♪ i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. the president was up early tweeting defenses of his mental health, calling himself "like really smart and a very stable genius." part of the ongoing white house response to the book that he helped propel to number one by having his lawyers try to prevent its publication. among the many fires and furies stoked by author michael wolff are questions about the president's health.

i'll talk to one psychiatrist who says sometimes leaders perform bet we are a touch of mental illness. speaking of which, are the president's seemingly unhinged belligerent tweets to kim jong-un making so many anxious actually a strategy, and one that's working? plus, after california legalizes pot, jeff sessions immediately bogarts it, empowering u.s. attorneys to start enforcing federal laws against the drug. where will this end? i'll ask former congressman ron paul. here's one of his recommendations. >> mr. president, why don't you fire this guy? why don't you fire jeff sessions? >> one thing president trump is getting credit for is the war on isis. are they still a threat in 2018? i'll talk to graeme wood, author the provocative essay which explained what isis really wants. and it's the first major awards ceremony of the "me too" era.

besides the actresses all dressing in black, how else will tomorrow night's golden globes cope? i'll ask red carpet expert melissa rivers. one of the most talked aspect about michael wolff's book on president trump is calling into question president trump's fitness for office not just in terms of his knowledge, temperament and experience but also his mental fitness, and the last one treads into territory that troubles me. let me explain. in 1964, a magazine called "fact" polled mental health professionals on u.s. senator and presidential candidate barry goldwater's fitness to serve as commander in chief. the magazine published a cover story claiming that many found him unfit. after the election, goldwater sued the editor for libel and won. this engendered a debate in the mental health community as to the propriety of rendering opinions about an individual they'd never met, much less

examined, even if that person is a public figure. this led to the american psychiatric association in 1973 adopting what else' been known ever since as the goldwater rule, which says, in part, "it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement." the rule has been in place and was largely respected for more than 40 years, until the candidacy and election of donald trump. his behavior led many to express frustration at what they feel is a gag rule, claiming that they've seen enough of trump from his public utterances and his tweets to decide. group of 27 mental health professionals went so far as to collaborate on a book expressing their concerns called "the dangerous case of donald trump." this week, came news that in early december, the book's editor yale university psychiatry professor dr. bandy x. lee met on capitol hill with more than a dozen members of

congress concerned about trump's recent behavior. now several quotes and episodes in michael wolff's book have thrown fuel on the fire of this debate including steve bannon who says "trump has lost." on friday when asked about trump's fitness on the "today" show, wolff said this. >> let me put a marker in the sand here, 100% of the people around him, they all say he is like a child, and what they mean by that is, he has a need for immediate gratification. it's all about him. >> that some have questioned the president's fitness is not new. in fact, one election day poll found that 36% of all voters thought that he lacked temperament to serve effectively as president, that included 19% of those who voted for him, and those numbers have not improved in the last year, but i don't

think we should encourage this sort of speculation. first, it's inexact and subjective. second, it's unfair and unseemly. just as i said it was when some speculated about what ailed hillary clinton when she took a stumble september 20, 2016. i don't distinguish between mental and physical with respect to privacy. i'm not into getting rid of the goldwater rule which was imposed for a purpose. it wasn't fair to senator goldwater he was the subject of armchair diagnosis. we set a dangerous precedent allowing our public servants to be diagnosed by laypersons or professionals who never met them professionally. we might discourage some from seeking public service. had this also been the thinking we'd have denied ourselves many fine public servants if we precluded those with mental illness, lincoln and churchill among them. why stop with elected officials?

why not speculate about policemen or a cable anchor a school principal or even a psychiatrist. not only is that unfair to the person being spoken about but unfair to those dealing with mental health issues to have their very real diagnoses become political fodder. if you want to impose a standard that any person seeking the highest office first be rendered mentally and physically fit in a manner that applies to all, okay with you to arbitrarily scrutinize one particular candidate or office holder, at least in my opinion, is wrong. now, what if a certain amount of instability is not a deficit in a leader, but an asset? that was the theme of a book that i read in 2015 which includes these statements, "when our world is in tumult, mentally ill leaders function best, and in the storm of crises complete

sanity can steer us astray, while some insanity brings us to port." the book is "a first rate madness: uncovering the links between leadership and mental illness." joining me is its author dr. nassir ghaemi, professor at tufts university and harvard medical school and research ear the novartis institutes. would you like to first react to anything you just heard me say? >> hello, michael. first, thank you for having me and let me just say my opinions are just my own, not those of any of my employers. i partially agree with what you said. we actually, i organized a meeting at the american psychiatric association annual conference last year on the goldwater rule, in which i argued against it, and i think the problem with the rule it's too absolute. not that it's completely wrong but it goes too far. the problem with goldwater you well described and i think currently with president trump,

it is easy to use the epithet of narcissistic personality disorder as has been done by psychiatrist you mentioned to criticize him, if one disagrees with him politically, and i think that's the problem that needs to be controlled. on the other hand, i think absolute censorship doesn't make sense either and that there are public behaviors and signs, as well as documentary evidence like medical records that should allow for a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis to be made in public figures in some situations. >> i felt your book was provocative. i'll read the thesis as you summarized it very early on. "the best crises leaders are either mentally ill or memory abnormal. the worst crisis leaders are mentally healthy." explain. >> well, the ideas in "a first rate madness" come out of my own clinical experience as a psychiatrist. i've treated a lot of patients with depression and bipolar illness.

there are some positive benefits to some psychiatric symptoms and conditions. for instance, people who have some depression are more realistic and more empathetic toward others than people who have no depression and mentally healthy and people who have mild manic symptoms, mania being the idea is that you're sped up in your thinking, movement and feeling, people with mild manic symptoms are more creative and more resilient to stress than normal mentally healthy people. and so these four traits of creativity, resilience, empathy, and realism, which occur in manic depressive illness, and depression and bipolar illness, are seen in some of our best crisis leaders, and in "the first rate madness" i describe the cases of those leaders, some of whom you mentioned, churchill, lincoln and others who had these conditions, traits as part of their psychological makeup, and also showed those traits as benefits of their leadership in times of crisis, i

should say, not always, but in times of crisis, when you need them the most. >> let's run through an example or two. winston churchill i consider myself a churchill buff. i know that he was, had to deal with what he called his black dog, his depression. how did this impact churchill? >> churchill is a great case. he had very severe depressive episodes throughout his life. sometimes he had trouble getting out of bed going to parliament. we suicidal thoughts. would not stand close to balconies or near a railway platform with thoughts he might jump in. in these cases, we have other evidence that these are real diseases, for instance, genetics. churchill's daughter committed suicide. he had many family members with psychiatric illness who were hospitalized. now, if you think about depression related to realism, the research involves different types of studies, for instance, a light coming on if you push a

button and the researchers will control when the light comes on, and people with little depression have more awareness of their control over the light, and there are more complicated studies as well. but people with a little depression are more realistic than normal people, and churchill in the 1930s, when he was very depressed, was quite realistic about the nazi threat, compared to the very mentally healthy, normal leaders of his own conservative party, and the other party, as well as most of the population of britain. that's an example of where his depression enhanced his realistic leadership. >> i want to put on -- >> i should mention -- >> -- another quote, on the screen, doctor, from your book. "why not just exclude the mentally ill from positions of power? as we've seen, such a stance would have deprived humanity of lincoln, churchill, roosevelt, and kennedy, but there's an even more fundamental reason not to restrict leadership roles to the mentally healthy. they make bad leaders in times

of crisis, just when we need good leadership most." explain. >> so if you think about the benefits of mild depression and mania, the flipside is that there are limitations to mental health. people who are mentally healthy and normal are not extremely empathic people. they often have some unrealism. psychologists call it mild positive illusion, and exaggerated sense of one's self worth, a somewhat elevated self-esteem. this is a good thing in normal life. you don't want to go through life feeling bad about yourself but when you're in power, when you're in the bubble of power, this mild positive illusion can grow into what lord david owen, the british neurologist called a hubris syndrome. the leader can get very unrealistic in a way that can be dangerous. the examples i use historical or neville chamberlain during world war ii, general george mcclellan during the civil war. lord owen referred to george bush and tony blair to where this hubris occurred in power.

lincoln said "if you want to test a man's character, give him power." i think this is the kind of idea that he was referring to. >> are we ready for this in a society in 2018, for the findings of your book, in the times of crisis, someone afflicted with mental illness might be better suited to ride out the storm, because i worry about the stigma that unfortunately still applies to this subject matter. >> i totally agree and that's part of the reason i wrote the book. one of the big problems with the goldwater rule prohibition is that it actually enhances the stigma. the idea that mental illness psychiatric disease is so terrible, we can't even talk about it is part of the stigma and discrimination against mental illness in our society. we should be willing to make psychiatric diagnosis in our leaders and thereby not necessarily disqualify them, but maybe even qualifying them in

some ways. but keep in mind, in times of crisis, these benefits occur when things are fine and there's peace and prosperity, mental health is fine. you don't need to be realistic and creative and empathic. you need to make the trains run on time. if you're too creative you may make too many changes when you don't need to. one of my concerns about current politics is that we are not in the time of crisis. our economy is prosperous. we don't have a major war. if you have a leader with some manic symptoms, for instance, that could lead actually to impulsive behavior that could create crises that need not occur. >> dr. ghaemi, the book is titled "a first rate madness." we're not here to promote the book. you most recently wrote it in paperback form two or three years ago, but i think it's terrific. thank you. >> thank you, michael. nice to talk to you. what are your thoughts? tweet me @smerconish, go to my facebook page. i will read some responses throughout the course of the program. what do we have?

two from facebook. "maybe a mentally ill leader creates the crises in the first place." stuart, that's not a subject dealt with by dr. ghaemi in his book, but i get what you're going with that. next facebook comment. "personality types are not mental illness." helena, nobody here is trying to break it all down and say that's what we're dealing with in the current situation. look, i thought immediately as this debate was ensuing in the last couple of days of this book i read a couple years ago, and i think the doctor explained it quite well. i'm personally unsettled with the conversation that's been taking place publicly in the last couple of days. i'm having it in an historical context about some of those who served us like lincoln and roosevelt and churchill and kennedy. one more, i think it's a twitter comment. "i prefer my leaders to be relatively free of mental illness."

jetpackevin, it might depend whether it's a time of crisis or stability. that's the thesis of dr. ghaemi's book. up ahead, as soon as california legalized pot, long-time opponent of the drug attorney general jeff sessions empowered u.s. attorneys to start enforcing the federal restrictions. how's this gonna end? well, ron paul is here and he thinks he has a solution. >> mr. president, why don't you just fire this guy? why don't you fire jeff sessions? i realize that ah, that $100k is not exactly a fortune.

well, a 103 yeah, 103. well, let me ask you guys. how long did it take you two to save that? a long time. then it's a fortune. well, i'm sure you talk to people all the time who think $100k is just pocket change. right now we're just talking to you. i told you we had a fortune. yes, you did. getting closer to your investment goals starts with a conversation. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today.

attorney general jeff sessions pushing back on states legalizing marijuana. recreational pot now legal in eight states and the district of columbia, another 22 states allow only medical marijuana, and 15 allow a lesser medical marijuana extract, but this week sessions sent a memo to u.s. attorneys, he reminded that federal law prohibits the

possession and sale of marijuana. this effectively repeals the 2013 obama administration policy that refrained from prosecuting individuals if they're complying with their state's marijuana laws. so what does this mean for the future of legalization? well, my next guest has a strong opinion. he says fire jeff sessions. you know ron paul. he's the former congressman from the great state of texas, presidential candidate. in 2011 he introduced legislation with congressman barney frank to remove criminal penalties for marijuana use. it's great to have you back, congressman. thanks for being here. why must sessions go? >> well, because he represents something that is so un-american as far as i'm concerned. the war on drugs to me is a war on liberty. i think we overly concentrate on the issue of the drug itself and i concentrate on the issue of freedom of choice, of doing things that are of high risk. we permit high risk all the time. if you look at study of

philosophy and religion, that's very risky stuff. there's bad ideas out there. generally we allow people to eat what they want and that is very risky but we do overly concentrate on what people put in their bodies. to me it's an issue of liberty and jeff sessions is not a libertarian. he's not a civil libertarian at all, and the war on drugs is a totally illegal system, and if you look at it carefully, our tradition has been that the government recognized that we don't have the right to regulate the sale of drugs. in 1914, when it passed the harrison act, it was taxes, that's how we'll get them to quit using it. 1937, the same thing with marijuana, the same thing when they wanted to manipulate obamacare, they put taxes on it. they don't use this, they don't endorse the concept they have a right to do all these things. so i think it's very questionable constitutionally. they shouldn't be doing it, but it's so terrible. it is an excuse to violate civil

liberties wholesale, and jeff sessions is, has been one of the worst, and usually, i don't ever get involved in these personality squabbles, but this is one major setback. obama did something decent, he backed off and i felt that was a good move. >> in the pot case, i agree with you and i think it tramples on state's rights but in the "wall street journal" today there's an editorial that i think raises a valid point. let me read a paragraph "social mores are changing and a majority of americans support legalizing pot. but instead of taking the the cop-out of blaming mr. sessions, legalizers in congress ought to have the courage of their convictions and try to decriminalize pot nationwide. let senators cory gardner and kamala harris persuade their colleagues that's what's good for colorado and california is what's good for the country." don't they have a point?

this is congress' fault. >> in a way, but what if it's constitutional and they shouldn't be doing it. that's all you need, somebody dedicated to the constitution. if you look at the rohrabacher law passed a couple years ago, it really opens the door for obama to have done what he did, and besides they shouldn't do it, it's bad results, it's attack on liberty, it's unconstitutional, and people should have the right or the responsibility of dealing with what is dangerous. once you get into this thing about government's going to protect us against ourselves, there is no protection of liberty. people are frightened about liberty. they always want it to be taken care of. just because you legalize something doesn't mean everybody is going to do it and if you look at the consequences of the war, why don't the people just look and read and study prohibition. they change the constitution because they knew this was not the right thing for the federal

government to do. so they write an amendment to the constitution, total failure, the war on drugs is every bit at bad or worse. we have made progress. i brag about the fact that the libertarian, about allowing people to make these choices has been a good move and now we've introduced the notion of nullification, that could be a legal constitutional option. the states are nullifying the intrusiveness of the federal government. so i think there's some great things that have been happening and i predict that sessions is not going to be victorious on this, and unfortunately, it's for a reason that i don't get excited about. it's because the states want to collect all those taxes. so it becomes this tax issue. i want to legalize freedom. i don't want to do it because the states are going to get more revenues, but it's going to help us cancel out this bad move by sessions. >> i want to hit you with a totally unrelated subject, for a quick reaction. when i think of ron paul, i think of the gold standard. i know your view on that issue. bitcoin is all the craze.

i'm going to be talking about it later in the program. give me ron paul's cliff notes version on bitcoin. >> first thing s when in commerce, i introduced legislation to allow competing currencies, because i abhor the system we have, the official counterfeiters at the federal reserve is big mischief and big problem. people should have the right to choose. they did when money started then they picked gold and silver but government took over and abused that standard and monopolized it and destroyed it, which we have done in this country. first i want to legalize all those options of what people want to use as money, but no fraud. you can't commit fraud. that's the problem with the government. so there's a regulation on there. i think the jury is out on how far they're going to go with cryptocurrencies acting as money. right now, i don't see it, because in my studies of

monetary history, it's always been something tangible. people want something tangible when it's related to it, it works, but since 1971, it's not been tangible at all. it's been totally fear and that's why everything is a big bubble. as a matter of fact the big bubble comes from the quantitative easing and all that money out there is also participating in blowing up the price of these cryptocurrencies. they're up to over three-quarters of a trillion dollars and nobody has anything they can touch. so i would say it's questionable, but the principle is right. somebody else is going to have to sort it out, if it ever becomes money, but i have questions, because historically, money should be something that is tangible, but it should be legal, as long as there's no fraud. >> now i know why i've missed you. come back, and thank you. >> thank you, michael. >> congressman ron paul. let's see what you're saying at my smerconish twitter and facebook pages. what have we got? "smerconish i'm smoking my first bowl of today watching you this morning and i've got a message for jeff sessions.

i'm getting high, today, tomorrow and every day 'til i die. my body, my choice!" 4:20 time i'm for you. i don't like the trampling on state's rights. the burden is really on congress to get off of the federal books, that which he now is empower u.s. attorneys to empower, to use, to enforce. that's the word. lots to come. did the president's name calling, nasty tweets against kim jong-un actually work? i'm about to weigh in on that. and trump getting credit for winning the war against isis, but is the group defeated? is this a phone?

or a little internet machine? it makes you wonder:

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remove their controversial tweets. the site says it would "hide important information people should be able to see and debate and hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions." twitter didn't name any particular leaders, but it was clearly in response to president trump's public handling of the nuclear threat of north korea, which has been hostile and at times downright infantile. recently i've began to wonder might his it be effective? he traded nukes as if the two were on a queen's playground or campaign opponent with high school-like insults that may have worked for candidate trump but there's a big difference once you're the leader of the free world and the opponent that you're calling "rocket man" or "little rocket man" really has rockets. this week the president tweeted this," north korean leader kim jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times.

will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that i, too, have a nuclear but the to you but it is much bigger and more powerful one than his and my button works." it drew criticism from the democrats and center for foreign policy. senator edward markey said this bordered on presidential malpractice and he continued "we cannot let this war of words result in an actual war." however, in the last week, north and south korea have been in communication about both the olympics and borders. the u.s. and south korea declared that they will refrain from military drills during the olympics, and then the really big news is that south and north korea officials will have their first major peace talks in over two years. these substantive successes compared to the escalating tensions during the obama and bush years beg a question -- is trump's approach actually working? perhaps the trump motivation stems from thinking that years

of sanctions and the international equivalent of double secret probation have been unsuccessful. the president's inconsistency and willingness to talk about war, even recklessly might have kim looking for answers out of fear. now of course, several other explanations for the recent progress have little to do with president trump. the first and most obvious is that kim may be successfully build a nuclear arsenal and whether trump wants to admit it or not, north korea can wage nuclear war. with that ability comes a large degree of security, especially in a relationship with a non-nuclear capable neighbor. it's also possible that china, or russia has gotten kim's attention and positively influenced his behavior. even if president trump has contributed to kim returning to the table, the emasculation approach is a risky proposition. some of this strategy could be planned by the impressive generals that surround trump but often it feels to me like it's been spitballing by the

president himself as he does in other realms. and i worry that time will eventually run out. if the president talks tough and doesn't deliver, like president obama did with his red line in syria, then it's going to be impossible to tell when he's bluffing. and if kim misreads trump, he might be goaded into launching a missile strike that could lead to war. whatever the reason for kim's recent willingness to engage with south korea here's hoping it bears fruit and fast. now a look at that other threat, isis, the most insightful analysis i've ever read about isis was graeme woods 2015 wildly popular "atlantic" article "what isis really wants" the often repeated version it represents a version of the islamic faith and warned against discounting the movement's strong islamist roots and explained that if isis ever lost its grip on territory in syria and iraq, it would no longer be considered a caliphate. last month the iraqi military announced it had fully liberated

all of iraq's territory of isis terrorist gangs and retaken full control of the iraqi/syrian border. with the president saying we've turned a corner i thought it appropriate to ask graeme, is isis really gone? graeme wood joins me now, also the author of the book "the way of the strangers: encounters with the islamic state." graeme, let's review, you previously disabused me of the idea that they are some ragtag band of miscreants united by their poor lot in life. they are united by their literalist exception. >> they are a ragtag bunch of creeps and miscreants in a way and also true believers and they do, as you say, have some purchase on the islamic tradition. they tap into one part of that islamic tradition. of course, being a ragtag group

of harried creeps in the desert does not keep them from creating a state, which is what they did and it's very important we've deprived them of that. it is actually is a very good thing they no longer have major cities in iraq and syria. >> i have learned as well from you, they want to get it on. they want confrontation with the west. >> yes, and they got it, and it didn't work out for them the way they thought it was going to. they thought that the united states would show up, turkey would show up, and what they would get was an armageddon war, a big religious war that would usher in the end of times. so a lot of them were disappointed in that, but i think we should remember that there are a lot of them, there's 40,000 people who travelled to fight for them, and of those, there might be a third of them or maybe even half of them who are dead but that still leaves 20,000 people who, in the very recent past believed that this was the way to be a muslim was to fight, and many of those are not just returning home

sheepishly. they've got some ideas about how they can continue even after isis has lost the territory. >> we're a year into the trump administration. the president, the white house are taking credit for having turned a corner against isis. do they deserve that credit? >> well, they were really continuing the obama policy. now, it doesn't take a genius or a stable genius i guess to know that the u.s. military was going to destroy isis on the battlefield. that was the easy part, and the obama administration knew it. the trump administration kind of accelerated that, and like i say, it's good they took back those cities. what i think the trump administration hasn't made really much progress in, though, is handling the diaspora of fighters from the isis project, after the territory was lost. they also haven't made any progress in making sure that that territory, once it's retaken from isis, becomes stable and doesn't again become a breeding ground for some kind of isis 3.0.

that still could be in the offing. >> i also remember from the piece that you wrote for "the atlantic" that built into the isis argument is this notion they're going to take their lumps. right? in other words, they've drilled their followers to expect setbacks because that's all a part of the way this ends, oddly enough, with jesus coming to their rescue. >> yes, there are some of them who i think expected an easy victory quickly, but the ones who are really looking at the isis propaganda, the isis supporters who were, you know, reading chapter and verse, they were saying isis is going to be successful at first and then lose territory and be down to the last 5,000 fighters and then jesus would come to their aid. when isis talks about what's happening, they often say we predicted from the beginning there would be good times and bad times and the bad times would be pretty bad and that's what we're in right now. we're seeing, says isis, the time when the true believers are really tested. i wouldn't hold out too much optimism, if i were them, but that's how they're selling it to their true believers.

>> final thought. sounds to me like graeme wood most worries with where they're all headed next. >> yes, i said 40,000 people had traveled. remember, al qaeda on september 11, 2001 had somewhere between 200 and 1,000 fighters. isis had 40,000, and most of those people we don't know where they are. they might be dead in the desert. that would be great, but some of them are still out there, and it doesn't take very many for them to perpetrate something that's truly horrific, grabs headlines, and really disfigures world politics. so i'm worried about what happens next, both in syria, with the keeping of that territory, and making it a safe and durable peace, and also what happens in the west. if any of those foreign fighters who are over there, make it back, they are battle hardened. they are committed to fighting, and they're committed to drawing blood. it could be very, very bad if

even a few of them make it back. >> so appreciative of your sober analysis. thank you, graeme. >> thanks. still to come, the mood at tomorrow night's golden globes promises to be trickier than usual, as it's the first major awards ceremony in the shadow of the #metoo movement, with actresses planning to wear all black. i'll ask veteran red carpet expert melissa rivers what we can expect.

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tomorrow night's golden globe awards usually kick off hollywood's annual season of self-congratulation. this year the women will be wearing all black one signifier of the new reality of the #metoo revelations of abuse and harassment in the industry.

on monday, 300 prominent actresses and female agents, writers, directors, producers, entertainment executives launched times up, a far-reaching plan to fight systemic sexual harassment, not only in hollywood, but also in blue collar workplaces like factories and restaurants and hotels. they've launched a go fund me page to crowd source a legal defense fund that as of today has already raised more than $15 million. so will this all cast a long shadow over the red carpets? i spoke recently with somebody who grew up in showbiz and then covered many a red carpet scene, melissa rivers, host of e! channel's "fashion police" and most recent book "joan rivers: confidential" covers her famous mom's half century in the industry. so here comes award season. we start tomorrow night. seth meyers does the monologue at the globes in a

post-weinstein era. what do you anticipate? >> first of all, i think it's going to be challenging, and quite a, not tough but definitely a challenge i think is really the only right word for seth, who is so smart, and so funny, to figure out how to read the room, and read it quickly. you know, this is, we're living in a time where, if you say anything, you're condemned. if you don't say anything, you're condemned. we can't seem to have a civil conversation about any of this. >> right. >> and i think that's going to make everything from the red carpet to the show to the post shows, to the wrap-up shows very complicated. >> i mean, he has to thread that needle, as you're saying, but he can't not go there in the opening monologue. wouldn't you agree? >> i agree, you have to go

there. you have to address the elephant in the room, but what is half the audience going to laugh at and half the audience going to find offensive? right, you got to think back right after the weinstein thing broke a couple people made private jokes at events and james cordon was one of them, and there was this outrage. >> right. i got to believe the -- >> you're gonna have to read the room and read it fast. >> i got to believe that the acceptance speeches will also touch on that theme. you referenced the red carpet, when i think of the red carpet, i think of melissa rivers, i think of joan rivers. how might fashion be impacted by all of this? >> i think, you know, first of all, a lot of the women are going to be wearing black, and this is where we're again not able to have a civil conversation. everybody is allowed to express their support for this movement, which is really what it is, in

their own way. so there's a group that's going to condemn people for wearing black and there's going to be a group that's going to condemn people for not wearing black and anyone who wants to even begin to talk about fashion and is labeled not serious is gonna have a problem. i've spent a lot of time thinking how would i personally handle it? i think you have to address that this has been a year full of change, and women are speaking with this collective voice, which is amazing to the point where the collective voice of women became "time's" person of the year, yet it's also a night of celebrating people whose work is being honored, and the viewers want to see the clothes and they want to see the excitement, and in this time of such unhappiness and darkness, everyone needs to just enjoy and be light for at least the red carpet. >> right, it's an entertainment show, when all is said and done. how do you think joan rivers would have reacted to the #metoo era? >> i think she would have

written hashtag i'm supportive but i'm kind of annoyed that never happened to me too because it would further my career a lot further. it would be the longest hashtag. >> i hope i can laugh at that. >> yes. absolutely. my mom -- >> did she ever -- >> -- never thought of herself as being a feminist. when you look at the book you realize she was but never had the self-awareness that she was a social commentator, yet for her, this would have been christmas every day with material. >> there's a great, i don't know if they can see it, if i hold it up, but there is a great spread within the book of the "national enquirer" some of the references to joan rivers. she was rumored to be involved with everyone from brian wilson of the beach boys to one donald trump. what was her relationship like with the donald, and how would she see him as president?

>> the relationship was friendly. they knew each other socially. obviously we remember my mom won "the apprentice." the thing with donald is, which everyone keeps discounting, is he's smart. he's not a fool. he is maybe the world's greatest marketer to come around since p.t. barnum, and that's a compliment, and i think she would have believed in that, but she always believed that women could do anything and everything as well if not better than men, and i think that's how she felt politically as well. >> can i just say that the book sort of transcends her. it's like a pop cultural tour of a certain era, and i think it's extremely well done. i really appreciate you being here. >> thank you so much. i'm thrilled to be here. >> joan rivers confidential, great, great book.

still to come your best and worst tweets and facebook comments. this is frank. sup! this is frank's favorite record. this is frank's dog. and this is frank's record shop. frank knowns northern soul, but how to set up a limited liability company... what's that mean? not so much. so he turned to his friends at legalzoom. yup! they hooked me up. we helped with his llc, contracts, and some other stuff that's part of running a business. so frank can focus on the beat. you hear that? this is frank's record shop. and this is where life meets legal. but he's got work to do. with a sore back. so he took aleve this morning. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be

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. hey, follow me on facebook and twitter, check out the all new smerconish.com. here's some coming in this hour. firing sessions will be the demise of the mueller

investigation. really, carole, do you think that sessions is on his way out? and that, what, then he'd be replaced? it's not session was has the power. he recuse himself. i guess your point is a new attorney general would not have recuse him or herself, therefore, they could fire mueller. i don't think it happens. call me naive. i don't think congress, even the republican-controlled house and senate would allow that to take place. i think the mueller probe has moved too far. people want it brought to a conclusion, not by the firing of mueller. there have been too many notches so far, with prosecutions that resulted in a plea or that are currently pending. that's my thought. what's next? after watching the first two segment, i think that perhaps our country might benefit, if trump used some cannabis. chill out before tweeting. this is a serious point. i don't think what jeff sessions

did this week relative to all those states that have legalize frankly those on the cusp like new jersey of doinging so. because among other things, it's zricht to the bank industry. and it also pre cludz those states from bringing in from the cold, being the underground economy, those that they'd like to be participating in a legalized structure. but i have to say jeff sessions is enforcing federal law and, frankly, we ought to be taking it up with the congress. take that law or series of laws off the books that allow sessions to want to impose his thinking. another one, if we've got time and we do. i've seen news they are still trying to claim marijuana is a gateway drug -- if that's the case, then isn't beer a get away to hard alcohol and alcoholism? >> i don't have anything more than a gut on this, i don't see

it as a gateway. i have a hard time understanding how last night i could have had a manhattan and i did and somebody else can't have a joivenlt i mean, there is an inconsistency between to the two i never understood, i'm with ron paul on this quickly, one more, i promise i'll make it real fast f. a person is coughing, sneezing, has red eyes, shivering, i don't want to be a doctor to determine you are sick. yes, stick around, listen to this now, there is another great hour coming up right here on cnn.

the top of the hour, 7:00 here in new york. 4:00 out in the west. i'm ana carbrera. 100% proper. those words from president trump today describing the handling of the russian meddling election. 100% proper. the president is hosting republican leaders at camp david right now. this is a weekend dedicated to mapping out the new year's legislative agenda. but a reporter asked the president about reports he tried to prevent attorney general jeff sexes from recusing himself from the