driven around, a limousine service. they came up with this new model. it was a tired brand that had seen its day. if they can bring it back and make it successful, god bless them. let s talk about the pressure that none of the car makers are going to really say too much about this out there, but they have pressure by president trump who claims that his pressure on them is what is causing them to create new jobs in the united states or not move factories overseas or cancel factories overseas. how much of that is true? first of all, i think the companies have been clear, and they haven t gotten into a fight with the president but they ve been clear, these are decisions either made before he was ever in office or made for other reasons. the reason they cancelled the plant in mexico is they think car small demand is not going to be as robust as they might have thought a couple year ago, with gasoline being in the $2 plus range. they don t want to have a fight with the president, but they make their own as you also know, companies don t decide to open or close a plant in two weeks. these are years in planning. right. they re making the best commercial decisions. now, that said, i think his comments about the advantages of having more certainty around regulation, better tax policy, things like that, which the president also wants to do are in sync. we should all want that because it would make the companies more successful. let s talk more broadly about the economy. one thing i love about watching you is you always come with some sort of chart. the consumer confidence index. it is now above 125. s not a rcentage, it is an inde it was hovering about 100 in october before donald trump s election. showing you a chart on there. if you pull that chart back, it s been going on for a long time. donald trump likes to take credit for this sort of thing. does he deserve it? i think a little bit, for sure. look, as you pointed out, first of all, you corrected him because he talked yesterday about percentages and it is not a percentage, it is an index. since the recession, it has gradually been coming back. even those who are not fans of his policies or style have to acknowledge not that just index but small business optimism, all kinds of manufacturing. all the confidence indexes have turned up since the election. whether they can be sustained depends whether he gets stuff done or not. i think we can listen to this about job creation. let s hear what he said yesterday. you see the numbers. we ve created over 600,000 jobs already in a very short period of time, and it is going to really start catching on now. some of the things we ve done are bigly and they are catching on. okay. so it is important to catch some of these little thing s as they go along. 533,000 jobs created this year, not 600,000. 216,000 of those were created in january. donald trump was president for ten days in president. we come out to 307,000. it makes it an exaggeration, but the fact is, again, donald trump wants to take credit for this. president obama did not want to take credit for the 700,000 jobs that were lost the first month of his presidency. i often say presidents get too much credit and too much blame entirely for job kree jags. i agree but let s talk about what happens the first two months of a presidency. nothing a president does in the first two months affects the jobs numbers for that period. the president didn t mention that last month, we only created 98,000 jobs. i m not blaming him for that. it is one month. but what his impact on jobs is going to take time to develop and time before anybody can say, he gets credit or blamed. what s the best thing a president can do to create jobs since they can t really create jobs they create an environment which companies crea jobs. i ll take a different approach. our biggest economic problem is not jobs. we have an enormous amount of jobs. the unemployment rate is down to 4%. one problem is wages, which are finally growing. a bit above inflation, good news. the second is we still don t have enough people coming back into the labor force. so many dropped out of the labor force when they got discouraged. they re not coming back in yet. we need policies to accomplish those things. steve, we ll have this conversation again. always a pleasure to talk to you. thank you for having me. coming up next, taking a vacation. bill o reilly says he is going on a long planned vacation, as more than 60 advertisers pull funding over allegations of sexual harassment. new allegations from a top executive. -i would. -i would indeed. well, let s be clear, here. i m actually a deejay. 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when you put an anchor in a chair, you want people to watch that anchor when he skreucceeds. yes, shehe is a juggernaut i broadcast and writing. the market is so splintered, they can take the money and put it lots of other places. he is not the only show in town, and the brands recognize they can t be associated with stories that don t build the realities of their business. bmw, hyundai, al l state, regular every day companies. drug companies, if they shift their advertising as they do in other some shifted to other places in fox, are they just coming around to a realization or are they feeling pressure. i think they re feeling pressure. their constituencies because twitter gave them a platform to talk about it, but nothing ever dies on the internet. if you go back and dig, bill o riley has had this problem for a decade. this is where i m going with this thing. a lot of companies and their research departments would have known that. sure, but the world was very different in 2004. between what you say and do back then, you can kind of brush things under the carpet and get away with it. you can t do that any more because you re judged by your behavior and what you do more so than what you say. brian collins, we ll be right back. it is time for the your business entrepreneurs of the week. seeing double? 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both mccain and james khomeini, though he was given the green light to share it on tv. i have talked to the highest level of intelligence officials, and they have assured me that the new york times story about constant contacts is grossly overstated and inaccurate. the president went off on the fbi for yet another leak, tweeting, the fbi is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time. they can t even find the leakers within the fbi itself. classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on u.s. find now. in between fighting political fires, the president got some business done, signing another executive order on regulatory reform. this one directs agencies to establish task forces to identify and rescind regulations the president claims are stifling economic growth. donald trump. we are not afraid of the opposition because we are going to unify, come together, and kick some ass, we are going to take names. with seven candidates buying two replaced donna brazile, the leading contenders include tom perez, who enjoys strong support from the democratic party establishment. says he plans to support perez. this is a generally centrist country. mainly in the center, got to have a message that resonates across the board. the other front runner, minnesota congressman keith ellison, an early supporter of bernie sanders. but ellison has had to defend himself against accusations of anti-semitism because of his now severed ties with nation of islam leader and comments he allegedly made in graduate school. these are false allegations, and that is why i have 300 rabbis and jewish communities supporting me. with many dnc voters still uncommitted, the other candidates have a fighting chance. i like all of them. i have really narrowed it down to four, and i am intending to remain open to persuasion right up until the vote. political scientist saying that the young mayor there is a mother another candidate to watch. he points to successes in his party and state legislative races. he wants to not be totally progressive or totally establishment but try to figure out a way to bring all types of people together. and that is really the delicate balancing act democrats hope to achieve. on one hand, they want to capitalize on strong anti-trump sentiment among the parties younger, more liberal base. at the same time, they hope to win back their reputation as being the party of working americans, a group that, in the last election, came out and large support for president trump. jonathan, thank you. the government will begin accepting bids for work on the president s border wall next month. customs and border protection says it plans to start awarding contracts in april during his cpac speech this morning, president trump set the ball is ahead of schedule. a federal judge in brooklyn is ordering government lawyers to work with attorneys representing people stopped from entering the country during the first hours of president trump s first executive order and travel ban pete senior correspondent rick leventhal was in that courtroom today. when president trump s executive order went into effect temporarily banning travelers from seven predominantly muslim nations from entering the u.s. it sparked protests and lawsuits. it also affected far more people than originally claimed by the administration. speak with the white house, the president said that there are only 109 people who were minimally inconvenienced by the executive order, and for the first time, the government has revealed that there are over 700 people who had some contact with customs and border protection under the executive order. and we don t even think that that number is complete. in a hearing friday morning, attorneys said they were simply handed a list of names but no other information to help track down the 746 people who may have been wrongly barred from entering the country in the first 26 hours after the ban took effect. we are trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. the government already has that puzzle together, and they could disclose that tomorrow if they wanted to. in court, the judge ordered the two sides to work together in sharing information. but there are still questions about how a new executive order, expected next week, might impact this and other cases. what we are working with is like a 26 hour slice of a much larger problem which begs the question of what the government is hiding and why they re hiding it. at the justice department declined to comment on the specifics of this case, but in court, a u.s. attorney told the judges they cooperate by giving giveaways additional information on all of people who were turned away. this issue is not raised during today s off-camera white house press briefing, but it is expected that next week when the new executive order is issued that will allow anyone holding a legal visa to enter this country, no matter where they are coming from. bret? bret: rick leventhal tonight. thank you, expecting that sometime next week. a white house spokesman is dismissing a security report saying there is insufficient evidence that citizens of seven muslim majority countries including president trump s travel ban pose a travel threat to the u.s. the spokesman calls it an open source report, says it does not contain high side classified intelligence, this source calling it incomplete at best. we are learning more tonight about what may be in the republican plan to repeal and replace obamacare. one crucial point, medicaid expansion. correspondent peter doocy has the latest. fans of obamacare like to point out that more than 26 million people got coverage through the law, but a majority got covered through expanded state medicaid programs which cover low income americans. 31 states and the district of pe tab with expanded funding from the feds that republicans suggest will be reduced. but the g.o.p. should be aware, because 84% of those surveyed by the kaiser family foundation want congress to keep the expanded funding in place. and g.o.p. leadership isn t just under pressure from the public. they are hearing it from house speaker paul ryan s predecessor. fix obamacare. i shouldn t call it appeal and replace. that s not what is going to happen. he was during dozens of successful votes is off-base. i sure hope he is wrong. we need to do that, it is a commitment be made. . a 106 page documented published today by political reportedly contains the gop s long-awaited replacement in terms of plans to talk cut oute individual mandate. dr. sica manual has been warning against this. it would be a disaster. the first thing is, and the first year, 18 million americans will lose their health insurance paid democratic governors now probably make protesting. i think what congress would love to do is push all those costs on to the states. republicans lawmakers hope that even there if there is les funding they will have more flexibility. the federal government wants to be involved in who gets covered, get the money to me and let me figure out if i can do it better. one of the 16 republican governors who took money to expand medicaid coverage in his estate, john kasich, was at the white house today, and he is heading back tomorrow to meet with hhs secretary to explain my he thinks the feds should keep sending states like his money for medicaid. bret? bret: think you paid the gal rallied late, posted its 11th reset my consecutive record close. the nasdaq gained ten, the dow was up about a percentage point. the s&p 500 gained two-thirds. the nasdaq finished i heads about one seventh every percentage point paid up next, a special fox news investigation into a tax text taxpayer funde. it is a story you will only see here. first, what some of our fox affiliates around the country are covering. fox 13 in tampa, officials say a prayer that damaged this tampa area mosque overnight was arson. calling it terrorism and offering up a reward. the fire was extinguished quickly, but the facilities sustained significant water damage. fox 5 in new york where bill de blasio was interviewed as part of a public corruption investigation, at issue, or that a democrat broke the law to benefit his 2013 campaign or his shuttered nonprofit. the mayor s office says it is confident everyone acted appropriately. and this is a live look at the long beach, california, from our affiliate, fox 11, one of the big stories there tonight, and i m police are maintaining watch on a neighborhood where a raucous demonstration erupted after an off-duty los angeles police officer scuffled with teenagers and ended up firing a gun shot into the ground. the anaheim police chief is suspending these decision defending the decision not to arrest the officer. tuesday s confrontation was the result of an ongoing dispute between the officer and teens who have reportedly walked on his lawn. tonight s live look outside the beltway. for special repopopopopo it advertises as military friendly, helping vets complete new and advanced career. that same day, agents raided the home of umt president. she is watching agent searcher home. 3 1/2 3 1/2 years later, here ss speaking at the 2016 graduation. we are excited for our students. the school has received upwards of 6 million taxpayer dollars from the defense department but school officials didn t want to talk to fox news about how umt is run. it is a bad bill for the soldiers, and is a bad deal for the taxpayer paid he is stepping forward for the first time. absolutely disgusts me. it needs to stop. he says he worked at umt recruiting vets when they approached him in 2012. documents reviewed corroborate key elements of history paid where you asked to be an informant in a case? how long did he do that? about three years. documents reviewed suggests there is another side to umt s leadership. in this solution, he suggests that paid one of the first things she ever threw out, i was a colonel in the army. yanping told her she was a member of the chinese military? absolutely. the a west point graduate we one of the definitive books about the chinese military. this picture from the mid- 80s appears to show chen before she went to george washington university. if someone was wearing that uniform, i would say there is a great likelihood that they were in the people s liberation army. what can you tell me about that uniform? this is a pla officer s uniform, between 1987 and 2007, and from the epaulets, you can see that this three stars and two red stripes would be a full colonel. after the 2012 raid, chen denied being a colonel in the chinese military, and she checked no on this form when asked, are you now or a few ever been in any way connected or associated with the communist party? chen became a naturalized citizen. fox news asked an expert to review the form. if she has marked no on the petition but if, in fact, the answer is yes, that we have a false statement, and where that comes into play most assuredly is in the arena of passport fraud. the answers she provided on these immigration documents ultimately ends up being her approval to become a naturalized u.s. citizen. with no laws preventing a natural u.s. citizen running a school like umt cannot rose remains concerned about the security of vet records. got uploaded into a drive, personal military bio, where they were trained, how they were trained, how that could be remotely accessed. during its investigation, the fbi discovered the contractors in the umt beijing office have access to the student database. she was very interested in wright-patterson air force base paid a technology hub, their crests apparently went further. she wanted me to go out to these remote reserve and national guard centers to get the information. how did she react? oh, you don t tell him anything. we don t know each other. you don t know what you don t know was her buzz phrase. was the fbi aware of that? they were. these emails show rhoads and at least one fbi agent alerted the office, yet confirming another multimillion deal was signed. how much money was you into getting from the defense department and the va every month? between $200,000.300000 a month. the eastern district of virginia, got the case, but it stalled after a disagreement with the fbi over how to proceed. neither the bureau nor gillis would comment to fox, but separately, the naval criminal investigative service, ncis, confirmed the case is an ongoing investigation but said nothing further. after repeated interview requests, fox went to umt where we were told chen and dr. frame were in the office. but both refused to come out after learning it was fox news. according to umt s web site, graduated 1700 students, contact by fox news, a spokeswoman said they are reviewing the deal which runs through 2019. and fox news put a series of questions to the chinese embassy here in washington but there was no immediate response. bret: we will see if there is any follow-up on capitol hill. we will definitely follow up. bret: thanks. the help wanted sign us up at virtually every federal agency here in washington, but the matter of actually getting those openings filled has become something of a political football. chief washington correspondent james rosen tells us how and why. as his deputy, rex tillerson picked a veteran who has written a book about the israeli-palestinian conflict, then someone in the white house, and abrams has his suspicions about who it was, red flag that had characterized president trump as unfit for the presidency, just like that, till or since joyce was out. they are called political appointees for a reason. the idea that people who come into this government should want to support and enact the president s agenda that he campaigned on. and aid to the secretary designate was escorted from the building after his october op-ed in the hill resurfaced last week. you would hope when the president is in this time of reflection and learns more about the critiques toward him by people in the community. and the nsc s new latin american chief was sent back to national defense university after off-camera remarks last week critical of the president reaching the white house. political reports political reports they are starting to reach them in the filling of the sub cabinets 400 jobs while supporters of abrams stated white house is hardly applying a consistent standard. nikki haley. donald trump is everything i taught my children not to do in kindergarten. the candidate fired back, the people of south carolina are embarrassed by nikki haley paid since then, haley has been confirmed as the president s ambassador to the united nations paid supporters of the administration contended is not just loyalty that is slowing down staffing. the approval of the trumpet nominees. of the 4,000 positions, those who make the executive branch run, upwards of 1200 require congressional confirmation. as of this week, the trump administration has just over a dozen confirmed nominees. bret? bret: james, thank you. there are signals coming out of the white house tonight that he trumpet administration may take enforcement of federal laws against recreational marijuana use much more seriously than its predecessor. but with recreational pot exploding into a multibillion-dollar industry, some are asking, is it too big to jail? white house press secretary said the marijuana industry and the in the states i think that is a question for the department of justice. i believe you will see greater enforcement of it. in 2013, president obama s doj said it would take a hands-off approach to states approving recreational use. no questions abound. in california, which recently passed recreational use, many medical marijuana dispensaries are making plans to expand their customer base. we have taken all of the preparations that we possibly can, and we are ready to face that music. recently, a cannabis industry representative said it is going to be difficult to unwind these laws. if the federal government starts to pull the rug out from under these businesses, i think you are going to see, obviously, business owners being very disrupted, but also you re going to see state and local leaders speaking up and saying, you know what, our voters chose this. eight states in the in and e district of columbia have legalized medical marijuana. last year, the three states combined collected nearly half a billion dollars in tax revenues from recreational weed. confusing matters, comments made by then-candidate trump on the campaign trail. then i really believe you should leave it up to the states. it should be a state situation. during a confirmation hearing, jeff sessions put the ball squarely in the court of lawmakers. if that something is not desired any longer, congress should pass a law to change the rule. in a pull out this week, 71% of americans said they support against states that already legalized medical or recreational medical marijuana. when asked by fox news, the department of justice declined to comment on spicer s comments. alicia, thank you. in international news, and syria, isis car bomb suicide bomber killed people a day after the town was liberated, meanwhile, syria peace talks resumed in geneva today. serious u.n. ambassador says his delegation is considering details of an unspecified paper presented by the u.n. envoy for syria. malaysian officials say the people who assassinated the estranged half-brother of north korea s dictator used a powerful chemical warfare agent banned by international treaty. senior foreign affairs correspondent greg palkot has more disturbing implications. the north korean regime of kim jong-un unleashed a weapon. the dramatic new claim by malaysian authorities investigating the death of kim jong-nom. the tocsin was apparently applied by two young women, one who was nauseous after the attack. experts say north korea has some 5,000 tones of chemical weapons, and the small amount needed could have been smuggled in. while there was only one person who died in this, we have to be fairly clear that the north koreans are willing to use the world s most destructive weapon on a regular basis. seven north koreans being sought, the one under arrest, also a chemist. officials there continue to deny involvement. malaysian foreign minister shot back. the investor has been formed of the process involved, but he continues to be delusional. in fact, experts say this public killing could be pyongyang s way of sending a message. like the former number two who recently declared the regime s days are numbered. he is now reportedly and hiding. it could be a message to a longtime ally china as well-paid north korea criticized this week new rules beijing against pyongyang in the wake of a recent missile watch. saying kim jong-nam had long been protected by beijing at his home in a chinese territory. back in the 90s, domestic terrorists used this to kill. it could be first time that north korea north used it. bret: president trump takes a victory lap in front of adoring conservatives at cpac then drops the hammer on certain hi. i m dave nemeth. hair club provides exclusive technologies and proven solutions for every stage of hair loss. at hair club, we understand what it s like to lose your hair, and we understand what it s like to get it back, and we would like you to have that experience. based on my need for immediate results, hair club customized the right solution for me. it s called xtrands. it s new and only available through hair club. i walked in with a bald spot, and that same day, walked out with a full head of hair. just call or go online now to receive your free information kit and dvd at no obligation. you ll hear more about our full range of solutions, including exclusive non-surgical xtrands and xtrands plus. now i look in the mirror and i just can t 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(echo) with quicksilver from capital one you ve always earned unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. welcome to unlimited. what s in your wallet? and i love the first amendment; nobody loves it better than me. nobody. so i m not against the media, i m not against the press. i don t mind bad stories if i deserve them. but i am only against the fake news, media or press. they should put the name of the person. you will see stories dry up like you ve never seen before. bret: president donald trump at cpac, and rock star welcome there. he spent a lot of time talking about, as he does, the media and fake news . sean spicer hadn t on the record off-camera gaggle, it is called, were not the press pool, what he called an expanded pool. he did not include some networks and some organizations, and that caused quite a kerfuffle. the white house correspondents association said the wac a board is protesting strongly how it is being handled. organizations that were allowed into share information and were not. the board will be discussing this further with white house staff. fox joined the complaint in the pool to the white house staff as well. but the material was accessible. it was put out by the press poo pool. let s bring in our panel. byron york, chief political correspondent of the washington examiner, charles lane, and charles krauthammer. i want to get to the overall message that president trump continues to hit on here. and the specifics of this gaggle and why it caused a lot of people to question access. i think you were like when you called it a little arcane. i think that is probably true. i think the first thing you should say, all of us in journalists should be in a favor of access. that said, i don t think this was the worst thing in the world. the white house has had briefings for limited numbers of journalists for quite a while. as you point out, not only did they get a cool report pull ret a recording of the whole thing. my guess is, you won t see it again, and if the white house wants to stick it to organizations, they will find more subtle ways to do it. i think the bottom line is, we should be in favor of more access for everybody. bret: that is a key, the excess. i guess on a day when he is out saying he is going to do something about it, then this happens, this expanded pool that includes the washington post, the new york times , time, others, cnn, that kind of send a message that sent set off alarm bells. denial of access wasn t random. it was selective and targeted at various media that have been sort of, you know, on his blacklist for some time. and he has been complaining about them specifically on calling them fake news. i have to say that what struck me about his remarks though, there was a hint of defensiveness in and for the first time. he took pains to say, no, i wasn t really saying all the media is the enemy of the people, just a fake media. nobody loves the first amendment more that i prayed in the scheme of things for donald trump, that sounded like kind of a climbdown in the sense that it seemed like some of the criticism he had been getting for that awful enemy of the people remark had started to hit home. you remember the admiral said it was one of the most dangerous things he has ever heard or words to that effect. what the president is trying to do in a time when conservatives have a lot of internal disagreements amongst themselves, one thing they can agree on is that they don t like the mainstream media. he is trying to use that in addition to pursuing his own little quarrels with particular media, trying to strike this one theme that all conservatives agree on and take advantage of that. bret: here is another little part of the speech. somebody said, a poll came out, and i say, what network is it? and they ll say, a certain let s not even mention names, right? we have a lot of them. look, the clinton news network is one. we have to fight it. bret: charles, a popular message with his supporters, what steve bannon talked about. is it working, does it work long-term? it works on the base. he will get the cheers and applause. i don t think it works anywhere else. i think people are rightly somewhat concerned. they may not be alarmed. what happened today was symbolic and minor, as a real thing. nonetheless, the symbolism is alarming. the president uses a phrase from lennon, enemies of the people. if you were an enemy of the people in lenin s day, you were dead. these are serious historical terms that shouldn t ever be used, and you are sending a message that you are hostile to certain media outlets. as you say, on the same day, you explicitly, and subtly exclude them from any gaggle. in the scheme of things, that doesn t matter, but i am glad to see that fox joined with all of the others, we being a favored outlet for trump, remembering that when obama excluded fox from access way back when, everyone rallied around us and said, if you don t include them, we re not going to be there. it is the only way to do it. the press can t allow itself to be bullied. and i m glad it s not. bret: but i can hear middle america in my head, i can hear them say, god, they are obsessing about this white house gaggle, and their heads were exploding about the words he is using. i can hear it, i can hear it on social media. it is important though. it is important but i will speak for middle america. i went to the speech day. trump comes out and talks for a long time about the press, 10, 15 minutes. then he says, in conclusion, and you think, is that all he s going to talk about today. then he delivered a long speech, the speed you thought he would give about his agenda, talking about what he has done and what he intends to do. i counted a dozen bullet points, border security, violent crime, tpp, lots and lots of stuff. so in an alternate universe, you could cover the, say, two-thirds of trump s speech that was about his actual agenda. bret: i should point out to command the was included, new york times , and the l.a. times were not. on the other hand, he took a shot at the washington post in his speech, talking about the story with the nine sources. you know what we re not talking about today and every network is not talking about today, this whole fbi deal and whether reince priebus talked to the fbi about getting the story straight about the new york times reporting create the white house put out a very detailed kind of background on what priebus says happened, that the new york times story was wrong. but we re not talking about tha that. as in many other cases, it s hard to decide whether this was a deliberate act of misdirection or whether it just happened to turn out this way. i always tend to not believe in intentions and conspiracies because it gives anybody that you talk about, even washington, too much credit. they couldn t organize a two car funeral if they tried. i would assume it was random. but it did actually take attention away from an odd story and one that seems to imply that even though the impetus came from the fbi, there was the white house political sort of operatives trying to persuade the fbi to make them look or to help to dismiss a story about russian influence, and those kind of interactions completely pushed back on that. president trump tweeting the fbi is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time. they can t even find the leakers within the fbi itself. classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on u.s. find now. he says. to your point, byron, he did come on to talk about the travel band that s coming up, as well as repeal and replace of obamacare, at house speaker john boehner says is not going to happen. there was substance in there. here is the important thing about the speech in that room, the conservatives in cpac. it was very well received. it was not below the roof off well received, but it was well received. and the people who love trump, they left all of it, but the people who really didn t love trump, about that supported ted cruz. most of them had come around to support trump, some of them not completely, they left parts of it, the part about cutting regulation, tax reform, increasing military spending. and they loved the part that cpac with clinton. came to cpac, hasn t happened in a long time. bret: democrats choose a leader, what is going on with leader, what is going on with north korea, plus winners a a aa hillary clinton. i believe i could pull people together so we can come together as a party and we can win elections so we don t have to go through this thing anymore. tom perez and keith ellison actually leading in the hunt for the dnc chair. there are seven candidates still up for grabs voting tomorrow in atlanta. a couple of the candidates have dropped out. the question is, which may what does the democratic party go. we are back with a panel. byron? the interesting thing is how little it has to do with why democrats just lost. and why they have lost so many seats and so much power and influence across the country. it started basically as kind of a real fight of the hillary-bernie fight with tom perez being the hillary stand-in and keith ellison being the bernie stand-in. now it seems to be a heading trump contest. bret: what is clear, either one, chuck, going to take the party, it seems, towards the elizabeth warren-bernie sanders wing. or even further to the left. all of the energy now is on the left. so much so that chuck schumer has actually, through pressure from the base, been forced to endorse keith ellison. this has been described in some of the press as group therapy for a defeated party still trying to make sense of novembe. the question i think a lot of people are saying privately among the party, if we brand ourselves so far today left coming out of this, will we be able to recover in those battleground states? bret: quickly to north korea. you have this strange story that continues to get more strange, the assassination, which now they are saying was a chemical nerve agent that was used on this half-brother of kim jong-un. and you have north korea threatening missiles and launches and tests to come. outlook, the vx agent that was used is very rare, very sophisticated, and probably the deadliest agent on earth. it is not something you pick up at walmart. it clearly makes this an obvious part by an obsessed and paranoid leader in north korea who happens to control some nukes and is working on missiles. i think this is sort of the signature of a regime plot, and it just reminds people, including the chinese, of how dangerous this regime is. this one lightning, winners or losers, winner first. winner, mike pence, putting pressure on nato to spend more money, saying, i want you to expand your plans to spend more, if you don t have a planned, get one. bret: loser? andrew mccain, the second guy who s managed to get himself involved in both scandals. republican saying he was in the tank for hillary clinton, democrats complaining he is in the tank for the trump white house. there is no winning. bret: winners and losers? my winner, teresa may, favored her candidate in an ancient labor constituency, in another district, her enemies on the right were defeated. she commands the center and the political high ground in britain as a result. my loser is milo yiannopoulos. it seems like ten years ago, but it was this week when his career crashed and burned for some comments he made about how great pedophilia is. i say good riddance to him. bret: winner and loser? kim jong-un is the loser. so enrich that the chinese have cut off outgoing exports out of pyongyang, 40% of their exports. my winner, of swords, julian assange, the weekly wikilea. apparently has been visited with increasing frequency by pamela anderson who says that she spent more time with him than with her three ex-husbands. family show. i ll leave it there. slow and that was worth the extra seconds i gave you. i needed all three. brerererere president s war on fake news: yes. no accountability. fire heather? no i do not agree with it. the press is supposed to call out those in authority. if they don t, who does? also asked if the democrat party would move toward the center. gary harden running to the left as fast as leadership can take them. leaving much of mainstream leadership behind. during alicia acuna s story that should enforce president rules against it none your business, no. if he was smart like he claims, he would start collecting tax revenues from it and make it federal. casey kelly, yes, because it s illegal. i don t care about the facts of its benefits. he i actually agree with the studies i have read bottom line drugs equal illegal. that s your friday feedback thanks to all of you. on twitter @ bret baier very close to 1 million followers. if you don t follow me at bret baier. thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. that s it for this special report, fair, balanced and