the wall. i believe mexico will pay for the wall. i have a good relationship with mexico. we re negotiating nafta. in some form mexico will pay for the wall. but mexico will not pay for the wall and that is why the american government is on the verge of a shutdown. donald trump humiliated himself to everyone with a high school level understanding of government when he first said mexico will pay for the wall. and then he got personally humiliated on the telephone with the president of mexico when the president of mexico told him he would not pay for the wall. to which the president of the united states said, you cannot say that to the press. if you are going to say that, mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then i do not want to meet with you guys anymore, because i cannot live with that. there was the great negotiator the trump voters put in the white house. the great tough guy the trump country that kind of power. what if his campaign speech had been, we will build a wall and i will force the democrats in congress to pay for that wall with your tax dollars or i will shut down the congress. today the president tweeted this, we need the wall for the safety and security of our country. we need the wall to help stop the massive inflow of drugs dpr mexico, now rated number one most dangerous country in the world. if there is no wall, there is no deal. and here we are tonight because the president failed to get mexico to pay for the wall. the senate began debating tonight a bill passed by the house today that would continue funding the government until february 16th. it would extend the children s health insurance program for six years, something that democrats want. that provision was obviously attached to the bill in the hope of tragicing democrat votes but only six democrats voted for the bill today. joining us sam stien, daniel dale is also with us. adam, how do you see this play unfolding on the senate floor tonight? one of the things you re seeing tonight is more manipulation by mitch mcconnell because one of the secrets of the senate is it can move very fast when it wants to. the bill that came over from the house could be voted on tonight. but they re trying to show they can defeat it and leave another day in negotiations. and a day in negotiation terms, especially this close to a deadline is eons. so mitch mcconnell is preventing a vote from happening. he s trying to hold the vote open till tomorrow because he thinks it will put more pressure on them. this is a manufactured shutdown by the republicans. here is the most extraordinary thing i have ever heard a senate leader say in a situation like this. here s mitch mcconnell saying tonight on the senate floor that he does not know what the president wants. let s listen to this. the presidency, under our constitutional system is not irrelevant. he s the person who signs things into law. and for most of us in the house and senate on the republican side, we re interested in what his views are. and those have not been made fully apparent yet. that s a moment we have never seen in a situation like this before. and we ve never seen a president have an affair with a porn star either. so these are weeks and days of firsts, i suppose. but it is presenting a few interesting and difficult quandaries for lawmakers on the hill. this morning the president tweeted that he didn t want a six year c.h.i.p. extension, which was news to everyone in washington d.c. because that s what the republican strategy has been and is for funding the government. what we were reporting today is that it threw things momentarily into utter chaos on the hill. where republicans are to check if the bill they were attaching the entire government funding operation to would end up being vetoed by the president. that s a peculiar thing to have to inquire about 48 hours before the government shuts down. so he s creating a lot of problems for the process and it doesn t make mitch mcconnell s life easier or chuck schumer s life easier. because this started he met with nancy pelosi and president trump and had a daca deal but that was rescinded shortly thereafter. does the white house believe that donald trump flying to florida tomorrow, getting out of town, will somehow absolve him of any blame for the government shutdown. i think the white house knows donald trump wants to go to florida, and they let him do what he wants, they let him have his two scoops of ice cream and let him go to florida when he wants to do that. i think it s clear regardless of who s to blame for this issue, the president will be blamed. he has unified control of the government. the president gets blamed when it s not his fault. i think what s interesting here, is trump has surrendered some of his leverage in making the case himself for d.r.e.a.m.ers so do democrats want to shut down the government for ill leem immigration? trump has made it that d.r.e.a.m.ers should be treated with heart. so i don t know if the primary argument is going to work for them the way the president thinks it is. and lindsey graham, who s been trying to maintain a relationship with the president to influence the president in these matters. he s hit a point of exasperation telling the washington post today we don t have a reliable partner at the white house to negotiate it. graham said that thursday morning this has turned into an s. show for no good reason. he s aiming that at both the president and john kelly because he has talked specifically about kelly s attempts to go up to the hill and try to negotiate something because he thinks he s a better negotiator than lindsey graham. i ve never seen a more dysfunctional set of negotiations in my life. another thing interesting about lindsey graham, he also said he would not vote for the house passed cr, which tells you something. which is that mitch mcconnell may not have 50 republican votes for the partisan house passed bill. so mitch mcconnell has probably failed to get a majority of his republicans to vote for his bill. there s a bipartisan that will pass easily. but he can t get the votes for the house cr. so he s leaning on democrats to cover for his own failure. i ve been wondering about that myself, and i ve been wondering about whether the democrats and chuck schumer should drop any 60-vote threshold and watch this go to a vote on the senate floor and see if it fails on the majority vote. you need unanimous consent to do that. you need cooperation of all 100 senators. although republicans would look silly if they tried to block democrats from letting them have majority threshold on a bill they claim is important to have the government open. sam, i want to go back to the president flying out of town and if the vice president flies out of town, then you know that they don t think there s anything that they can do here. but the president going to florida just completely leaving the scene of the shutdown, how do you expect that will play? well, it s not so much that he s at his own property probably playing golf while tens, if not hundreds of thousands of government workers are furloughed, which is bad optics, i would surmise. but it s also a wasted opportunity. after the 2013 shutdown, one of the thing it is obama white house did was they had obama in settings and stuff that showed he was still working, even though the government wasn t and putting a spotlight on the government functions that weren t working. and to be frank about shut downs, they re tedious blame games. one of the great tools the president has is the bully pulpit. so i don t see this as so much a dumb pr move, although it probably is one, it s really a wasted opportunity for trump to stay in d.c. and hammer the message he s still working even if the government is not. let s listen to what paul ryan says about this as he tried to play the blame game. i ask the american people to understand this. the only people in the way of keeping the government open is the democrats. whether or not there s a shut down is entirely up to them. daniel dale, paul ryan seems to have forgotten about the president of mexico who was the first person who stood in the way of paying for the wall. and he s omitting the president of the united states who rejected a bipartisan deal after saying he would sign anything braugtd brought to him. i agree with sam. they re going to blame each other. some of the arguments are rational, some are not going to be. but it s clear to everyone, democrats cannot be solely blamed for what we re seeing tonight. sam, thank you for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. the fbi is investigating whether russia funneled money to the national rifle association and then to president trump s campaign. and president trump is reportedly livid at john kelly after john kelly called him uninformed. 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( ) the one and only cadillac escalade. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac escalade. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac escalade from around $879 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer. until february 16th. tonight john kelly might be learning the hard way that donald trump doesn t believe in evolution. he has evolved in the way he s looked at things. campaign to governing two different things and this president is very flexible in terms of what is in the realm of the possible. the new york times reports president trump was livid when john kelly described him as evolving in his immigration position. they fielded calls to john kelly s comments as undermining the president. before he talked about it on trump news, he had been quoted by some democrats telling them that donald trump had been uninformed about some immigration issues when campaigning and has evolved since then. the president tried to kill the theory of evolution saying in tweets the wall is the wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day icon received of it. here s what he said when asked about john kelly today. he s great. he s doing a great job. i think general kelly has done a great job. he s a special guy. he didn t say that. i don t think he didn t say it the way you would like him to say it. he s doing a terrific job. joining us now francesca and adam is back with us. i want to remind everyone what the president had to stay about steve bannon four days before he was fired. let s take a look at this. do you have confident in steve? look, i like mr. bannon. he s a friend of mine. i like him. he s a good man. he s not a racist, i can tell you that. he s a good person. and francesca, four days later he s fired. so where do we stand tonight on john kelly s status in the white house? this is the first sort of dispute like this that you ve seen between john kelly and the president. and at the point in which steve bannon was fired, we all knew that was coming. that wasn t a surprise to a lot of us who are at the white house every day, but even viewers of the show. and the same goes for reince priebus, john kelly s predecessor. at this point he was fired, we thought for months he was on the ropes. since day one there was talk about how long reince priebus would stay in the role. so the fact that this is the first dispute we ve seen between these two men play out, considering everything else you ve seen play out in the white house between president trump and officials, this is remarkable. we saw him go up to the hill and try to legislate a package to save the day. this is the least experienced chief of staff in history that has had such meetings ever. least experienced and the least interesting in learning some of the critical parts of the job about how congress works, the different bodies work. there are stories about him refusing to talk to former chief of staffs who have talked to him, to help him learn the ropes, both democrats and republicans. so i think this is a man who believes he knows everything he needs to know, doesn t have a lot to learn, but nothing can be further from the truth. he has very little idea how the process works. it s a shame he s not go doing more to learn what he doesn t know. the president is always looking to assign blame. is he at this point assigning blame inside the white house that we are at the government shutdown threshold. so far president trump is blaming democrats for the fact that there might be a government shutdown and specifically the fact that they want to see the pathway for citizenship for d.r.e.a.m.ers in a bill pass here, however if you look at what the president said this morning, it was the president who undermined his own strategy by sending out the tweet about the children s health insurance program, which muddied the waters on whether or not he supported the short term resolution. and then you had paul ryan come out and say before the house vote, of course, he supports it, i talked to him on the phone, he tells me he s behind it the way it is currently. by the white house statement that came out said he supports the short term resolution, but it wasn t clear as mitch mcconnell brought up on the floor what he wanted to happen here. if you re looking tomorrow to assign blame, there s going to be a lot of talk about what the president could have done differently in the situation as well. adam, we have an update on the president s plans in florida this weekend. on saturday, they have scheduled an anniversary event for the president s inauguration. which tickets start at $100,000 a couple. $250,000 a couple will get you a seat at the dinner and a photograph with the president. and so, with the government possibly shutdown on saturday, the president plans to be in florida, raising money and having pictures taken for $250,000 a shot. i think that shows the fundamental lack of seriousness about his approach to this shutdown. he s tried, you know, very little to actually make it to prevent it from happening. he has undermined republican strategy, and this weekend he s going to be cavorting with very rich people in florida, miles away from where negotiations are happening. i think the significance of mike pence not being there is also significant because that s one vote that republicans might need in a pinch. but he seems to also not think it s serious enough to stick around town and present the shutdown from happening. it s a fundamental lack of seriousness. thank you both. coming up the fbi is investigating whether russia fundaled illegal campaign money to the national rifle association which then used that money to support the trump presidential campaign. that would be a crime. it s absolute confidence in 30,000 precision parts. or it isn t. it s inspected by mercedes-benz factory-trained technicians. or it isn t. it s backed by an unlimited mileage warranty, or it isn t. for those who never settle, it s either mercedes-benz certified pre-owned, or it isn t. the mercedes-benz certified pre-owned sales event. now through february 28th. only at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. .nausea, heartburn, when indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea! nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea! here s pepto bismol! ah. nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. money to influence federal elections. the nra spent $30 million in support of the trump for president campaign. that is triple what the nra spent in the last presidential election in sport of mitt romney s election in 2012. it notes in the nra meeting in kentucky, aleksandr torshin spoke to donald trump jr. during a gala event at the group s national gathering in kentucky in may 2016 when his father won an earlier than usual nra presidential endorsement. in december the new york times reported on an e-mail sent from an operative named rick clay in may 2016, to jeff sessions and campaign adviser rick dearborn who is now a white house deputy chief of staff. russia was quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the u.s. and would attempt to use the nra s annual convention in kentucky to make contact. he testified before the kmet committee yesterday and members said he answered all the questions and never claimed executive privilege. today they released the testimony of the founder of fusion gps. his testimony was consistent with what he told the judiciary committee. we know that only because diane feinstein took it upon herself to release the transcript of the senate judiciary committee s testimony, and she did it without the committee chairman s approval, chuck grassley. one point he discussed was the russian connection to the national rifle association. glen simpson told the committee, it appeared the russians penetrated the nra, it was designed to infiltrate conservative organizations and they targeted conservative organizations, religious and otherwise, and seem to have made a very concerted effort to get in with the nra. in simpson s testimony, he identifies aleksandr torshin as, quote, a russian banker/duma member/mafia leader, who is a life member of the nra. joining us now, natasha bertrand and barbara mcquad. and natasha, this russia connection to the nra, what was it that the russians believed they could accomplish, other than just funding for the trump campaign? well, it s interesting. this is just another example of how the russians were really trying to exploit the divisions that existed in american society in order to ingratiate themselves in the political culture. it happened with facebook, when they were trying to sow division based on race. they were infiltrating these organizations, such as the nra to cozy up to the political leaders during the campaign. and one of the assist tenants to aleksandr torshin, she wrote back in 2015 what we need now, the united states needs in order to have better ties with russia is a republican president. she then went on to pursue him and, you know, she went to a few of his rallies, asked him questions. this was a long term effort that lasted on behalf of the russians to use the nra to get to the trump campaign. whether or not that panned out, whether or not that russian money went to the nra, we don t know. and whether or not that money came from the russians and was then used by the nra to give to the trump campaign is something that will need further investigating. what does the special prosecutor have by way of tools to find out what the nra was up to? does he start subpoenaing the records? i think he does. the first thing he can get is their campaign finance filings. were they blatant to list aleksandr torshin as the person who made donations, probably not. perhaps there are intermediaries there. the first step is to look at the filings and see who made contributions to the nra. the next step is to use a subpoena to get the records to see who made the contributions. it can take several steps to identify who the true donors are, but the first step is getting records through grand jury subpoenas. it s fascinating to see a putin-inspired operation funding the concept of the right to bear arms. that every person in america has a right to a gun. that is something vladimir putin would never allow in russia. he s opposed to that idea. you have fringe groups in russia who are pushing this right to bear arms movement that isn t popular in russian society. the average russian says they don t want looser gun controls. so this is something very unusual would have gotten russian government funding. and if it did it, if it gave money to give to the nra, that would be extremely telling. were the negotiations continue between the committee and steve bannon about testimony, they ve decided to delay his testimony to figure out exactly what they can agree he s willing to talk about. but we have a report indicating that donald trump, the president of the united states, personally made the decision to curtail the testimony of former chief white house political strategist steve bannon before the house intelligence committee. barbara, there s the president of the united states in the white house making the legal calls, the lawyer calls, on what steve bannon should or should not say in that committee. yeah, it s really astonishing because especially in light of how complicated the idea of executive privilege can be. it applies only to deliberative processes, during the duration of the administration, for example. it s difficult for lawyers to figure out how it applies. the idea that donald trump is back there calling the shots is problematic. i think it also feeds into the notion of obstruction of justice. is he asserting it for proper reasons? to preserve the power of the presidency or for some improper purpose to prevent disclosure of facts that could embarrassing to him. they did not assert executive privilege for rick dearborn. so sarah sanders s statements seem disingenuous. you have to imagine that some of the trump lawyers were horrified by this. they have a client who is under investigation for obstruction of justice, they would not want him near this kind of maneuvering and trying to control what someone says in a committee hearing. this is another thing for bob mueller to look at, frankly. he s building a case of obstruction of justice against the president, and what we ve seen from the public behavior and his twitter account, he basically incriminated himself when he said he fired michael flynn because he spoke to the fib. this is getting trump in bigger trouble than he needs to be in. the reports specify that trump talked to the deputy white house council not the white house counsel, because don mcgahn is a client of the same lawyer that represents steve bannon. so we imagine steve bannon on the phone with his other client at the white house. apparently that s not how it works. it is complicated when you have one lawyer representing people involved in different capacities. there is a potential conflict of interest there. clients are allowed to waive those conflicts. i m not sure why the president relied on the deputy for that legal advice. it s a cast of characters that share the lawyers. hope hicks testimony has been delayed. hope hicks is one of the people who michael wolff in his book describes will crack like an egg under this questioning. it s her, donald trump jr., steve bannon. these are players that have deep knowledge in the white house s inner workings. no matter what president trump likes to say about steve bannon s, he came out and said he had nothing to do with my presidency. if that s the case, why are they trying so hard to prevent him from testifying. why did they say to him after the letter was written on air force one why was bannon looped into that. and now the trump administration, as they do, they try to distance themselves from him when anything comes out. thank you both. coming up, it s time to get a second opinion about donald trump s health and his mental health. in fact, we re going to get a bunch of second opinions. including one from a former air force physician, whose job it was to certify personnel to work in the nuclear weapon program. we will ask him if donald trump would qualify to work in the nuclear weapons program. my dentist said something interesting.my teeth are like that we actually verify. and we can also verify that what goes down doesn t always come back up. [ splash ] [ toilet flushes ] so if you need a great plumber, find one at angie s list. join today for free. because your home is where our heart is. overall health is excellent. the new york times decided to get a second opinion. in fact, they got three second opinions. the times consulted three cardiologists. the first cardiologist interviewed by the times said god, no, when he was asked if the president is in excellent health. the cardiologist pointed to the president s high cholesterol levels. dr. eric toe pell, a card yol at the scripts research institute found the discussion about whether the president is technically obese to be irrelevant. here the question is does he have abdominal on bee sesty. i don t care what his height is. look at his abdomen. that s the machinery for inflammation of the heart. the president was proud of passing the montreal cognitive assessment, in which he was able to name these three animals. there they are. luckily for the president, the cognitive assessment did not ask him to identify three countries in africa. any three countries. take your time, mr. president. in yesterday new york times another doctor said we need to know much more about the president s mental state than his ability to tell the difference between a lion and a camel. dr. steven boozer was a physician in the air force for 12 years and is a trained clinical psychologist. one of his responsibilities was e evaluating the mental ability of those involved in the nuclear program. yesterday he said, personnel who handle nuclear weapons are held to higher standards than other personnel. the department of defense specifies, quote, only those personnel who have demonstrated the highest degree of individual reliability for allegiance, trustworthiness, conduct behavior shall be allowed to perform duties associated with nuclear weapons and they shall be continuously evaluated for adherence to p.r.p. standards. he wrote, the commander in chief, is the only individual in the chain who is not subject to the ongoing certification under the program. in his op-ed piece yesterday he asked this question, what if president trump were instead airman trump and was to be assessed under the program s guide lines, would i certify him as p.r.p. ready to work in the vicinity of nuclear weapons? dr. stephen boozer will answer that question after the break. with adt, psychologist. he is the co-author of a clear and president danger, narcissim of the era of president trump. would donald trump pass the air force test for personnel working with weapons? that s the real question. somebody in that level of power with not only access to nuclear weapons or the ability to launch them within minutes, would he be certified around nuclear weapons? i have to start by saying absolutely not without further evaluation. looking at somebody were he to be in the air force or the military, we would look at past behaviors, sexually abusive behavior to women and cyber bullying through twitter. we look at paranoia of being persecuted by others or surveilled and untruthful comments or at least highly distorted comments and someone like that we would be suspect of giving authorization to be around nuclear weapons unless we did a thorough psychiatric evaluation to determine what was going on in the case. there is concern about this for many years. it hasn t ever been as prominent as it is now. you actually quote something jimmy carter said. he wrote about this in the mid 1990s, and he was writing about the 25th amendment and how it needs clarification. he said consider the medical histories of the 18 presidents who have sat in the oval office during the 20th century. one half of the 18 had cardiac disease, five had serious hypertension and four suffered strokes while in office. given that the 25th amendment at the moment is the only thing we have that in any way concerns it self concerns with the president s fitness, what else do you think we need to have in place? that s a wonderful question. we need safeguards. when you talk about nuclear war, global nuclear war that could eliminate the species from the planet, there needs to be safeguards in place, one that is in congress right now, house bill 669 for bids any president, not just the current president but any president from launching a first strike nuclear attack against any country without the okay from congress, which is a common sense bill. why would anybody not want congress to at least approve an attack of that nature? that s one thing. the missiles are currently on a hair trigger wire and we need to somehow make a safer system with that. there is house bill 1987 which allows congress to insist that the president get an evaluation, psychological or physical if there is ever any concern he s incapacitated. both these pieces of legislation are common sense ones that in this day in age with older presidents that could be suffering from either medical or cognitive impairment, why would we not want the safeguards in place to keep the american people safe? thank you for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. thank you. tonight s last word is next. recognized for her compassion and care. he spent decades fighting to give families a second chance. but to help others, they first had to protect themselves. i have afib. even for a nurse, it s complicated. and it puts me at higher risk of stroke. that would be devastating. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. once i got the facts, my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®. to help keep me protected. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner. .significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. it has similar effectiveness to warfarin. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor interacting with less of your body s natural blood-clotting function. for afib patients well-managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® compares in reducing the risk of stroke. don t stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase risk of stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. if you ve had spinal anesthesia, watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle-related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures. .and before starting xarelto®-about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. it s important to learn all you can. .to help protect yourself from a stroke. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. there s more to know™. or one that s good for my teeth? that whitens my teeth i don t have to choose! from crest 3d white comes new whitening therapy. it s our best whitening technology. plus, it has a fortifying formula to protect your enamel. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life. i m the one clocking in when you re clocking out. sensing your every move and automatically adjusting to help you stay effortlessly comfortable. i can also help with this. does your bed do that? oh. i don t actually talk. though i m smart enough to. i m the new sleep number 360 smart bed. let s meet at a sleep number store. for more, we re joined by frank thorp. the senate opens for business at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. what happens then? we ll figure out who blinks first, to be honest. we re in a situation senate democrats hope to bring republicans to the table, hoping to bring president trump to the table to negotiate something on daca but this is something senator mcconnell said repeatedly doesn t need to be addressed until march. senator mcconnell doesn t believe that. we expected a vote tonight, that this short-term continuing resolution that includes this funding for the chip program for the children health insurance program, but doesn t include anything for the d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s. and daca recipients. mcconnell pushed it until tomorrow. he wants to put as much pressure on the democrats that plan on voting against the bill, he wants to put as much pressure as possible on the democrats in an effort to make them flip and in effort to make them look responsible for what could and looks like could be a potentially inevitable shut down if they don t get anything done tomorrow. is there any indication chuck schumer is considering allowing this to go to a vote, in other words, shopping the 60-vote threshold, letting it go to a majority vote and then on the bet that possibly the republicans can t even have those votes for the majority? there is no indication that would happen. seems to bed a vat kat advocaing idea. he doesn t want to extend this another month. he wants to have these
me. the heaters don t work. willful blindness to trump s triumphs and how the fbi and doj can stop the bleeding. that s the focus of tonight angle. think about how reporters would handle things under this hypothetical. hillary clinton, not donald trump, won the presidency in 2016. i realize that s terrifying to contemplate, but bear with me for just a second. imagine that bill is too old to chase intern so she isn t distracted by any new scandals, and somehow during her first year in office, hillary oversees a stock market rocketing up, there s a big drop in unemployment, including among minority workers, and imagine this, imagine consumer confidence, business investment, even wages in certain sectors, all up. imagine hillary announcing that dozens of american run businesses are bringing jobs back to the united states. they are doling out thousand actually some even trying to give obama credit for all of 2017s good economic news. he thinks it started from the day he became president when in fact he inherited good conditions. i thought barack obama did turn around the economy to bring it back from the precipice with tough action. mr. trump inherited an economy that was in full recovery for blacks and whites from president obama. now he s taking credit for picking up somebody at the end of a trip that somebody else broke the trip. laura: somebody else drove the trip. i don t even know what he s talking about. to add insult to injury, even while business leaders do credit trump s tax cut with all the deregulation, what s the big business story of today? here it is. a new reuters poll claiming that just 2% of americans have gotten a raise, a bonus or other benefits from trump s tax cuts. okay, kids, here s a lesson from laura. you usually get a benefit from a tax cut when you pay your taxes. everyone is going to benefit except for upper income earners. hello? and from the trump tax plan, they will see more money in their pockets come april when most people pay their taxes. most people don t pay quarterly. we will see if at that point reuters runs another poll just to see if people are happier or benefiting. a far more telling survey from the national association of business economics finds that company say sales and profits rose at the end of last year and nearly half of the respondents say they are now paying more in wages and in salaries to their employees. this is news that we ve been waiting for and that will benefit workers long term. it s about time people had a raise. i promise you, if hillary clinton had had this record, the praise would be deafening on the eve of her state of the union. meanwhile, the media spent the day blaming the real president for the voluntary resignation of fbi deputy director andrew mccabe. the president play this very active, public role in pressuring the justice department to get rid of mccabe. so far the white house is saying the president was not involved in this, was not pushed at all. it seems hard to believe that. this is yet another instance of the president bullying and pressuring law enforcement agencies he s concerned about investigating him. if anybody thinks in the justice department laura: media bias at nbc, that s my question. the only problem with that lovely scenario they painted, there s no evidence to indicate that trump is responsible for the resignation. do we really want to deputy director of the fbi who was so nomadic recused himself from both probes. there was a new york times story tonight suggesting that fbi director christopher wray was concerned about the findings of a forthcoming government investigation into the fbi and into mccabe s conduct. that s the inspector general s report. the time source said that the director and mccabe had a frank conversation about that report and apparently a demotion was discussed for mccabe. whatever the explanation for his departure, i say this, it s about time. there s a larger point being lost in the mccabe blame game. the president is actually trying to restore confidence and law enforcement institutions that i think for a long time have been used as political instruments. there are a lot of great rank-and-file people, at the at the overwhelming majority. but when the leadership appears to have a political ax to grind, nobody is served by that. it s time to cleanse the upper tiers of the justice department and the fbi of all partisanship. media from the moment the story broke on all the other channels and on nbc, cbs, it was trump to blame? to blame is mccabe and to blame is comey and anybody else at the senior levels of the fbi. this is quite a disgrace for the for the bureau. as someone who worked with the bureau, i m truly saddened by the fall from grace for everybody there. make no mistake about it, this was a plot to exonerate hillary clinton illegally and then if she lost the election, to frame donald trump with a legal crime. this was the worst period in the history of the bureau, much worse than the late hoover period when they were spying on domestic groups. this is the weaponization of the fbi for political purposes by all the people at the upper echelon of the bureau. i think it s really time for people in the other party who seem to make nothing but excuses for the senior people at the bureau and the department of justice, may i say, to kind of wake up and see that what s coming now is the federal grand jury and it s not going to be pretty. laura: you represented the bureau in the public domain and you are the spokesperson for the bureau. your reaction to today s developments in the effort to blame donald trump for the early retirement of the deputy director? they d been talking for some time that he was looking to go on terminal leave and exit the bureau. i think that was hastened as a result of the director just yesterday going to the hill, looking at the information that went into this dossier. but i will tell you, no president, whether it s trump, obama or anyone else, tells the fbi which i do. the fbi is independent. they are there for the people. to think for a minute that a sitting president would be able to push out a deputy director, that goes against everything the fbi has stood for for the past hundred nine years. laura: did you speak to mccabe a few weeks ago? i happen to be at headquarters a few weeks ago and chatted with him briefly. laura: what did he say? we didn t talk about him possibly leaving. at that time he was in the office while the director was out on other business so essentially he s the man in charge. it seemed to be business as usual. however, everybody in the bureau knew that mccabe s days would be running short because of the history. if it was time for the bureau to move on with a clean slate and get back to the work that the fbi does. laura: joe, he wanted to leave in the spring. the ig report is coming out in the spring. but it s a wild coincidence, if indeed the fbi director strolls up to capitol hill on sunday, reads this very short report, four pages, and then it just so happens that monday, mccabe is like you know something, i would rather go skiing in breckenridge for the next two weeks. i m not going to be doing this work any longer. according to the new york times in the latest publications, christopher wray was shocked on sunday when he read the four pages. first of all, if that s the case, where has he been since he was sworn in? there is enough evidence on the public record. with the information from the inspector general and from the hill with the legal release of documents that it was clear that mr. mccabe and others had engaged in highly improper, probably illegal activity in the fisa court stuff along with the dossier from christopher steele. first of all, mccabe should have been gone a long time ago and so should strzok and page and all the people involved in this. this is a dark moment for the fbi. it s going to take a lot for them to recover from this. laura: we had jim comey tweeting after the mccabe news came out. he s tweeting quite a bit. very poetic. he sat special agent andrew mccabe stood tall over the last eight months. he always makes height references, i wonder why. one small people were trying to tear down an institution will depend on. he served with distinction for two decades, i wish andy well. i also wish continued strength for the rest of the fbi. america needs you. john, what you make of the comey tweets? small people, tall people. he s 6 8 , by the way. mccabe is part of comey s legacy. andrew mccabe did a lot of good things in the bureau during his career, but it doesn t matter. when you were doing something wrong, that is the time that it has to be stopped immediately. i had some very good agents that made an unfortunate mistake along the way. laura: he was the guy to whom peter strzok reported, correct? absolutely. laura: mccabe could have, joe, we re almost out of time, mccabe could have used one of the regular field office set of investigators to do both the clinton and the trump investigation. perfection also could run this thing and run it right. he chose to put together this team, correct? kind of an unfortunate mistake. comey was a dirty cop and he dirtied up everybody else around him. laura: we also have a huge development, by the way in the rush or pro. a house committee of course has begun investigating the investigators. up next, we will talk to a congressman who voted tonight to publicly release that memo that could spell big trouble for both the fbi and doj. coming up. starting with advanced manufacturing that brings big ideas to life. and cutting-edge transportation development to connect those ideas to the world. along with urban redevelopment projects worthy of the world s top talent. all across new york state, we re building the new new york. to grow your business with us in new york state visit esd.ny.gov. replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says, you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with new car replacement™, we ll replace the full value of your car plus depreciation. liberty mutual insurance. smile dad. i take medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol. but they might not be enough to protect my heart. adding bayer aspirin can further reduce the risk of another heart attack. because my second chance matters. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. adam schiff, the top ranking democrat on the committee is wasting no time expressing his outrage. today this committee voted to put the president s personal interests, perhaps their own political interests above the national interests. laura: we also learned tonight that the intel committee has opened an investigation into the doj and the fbi. joining us now to discuss these developers, congressman chris stewart, a member of the intel committee from utah. great to see you, when can we expect this memo to be released? i would love it release to make. laura: it s in your pocket, i want that memo. pull it out, let s go. hopefully soon. it s important for the american people to see it. i hope he doesn t. laura: this is what mark walker, a republican from north carolina, said earlier today. let s watch. if your audience or if somebody is believing that this is the end all smoking gun, it isn t. does it name names? does it prevent some very intriguing facts that makes you ask even more questions to mike to make the case that this is the most shocking document in the history of mankind, i believe that s a little hyperbole. laura: are you guys engaged in hyperbole? i can tell you i haven t been. some people have and we have actually cautioned against that. this is an important document. it s very important for the american people. the process. i listen to mr. schiff and my head just wants to explode. my father was an air force pilot. to accuse us of saying we would endanger national security is just silliness. this memo doesn t do that. what it does do is ask these questions, was the fbi fair? for the accurate? we ve been making accusations, serious accusations, they ve been called traders, treasonous. for more than a year now. did the fbi make those kinds of accusations against innocent people with laughable evidence? that s the kind of think this memo will address. laura: congressman gates from florida has been a frequent guest on the show. to listen to congressman gates, this is just got barn burner of a memo. i think people have gotten your hopes up that this guy s going to go and end this person will lose his job and maybe this one will go to jail. i always find that republicans tend to, sorry, be bad storytellers. i m worried about that, as our other congressmen to whom i ve spoken in the last 48 hours. we kind of get, try to get people to temper their language. i can t speak for what everyone has said, but this memo is very factual. it s not emotional. it doesn t draw any conclusions, it just lays out the facts and let you draw the conclusions. laura: nancy pelosi spoke about an hour ago and i know you haven t seen it, so this is a gift for you, let s watch. they have made up a memo if that isn t even true, and they are lying to the american people. what are you going to do about it? the republican party, as i said, has crossed over to cover up. they are deadly afraid of the russia investigation. the fbi recently s selected by president trump, he got the memo. he could have, and said with due respect, you don t know what you re talking about. laura: she really gave it to chris cuomo. as she read it? i don t know. laura: i want to know. we had members of the department of justice over the weekend saying was reckless to release this memo when they had not read it. they didn t know what was in it. they were making accusations that they have no knowledge of. laura: where his sessions in all of this? what has he said? he is the head of the justice department in which the fbi resides. is he just not going to comment because russia? i recuse myself to all things related to russia, which i still don t understand. i think is one of the most decent, honorable men. i would say he has recused himself from one of the most important laura: you can t recuse yourself if you re going to be attorney general. i said it was you had not done that because you have i think you have an obligation to step aside and let the department to be led by someone who will not step aside. laura: you are saying sessions can t leave this department? i ve set it in the past, it s unfair for him, it s unfair for what we are trying to accomplish. laura: are there other people who are agreeing with you other than the few with quota publicly? i think there are a few. laura: i love jeff sessions. for some reason, i m concerned about this. great on immigration, good on some of the enforcement. gang stuff. frankly, the marijuana enforcement, which i think is good to give discretion to the field officers. this investigation, i m sorry, was a fraud from the beginning. rod rosenstein wet himself when he went over to the hill and is worried about answering questions. that just doesn t inspire a lot of confidence. these accusations in his testimony, that s just nuts. he was answering the question as he understood it. but unfortunately this city she was good people sometimes. laura: that s why you can t be recusing yourself and naming rod rosenstein as her deputy. we look forward to the release, and if you can give it to me before the end of the hour i would appreciate it. as congress struggles to find an immigration solution, that s a big deal for you guys, there s already a great plan in the senate that would address all the pressing problems, really? one of the authors of that bill, senator david perdue joins us with the details next. to you. oh no. well, you know, you re getting older. um, you might be experiencing some, ah, sensations. can t wait to be rescued? esurance roadside assistance lets you know when help will arrive. that s insurance for the modern world. esurance. click or call. stay at la quinta. where we re changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level. bravo, tall meeting man. start winning today. book now at lq.com start winning today. if yor crohn s symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn t worked well enough, it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn s. entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. this condition has not been reported with entyvio. tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio. if your uc or crohn s treatment isn t working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach. protections expired for about 800,000 of the so-called dreamers. democrats rejected president trump s offer last week of amnesty for nearly 2 million illegal immigrants in exchange for border security and illegal immigration cuts. but another plan exists that should be put on the table. republican senator david perdue is one of the men behind it. he joins us now with more. senator, always great to see you. i ran into you and a new event on saturday and i said you better come on the show, and here you are, so thank you. you and tom cotton in my view came up with an original idea that kind of in some ways mirrors what was going on in the hill with goodlatte and mike mccall. it was focused on the 800,000 daca people who are not kids, they are adults now for the most part. you did the chain migration, end of that, and a visa lottery. three or afforded later suddenly it s at 1.8 million. how did you go from 800 to 1.8 and was that thought process because you needed to pick up a few people? it s great to see you. a year ago you had tom cotton and myself on here and we started then with a very conservative approach of this to solve the legal immigration problem once and for all. we warned about the diversity lottery and we said we needed an end to chain migration. what we ve done there, the president has laid out, i believe, a framework that is ingenious, because we will find out if people are really serious about solving this immigration problem on both sides. i think we have the framework to actually get it done. laura: my listeners are livid. i don t mess on their show for the last three or four days and when did he campaign on this? my point is that if you want cuts in legal immigration, which is the big number, 1 million green cards every year, most of those are based not on merit but on extended family ties, aunts, uncles, cousins twice removed. i m not an amnesty person. i think it hurts people s feelings and sensibilities who have been waiting in line for a long time. what you say to those americans, americans were upset and the people waiting in line? the president has really laid out he wants an end to daca. what that means is he wants to provide they re not going to get in front of anybody, but what he is also done is given the conservatives of his party what he promised he would do, a safe and secure border with the wall. he wants to end chain migration, the most insidious part of this. it s what s caused us to be here. and we know we have a security issue with the diversity lotter lottery. laura: chain migration, i got to play this for you, kristen gillibrand, she s already kicking off her campaign practically, her views on chain migration. i think a lot of president trump s rhetoric is racist, and let s be very clear, when someone uses the phrase chain migration, it is intentional trying to demonize families, literally trying to demonize families and make it a racist slur. it s very interesting. they were out of touch when they tried to shut the government down. the shimmer shutdown. the idea, the term chain migration was termed by lyndon b. johnson, i think he was a democrat. bill clinton also called for an end when he and barbara jordan wanted to go to a merit based system like canada and australia. this is nothing more than democrats revealing how far out of touch they are. two-thirds wants to entry migration and the lottery fix the daca problem and build that wall. laura: she kept saying chained migration. she kept changing the term. totally. laura: some of the polls america the one migration. 68% oppose the visa lottery. 81% want legal immigration reduced. that s always the case whether it s the gallup poll or the harvard harris poll that just came out. 61% think border security is inadequate. steve king was on my show on friday, he said this. the numbers are just stunning. it to see that president trump has proposed 1.8 million amnesty for illegals. i think this will demoralize so very many of his supporters and how do we get back now to a place where we need to be with this? the answer is very simple. keep our eyes focused on the prize. the prize is the problems that got us focused here in the first place. chain migration on the lottery. laura: no more amnesty after this? this will be the last? this is the idea, to end the problem in the first place. laura: will they make you go up to 3 million, 4 million, i will say 5 million? if we do nothing it will be 7 million or more. this is an opportunity to stop this once and for all. laura: you think you will get enough democrats to support this? we will find out if they are really serious about solving the daca problem. laura: they don t want to give you a win on daca. they don t. we will find out. laura: a stunning new example and the contrast of the media s treatment of melania trump and michelle obama. you don t want to miss this nex next. me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn s disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. 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. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. coming at you with my brand-new vlog. just making some ice in my freezer here. so check back for that follow-up vid. this is my cashew guy bruno. holler at em, brun. kicking it live and direct here at the fountain. should i go habanero or maui onion? 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( ) only tena intimates has pro-skin technology designed to quickly wick away moisture to help maintain your skin s natural balance. for a free sample call 1-877-get-tena. laura: check this out, the media have bombarded us with stories suggesting that first lady melania trump is acting like a woman scorned. cnn, for instance, turned it into melania-gate and declared the first lady has gone awol. these past couple weeks she s been laying low. i would think so, because of course there have been some cringe-inducing stories in the first few weeks of this year. we can only look at those clues like last saturday when she posted on twitter, the anniversary of the inauguration with herself and a military escort from that date, not her husband. no mention of her husband. she was scheduled to travel with the president but canceled last minute. yesterday she left west palm beach, florida, and was back on the plane today. we don t know the reason for the trip. mott moving to the white house immediately was unprecedented. five months after he moved and she moved in. of course the fact that they have separate bedrooms. laura: oh, my god, . my next guest believes melania trump, get this, actually despises her husband. that s what sarah wrote an article on the website called nylon. she wrote that the day. she joins us now from philly. okay, sarah, you look like a very young woman, very accomplished. you are a writer, you ve written all sorts of stuff out there for various publications. how is it being a feminist for you to question another woman s lifestyle choices, whatever they are, whatever she decides to be. why are you passing judgment on them and questioning them? i don t think i m judging her life choices. if to be fair, i guess i would judge a woman who would choose to marry donald trump. he is truly a disgusting human being. i think that s like a nonpartisan issue. laura: that s not judging at all. that donald trump is disgusting? i think it s pretty much back at this point. laura: looked at our camera, so our listeners get the full sarah here. go ahead. i think donald trump is disgusting. i would say that is a fact. my story was more about how it wouldn t be surprising if a person married to donald trump was disgusted by him. i personally can t imagine a worse person being married to the donald trump. she s miserable. laura: let me get this straight, you are a reporter and you are writing about melania trump as if she s a political actor here and you are saying but that s a fact. use that donald trump is disgusting, that s a fact. you are a writer, so you know when you use the word disgusting, that s a subjective statement. it is not a fact. it is a fact that he s president of united states. it is not a fact that he is disgusting. you and your liberal friends could sit around talking about how awful the country is under donald trump. i grant you that, you think that. but how are you to judge another woman s choice about her relationship, and did you do the same, for instance, when hillary clinton stood by her man, when hillary clinton decided to fire or not fire someone who would reportedly sexually harassed someone on her campaign staff. we are making judgments about that or you reserve it for melania trump because you think her husband is disgusting? i wasn t covering the clintons, i was too young for that. with hillary, of course i would criticize her for doing that. laura: was her husband discussing? who, bill clinton? you just continuing to be like, what about these democrats, is not really an argument. you should be able to speak critically about the trump administration. your whole segment has just been talking about democrats and what they are covering. laura: what i m trying to do, sarah, it s fine, you are a liberal and you don t like trump. that s fine. but to write something about a woman s decision to travel to davo s are not travel, you make this wild leap of logic without any factual underpinning that i know of, and you carry yourself, it s a fact. what s the fact? with the evidence? is my opinion that he s gross and i can imagine being married to him. laura: i don t think anyone cares whether you want to marry him or not. he didn t ask you to marry him. you clearly care about my opinion of him because i m on your show right now. laura: i m trying to understand how a woman like you who carries herself off as a feminist tries to get in the mind of another woman. debbie that s her decision. it s her decision to believe what she wants to believe and live the life that she wants to live. maybe she thinks it s the best thing for the country. maybe she is wildly them up with her husband, but like all of us, are disappointed like people at various times. maybe you have the whole thing wrong. but as a woman and as a feminist, why are you questioning other women s choices? are you pro-choice? good one. being a feminist does not mean that you are not critical of women. you know that that s not what it means. you know it means equality for all genders. it s exactly what feminist means. it does not mean that i have to be nice to every woman that i meet. she is complicit in an administration that has been abhorrent as of now. racism has gone gump, anti-semitism has gone up. she is complicit in a pretty gross administration. the article was about my opinion. i think is disgusting. i can imagine being married to him at all the pictures we see her swatting his hand away are not evidence to the contrary. it kind of looks like she s disgusted by him. that s what my story was about. laura: that s fascinating. if they are happy, good, i hope she is happy. laura: i m sure you do. sherry hope she s happy. did you comment about michelle obama spending an extra three weeks in hawaii after that unfortunate deal with the selfie at the nelson mandela funeral? could you write about that or think about that? i guess two and a half weeks, something like that after that little episode. you don t member that? i don t remember $130,000 in hush money to a former star. laura: i guess that might pass as logic for your generation. you want to remember what you want to remember. michelle would have avoided in for a couple of days, you never know. laura: i have one question, are you going to give back the tax cut that you get because of this horrible president? are you going to give it back to the treasury to form some liberal program? i don t think it s too much for america to ask a decent man for president and someone who gives a tax cut. i m not greedy for wanting both. laura: you have a lovely evening. and hillary clinton s embarrassing cameo at the grammys and their award-winning hypocrisy when we return. educated back in bangladesh. my mom has her masters and my dad worked in the pharmaceutical industry. here they are serving food or they re delivering. and whether its hard for them internally, they never express it. they are always about doing what s best for my brother and i to lead a better life. giving back to them with whatever i earn at the end of my college experience is one of my top priorities. laura: you just knew that last night s grammys would have more anti-trump politics and #metoo moments. the public responded by tuning out in record numbers. somehow it did not strike organizers as hypocritical to feature a cameo by hillary clinton, arguably the worst enabler of a sexual abuse or that we ve ever seen in public life. of course, she the narrator of the recent anti-trump book. he had a long time fear of being poisoned. one reason why he likes to eat at mcdonald s. nobody knew what was coming and the food was safely premade. that s the one. with the grammys in the bag? in the bag. laura: she looked great there. this is a woman, by the way, that the grammys lionized. just like week we learned that hillary protected a campaign aide, or face consulting, and 2008 who was accused of sexually harassing a female staffer. some on her senior staff wanted him fired. there was sexual harassment involved, the young woman was very credible. my recommendation to the senator was to fire him. i was overruled. she overruled to personally? i was overruled, yes. laura: let s examine this breathtaking double standard with monica crowley in new york, senior fellow at the london center for policy research. and michelle from the center for american progress. michelle, take it away. it s the #metoo moment at the grammys and hillary clinton wouldn t fire a sexual harassment. i think without question hillary has been an advocate for women and girls her entire career. i actually thought that the grammys in the moment was a moment of levity, that it was funny. i thought she looked great, and i think she had a great time. i think if we sometimes take it out of always the crazy political, that s actually really good for us as a community, as a nation. laura: does it bother you that she wouldn t fire the guy? not a conservative right wing person. not at all. what i am concerned about is what we do right now to move forward to protect all women and girls. laura: don t we have better examples than hillary? why is hillary so when you want to have anyone near? that s my point. monica, let s get you in on thi this. they showcase are some heroine of the rights movement. go ahead, take it away. i found it amazing but not at all surprising that they would highly hillary clinton at the height of this cultural moment of awareness on sexual abuse, sexual misconduct. this is a woman who defended and protected a sexual predator for decades, a man also known as her husband. and of course we find out that she protected a campaign aide in 08 after she was warned, and she refused to dismiss him and not only that, his bad behavior continued after that and she continued make excuses for him. in this moment when you have all of these musicians on stage and they are all making political statements whether it s bono on immigration or the female artists on the #metoo movement, the ideas that they would take her and hold her up as some sort of symbol, that is self righteousness and hypocrisy. these are the least self-aware people on the planet. let s just step back. are we really saying that we are going to continue in 2018 to blame women for the sins of their husbands? that seems, in some ways, way antiquated and outdated. if you look at what hillary clinton has done, not who she is married to, but what she s done as senator or at the state department. she spent years and years of her time working on behalf of women and girls in this country and around the world. can i just lump in your? when she raises the idea of what she s done for women and girls. what did she do to monica lewinsky, paula jones, kathleen willie? mrs. clinton was right at the center of trying to smear and discredit these women. a narcissistic looney tunes. that s what mrs. clinton did for specific women. we can talk about maxine, who has done tons of work with hillary clinton on ship. we can talk about the mothers of the movement on gun violence prevention. we can go back and forth with names. laura: she can do a lot of good liberal things that you like and at the same time not be the best person to come out for the #metoo movement. if i were a liberal, i would be like okay, hillary, thanks for your service, but we are moving on. turn the page from the clintons. if not helping democrats. it seems like most democrats i want to know want to be done with the clintons. i do think that the #metoo movement is bigger than any one person. i do agree with you on that and i think it s a powerful moment for everybody in the country. laura: thank you so much, and we will be right back. stay right here. do you like big, juicy steak? 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champagne down pennsylvania avenue. there are only two places where america s popping champagne; the white house and the corporate boardrooms including trump tower. the gop tax scam is about bleeding the middle class dry to pad the pockets of corporate america and the wealthiest 1%. paul: joining the panel, wall street journal columnist and deputy editor dan henninger, columnist kim strassel and mary anastasia o grady and editorial page writer kate odell. why did they succeed on taxes when they failed on health care? right. that is one question, because you would expect a failure to make it harder to succeed. but i think here the health care failure really focused the minds for the gop that, for them, it was do or die for their majority in 2018 to get a tax bill passed. and it wasn t always clear they would choose do. [laughter] but also i think there was a rougher consensus on what a tax something to behold from both directions. [laughter] paul: some of it s phony, i must say. [laughter] i would say so too. but what look, the important message that has come out of this is i think both sides have wondered at times be there s value in working with each other. and what this has shown is that there is value. that the entire party benefits. so those republicans who have been a little wary of this president, they re still going the go after him when he s off course, but i i think some of them were worried that, you know, it wasn t to their benefit to work with him at all. they ve changed their mind, and donald trump realizes there s no benefit of calling mitch mcconnell and paul ryan a bunch of establishment phonies. they can get stuff done. paul: and not a single democrat, kate. how do you explain that? well, i think in some sense the party has moved left since 1986 when democrats helped write the the 1986 bill. not alone just pass it. you had bill bradley from new and you don t want to be hostage to that prettily. we ll see next politically. we ll see next year. democrats are relying on opinion polls because the press has been very negative about this. 17% of people think they re not going to get a tax cut. about 80% will. and as that develops over the course of next year, i think attitudes towards this bill are going to change, and democrats are going to be standing there saying we were against the whole thing. paul: all right. still ahead, as company like at&t, comcast and wells fargo react to the gop tax plan, we ll take a closer look at its economic impact in 2018 and no matter how the markets change. at t. rowe price. our disciplined approach remains. global markets may be uncertain. but you can feel confident in our investment experience around the world. call us or your advisor. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. the morning walk until. it. wasn t. don t let type 2 diabetes get between you and your heart. even if you reach your a1c goal you are still at risk for heart attack or stroke. talk to your health care provider today about diabetic heart disease. and find out more at heartoftype2.com. your heart and type 2 diabetes. make the connection. music yea, you can be the greatest you can be the best you can be the king kong bangin on your chest you can beat the world you can beat the war you can talk to god while bangin on his door you can throw your hands up you can beat the clock you can move a mountain you can break rocks you can be a master don t wait for luck republican tax cut, promising they ll create jobs and bring entrepreneurs back to the united states. scott hodge is president of the tax foundation which released its analysis of the bill this week. among the highlights, over the next decade the plan will boost gdp by 1.7%, raise wages by 1.5% and add 330,000 new jobs. so, scott hodge, welcome. good the you back. thank you, paul. pallone: i m looking paul: i m looking at that economic impact, and, you know, it s not all that large, and it s not as large as some of the predictions, your analysis of some of the proposals as opposed to this final legislation. what happened in the end to reduce your expectations? well, paul, there are really two economic stories here. one s the long term, and the other is the short term. and as you know, so many provisions in this bill have been sunset after about seven years that the long-term prospects for growth are quite small. and you re seeing it there in those results. that s really the result of only cutting the corporate tax rate. now, in the short term because we have five years of temporary full expensing for capital investment, we are seeing a great deal more growth. and that is, in fact, we see the economy growing instead of 2% growth, about 2.4-2.5% growth over the next couple of years. so really unless we see a lot of those temporary provisions made permanent, we re going to see a lot of this taper off at end of the next decade. paul: okay. but as you know, congress is always elected every two years, a new congress, so they can do what they want with the tax cold, and i guarantee you they will. sure. paul: but if you re saying some of those provisions like expensing, if that s extended, then you re going to get the greater growth in the future too. as a good example of that, we modeled this plan as though it were permanent and found it would boost the long-term level of the economy by 4.7%. paul: okay. so about three times what we got because of all the temporary provisions. so there s a great deal of promise here if all of it s made permanent. paul: okay. one of the reasons they didn t make it permanent is they had to fit the numbers inside that ten-year budget window that congress has concocted for itself. exactly. paul: so they can revisit this policy and extend those if need be. i want to talk to you about some of the criticisms leveled at this bill, one of which is that this is really a tax increase on the middle class as nancy pelosi says. is that true? [laughter] no. in fact, everybody gets a tax cut in the middle class. in fact, even the liberal tax policy center brookings said this plan will knock over four million people, low income people, off the tax rolls, increasing the amount of non-payers to about 48% of all filers. that s incredible. that means, actually, this plan is much more progressive than what the left is owning up to. paul: okay. now, people also say, well, look, the business corporate tax cuts here are permanent, but the middle class tax cuts go away, therefore, it favors business. well, as you know, lower corporate tax rates eventually translate into higher productivity and higher wages. there s a ton of economic research to show that that s true . and so we re actually showing that wages will rise by at least 1.5%, probably even more as we go on through the next decade. paul: all right. another criticism, is this an incentive as the washington post wrote for businesses to move capital overseas because of the new, basically, a minimum, corporate minimum tax? goodness no. i think that the 21% corporate tax rate will be a tremendous incentive for companies to bring a lot of those activities back. in fact, i think it ll bring a lot of activity from foreign-owned companies to the united states. i think the people that ought to be worried here are the politicians in germany and france and japan who have extremely high corporate tax rates now. we ve leapfrogged over them from becoming one of the least competitive countries to now one of the most competitive tax systems in the entire world. paul: in fact, there s a study out of germany from last week that suggested exactly that, and i suspect you re going to the see germany and france and maybe other countries cut their corporate tax rates as well to stay competitive. now, the other big criticism that s leveled here is the deficit. it s basically saying, you know, it s a 1.5 trillion formal number that they allowed under the tax bill to increase the deficit. and some people say it s going to be much larger than that because of the sunsetting tax provisions that we discussed earlier. what s your response to that? well, even with a modest economic growth that our models suggest that this plan will generate, it s going to generate about $5 trillion worth of new gdp over the next decade, and that s in turn going to produce about a trillion dollars worth of new tax revenues or for the federal government. so the overall cost of this plan will call from about $1.5 trillion to less than $500 billion. that s $50 billion a year in order to get $5 trillion worth of new gdp. i think that s a pretty good trade. paul: but is there a chance that, in fact, it could actually generate more revenue, if we get growth up to 3% for two, three, four years, it s going to be even higher than that. yes. especially if they re made permanent, we are going to see growth continue, and that s all good for federal treasury and the economy. paul: thank you, scott, appreciate it. when we come back, despite strong sign that is the gop tax bill help the economy, polls show that americans are less than enthusiastic about the plan. so can republicans sell it to voters ahead of the 2018 it s all pop-culture trivia, but it gets pretty intense. -ahh. -the new guy. -whoa, he looks -he looks exactly like me. -no. -separated at birth much? we should switch name tags, and no one would know who was who. jamie, you seriously think you look like him? uh, i m pretty good with comparisons. like how progressive helps people save money by comparing rates, even if we re not the lowest. even if we re not the lowest. whoa! wow. i mean, the outfit helps, but pretty great. look at us. what this represents is a promise that each and every one of us made to the american people last year. it is a promise that is kept today. we have a simple message for our republican friends: republicans will rue the day they passed this bill, and you can bet democrats will make sure of that. paul: republicans and democrats on capitol hill spinning very different tales of tax cut. so how will the bill s passage play out in 2018? we re back with dan henninger, kim strassel, kate odell and wall street journal columnist william mcgurn. all right, dan, can republicans sell this thing, and what do they have to do to sell it? well, it s not as though they re trying to sell merely an idea. they have passed an enormous tax reform, the entire tax code. they have reduced tax rates, indeed, on the middle class, on corporations. you ve got perhaps $2.5 trillion of overseas money being repatriated back to the united states. the economic effects, i think, are going to be pretty significant, and they re going to have to wait until at least mid year to see what s happening. and then they re going to have to be able to cite that as a result of what they did in passing this bill. against that we just saw tax chuck schumer saying this is a disaster. there is an almost mindlessness to the democrats opposition on this bill. they re the ones who presided over less than 2% growth for eight years of the obama years. you ve come up to the possibility of rewriting the tax code, and they say we will not participate not only will we not participate, they have no alternative other than to oppose what is going on. paul: paychecks in february withholding will increase, kate. presumably, that will help if you actually have a job and you get more take-home pay. but why is the bill so unpopular now? well, i mean, we ve had press coverage that, as we ve discussed, has been very skewed, and people perceive they re getting a tax increase when they re not. and, yes, we ll sort that out in february. i think also it must be fun to be chuck schumer and get to predict armageddon and have no one hold you accountable when it happens paul: or if it doesn t. excuse me. the left is making this argument corporations have said, hey, we re going to give $1,000 bonuses to some of our employees, and the left saying, hey, what s $1,000? that tells you more about the worlds they live in than it does the gop. paul: pretty extraordinary, at&t, $1,000 bonus for 200,000 employees, comcast for another 100,000 employees. a lot of companies starting to do this. and the response is, oh, well, you know, who cares? that s just p.r., well, a $1,000 check, elle take it. right. i think that gets to the real question for 2018. it s not the political question. a lot of people that would normally vote democratic put donald trump in office because they thought he was going to recover the economy in some way and make their lives better. and the question is whether they feel that. and this $1,000, for families or, you know, for a mom or dad saying this might be a new tv or piano lessons for someone, it s really foolish, i think, to dismiss. and if you look at the democratic i mean, the party says their stuff, but you were a football player in college. this is the 12th man on the field is the crowd, the press, the coverage of the tax cuts. victims of trump tax cuts and so forth, it s just it s mind-boggling. paul: go ahead, kate. no. i was just going to add these bonuses that we re seeing, they re the icing on the cake. what we have been talking about for several months is when you cut corporate taxes, you spur investment and make workers more productive. that is what leads to long-term wage growth. not that companies decide to give away more money that they keep directly at the end of the year. paul: and yet, kim, we have often seen in some midterm elections which usually help the opposition for the party in the white house, sometimes a faster economy, faster growth doesn t necessarily translate into votes if the president himself is up popular. unpopular. so that s still a risk here for the republicans. correct. and the time frame here is short in that, look, this bill will have some immediate effects. we ve seen that from corporations. and it will help long-term growth or longer-term growth. how quickly that kicks in and the sense of well-being that a growing economy leaves with people and they connect that to a president who on a daily basis often manages to offend people. we just saw what happened when you had the president and his poor approval ratings hanging around the neck of ed gillespie who was the republican running for governor in virginia, and he lost and lost fairly badly in a state that, you know, should have been getable. so this is, i think, the bigger question is can the republicans running in the midterms run on that tax success without necessarily running hip and hip with an unpopular if he still is at that point? yeah. and it s going to affect politics next year. the republicans talked about wanting to reform medicare and social security. mitch mcconnell said at the end of the week i m not doing that unless i have democratic support, taking a big piece of legislative activity off the table. paul: all right. still ahead, deputy fbi director andrew mccabe grilled on capitol hill this week. his testimony reportedly raising more questions than answers as republican lawmakers get set to republican lawmakers get set to issue new republicans did or did not learn about this infamous dossier and the fbi and doj s use of that in their decision to launch a counterintention probe into president trump. paul: this is the steele dossier, the so-called steele dossier. the steele, yes. that was commissioned by the democratic national committee and the hillary clinton campaign. mccabe was asked about what they did, and he was at great pains to stress all the efforts that the fbi and doj went to corroborate some of the allegations in it. but what s interesting here is, apparently, in the end he had to admit that the only thing that they could find in it that was true was that a trump satellite operator, carter page, once traveled to russia. nothing else. so i think that raises more questions because if they couldn t find anything true in it, were they nonetheless still using it as part of a probe or as a justification for getting wiretaps on trump campaign officials? paul: and carter page has admitted he took a trip to moscow. right. if this is the only thing they had, then the question is what did they use, if they used it at all, in the application for a fisa warrant? paul: which is extraordinary. just step back for a second. they basically asked a court, if it s true, based on a dossier commissioned by the opposition campaign to have the fbi able to spy on a presidential campaign. which almost a year and a half later the assistant fbi director canner verify only one fact, the travel fact about page? it s really outrageous. the house, other committees are becoming involved, oversight, judiciary, and they need to see the fbi files. there s a file in this case, they need to see those files. the other larger question is the more the investigation goes on, the more the questions are about the investigators. it doesn t mean that bob mueller s dishonest, but when he first assembled this team, we were told these are strict professionals. they re entitled to their opinions. we have an fbi agent who s supposed to be a counterintelligence guy squawking to his mistress, you know, about trump and opening himself up to all sorts of vulnerability to blackmail with an affair. of we ve got andrew wiseman who, you know, applauded an obama holdover for defying a presidential order. we ve got bruce orr, his wife is working for the people that produced the document. do you get the word professional when you read those actions? and it s, i think they re largely discrediting themselves. paul: but none of this, of course, relates to the credit, to the central question, dan, of collusion. yeah. paul: senator mark warner who is the ranking democrat on senate intelligence said this week that he thinks, actually, there s more fire than smoke, and he s not releasing any details, but he thinks this is the biggest thing he s ever going to do in his professional career. and he warned the president if you fire mueller, this is a constitutional crisis. yeah. well, coming up with sayings here, there s a little boy who cried wolf over and over again when there was no wolf, and no one would believe him. i mean, after listening to bill go through all of these issues, roll back to why we are here. way back in january the story of collusion emerged, and every media outlet paul: the allegation the allegation. every media outlet in washington was running stories based onion mouse intelligence sources anonymous intelligence sources that there was collusion between the trump campaign and the russians. then we get a special prosecutor. we roll all the way up here to december, one of the top officials at the fbi, mccabe can, goes and appears before i can t think, and the best he can give them is that carter page visited somebody in russia. [laughter] so the members of congress in these committees and the american people are at the point of asking what is going on here with this investigation? why haven t we reached a closure or further to dan s point, go back to the beginning. devin nuñes was ridiculed paul: chairman of the house intelligence committee. was ridiculed on, a crazy man for what he s doing. they trumped up some charges against him in the ethics committee which were dismissed but designed to handicap the investigation. look, i think the house and senate are getting close to answers, and if you watch the hearings now and you watch, for example, christopher wray deal with congress paul: the fbi director now. and rod rosenstein, congress wants the documents. it s extraordinary we have federal agencies telling the elected representatives of the american people that they can t see the documents they need to do their job. i think, i think there s more subpoenas coming, and i think there s going to be some contempt findings if they don t turn this around. paul: briefly, bill, do you think the democrats want trump to fire mueller? oh, absolutely. why would he fire mueller now when his team has become the subject of discussion? i mean, i think he has the constitutional authority to do it paul: you think it would be unwise. unprudent to do it at this point. and now we need more questions about the investigators. paul: all right. still ahead, amid rising global threats, the president outlined his administration s national security strategy this week. what it tells us about the emerging trump d after my dvt blood clot, i had a lot on my mind. could this happen again? was my warfarin treatment right for me? my doctor told me about eliquis. eliquis treats dvt and pe blood clots and reduces the risk of them happening again. not only does eliquis treat dvt and pe blood clots. eliquis also had significantly less major bleeding than the standard treatment. eliquis had both and that turned around my thinking. don t stop eliquis unless your doctor tells you to. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding don t take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. if you had a spinal injection while on eliquis call your doctor right away if you have tingling, numbness, or muscle weakness. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily. and it may take longer than usual for 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. both made eliquis right for me. ask your doctor if switching to eliquis is right for you. the best simple pasta ever? california walnuts. the best simple dinner ever? great tasting, heart-healthy california walnuts. so simple, so good. get the recipes at walnuts.org. we face rogue regimes that threaten the united states and our allies. we face terrorist organizations, transnational criminal networks and others who spread violence and evil around the globe. we also face rival powers russia and china that seek to challenge american influence, values and wealth. we will attempt to build a great partnership with those and other countries, but in a manner that always protects our national interest. paul: that was president trump outlining his administration s national security strategy this week in a speech that identified the growing global threats to the united states and called out key national rivals by name. so what does it tell us about the emerging trump foreign policy doctrine, and does the rhetoric match the administration s actions so far? let s ask cliff may, he is president of the foundation for defense of democracies. good to see you again, cliff. what s the biggest takeaway we should have from the president s new strategy? it strikes me as hard-headed, realistic, coherent, very different from president obama s last national paul: how? how different, why is it different? how? so i would say in this way: president obama essentially believed that america s role was to lead the international community from behind and allow the arc of history to bend towards justice. [laughter] i would say that president trump believes that we should be leading from the front, our allies, we should be worrying about the military threats we face from rogue regimes as well as revisionist powers and that if the arc of history is going to be bend, we re going to have to bend it. paul: you know, i think the strike aring thing there is the revisionist powers reference, in my estimation. he mentioned two countries by name, china and russia. he said they are attempting to change the global order. they are attempting acts that are contrary the american interests, and we need to counter them as competing powers. now, that s very different than president obama. do you, do you agree with i mean, is he right in identifying those two countries? are they the main threats? i, they are the main threats. they may not be the most imminent threats, but they re the main threats. china is, clearly, a long-term threat and has very important plans for to be the hegemon of asia and then to go beyond that. the things they re doing in other parts of the world. russia is much weaker than china, but russia is not, as president obama thought, a country with which we can get along if we just reset relations because we have loads of common interests. keep in mind that both russia, china and i would say iran as well, these were all in history great empires. paul right. they all are angry they are not great empires again, and they intend to be great empires again. and they have various means and strategies to get to that. we have to recognize that and not think that we can just sing kumbaya and all get along. paul: well, and i should mention the strategy does say, look, we can deal with these countries. it s not as if we re implacably hostile to them, but you need to address, in fact, the challenge they pose, and we need to do so from a position of strength including the military buildup which i have to say so far we haven t seen very much of. so that s why i want to ask you about the connection between rhetoric and policy. have we seen in this first year a real connection between that strategy and implementation, practically speaking? only a little bit. i mean, i am hopeful, as i think you are, that this tax reform means that the u.s. has growth not at 1.8%, but at 3, 3.5 or even higher. we need a fast growing economy. only if we are prosperous and strong economically can we do a all the things we need to do including economic warfare which backs diplomacy, including a much larger and stronger military than we have now, one that no nation can match. it should be absolutely clear that nobody can, that nobody can challenge us. if they can challenge us, they will. so peace through strength is an important part of it. has that been implemented yet? it has not. but hopefully, this is the blueprint for what president trump will try to build starting in 2018. having a national security strategy before the end of the year is pretty good compared to other administrations that have off taken longer to do this. paul: another thing that s reassuring about it particularly from the campaign rhetoric that president trump had was the reliance on alliances. he basically said the strategy says, look, we need to depend upon alliances as a force multiplier for american influence and power. and for nato and east asia, that s very reassuring. that is, indeed, and we should have better relations with those or who are allied with us. we should have worse relations with those who don t. the u.n. vote yesterday at the u.n. which was a poke in the eye from a lot of nations that we give a lot of money to should be something and i think it will be that we re very cognizant of going forward. i think also, and this surprised people, this was not at all an isolationist or non-interventionist national security strategy, and it also made the point that one of the strengths of the u.s. is that it is a free country, that it is democratic. we may not want to go abroad nation-building, but we do want to support reformers and those in other countries who have the same values we have. you can say that s kind of conventional conservativism or even neoconservativism. i kind of find it reassuring. paul: okay. so what s the biggest, the president s biggest success so far in the first year? i guess i would suggest it s probably the defeat of islamic state in iraq and syria. would you agree with that? i think that s an important one, although i think there s a challenge there. because if the defeat of the islamic state redownsed the islamic republic of iran, that will be an impyrrhic victory. right now i do think james mattis and h.r. mcmaster understand the threat that iran represents as it s trying to build an empire that will include iran as the major power in iraq, the major power in syria which will be its client. it almost pretty much runs lebanon through hezbollah, and, of course, it s fighting in yemen. i do think that there is a recognition among the sunni-arab states that this is a huge threat and that the u.s. and israel are needed to counter the threat of iran. so, yes, it s a good thing that isis is defeated, but we can t stop there. paul: big questions. all right, thank you, cliff may. appreciate it. thank you. paul: when we come back, a nuclear deal at any price in a new report says the obama administration killed a criminal probe into hezbollah during negotiations with iran. those details are next. group s drug trafficking operation. a billion dollar business that smuggled cocaine into the united states. we re back with dan henninger, mary anastasia o grady and bill mcgun. mary, what s the core allegation here? well, the dea, after 9/11, began doing more investigations in latin america, particularly many colombia where there was a drug trafficking organization going from the farc which is a rebel group that traffics cocaine and a lebanese organized crime unit that was connected to hezbollah. and that was called operation titan. that grew and combined with other things into something called project cassandra. and that operation was, basically, going after the innermost circle of the connections between cocaine trafficking from latin america and the leadership in hezbollah that is backed by iran. paul: and the claim is that that was shut down by obama administration because it would have offended iran which, of course, hezbollah s a militia more or less of iran. yes. and not only do the dea agents say that as they got close to in this inner circle, they were stymied at every turn by the administration, but they also say that the administration did not go after the big fish that they had indicted. and one of them was a lebanese arms trafficker, and two of them were very big cocaine traffickers from venezuela. paul: okay. the obama officials deny this. what s their defense? well, the administration says look, you know, this is just the dea. there s the cia, there are many more agencies in washington that are trying to stop terrorism. and sometimes you don t want to close in on a particular suspect because it would give away a larger operation that s important. and, but the problem with that defense is, for example, there s written testimony from are a former treasury official from a former treasury official in the obama administration in which she says that, basically, they were told to back off hezbollah and iran issues because of the negotiation going on regarding nuclear, nuclear power be arms in iran. yeah. paul, the interesting thing, three points, the politico story also said that not only did the u.s. back off, but that iran had made the request, and-a show of goodwill. they knew they had a problem with these groups, and they asked them to do it. so it was in response to manager from tehran. two, a lot of the dug business is controlled by drug business is controlled by terrortists. there s a lot of money for it, so we shouldn t be surprised. and, three, should we be surprised that the obama administration i think wasn t it ben rhodes that called the iran deal the obamacare of the second term? is this was a priority for them. ben rhodes bragged about how he manipulated what he called dumb and naive journalists who knew nothing into reflecting the administration line. so why should we be surprised when we you were learn something like this? paul: and, dan, why this matters, hezbollah is the militia of iran, and they are using money that they have they have now assembled 160,000, an estimate, missiles that could be aimed at israel in the next conflict. and i think we re headed towards another, maybe not soon, but eventually, another israel/hezbollah war. yeah. well, you know, i think what happened here was the obama administration made a choice. in obama s mind, the iran nuclear deal was the most important foreign policy thing he was going to achieve. he thought it was going to bring more stability to the middle east, and i m sure they thought that this dea administration investigation into hezbollah was a second-level priority. paul: sure. okay? they made that choice. paul: sometimes you have to make those choices in government. that s right. except that hezbollah is iran s primary proxy in the middle east. they fight for them in iraq and in syria, and as they you were t suggesting, they have hundreds of thousands of missiles aimed at israel, and we may yet pay the price for that prioritization. paul: briefly, mary. i don t think we should underestimate, iran is deeply into venezuela, hezbollah blew up the i jewish community center in 1994. that s a danger too. paul: all right. we have to take one more break. when we come back, hits and misses of the week. david. what s going on? oh hey! that s it? yeah. everybody two seconds! dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald s helps more people go to college. it s part of our commitment to being america s best first job. each of these food boxes represents a gift of life for people here in israel who are in desperate need. these are very difficult times for israel and the jewish people as the government spends more and more of it s resources for battling terrorism. the situation has become a crisis. every week the lines get longer and longer. this $25 food box will provide one desperately needy family here in israel with food, with hope and with a note inside each of these saying that it is from christians and jews in america who seek to bless them. israel and it s people need your help now. you can make a life changing difference by calling and saying that you will give a $25 food box to help a family in need in israel. thank you and god bless you for your support. they ll learn is if you drive too fast, they ll come off the rails, because even kids are smart. this is a miss for amtrak whose own engineers have not mastered this concept and, again, killed three passengers in washington state. it s also a miss for congress that continues to subsidize an outfit that has a safety record like this. it s time for it to end. there are better uses for taxpayer money. paul: all right. mary? a hit for sparks therapeutics. this week it got approvals for an injected gene therapy that treats a genetic eye disease that causes blindness in some 3,000 americans. now, the price hasn t been announced yet, it could be as much as a million dollars, but i think the larger point is that cures for genetic diseases which even a decade ago seemed hopeless are now coming on line, and if history is any guide, they will be more and more available to the general population. paul: a very exciting time in drug discovery. bill. paul, remember charlie brown when he was assigned to go out and get a christmas tree, and he brought this pathetic, little tree back, and everyone mocked him? that s happening in rome now. the mayor of rome gets a miss for putting up this tree that has been nicknamed mangy by the romans. some think it s a symbol of rome s decline, but it s being mocked everywhere for all the needles that it s shedding. paul: dan. every year the maris poll asks people for the single worse, most annoying word that they can think of, and this year for the ninth straight year in a row, the most annoying word out there is whatever. [laughter] who can doubt it? now, they didn t even include my own personal favorite which is when you to a sales transaction, the salesperson goes, no problem. [laughter] to which i say, no comment. paul: all right. that s it for this week s show. thanks to my panel. thanks to all of you for
49 completely on its head. the driver of that red car making a split-second decision. i either had to hit the cars that were turned over, hit the car that was spinning out in front of me or come down this ravine. and i chose the ravine. reporter: tragically, in texas, a deadly mix of speed and weather costing one driver his life. and gio benitez live from a very windy jfk airport. we can hear the wind there, gio. so many flights canceled today. now airlines already issuing waivers for the next storm? reporter: that s right, david. more than 1,000 flights canceled today alone. more than 5,000 delayed. and, you know, those airlines, you re right, those airlines are issuing those waivers before the next storm even hits. you can just see, this wind is really picking up here, david. all right, a messy night still ahead. gio, thank you. as i mentioned a new storm already brewing for later in the week, but first things first, rob marciano live tonight with us on the current system. where is it now, rob? reporter: well, it s an uncomfortable mess, that s for sure, but a huge system, david, stretching all the way from the gulf of mexico to maine. you see here on the radar, the most dangerous area right now is the pink, and it s north of i-84, to i-90, throughout much of upstate new york and massachusetts and new england. it does get out of here by the morning rush, but it will be below freezing, so, certainly some slick spots. here s our next system. advisories up from montana to michigan. the snow reaching in through the plains by friday morning. it s in milwaukee and chicago. friday afternoon, detroit, cleveland. a swath of three to five inches of snow. we re certainly in an active pattern. david? rob marciano with us tonight, as well. thanks, as always, rob. we re going to turn next to the political storm of sorts in washington, in the west wing. a senior white house official now planning to resign after published allegations of abuse. staff secretary rob porter, a close aide to the president, announcing his resignation. porter is currently in a relationship with white house communications director hope hicks, but it s what allegedly happened before that s now making headlines tonight, after two of his ex-wives came forward with those allegations. here s abc s senior white house correspondent cecilia vega tonight. reporter: he is one of president trump s top aides. a trusted adviser from day one. i think that was a personal decision that rob made and one that he was not pressured to do reporter: porter s first wife tells the intercept, he would lay on top of me, shaking me, or rubbing an elbow or knee into me. he graduated to choking me, not ever hard enough to make me pass out or, frankly, to leave marks. but it was frightening and dehumanizing. porter s second wife, jenny willoughby, tells the intercept, he came to the shower and grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me out of the shower to continue arguing. after an incident in 2010, willoughby filed for a protective order, telling authorities, he punched in the glass on the door. i called the police, afraid he would break in. the allegations seeming to catch many in the west wing by surprise. does the president have any concerns about these domestic violence allegations raised against rob porter? i haven t spoken to him about specific concerns. reporter: you haven t talked to the president about this about whether or not he has specific concerns, i haven t asked him that question. reporter: has he seen the photos of rob porter s ex-wife with a black eye? reporter: defying president trump s threat of a government shutdown, democrats and republicans today achieved something washington hasn t seen in ages, a bipartisan agreement to fund the government for two years. this budget deal is the first real sprout of bipartisanship. i hope we can build on this bipartisan momentum. reporter: the deal includes billions for opioid treatment, disaster relief and infrastructure. and a big boost in defense spending. what it doesn t include? funding for the president s bortbort border wall. just yesterday, the president emphatically called for a government shutdown if he didn t get that money. let s have a shutdown. we ll do a shutdown. i d love to see a shutdown. without borders, we don t have a country. so, would i shut it down over this issue? yes. reporter: but from the white house today, an apparent about-face. the president now endorsing the senate deal that makes no promise whatsoever about the wall. can you clarify the president yesterday said that he would like to shut the government down if he doesn t get funding for the wall, border security. is what he said yesterday now no longer operative? ah, look, as i said yesterday, the focus for us has always been to get a two-year budget deal. we ve made no secret, the president wants funding for the wall, and he wants border security, and we expect to see that reflected in the budget. reporter: but he said he wanted to shut the government down if he didn t get it. now that s no longer operative, is that no longer the position? no, the position hasn t changed. we ve laid out exactly what we want to happen. reporter: while the white house position is less than crystal clear, defense secretary mattis today was definitive. if there was a decision to shut the government down because, for example, the wall wasn t funded in this deal, how bad would that be to the military? shutting down the government would be very damaging to the military. it just paralyzes everything that we do, if we go into that. all right, jon karl also with us live tonight from the white house. and jon, president trump just tweeting that he supports this budget deal, but it still faces some opposition in the house tonight, doesn t it? reporter: it sure does. first of all, house conservatives hate this agreement, because it includes massive spending increases. and nancy pelosi today broke the record for the longest speech on the house floor in history, more than eight hours, taking issue with the agreement, because it does not include protection for the dreamers, those undocumented immigrants brought into this country as young children. ultimately, the odds are this will pass, but negotiations on that broader immigration deal, david, seem to be going nowhere, at least for now. all right, to be continued on that front. jon karl, thanks. meantime, the president facing questions from both sides of the aisle tonight for something that will cost taxpayers millions. the president once saying it could go down pennsylvania avenue a military parade. president trump calling for the parade after witnessing france s bastille day parade during his visit there, saying, we have to top them. here s abc s chief global affairs correspondent martha raddatz tonight. reporter: enthralled by what he called one of the greatest parades he d ever seen, with soldiers and tanks rolling down the champs-elysee on bastille day, donald trump has made no secret of his desire for his own massive military parade. so, we re actually thinking about fourth of july, pennsylvania avenue, having a really great parade to show our military strength. reporter: the date is not set, but the white house has now made the ask official. i think we re all aware in this country of the president s affection and respect for the military. we ve been putting together some options. reporter: but if it is like the one in france or, say, russia or north korea, it will involve lots of military hardware and money. i don t mind a military parade to honor those who have served and their families. i have no desire to go to the soviet hardware display. to me, that s cheesy and weak. reporter: while the president has paid several visits to troops, he s yet to visit the 21,000 service members deployed in afghanistan, iraq and syria. sarah sanders was asked about that today. look, i think there are a lot of different ways. nothing has been decided or locked in stone. martha raddatz live with us tonight. and martha, what s the reaction this evening from veterans groups about the idea of the president s parade? reporter: well, david, while some veterans organizations support any recognition of the military, numerous combat veterans say, at a time where they are already stretched thin, this is just not what they need, nor the image they want to project, david. all right, martha, thank you. meantime, secretary of state rex tillerson tonight warning that russia is already trying to influence the midterm elections, and that the u.s. is ill-equipped to stop them. in an interview, tillerson saying the u.s. must continue to make it clear that if they do not stop, they will, quote, invite consequences. back here at home tonight, and to the deadly shooting on an american highway. a gunman opening fire, then taking off the wrong way down the highway, colliding with several cars. part of i-95 shut down for much of the day in florida. the interstate littered with accidents. and abc s victor oquendo from florida tonight. reporter: motorists on one of florida s busiest stretch of highway watching in horror as deputies surround a man near west palm beach. guns drawn, car smoking. police say the confrontation began shortly after the suspect shot a female companion at a shopping center at 9:30 this morning. a white male suspect shot a white female, put her in the vehicle and fled the scene. reporter: 15 minutes later, authorities start to receive calls of an erratic black nissan rogue suv driving the wrong way on the highway. florida highway patrol raced to the scene to find three separate accidents involving the suspect scattered along the interstate, causing several injuries. the suspect hitting one driver head-on. moments later, police say they approached the passenger side of the suv and attempt to subdue the driver with a taser gun, but it doesn t work. the deputy said that he was in fear of his life and the life of the trooper, and opened fire and killed the suspect inside. reporter: that woman inside the suspect s vehicle, pronounced dead at the scene. the incident shutting down parts of the busy highway for more than seven hours, creating a traffic nightmare. that suspect yet to be identified, as police continue their investigation and search for a motive. david, tonight, police are investigating a separate shooting that happened yesterday that they believe this suspect may have been involved in. david? victor oquendo tonight. victor, thank you. and one more picture from overseas at this hour. the toll from that devastating earthquake in taiwan still rising tonight. the 6.4 quake trapping people in this apartment building. you can see it teetering right there. at least seven people killed, 240 injured and, of course, dozens still missing tonight. there is still much more ahead on world news tonight this wednesday. the warning about netflix tonight. the scam threatening many users. also, the manhunt at this hour. the serial shooter, and we have chilling new surveillance coming in. also ahead tonight, the missing mother of four, vanishing without a trace. the huge search now under way. and patriots star rob gronkowski, we told you about this last night here, the break-in at his home. and tonight, the 911 call, and what we ve learned about the break-in, conveniently as that game was playing out. s that as plaas playing out. ut. r all the eyes that get itchy and watery near pugs. for all the people who sneeze around dust. there s flonase sensimist allergy relief. it relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don t. it s more complete allergy relief. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. and 6 is greater than 1. flonase sensimist. vof hundreds of families, he se hmost proud of the one the heads he s kept over his own. brand vo: get paid twice as fast with quickbooks smart invoicing. quickbooks. backing you. can start in the colon constiand may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. only phillips colon health has this unique combination of probiotics. it provides four-in-one symptom defense. it s your daily probiotic. next tonight, we do have new surveillance as authorities hunt for a serial shooter in las vegas. the gunman targeting several victims. and abc s marcus moore in las vegas with the surveillance tonight. reporter: this chilling video shows the moment a homeless man is executed under a las vegas bridge. the killer opening fire on 64-year-old james lewis. i m a wreck. i have so many questions. and my biggest question is why. reporter: tonight, police desperately searching for that shooter they say is behind four separate attacks in the span of four days. killing two people and injuring two others, three of the victims homeless. to target homeless, the very vulnerable segment of our society, is cowardly. reporter: police say the spree began at 12:30 a.m. on january 29th, about an hour north of vegas, when a suspect shot and wounded a man outside a convenience store. about two and a half hours later, at 3:06 a.m., the shooter kills his first victim. and then, at 7:13 a.m., a third man, targeted near the famous las vegas strip. he s shot in the head, but manages to survive. and then four days later, lewis is killed. surveillance video capturing critical clues. images of the suspect s vehicle. police also say the suspect used the same gun in each shooting. david, a local rescue mission is urging the city s homeless to stay in a shelter tonight, because they say it s the safest place to be. david? marcus, thank you. when we come back here tonight, more on that new warning for netflix users. also, the missing mother of four disappearing. there is news tonight about the search. and the patriots star, and the patriots star,11 call. and will you hear his 911 call. proof of less joint pain and clearer skin. this is my body of proof that i can take on psoriatic arthritis with humira. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it s proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage, and clear skin in many adults. humira is the #1 prescribed biologic for psoriatic arthritis. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. 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. want more proof? ask your rheumatologist about humira. what s your body of proof? it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. so i talked to my doctor. she said. symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. symbicort helps provide significant improvement of your lung function. symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. you should tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. symbicort could mean a day with better breathing. watch out, piggies! get symbicort free for up to one year. visit saveonsymbicort.com today to learn more. if you can t afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. to the index of other news. the desperate search for a missing mother in illinois tonight. denita hedden, the mother of four, was last seen on january 25th. more than 30 law enforcement agencies are now searching the area where she was last seen. her disappearance is being called suspicious tonight. patriots star rob gronkowski s 911 call made public now, after returning home from the super bowl and discovering a break-in. hello. this isn t an emergency. this is rob gronkowski calling. and while i was gone, my whole house got robbed, while on the super bowl trip. i just got back. reports say several safes and guns were possibly taken from his foxborough home. police believe the thief got in through a broken window. the consumer alert tonight. police warning netflix subscribers about an e-mail scam designed to steal your personal information. the e-mail threatens to suspend accounts unless customers update their financial information. and tonight, this is important, netflix says it never asks for any personal details over e-mail. and the new gerber baby making history tonight. 1-year-old lucas warren is the company s new spokesbaby. he s the first child with down syndrome to win the gerber baby photo contest. and we congratulate him. when we come back here tonight, the image just in, coming in from space, the newest picture of that tesla headed for, well, somewhere between jupiter and mars tonight. it s life insurance and wharetirement solutions toic? 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they are the images that left us in awe. a mannequin in a spacesuit, riding in elon musk s red tesla roadster, blasting david bowie. is there life on mars reporter: while the car blasts through space. many tonight asking some of the same questions. is bowie s song really going to play forever? it turns out, it played on loop inside that tesla for about six hours before the battery died. and after the picture-perfect takeoff, those three boosters, too, we watched two of them land back home perfectly. and the falcon has landed. reporter: and tonight, the third, we now know, missing its target by about 300 feet, crashing into the ocean. it hit the water at 300 miles an hour and took out two of the engines on the drone ship. reporter: elon musk revealing that the rocket carrying that tesla, originally on a mission to mars, now on a trajectory toward the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter, where it could stay in orbit for millions, if not billions of years. maybe discovered by a future alien race, thinking, what the heck what were these guys doing? did they worship this car? reporter: 6,000 employees cheering on that launch back at mission control outside los angeles. we ve taken you there before, for made in america. sending supplies up to the international space station in a capsule made here. and this right here? this is the dragon capsule. reporter: american-made american engines sent into orbit. that s the first time a private company had ever done that. reporter: and i think the windows are very telling, aren t they? sort of a hint of what you plan on doing. it is, absolutely. reporter: they want americans looking through those windows one day, but for now, just a mannequin in a car, barrelling toward jupiter and mars. and this image, just posted as we came on the air tonight. no comment from the dummy. i m david muir. thanks for watching here on a wednesday night. might be time to go back to spacex. i hope to see you right back here tomorrow. good night.here on a wednesday night. might be time to go back to spacex. i hope to see you right back here tomorrow. good night. it is like the kate steinle case all over again. local connections with an undocumented immigrant dui crash that killed an nfl yet another day of record warmth in february. a closer look at the hot spots. is your smart tv hackable. we will be talking about that. michael finney. 7 on your side is coming up. announcer: live where you live. this is abc7 local news. learning more about the local connections of an undocumented immigrant charged with killing an nfl player and his uber driver. good evening, i am kristen sze. and i am dan ashley. in the summer of 2015, steinle was walking with her
questions under oath, answering 100%. but what would his lawyers say now? here s abc s chief white house correspondent jonathan karl tonight. reporter: as the president traveled to nashville today to talk up his tax cut, a potentially major development in the russia investigation. abc news has confirmed that special counsel robert mueller met with the president s lawyers and told them he is likely to request an interview with the president himself. news of that december meeting was first reported by the washington post. in the past, the president sounded almost eager to tell mueller his side of the story. would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of the events? 100%. reporter: so if robert mueller wanted to speak with you about that, you d be willing to talk to him? i d be glad to tell you exactly what i just told you, jon. reporter: he was asked about it again just this weekend. if robert mueller asks you to come and speak with his committee personally, are you committed still to doing that? do you believe that s appropriate? yeah. just so you understand just so you understand, there s been no collusion. reporter: but sources familiar with the discussions tell abc news trump s lawyers are exploring options short of a formal interview, such as providing written answers to a questionnaire. it s not clear that would be sufficient for the special counsel. this comes as the president deals with fallout from the new book fire and fury, which says some of the president s own top advisers question his sanity and his intelligence. the president tweeted over the weekend, quote, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart, calling himself, quote, genius, and a very stable genius at that. i went to the best colleges for college. i had a situation where i was a very excellent student. reporter: the president angrily cut ties with one of the book s main sources, former chief strategist steve bannon. that s why sloppy steve is now looking for a job. reporter: the book quotes bannon eviscerating members of the president s family, even suggesting the meeting donald trump jr. set up at trump tower with a russian lawyer said to have dirt on hillary clinton was treasonous and unpatriotic. bannon has now issued a partial mea culpa, writing, donald trump jr. is both a patriot and a good man. but the white house isn t satisfied with that. a spokesperson telling reporters, i don t believe there s any way back for mr. bannon at this point. all right, so, let s get to jon karl live at the white house tonight. and jon, as you reported there, the president defending himself against stories about his mental fitness, tweeting he is a very stable genius. he s supposed to get a physical this week and the white house was asked if mental stability would be part of that exam. reporter: and the answer, david, is no. he is going to walter reed on friday for a physical exam, not, the white house says, a mental exam. and the doctor who will be examining him, dr. ronnie jackson, has been a white house presidential physician for more than a decade. the same doctor who examined both president obama and president bush. all right, jon karl at the white house. jon, welcome back. next, to the especially dangerous strain of flu, spreading across the country tonight. a major spike in new cases. the flu now spreading across 46 states. hospitalizations doubling in just a week. and in hard-hit california, they are setting up tents now in some places. tonight, this question. how effective is the flu vaccine this year? and if you haven t received the shot yet, should you still get it? how quickly does it make a difference? abc s kayna whitworth from california. reporter: tonight, hospitals overflowing, incoming flu patients doubling in the last week alone. overcrowded hospitals forced to use tents. e.r. cases triaged in the hallway. we re so busy that paramedics are spending a good amount of time in this hallway. reporter: the outbreak deadly. 7-year-old cisco glavez died from the virus. his mother devastated. i never expected it, he was very healthy. reporter: in california, 27 people under the age of 65 have died since october, compared to just four last season. nationwide, over 41,000 cases reported. widespread flu activity in all but four states in the last month. arkansas and texas, the hardest hit. this is, i would say, the worst flu season that i ve seen. reporter: early reports estimated the flu vaccine as 10% effective against the deadliest strain. the cdc now estimating effectiveness at roughly 30%. all right, so, 30%. kayna whitworth with us live tonight from one of those overflow tents. and kayna, as you just mentioned there, the vaccine may be 30% effective, but doctors are still saying you should get it, not just for you, but the people around you. how soon does it actually kick in? reporter: david, every doctor i spoke with said you should absolutely get the flu shot and it s not too late. even though it takes a couple of weeks to kick in and be at full strength, it can lessen the severity of your flu symptoms. david? all right, kayna whitworth with us tonight from california. we turn next here to high stakes talks set to begin between north and south korea. the first between the warring nations in two years. it was just last week here, we showed you this image. south korea firing up the hotline with the north. and of course, this all comes amid nuclear tensions between the u.s. and north korea. abc s chief global affairs anchor martha raddatz in seoul tonight for us. martha? reporter: david, the olympic games may be the focus of these talks, but this could be a dramatic step in improving relations between the north and south. the setting is historic, that truce village that straddles the heavily fortified border, and, of course, this comes amid the nuclear weapons standoff. kim jong-un likely just one or two tests away from having the ability to hit the u.s. president trump has applauded these talks, david, and said he would be willing to talk to kim if certain conditions are met. david? martha raddatz with us tonight from seoul. martha, thank you. and back here at home now, and to the golden globe awards overnight, and that new movement, time s up. but it was oprah winfrey who was the star of the show last night, with her powerful and stirring speech. and new questions about whether or not she ll run for president in 2020. what her long-time partner said overnight that began the headlines immediately. there was no hiding the headlines that have dominated the news for months on sexual harassment in hollywood and beyond. good evening ladies and remaining gentlemen. reporter: and throughout the night, moments of victory. for women and for the new campaign, time s up. nicole kidman, big little lies. reporter: big little lies, produced by reese witherspoon and nicole kidman, winning over and over again. wow, the power of women. reporter: but there were also the reminders of the progress yet to be made. natalie portman and ron howard introducing the nominees for best director. and here are the all-male nominees. reporter: and there was oprah winfrey. the first black woman to win the cecil b. demille lifetime achievement award. and she remembered watching the oscars in 1964. in 1964, i was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother s house in milwaukee, watching anne bancroft present the oscar for best actor at the 36th academy awards. she opened the envelope and said five words that literally made history. the winner is sidney poitier. and i d never seen a black man being celebrated like that. and it is not lost on me that at this moment, there are some little girls watching as i become the first black woman to be given this same award. reporter: oprah spoke of being inspired by the women who have felt strong enough to speak up. so, i want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. they re the women whose names we ll never know. for too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. but their time is up. reporter: and during her speech, the hashtag going viral, #oprah2020. so, i want all the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon. when nobody ever has to say me too again. thank you. reporter: the l.a. times overnight asking oprah s long-time partner stedman graham if she ll run for president. he said, it s up to the people, she would absolutely do it. bloomberg said in a brief interview backstage, winfrey herself was told #oprah2020 was circulating on twitter, and asked whether she planned to run. i don t. i don t, she said. and this is what she told her friend gayle king in october. 2020, i m wondering if you ve narrowed down your short list of v.p. candidates. she s lost her mind now. no, i haven t. no, no. it took me a minute to follow. i know, okay. 20/20, i was thinking of the show. people ask it all the time. even i am now starting to think the rules changed about running for president. there will be no running for office of any kind for me. i like that she was thinking of the show 20/20. she can come tell us any time. in the meantime, tonight, the white house is weighing in on all of this. the deputy press secretary saying, quote, we welcome the challenge, whether it be oprah winfrey or anybody else. there is still much more ahead on world news tonight this monday. the fire at trump tower. dozens of firefighters on the scene. we ll have the latest. also, the urgent manhunt for a suspect. the deputy killed responding to a 911 call. images from that scene tonight. and you met him here nearly a decade ago. he was our person of the week back then. and he had one dream, he told you all about it at home. tonight, that dream has come true. you ve got to see this. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. i .prilosec otc 7 years ago,my doctor recommended. 5 years ago, last week. just 1 pill each morning, 24 hours and zero heartburn. it s been the number 1 doctor recommended brand for 10. .straight years, and it s still recommended today. use as directed. we turn next tonight to the urgent manhunt right now, a sheriff s deputy responding to a call for help, then shot and killed while chasing two suspects. that deputy, a married father of three. and here s abc s clayton sandell with the images from washington state. reporter: tonight, in washington state, investigators say an accused cop killer has just been captured. he s down. get it to everybody. copy, 484 is down. reporter: late last night, 34-year-old sheriff s deputy daniel mccartney was responding to reports of an intruder at a home south of seattle. the caller can hear glass breaking and people screaming. reporter: when mccartney arrived six minutes later, he chased two suspects who had taken off. investigators say one pulled a gun. you can hear mccartney on the radio. put it down! county 484, shots fired. reporter: in the gun battle, one suspect was killed. the other got away. going to need fire priority. we got one officer down. reporter: fellow officers finding and then rushing deputy mccartney to a hospital, but he did not survive. bravery showed. took off after them. that s what our guys do. reporter: mccartney was a navy vet, married with three young boys. and so far, in this year, 2018, he is the fourth law enforcement officer to be killed in the line of duty. david? all right, clayton sandell tonight. clayton, thank you. when we come back here tonight, the new health headline. if you start moderate exercise right now, how quickly can you reverse damage to the heart? also, the championship battle tonight. amy robach is standing by for us. and that fire breaking out at the top of trump tower. smoke pouring from the roof. news tonight on how it all news tonight on how it all started. you not only want clean feeling every day, you want your denture to be stain free. did you know there s a specialty cleanser that s gentle enough for everyday use and cleans better than regular toothpaste? try polident cleanser. it has a four in one cleaning system that kills ten times more odor causing bacteria than regular toothpaste, deep cleans where brushing may miss, helps remove tough stains, and maintains the original color of your dentures when used daily. for a cleaner, fresher, brighter denture, use polident every day. yeah, i got some financialbody guidance a while ago. how d that go? he kept spelling my name with an i but it s bryan with a y. yeah, since birth. that drives me crazy. yes. it s on all your email. yes. they should know this? yeah. the guy was my brother-in-law. that s ridiculous. well, i happen to know some people. do they listen? what? 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help reverse heart damage, especially in middle aged americans who have not previously exercised. the group studied people aged 45 to 64 lowers their risk of heart failure with a moderate intensity workout, five hours a week for two years. the study in the journal circulation. and the college football national championship tonight, georgia taking on alabama. president trump will be on-hand and so is amy robach, and her hat gives away where she s from. amy? reporter: david, security is tight here in atlanta, as the georgia bulldogs face off against alabama crimson tide. no player will be protesting the national anthem with president trump in the stands here tonight. both teams will be in their locker rooms when that song is playing, as they normally do. as for the game itself, it is teacher versus pupil. georgia s kirby smart, hoping to end his former boss, alabama s nick saban s winning streak, 11-0 against his former coaching employees. and this georgia bulldog hopes he does. david? we ll see, amy. we ll all be watching. you can watch the national championship on espn tonight, 8:00 p.m. eastern on espn. when we come back, you met him, he was a 10-year-old. he was once or person of the week. you met him nearly a decade ago, he had one dream. you ve got to see this. nick was born to move. 3 toddlers won t stop him. and neither will lower back pain. because at a dr. scholl s kiosk he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. dr. scholl s. born to move. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,. .isn t it time to let the real you shine through? maybe it s time for otezla (apremilast). otezla is not an injection or a cream. it s a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months,. .with reduced redness,. .thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has. .no requirement for routine lab 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the #1 prescribed fda-approved oral combination treatment for hr+/her2- mbc. he was just 10 when he was our person of the week, he had one dream. here s matt gutman. reporter: in that mind-rattling sequence of jumps and spins, figure skater nathan chen, who s a contender for gold at the olympics next month, isn t chasing the field. i think nathan chen is ready for the olympics. reporter: the 18-year-old is chasing perfection. and long before becoming the first human to nail not one, not two, but an unheard of five quadruple jumps in a single program quad, so clean. reporter: nathan was already gunning for gold when we first met him in 2010. he has his sights on 2018. reporter: by then, nathan was already an accomplished pianist, a solid gymnast, a ballet dancer and a phenomenal skater. he was 10. which olympics are we going to see you in? 2018, i think. reporter: but olympic dreams started way before. i started skating in salt lake city during the 2002 olympics, really. reporter: so, 2002, you were 2 zwh? yeah, i was 3, yeah. reporter: now, there is fame these are all for you, nathan. these are all nathan s. and fan mail. that s sweet. i like that. reporter: but one thing hasn t changed since he was 10. the olympic dream. 10-year-old nathan chen, 4 5 , 69 pounds, but watch out for him in 2018. we listened to diane then, and there s nathan now. we re rooting you on, nathan. thanks for watching here tonight. i hope to see you right back here tomorrow. good night. . the top concern on this rainy day, the risk of flooding. we re live, seeing if all the preparations have paid off. rain and the roads. it can be a dangerous combination, especially when you add in some other factors as well. the wind and rain continued to pound the bay area, i ll show you where the heaviest rain is right now. live where you live, this is abc 7 news. you know, we rarely see live doppler 7 lit up like this, shades of dark green and yellow indicating a strong storm that ranks 3 on our storm impact scale. the risk of crashing remains high. that s because we re in the heart of the storm right now and we still have several more hours of weather like this to go before it passes through this is the first level three storm that we ve had in over a month, and it is drenching the entire bay area. we have team coverage from