they do not feel -- they do not feel whole and they do not feel free to be themselves. so it is important to me that i encourage other black men to feel free to be themselves without any type of stereotype. >> our thanks to xavier. you can see more of his art at freeze los angeles starting february 29th. that show runs from the 29th through march 3rd. if there's an artist you think i should know or some art that i should see, i'm always looking for that intersection of art and news and life. hit me up on the socials. i'm @victorblackwell. thank you for joining me today. i will see you back here next saturday at 8:00 a.m. eastern. "smerconish" is up next.

welcome to the republican rorschach primary. i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. people are reading into the results so far whatever they're wishing for. first there are the never tr trumpers. they say he is essentially running as an incumbent, and still 49% of the voters in iowa, they didn't want him. speaking of iowa, the turnout was abysmal. a little over 110,000 participated, accounting for just under 15% of the state's 752,000 registered republicans. do you know that trump only received a little over 56,000 votes? iowa, iowa is lily white. it is unrepresentative of the country at large. we are a diverse nation of over 335 million, a small number of iowa voters should not determine our destiny. besides, the iowa field, it was

still too crowded. when nikki haley finally got him one-on-one in new hampshire she was able to keep it close and received about 43% of the vote. worse for trump, the independents in new hampshire supported haley in huge numbers, showing that trump could never win a general election. so why should haley drop out? candidates only drop out when they run out of money and nikki has the money. she's raced $2.6 million since the new hampshire primary and the super pac backing haley raised $50.1 million in the last six months, about $5 million more than the pac backing trump. don't forget, he is four times indicted. anything can happen. after all, just yesterday a federal jury in new york awarded e. jean carroll $83 million as a result of trump defaming her. that was after a different jury in a related case found that he sexually assaulted her. do you really think suburban moms are ever going to vote for donald trump? it will never happen.

and then there's the maga perspective. they say it is amazing how many did vote in iowa. have you forgotten it was record cold on january 15, minus 10 on election day, windchills as low as minus 40. they walked through snow to vote for donald trump and they'd willingly walk through fire to elect him against joe biden. don't forget, he had several opponents in iowa and he still received 51% of the vote. nikki haley, she was in third with just 19%. and then he beat her by 11 in new hampshire even though she had the support of the governor, and despite new hampshire allowing independents to vote. nikki haley is never going to find a friendlier electorate and still she lost by double digits. according to a cnn exit poll, 70% of haley voters in new hampshire were not even registered republicans. no wonder she raced out to give her speech when only the area's most favorable to her had been

counted, creating the illusion of her performing better than was actually the case. by the way, did you see those exit surveys? do you know what issue mattered most to iowa and new hampshire republican voters? immigration. you don't get more trumpy than that. step back and remember this. no one who has won iowa and new hampshire has lost a gop nomination. trump's allies, including house speaker mike johnson and the chair of the rnc, ronna mcdaniel, they continue to call for the gop to unite around him. nevada is next, but only trump can win delegates based on the system about to unfold so he wins nevada. and then february 24, south carolina where he's hammering haley in her own state. he's got the support of every elected official who matters in the palmetto state. the latest 538 polling average has trump up at 63%, haley at only 29%. that verdict yesterday in manhattan, just another example

of the deep state doing everything it can do to deny maga the chance to reelect their man. one candidate has already won the nomination. anybody who doesn't see that has a view distorted by the fact that his name happens to be trump. there it is. those are the conflicting perspectives about the state of the gop nomination. haley's hopes seem pinned on the belief that trump will continue to face legal peril in the criminal courts, akin to yesterday's civil defeat of trump, and that she will be the last trump opponent standing. how likely is her rope-a-dope strategy to succeed? i want to know what you think. go to my website at smerconish.com. answer today's poll question, will e. jean carroll's defamation verdict against donald trump significantly improve nikki haley's nomination chances? joining me to discuss is cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, elie honig.

after yesterday's civil verdict, does donald trump have a jury problem? >> you bet he does, michael, if he behaves like that. i want people to understand what donald trump did in that courtroom throughout this trial is not just unusual, it is absolutely bizarre and self-destructive. when you are a trial lawyer, you understand the jury is sitting there feet away. they are watching and evaluating everything you do. you are trained that you have to have a poker face, even if your most important witness goes south, even if the judge makes a terrible ruling for you, you have to act like you are doing just fine because the jury is watching you. for donald trump to sit there muttering out loud in ways the jury can hear, the judge admonishing him, for trump to get up, stand up and walk out during a jury address by the other side is outrageous. i assure you, the jury held that against him. if i'm his criminal lawyer i would tell him, look, that's a civil case, your penalty for acting out there will be financial but when we get into criminal court the penalty if you do that will be much more severe.

>> now the question becomes does he get into criminal court before the election? let's remind everybody, the court of appeals in dc any minute is going to come back on that immunity question relative to january 6th. then what? >> so the key thing to look for, i'm going to save everyone some time, when that immunity decision comes down, donald trump is going to lose this argument in the court of appeals. they're going to reject his immunity claim. pull up the document and hit control f and do the find function on the phrase, issue the mandate. what that means, will they send the case back down to the trial court and essentially unfreeze the trial court. now, the trial court has been what we call stayed, meaning on pause, for about seven weeks now. if the mandate issues, it goes back to the trial court, they can try to reestablish a trial date, maybe in april or may, but if the court of appeals does not issue that mandate the trial court remains frozen and donald trump will easily be able to run out the clock by asking for rehearing in the court of appeals, then asking the u.s.

supreme court to take the case. so that's going to be the make or break. >> speaking of the supreme court, let's remind everybody that february 8 comes the argument on colorado and by extension maine and other states as to whether he gets bounced from the ballot pursuant to section 3 of the 14th amendment. how quickly will the supreme court rule in that case? >> i assure you they will rule by march 5th, before march 5th. the reason is march 5th is super tuesday, and among the states voting on super tuesday are colorado and maine and about 14 others. i think the supreme court is going to rule by late february so people know, people have to know if they're going into colorado are we voting for a guy who is disqualified. i think what the supreme court is going to do is rule in a way that not only rejects the disqualification in colorado but is broad enough that it ends all of these challenges under the 14th amendment across the whole country. >> okay. elie, there's a question whether the january 6th case gets to trial before the election.

there's a question as to what happens relative to the 14th amendment. the mar-a-lago document judge doesn't seem to me to be moving expeditiously in that case and fani willis now has problems in georgia. here is the question. is it possible that the only case that gets to trial before the election is the alvin bragg pay-off to a porn star case in if so, does that necessarily hurt trump? >> so it is possible and it is becoming even more likely every day that passes, michael. as it stands right now, there are two cases on the calendar for march, jack smith -- the one we were just talking about, scheduled for march 4th. that's not going to hold. it is going to get pushed back. the question is does it get pushed back far enough that it leaves alvin bragg's case, the hush money case, scheduled for the end of march. that may be the only case standing as we head into the spring. i think the question going back to your opening monologue, if nikki haley or anyone else is holding out hope, well, maybe he will be convicted, the earliest

that can possibly happen realistically will be may and that could be on the hush money case, which i think everyone may think of it, is the least serious of the four cases. whether nikki haley or anyone else can hold out until may i will live to the political experts, but that's the legal reality now. >> we are trying to look around corners. elie, that was excellent. thank you, i appreciate it. >> thank you, michael. what are your thoughts? hit me up on social media. i will read your statements throughout the program. r.i., thank you for your candor. we know that mindset exists. that's why to some it is a rorschach primary. they say, my god, he just got stung with $83.3 million on top of $5 million because a jury believed he sexually assaulted this woman. how in the world could he ever survive and succeed? then there's a sentiment like that where somebody says, yeah,

the fix is in against him. all of these different prosecutions, let me have my vote. >> i want to know what you think. go to my website @smerconish.com. answer today's poll question. will e. jean carroll's verdict improve nikki haley's nomination cans. still to come, a bipartisan border package seemed to be hammered out in the senate until donald trump decided to weigh in. is he working toward a better deal or trying to throw a monkey wrench like nixon and reagan did in past elections? i'll explain. plus, if biden and trump are the nominees, 30% say they would consider a third party candidate. one such candidate is here to discuss. robert f. kennedy jr. is next.

is the 2024 presidential race shaping up into a three-way contest? a new abc news ipsos poll found if it is between president joe biden and former president donald trump, 37% of voters say they would seriously consider a third party candidate.

that number peaks to 51% among independent women and moderate women alike. in a three-way matchup the latest reuters poll shows trump leading with 36% followed by biden at 30%, and independent presidential candidate robert f. kennedy jr. at 8%. other polls have shown kennedy higher. last fall in key battleground states he was getting a quarter of the vote of each of them. pollster mike penn says one of the biggest threats to joe biden's reelection is a viable third party candidate. "politico" quoted a memo from last june saying trump can't win without a third party dividing the anti-trump vote with the exception of winning georgia in 2016 with 50.77% of the vote trump never reached 50% in any of the competitive states that determined the outcome of the last two presidential elections. so far robert f. kennedy jr. will officially appear on utah's presidential ballot. on tuesday his campaign

announced they received enough signatures also to appear on new hampshire's ballot. if his campaign manages to get on all 50 states, where is he likely to pick up votes? joining me now is independent presidential candidate robert f. kennedy jr. robert, let's talk policy, then we will talk politics. i want to start with the border because december we just learned set a record for border crossings. what will you do about that? >> i'll do -- you know, there's a bunch of things that need to be done to stop the flow at the border, which we need to do. a nation can't have 7 million immigrants coming in undocumented in a three-year period for long. number one, we need to restore -- we need to complete the infrastructure. we need physical barriers, particularly in the urban areas, and you don't need a wall all the way from brownsville, texas, to san diego, but you do need physical barriers in the urban

areas where migrants can disappear, illegal migrants can disappear in seconds literally. in the countryside, on the rural areas, in places like big bend national park, you need to have surveillance. you need to have long-range cameras which we had but the biden administration took them down. you need sensors, you need good lighting systems, you need access roads and you need personnel empowered to actually stop the migration at the border on a regulatory -- and we need to put asylum judges on the border to adjudicate the cases immediately. in addition to that, we need to revive the migrant protection act, which the biden administration disavowed, which allows border agent -- empowers border agents to keep asylum seekers in mexico while they

await their asylum determination. we need -- >> robert -- >> -- those -- yeah? >> my colleague, manu raju, covering capitol hill like no one else, last night filed a rt ro. i want to read something to you. we will put it on the screen. here is the latest bipartisan proposal. they say that if migrant crossings increase above 5,000 on average per day on any given week, dhs would be required to close the border to migrants illegally crossing. it occurs to me 5,000, that's 150,000 per month times 12, that's still 1.8 million per year. that's too high. do you agree with me? >> yeah, it is insane. in addition, we need shutting down the border which i will do as president, we need wide gates. you know, the border -- the legal immigration policy was created in the 1960s and people

have to wait years to get into this country legally. we need a quicker path to citizenship. we need to let seasonal migrants in to work. we need -- there are small business owners all over the country that are hungry for workers, that are waiting for workers and can't get them. we need to -- you know, we need people who wait in line. we need to actually make it humane and quick for them, an we need to seal the border all together. it is absurd to say that 5,000 people a week is acceptable, and there's ways to stop this. >> let me ask you this question from we have stopped it in the past. >> let me talk about your campaign. the poll numbers, more impressive than others. those competitive states where "the times" and "sienna" has you in the 20s last fall. impressive. there it is. we are showing it on the screen.

pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, nevada, arizona and georgia, but it only comes to fruition if you can get on those state ballots. are you going to get on those state ballots? >> yeah, we'll be on the ballot in every state. i mean, as you pointed out at the beginning of the show, we got on new hampshire. people said it would take us weeks to get the signatures. we needed 3,000 signatures in new hampshire and we got 5,000 in a single day. so we have a ground team, you know, in all of the states where we can collect signatures. we are doing that now. there's about 27 states, michael, where you need a vice presidential candidate to start collecting signatures but we have until august. we're not going to have a problem getting on the ballot. we will be on the ballot in 50 states and the district of columbia. >> let me ask you this. is it possible that you will seek as you are running as an independent, you will seek still to be the libertarian candidate, which would assure you getting on all 50 state ballots?

>> that's something that we're looking at. we have a really good relationship with the libertarian party. i will be speaking at the california libertarian party convention, i think it is next week or maybe in a couple of weeks. we're talking about me speaking in new york, but, you know, so that is -- and we have our own political party now in six states, which have rules that make that -- give us an advantage to have our own political party. we're not going to have a problem getting on the ballot in all the states. >> i asked you the question because angela mccard wle, headf the libertarian party. do we have the sound of this? tell me quickly. i want to play something for the audience, the head of the libertarian party on my radio show in the fall. roll it. >> we've had a lot of good conversations and we're on good terms and i respect his decision

to want to go independent. the libertarians really admire the strong position he took against mandates and lockdowns, and so we're going to stay on friendly terms and see what happens. >> bobby, make some news. it sounded to me like she is welcoming you to come in and ask for their ballot position. >> yeah, well, we are talking to the libertarian party, and i feel very comfortable with most of the values of the libertarian party. you know, like i say, we have good relationships. i am talking regularly to libertarian groups. we will continue to do those talks. i can't give you a headline news story today, michael. i'm sorry. ask about something different. >> okay. well, i'm out of time but you will come back and i will ask again. robert f. kennedy jr., thank you. >> thank you for having me, michael. >> let's see what you are saying on social media, katherine.

what do we have from the world of x. a third party is kind of like an opening, opening band before the headliner. they're nice and all but nobody really watches. i don't know, jimmy p., maybe the moon and the stars lined up this year. everybody seems to say when a pollster asks that they want more choice and they're not satisfied at the top of the ticket. perhaps this is the year. of course, we all have our eye on no labels to see what they're going to do. joe lieberman told me it will be on or about super tuesday they make a decision. i want to remind you go to my website @smerconish.com. answer today's poll question. will e. jean carroll's defamation verdict against donald trump significantly improve nikki haley's nomination package. up ahead, a bipartisan package in the senate on border security is now falling apart because of donald trump's influence. will this help or hurt trump's campaign. plus, i discussed here how artificial intelligence can now generate freakishly realistic custom girlfriends. but what happens when the same technology is used to blur the truth in elections?

before this week's new hampshire primary, thousands of residents received a robocall claiming to be president biden telling them not to vote. it was bogus. what does this portend for the 2024 contest? make sure you are going to smer coning.com. sign up to my daily newsletter for which jack ohman sketched this cartoon.

friday customs and border protection confirmed there were a record number of migrant encounters at the border. more than 302,000, the first time that number has been above 300,000. that brings last year's total to more than 2.4 million migrant encounters. that doesn't include the so-called got aways. but is donald trump monkey wrenching any chance for a deal on the border?

this week hopes for a long-negotiated bipartisan border security package in the senate seemed in peril after trump came out against it even while its exact details were under wraps. in a closed door meeting mitch mcconnell told colleagues they were in a quandary about whether negotiated aid to israel and ukraine will proceed because trump's push to kill a proposed bipartisan immigration deal created intra-party feuding. friday senate negotiators agreed to a new proposal that would empower the u.s. to significantly restrict illegal migrant crossings. the senate deal is expected to be unveiled as soon as next week. it would speed up the asylum process to six months and require dhs to close the border if migrants crossings increase above 5,000 on average per day on a given week. any migrant attempting to cross the closed border twice would be banned from entering the u.s. for one year. trump doesn't want biden to have anything that looks like a win,

especially not on this of all issues before the general election. but recall that the democratic-led senate refused to pass the gop house border bell, that's hr2, and according to house leader mike johnson the new border deal is similarly lacking. in a letter on friday johnson writes, nine months have now passed since we sent our secure-the-border act, hr2, to the senate because we have explained repeatedly that bill contains the core legislative reforms that are necessary to actually compel the biden administration to resolve the border catastrophe. the bill's provisions include transformative corrections such as the remain-in-mexico policy, the end of catch and release, meaningful reforms to the existing broken asylum and parole systems, and continued construction of a wall at our southern border. the reason i use monkey wrenching is that there were reportedly efforts made by previous presidents to affect the outcome of elections. you might remember nixon in '68 used the term when he reportedly told aides to thwart lbj's peace

talks to hurt his opponent, hubert humphrey. in 1980 john connolly reportedly ad visited middle east states in an effort to get the word to iran not to release the 58 american hostages. is trump selfishly doing likewise or trying to get a better border deal. joining me to discuss is kari lake, republican candidate for senate in arizona. she was also the nominee in the gubernatorial election. she is a surrogate for the trump campaign. thank you for being here. we asked the trump campaign to please tell us on what basis does he, trump, oppose the border bill being negotiated in the senate. instead of answering the question they said, well, you should talk to kari lake. here you are. why does trump oppose this bipartisan bill? >> because it is terrible for the american people and president trump stands for the american people. he is all about making a deal, but not a garbage deal.

you're cherry picking whatever you just showed there, and you are forgetting the part that this bill does nothing to further build the wall. by the way, the wall does work, otherwise joe biden wouldn't have had it welded in the open position to allow this invasion. it doesn't do anything to stop the fentanyl pouring across. this bill would actually legalize nearly 2 million of these illegal immigrants every single year. this bill does nothing to help the american people, and also, by the way, it sends money to ukraine and the american people are sick and tired of it. they're absolutely sick and tired. your bill -- >> if you were listening to my earlier -- kari -- >> build the wall -- >> if you were listening to my earlier conversation with robert f. kennedy jr. you heard me say, 1.8 million still seems annually like too many. but i was raised to believe -- >> it is. >> -- half a loaf is better than none at all. so if it would enable to shutdown if overwhelmed, speed

up the asylum process and raise the standard for asylum claims, why not take the win? because if you don't, it looks like trump is now acting like nixon or john connolly on reagan's behalf to try to save the win for himself. >> i assure you, if a deal came out of washington, d.c. that secured that border, stopped the biden invasion, stopped the fentanyl from pouring across that president trump would get behind that. this is not about politics. he cares about the american people, which is why he single handedly secured that border when he was president, and he had all kinds of political daggers coming at him. i live in arizona. you are sitting in manhattan. i'm here in arizona where we have it the worst right now. we have tens of thousands of people crossing a day. we have narcan in elementary schools because there's so much fentanyl pouring across our border that it is getting into the hands of our children. president trump cares about securing america, making our

streets safe. he would support a deal that did that. >> i wonder -- >> but this deal is absolute garbage. >> i wonder. >> it is pure garbage. >> i wonder if he is jeopardizing the strongest political hand that he has. here is what senator mitt romney had to say. listen to this. >> we have a crisis at the border. the american people are suffering as a result of what's happening at the border, and someone running for president ought to try to get, you know, the problem solved as opposed to saying, "hey, save that problem, don't solve it, let me take credit for solving it later." >> isn't that -- >> oh, man. >> -- the perception that will take hold? >> thank you for giving me a good laugh. i needed one to start the day. you are going to take mitt romney -- >> go ahead and respond, respond substantively. >> i will respond to that. mitt romney is not a good deal maker. president trump knows a bad deal when he sees it and this is a bad deal for the american people. this does nothing to shore up our national security. we have millions of people, more

than 12 million here illegally, countless that are here with nefarious reasons to hurt america. this does nothing to root out those terrorists and stop them from coming in. 168 countries, that's how many people are coming in, from 168 countries around the globe and we're not vetting them. they're coming from countries with known ties to terrorism, and it is a matter of time before the american people are hurt. i'm a mother. i'm tired of watching what is happening on the border. >> and so -- >> and other americans feel the same way, michael. we can't continue along like this. president trump wants to see real security, not some horrible deal that ties us down to accepting millions of people who are here illegally to stay here. these people have come illegally. >> let me say this. >> and they shouldn't be allowed to stay. >> mitt -- mitt is not alone on the politics of this. the "wall street journal" editorial page, not exactly a progressive or liberal bastian. i will read it to you as i put

it on the screen. giving up on border security would be a, quote, self-inflicted gop wound. president biden would claim with cause republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem. there's more to it, but you would say what to the "wall street journal", kari lake? >> i would say they're absolutely wrong. i mean we've watched this border -- i call it the biden invasion -- carry on for years now under joe biden. he came in on day one and peeled back an effective plan that president trump had in place. he and his corrupt government, administration is aiding and abetting this invasion at our border. we need to go down there, finish the wall, get national guard troops on the border and stop these people from pouring across. and then we need to sort out the 12 million people who are here, and in order to save our homeland we need to send them back to their homeland and start repatriating their people pack to their homeland. we can't afford to take on all of the world's problems.

we have so many problems of our own here and we are forgetting about the american people. >> kari lake, thank you for being here. i appreciate your time. >> thank you, michael. i appreciate you having me on. checking in on social media reaction. katherine, what do we are from the world of youtube. abbott complains about border but trump wants to prevent biden doing something. i started the program today with a commentary about the rorschach nature of how the republican nomination is being perceived. this is similar insofar as on one hand you say, as i said to kari lake, well, okay, maybe it is not perfect but you are getting more than you have ever had before so it looks like trump is selfishly holding out to have a win on his terms. on the other hand you could say, as she just did and i would rather hear from her than not hear from her, it is a weak bill and we can do a hell of a lot better. how about this? can we all agree we have a real problem on our southern border? we just set a record in december, and not the kind of report you want the nation to be setting. still to come this week,

dozens of deep fake images circulated on social media showing taylor swift in sexually provocative positions at a kansas city chiefs game. swift is said to be considering legal action, but what happens when this kind of cutting-edge a.i. technology is implemented in political contests? was this week's fake robocall from president biden to new hampshire voters just the tip of the iceberg for disinformation? please don't forget, make sure you are voting on today's poll question @smerconish.com. will e. jean carroll's defamation verdict against donald trump significantly improve nikki haley's nomination chances? when you go vote, sign up for my free and daily newsletter. you will get my look at the news every day and, look at that, come on, does it not sum up the week. that's two-time pulitzer surprise winner steve green writing for smerconish.com.

what do taylor swift and the 2024 election have in common? both are under attack thanks to how realistic artificial intelligence and deep fakes have become. this week fake sexually provocative poses of swift, likely generated by a.i., went viral on social media. one image was on x and viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended. in swift's case, the backlash has resulted in a movement called protect taylor swift. but how will we protect the electoral process? this week a fraudulent robocall purporting to be president joe biden went out to between 5,000 and 25,000 new hampshire voters, urging them not to vote in tuesday's primary and to, quote, save their vote for the election. >> republicans have been trying to push non-partisan and democratic voters to participate in their primary. what a bunch of malarkey.

>> pretty convincing, right? the source of the robocall campaign is unknown. it is under investigation. it is just the tip of the iceberg of how a.i. disinformation campaigns can disrupt elections. a chilling example of this happened last fall in slovakia just days before their election, deep fake audio recordings circulated seeming to be the progressive candidate plotting with a journalist. the progressive party was defeated by the pro-russian populist party. plus, a flip side of the danger, as fakes pro live rate it becomes easier for those caught on audio or rid yo to brush it off as manufactured. in fact, donald trump has done just that. he attacked this ad, the lincoln project ran on fox news called, "feeble" that was made from authentic footage saying it was, quote, using a.i., artificial intelligence in their fake television commercials. with massive lay-offs at national and local media outlets across the country -- think of "the l.a. times" this week -- it will be harder to combat

misinformation. joining me is vivian shiller, director of the aspen digital. her previous jobs include president and ceo of npr, with twitter. vivian, thank you for being here. these seem like more serious concerns than even what the russians carried out in 2016. >> well, that's exactly right. first of all, thank you for having me. it is exactly right. there was back in 2016 when the internet research institute, as it is so-called, the irs in russia, was known to be carrying on a disinformation campaign to try to sow chaos and get people up in arms and persuade them on one issue or another. that was a big deal. all of those -- all of those capabilities are still there, but now with a.i. you don't have to be a deep-pocketed organization like this state actor in russia. the tools that generative a.i.

have now enabled put these capabilities in the hands of just about anyone to be able to put out misleading information that is targeted, personalized, and to do it at scale. >> how do we best combat it, especially -- i made passing reference to cut backs at "the l.a. times" this week just as one example. but with fewer and fewer journalists, full-time journalists, investigative journalists, who or how or where do we police it? >> yeah, well, there's a perfect storm of unfortunate events happening at the same time, which is news organizations are cutting back. second, news organizations are less trusted than at any time since polling on such things has begun. as you mentioned in your open, the social media platforms have cut back on their trust and safety and content moderation teams. so it is open season for this

kind of -- and the ability for all these, you know, whether it is somebody that's just a mischief maker or a super pac or a foreign power to put this information out. so the critical thing that we need to do and come together on as a country, whether it is through media like we are doing right now or through official election offices around the country, is to make sure that the public understands that these things are possible but also where to turn to fact check information. this has to be sort of a whole-of-nation response, not in favor of one candor another, in favor of one issue or another, but just where to make sure the information that is coming at you is in fact accurate. so you know where to vote, how to vote and democracy can carry on. >> a quick reaction from you. yes, we educate to let the people know that this is a possibility, but you are also

giving cover then for someone who is subjected to very real coverage to say, oh, that was fake. >> yeah, well, this is a challenge and it is a needle that has to be threaded. the phenomenon that you are talking about actually has name. it is called the liar's dividend. the notion is when we in the media put -- you know, say, look out, there's going to be all of these deep fakes, that gives license to some who would like to mislead, you know, the liar, in the case of the liar's dividend, to say, don't believe anything you see, don't believe anything you hear, just listen to me. and when, in fact, they get caught doing something that in fact they did, it is easy for them to dismiss it. just look back at 2016. one of the number of october surprises in the 2016 elections was the grab them by -- i'm not going to finish the sentence. >> sure. >> tape that came out about donald trump. >> right. >> imagine yet today, how easy

would it be for him to say this completely fabricated. >> i never said that. i never said it, it is fake. vivian, thanks for being here. i appreciate your time. >> sure. happy to be here. thank you. . >> still to come, more of your best and worse social media comments and the final result of today's poll question. go to smerconish.com. will e. jean carroll's defamation verdict against donald trump significantly improve nikki haley's nomination chances? if you subscribe to the free daily newsletter you will get access to the political cartoon like this from rob rogers.

you may know adam schiff's work to protect the rule of law, or to build affordable housing, or write california's patients bill of rights. but i know adam through the big brother program.

we've been brothers since i was seven. he stood by my side as i graduated from yale, and i stood by his side when he married eve, the love of his life. i'm a little biased, but take it from adam's little brother. he'll make us all proud as california senator. i'm adam schiff and i approve this message.

. there's the result of the poll question so far, pretty decisive. 30,000 and change, 76% say, nah, it's not going to help nikki haley. despite the size of that civil verdict in new york city yesterday against donald trump. social media reaction, what do we have, katherine, during the course of the program? a ton, i am told. what the actual "f," why don't you just have putin on and complete your lineup of evil lying criminals? okay, jay, i'll do it your way and gauge in censorship. thank me, jay, and say there's a third party candidate out there right now getting more of the vote than we've seen since ross perot in '92. thank you, michael, for putting him on. but for you, michael, we wouldn't hear that perspective, at least not here. you're welcome. another one, please. what else do we have? please bring up the fact that biden let the border problem go all the way up until the election, and now wants to claim

fixing it. i think you just did a better job than i of saying that, proud papa. another social media reaction. can we do the full hour one week on this? you are scraping the pate of your barrel with your guests, are kennedy and lake the best you can do? gerald i've responded to that mind-set. to bring on diverse voices of newsmakers is what a program like this is all about. one more, real quick, i'll get it in, squeeze it, go, what do you have? not a peep on fox news about the 83.3 million judgment, i clicked through the dial and i could not believe the five. last night, huge verdict comes in, they didn't even touch it. crazy. i'm going to bring you everything. even if you don't want to hear it. see 'ya. our political system has a reputation for scandals, corruption, bribery, wire fraud, a secret love affair, you can't write this stuff. >> uninited stateses of scanand.