thank you for joining us. i'll be back here at 7:00 p.m. eastern. director of the fbi james comey is set to testify monday and we will have our guests to look at that. smerconish is next. ♪ i am michael smerconish coming to you from philadelphia where we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. president trump and the white house still promoting an unsubstantiating wiretapping accusation even at an angel la merkelle press conference. what would happen if the known fact facts were litigated in court. in other words, does president obama have a case for libel? and where is president trump's ongoing battle with the intelligence community heading?

former nsa and cia head general michael hayden is here. and plus, we live amidst the political uncertainty, but the stock market is at an all-time high, and whats explains the disconnect? investment john c.bogel founder of vanguard is here. and chris is a lizza says that white house spokesman sean spice er hit a new all-time low this week. and we will look at that. >> and march madness in full swing, but how much of the collegiate players will actually graduate? ily talk to someone who built a fantasy bracket based on academic academics. look at who wins. but first, it has been two weeks and on the morning of march 4th, president trump set off a number of tweets that is been literally viewed around the world. including terrible. just found out that obama had my

wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism, and of course, that twitter storm ended with trump flat out calling his predecessor bad or sick. and quote, how low has president obama gone to tap my phones in the sacred election process? this is nixon watergate, bad or sick guy. look, i'm a trial lawyer, and it occurs to me that the combination of those tweets is potentially defamatory the. not that i'd expect pram to file suit, but game it out. if obama were to sue trump, trump a public figure, then obama's burden of proof is actual malice and he would have to show actual falsely or reckless regard for the troouchlt it would be reck lele for president trump to say that president obama commited a crime if president trump knew it to be false or that he was reckless in making the assertion, and of

course, truth would be a defense for president trump. so what evidence or witnesses might trump present on his own behalf to establish truth? not devin noon yes, sunez who se does not believe that there was a tap. nor james clapper who said that no fisa warrant was issued on his watch for such a wiretap. fbi director james comey is testifying on capitol hill monday and we know that he was so reportedly upset at president trump's claim that he wanted the j justice department to refut it. and trump can't count on the brits whose prime minister teresa may had a spokesperson release a statement saying that their intel that said entrapping tr trump was ridiculous. and now, there was a list of mostly long list of news sources who have reported in varying

degrees of the theory of the government surveillancing president trump or people close to it, one from of it is coming into evidence in our hypothetical. it is all hearsay. in fact, it is up reliable, double or triple hearsay at best. >> many relied on anonymous sources of the very kind that president trump relied on again. trump relied on fox with no firsthand information. fox news itself says they cannot substantiate the judge. and speak iing of the former president, we know from the statement issued by obama's spokesperson that he claims to have never ordered the surveillance of a u.s. citizen. so, what's the verdict? the verdict is that president obama appears to have a very strong claim for libel. he could establish every element of the tort.

so what are president obama's potential damages? conceivably, he is entitled to punitive damages and think about that for a minute. punitive damages are damages designed to hurt, to punish, to deter. but of course, it all depends on the composition of the jury, because to the 46% that got t m trump elected, this is just noise. what is going to happen next with president trump's ongoing battle with the intel community? joining me now is the former dr director of the nsa and cia general michael hayden and his memoir "playing to the age of terror" is now in paperback. the gchg is the equivalent to the agency that you ran here, and is it conceivable to you that they would get a call from the president of the united states to say, please tap the phone or the office space of someone running for president and they would cooperate?

>> michael, i'm sorry, i am trying to suppress a laugh here. that is so far from reality, and so far from the are relationship we have within the five eyes community. look, we are really close. it is integrated operation, but one that is one absolute rule is that no one can ask a partner to do that which is illegal for himself or that which is illegal for the partner. and that has never been done in the five i's alliance. >> has the m h sa to your knowledge and i have to ask it to close the loop ever been asked in a similar circumstance by one of our allies, will you please eavesdrop on someone seeking the highest office in our land? >> michael, that's way up there in terms of seriousness, i am telling you we cannot do anything for an ally that the ally itself is not allowed to do. and so no, you cannot export or

offshore these requirements because your law prevents you from doing them. look, i mean, this is done by the rule of law. i get it that it is espionage and secret and gets to be mysterious, but you are actually seeing some things, and you are reporting all of, already it has reflected it, we will get tight oversight from the congress, and if they caught wind of this, it would be a nuclear detonation. >> where is it going and what concerns general michael hayden the most? >> because the white house is sticking to the story in about a 15-minute period yesterday we embarrassed one and ainngered another of our most important allies in the world. so, that is what i am looking at right now is the collateral damage. and oh, yes, by the way, i am sure that the spirits are not that high out at fort meade and

the national security agency right now, but michael, the core question, where is this going? i found that interview with the president and tucker carlson quite interesting. some folks said that he was doubling down on his claim. actually, i don't think so. i think that he was picking up his chips and going to another table. he was backing away from the literal accusation that president obama had done which you have reported on and ordeedd the wiretapping of trump and in trump tower, but where this is going, michael, and i think that it is the lifeline that i think that the administration is hoping they can grab on to is something that we call incidental collection and may take a minute, but i can explain it to you and the virers how this might work. >> do it. >> okay. >> please, do it. >> okay. if we are up against a legitimate intelligence foreign target and for purposes of the explanation say that we are up for targeting, and you wanted to do this, say, a russian oligarch

who is involved in money laundering or sanctions busting, and michael, this happens fayly routinely, but if that target now gets involved in the communication to, from, or even about a u.s. person, okay, we are still allowed to continue to cover the target. we just have to protect the u.s. person's privacy. we do what is called minimize the information. so we might say, this russian ole gashg and t-- oligarch is n entity, and unless that the oligarch is arrangek an illegal use of fund, and then in that

case, we would unmask the identity and have a full picture of the intelligence, and keep in mind that we are just targeting the foreigner. this is called incidental collection and the unmasking of the u.s. identity is isn't trump, isn't bush, but it goes back 40 years these procedures to the reforms in the american intelligence community in the u.s. so i suspect if there is any example of a u.s. identity being unmasked that has any relationship to the trump campaign or the trump tower, and again, very normal, and very correct and verile legal, i think that at that point, the white house goes, a ha! i told you so. i think that this is where it is going. >> do i understand general hayden to be predictinging that perhap ares the next step of this is that the trump white house seeks to criminalize the

incidental collection of u.s. intelligence, is that what you are saying? >> yex mischaracterize and criminalize, and michael, very tellingly devin nunez has asked the american intelligence community, was there any incidental collection, and have we unmask ed the collection, an i think that we are going to that point and at the end of the day mischaracterized and an attempt to claim that it is some sort of violation. >> okay. that is a pretty significant prognostication from general hayden, and what would be the impact of that on the intelligence community? >> look, anybody who knows the business would simply go, yeah. that's how this is always done. this is ak ul chul ly a very god way to do our job and protect american privacy, and so it

would be just kind of the wheels of the process going forward. by the way, michael, that procedure, i just laid out for you sh you, it is approved by the attorney general, reviewed annually, and those procedures are annually laid out to the intelligence communities who understand them, and again, remember that unmaxing thing they did, michael, it is so routine that it is done within the agency, and you don't have to go to the white house, and you don't have to go to the court, and it does not even come to the director. it is done by the analysts in close cooperation with nsa lawyers who know this best. >> imagine that you are still running the cia or still running the nsa and president trump c l calls general hayden and says, jen rashlgs i need to know, was the trump tower surveillanced. could you answer that question? >> of course, i could. and if he had the follow-on question, was there any

incidental collection and did you unmask any identities, i could answer that, toox because michael, i have. recall years ago when we were trying to get an ambassador mr. bolton confirmed for the united natio nations, and he had actually asked for some unmasking of the i identities and some members of congress were kind of rendering the garments that it is some kind of great offense. i want down, and explained the process to them, and actually indicated that these requests from am bbassador bolton were quite appropriate and innocent. so again, we are not out of the norm here. it is just new to a lot of people. it is not new, itself. >> final question, and you have just answered it, but i want to underscore it, he often watches us, and thank you for that, employment, because we like you watching, but if he is watching right now at mar-a-lago, and he could pick up the phone this minute and call the cia and the nsa and ask the question, was trump tower surveillanced and he'd get an answer, right? >> michael, all he needed to do

two weeks ago was to roll over and punch the button on the red switch and say, get these guys down here on the lunch, and we would have been satisfied and he would have and we'd be done this with this. >> thank you, general, for being here. what are your thoughts. tweet me, wow. tweet me at smerconish, and nothing offensive, because nothing would preclude that type of phone call made at this moment. so folks, you have to ask, why doesn't he make that phone call? because maybe he knows the answer, and he does not want to with be held accountable for it. but tweet me @smerconish, and for the 46% that got trump elected you and the media are just noise. and robert, that is sad, isn't it, because i deal with facts, my friend, and i presented to you as a trial lawyer how this issue would be litigated if that were to be the case, and what a shame if a certain number among

us don't care about the facts. up next, chris iscilliza said tt sean spicer hit a new low thursday, but would his bosses agree? that is next. you can use it online and on your phone i masterpassed it. you got the tickets? onward! playing the hero: priceless masterpass, the secure way to pay from your bank don't just buy it. masterpass it. this is pete's yard. and it's been withered by winter. but all pete needs is scotts turf builder lawn food. it's the fast and easy way to a thick, green, resilient lawn with two simple feedings.

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at sean spicer's thursday press conference, he refused to back down to the president's wiretapping claims. chris sacillizza said ha he wou not back down. and joining me now as he writes "the fixed blog" and been siriu and he is going to to be coming to join me on the 3rd. before the break, i think i said shawn hannity had the worse week in washington. >> yeah. >> his week was not so great either. you said sean spicer was not so hot. would his boss agree? >> first of all, thank you for the kind wishes. it is wonderful to be on tv with you. no, his boss would not agree and that's the problem here which is there is an audience of one on

these briefings, and attentive audience of one. donald trump watches sean spicer and probably watched him thursday and applauded. but the problem is that by thursday night, the u.s. was apologizing to britain for saying as general hayden made clear that saying that britain was maybe involved in the wiretapping of trump tower, and the problem is yes, sean spicer in donald trump's eyes did a good job, but in terms of presenting the facts and using the words that matter when you are standing behind the podium as a spokesman of the united states, not just of donald trump, but of the united states, you know, i think that it is a dangerous precedent to cite columnists, and people who are just, these are not intelligence professionals and people just writing things, and you cherry pick what you want, and to make a case that pleases your boss,

sure, but this is the united states and our well-being in the world that with are talking about. >> i vacillate, he's an awfully nice guy and i dealt with him throughout the course of the campaign, sean spicer, came on the program with regularly. i found myself sailing he's a nice guy and he's got a tough job. >> virtually impossible. >> to appease the boss. impossible, and then, chris, i say, yeah, but, you can't spin it this way, and then relie on the unsubstantiated charges. where do you come down in this c calculation? >> look. i have known sean for an and off 20 years and i'm getting old, and i agree with you not a malevolent person in any shape or form and to some level to your point, michael, doing his job, but the problem here is that he, he knew what he was getting into it. it is not as though when you accept to be the white house press secretary for donald trump, you are not clear what that might mean, because you know that your boss is an avid

media consumer no matter what he says and he is someone who thinks that he is the best spokesman and so you know that it is a difficult job. you know that you are going to have to walk a fine line being honest and as transparent and you can with a press corps that is a constituency of yours as well in terms of trying to make sure that their jobs are not easy, but that their jobs, that you are doing what you can tole help them to do the job day n day out, and with a president who is fundamentally adversarial to that group of people. the thing about sean that i would say is that anyone who's been in the press relations for a long time, this is the top of the mountains. this is a reason that we remember jay carney or robert gibbs or others, but he is

caught right in the middle of a press critic which is happening to be his boss and a media who is rightly saying, you can't just say things that aren't true and we have the write them down. that is not our job. >> president trump this week appearing with tishg carlsouck think took a step backward and then after the tape, chris, you can comment. >> you have the ability to ga thr all of the evidence that you want. >> well, frankly, we have a lot right now. and if you are watching the brett bair and what he was talking about the wiretap and he mentioned the name, and other people have mentioned it, but if you are look at the some of the things written about the wiretapping and eaves dropping and don't forget wiretapping covers the quote, but a was that is old-fashioned stuff, but it

cov covers surveillance, and many other things. and nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but it is important thing, but wiretap cover s a ls a lot of different things, and you will find some interesting items come ing to the forefront over the next two weeks. >> let's be fair to thet president, chris. there has been no evidence of collusion. and a lot of speculation and rumor and innuendo, but no evidence of collusion between the president nor folks associated with the president colluding with the russians relative to the election. react to what you just heard. >> well, so you are 100% right about that and some democrats do themselves a disservice when they say, of course sh, he was bought and paid for by russia, and you know, well, jeff sessions taking meetings with the russian prime minister that he did not immediately divulge in front of the committee is not good, but it is not evidence to your point that this is a president who is being sold, you know, by russia. the thing that is difficult with donald trump is an unwillingness

ever to admit any weakness or any misstatement. it seems clear that the wiretapping tweet, of a month ago or three weeks ago and it was a saturday morning and i remember it well were not the result of intelligence information that he got from the intelligence community. it appears 99.9% certain that this is what we thought it was initially which is a bright bart article that basically detailed a theory by the theory radio show host mark levine, and brett bair who is a newsman and very good and he is report on that and that is not evidence, but it is me quoting you that it is evidence that you said something and you know what i mean? it is a circle thal is vir you wous for donald trump, and it is virtuous for donald trump, but it is not a fact in any shape or form. that is what is difficult. one of the hard things as a reporter for dealing with donald trump is he seems to view

everything a tweet he saw, an article, and no matter the site and the report on the article and no matter the site as all e equal evidence in terms to use to make his point. and politicians do cherry pick, and sean spicer is right, they do cherry pick here, there, and everywhere to make the case, but not the extent of the fact that they are on equal par with people that you have not intelligence, and people who are not intelligence community reporter reporters and people tweeting things and that is not evidence that a president of the united states should site as proof positive that, well, of course, we were wiretapped, because bret baier said it, because he himself would say that is not enough evidence. >> chris cillizza, and we are elated that you are coming to cnn and thank you for being here

today, my friend. >> thank you. i am excited. >> keep your tweets coming to@smerconish. hit me with another one. he is not a volunteer, but no sympathy from me. and xavier, on a personal level having dealt with him on the campaign, he is a decent guy, and i am sympathetic to the fact that he has a brutal job, but i am not excusing making assertion has that can't be substantiated. warren buffett calls him the person who has done the most for american investors. i will talk to john c. bogle, founder of vanguard about the economy, the president and what it means for your money.

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you know, we live in an age of such political uncertainty, and yet the financial markets are on fire. the dow jones industrial average recently broke 21,000 for the first time ever, and with what explains the disconnect between our political and financial environments? well, this week, i sat down with the perfect person to ask, john c. bogle, the 87-year-old founder of the vanguard group incorporated. in his recent annual letter for berkshire hathaway, warren bu buffett said this, if a statue were ever erected to the person who has done the most for american investors, happened's down, jack bogle. and the idea he had in writing the princeton thesis in 1931 has blossomed into what is it today. today, he oversees $31 trillion in assets and jack bogle has earned distinctions over the

lifetime, and "time" said that he is one of the most powerful and influential people, and "fortune" listed him as one of the four giants of the century, and institutional investor has given him a lifetime achievement award. i spoke to him at his office outside of philadelphia. >> reporter: we live in the climate of political unsecertaiy and some say instability, and the market yet has been on fire, and help me to understand that disconnect. >> well, we reliving in a time of political instability and financial instability, and calling into question something that we have not faced in the united states very often. have we lost the ability to govern ourselves? this is going back a couple of congresses, and not the first time it has happened, but it seem t seems to be gets worse, and that is the biggest risk of all. i worry about the division of wealth in the country, an inequality and that in long run is bad for the economy, our socie society, our markets, and now, why is the market doing so well? and i think the answer to that

is that it is driven more by ne near-term hopes for big budget cuts and big tax cuts and particularly corporate tax cuts which will automatically raise the corporate earnings, and the market likes, that and then a feeling of bullishness in the air, and don't ask me quite why, but when the feelings are out there and the emotions are out there, and they override the economics of the market, but in the long run, michael, believe me, it is 100% economics in the stock market and zero percent emotion emotions. the record of the last century shows exactly that. it reverts to the mean as we say, the market can get very much ahead of the economy, and then back and below the e e kco, and then back up. so the economy kind of goes like this if you were drawing a chart and the market like this. so it is emotions, and that is doing it, and positive emotions on the few facts that i mentioned about the tax cutting and so on. >> and the fed chairwoman janet yellen said that the economy is doing well, and raised the

benchmark interest rate, and at the same time said that she does not share the optimism of the market investors that economic growth is gaining speed. did she strike the right bala e balance? >> yes, she did. no question about it in my opinion. we don't see that we can possibly have 4% growth which is what they are talk about that the gdp, or the gross domestic product, and maybe 2.0 or 2.5%, and not much harder than that, but we have been growing, but not at the rate that we have been accustomed to in the past. >> how do you evaluate president trump so far? >> i am not shure that he is comfortable with what he is doing so far to be honest with you. preside presidencies by tweet maybe wonderful and awful, but they have never been tried before. and these comparisons that i read in the paper today about president trump and president andrew jackson are a little farfetche farfetched. >> when you articulated the things that concerned you about the long term direction of the economy, a umnumber of them seed

associated with this particular president, and i i don't know if you meant to particularize them to him or if you have him on the brain or i am reading too much into it. >> and i think that you are. presidents think that they can control the economy, and think they they can. fit goes well, they take the credit, but if it is going bad, it is someone else's fault. they have never taken the the blame for the recession, but a loft them have taken the applause for the bull market. >> for the bull market. >> sure. >> what worries you most about the future of the country? >> i worry about political disunity and i worry about us, and this might sound funny to you, but i worry about us becoming i becominging too much of a democracy, when our founding fathers created a republic, and we knew more and helped more and more public spirit, and better educate and ones to fill the various posts and competition, and now, it is more like a democracy where the people

speak, and sometimes that can be very unfortunate. i think that a good example of the unfortunate thing is the so-called brexit is. the british, and actually a pure democratic thing, and ask the people whether britain should remain -- >> you think it is a mistake? it a terrible mistake and the price will be paid for decades if not longer. a lot of the dom nose fall, and scotland is now thinking of leaving, and the united kingdom won't be united anymore. so, you know, you really, and there are so many people who are not taking the time and trouble to think about these issues, and they get in the same boat as somebody who really thinks and understands about it. i am not saying they will vote indifferent indifferently, but you want a more informed electorate, and more politically away electorate, and an electorate more concerned about the comm e community and not their own interests, and in the ideal society that is the way we should emerge, and the founding

fathers got it right. and their successors right up to today mostly are i think moving troublingly away from the basic values of the country. >> you reminded me that in the annual letter where you were praised by warren buffett in reference to the geniuses and d idiots, but we have we got it right? >> well, not yet. >> and it is distributing e wealth, but not in the ek wiquie

way. >> and it is to run the e kcono and the marketplace to do it, and sometimes you don't like the results burk no question to try socialism and what the world has and tried dictatorships and none of them have worked, but it is democratic capitalism that is the finally the way that we have to come out, and people have to understand that the free market system that bestows the blessings uneventually. >> and you are the super agent that we have come to ascribe to the nearly '88? >> e y. and. >> we have celebrated the 20th anniversary of a heart transplant. >> yes. >> and what is the secret? >> well, the secret of the superager studiers up at harvard say hard work all of the time. and i'd be very hard pressed to deny that, michael. i'm just throwing myself into the life and career, hoping to be fair to my family, too at the same time, and i love what i am

doing. i am still able to do it. the spirit is definitely willing, and the flesh is getting a little bit weak, but as long as you can, you know, pull yourself together, and i said to say to people who are ambitious, what's the secret, and i say first rule, get out of bed in the morning, because if you don't do that, not much is going to happen. >> what a privilege that was for me. by the way, bogle would say, stay the course, stay the course. and there's more, because the full uncut conversation is right now posted on our website cnn.com/shows/smerconish. keep tweeting me at smerconish, and i will continue the read some in the course of the program, and let me tell you what is coming up next. next, march madness is upon us, and what would the ncaa brackets look like if college teams were ranked by which had the best

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liberty mutual insurance. college basketball's march madness is upon us, but in e cent years the ncaa has been questioned about whether the athletes playing are bonafide college students. in 2014, the uconn huskies won the tournament, but the team had only graduated 8% of the players over a six-year span. so what would the brackets look like if we were rewarding the programs that graduate the students and pay attention to the classroom attendance? then we would be crowning a national champion that many of you perhaps would not have heard of. and this is the thesis put forth by veteran sports journalist

larry magness in which he provides a bracket showing what happened if teams favoring higher classroom graduation and attendance rate were here. he is the author of "everyday i fight" and he is the stew worth scott memoir and the co-founder of philadelphia citizen. why did you do this, larry? >> well, because, michael, i started to feel as a sports fan complicit in the, ploytation of the student athletes and the so-called student athletes and especially watching the connecticut run graduate 8% of the players and they are actually professionals apprenticing for a year, and so we thought that it would be fun to look at what a bracket would look like if graduation rates were taken into account. so we published a bracket with the graduation rates along with the won/loss record.

>> here is the bracket. put it up on the screen, and we will iso on the final four. some familiar name, and some unfamiliar names. walk me through the outcome. >> e yeah, so, i'm probably not going to be winning any pools with this bracket. [ laughter ] two of my picks with 100% graduation rates lost in the first round. that is bucknell who i picked to win it all, and i'm the only person in america who picked bucknell to win it all, and dayton also lost in the first round, but duke is still alive and so is my favorite team villanova by the way. you know, so, it is actually surprising how many and there are 12 teams in the tournament who graduate 100% of the play s players. >> look, the good news is that it can be done. i mean, look, duke and kansas

have great basketball programs, and you just referenced villanova and i know that you have a profile of jay wright right now in "gq" and the good news as you referenced, there are schools out there committed to academic excellence and also playing great hoops. >> that is right. these things do not have to be mutually exclusive and that is what the exercise proves. it requires a coach who gets it so that at villanova the athletes are not e sequestered in their own dorm, a a nd they to be a part of the college experience and generally, they have to stay for the four years for that college experience. it is possible to do this, and do it right. and that is who we, i as a sports fan, i want to rout for. >> and jay wright has had the most dominant college basketball team in the nation for the last three years, and so, what is his secret sauce? >> you know, michael, the secret sauce is that he's emotionally intelligent, and he's straight up with the player, and he is

vulnerable with his players. he is not an xs and os guy, and in fact, he told me that when they see you, and you see the coach in the huddle with the diagramming the plays, and he said, yeah, that is really not going to mean anything. i mean, it is filler. what he does is, is teach. like a glorified high school gym coach. he has a zen master on the bench with him who coaches him on how to relate to his players. he is a 21st century kind of coach. >> hey, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction and a couple of years ago my alma mater lehigh defeated duke and one of those moments where i know where i was and watching and unfortunately, larry, it is not your year for bucknell and i don't know the mascot is or i would give them a plug. >> well, no, but they should be having me as the commencement speaker, because i am the only

person who picked them to go all of the way. [ laughter ] >> all right. larry, good work, and thank you for being here. >> thank, man. >> continue to tweet me @smerconish and hit me with another one. what do we have? let's see. eric, what would the world look like far more interesting. but less entertaining. and to larry's point, we can have both. that's why i was so eager to have him on the program. keep tweeting me @smerconish. we'll get to some more in just a second. they keep coming back. you never invited this stubborn little rascal to your patio. so, draw the line. one spray of roundup® max control 365 kills to the root and keeps weeds away for up to 12 months. because patios should be for cooking out and kicking back. roundup® max control 365. draw the line. prevent weeds from coming back for up to one year.

so this year, they're getting a whole lot more. box 365, the calendar. everyone knows my paperless, safe driver, and multi-car discounts, but they're about to see a whole new side of me. heck, i can get you over $600 in savings. chop, chop. do i look like i've been hurt before? because i've been hurt before. um, actually your session is up. hang on. i call this next one "junior year abroad."

hey, breaking news. as many of you have tweeted at me, the bucknell mascot we now can report is bucky the bison. what else came in during the course of the program? hit me with it. smerconish clapper -- harry shearer? whoa. smerconish, clapper lied under oath at a congressional hearing. why is he a credible source? harry, when i heard clapper's testimony, i was listening at 11. hit me with another one. you spinal tap fans know exactly what i'm saying. that's harry shearer. if you close your eyes while bogle is speaking and listen, you'd think he was a 20-year-old man. sharp as a whip. great interview. so glad you liked it. he is an unbelievably decent individual. and i would elect him right now at age 87 or 88 to be president of the united states. keep tweeting me @smerconish. we've got something really funny on my facebook page as well. i'll see you next week.

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thanks for being with us on a saturday. you are live in the "cnn newsroom." i'm ana cabrera in new york. tonight president trump finds himself on the brink of a week that could define his presidency. at stake perhaps his credibility, the legacy he'll leave behind on the supreme court, and his promise to replace obamacare with something far better. the action begins monday when the director of fbi, james comey, is expected to tell congress whether there's any evidence to back up president trump's repeated claim that president obama tapped his phones during the campaign. that sam