we will see you back here in an hour. outnumbered search right now sandra: a big test for republicans on capitol hill today where the house right now is debating. the revamped bill to repeal and replace obamacare, i have a vote, expected in the next hour. this may be a nail-biter, but republicans believe they can pull out a win and deliver on a top priority for president trump. this is outnumbered. i m sandra smith. here today, harris faulkner, meghan mccain, former deputy spokesperson for the state department under president obama, marie harper, and today s #oneluckyguy, the opinion page editor for the washington times, charlie hurt is here and he is outnumbered on a seriously busy news day. let s get started. the magic number, 216. that s how many votes republicans need to send the replacement for obamacare to the yes, it s gone through. that doesn t mean when the bill gets to the senate it s going to be complete they gutted. sandra: republicans could claim victory here. you have the $8 billions added to the bill yesterday. that s when a couple no votes to yes. they can at least claim victory if this passes in the house. marie: here s what should be concerning. independent experts who have seen part of this bill have said this bill will still drive up premiums, it will stemming people s coverage. pre-existing conditions will not be covered like they are now, and when tom price goes out there and says all these things that everyone else is saying aren t true, that s a huge gamble with people s lives and what politics going into 2018. republicans are doing exactly what they accused us of doing in 2010. they re pushing a bill through very fast, no cbo score. charlie: absolutely. again, this is where my primary objection is. i don t support any obamacare or obamacare lite. the federal government does do a good job of running the post office. if they are going to come up with something, i want all 435 to be working on it. i m not going to like what they come up with no matter what. harris: where are they? marie: part of the problem is the g.o.p. did not post the bill until 8:00 p.m. last night. the g.o.p. in 2010 said as nancy pelosi going to vote so what on something without seeing it? what s the rush? calm down, bring on the democrats, show us the bill, talk to these high-risk pools who have had some issues. if you want democrats involved, takes up to show that. meghan: they don t want democrats involved. replacing, which is possibly an option and was probably going to happen. sandra: this debate is happening right now. pictures on capitol hill. charlie, can you walk us through what you ll be watching? charlie: as you pointed out earlier, 216 is a number we are looking for. it is going to be a nail-biter. going back to your point about regular order, which i would say didn t do this in regular order. if democrats republicans are laying democrats off the hook for this disaster. that troubles me. what i would find very interesting is if this were going through more regular order, whether democrats i don t think they would, whether they could form an absolute harris: republicans would have to lose 21 votes. that s a lot. democrats don t like walls, that would create a wall. sandra: just moments ago, president trump, as you saw, signing an executive order on religious liberty which relaxes rules against churches that promote portable candidates. whether this went for social conservatives can hold up in court. plus you may be surprised, hillary clinton after blaming james comey and wikileaks were her election loss. the latest fallout. and go to our live chat by clicking the overtime tab at foxnews.com/outnumbered or go to facebook.com/outnumbered fnc. of course you can also tweet us, we ve got our phones. meghan: marie has an announcement coming. you don t let anything when your pain reliever stops working, your whole day stops. awww. try this. for minor arthritis pain, only aleve can stop pain for up to 12 straight hours with just one pill. thank you. come on everybody. you can t quit, neither should your pain reliever. stay all day strong with 12 hour aleve. your insurance on time. tap one little bumper, and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? news flash: nobody s perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won t raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $509 on auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. harris: we are checking back now, fox news alert with what s going on on the floor. there are still talking about the health care bill. most of the members for the republicans are in today, 237 of them, they need to have that number of 216 votes in order to pass this in the house and then of course, goes on to the senate. we will keep a close watch on i it. moments ago, president trump signed an executive order on religious liberty while marking the national day of prayer at the white house joined by vice president pence and religious leaders. the order he signed aims to relax rules on churches so they can support political candidates without risking losing their tax-exempt status. and it also pushes to make it easier for employers with religious objections to include birth control from the health care plan. watch. will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied, or silenced anymore. we will never, ever stand for religious discrimination, never, ever. tolerance is the cornerstone of peace. harris: liberal critics are already pouncing, alleging that the executive order would allow discrimination. an aclu official is warning and he actually asserted this yesterday, if present from signs an executive order that attempts to provide a license to discriminate against women or lgbt people, we will see him in court. we can get to that in a moment, but charlie, i wanted to start at the beginning of what the president said he was wanting to do today and i was make a difference. social conservatives, did they check this as a victory? charlie: i think is a huge victory. the johnson amendment is one of these arcane laws that is not often enforced by the irs that punishes churches, people who have tax-exempt status if they stray into politics. the problem with little enforced laws like this is that people were most concerned about following the law are the only ones actually abide by the law. then it gets very loosey-goosey on the edges. this is something that has scorched social conservatives for a long time. it is very interesting. donald trump is on a big gunner. he has guns, but he s not a hunter or anything, and he s not exactly a bible belt politician, but he made promises to those groups in the campaign and democrats did everything they could to separate those people from donald trump, he s not one of them, but they think he ll stick out for them. harris: look at the nara last week. the very early supporters among the most staunch supporters of this president. marie, some of the criticism has been that this will hold up legally and there ll be a backlash, talk to me. marie: i do think there may be some legal challenges. we ve seen with the hobby lobby decision, particularly women, health care and birth control, that is an issue that will be challenged. i met a lawyer, i don t know how that will turn out. i m concerned about it and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the courts. for me, i m more fundamentally uncomfortable with it because i do want to keep politics away from church. i don t need more politics in my life. i don t need to come in on sunday morning and i m uncomfortable with the notion that religious organizations endorsing candidates. i think there is no partisanship in this world and let s let our religion to be separate from that. harris: where you put those black churches who are praying for barack obama? meghan: it s not uncommon. i have seen plenty of videos on the internet where pastors of churches were telling their congregations to vote for a specific candidate. when you re talking about this bill not being enforced, i more thinking about it this is something i thought was already going on to an extent. sandra: paul ryan responded, he said it s high time we restarted the religious right. marie: for someone meghan: i couldn t vote for a democrat for that reason alon alone. most of how i voted, at six important to me. a lot of times, i want to say politics and state stone and are stacked, it s a natural way for which it s going to. harris: this is specific, at least for my personal witnessing and some black churches where it was specific to the democratic party and such that it was barack obama and those were running with them. charlie: all churches pray for our nationalis that step ofd getting people to go to the polls. that s the line. harris: former national security advisor susan rice is under fire for refusing to testify before a senate panel. in the unmasking of u.s. citizens during the russian investigation. nine top lawmaker says her refusal makes it seem like she has something to hide. does she? 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marie: here s the problem with the allegation. there has been zero evidence to back that up and in fact, bipartisan republican and democratic members will find a chance to look at those documents devin nunes was talking about came away and said we didn t see anything improper. i understand charlie: how do you explain mike flynn thing? marie: which one? there are so many i can explain to you. charlie: the fact that he was unmasked, those transcripts were revealed. marie: there could be very legitimate national security briefings that mike flynn and his conversation with russian officials, turkish officials, any of these other officials was unmasked. i m not saying that have been dori didn t, i m saying there is zero evidence to back up the claim that this is a constitutional crisis. i want the senate to have hearings on russian interference in our election. jim comey said they are still interfering. surgeons and answer some questions. i think republicans are also using this politically. they re saying will invite her, she ll say no, then we will say she is. let s put that in the context of what russia did. harris: i want to go back to sanders question because i think it s a good one. i didn t quite hear it in your answer. i understand what you think it says for republicans, but what does it say specifically for susan rice? i want to contextualize it for you. she s a person who walked out the scenario of a video having brought about the killings in benghazi of our americans. she walked all those talking points that were proven not to be true. and the context of wanting to get to the truth of her at the center of it, what do you think it says that she is saying no, i m not going to come back? the marie: again, sometimes susan is her own worst enemy on these things. dianne feinstein came out and said she should probably come answer some questions. i would be happy for her, because it is a sensitive situation. i would love for her to answer questions in a way that were bipartisan or nonpartisan and to get to some of the truth of this unmasking issue. my problem is, republicans, i feel it, are trying to make the whole story unmasking and susan rice because she is an easy target when the whole story is russia meddled in our election, period. meghan: that s a lot of dancing. this ain t my first rodeo. shocking new details about my favorite person, huma abedin. i love her. fbi director james comey s comments on whether aberdeen should have been prosecuted. what top democrats are saying about ms. clinton s refusal to finally, totally, completely take the blame for her loss. 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(avo) ask about namzaric today. i kept putting it off.t get what was i thinking? ago. ok, mr. jones. we re all done. i told you it was easy. with life line screening, getting screened for unknown health conditions is so quick, painless and affordable, you ll wonder why you hadn t done it before. so if you re over age 50, call now and schedule an appointment near you. for just $149- a savings of over 50%- you ll receive a package of five screenings that go beyond your doctor s annual check-up. ultrasound technology looks inside your arteries for plaque that builds up as you age and increases your risk of stroke and heart disease. after all, 4 out of 5 people who have a stroke, their first symptom is a stroke. so call today and start with a free health assessment to understand your best plan of action. so why didn t we do this earlier? life line screening. the power of preventvention. call now to learn more. capitol hill. the health care bill, expected to squeak through with more than 216 votes that are needed. i can tell you that a bed check vote a short time ago said they had the votes they needed for republican s to get this to the house. we re watching it, will bring you developments as it happens live. i was the candidate, i was the person who was on the ballot, but i was on the way to winning until a combination of jim comey s letter on october october 28th and russian wikileaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were trying to vote for me, but got scared off. sandra: hillary clinton facing maker backlash. david axelrod telling cnn that while clinton does have a legitimate beef with the fbi director, the buck stops with her. jim comey didn t tell her not to campaign in wisconsin after the convention. he didn t say don t put any resources into michigan until the final week of the campaign and one of the things that hindered her in the campaign was a sense that she never was fully willing to take responsibility. sandra: john saki eck echoing most comments saying democrats need to recognize there were other reasons she came up short. democrats, people close to hillary clinton are going to stand politics, if they don t understand there were other failings, including where we didn t campaign, the fact that there wasn t pulling and swing middle of the country states, the fact that democrats failed to have an economic message that connected with people, then we are really missing an opportunity and we are really putting our heads in the sand to her own detriment. sandra: just can t resist going back to hillary clinton s comments going out of the gate there. we ve heard them several times. taking full responsibility, but then she starts pointing fingers and immediately had a rather reason she lost. space entry specific we we said james comey. charlie: yes. it s vintage clinton. i ve been waiting for this firefight to start to kind of break out. she also blamed president obama for getting reelected. that s another reason she lost, because it so hard to follow somebody in the same party after two terms. everybody talks about the infighting in the republican party, i m sure there s plenty, but this fighting that has to happen between now and the next election among democrats is going to be insane, because you have the obama coalition, the obama people, who are to blame for a lot of the problems hillary clinton had because she was running on a third term, based on his policies and democrats lost 1,000 seats on these policies. for them to start sniping at one another, it s going to get worse. sandra: your saving your comments. let s go to marie first, because it does appear that her fellow democrats are very quick and kindly pointing out why exactly she lost. it doesn t appear she really recognize the real reasons or acknowledge them. the speed and i don t care if she ever realizes that, what i care about is party leaders who are leaders today and in the future, look at why she lost, all of the reasons, campaign strategy, nominating candidates with a bunch of baggage, but the interparty the fight i m more concerned about is this rest of the party and bernie sanders fight. bernie sanderson on a democrat. there are certain things we agree with him on in certain things we don t, his supporters he s never been a registered democrat. charlie: what do you think about a party where half of your party supports a socialist? marie: is the challenge. taking party supporters, the issues they care about, the sub taking the message on the economic side, what can we ask for average americans in places like my home state of ohio and try to bring some of those back? this is going to be a very interesting fight and i hope my party is up to it. sandra: at doesn t appear they are. tim ryan took a good shot at that. meghan: i take this from a totally different perspective about why politically she is not taken responsibility for her actions. i come at this from a personal place. i don t always invoke my personal experiences, but i have been there on election night front and center. when you lose and you lose to an embarrassing way which is what happen with my father and also what happened with donald trump. on election night, my family prayed together, talked about how blessed we are and in that moment, that night, elected to move on. had my father been going on tv 100 days later blaming everyone else, i would have called him up, i would have personally yanked him off television and said you re embarrassing yourself. this is pathetic, this is not good for america. it s not good for americans to keep reliving this. they fail because it was the worst campaign ever. i find her behavior deeply unpatriotic and quite pathetic. harris: are you worried, marie, that while hillary clinton i have a buck, if you figure out where the buck stops are you at all worried about how this would affect her and an ability to focus an end help the party because she still does have samoa joe she could help with, because you want to talk about women s issues and everything else, maybe she could certainly help fund raise, she knows how to do that. are you worried that she becomes a shiny object distraction for your party? marie: she doesn t. we have joe biden, barack obama, he is still very popular, left off his incredible a popular, and other leaders in the senate and house and state who are picking up the mantle of the democratic party and this isn t going to be hillary clinton s party. harris: you should call her so she knows. meghan: this mount personal version of hell where she comes on tv and tells her when why she should be president. fbi director james comey revealing yesterday that hillary clinton s top aide made a habit of forwarding emails containing classified information to her husband, disgraced congressman anthony weiner. here s the exchange. was her classified information on former congressman weiner s computer? yes. who sent it to him? his then spouse, huma abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the secretary of state. why did you conclude neither of them committed a crime? because with respect to miss abedin, we didn t have any indication that she had a sense that what you doing was an violation of the law. meghan: we are already starting to talk. harris: let me tell you where we went there. this is marie. these are actually recto actively classified documents, right? what does that matter? we are in it to win it now. this woman was walking into her home, so as far as we know, he had his laptop, honey, can you print this? i emailed you such an old by the way, let me upload a few? sandra: not once, not twice, but on a regular basis. meghan: he was also messaging underage women on the internet and being a complete pervert on the internet. charlie: who was the first person that brought that up? donald trump. dirt bag is now a presidential word, i m pretty sure. meghan: it shows the arrogance that our spies and allies go through the arrogance of huma abedin that she thinks she can send this to her pervert husband who may or may not have been under investigation when it was happening, completely expose our national secrets to god knows who on the internet. i understand the hat they re hanging this on, if it were you or me, and we had to mess with our husbands, i m telling you it would be a different story. the media continues to get this woman a free pass. she s at the met ball this weekend. she continues to be treated as a celebrity for whatever reason and it s absolutely inexcusable. she has put americans safety at risk and she should be charged or brought under. harris: harris: to answerr question, to address it, here is my overarching thought on all of this. this sits with the original person who sent and had the emails on men in secure server appear hillary clinton. what clearance to the people in that circle have a question mark we know anthony weiner had some kind of clearance, but was he cleared to receive those materials? is a stain on the house of both of these women. meghan: as much as i like talking about huma abedin, you do not. marie: i not going to lizza s argument, but i feel the need to make it as a former cia officer, i ve seen the emails that have been released publicl publicly. some of the stuff, not all, for you jump on me, some of the stuff that they went back and classified were media articles. i have to do it, it s cathartic for me to get this out. some of them were literally press articles about classified programs that were retroactively classified. yes, she should not have done it, she shouldn t have had the private server, meghan: she should hate you should hate her more than me, because the position she puts it when sandra: the classification is irrelevant. marie: is a ton of classification information and if we are in a place where press articles are classified and because of that, she is putting national security at risk, we all need to take a little bit of a deep breath here. that s all i m saying. meghan: i feel bad for the position they continue to put that in. you cannot here make it okay. what a difference a day makes. the big assist from president trump and the 11th hour, how his dealmaking skills may have made all the differenc difference. credit for getting personally involved in delivering some last-minute votes. white house aides are saying the president has been working the phones seriously and he was able to get four key moderates on board after meeting with them at the white house yesterday. here s one of those former holdouts. really long on how his note turned into a yes. one they made what i considered the change to pre-existing conditions, that s when i said, i may know. the president said billy, we need you. i said you don t have me. he said they need you. he called back yesterday, we need you, we need you, we need you. i m happy to announce that we will have pre-existing conditions covered adequately. harris: you are clearing your throat. charlie: so sorry. harris: can you explain how these nose are becoming yeses? the one thing i pointed out a week ago, yes it was the freedom caucus, but 60 votes they were worried about going into that friday a few weeks ago. only half of the more freedom caucus, the rest of the more moderate. charlie: as she pointed out earlier, it wasn t just the freedom caucus. what s interesting, it s moving the bill more leftward to include things like pre-existing conditions and things like that. again, at the end of the day, it baffles me that they are doing this without getting democrats to buy in to something. i think it will be a poor result. harris: you may want to get to the senate. charlie: yes, and when it gets past and the democrats can hang this entire thing on republicans. marie: here s the problem on pre-existing conditions. every single expert that has looked at this over the last 48 hours says, this will mean less coverage for pre-existing conditions, high risk pools do not work out well, and it s not enough money, people will see in their lives a change and pre-existing condition coverage. republicans are making promises they can t keep. that is a problem. harris: you have said before, and i think now is a valid point more than ever, that the american public needs to know more about what s going into this bill in the process. i m seeing on my twitter feed rate now that people have been trying to google it. what are your thoughts? meghan: what happens today isn t going to be the final bill that goes through the senate. as much as we can celebrate something happening today, i have no reason to believe that the exact battle that have been in congress isn t going to manifest itself again and the senate over things like pre-existing conditions, over things like medicaid, expansion expansion, harris: are you frustrated by this process? meghan: yes, because the momentum is waning a little bit. i was made a lot of promises and i was quite upset when they didn t come to fruition. i think the ideological battle will continue on and will be talking about this for a very long time. sandra: this is a significant moment. newt gingrich this morning on fox & friends said the passage of this bill will be an extraordinary moment, an example of president trump s negotiating prowess. when he talked about momentum, he also commented on speaker paul ryan getting credit saying he deserves a lot of credit for never backing down, despite the setbacks. charlie: what he is primarily talking about is if there are some changes and it too medicaid, medicare, that allow the bill to realize very large and important savings over a ten-year period, if that s a silver lining, that is a significant silver lining. sounds good. we should know in the next few minutes because if they are close to being on schedule, although out of the corner my eye, will pop it up or we can, they are still debating this on the house floor. we were anticipating a 1:00 p.m. eastern type vote, we are pushing up against that now and we are coming right back on outnumbered. 50 and 64 under trunk care, costs will go up. premiums will go up, co-pays will go up .kidney problems, or high potassium in your blood. tomorrow, tomorrow i love ya, tomorrow ask your heart doctor about entresto. and help make tomorrow possible. you re only a day away. many thanks to charlie hirt, marie harf as well, good to have you both, such an exciting hour. we are going to continue to stay
here. and the white house ought to explain why that wasn t followed here, but there is a good way to answer these questions and we will do our best to answer these questions but we will not lose sight of the russia investigation and we are going to keep focus on that. yes? has there been any uptick in attacks on your or your staffers computers or i.t. networks since this investigation has been going on? i m not aware of anything like that. thank withdrew veyou very much. thank you. okay. steve kornacki in new york. that is adam schiff. just finishing up u a press conference there on capitol hill. adam schiff the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee, of course, the house intelligence committee had been pursuing interference of the status of that committee s investigation now some quwhat i question. there s been all sorts of controversy about actions, about statements from the republican chairman, devin nunes, in that statement you just heard there, that press conference, rather, that you just saw there, from adam schiff coming on the heels of an explosive report a few hours ago from the new york times, a report that has all of washington talking right now. the white house saying nothing. what is the times reporting? the times naming two trump administration officials that it says played a role in providing information to devin nunes, chairman of the house intelligence committee. that information leading nunes to announce that president trump may have been surveilled by the obama administration before he took office. now, those officials, again, according to the reporting of the new york times here, this is not reporting from nbc news, but according to the new york times, as the senior director for the intelligence at the national security council, he was appointed he was brought in, rather, by ousted national security adviser michael flynn. also named by the times, michael ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the white house counsel s office. now, he previously worked for devin nunes. remember, key to point out here, the announcement from nunes set off a firestorm of controversy around him and around his committee s investigation into russian interference. nunes had briefed the president before sharing that material with his democratic colleagues on the intelligence committee. of course, those colleagues supposed to be working hand in hand with him here. that led to accusations that nunes was working with the white house and lending some to lend some credibility to trump s claims that he was wiretapped. this new report from the new york times, if true, could certainly inflame those accusations. we should say this reporting from the times based on sources described only as several current american officials. as i mentioned before, nbc has not independently confirmed the report. the report also says that these officials, played a role in providing the information. that they assisted in the disclosure of the intelligence reports. it is not clear what precisely that entails or how precisely they would have been involved. in a statement, a spokesman for chairman nunes telling nbc news, as he has stated many times, chairman nunes will not confirm or deny speculation about his sources identity. he will not respond to speculation from anonymous sources. a lot going on here. a lot of confusion. kasie hunt is on capitol hill. she was at that press conference that adam schiff just held. she asked him some questions. so, kasie, we have that report from the new york times, what exactly are we hearing from adam schiff, from the top democrat in the intelligence committee right now? reporter: confusion, i think, is still the word for what is going on with this investigation, steve. even the ranking member here was asked if he had information he had promised earlier. he said, you know what, this day completely got away from me and like many days on this investigation, i think we all feel that way a little bit. so, if you just want to reset here for a minute, clearly this schiff said today. he said that he just received this letter basically as spicer was talking about it in the briefing. here s what schiff had to say. on the same day that the new york times broke a story saying that the source of the materials that were provided to our chairman was, in fact, national security council staff, i was informed in a letter from white house counsel that white house excuse me, national security council staff found these materials in the ordinary course of business. now, that timing concerns me. if, in fact, the national security council staff that discovered these materials reportedly in the ordinary course of business or the same national security staff that provided them to the chairman to be provided to the president, it raises a profound question why they were not directly provided to the white house by the national security staff and instead were provided through a route involving the chairman. reporter: so, again, another twist in this saga that raises questions about the credibility of this house intelligence committee investigation. now, adam schiff says he wants to maintain the credibility of the investigation, but, again, that he has concerns about it. he also said he is available any time as soon as possible to go down to the white house and view whatever these materials turn out to be. steve? all right, kasie hunt on capitol hill. a very unexpectedly busy day. kasie hunt, thank you for that. reporter: story of my life. let s go to the white house now for that side of the story. kelly o donnell standing by there. kelly, this report from the new york times hit just before sean spicer and his regular daily briefing were set to begin in the white house there. what is the white house saying in response to what the new york times is reporting? reporter: very little. sean spicer would not confirm anything in that report, would not engage on it, not taking questions that relate to it, but as kasie just outlined and certainly congressman adam schiff also made this nexus between the timing of the new york times report and this letter inviting the intelligence top officials from the house and senate committees to view this material. so, clearly sean spicer, the spokesman for the president, knew this was coming. he was prepared for this. and did not want to take questions that would help us to understand if there is anything to the recording in terms of the white house being willing to confirm or refute elements of that story. one of the big questions comes down to not only white house staffers, what may they have done or not done, but the president, himself, after he sort of set up first the tweeted claim of being wiretapped, which has been roundly discounted by officials with the ability to know if there had been any so-called wiretap, when he brought broadened that to more surveillance. in a televised interview, the president said more information would be coming and it would be good stuff. today our colleague, kristen welker, put this question to the white house press secretary any potential that the president had a hand or any knowledge of what has transpired. did the president direct anyone in this white house or in his national security team to try to find information or intelligence to back up his assertion about wiretapping? i don t i m not aware of anything directly. i d have to look into that in terms of again, there s two sides of this. one is the information side, and two is the policy and the activities and the legal piece of what happened. and i don t there s those are big buckets, if you will. so it s possible? i m not going to comment on it. reporter: so, one thing the sean spicer was not prepared was to bring in the degree to which the president may or may not have been involved on this question of this incidental surveillance and this intelligence product or intelligence data that may be now available for review for the intelligence top officials from capitol hill. it will be important to revisit that question later on to see if the president might have had any direct knowledge of this. certainly he raised the issue, himself, by talking about surveillance, and by suggesting there would be more information brought to the public. he said that on television. and so that question that our colleague, kristen, asked, seemed to have real merit in the moment, and so far, the white house is not able to go into any detail to give us an answer on that. steve? all right. kelly o donnell at the white house. kelly, thank you for that. let s bring in now david french, he s a writer at the national review. and david, i know you have you re a conservative voice, though, who has been saying republicans and conserve ti ati need to be taking this issue of russian interference in the election very seriously. i m just wondering what you make of the events today. we have this report in the new york times saying, hey, there were people at the white house, two people in the administration, who played some role, according to the times, in getting this information to nunes. we know nunes took the information to the president, we know democrats on the committee said he should have shared it with us. we have the white house offering this letter now saying, hey, there s some information gleaned in the ordinary course of work by the national security council, we want you to come view it. what do you make of all the pieces that are suddenly floating around out there? here s the problem. the origin of this confusion lies with the trump tweets. where trump has said, he was wiretapped, it s as bad as watergaets, it s a huge scandal, then began to seek external validation for this tweet. for this argument. he didn t come forward with evidence. and so here s the fundamental problem. there s two fundamental problems with what nunes did. fundamental problem number one, it s looking increasingly like the white house fed him information that he turned around and fed back to the white house in a manner that led everyone to believe independently discovered it and it was information that didn t confirm trump s tweet but he was able to use to say he felt validated. that s a problem. that s not his role as chairman of the committee. here s the second problem. he s not sharing that information with his own committee. instead, he s talking in these vague terms like he doesn t disclose source and methods, sources and methods like he s a member of a spy agency, himself. like he had some sort of clandestine meeting that nobody needs to know about. but, again, let s remember, he s the chairman of the house intelligence committee. he is not an employee, he is not a lawyer for the president. it s not his job to make the president s tweets look better. and so when you take all of these reports together, it creates an impression of a chairman of a house committee essentially working to backfill the president of the united states tweeting and that is not his role and it s created an enormous amount of confusion and has caused further loss of confidence in the work of the committee. and we know by all appearances, the work of that house committee right now seems stalled. there was talk there from adam schiff, the ranking democrat, that proposed witness lists are being passed back and forthright now. there have been some proceedings for this week that were put off. going forward, based on everything you just said right there, can you see a scenario where nunes recovers his credibility with the democrats on the committee? recovers enough sort of standing to proceed with this investigation and have the results, whatever they may be, accepted by both sides? well, i mean, you know, there s a lot of second acts in american politics. and i can t imagine a course correction, one where he says here is the information that i viewed. i m going to make it available to my committee, which is all clear to view secret information, top-secret information. so he does what he s supposed to do. he apologizes for going outside the normal course of business. and then he rolls forward. i haven t seen any indication that that s happening, instead, you know, the news is changing every five minutes, but my last understanding is he s still not even sharing with his own committee what he found, what he saw, and how can you be a committee chair of an intelligence committee when you re not sharing with your own committee the intelligence that you re viewing? and that s a core problem and i do think that there is a way for him to move through this and move out of this. i just don t see that that s happening. all right. david french with the national review. thank you for joining us. appreciate the time. thanks so much for having me. okay. again, a very busy day here. we ve been pulled in all sorts of directions trying to cover politics today. we re going to cover all the bases throughout this hour. please stay patient and bear with us as we take a very quick break here. on the other side, president trump also today, this would normally be the major headline in politics, but so many other things happened today. president trump all but declaring war on members of his own party who he says are standing in the way of his plan to repeal and replace obamacare and maybe much more. how far is the president willing to go to try to get these republican s on? we re going to take you through all of that in just a moment. plus, also this, new controversy out of the state of north carolina. over that controversial bathroom law down there. the state assembly just voted to repeal part of it. measure now awaiting the governor s signature. some opponents still aren t satisfied. this isn t a victory for anyone, but most especially not for the lgbt community. grown man now. i don t want to pry. dad. but have you made a decision? i m going with the $1000 in cash back. my son. .a cash man. dad, are you crying? nah, just something in my eye. the volkswagen 3 and easy event. .where you can choose one of three easy ways to get a $1000 offer. hurry in to your volkswagen dealer now and you can get $1000 as an apr bonus, a lease bonus, or cash back. had helped the pig with homeowners insurance. he had replacement cost coverage, so his house was rebuilt, good as new. the big bad wolf now has a job on a wind farm. call geico and see how easy it is to switch and save on homeowners insurance. obamacare. with republican legislation. trump now issuing a threat on twitter this morning. take a look at this. the president tweeting out, the freedom caucus will hurt the entire republican agenda if they don t get on the team. and fast. we must fight them and dems in to 2018. the house freedom caucus, very conservative wing on the republican side, now as much in the eyes of trump the enemy as the democrats at least if they don t get behind his agenda. sean spicer, white house spokesman, suggesting that house members may still fall in line. there s a few members of the freedom caucus prior to last friday s vote and since then who is expressed a willingness to want to work with him, rather than necessarily as a bloc. and i think that there continues to be some promising signs in that with with that. so, again, i think part of it is i think people are more concerned with voting as a bloc, then, in what s the best interest to their constituents and american people, he s hoping people will see the bigger picture, the goals that we outlined and sometimes not let the really good be the enemy of the perfect. we talked about this earlier this week with the freedom caucus being resistant on health care, potentially doing the same thing on future big fights, it leaves trump with two possible courses of action. one, can he freeze out the freedom caucus? can he write them off if? if he does that, he would have to compromise with democrats. option two, he would try to essentially break the freedom caucus to make them fall in line with him and to pass legislation with only republican votes based on that tweet now, it appears the president is going with the latter option. the question, if he does go down that road, can he actually strong arm dissenting members of his own party into getting onboard with him in the future? want to bring in michael steele, msnbc political analyst, former chair of the republican national committee, and howard dean, msnbc contributor, former governor of vermont, also former chair of the dnc. the two former chairs here. michael steele, i will start with you. the freedom caucus has been bedevilling republican leaders in washington for years, doing this before donald trump was president. what donald trump is suggesting in that tweet today, could he have any success in strong arming them? i, you know, it s kind of hard to say. i don t think that that s the best tactic to take with these guys. these folks have a principled orientation. they have a very strong view on government spending and government programs and the role of government. that s how they got elected. i know firsthand because i helped get them elected in 2010. so i understand very much where they re coming from and this idea that they re just going to roll over is just it s d disingenuous to believe that. it s not something that s going to happen. instead of fighting with them, figure out how you create the sweet spot. one thing the ryan team could have done was instead of going down the road with the legislation they did, was just reintroduce the bill that all republicans signed off in the house and signed off in the senate and presented it to president obama, they presented that bill to this white house, it would have moved forward and then you d be in a different operating space at this point. instead of creating a relationship built around tension, you would have had one built around cooperation right from the start. if you wanted to pursue health care first. the threats have a limited purpose here, i think, and in the long run, does not serve the administration, nor the party any good. now, the house speaker, paul ryan, he s somebody, he s had his own frustrations trying to deal with the house freedom caucus. he said today he understands where the president is coming from, essentially said he thinks the president was venting with what he said. but of course, if the president does not find a way, if republican leaders like ryan do not find a way to get all republicans on the same page, the only way to pass legislation would be working with democrats, but on that possibility of reaching out to the other side, here s what paul ryan had to say this morning. wouldhat i worry about, noraf we don t do this, he ll go work with democrats to try and change obamacare, and that s not going that s hardly a conservative thing. by the way, paul ryan sniffing at the idea of working with democrats prompted this unusual reply, bob corker, republican senator from tennessee, he went on twitter, he said, we ve come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president not to work with the other party to solve a problem. howard dean, i read what paul ryan was saying there in the interview, though, essentially as a threat to the house freedom caucus. hey, if you i guys don t get onboard, we re going to have democrats writing our own legislation. is that how you interpret it ? yeah, this is really complicated. i don t agree with michael. i don t think they can pass the same bill because they can t do it in reconciliation, they re never going to pass that through the senate. this bill is toxic. i mean, this bill is not just the in some ways the freedom caucus saved the republican party in 2018. if you had done this, you would have put out a put a whole lot of people who voted for donald trump and voted republican the last election out of their health insurance. you would have had people dying of cancer because of what the republicans did. so it s just as well for the republicans that this thing didn t pass. i have no idea i ve never seen anything like this, of course, we ve said that about a lot of things drup druonald tru done. i have no idea what they re going to try to do. i think it would be fine if they work with the democrats but would get a position that s much more mainstream as far as the american people were concerned. the american people do not support what paul ryan wants. michael steele, another question, a bigger picture question about the house freedom caucus, it seems to me watching them over the last few years part of their appeal to their base, part of the appeal to the voters who sent them there, is this idea that they are standing up not just to democrats but to their own party, and does that create its own obstacle, the idea there s an incentive there for them to oppose anything the president, anything republican leadership tries to do just to show that they are standing up? no. not really. i mean, they don t oppose this for the sake of opposing. they oppose on principle. they oppose on the fundamental value system that republicans have articulated for over a generation. certainly going back to ronald reagan s time. and a lot of these folks feel that we moved away from that. big government republicanism has no place with these people. and so this idea that you re going to spend your way into prosperity on the backs of future generations is an athema to them. they push back because they were asked to be in the room to make sure that government is responsive to the needs of people and to howard s point about the health care bill, i think that s a valid point. about that particular bill. which is why over the last seven years of the wasted opportunity to actually craft a bill that s not only anchored in these principles but actually would be received well by the american people, if your true intention was to replace obamacare. another piece of news we are just getting right now, and howard dean, i want to get you to respond to this, joe manchin, senator, democratic senator from west virginia, just announcing in last few minutes he plans to vote yes on the confirmation of neil gorsuch to the supreme court. the backdrop, you have this, chucklead ers hinting at the pocket of mounting a filibuster against the nomination, trying to force republicans to come up with 6 f f 0 votes. he s one of the more announcement by the democrat, joe manclihin, what does this d to the question of a filibuster on the democratic side? nothing. that s baked in. i expect two or three or four democrats to vote for judge gorsuch. what their constituency wants. i can tell you right now, if gorsuch is confirmed by democrats, that is unless we force mcconnell to exercise the nuclear option, if he s confirmed straight up with 60 votes, 10 of which are democratic, the democratic senatorial committee might as well hang it up because they ll never raise any money from our base. all right. howard dean, former governor of vermont, former dnc chair. michael steele, former rnc chair. thank you to both for joining us. appreciate that. we re going to take a quick break here. on the other side, amid all that turmoil among the house intelligence committee and its chairman devin nunes, the senate intelligence committee held its first public hearing on russia today. americans should be concerned because right now, foreign country, whether they realize it or not, is pitting them against their neighbor, other political parties, ramping up divisions based on things that aren t true. more on that hearing next. plus, response from russian president vladimir putin today when asked about his country s interference in the election. ady when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. time now u for a check of the headlines at the half hour. a very busy hour in washington. the senate just in the last few minutes voting 51-50 to overturn an obama-era rule that prevents states from defunding planned parenthood clinics because they provide abortion services. 51-50 because it was a 50-50 tie then vice president mike pence acting as the president of the senate cast the tie breaking vote. also in washington, the senate intelligence committee holding its first hearing today on allegations of russian interference in last year s presidential election. one witness telling committee members that russia targeted all of the republican presidential candidates. we re going to have much more on that hearing, what was said in just a minute. also, the justice department says it will continue to fight for president trump s temporary ban on travel to the u.s. by people from six predominantly muslim countries. this coming after a federal judge out in hawaii granted the state s request to extend an order blocking the government from implementing that travel ban. and the white house says president trump and the chinese president will hold its first meeting at trump s mar-a-lago report april 6th and april 7th, expected to discuss trade, north korea and tensions in the north china sea. federal investigatorors searching for the cause of yesterday s deadly bus crash in central texas, 13 members of a church were killed when the small bus they r traveling on collided head of hn win with a truck when heading home for a church retreat. lawmakers in north carolina voting again in the last hour to repeal the controversial and costly bathroom bill. excuse me, voted earlier today and governor roy cooper announcing just moments ago that h he has now signed that legislation. this is legislation that repeals the original law. it leaves lawmakers in charge of bathroom policies for public buildings and temporarily bars local governments from approving nondiscrimination ordinances. governor making a public statement just moments ago. this was more than about sports and jobs. it was about discrimination and it was about north carolina s reputation and it was about wanting us to work toward ending discrimination and i could not tolerate having house bill 2 be the law of the land in north carolina. governor mentioning sports and jobs there because of the boycotts that were that came as a result of this law being passed and signed last year. the ncaa said that it would not hold any of its college championship events in the state of north carolina until and unless the law was removed from the books. the nba also pulled this year s all-star game from charlotte, companies had pulled back on plans to invest in the state as well. mariana is standing by in the state capitol in raleigh. so, mariana, obviously the backdrop to all of this, big sort of money at stake here in terms of boycotts from the state. is this legislation going to satisfy, do we know, those boycotts? reporter: we don t know, steve, and actually the ncaa had a previously scheduled press conference, that s happening at 6:30 p.m. eastern today, so we ll be looking out for reaction from them to this replacement bill. but as you mentioned, this replacement bill 142 is kind of like a compromise bill. neither side seems particularly happy with the outcome. on the one hand, you have lgbt activists who still feel that this replacement bill leaves room for discrimination because of the issues that you mentioned. and then on the other, you have conservatives here who didn t want to repeal hb-2 in the first place. but, again, as you said, the state s economic interests took precedent. that s the feeling that we got here today. the state had already lost so much. you mentioned the nba championship, paypal also pulled out of north carolina. they were supposed to build a big facility here that would create hundreds of jobs. you had arists like bruce spr g springsteen canceling their concerts. when that happens, it s the working class person in north carolina, the person who was going to work in the hotel or sell pretzels at the concert that gets affected. we got a feeling today that that was really in some lawmakers minds today when they voted to repeal hb-2 and put in this replacement bill. no doubt, however, that the big winner here today was democratic governor roy cooper. he, of course, campaigned against hb-2, won the governorship, you know, razor thin margin and then today he, you know, was basically one of the architects that credits himself with repealing hb-2 and putting this replacement bill in place. he tweeted about the repeal, he said, today we repealed hb-2. it wasn t a perfect deal, or my preferred solution, but an important first step for our state. so in that tweet, he s even admitting that this was a compromise bill. that hb-2 might be gone, but the issue still remains here in north carolina. steve? all right. mariana in raleigh, north carolina. thank you for that. let s go back now to the nation s capitol, capitol hill, leaders of the senate intelligence committee today renewing their promise to conduct an independent and nonpartisan or bipartisan investigation into alleged russian interference in the presidential election, and potential ties between the trump campaign and russia. this comes amid all of those questions about whether the separate investigation being run by the house intelligence committee can remain on course in light of a visit that republican chairman devin nunes made to the white house. now today s senate hearing focusing on alleged russian interference, here s what some of the committee members and some of the witnesses had to say. the takeaway from today s hearing, we re all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary. this is not fake news. this is actually what happened to us. deception and active measures have long been and will remain a staple of russian dealings. has russia conducted other similar campaigns in other countries? yes, the commander in chief has used russian active measures at times against his opponent. he claims that the election could be rigged. that was the number one theme pushed by r.t. s news, outlets all the way up to the election. was this an act of war? it s definitely a part of the cold war system that we knew 20, 30 years ago. and joining me now, michael crowley, senior foreign affairs correspondent for politico. the timing on this is interesting because you have the controversy around the house investigation for the moment. that seems stalled in terms of actually calling witnesses and sort of the traditional investigative measures they d be taking. now the senate sort of getting in on this. what is the key difference you see between how that senate committee is functioning and how the house committee is sort of maybe not functioning right now? well, i mean, ts looks like partisanship and professionalism, competence. those are the two key things and i think they go somewhat hand in hand. on the house side, you really have kind of a partisan fight and it does look like, you know, devin nunes has handled this a little less than like a pro. he s already had to apologize to his colleagues once for the way he s gone about this, and the two sides on that committee, particularly nunes and his couldn counterpart, adam schiff, are dug into separate bunkers. it has a partisan veneer. nunes has not conducted it competently, professionally. the story line further clouded today with the revelation it appears two national security staffers at the white house may have helped provide him with documents that he talked about before, talking to his colleagues on the committee about surveillance of trump officials being picked up in secret surveillance of foreign diplomats and on the senate side, briefly, what you seem to have is comedy, professionalism, a smooth process. the chairman and the ranking member are getting along. it s kind of like the adults finally showing up. it was interesting watching some of that testimony before the senate committee, though, today, it did strike me that in piecing this together in trying to draw, ultimately trying to draw conclusions about the level of russian interference, the effect of russian interference in the election, that sort of thing, it might be a less precise question than maybe we assume, and what i mean in particular, one of the witnesses there was talks about an instance where donald trump on the campaign trail had cited a fake news article you could trace back to russia, but then in the same sort of line of thought, he got all the way to birtherism and claims of a rigged election saying these are things russians would like people in the united states to be talks abouing about. it seems that may be true. seems there could be a million other reasons trump got into birtherism in the first place or got into sort of claims about rigged elections to make the case that this was from russia, that this is the direct connection to russia. it seems like there may be some gray area in this, a lot of gray area. yeah, steve, i follow these english language russian news outlets pretty closely. you have a chicken and egg issue. trump will start talking about something and these outlets will pick up on it and run with it so it s not clear to me, you know, where it came from. so that is a pretty heavy inference at this point and i think the idea that, you know, trump was intentionally parroting russian propaganda loins, that would be at the far end of the range of possibility of what happened in this election. it s a pretty dramatic interpretation of the possibilities. i think that right now, you know, the focus of the investigation seems to be at a lower level, trump associates, did they have meetings in european countries with people who had ties to the kremlin? you know, was julian assange, was there some intermediary between wikileaks and roger stone? how did that work? so to go to the idea that trump, himself, was sort of relying on russian propaganda is a pretty big leap. again, as you say, this committee, this hearing today was trying to set the context, lay the groundwork. i think a useful way, steve, because the coverage has really gotten bogged down in the blow-by-blow process questions that are important, but reminding people of the first principles here, the major core issues at stake which is the potential interference in the election. and i want to make sure to get this in as well, vladimir putin, he was asked about this idea of russian interference. this is what vladimir putin is saying. you and the russian government did never try to influence the outcome of the u.s. presidential election and there will be no evidence found? translator: ronald reagan once debating about taxes and addressing the americans said, watch my lips, he said, no, watch my lips, no. wow. reagan s vice president george h.w. bush who said that. putin i m curious behind the scenes, do we have a sense, if vladimir putin was trying to influence the election in this country, if trump was his preferred candidate, if he had high hopes for what a trump presidency would mean for the american/russian relationship, just given how this has become the all-consuming controversy in american politics right now, does he feel he s going to get the benefits of the trump presidency that he was looking for? yeah, you know, an interesting point that i ve heard made, you know, if this was the sort of most dastardly effective russian operation of all-time, it actually was too effective, too blunt, too blatant because there s a backlash now. it s going to be really difficult for donald trump to do some kind of deal with vladimir putin that putin might have been hoping for. you know, if trump had kind of come in not talking so much about russia, these ties had not been exposed, he could have flown under the radar and cut some deals and would have been people who were upset but wouldn t have had the public outcry you re going to have now. the prospects for a new relationship with russia are really back burnered. by the way, i want to point out, that famous quote, read my lips, no new taxes which was uttered by george h.w. bush, of course the most famous thing about that, he broke that promise. it was not a very binding promise and not a wise one to cite, steve. but, look, i think that vladimir putin probably is frustrated right now. he probably felt that donald trump was somebody who could give him some things he wanted like lifting sanctions over ukraine and some things to do with nato on its eastern flank near russia s border and now i just don t think it s very likely that much of that is going to materialize. in fact, you can see a scenario where trump and putin have to kind of puff out their chests at one another. you could get in a dangerous cycle of escalation. i talked to some experts, it s actually possible the relationship could get worse from here. michael crowley of politico. thanks for the time. thank you, steve. okay. president trump, now paul ryan, both suggesting they may be willing to revisit health care after that colossal failure last week. there is a lot of uncertainty, obviously, about what a final bill might look like if they choose to revive it. up next, we re going to show you what a possible obamacare replacement could mean for millions of americans. per roll from engineering and manufacturing. to stealth bombers. to next-generation fighters. to landing an unmanned vehicle on a carrier for the first time in history. just wait till you see what s next. that s the value of performance. northrop grumman all right. legislatively, it was an absolute debacle last week. republicans withdrawing their plan to repeal and replace obamacare. now, though, president trump suggesting he may revive the issue. house speaker paul ryan suggesting republicans may still come up with a plachb n of thein and replace the existing law. which options would republicans have, which options might democrats have if there were a chance to work with republicans? what are the options for health care reform from this point forward? jolene kent takes a look. hey, steve. here in washington at the health care drama continues as politicians are grappling with what would come next, what s on the cable? at the same time, americans all across the country of every political persuasion are waiting to find out what s going to happen with them when they visit the doctor next. president trump threatening the future of health care. just minutes after the gop bill was pulled last week. i ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let obamacare explode. it is exploding right now. reporter: now this week, an aboutface. i know we re all going to make a deal on health care. that s such an easy one. reporter: all of this back and forth in washington has left consumers and the health insurance industry desperate for answers. the exchanges are stable icing, according to the nonpartisan cbo. but could health care for an estimated 11 million americans americans other rely on these exchanges actually explode? it depends on what the government does next. president trump recently said that he expects obamacare to explode. he thinks over the next year or two, out of pockets premiums and deductibles will get so high that increasingly, exchanges will be thrown into a death spiral. do i think that is at all feasible and likely to happen? no. i think the exchanges will stabilize. option two. president trump undercuts the law by halting subsidies or stopping enforcement of the mandate to buy insurance the secretary in hhs has a lot of discretion. they can decide how much they ll spoken advertising. they can decide whether or not they ll challenge the cost sharing subsidies, if they persian gulf them. which they have the ability to do. it will have a very bad effect on the exchanges and that s within their power. if that happens, many who depend on the subsidies may no longer be able to afford health insurance whatsoever. and another scenario. uncertainty and pullout regardless of what the government does. we went inside this meeting of insurance underwriters scrambling as some are facing a summer deadline. we need on stabilize the marketplace now. because we have so many insurance carriers that are either leaving the states that they participated in, or they have raised their premiums to such levels that it has become very difficult to find decent coverage at a decent price. if insurers keep losing confidence in the system, more companies could exit the market with one or perhaps zero options. that s already the case for greg in tennessee where insurance coils are dropping out sflfl we just want the opportunity to buy health insurance that s affordable to us. that s all we re asking. it is not a liberal or conservative issue. the bottom line, insurance companies are scratching their heads about what s next leaving millions of patients wondering if they ll have health care at all. there s a new reuters poll that shows 80% of republican dozen want their party to try repealing and replacing once again but president trump has yet to outline any specifics on how to succeed or how exactly the second attempt will differ from the first. all right. let s get a check on what happened on wall street. we gains over wall street. the dow gaining 69 points. a record close for nasdaq climbing 16 points. today we had banks, financial shares leading the rally coming back from the worst week we ve seen so far this week. and it is all corporate profits. they should be jump bush administration quarter in this season. that s the latest from cnbc, first in business worldwide. so how old do you want to be when you retire? uhh, i was thinking around 70. alright, and before that? you mean after that? no, i m talking before that. do you have things you want to do before you retire? oh yeah sure. ok, like what? but i thought we were supposed to be talking about investing for retirement? we re absolutely doing that. but there s no law you can t make the most of today. what do you want to do? i d really like to run with the bulls. wow. yea. hope you re fast. i am. get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change. investment management services from td ameritrade. to landing an unmanned vehicle on a carrier for the first time in history. just wait till you see what s next. that s the value of performance. northrop grumman people don t take with to being bullied. do you think, is this an actual negotiating tactic by the president? is this a constructive way to do it? it s constructive in fifth grade. it may allow a child to get his way. but that s not how our government works of. just in, amash there, a republican member of congress calling the republican president childish and why is it? because of this tweet that donald trump sent out saying the freedom caucus will hurt the entire republican agenda if they don t get on the team and fast. we must fight them, and dems, in 2018. the president suggesting he wants to fight members of his own party who are in the freedom caucus. amash is in the freedom caucus. and the president is saying if they don t get on board, i m ready to go after them politically. that takes us to today s most important number of the day. there are 27 republican who s are members of the house freedom caucus who we know are members of the house freedom caucus. has the group that doesn t actually release a list of its members names. but there are 27 who we know are members and who are not at the time the health care vote was coming due last week. and who were not publicly yes votes. some of them were no. some of them were still undecided. some said they were leaning no. the point is when it all came to a head, these 27 members of the house freedom caucus were not yet on board. so these the people presumably donald trump is really talking about when he says they have to get on board or maybe we ll come after them. so if donald trump were to come after some or all of these freedom caucus members in the elections next year, in 2018, what would that mean? something to keep in mind, most come from very safe republican districts. districts where in the general election, they win by blowouts. here s a comparison. in their districts, in these 27 districts last november, when donald trump was running against hillary clinton. how did he do? he won by an average of 25 points. not a shock. generally very republican districts. how does that 25-the point average margin for trump compare to how the 27 republican members of congress did? he won by 25 on average in their district. what were they winning by? on average, they are winning their own districts by 31 points. so they did a little bit better than donald trump in their districts. keep in mind, what does that mean? it was a general election. maybe they just attracted more democratic votes than donald trump definitely we don t really know. the key is, when they re both winning by that much, the real threat would be the republican primary. if there was a republican primary, some of these guys would be running. how many votes in the primary could he sway? we don t really know for sure. donald trump won most of these districts in the republican primary. not all of them. in some cases, by big margins, some by small margins. the primary is where the primary would be if there is a threat. our most important number, 27.
plus the president s latest hard right turn to try and sell trumpcare 2.0. nobody knew that health care could be so complicated. and from selling your internet browser history what the heck are you thinking? to rolling back protections for women. how trump s america is taking shape faster than you know. would you like to make a change, folks? when all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. amid a steady drip of news about trump world s connections to russia and under the shadow of an unprecedented federal probe into possible collusion between a foreign adversary and the sitting president s campaign, the white house and the gop is in full change the subject mode. the scandal is not what we know, it s how we know it. in a throw back to the benghazi days, they ve got a familiar scapegoat. former national security adviser susan rice. i believe susan rice abused the system, and she did it for political purposes. she needs to be brought in and questioned under oath. in terms of political manipulation of national security information, susan rice, in my view, has done it in the past. when it comes to susan rice, you need to verify, not trust. susan rice is the typhoid mary of the obama administration foreign policy. every time something went wrong, she seemed to turn up in the middle of it, whether it was benghazi what is it that susan rice is supposed to have done? well, republicans say she tried to access the names of u.s. individuals caught up in intelligence surveillance, a process known as unmasking, and somehow abused her position for some nefarious political end. is any of that true? well, today in an exclusive interview with andrea mitchell, susan rice got a chance to answer the allegations herself. the allegation is that somehow obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. that s absolutely false. did you seek the names of people involved to unmask the names of people involved in the trump transition, the trump campaign, people surrounding the president-elect in order to spy on them? absolutely in order to expose them? absolutely not for any political purposes, to spy, expose, anything. did you leak the name of mike flynn i leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would. in fact, buried down deep in one of those initial reports where few people seemed to have noticed it was the concession that any of rice s unmasking requests were likely within the law. she had the power to do it. in her interview today, rice explained the regular process for making those requests with the intelligence community. it would start with the i.c. s daily intelligence report. there were occasions when i would receive a report in which a u.s. person was referred to. name not provided, just u.s. person. and sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance of the report and assess its significance, it was necessary to find out or request the information as to who that u.s. official was. what i would do or what any official would do is to ask the briefer whether the intelligence community would go through its process and there s a longstanding, established process to decide whether that information as to who the identity of the u.s. person was could be providedo me. so they d take that question back. they d put it through a process, and the intelligence community made the determination as to whether or not the identity of that american individual could be provided to me. if u.s. surveillance had picked up evidence of illicit communications between russian actors and american individuals, susan rice might have been one of the u.s. officials to find out about it. and if she had, you can bet she d have questions about which americans were involved. but that basic set of assumptions does not add up to a scandal, and it s worth while to recap what we actually know. one, since july, the fbi has been investigating the trump campaign for possible ties to russia, which waged a cyber campaign to disrupt the 2016 election and aid donald trump. and, two, the president s national security adviser was forced out a month into the administration for lying to the white house, the vice president, the public about the nature of his contacts with the top russian official in the united states. there, it seems, is your scandal. i m joined now by the top democrat on the house intelligence committee, one of two congressional committees investigating any trump ties to russia, congressman adam schiff of california. congressman, ken dilanian had this quote that i thought was interesting and made me think. he says, non-partisan former senior intel official to me just now on unmasking fake scandal. it s like iraq wmd, a theory in search of facts. what do you make of that? well, you know, it certainly is a theory in search of a villain and for whatever reason the hard right has always chosen susan rice to be their villain. i think you heard some snippets about that today. i was dra gooned into service on the benghazi select committee. for two years, that committee s purpose was to take down hillary clinton s numbers. but one of the central figures the republicans went after and after and after was susan rice. and after two years they could find nothing that susan rice did wrong. in fact, the only thing susan rice did was go on sunday morning shows and repeat what the intelligence committee best assessment of the early hours of benghazi was. that was consistent with what we were hearing, what susan rice was hearing, and that s all they could find, which was perfectly appropriate on her part. so what it is they have about susan rice that they like to go after her, i don t know. but i do think you re right in your summation at the outset. this is yet another attempt to distract attention from the russia probe, which they obviously want to defer and deflect as much as they can. now, you recently went to the white house after this long, complicated, sort of it seemed to me, misdirection play by the chair of your committee, devin nunes, possibly sort of laundering information for the white house that was given to him. he then briefed the white house about it all to maybe back up some kernel of some version of a tweet the president sent out about being, quote, spied on our wiretapped. you ve now gone and viewed documents that are classified, i imagine, but can you give us your reaction? was it a, oh, yes, the president was rice thght that he was wiretapped? was it something else? i can t go into the contempts of those documents, but i can tell you i haven t seen anything during the course of this investigation that backs up in any way, shape, or form president trump s accusation against his predecessor, that his predecessor wasllegally wiretapping him orn the more broader allegation that he was surveilling him somehow. there s no basis for that whatsoever. and, you know, the wall street journal just reported and, again, i don t know if this is accurate, but it would explain a lot of the skull dugry in the white house. they just reported that the white house itself generated these materials that they then wanted to share with the chairman alone and have the chairman report back to the white house. that would explain why sean spicer says it was in the ordinary course of business. of course there s nothing ordinary about it unless the ordinary course of the white house business is trying to interfere in congressional investigations. but nonetheless, it s the first time that anyone has reported that these documents were by and for the white house. and if that s accurate, it would certainly explain a lot of why sean spicer and others in the white house were so desperate to hide their involvement. a colleague of yours, congressman castro, earlier today said that if he had to bet, he would bet that people will go to jail over the end result of the investigation that the fbi is conducting. do you agree with that? well, i m not a betting man. the most i m willing to say is we re at the very early stage of the investigation. i don t think any of us can tell where it will lead. and i don t think we should pre-judge the outcome. we should instead dedicate ourselves to following the facts wherever they lead. so i m not prepared to bet on any particular outcome. i just want to make sure that we get to the bottom of this. i want to ask you about carter page, an individual who has been often mentioned in reports as a sject of investigation because of his contacts with possibly russian intelligence officials. there s a story that he was a target of russian spies for recruitment, passed them documents, buzzfeed said. and today he responded and said, i didn t want to be a spy he said in an interview with abc news. i m not a spy. is carter page someone that you guys are going to have come before the committee? you know, he s certainly a person of interest, and i think at the appropriate time, we are going to want him to come before the committee. as has been reported even prior to the report you re referring to, he was in moscow during the course of the campaign, and there are allegations by christopher steele that british former intel officer that is reportedly held in high regard by u.s. intel, that he had clandestine meetings there, was potentially offered a stake in this transaction involving this massive russian oil company. so we obviously want to get to the bottom of those allegations, find out whether there s any truth to them. but at this point, i can t comment on anything we may be learning privately. are you confident and this strikes me as the most important question at the heart of all this. with the steps the white house has taken to reach in, it appears, according to reports, reach into american intelligence apparatus to pull out selective bits of information to possibly feed to people, can you be confident that the integrity of the counterintelligence investigation that we now the fbi is undertaking can be protected and secure? well, that really depends on the director of the fbi to maintain the independence of that bureau and, even more importantly, to be proactive, not reactive and do everything possible to get to the bottom of these allegations. i think we can fully expect because, you know, one thing you can tell about this president, he is not going to change. he is who he is. so if they re making efforts at the white house to interfere with our investigation, they re going to continue to do that throughout the investigation. whether they will, you know, risk doing that with the fbi, i don t know. but we need to count on the bureau to maintain the integrity of that investigation, and i can assure you no matter what the white house throws at us, we re going to be pressing forward. we re determined to overcome any obstacle and use every resource we have. and one of the most powerful ones that we have is frankly public rutiny. this is why i ve been so adamant that we do as much of this investigation as we can publicly. it s why i continue to call on our chairman to reschedule the hearing with sally yates and directors brennan and clapper. if we do this all in private and at the end of the day we issue a report that was compiled in private, the public is not going to believe it. the public needs to come every step of the way in this investigation. so we need to be as transparent as we possibly can. all right. congressman adam schiff. thank you for your time. i m joined by ned price, former spokesperson, senior director of the national security council under president obama. and the allegation among folks from the white house, the president tweeting this and sympathetic figures in the press, that you and your colleagues in the obama nsc particularly have been engaged in essentially a conspiracy to tarnish this administration, using access to classified tension. how do you respond to that? chris, good to be with you. look, chris, i think what we ve seen here is an unfolding tragedy in multiple acts starring president trump and co-starring denial, obfuscation and misdirection. i think the first act of this tragedy actually started late last year when president trump, as the republican nominee, was presented with the high-confidence findings of all 17 intelligence agencies that russia had meddled in our election. he just cast that aside. he denied that as his first tactic. no, no, this was the work of some 400 pound hacker in his drm. the second act, when heas president-elect and these reports of collusion between his team and the russians started to pile up, it was then fake news. this is the work of the enemy of the people. and that takes us, chris, to one month ago today when we saw the third act with the president s baseless tweets that his predecessor had wiretapped him, apparently gleaned from a breitbart article with no basis in fact that has been shut down by everyone from devin nunes to the fbi director. i m not going to go into the whole subplot with devin nunes and this amateur theory. that is a tragedy in and of itself. i think with this latest with republicans favorite antagonist who is now featured in the fifth act, susan rice, i think it is clear as day that the fact that we are talking about unmasking as opposed to this administration s yet unexplained and multi-pronged ties to the russian government that is in a sense a vindication of the administration s strategy of misdirection. unmasking is not the core issue here. this is a side show, chris. one of the things that strikes me here is it s easy to lose sight of, to me, the proximate trigger for all of this, which is what happened with flynn. you know, we knew about the russian you know, the assessment of the intelligence community that it was the russians that conducted, you know, criminal cyber espionage and sabotage. but with flynn, i mean he just lied. he lied about the nature of his calls with the russian ambassador. he didn t have to. he could have told the truth. he lied to the white house. he lied to the vice president. they then lied to the public, and that simple fact, it seems to me the way the president conducts himsend the way the white house talks about it, they feel like flynn got a bad rap as opposed to angry that he lied to them. that s exactly right. they re not at all angry that michael flynn was doing these double dealings with ambassador kislyak. they re not at all angry that he lied to key administration officials, including the vice president. what they want us to focus on is the fact that he his name was leaked to the public. and, yes, that is a problem. we need to tamp down on these leaks. but, chris, it s not the core issue here, and it s another exhibit in this strategy of misdirection. ned price, thank you. thank you. still to come, some intense saber rattling from the white house after north korea launches another missile into the sea of japan. colonel lawrence wilkerson on what donald trump may be getting us into ahead. and after a week and a half a week and a half after republicans ignored the president s ultimatum on trumpcare, the president is back with an even more radical version. what we know about trumpcare 2.0 in two minutes. i tried hard to quit smoking. but when we brought our daughter home, that was it. now i have nicoderm cq. the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. it s the best thing that ever happened to me. every great why needs a great how. a 401(k) is the most sound way to go. let s talk asset allocation. -sure. you seem knowledgeable, professional. i m actually a deejay. -[ laughing ] no way! -that really is you? if they re not a cfp pro, you just don t know. cfp. work with the highest standard. lawmakers whom trump has blamed for the initial bill s failure, and in a separate meeting yesterday afternoon, they met with half a dozen republicans in the moderate tuesday group to discuss a possible agreement on a new bill. now, there is still no deal. there is late report that white house just told activists to expect new text of health care law at 8:30 meeting tonight, and compromises have been offered. who knows what those are, but there are reports that say the bill would do away with protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which would undercut one of the trump campaign s central promises. let me ask you about obamacare, which you say you re going to repeal and replace. when you replace it, are you going to make sure that people with pre-conditions are still covered? yes. we should ensure that americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage and that we have a stable transition for americans currently enrolled in the health care exchanges. joining me now is representative dan donovan, republican from new york. congressman, can you explain what the heck is going on process-wise right now because i have to say, i m confused. are they going to try to strike a deal and get this to a vote in three days before recess? that seems preposterous. i don t know what this time frame is, but i do think it s the responsibility of us to get back to health care. we promised the american people we would rectify and repair what harm has been done to them in the health care field. the affordable care act is collapsing upon itself. i don t think what happened recently was a failure. congressman, wait a second. can i ask you this, though? you just said the affordable care act is collapsing on itself. it is. that s just simply i understand there are counties that have, you know, insurers pulling out. staten island that you represent, it is not it just simply is not a true statement to say it s collapsing on itself, particularly not in the state of new york. it s just not actuarily accurate. this is a national issue, and actually it is happening throughout the nation. you re right, there are but the congressional budget but the congressional budget office and the academy of actuaries both say that it is not in a death spiral. it is not collapsing. they both say that. maybe the actuaries are wrong and the cbo is wrong, but you d have to cite some other data to suggest they re wrong. well, people s policies this year are going to go up 25%. and barack obama was a very good politician. he put all the bad stuff in the affordable care act in the out years when he was no longer going to be in office. the american people are going to look and say, wait a minute. you guys are in office now and my premiums went up 25%. but it s all because of how the affordable care act was structured. how do you explain the fact that at the time you say this sort of back loaded stuff which, again, i would quibble on the details there. let s just put that aside. at the time this is happening, the affordable care act is more popular than it s ever been. new polling today has it out at 55% approval, 41% disapprove. it s never done better in polling than it s doing right now. there s many people that it helped. there s many people that it harmed. that s why it has to be repaired. the people that are pay 20g thousand dollars in premiums and have a $6,000 deductible and still have astronomical co-pays don t think the affordable care act is working for them. agreed. we have to help those people without harming the people that the affordable care act helped. that strikes me as an interesting and worth wile policy goal, what you just enunciated. it is unquestionable what you said is true. there are people paying extremely high premiums and are not happy with the coverage they re getting. right now the house freedom caucus is negotiating with the president to do away with, say, community rating, essentially to pull back the provision that bans bans on pre-existing conditions. is that the kind of thing you could go along with? not at all. not at all. we have to protect people with pre-existing conditions. we have to protect our seniors. you know, the affordable care act allows insurance companies to judge three allows insurance companies to charge up to five times as much. right. seniors at a time when their incomes are limited and they re in need of health care probably more than they were in their early years don t think that s a relief for them. so we have to be very, very careful. as the president said, this is a complicated issue. we have to make sure we re not harming people as we re trying to repair our health care system to help those who are being harmed by the current system. so i just want to be clear here because those seem like really important policy principles for you in terms of the folks that you represent and what role you occupy in the caucus. expanding from the three to one ratio to the five to one rash yes which was part of that initial bill that went down in flames. now they re talking about getting rid of what s calling community rating that essentially mandates the insurance companies not charge sick people much more money than healthy people. you would not be able to vote for a bill did the things the house freedom caucus is trying to do. am i right in that? well, i was a declared no on the last bill. and if it s being tweaked to harm people further and i haven t seen anything. as the speaker said this morning, these are concept ideas that are being flushed out. we haven t seen any text, and these things change, i have to tell you. this changes by the hour down here. so until there s something concrete that we have to actually look at to see whether or not we could support, i d be speculating. so, yeah i understand about bill language. as principles, community rating is a thing, right? that s something you could say independent of whether the bill language, you support that, and you would oppose an effort to get rid of it? we promised that we would not harm people with pre-existing conditions. we have to keep that commitment. that s all i wanted to get on the record, congressman. i appreciate your time tonight. thank you so much for having me. coming up, faced with a pressing international crisis, president trump takes it as an unt to make a political attack on his predecessor. we ll talk about that and the breaking news out of north korea just ahead. i let go of all those feelings. because i am cured with harvoni. harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. it s been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. and is proven to cure up to 99% of patients who have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. before starting harvoni, your doctor will test to see if you ve ever had hepatitis b, which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after harvoni treatment. tell your doctor if you ve ever had hepatitis b, a liver transplant, other liver or kidney problems, hiv or any other medical conditions and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. taking amiodarone with harvoni can cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. ready to let go of hep c? ask your hep c specialist about harvoni. in a moment, we are going to show you some very disturbing images from rebel-held area of syria where at least 83 people, including 25 children, were killed in what the state department has identified as a chemical weapons attack. that death toll is expected to rise. it was one of the worst massacres in syria s brutal six-year civil war. video swing pple choking, fainting, foaming at the mouth, as desperate doctors scramble to tend to hundreds of victims. multiple countries, including the u.s., attributed the attack to the government of syrian president bashar al assad, who s widely believed to have used chemical weapons against syrians in the past. assad s government blamed terrorist groups and called the allegations fabricated. at a photo opp with king abdullah of jordan, u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson, who just days ago said assad s fate would be decided by the syrian people, ignored shouted questions about the attack. later putting out a statement reading in part, it is clear that this is how bashar al assad operates, with brutal, unakbashed barberism, those who defend and support him should have no illusions about assad or his intentions. in an official white house statement, president trump blamed assad but then went on to fault president obama. his statement reading, i quote, these heinous actions by the bashar al assad regime are a consequence of the past administration s weakness and irresolution. the horrifying situation in syria is one of the several international crises being navigated by a president with no foreign policy experience, who has delegated much of his administration s foreign policy responsibilities to his son-in-law, 36-year-old real estate heir jared kushner, who this week traveled to seerk, and who is being skribded as a shadow secretary of state. when we come back, i m going to speak with someone with a lot of qualifications, colonel lawrence wilkerson, about the administration s foreign policy especially in light of the breaking news out of the korean peninsula. north korea has launched a ballistic missile off its eastern coast. more on that next. te relief. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause all your symptoms, including nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. flonase is an allergy nasal spray that works even beyond the nose. so you can enjoy every beautiful moment to the fullest. flonase. 6>1 changes everything. people would ask me that we traveled,ntries what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic. so when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. i m from all nations. it puts a hunger in your heart to want to know more. when it comes to heartburn. trust the brand doctors trust. nexium 24hr is the #1 choice of doctors and pharmacists for their own frequent heartburn. for all day and all night protection. banish the burn. with nexium 24hr. that s why a cutting edged. university counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. imagine if the things you bought every day earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you ll get a free checked bag, 2 united club passes. priority boarding. and 50,000 bonus miles. everything you need for an unforgettable vacation. the united mileageplus explorer card. imagine where it will take you. colonel, i want to read you two statements and get your reaction to how this president is positioning american policy on this incredibly high-stakes issue. this is the president talking about north korea to the financial times. well, if china is not going to solve north korea, we will. and this is rex tillerson just moments ago. north korea launched yet another interimmediate range ballistic missile. united states has spoken enough about north korea. we have no further comment. how do you understand the u.s.-north korea policy at this moment? ris, i understand it in a way that i m deeply concerned about. i ve been on and off the korean peninsula as a military professional and diplomat for over 40 years. i ve participated in what rex tillerson more or less derided when he was on the peninsula, the policy of strategic patience. i m sorry but that policy has kept war from the peninsula, well, since 1953. so i m very concerned that we would suddenly and abruptly, with this very inexperienced team in the white house, decide we re going to have a new policy and articulate statements that you ve demonstrated that policy might include a serious look at preemptive military action or certainly at war on the peninsula. this is not the way to deal with north korea. you know, north korea seems like the classic example of no good solutions. but i mean they are a nuclear-capable power. they are on the border of both american forces and south korea, our ally, of course. it s just hard to imagine any kind of military conflict between the nations that isn t catastrophic. am i wrong about that? i ve exercised all the war plans. i ve probably been in more team spirit chief focus exercises than anyone else in the military. yes. the answer to your question is 100,000 casualties in the first 30 days, almost complete destruction of seoul. we re talking about concentrations of artillery. we couldn t evacuate the american citizens fast enough. the so this would be an absolute disaster. we need to stop thinking about a military solution to korea. we haven t thought about that since 53, not really. this seems to be the inexperienced team again that s thinking about these sorts of things. and i have to hope i have to hope that with other things that trump has tweeted and talked about, that this is all his idea of establishing a hard negotiating position so he can move away from that as he gains what he wants, or at least partially does so. otherwise, it frightens me. you talk about the inexperience here. it s been hard not to scratch your head a little bit, i think, at seeing jared kushner in these meetings. he goes to iraq before the secretary of state, rex tillerson, does. this is a washington post story about kushner, saying he is a singular, almost untichable role in the white house. and this is thomas mann, a senior fellow at bookinbrooking. it s as if trump is the don. he only trusts his close family members. what do you think about having this 36-year-old son-in-law of the president as a chief emissary navigating american foreign policy? my first deep concern is the same concern i have with almost the entire team. the experience quotient, the diplomatic quotient, does not go up when jared kushner walks into the room. that s my concern. these are amateurs. in many cases, they re rank amateurs, and they re dealing with some of the most serious issues that the united states confronts. let s look at what we ve got going right now. we ve got a potential war with russia. we ve got a situation in china and the south china sea that could ignite. we re deepening our experience in yemen, which ruined egypt. they call yemen nassar s vietnam. we ve got a situation in north korea. there s an old theory called conservation of enemies. you don t want too many enemies at one time, and i would submit you certainly don t want too many enemies at one time when you have such inexperience in the white house. you know, one of the places you did not even mention in that, which of course is syria the news today of the chemical weapons attack. two things. one, i want to did you about the reaction. then i want to ask a substantive question. first, i was pretty struck by the statement of the president of the united states that sort of goes from condemning what is a war crime to essentially blaming it on his predecessor. it just struck me as really shocking tonally. i think that s pretty much the policy of this administration is when they can t find any other rationale, they throw it back on the other administration, whether it s the affordable care act or syria. let me just adhed here. i am very reluctant to jump to conclusions about who, if they were employed, might have employed whatever chemical gas it was. chemical weapons are the weapon of the loser. saddam hussein, for example, when he s being attacked by iran. they re not the weapon of a winner. assad is winning right now. right. and that s the reality on the ground in syria. so my question is who s trying to ruin the talks? who s trying to destabilize the situation once again? i m not saying assad wasn t possibly guilty. what i m saying is we need to find out more about this use, and we need to find out if there are other parties involved. i should say that the reporting i ve seen, at least from the people on the ground, afp was there on the scene today. the folks on the ground appear to be convinced it was assad s forces. that s not obviously definitive, but that s what the reporting would suggest. i ve read many of the reports, and they seem to imply that assad s air force distributed the serren or whatever over a vast tapestry. it s very difficult for me to put myself in assad s position and say, i m winning. why am a going to pert bait the situation now the wade a use of chemical weapons would. do you think there is any path forward in syria that could lead to an end to the just unspeakable brutality and horrific bloodshed there? i certainly do, and i think it s the one that we were about, i think, to pursue. and that was to recognize assad, at least temporarily, as the leader of the legitimate state of syria and to negotiate some sort of political transition, however long that might take, with the other people involved. my concern, chris, about iraq and mosul in particular and syria in general is after that sort of stability is achieved, what does turkey do? what does iran do? what does hezbollah do? what does assad do then? what does iraq do? what does iraq under the influence of iran do? i think the post-conflict situation, if we ever achieve it in syria, may be more serious even than the conflict. it s looking very far off tonight. thanks for being with me. appreciate it. thanks for having me. still to come, despite the trump administration s series of big legislative failures, they have already enacted tangible change. plus the president gets booed. that s tonight s thing one, thing 2, starting right after this break. when you re close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace the chance of completely clear skin with taltz. taltz is proven to give you a chance at completely clear skin. with taltz, up to 90% of patients had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. in fact, 4 out of 10 even achieved completely clear skin. do not use if you are allergic to taltz. before starting you should be checked for tuberculosis. taltz may increase yr risk of infections and lower your ality toight them. tell your doctor if you are being treated for an infection or have symptoms. or if you have received a vaccine or plan to. inflammatory bowel disease can happen with taltz. including worsening of symptoms. serious allergic reactions can occur. now s your chance at completely clear skin. just ask your doctor about taltz. come on everybody. aleve. live whole. not part. thing 1 tonight, president trump delivered a speech to construction unions today and began by playing to his crowd. just look at the amazing talent assembled here. we have iron workers, insulators never changes, does it, with the iron workers? well, let s hear it. labore laborers. [ cheers and applause ] painters. [ cheers and applause ] sheet metal workers, roofers, plastere plasterers. plaster? well, yeah, that s we re not using as much plaster as we used to, fellas, right? no matter how you cut it. sorry about that. i m not sure i can do much. we brought back the coal miners. i m not so sure about the plasterers. we ll do the best we can, okay? we re going too the best we can. roht back the coal miners. did you catch that? already. things seemed to be going pretty well until the president started getting booed. and that s thing 2 in 60 seconds. why pause a spontaneous moment? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis. he thoroughly detailed his electoral victory as he so often does, even imitating news anchors calling out his state wins. but at one point he seemed to overplay his hand, perhaps forgetting that north america s buildings trade union endorsed hillary clinton in the election. waho the mood changes when he realized that maybe not everyone there was on the trump train. i had the support of, i would say i would say almost everybody in this room. we had tremendous we had tremendous support. no, we did. we had tremendous support. we had tremendous support, and i ll tell you, we really had the support of the workers. we had tremendous support of the workers. would you like to make a change, folks? would you like to make a change? because if anybody wants to make a change, you won t be having so many jobs. that i can tell you. it s off to work we go! woman: on the gulf coast, new exxonmobil projects are expected to create over 45,000 jobs. and each job created by the energy industry supports two others in the community. altogether, the industry supports over 9 million jobs nationwide. these are jobs that natural gas is helping make happen, all while reducing america s emissions. energy lives here. all while reducing america s emissions. hey richard, check out this fresh roasted flavor. looks delicious, huh? -yeah. -and how about that aroma? -love that aroma! umph! -craveability, approved! irresistibly planters. find fast relief behind the counter allergies with nasal congestion? with claritin-d. [ upbeat music ] strut past that aisle for the allergy relief that starts working in as little as 30 minutes and contains the best oral decongestant. live claritin clear, with claritin-d. knowledge, that is traitorous conduct because the russians attacked the fundamental institutions of our country, trying to delegitimize and change the outcome of our election and conspiring with a foreign power to attack the foundation of our democratic republic that is traitorous conduct. that was senator jeff merkley moments ago in his opposition. the confirmation of supreme court nominee neil gorsuch while the white house is under investigation. merkley is still speaking, plans to hold the floor all night. meanwhile another trump pick, jeff sessions, is making his mark as attorney general. the man who once criticized the doj s report on the chicago police even though he said he didn t read it has now, through his justice department, gone to court to seek a 90-day delay in a consent decree to overhaul baltimore s embattled police department. that kind of action by the nation s attorney general is remarkable considering that baltimore s mayor and its police commissioner strongly support the consent decree, along with citizen advocacy groups. it s not just baltimore. the jeff sessions justice department has ordered a review of federal agreements with dozens of law enforcement agencies including consent decrees with police departments in 14 different cities. these agreements are designed d pattern and practice on discrimination and civil rights and constitutional violations. that s what the attorney general wants to slow down or stop. it s an example of the tange inl impacts the trump administration is having despite its hapless legislative record on signature items like health care. the true impacts of this new administration, next. your doctor will test to see if you ve ever had hepatitis b, which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after harvoni treatment. tell your doctor if you ve ever had hepatitis b, a liver transplant, other liver or kidney problems, hiv or any other medical conditions and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. taking amiodarone with harvoni can cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. ready to let go of hep c? ask your hep c specialist about harvoni. it s your tv, take it with you. with directv now and at&t, get the ultimate in entertainment plus unlimited data. get directv now for $10 a month when you have the new at&t unlimited plus plan. president trump signed a bill yesterday that allows internet companies to sell your browser history. internet privacy rules instituted lasyear under the obam martian ha obama administration have been repealed. a regulation protecting alaskan bears repealed. a rule that stops coal companies from polluting streams, a pesticide which has been known to damage children s brains greenlit. also workplace protection for lgbt workers having revoked rules on bathrooms for transgender students in late quarterback. also nullified a workplace injury reporting rule. then with little fanfare as with so many of these, the president revoked obama-era protections for women in the workplace and the state department halted money to the u.n. population fund for family planning. joan walsh and christina grier, associate professor of political science at fordham university. well, let me start with the browsing thing because to me it s such a perfect example of the way american politics works. we ve read like one billion articles about the great uprising of the discontested white working class. here s your people of mahoning county, they can sell your browsing history. and you don t get anything for it. sell your own browsing history. it s awful. they ve been doing these surgical strikes of incredible cruelty since the first day. you remember i think we were together when the first thing he signed on january 20th was something eradicating an obama fee reduction for mortgages for first-time home buyers. it saved a family about $500 a month which is nice as a first-time home buyer. they come up with thesis thie t. how do they even know it s there? who went in and said day one, this is what we re doing. they are making people s lives miserable with it. this family planning cut is killing me. that program last year, our funding alone saved 10,000 maternal lives and stopped 100,000 unsafe abortion. they still haven t given any reason for it. george bush cut it because the fund was working in china and it was seen to be somehow associating itself with the one child coercive one child policy. that s not even true anymore. but what i think we have right now is sort of two sides of this administration. on the one hand, it looks like an abject failure, right? the muslim ban, the muslim plan 2.0, both failures. you couldn t get the aach passed. didn t even come up for a vote. doesn t look like gorsuch is going to have a difficult time. harder time than they thought. nothing smooth. failure. on one hand, this man is an absolute disaster, in over his head. no one around him knows what they re doing. then we look at all these minor, micro aggressions that this particular administration is inflicting on the american public. especially so many of the poor people who actually voted for him. these people rely on family planning. these people rely on not everyone has a dad who can buy them their first home and give them a loan of a few million dollars, right? donald trump. so i mean also the people that live in places that have streams and things like that. coal. this frustrates me so much about the republican senators who will not stand up. don t you have children and grandchildren? all the money in the world cannot help your children have better air than a poor person. you may be able to live in a better neighborhood but at the end of the day, water can t be oil. and so there is sort of they are making everything a scarce resource. they want to privatize everything. think about the future of this planet, if not for yourself, for your families. that s one of the places where, what scott pruitt is going to do to the epa, they ve put it on notice. that s a place to me they can probably do the most damage from a unilateral perspective. whether it s the coal, the power plant rule, the enforcement of the clean air act which they let s be clear. they re required to enforce as a matter law but they can do away with in all kinds of ways. the other part of that is whether that packs a political punch. you know, i think it might, if the thing is it s got to get really bad in order for it to pack a political punch. if pruitt s stripping away of regulations and doing things through agency rules really does degrade the quality, you could have worse air in coal country and in the rust belt than elsewhere. whether that s communicated in a that s the thing. it is getting bad, but it s not articulated in a way where it s like, when you are defunding the parks department and then giving someone a measly $78,000 check after you ve taken away billions of dollars, that is not necessarily the visual makes it seem for his supporters like, oh, he s actually keeping his word. he s not keeping his paycheck. i also don t understand the budget is going to get ironed out in congress. the congress has the power of the purse. i never understand why they go after the national parks. also if there s one thing americans red and blue, conservatives love it s the parks. when we go to the parks. absurd elitist undertaking. thank you very much. i have a couple book tour events here in this great city, new york. for my new book the calling of a nation. tomorrow night, i will be at the
country have we had a president with these kinds of extensive business entanglements. or a president who refused to adequately distance himself from their holdings. president trump s businesses and his dealings violates the constitution s anticorruption provisions. known as the emoluments clauses. the lawsuit filed in maryland district court contends that the president s ownership harms the state and districts. the defendant has used his position as president to boost the patronage of his enterprises. foreign diplomats and other officials have made clear that the defendant position as president increases the likelihood they will frequent has properties and businesses. the press secretary dismissed the suit. it is not hard to conclude partisan politics may be one of the motivations. the suit was filed by two don t nourish a harmful story. if somebody calls you, accuses you of a crime, you have to respond. what you don t have to do is get into continuing exchanges with the accusers about what you may or may not have done, keeping the story alive. bret: the president is a counter puncher. he was as a candidate and businessman. senator lindsey graham and others are saying it s a different ball game now. what about the effort, and it seems that some of the service, newt gingrich being one, are going after bob mueller. i somebody who shouldn t be leading this investigation. i think bob mueller, broadly speaking, has earned his reputation, a very good reputation. there is no question he had james comey were close friends. he probably didn t know when he took over this investigation, which we ve noted, has largely been an counterintelligence investigation and not yet a criminal investigation. nonetheless, the role of his friend comey and his credibility now have come into play and are probably going to be a piece of the investigation. it s a fair question to ask, whether bob mueller should be that guy leading the investigation into at least that piece of it. whether you can do a recusal of some kind part part of the inquiry and remain special counsel is unclear. it s not an unfair point to raise that he has this friendship and it does raise an ethical question. bret: when you heard the testimony of comey saying that he leaked the contents of the memo to a friend to the new york times in order to spur on and create the special counsel. and that is one of the things about comey s testimony. i suppose he had to admit he had done that but it casts doubt on his role and makes it seem less like a law-enforcement officer than someone who was trying to control the outcome of things. i think that s what some people are complaining about with him in the past. bret: seems the attorney general asked for this to be a public testimony. what do you expect? i expect him to be an effective witness. he is seasoned at this. he was a prosecutor and a district attorney before a senator, so he knows how to handle himself. i think he has probably got a story to tell and my guesses he will be an effective witness. bret: thank you. white house press secretary sean spicer says the administration is confident president trump s travel ban will be upheld by the u.s. up in court despite another setback today. the ninth circuit court of appeals maintained a block of the temporary ban on visitors from six muslim majority nations. spicer said the u.s. needs every available tool to prevent terrorists from entering the country. we are awaiting the supreme court decision, but there is no indication when it might come. we will see if we get it tonight. stocks down today. dow lost 36. s&p 500 dropped 2. nasdaq fell 32. the president is pushing what he says are major gains for the u.s. economy since he took office. kristin fisher looks at some of the numbers and what they mean. the night that the billionaire businessman won the white house, he made a promise. we will double our growth and have the strongest economy anywhere in the world. five months into his presidency, while the economy hasn t doubled, it s growing. i point president trump emphasized on twitter this weekend. the #fakenews msm doesn t report the great economic news since election day. #dow up 16%. #nasdaq up 19.5%. drilling and energy sector are way up. regulations way down. fox news fact-checked those points. all are true. the question is, how much can be attributed to president trump and his policies? financial markets must reflect the confidence of investors and business people and to some extent you can give him credit for bolstering their confidence in the economy. i think pretty much everything else is has very little to do with his policies. trump administration has been trying to capitalize on the good news about the growing economy, but their efforts keep being overshadowed by other news. last week was infrastructure week, a jampacked push to jump-start the president s trillion dollar plan for roads, railways, airports. his daughter concedes it was eclipsed by the former fbi director s testimony. last week, while he didn t get the level of headlines, it will have a more important impact. we are focused on why the american people elected donald trump as their president. this week, the white house will try again with workforce development week and ations it s hurting manufacturing. the bill is passed. congress is making moves to trim regulations on the financial sector. last week, house republicans passed a bill to roll back many dodd-frank reforms. congress is still nowhere near passing the massive tax cuts promised by the president, though even that might not change the markets. if something happens and it turns out that the government isn t well-equipped to deal with it, i think it could shatter people s confidence. for now, they seem to be willing to just enjoy the entertainment and not get freaked out. stick with the president s overall approval ratings may be at record lows but his approval rating on the economy is actualh higher. over 44%. bret: thank you. what s your take? is the media missing the story on the state of the u.s. economy and how does it feel to you? let me know on twitter at @bretbaier. use the hashtag #specialreport. or on facebook at facebook.com/bretbaiersr. uber s chief business officer is leaving the company before the release of a report expecting to recommend big changes to the corporate culture and management. the board is said to be considering whether the ceo should take a leave of absence. the ride sharing company has been rocked by accusations management has sponsored work place environment where harassment, discrimination, and bullying are left unchecked. delta air lines and bank of america have pulled their sponsorships of a new production of julius caesar featuring the fatal stabbing of a dictator dressed like president trump. the president s name is never mentioned but the 400-year-old play features a caesar with a gold bathtub and a pouty slavic wife. a sign of how fractured the democratic party is. supporters of bernie sanders want to start their own party. peter doocy tells us why. the democratic party needs fundamental change. them and trying to change it isn t even a democrat. independent senator bernie sanders. today, that democratic party has almost no political presence at all in many states. that s not a failed model, i don t know what i failed model is. the hallmark of the sanders rallies, progressive ideas to move the party forward, things like tuition-free college and single-payer health care. the focus on the future is a lot different than the democrat who beat him in the primaries last year remains focused on the past. comey was more than happy to talk about my emails but he wouldn t talk about investigation of the russians. hard-core sanders supporters are so fed up with the democratic party whose new chairman is best known for using bad words. this is a [bleep] budget. they want to break away and start a peoples party. a 15 page document targets late-summer to start the party and outlines plans to host a founding convention and circulate petitions to get on ballots as soon see 2018 midterms. organizers believe only a new party that inspires the progressive majority to vote can defeat trump and his agenda. only a progressive party can take away trump s monopoly over electoral populism. proof that problems on the left are just hypothetical. the capital pride parade distracted by activists upset that parade organizers were being too accommodating to the police officers. that the celebration was bankrolled by corporations. despite turbulence on the left, the national party fundraising operation is as healthy as ever. democrat running in georgia s special election is not a progressive and has raised more money than any candidate ever. 23000000.95% of that came from all tied came from outside georgia. we are going through some of the growing pains republicans went through in 2008. we don t have a strong leader in the party right now. that s not what a lot of democrats want to hear, but we are finding our way. a test of the sanders clout tomorrow. the candidate he endorsed in virginia is a contender so he could become the first person this year to get endorsed by sanders and win. bret: thank you. republicans have their own internal battles, one of the most fierce is over health care and how to repeal and replace president obama s legacy reform law. chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel is on capitol hill. if we had the greatest bill in history of the world on health care, we wouldn t get one vote from the democrats because they are obstructionists. that s what they want to do. the challenge for senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is crafting a consensus plan among his g.o.p. members. 52 republicans and the senate, mcconnell can only lose two and most expect rand paul will be a no. democrats have been trying to pin the failure of obamacare on republicans, suggesting they have undermined the law. i have a message for our republican colleagues. very simple. abandon repeal, stop sabotaging our health care system, and you will find democrats waiting to work with you to improve the health care system. democrats are attacking the g.o.p. for a lack of outreach and no transparency. we may be days or weeks away from the republicans moving directly to the floor. a significant bill that may affect hundreds of millions of americans. tax cuts, cut back on health care, defund planned parenthood without a single public hearing. moderates are pushing for the medicaid expansion to be phased out. mitch mcconnell has offered three years, try to make sure he doesn t lose his conservative members. a key republican notes mcconnell s job on this issue is completed. the bottom line is the senate is divided between medicaid expansion states, nonmedicaid expansion states, the proper role of government, which is trying to bring us together. democrats passed obamacare on the party line vote and have fought for years to protect the law against efforts to repeal it, now the democratic playbook appears to be trying to flip it around and blame the g.o.p. experts note after campaigning on repealing and replacing obamacare for seven years, failure is not an option. at the end of the day, the glue that has to get this together is a sense that they have to do something. they can t walk away failed to do anything. if they do, it s going to hurt everybody. g.o.p. sources say proponents of a senate health care plan been sent to the congressional budget office and i m told tomorrow is excited to be a big day when g.o.p. leaders find out from their members whether they are closer to a deal. bret: mike emanuel live on capitol hill. thanks. medicare reportedly erroneously paid almost $730 million to doctors under a federal initiative designed to shift health care records from paper to computer files. wall street journal reports the payments were made over three years to doctors who had earned bonuses under the program but hadn t. or had no proof. up next, thousands take to the streets of russia to protest corruption in vladimir putin s government. here s what some of our fox affiliates around the country are covering. fox 29 infidel player in philadelphia. the defense rested without calling bill cosby to the stand. because we could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted. fox 25 in oklahoma city. the manhunt for four escaped jail inmates who broke out this morning. the lincoln county sheriff says he believes the four are dangerous with nothing to lose. this is a live look at orlando from our fox affiliate, fox 35. the one-year anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in modern u.s. history. hundreds of people shoulder to shoulder outside the pulse nightclub where 49 people died at the hands of a gunman pledging allegiance to isis. omar mateen was eventually killed by police. a large gathering scheduled for this evening in downtown orlando. that s tonight s live look outs bret: nationwide protests against russian president vladimir putin led to hundreds of arrests. senior foreign affairs correspondent amy kellogg shows us the latest display of defiance by the russian opposition. crowds chanting putin author provocative protests. today meant to be a show of patriotism but marked by anticorruption protesters. riot police cracked down on the protests, arresting hundreds across the country. the organizer was himself arrested at his home before he even got to the demonstration. authorities said he violated public order because he called the protest for a place he did not have a permit for. after a five-year low of opposition activity, they are out on the streets. it was this video he produced that became the protesters battle cry. he alleges the prime minister skimmed public funds to buy a lavish estate, a vineyard and yacht. the story touched a nerve in the anger has spread beyond navalny. we want to change the situation. a group of bandits stealing money. translator: putin continues to steal and his oligarch friends continue to steal. the white house condemned today s arrests. we will monitor the situation and call on the government of russia to release peaceful protesters. putin has been in power for over 17 years and it s expected he will run again for president next year. navalny has said he wants to run for president but we may never know just how broad his popular appeal is as he has a suspended sentence for fraud, something he says is trumped up. the one thank you. in 19-year-old man in custody tonight in london, police say he was involved in the london bridge terror attack. three terrorists were killed by police that night but authorities are holding seven other people in the investigation. 12 people previously arrested have been released. amazing video tonight from the final game of the greek basketball playoffs. about 2 minutes left, a flayer hits the bench of the visiting team. the game resumed. all of the home team s fans were gone. since the visiting fans don t come because of fears of violence, and left no fans at all. the visiting team went on to wi win. qatar s foreign minister says no one can dictate his country s foreign policy. as we have reported here on special report, several regional neighbors have cut off relations with that country, accusing the government of qatar of funding terrorism and activism. it has with the u.s. in a difficult position. tonight we hear from one of the people on the inside. rich edson reports from the state department. he spent more than 400 days in egyptian prison. authorities arrested him, the bureau chief for al jazeera english on charges he up terrorist organizations. egypt eventually pardon him and he s doing his employer. i filed my lawsuit while i was in prison in egypt. i met members of the muslim brotherhood who confirmed that the network had given them cameras, live transmission equipment, and use their footage without the knowledge of us, which contributed to our tough situation. when he filed his lawsuit, al jazeera denied the charges. months before fahmy s arrest, egypt s overthrew. one of the many examples of the deep and complicated rivalries and conflicts among middle east countries. several, like saudi arabia and egypt, have severed ties with qatar. in in the latest encounter, president trump is taking sides. one of the big things we did, and you are seeing it with qatar and the things that are actually going on in a very positive fashion, we are stopping the funding of terrorism. we are going to stop the funding of terrorism. state apartment official says secretary of state rex tillerson and a dozen phone calls has spoken to his counterparts in the region, attempting to end the standoff. tillerson has called for calm and thoughtful dialogue. noting that qatar has improved and fighting terrorism. adding it needs to do more. qatar denies the charges. it has hired former attorney general john ashcroft firm. ashcroft will enlist the support and expertise of government leaders, including officials who held senior positions within the intelligence community. federal bureau of investigation, department of treasury and homeland security. president trump has suggested other countries needed to do a better job of addressing terrorist financing. more countries besides the united states are becoming involved, trying to resolve the issue. russia, iran, turkey and even france. bret: rich edson at the state department. montana republican congressman elect reggie and forte gianforte. he will perform 40 hours of community service and take 20 hours of anger management counseling. i just want to say i am sorry if and when you are ready, i look forward to sitting down with you. when you make a mistake, you need to take full responsibility. this was not a proud moment but i am ready to move on. bret: gianforte has apologized for essentially body slamming ben jacobs of the guardian. and settled all civil claims. 18 penn state penn state university fraternity brothers are facing charges in the hazing death of a 19-year-old pledge. correspondent bryan llenas has the details. one by one, penn state university fraternity members walked into a pennsylvania court room for a hearing where they watch surveillance video from 12 cameras inside their frat house showing what prosecutors called a hazing ceremony that ultimately killed a 19-year-old sophomore. prosecutors played three hours of video from february 2, showing piazza and others running through a speed drinking game. as the video played, detectives narrated the final moments. frat brothers are seen piazza is seen stumbling throughout the house. they laid the unconscious 19-year-old on a couch after he falls down a flight of stairs headfirst. one of multiple falls that night. at one point, a fraternity brother is pleading with his brothers to call 911. over the course of the next 12 hours, the video shows fraternity brothers slapping piazza, pouring beer on him, sitting on his legs, hitting him in the abdomen, others walking viorst s electrical police are called in the morning. piazza died in the hospital from a traumatic brain injury and shattered spleen. his parents sat in the front row and his father cried as the prosecutor showed photos of his phone on the hospital bed. as expected, both parents left the courtroom before the video played. i don t want to see the video. i m concerned about what we will see and that being the last visual of my son being alive. preliminary hearing continues. if this goes to trial, eight of the fraternity members face aggravated assault charges, punishable up to 20 years in prison. the other ten face lesser charges, like tampering with evidence. bret: george h.w. bush is celebrating his 93rd birthday. the family had planned a low-key gathering at their summer home. in the past, the former navy pilot has marked his birthday by skydiving. his chief of staff jokes that she has hidden the presidents parachute and there will be no jumping out of an airplane this time. happy birthday, president bush. president trump tries to shift focus on his agenda while the attorney general prepares to testify about the russia investigation tomorrow. we will talk about that with the panel after the stay out front with tempur-pedic. our proprietary material automatically adjusts to your weight, shape and temperature. so you sleep deeply, and wake up feeling powerful. find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic.com approaching medicare eligibility? you may think you can put off checking out your medicare options until you re sixty-five, but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. keep in mind, medicare only covers about eighty percent of part b medical costs. the rest is up to you. that s where aarp medicare supplement insurance plans insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company come in. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, they could help pay some of what medicare doesn t, saving you in 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request your free decision guide and start gathering the information you need to help you keep rolling with confidence. go long™. is the president okay with him testifying in the open setting? we are aware of it and he s going to testify. the president was clear last week that he believes the sooner we can get this addressed and dealt with, that there s been no collusion. he wants us to get investigated as soon as possible and be done with it so he can continue with the business of the american people. bret: sean spicer at the white house after the president tweeting about the investigation and jim comey s testimony. the attorney general has requested that the hearing be public. this is the tweet. i believe the james comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible. totally illegal? very cowardly! attorney general jeff sessions will testify in open session before the senate intelligence committee tomorrow. meantime, ivanka trump talking about how surprising this town has been. it s hard, and there s a level of viciousness that i was not expecting. i was not expecting the intensity of the experience. this isn t supposed to be easy. my father and this administration intends to be transformative, and we want to do big, bold things. we are looking to change the status quo. i didn t expect it to be easy. bret: the president, her father, holding his first full cabinet meeting today at the white house. let s bring in the panel. mollie hemingway, anna palmer, and syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. okay, obviously the administration wants to turn the page but the president keeps weighing in. they understand there is a lot of rage about the president and they do want a little bit of pushback so i think they re looking for that. i keep on remembering the last debate when donald trump was asked if he would accept the results of the election and he said he would wait and see. we spent many days talking about when a threat it was and how damaging it was to the norms where you accept the electoral results. here we are in june with a huge class of people who seem largely to be unable or unwilling to accept the results of an election and doing everything in their power to gum up the works. i think there are parts of this that are self-inflicted by the trump administration. there is a heck of a lot of this about people not being able to accept a won the presidency. bret: the white house briefing is still largely about this topic, and obviously it s a focus in washington. here is sean spicer on the whole question of tapes. does president trump have audio recordings of his conversations and meetings with the former fbi director james comey? he made clear he would have an announcement. when the president is ready to make it. what is he waiting for? i think the president made it clear on friday he would get back on this and his position on the conversation. so what is he waiting for? he s not waiting for anything. when he s ready to discuss it, he will. bret: so it s not going away, the question about the tapes. we don t know if there is tapes or not. the big question is, trump has put out a statement, clearly saying there are tapes. everybody wants to see the information. i don t think you are me or any reporters are going to stop. it s something he s done to reporters, saying you have misquoted me. i have a tape on it. but he s rarely put forward evidence. bret: this is president trump reading between the lines, but it was a tweet that said he better hope there are not tapes. the question is, we no longer take his tweets as somebody on a riff. these are statements from the president of the united states. i think it was a tease. i think he enjoys keeping the country, the media, hanging on his every word. i have nothing against ivanka trump. she has done a splendid job in a pretty difficult situation, but it s a little bit rich when the trump family is complaining about the viciousness, considering what her dad called little marco, lying ted, and cricket hillary, as almost three random characterizations from the campaign. he s pretty good at the street fight, and what he is getting is a street fight back. but i agree there s a large part, particularly of the democratic party, that will not accept his legitimacy, that s a real problem. he is the president. he deserves at least a chance to govern. i think these endless hearings, we are now on the tertiary branch of accusations against the administration with what we are going to hear tomorrow from the attorney general. what did he say? was there a third meeting with the russians? his entire life was anti-russia, anti-soviet. do we think he colluded with the russians? this is just investigations for their own sake and to produce a lot of smoke. the president has contributed with the tweets but so far up until now, it is all smoke. bret: here is the former house speaker newt gingrich. i think this is going to be a witch hunt. i think that comey himself by his own testimony tainted this process. you have a director of the fbi deliberately leaking in order to create a special counsel we are now supposed to believe it s going to be a neutral figure. i think that is nonsense. i distrust independent councils. i think that the people mueller is bringing in are dangerous people, and any of her book and who thinks this council is going to be neutral is crazy. it will be like expecting the post or the new york times to be accurate. bret: that s a big shift. three weeks ago, he said robert mueller, superb choice. his reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. i am guessing the turn comes from comey s testimony about producing the leak that led to, he said he wanted to form a special counsel. people keep saying that mueller is a man beyond reproach and that he will do a very good job. it s also true that he s very good friends with comey who now appears like he might be a target of a proper investigation. that their friendship and the history that mueller and comey have might cause problems in terms of getting to the bottom of what includes a coordinated leak campaign by intelligence officials and so it might be too much to ask mueller to dig into his friend prayed i don t how they re going to resolve that but something needs to be done e confidence in this investigation that doesn t just run roughshod. bret: isn t the right move to go after the guy who was the special counsel? even if there s a connection, is it the right move strategically? usually that s not what the lawyers advise. to go after the investigator. for good this is going to be tough for them. how are they going to remove mueller? has been widely praised by senators on both sides of the aisle. i think the question is, there is nobody who s going to be able to say he s not going to be able to do it unless he himself wants to recuse himself. bret: i want to play one more sound bite. this is largely overlooked from the weekend. senator dianne feinstein being asked about what came out in the comey hearings, about the former attorney general loretta lynch and what she told him about the clinton email investigation. i would have a queasy feeling too, to be candid. i think we need to know more about that and there s only one way to know about it, and that s to have the judiciary committee take a look. bret: you have the attorney general sessions testifying tomorrow. could there be a loretta lynch testimony? i thought it was a refreshing moment. i am surprised it was her. stepped out of the role of partisan and said there could be something here against my peopl people. let s investigate it. i think we are getting lost in a hall of mirrors investigating, connor investigating on both sides. the world is going to hell in a handbasket. north korea, qatar, the persian gulf. we are obsessed with what i think are reflections of reflections of reflections. yes, it s a question about loretta lynch. that was a long time ago. the only reason it s being raised is because in the context here, you want to be fair and balanced. to coin a phrase. but i think it s not going to produce anything of substance. at least we have not seen any evidence of that. i give a general amnesty. let s get on with the business of the country. bret: we report. you decide. another good phrase. next up, are democrats wandering in the democratic party needs fundamental change. bret: well, the president does agree. he says the democrats have no message, not on economics, not taxes, not jobs, not on failing obamacare. they are only obstructionist. this is bernie sanders, a socialist, independent. talking about forming his own party, progressives. the democratic seat losses, including 2016. there are a lot. we are back with the panel. charles, seems like for all the talk of splits within the republican party and that they can t curd the cats on health care, tax reform, there s a major split in the democratic party. and they have no idea how to resolve it. the left has the energy. they also have the leadership. they have him, they have the senator from massachusetts, warren. they are the ones who are leading the conversation. but if they want to go that way, that is kool-aid. this country is historically, for 250 years, has not taken kindly to socialism. that s essentially what he s offering. they think it s the moment. i think they are going to go for single-payer health care, which is a fairly radical idea. if they pursue the sanders route, particularly if they have a people s party, that will destroy the democrats and it will give a very unsteady split, republicans and new lease on life. this is self-destructive. bret: there are the purists who say it is about a progressive message and then there are those who say we need to win, which is the same battle republicans had with the trump candidacy. goes back to 2014 when mitch mcconnell made a decision to go after some of the tea party republicans in primaries and said no, we are going to find candidates for general election races that can win. the biggest gift bret: is there a mcconnell on the democratic side fighting that battle? so far, no one has risen up. there is not anybody who s being the establishment democrat to rise up and say they are the voice of the party. the biggest gift democrats have had his donald trump because he is unifying them. bret: here is tom perez. trust isn t something you are given. it s something you have to earn. a lot of folks have lost trust in the party and that s what we are all to do, to make sure we earn the trust through our actions. whether it is the affordable care act repeal efforts, whether it is immigration, fighting for good jobs and good wages. it is difficult to be in the minority. you don t have many options other than obstruction i think democrats have done a good job using the limited tools they have. the slate legislature situation is bad and that there is no bench and its hard to develop talent. this was a challenge that tea party had that the republican party had to deal with. i think it s clear that democrats are not managing the ascendancy of this movement. but bernie sanders lost to hillary clinton and yes, part of that might ve been corrupt because of what the democratic party was doing to ensure her victory. this is a message that resonates with snarky young white people but i m not sure it extends beyond that. bret: here is president trump. they are obstructionist. that s what they want to do. that s the game, they think it s the best political game. we have had to call races and we won both of them. they spent millions and millions of dollars, congressional races. we have another one coming up, and we have been doing well. they are obstructionist and they are going to have to face their constituents and when they say, what your message? they have no message, no direction, no leader. no compunction to cooperate with the white house. bret: when you hear bernie sanders say that the democratic party really has no political presence or message, doesn t that take away from the whole russia stole the election mantra? s to go it does, and i think he s right. it was the lack of message that killed them. the russia thing was a convenient excuse. might ve had a peripheral effect at best, if at all. one of the most poignant moments in the release of those emails was the internal emails in the hillary campaign sort of a year in in which, it says what s the message of the campaign? why is she running? she doesn t know why she is running. she s angry with her staff because no one s come up with the reason she s running. you run a campaign like that, you re going to lose. if you run on the far left, you re going to lose as well but this is not unusual for an opposition party. in our system, we don t have a shadow government like you do in parliamentary system. there s a lot of splits. republicans did it with obama in power. obstructionism in the face of liberty is no vice. bret: mean tweets .. bret: mean tweets bret baier is as liberal as msnbc, is a fence trailer who cares what george bush s associates think about what our president says. from greg trevino, bret baier looks like a reptilian shape shifter. an army soldier toy that you buy at cvs. bret baier looks like dick trac dick tracy, 1960. that s mean tweets monday, we thank you for tweeting and always. thanks for watching. thanks for inviting us into your home tonight, that s it for this official report. fair, balanced, unafraid. the story with martha maccallum, who does not look like a toy soldier, starts right it is tuesday, june 13th. attorney general jeff sessions testifying before the senate intelligence committee. the subject, the only thing washington is talking about, russia. guilt by association, classic witchhunts, jeff sessions denounced as a russians by, anyone can be. fox news alert, terror targets, brand-new threat from isis amid the recent wave of global terror, it is not over and america is next. rob: the massive manhunt intensifying from a man who murdered a 15 year veteran in cold blood. fox and friends first arts right now.
claims, it s always possible that a high-level russian defector will appear sometime in the future with documents proving that jeff sessions is in fact a foreign agent, perhaps of a sleeper cell sent to alabama during the cold war and activated at vladimir putin s request during the last election, that would be a game changer. otherwise the russian conspiracy seemed to hit a cul-de-sac this afternoon in the senate, but that doesn t mean there are no scandals for congress to investigate. maybe the biggest one about, our intel services are corrupt and politicized and they re making very hard to run u.s. governmen government. they are running it themselves to some extent. consider how much of american politics now revolves around information that has been strategically, often misleadingly and illegally released for political effects. if the hearing he watched today are just one example. they took place in part because former fbi director jim comey told senators last week that sessions may have met russian ambassador kislyak at the mayflower hotel in washington patrick mullen. now that sessions is finally testify, has his view changed, he joins us now, thanks for coming on. i don t expect you to agree with the attorney general s policies or his core beliefs as a senator, but i think we can both agree that when the former fbi director comes into open testimony and suggests as he did that sessions had some sort of untoward ties to russia or had done something wrong that he couldn t expand publicly and therefore had to recuse himself from the investigation, that s impugning a man s character without being specific, therefore unfair and it s awful to do that. i think you are putting a little bit of a spin on it, you said the attorney general did recuse himself because of his conflicts in the area so that s all the fbi director was saying. he actually said the opposite. excuse me, i appreciate that there was a bit of an error left there of impropriety and i agree with you is what i m trying to say. we went there were other reasons, i think i m quoting, there are other reasons but i can t say what they were in public. he goes behind closed doors with senators and says we believe he may have met with the russian ambassadors for a third time. that s exactly what you don t want the guardians of your national intelligence to do, use it for unfair reasons for political gain. congressman maloney: you wouldn t have said that tucker: i m not sure i know what you mean. i would always say that it s wrong for intelligence offers, or people whose job it is to hold the sequels atomic secrets, to use them against others for political gain. congressman maloney: are you saying we had preferred we would never have known about the watergate scandal? tucker: i would say i wish their careers and jobs wouldn t be destroyed. congressman maloney: a lot of white house aides went to jail. that s exactly the point i m making. the point i m making is, saying that jeff sessions had done something improper with russia, there were specific he testifies openly today and at the end of it, are you convinced he s not a russian agent? congressman maloney: i m actually not that concerned with what jeff sessions did. i think you re making a fair point that he has come in for a lot of suggestions for inappropriate activity for the russians without a lot of proof. there is a mountain of evidence that people like michael flynn and palmetto fork were getting paid improperly, lied about it. tucker: paid improperly by the russians? congressman maloney: as a matter of fact, exactly that. michael flynn has admitted to taking tens of thousands of dollars for a speech in moscow, didn t disclose it. as a former military officer he was required to. didn t get permission, lied about it on his forms and did the same thing with his interactions with kislyak. that s almost certainly a crime and i m very concerned, i m very concerned that we not muddy up the two things. tucker: jeff sessions the attorney general of the united states just testified all afternoon, mike flynn didn t. i m talking about the sitting attorney general who has been the subject of these implications that he is somehow betraying his country. congressman maloney: when you take these positions, sometimes you take some hits and the fact is that the last time he testified, he testified falsely under oath. that s not in dispute, he testified falsely about a meeting with the russian ambassador kislyak, who we know is the chief spymaster here in the u.s. tucker: hold on, if you are going to stipulate it, let s be clear, it is in dispute in his position as i was not acting, he was asked by the senator of minnesota, or you acting in a surrogate position, he wasn t. are you suggesting he was having an proper contract with the russians? congressman maloney: excuse me, i did not say that, i said he testified falsely and he admitted such later when he went out and sought to amend his remarks. he also failed to correct that testimony for months. tucker: i don t think he admitted that he testified falsely. i spoke about it on the side. what is this about? it s about the implication that he s working for the russians. what is that? congressman maloney: the fact is that he testified falsely and that raised some questions, that s what we want to hear them. tucker: there s a couple other points, let s talk about those. one, he recused himself from the russia investigation, the president of the united states said that the firing of the fbi was at least in part or related to that investigation, there s a lot of legitimate questions about why jeff sessions was involved in t. that s also why tucker: not my job to defend jeff sessions, but it is nonsensical to say that the head of the justice department oversees the director of the fbi can t supervise because of the rest of russian investigation. congressman maloney: he should be recused from a conversation about firing that individual because of that investigation. that s the point. tucker: i think everyone would agree there are multiple reasons jim comey was prior. the president gave us a number of them and one of them was his conduct more generally, his conduct earlier, but the point is jeff sessions runs the justice department, are you saying he shouldn t be involved? congressman maloney: i think what we understand is that rod rosenstein and jeff sessions gave reasons why jim comey might be at dismissed, i happen to agree with those in terms of his conduct in the last campaign. it was the president was that i was thinking about russia. that s the point, if the firing is about russia and sessions is recused from russia, he should not be involved in the firing, not stomach it s pretty simple stuff. tucker: if not actually simple in any way, you re making it so because it makes a clearer political hit. if you may agree or disagree with some of them, but it s not just about russia. the guy runs the justice department, you don t want them to, you didn t support it first place, get it, but it government democrats didn t win the presidency so you can t make that choice. the idea that he can t run the agency he s in charge of we do i didn t say that. tucker: what are you saying? congressman maloney: he can absolutely when the agency for as long as the president wants them to, but he should not be involved with russia. the firing was about russia. tucker: would it be a little easier if you disagree with the the trump administrats policies on various things to just explain why you disagree with those rather than try to derail the whole executive branch of government with an insane merger conspiracy. can we just admit jeff sessions was not working on behalf of the russians, he s a patriotic american just like you are and we will drop the innuendo in the mccarthy tactics because it s counterproductive. congressman maloney: what we know that all all of the people we pay to do this tell us that we face an unprecedented attack by a hostile power. some of the stomach us want to know what they found that was. in the last few days we learned that they found 39 states. that s on top of what we knew if they did. i thought the jeff sessions was a senator from alabama and donald trump was a presidential candidate when that happened. barack obama was the president when that happened. you are conflating things. the truth is jeff sessions had nothing to do with russia hacking various computer systems and there s no evidence to suggest otherwise, so why continue the charade? congressman maloney: what we know is that the russians were laser focused on lifting sanctions against the regime. they were successful in having republican party platform change, we don t know how or why. let me finish, excuse me. tucker: you don t know that. congressman maloney: they did change the platform, we don t know why. tucker: was kislyak there? i didn t see any russians. congressman maloney: excuse me, we know the platform was changed. tucker: or the russians in the meeting? the two i didn t say that, i said we should find out why it was changed. tucker: you just said that russia was white changed the republican platform. congressman maloney: i wouldn t make that allegation, but we ought to get to the bottom of it. tucker: [laughs] i m against sanctions on russia, does that make me congressman maloney: you don t care about the invasion of crimea or ukraine? spent i have a legitimate policy disagreement. mis by? congressman maloney: you are not a spy. congressman maloney: it is a mystery why they change that platform. there s a larger point that you i think were addressing. let me finish, the fact is that if the russians engaged in this attack, we should find out why. we should do it in a way that s fair and gets to the facts. tucker: he is allowed to do his work, you re implying that the russians were somehow in charge of the republican party platform, that they had an influence on the positions of the candidate for the campaign. congressman maloney: can i ask you a question? does it bother you that the administration officials are refusing to answer without invoking executive privilege in front of the united states senate committee? tucker: it depends what. i always want to know information rather than less. i do think, think it s fair for government officials in any administration to say it s privileged information. that s exactly right. congressman maloney: on what basis tucker: he can say look, there s no national interest at stake, there s no reason, i don t want to divulge what i said to the president and if it comes down to it we will invoke executive privilege, you can debate that, i don t have strong feelings about it. if what i have strong feelings about is that democrats are trying to win a political argument by impeding the character of people. congressman maloney: these committees are chaired by republicans, you understand that? both committees. tucker: i m aware. i literally don t care. people like you are leading and innuendo-based charged against her political opponent. congressman maloney: you re talking about senator mccain and senator burke. tucker: fair at fault for letting this congressman maloneyocrats, ws distinguished that. you were outraged on this network in 2012 when the fact that the committee was not allowed to get information. tucker: i don t remember my outrage at the time. congressman maloney: it s a difficult thing. luckily, we looked it up. tucker: [laughs] , you got me there! i was in moscow taking orders, getting my payment. congressman maloney: why are you not outrage? tucker: [laughs] i don t know! i don t know what you re talking about! we interviewed sessions three months ago on march 2nd. he was entirely forthcoming or seem to be, but the nature of his meetings with kislyak during the rnc in cleveland. according to news reports we will met twice with the russian ambassador in person and had one phone conversation with him, is that the extent of your contact with them, those three? a.g. sessions: i don t remember whether i had a phone conversation with him or not. i spoke with the republican convention at a conference with some 50 ambassadors. after i spoke i walked down from the podium and i mingled with a number of people and we met at that occasion and have a chat. otherwise i left shortly thereafter. that s the only two times i recall having met him, perhaps i have. i m on the armed services committee and sometimes you meet people like that, but i don t recall having met anyone, having met in any other time. tucker: why do you think the russian ambassador wanted to meet with you a couple times? what was their objective? a.g. sessions: i met with him after i spoke and we chatted on the floor of this meeting and then he called to meet with me, i literally met with 25 ambassadors during this period of time. many of them were attempting to sell their country, assert the issues that they thought were important to their public safety and their issues that they felt were necessary for them and i would just listen, frankly. very little occurred in those meetings, but i kind of enjoyed them, it was a good experience. tucker: it made sense. in the months since, how much of what he said has proved to be untrue. none of it that we have seen, it sessions admitted there could be a short encounter he may have forgotten about, again we ask, why did the senate pull this off in the first place, why did this hearing happen? for the answer to that question we go to really our favorite person to ask these questions of that is brit hume, our chief political correspondent. what s the point of this? i think the point was to give sessions a chance to clear his name, which had been dragged through the mud over a period of months now by various leaks and suggestions and innuendos including the most recent bash from james, himself, who by the way it did not have a good day today. i think this is a hearing that should not have needed to be held, but it was. so that sessions by the way, meeting appearing before a group of men and women who know him very well and have known him, most of them, for many years and know that he has basically a decent and honorable man of whom it would be almost absurd to imagine that he would be, colluding with the russians on anything. he was a conservative senator from alabama. the absurdity on the face of it hasn t mattered. tucker: he was tough on russia when it actually mattered, holding half the world hostage. brit: there was never any real evidence that he colluded. but we ended up talking about was meetings with the russian ambassador. it s possible to think of things more commonplace in washington than officials and members of congress meeting with the russian ambassador, but it s not that easy. tucker: [laughs] brit: this man and his predecessors have been around town for years, they meet with all kinds of people. the last time i was in the senate dining room was some years ago, the russian ambassador was in there having lunch with diane feinstein, i never gave it a step, second part, and why would i, such meetings happen all the time. tucker: [laughs] brit: your previous guess was referring to the ambassador of the chief spymaster. tucker: [laughs] the chief lunch-haver! what i object to is the discrimination of policy differences. there are reasons to be against them, you are somehow bidding of vladimir putin. can you have a disagreement without being accused of treason? brit: of course you can. the people were raising these accusations don t really think anybody has committed treason. you re looking for ways to bring down donald trump and get out the people around him, that s what this is about and what it s been about from the start. to them his election is unthinkable, a catastrophe for our nations. this cannot be allowed to proceed and they are trying everything they can and this idea that the russians colluded and somehow perhaps even arranged to elect donald trump has been a piece of it for a long time. of the problem has been from the beginning, no evidence. evidence of russian attempts to intervene in the election, to influence the election have been present everywhere, evidence of collusion with donald trump and the people around him has been in very, very short supply to the point now where you notice that the collusion story is sliding away from us now, they are not hearing that much more, they got nothing out of it today, they didn t get anything out of comey either. be there was obstruction justice, you see in the firing of comey. these investigations at the congressional and the justice department were about to be from the start, the whole idea of russian efforts. it has been described one way and one way only, a counterintelligence investigation, which is to say that the fbi in carrying this out under comey and since has been trying as an intelligence agency investigating to find out what kind of spying activity went on. tucker: which is totally legitimate. i love talking, you bring perspective. brit: thoughts for this is supposed to be, it has strayed very far. tucker: very far away. attorney general sessions didn t say anything incriminating toda today, one person says he still must resign, that person will join us next. hey, i m the internet! i know a bunch of people who would love that. the internet loves what you re doing. .so build a better website in under an hour with. .gocentral from godaddy. the internet is waiting. start for free today at godaddy. so we know how to cover almost alanything.ything, even a coupe soup. 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[burke] and we covered it, november sixth, two-thousand-nine. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we ve seen a thing or two. we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum tucker: the attorney general frustrated democrats today by thwarting their attempt to expose more information about the firing of the fbi director jim comey. the national security analyst says the attorney general s testimonies has the attorney general must resign. why should he resign? he joins us. let s begin by explaining that mr. sessions should not have been there to begin with as attorney general. but since president trump values loyalty so much and he happens to create a little cult of personality around ten, mr. sessions, the senator, embattled as a nominee for a federal courtship, he finally got the position. i m not saying let s be clear about this. tucker: so what s the point? you re not saying there traders. arash: it not at all, far from it. unlike your camp, that called president obama a muslim from kenya. tucker: [laughs] this is the longest windup i ve ever heard. arash: having said that, having said that, these were grown adult men, most of whom are patriotic americans who thought it would be a good idea to get help from a foreign adversary to get their dialectic because they thought hillary clinton was a nasty woman and she should have never gotten elected president, that s what they did and they will pay for it. tucker: they will pay for it, their trials for treason are coming up soon. arash: i didn t say treason, don t put words in my mouth. i didn t say treason. absolutely. tucker: to have any evidence at all or is this just something that you heard on msnbc and you are repeating? arash: if you happen to read newspapers, which is a good thing to do, new york times, washington post, or if you read memos, fbi, nsa, you will see that there are 17, 17 intelligence on law enforcement agencies that say, pick up a newspaper and check it out. tucker: your blowing my mind. arash: you are in the news business, you are no longer in entertainment, tucker: for my be the weirdest interview i ve ever done. to have any evidence that the attorney general of the united states, jeff sessions, at any improper contact with the russian government and that it influenced his views about american policy on russian none of that evidence came out in today s testimony, but maybe you are privy to something from the national reconnaissance agency since you were there documents coming aside. arash: is not national reconnaissance agency, it s national reconnaissance office, if you ask one of your frat brothers they might send you some literature. here s the thing, if jeff sessions or people like jeff sessions, cushion or people like kushner are not worried about a thing, they should testify, they should testify openly, they shouldn t invoke the fifth amendment. they should testify, where did they find you? arash: he kept talking about how he didn t remember. tucker: we are almost out of time. the sands are flying to the hourglass now, but you have any evidence, again, that jeff sessions had improper contact with the russian government and that that in some way influenced his behavior that undercut american interests in favor of russian interests, do you have evidence of that at all? tooth there was a lot of circumstantial evidence that links him to improper behavior, he recused himself, and guess what, here s a line, i know you don t like to read, but here s another line from shakespeare. it s from shakespeare. check this one out, ask one of your frat buddies to send you this book, it s from shakespear shakespeare, we think the lady doth protest too much. tucker: what play is that from, do you know? arash: you actually should look that up. it s either macbeth or hamlet. tucker: [laughs] arash: look it up! tucker: very quickly i want to ask you about an exchange that happened today, i don t think you saw the hearings, but here s one exchange that took place between calm tom cotton. have you ever in any of these fantastical situations heard of a plot line so ridiculous that a sitting united states senator and an ambassador of a foreign government colluded in an open setting with hundreds of other people to pull off the greatest caper in the history? a.g. sessions: thank you for saying that, it s like through the looking glass. what is this? tucker: if a person would collude with a foreign government, a person in authority like a senator over sitting attorney general, that person would be a deeply bad and immoral person, really an evil person for selling out his own country, is that what you re saying about attorney general jeff sessions? arash: the first thing i said coming on your show was i don t think these men are traders, but i think they thought it would be a good idea to get some help from anybody, including a foreign adversary to get their boy elected, but the problem, they will pay for it. we cut democrats in this country, we got republicans, conservatives, you ve been on for a long time, you ve been around for a long time. the third group of people that are scary and dangerous, and i hope somebody like you i have an apple watch. the third group of people are called trompe l oeil list. if he is creating a cult of personality, it s their responsibility and duty to question that and to bring that down because if you don t do that tucker: i think our viewers had a pretty good chance to assess your level of knowledge of the story and your views on it. let me ask you now, do you speak to democratic members of the house or senate about this? do you advise any current democratic officeholders, russia question? arash: you would be surprised, it would be surprise surprised, but any conversations i do or don t have with members of congress or people in the intelligence community is confidential. if you want to subpoena me to come to fox, you don t have to tucker: i m not suggesting that you be subpoenaed. i don t believe in that. arash: i know you re not a lawyer i know you re not a lawyer, but let me give you little law 101. you should learn in college that if you want to subpoena someone i know you re not a lawyer, but i can give you a little 101, i will send you a bill for that. let me know. tucker: i m afraid were out of time. an amazing conversation that says it all. as for joining us, i guess. the pulse nightclub shooting happened a year ago. up next we will talk about how individual monitoring honorings of that massacre was hijacked by political activists. we ll talk about that next. think again. this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes. and new university partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. learn more at esd.ny.gov where are mom and dad? 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that s tragic or celebratory. it s where people would have instinctively shown up to commemorate the one-year anniversary. what happened was is this far left anti-gun group essentially got the permit, i m assuming, to hold a rally that they yesterday outside of so long. they were the sponsors of the event. people were coming to mourn, coming to be together to reflect, want to give politics a break instead were being subjected to the sort of anti-gun propaganda, all of the signs, all of the anti-trump-is anti-trump-ism. tucker: is that really the message of the murder spree, that guns are bad? apparently, according to this group. no reference to islam that i heard whatsoever. trump was the bad guy in the room for whatever reason. trump came to orlando immediately after the shooting, he waited four or five days, president obama. this was about guns and only guns. tucker: i m sorry to laugh, but isis has bragged first of all, they endorsed the killings at the nightclub in orlando because a lot of people who were killed were gate and they said we are glad that all of these people died. they ve also bragged about murdering people for being in the territories they hold, none of the people noted that? this is sort of a strange phenomenon that when you have a large dense population of leftists, whether it s a college campus or in the sessions stomach gay community, they are loudest and the mentally and emotionally unhinged. bullying everybody to go along in with them. yesterday because i was so personally affected and emotionally affected by the tragedy, i said i m not posting anything political today. i m going to post about remembering the victims, celebrating their lives, but attacking radical islam can wait until tuesday, this group couldn t wait two hours so they subjected everyone who showed up into the radical ideology. most gay people are political, most gay people care about pop music and going to the beach. they probably don t even know what the second amendment is. if they show up to be together to celebrate the community, to mourn together and instead they are just fed the anti-god nonsense. tucker: where you think of guns or revenue are on gun control, here s the scoop that hates you, that wants to kill you for who you are and says so out loud and get organizations like this are more angry at chick-fil-a than the art radical islam, i find it inexplicable. why wouldn t you be, i don t know, fighting back against a group that says they want to kill you? it is so mind-blowing. it makes no sense whatsoever. it s one of the great bizarre paradoxes of the left when they are bringing these people, these groups together, you are absolutely right, extreme, radical muslims. they are not fighting sweetheart to bake a cake for a wedding, they want us dead. their philosophy preaches it in the media still won t call it terrorism, the washington post the washington post, the washington compost as we call i it, they would not say islam or terrorism in their reporting, it was gun violence, even in the washington post. tucker: it s like they are so ideological that they subvert their own interests, they refused to see what s in their own interest because it is somehow not allowed. i seagate, xp people and i know many other people in the left are waking up to this every day at their flame, they are fleeing the left in droves and i think islam, i think radical islam is one of the huge reasons for that, especially for gay people. they see it makes no sense and they note that the right they don t wish us any harm, people on the right. tucker: you certainly see that in europe, that s absolutely a trend in europe, the nationalist parties have big support from the gay community. thanks for coming on tonight, i appreciate it. thank you. tucker: good to see you. we will have an update on the case of otto warmbier, the sad case. he has finally been returned to his family, his release was announced this morning by the secretary of state rex tillerson, who provided few details about how exactly it happen. unfortunately not all is well, he is in a coma and has reportedly been in one for more than a year. the north koreans say, you cannot trust what they say, that he developed a form of food poisoning and fell into a coma after taking a sleeping pill. if we don t know if that s true. regardless of the circumstances, fred and cindy warmbier have been reunited. we will have an exclusive interview with them tomorrow about his release. despite the release of otto warmbier, three other americans to remained imprisoned in north korea and they are a nuclear threat to the united states. as the development mean anything for the relations, the former u.s. spokesman at the u.n., he joins us tonight. if rick, what can you tell us about the release of otto warmbier, we don t have a lot of details? this is a total win for diplomacy, it s been happening for a while. my sources have told me that specifically rex tillerson brought the case to president trump in the oval office within the first 30 days of president trump taking over and president trump looked at secretary tiller an end said do everything you can, you have the full assets of the u.s. government to get this done. from there if there was a series of diplomacy in norway. we had our diplomats meeting with the swedes who do have a post inside north korea. if they were allowed to go visit otto. in that meeting is when they were able to confirm to the u.s. diplomats that this was a very serious situation, but he was in a coma. from there we went to what we call the new york channel for all north korea diplomacy, and that s because the north koreans do have a mission for the united nations and so we can meet with them up in new york under the offices of the u.n. setting. u.s. diplomats then met there with the north koreans and the north koreans had come get him. a plane went, a u.s. government claim with the u.s. diplomats landing in north korea, and they took him out. tucker, one thing to note here is that he was released, no taliban prisoners were swapped, no planes full of money were given, this was pure diplomacy by the trump administration. rex tillerson and donald trump made this a priority. it wasn t a priority under president obama. otto was in a coma for more than a year under the obama presidency and he just lingered there. it s really atrocious and kudos to those who actually believe in diplomacy still. tucker: i m withholding judgment on some of that, i don t think we have all the details and i think there are questions about how the state department under both presidents treated the family, we ll find out a lot more about that tomorrow, but there is the sadness of the case, he is apparently not well and in a coma. what does this mean? one thing to add, diplomacy only works if you have the head of the government, the president of the united states making a priority, you can t do other stuff, so if john kerry was fighting for this, we don t know about it because it wasn t a priority from the obama white house. tucker: i can say that for certain, having followed the story for a while. it was not a priority for the obama white house, or for john kerry, and is shameful. does this suggest some changing of relationships between north korea and the united states, why did they do this now, was there some incentive offered and what about the three americans who remain in the country? first of all, one thing to know is that the state department actually believes that there are more than three, the media have been reporting three, but we have high suspicion is that there are other americans inside there, too. what this really means for diplomacy is that it s a good day for diplomacy. whenever we are able to talk to the north koreans directly and to take a small step like this and reassure them that we are going to go, pick them up, bring them home and we thank them for this one little thing, it does begin to build some sort of confidence. we got a long way to go because the north koreans are not irrational government. and we know that they ve been trying to put the pieces together for nuclear program. we got some very serious and tough issues faced before us. but the new york channel when it comes to diplomacy, utilizing that new york channel is a very good thing. tucker: it s a disgusting government run by monsters and they hurt this boy and they let him anguish and a coma for over a year and you would love for there to be some way to punish them for that, really punish them, but the probably isn t one, is there? i think there s a whole list of things the north koreans should be punished for, this is one of them, absolutely. i do think that the special relationship that donald trump is pushing with the chinese on, we have seen some action from the chinese when it comes to north korea diplomacy, unlike any other time, i do think that we can do more to push the chinese, we haven t considered banking stations, some of the really tough sections that would get the chinese government s attention. i think that we showed, i think that we should have the full tool belt, so to speak of the u.s. government at the disposal because this is a very serious issue, not because of just otto, but certainly because they are a threat and they have a motive to commit the united states, and they re trying to get the tools to send a missile our way. i think what we must do is make this a top priority with the chinese. we haven t done that enough. tucker: you can t hurt american citizens with impunity, or else why have u.s. government to mark thanks for joining us, great to see you tonight. thanks, tucker. tucker: tomorrow at 8:00 we will have an interview with fred and cindy warmbier. many more details on the story tomorrow. mark ruffalo said msnbc hires way too many people from a certain group. our panel will discuss the latest start on the hollywood walk of shame, an amazing story up next. hey. pass please. i m here to fix the elevator. nothing s wrong with the elevator. right. but you want to fix it. right. so who sent you? new guy. what new guy? watson. my analysis of sensor and maintenance data indicates elevator 3 will malfunction in 2 days. there you go. you still need a pass. you need one of these. you wouldn t put up with an umbrella that covers you part way, so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day? aleve, live whole not part. tell you what, i ll give it to you for half off. dynamic performance, so you can own the road. track-tuned handling, so you can conquer corners. aggressive-styling, so you can break away from everyone else. experience the exhilaration of the bold lexus is. experience amazing. i didn t know that msnbc or nbc could be the mouthpiece for right ring conservatives. i m kind of blown away by that one. this actor has a fascination with diversity, and yet he doesn t want diversity of opinion on the network, which makes no sense at all. with that said, celebrities like him and leonardo dicaprio who come out for climate change activism but still fly in their private jets, hypocrisy everywhere. tucker: their assistance thing on the left a lot that is like, down with white people, as said by white person to show that he is the hippest man in brooklyn. but when you start saying don t hire people on the basis of their skin color exactly. as ashley pointed out, this guy is a bernie sanders supporter. other progressive is trying to shut down diversity of thought or opinion, but also, back to the main point, i wasn t aware that msnbc was on some sort of conservative hiring spree. this network is known for not having many conservatives, especially to those speaking to to those whose views are on the left. it s that basic hypocrisy that we always see from these types of folks. wow tucker: i have no idea what mark ruffalo is talking about. all right, next topic. apparently oliver stone has not been keeping up on the right opinions. just finished up a document on vladimir putin, and found himself grilled on expectedly by stephen colbert and ridiculed by the studio audience. watch this. he never really says anything bad about anybody. he s been through a lot, and he s been insulted and abused. i didn t sense any kind of abused in the press and the media. no question, he s a social conservative. he believes i don t know why you are laughing. because that s like a milder description of him. that s what i laughing. anything about him, negative that you found? tucker: oliver stone is so old that he has come all the way around and become unfashionable with the left. he never thought that was going to happen. it s a little weird to see oliver stone booed by a liberal audience. it s weird for stephen colbert to be blown away by something. that was the weirdest dynamic. he comes out and some pretty much says that this was a softball interview, and you have oliver stone saying, we had to give him his space. this is a two-year deal and he is a busy man. you have a few minutes to sit down with the leader of russia, who right now as we look at our political climate on what s going on and the investigations, this is a serious interview. it could have been won, instead he takes the opportunity to just ask him softball questions and say thank you with no follow-up. it s mind-blowing. tucker: it was 20 hours, he cut it down to four. what do people expect them to ask? they think they were going to get something of substance from vladimir putin? do you kill journalist? i m glad you asked that questio question. megyn kelly had the opposite approach, trying to do any forceful interview. she got nothing from him. this is the same person that george w. bush thought he could see into his soul and president obama tried to reset relations with. the point of this interview series, my understanding, is that the documentary is to try to get some insight into the way he thinks, and i think it got that goal. but tucker: it s weird, because oliver stone has interviewed a lot of dictators. i doubt he would be criticized by anyone on the left for that. we are talking oliver stone, by the way, i think tomorrow night on this show. do you think stephen colbert stephen colbert s question to him, do you have your dog in the case? come . tucker: we will be back live at 11. this shows the sworn enemy of lying hypocrisy smugness and groupthink. we will see you soon. next up, our friends from the five. tomorrow, an interview with the warmbier s on their son returning to the united states. see you at 11:00.