♪ i'm michael smerconish coming to you from the home city of the nfc champion philadelphia eagles. we welcome our viewers from the united states and around the world. after weeks of drum rolls, the devin nunes memo is out. it aims to discredit the infamous steele dossier, partly because he leaked his findings to reporter michael isikoff. isikoff is here to discuss. but what if the dossier is neither proof of trump wrongdoing, nor democratic propaganda, but rather russian espionage disinformation to disrupt both parties, and our country? and if this 2005 picture of barack obama and louis farrakhan was made public back when it was taken, it might have derailed his election. what lesson can we learn from

that? plus, for this life-long eagles fan, tomorrow's super bowl lii should be a dream come true. so why am i dogged with doubts? but first, at long last, the notorious nunes memo is now in the public domain. this is the outcome sought by congressional republicans and their media supporters, and in the end, the president. whether the release is in their long-term partisan best interest, that remains to be seen. >> and i have my doubts. i say that, because until yesterday the president enjoyed the best of all worlds. gop members of congress were quick to give interviews in conservative outlets, talking about the dire picture that the memo painted without any fear of being challenged on that assessment. the memo we were told by one commentator would make watergate look like the theft of a snickers. well, that's impossible to refute when you can't taste the candy. as a result, the president's base was inflamed about a document none of them had

actually read. but now it's out. and subject to scrutiny. and whether it can withstand evidentiary analysis, that's a different question. the memo claims to prove a breakdown of the legal processes established to protect americans. read closely, the story is not so straight forward. the focus is carter page, who was on the fbi radar before the rise of donald trump, and whose role in the campaign, the president has gone to great lengths to minimize. the memo suggests that page was surveilled with the approval of a fisa court based on an october 21, 2016, probable cause order that relied on intel that the court did not know was paid for by the clinton campaign. i think that funding source should have been revealed, and so to the fact that the original fusion gps client, before christopher steele, was a conservative media outlet. the nunes memo doesn't raise that objection, and even if more

had been told to the fisa court about the funding, it's not at all clear to me that the fisa order wouldn't have been issued anyway. after all, christopher steele wasn't employed by the dnc or hillary. he was hired by fusion gps. and what about the date of the first of those four fisa applications, october 21. the presidential campaign, the wikileaks dump had already taken place. the third and final presidential debate was two days prior. if the aim were to undermine the trump campaign and prevent his election, you would think that this deep state apparatus would have mobilized much sooner. no? and actually, the russian investigation was under way before carter page having nothing to do with him or fisa. it was in july of 2016, three months before the first fisa court application that the probe was begun. it was after trump campaign adviser george psaid they had

dirt on hillary clinton. are there troubling questions raised by the nunes memo? yes, some. but under a microscope, they do not undermine robert mueller's probe into russian manipulation of our election. i'm withholding final judgment until i read the democratic response to the memo. and speaking of which, i don't see the grave concerns that the fbi claimed it had about the contents of the nunes memo. that the democrats and the fbi worked so hard to keep the nunes memo out of the public eye? that only makes me distrustful of both sides. so let's see everything. and only then will we know for sure whether the president would have been better off letting his supporters get worked into a lather by their media outlets about something they could not read, rather than permit its release and spur a substantive

conversation. i want to know what you think. go to my website, smerconish.com, right now, and answer this question. which do you think was more politically potent? hash tag release the memo, or the actual nunes memo? i'll tell you the results at the end of the program. now, one reason the devin nunes memo said the steele dossier should be discredited was the accusation that christopher steele leaked his alleged findings to the media, including my next guest. the october 2016 carter page fisa application cited this september 23rd yahoo! news article by michael isikoff focusing on the july 2016 trip to moscow. the nunes memo claims, quote, this article does not corroborate the steele dossier, because it is derived from information leaked by steele himself to yahoo! news. joining me now is michael isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for yahoo! news, coauthor with david corn of the forthcoming book, "russian roulette: the inside story of

putin's war on america and the election of donald trump" out next month. michael, this gets confusing for some who are not read in. give me context so i understand the reference to you in that memo. >> well, i've got to say, i was as surprised as anybody that i was cited in the memo, and apparently having -- was cited before the fisa court. but the story that i wrote in september 2016 was the first story to reveal that there was u.s. intelligence investigation of somebody associated with the trump campaign. and that was carter page. christopher steele, the author of the dossier, has acknowledged in a british court filing that he came to the -- to washington in september of that year, and briefed multiple journalists, including one from yahoo! news. that's me. so i am free to talk about that, and say, yes, in fact, he did.

i heard -- i met him and heard about the work he was doing, and the concerns he had that he had picked up about carter page's contacts in moscow during that trip in july. i then went about checking out christopher steele, talked to people who had worked with him, talked to others about carter page and how he had been on the radar screen of u.s. officials for some time. and i did confirm what to me was the most significant part of what christopher steele had to say, which was that his material had been presented to the fbi, the fbi was very interested in it and following up. and that was, in fact, the story that we published at the time, that there was a u.s. intelligence investigation into these allegations relating to carter page. we did not say that we had verified what christopher steele had to say.

that was something the fbi was seeking to do, and that's what we reported. >> if i am understanding, i think this is the important part. the implication of the nunes memo is that the dossier source and the yahoo! news source, your source, were one and the same, and therefore, not to be relied on, which begs the question, what additional reporting, if any, did you do to confirm what christopher steele told you for yahoo! news? >> well, i think i just explained that, which was that there were multiple sources quoted in the story about carter page, about the u.s. government's interest in him. and that was the thrust of the story. whether or not carter page met with the specific individuals that are referenced in the steele dossier is still unknown to me and i believe, as far as i can tell, to the u.s. government. now, carter page has acknowledged in his testimony that he did have meetings in

moscow with russian -- a russian -- senior russian government official, and an aide to igor session, the head of the russian energy firm, and a close crony of vladimir putin, is on the u.s. sanctions list. he had denied at first that he had had any meetings of such a nature. he acknowledged before the house intelligence committee that he met with the head of investor relations for the deputy prime minister in russia, and then wrote e-mails to the trump campaign, citing these meetings and offering to provide the insights he had gleaned from his trip to trump campaign officials. look, this is a highly selective memo, clearly. there's much more that went into that fisa application we know

both from the democrats and from our own sources in the u.s. government, which we haven't yet seen. until we see the full picture, it's very hard to know to what extent my story would have been a factor in the decision to grant the fisa application. other than to say, and this is probably the most important thing, michael, there were three renewals of this fisa application. so -- >> right. with probably cause showing for each. >> yeah. and so that goes far beyond what was in the original application. the fbi would have had to have gotten fruitful intelligence that it could then go back to the court and say, here's a basis for continuing this fisa. >> michael, i'm limited on time. an important quick final question. we've all heard about christopher steele. you've dealt with him. did he strike you as being motivated by partisanship, by animus toward donald trump, or a concern over security?

>> the latter. look, he's a serious guy. he was the mi-6 russia specialist in -- for many years. and we'll have in the forthcoming book some very interesting stories about the role that he played for mi-6. he had this private investigative firm. he was well regarded in the field. he was known as a russia specialist. he had been a source for both the fbi and the state department for many years on matters relating to russia and ukraine. so i checked him out at the time, he was clearly a serious guy. and, yeah, what he had learned, he was seriously concerned about. he thought it was a genuine national security threat. now, the accuracy of what he had to say in that memo, the jury is still out. but the fact that he had these credentials and was concerned was something that was concerning to the fbi. >> michael isikoff, thank you. i appreciate it.

>> sure enough. on the dossier itself, we're going to go there now. among the goals of the nunes memo is to discredit the infamous steele dossier, alleging trump's russia connections as partisan opposition research. but my next guest says there's another more sinister possibility. daniel halfman is a retired cia agent who served in the former soviet union. he was a station chief. he's the author of this "wall street journal" piece, "the steele dossier fits the kremlin playbook." you say it might be part of russian espionage. how so? >> i spent many years working against russian intelligence, and i'm very, very well aware of the challenges of collecting information or intelligence inside russia. and we know that mr. steele himself never traveled there. and i think that the fsb, russia's internal security police, would have detected his efforts to collect information from russian sources on the campaign, on the trump campaign, and on donald trump. and then i think that they would

have sought potentially to use that as a channel to weaponize disinformation against us. it would absolutely fit with the fsb playbook, with the kjb playbook, as well. >> so some people look at the steele dossier, and they question contents and say, that's not true. but there are aspects of it that have been borne out. how does that factor into your analysis that this could have all been the product of espionage? >> right. so the russian intelligence modus operandi when they're feeding you information, whether it's a double agent operation or propaganda, is to give you a high percentage of information that's true. 90, 95% might be true. and that's to create -- for the reader, at least, a picture that, well, this looks like a pretty good report. it enhances the voracity of the overall report. and then they sprinkle in their themes which they wish to propagate, which are not true.

and those are designed to influence the target audience. >> so the most salacious aspect of the dossier, the so-called shower, you know what i'm talking about. does that come from the playbook as something that they create, or as something they carry out, or both? >> it could be either one. it absolutely could have been something they have created. they have certainly done that plenty of times. they have tried to use honey traps with people. when those honey traps aren't successful, they'll simply make up the information themselves. and in this case, i think they know that if they had supplied salacious information, i mean, that's kind of a red cape in front of donald trump's charge. remember that the president had said during the campaign that he thought that the system was rigged against him. i think the russians were listening very carefully to that, and maybe after the election, if the russians had thought secretary clinton would have won, that donald trump would have criticized and rightly so, vociferously, this

dossier, paid for by the dnc with this salacious information with evidence that the system was rigged in some way against him. >> so here's what i'm taking away, mr. hoffman. that this guy, christopher steele, would have been known to the russians, because of his role with mi-6. the fact that he was doing his surveillance remotely would have ended up on their radar screen. and coupled with the knowledge by the russians that they had cracked the dnc server lends itself to a situation where, as puppeteers, they could sit back and manipulate this whole process. >> right and the last step is what we see now. i would encourage viewers to stay on the look out for highlighting what we're now seeing as acrimony and partisan bickering between the house and senate intelligence committees, between the president and his department of justice. those are themes that russia will seek to propagate through disinformation going forward. >> makes it awfully difficult

for us and people at people to understand what's truth and what's fiction relative to the dossier. daniel hoffman, thank you so much for being here. >> my pleasure. go to my facebook page. i will reed responsad responsest the course of the program. what do we have, kathryn? it didn't live up to the hype because the memo was incomplete. this was a dud, and nunes didn't even read the underlying special. this was a joke. well, radu, a lot of people got worked into a lather over what they thought was going to be in it. and what they do now, and where they go for their information now remains to be seen. right? i mean, a critical analysis of this, i think brings me to the same conclusion as you. i could go through this memo line by line and ask questions that need to be answered, and pick it apart, frankly. the president, politically speaking, i think, would have been better served, politically speaking, had it never seen the light of day.

and that's what i'm asking, by the way, at smerconish.com. answer the question, which was more politically potent? hash tag release the memo, meaning all the hype, the buildup, or the actual nunes memo? we'll tally the results at the end of the program. i understand there's a lot of voting. up ahead, robert mueller's russia probe continues. will it result in a case for obstruction of justice? that's a different question. what happens, though, when mueller finishes? two constitutional law experts are here. ken goranly and jonathan cherly are next.

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. beyond the nunes memo controversy, special counsel robert mueller is continuing his investigation. he knows a lot more than we do. but based on what we do know, what kind of case for obstruction of justice is coming together for robert mueller, and where does this investigation end? joining me now is ken gormley, president of duquesne university and author of the book, "the president and the constitution," as well as the biography of

watergate special prosecutor, archibald cox. jonathan turley is a professor of constitutional law at george washington university. he's an author of this recent piece for "the hill,". "outcry over nunes memo is damning for the democrats and fbi." jonathan, let me start with you. i hold in my hands the nunes memo. where is the cause for the grave concern on the part of the fbi? >> well, it turned out to be a bit of an empty grave. and that's really what is the focus of my piece. you know, there is -- there are very good arguments on both sides about how significant the facts are of the memo. what i think should concern us, first and foremost, is that we went through a week of members and the fbi saying that there will be grave consequences, this would undermine national security. that these are serious breaches. and then we've got the memo. and i've been doing national security work for a very long time, including fisa cases. this memo really didn't even come close to anything that i would -- that i think anyone would say is classified, let

alone disclosing sources and methods. and that should be a matter of concern, because some of us who have been critics of fisa and critics of the intelligence community have been arguing for years that the fbi routinely classifies information to prevent their embarrassment for political or tactical reasons. this is a rare case where that allegation i think is more than evident and obviously true. and i think that we need to go back to these members, and to the fbi, and say what gives? i mean, you can object to how this process worked, but you sold the public on the fact that this was a memo that would undermine national security, and it isn't. i mean, there's lots of objections the fbi made. but you'll notice that in the objections made by the director, he said, you know, this inaccurate by omissions. that's how the facts are being portrayed. and that's what concerns many of us, is that this fits a pattern of precisely that type of

tactical use of classified laws. >> the penultimate paragraph or paragraphs of the memo are those i would argue that say that the initial fisa court was not advised of the funding source for the dossier that led to the surveillance of car pter page. i have a couple of reactions to that. one of which is, so what? because the employer for christopher steele was not the dnc or that firm, it was fusion gps. and i know this as a trial lawyer and the court of law day in, and day out. information comes from investigators. you can cross examine on the case of source but we surely don't throw it all out. >> my view, michael, is that it's clear. and you said this earlier to your credit, that it should have been revealed. i mean, the fact that -- >> i agree. >> that fusion was funded by the clinton campaign and dnc certainly in the latter part is -- obviously very important. and the question is, why wouldn't it be revealed? it's also equally important that steele is quoted as saying he was desperate to try to keep the

president -- trump being elected. but how material is that? as i say in the column, we really don't know. i mean, there is this reference that the investigation preceded the dossier. i think there probably is a great deal in the fisa application. that is not in this memo. i think both sides undermine their case. i think the republicans sold this as a combination of the pentagon papers and the zimmerman telegram. and i think that the democrats radically oversold their -- played their position by saying that this was going to be a grave breach of national security. and at least most of us saying, you know, who can you trust in this? and i think the answer precisely, as you said earlier, is that we just have to get all of this stuff disclosed. we have to start to release the transcript, see who is lying. because the first thing the public needs to know is who they can believe. because right now, most of us believe neither side. >> professor turley, thank you so much for being here. >> thank you, michael.

let me go to ken gormley, president of duquesne university. mr. goranly, you say the best way for president trump to protect himself is to not engineer the firing of robert mueller. how come? >> well, as you said, michael, i wrote the biography of archibald cox, the watergate special prosecutor. cox knew all along that president nixon could fire him. he told me, the president can always work his will. the question is, at what cost? so it was not until nixon fired cox that you had this firestorm of protest that led to the appointment of a new special prosecutor, leon jaworski, the subpoenaing of dozens of more tapes and unraveling of the nixon presidency. so you do that at your peril. the part of it that i have argued, michael, we have not discussed that much, is what happens if mueller's investigation goes forward? and the part that we have not discussed so much is that most

scholars agree that a sitting president cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office. alexander hamilton and federalist 69 made that point, that the only remedy, if there is, even if mueller found some criminal culpability, would be removal from office by impeachment. only after that can there be some kind of criminal prosecution. >> okay. >> okay. otherwise you could paralyze the executive branch. >> okay. so ken gormley, a constitutional scholar, says you can't indict a sitting president. so let's say that mueller reaches a conclusion, an ominous conclusion, for president trump. i assume he now takes that report to rod rosenstein, and that it's rosenstein within the attorney general's office who now has to decide, do i give it to the congress, does it get

made public, you know, where exactly are we going next? is that fair to say? because now i would come back to your original point, which is to say the president would hurt himself to fire mueller, and i assume you would say, similarly, he would hurt himself if he were to try and fire rosenstein. >> absolutely, i agree with you, michael. and the key thing is that the real firewall that protects the president in this case or in any case is congress. if there is even a whiff of partisanship by mueller's investigation, by rod rosenstein, by the fbi. if that report was then sent to congress, you would have to have more than 50% of the congress in the house vote to indict the president. then you would need two-thirds of the senate, which is controlled, as you know, by republicans to vote to remove the president. it is almost impossible. unless there was a terrible smoking gun, which the president

has said absolutely doesn't exist, and which i take him at his word, it would be virtually impossible to remove him. that's why no president in the history of this country has ever been removed. so the best thing a president can do is not take the bait and get caught in that constitutional bear trap, and not provide the grist for the public outrage that exists in watergate that ultimately brought down president nixon. >> you've just given the president some pretty good legal advice. very timely. yesterday he was asked about rosenstein, and whether he was likely to fire the attorney general and he said you figure that out. thank you so much for being here. >> good luck to your eagles today. >> thank you. let's see what you're saying on my smerconish twitter and facebook pages. what do we have, kathryn? can this memo be used as another

piece in the obstruction of justice puzzle? penny, my gut check says no, because it's more the work of nunes and his staff than it is the president, per se. what did the president do? the president allowed it to be released. but keep an eye on this. that democratic memo and whether it sees the light of day will similarly be determined by the president. what will he do after that five-day time period when it's on his desk? hopefully he'll release it. so that we can read and understand everything. quick reminder if you haven't yet gone to smerconish.com to answer the survey question, do it. which do you think was more politically potent? hash tag release the memo, meaning the campaign last week, or the actual nunes memo? now that it's out? those results upcoming at the end of the program. up next, a 2005 picture of then senator barack obama recently surfaced that showed him with controversial nation of islam minister, louallow lew

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♪ a picture of barack obama recently surfaced that might have sunk his chances of being president, had we seen it sooner. and i think there's a lesson in that. it's a 2005 photograph taken at a congressional black caucus meeting of a young senator obama before he decided to run for president. he is smiling with nation of islam leader, louis fair i can. the photographer said he didn't post the picture because he

believed it would have made a difference. the photo was kept under wraps. mohamed finally decided to release it as part of a self-published book. it's important to remember, when obama ran in 2008, opponents tried to paint him as a socialist, left wing radical. and to be sure, he had associated with some of the latter. during the campaign, intense focus was brought to obama's friendship with bill ayers, a revolutionary group founded in 1969 that bombed numerous public buildings. and the two became close enough that wright ended up officiating the obamas' wedding and the reverend inspired obama so much that the audacity of hope was based on one of wright's sermons. but wright also said some notoriously anti-american things in the wake of the september 11 attacks, and in march of 2008, abc ran an article detailing all of wright's controversial sermons. obama repeatedly had to distance

himself, and finally, with his nomination perhaps on the line, he gave a major address on race at the national constitution center. i was in the room that day, when obama declared that wright's comments were only divisive and destructive. and he also added, when wright suggests that minister farrakhan somehow represents the greatest voices in the 20th century, then there are no excuses. well, just imagine if this photo of obama and farrakhan appeared soon after that vote. he is toxic due to his anti-semitism and black separatetism, a man with a history of controversial statements. maybe his most cringe worthy was about jewish people in 1985, where he said, you cannot say never again to god, because when he puts you in the oven, never again don't mean a damn thing. in combination with a photo of

farrakhan, obama's relationship could have looked all the more damning. the case for his radicalism would have been that much stronger, not just in the right wing media, but in the center and on the left, too. fear of a radical president could have prevented an obama white house. here's the kicker. as president, obama was no radical. if anything, he was a left of center moderate. domestically, obama was a mixed bag. his trademark legislation, the affordable care act, was a policy idea created by the very conservative heritage foundation. for those who thought obama might be a closet socialist, he surely disappointed when he refused to prosecute in the financial crash. he stacked his deficit commission with fiscal conservatives. meanwhile, president obama was the biggest proponent to date of free market thinking and education, using his department of education to encourage and fund charters across the country. he went so far as to violate

pakistan's sovereignty in order to kill osama bin laden. president obama may not have favored the words "radical islam," but he significantly increased president george w. bush's drone attacks in the war against terror. and he never did close gitmo. the list could go on and on. obama didn't violate gun rights the way that conservatives feared. and he was the deportation president on immigration. by nate silver's measure, this political record made him a completely middle of the road democrat. the group estimated obama was actually the least liberal democratic president since 1945. now one can debate whether obama was a true centrist or whether he was a standard left of center democrat. but radical? he was not. and maybe this is what they mean when they say a picture is worth a thousand words. let's check in on your tweets and facebook comments. what do we have? smerconish, a picture of obama

farrakhan. context, please. a picture of trump with russian spies in the oval office with no other americans present. patsy, i just gave you the context. there is always a story. for lifelong philadelphia eagles fans tomorrow should be pure thrills. but there are aspects of the big game giving me pause. look at that guy. and i will explain.

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hey, did you notice i wore a green tie today in solidarity with the future super bowl champion philadelphia eagles. i've been supporting the birds since rooting for roman gabriel and the fire high gang back in the 1973 season with my father and brother i was a season ticket holder and such a fan of gabe that i wrote him a letter i still have. i wanted him to know my brother and i were the ones who hung a banner at veteran stadium that said, win one for the gabor.

as an adult, i'm excited, but i'm conflicted. i'm apparently in good company with broadcast legend, bob costas. it was supposed to be his eighth and final super bowl. instead, he'll be watching from home with the rest of us. that's a loss for the nfl. when we hear costas' voice narrating an event, it imparts a feeling of consequence. he's also anchored 12 olympics and ten nba finals while earning 28 emmys. in an e-mail to sports business daily, costas said the decision was mutually agreeable, and that he was actually happy about it. quote, i have long had ambivalent feelings about football, so at this point, it's better to leave the hosting to those who are more enthusiastic about it. well, i can attest to his ambivalence, having interviewed him here on cnn on several occasions, including after he met headlines last november with remarks about the future of football. >> no matter how exciting it is, no matter how dramatic it is, no matter how much we value the

generational connections, no matter how interesting it may be,s the nature of the sport is that not all or not most, but a substantial and alarming number of those who participate, especially if they participate from youth football on, are going to suffer significant brain damage along the way. >> it's not that costas is anti football. as he's told me, he grew up a fan. he admires the many he's met in the game. he appreciates the familial connections the sport engenders and the bonds it has developed among its fans. but he also caulls them as he sees them, which is why the concussion legacy foundation has honored him for his, quote, leadership keeping concussion and cte conversation in the national spotlight. it was nothing new about costas' observations. he's said much the same thing over the span of a decade. and often on nbc in front of the biggest audience, not just in all of sports, but in all of

television, on sunday night football. >> more urgent football issue. concussions. >> it's the hundreds if not thousands of sub concussive hits. those are the ones that actually cumulatively take a greater toll than the concussion. >> it may become like the roman, you know, circuses. >> it is. >> where people watch it but don't let their kids play it. >> costas can no longer embrace the game as he has in the past, and so he feels he's not the right person to present it to an international audience. football's declines in both television ratings and youth participation suggests that costas speaks for many, including me. that doesn't mean i'll root for the eagles any less. it just signifies that i'll do so with an awareness i did not have when, as a boy, i first walked into veterans stadium wearing my number 5 jersey with gabriel on the back. still to come, your best and

worst tweets and facebook comments like this one. as disrepresentful as the eagles fans may be, we still need you to beat the stinking patriots. i'm an eagles fans for another two days. hey, jazz saw, shall i saw a poll, i don't know if i can trust it, but it said that 16% of americans are rooting for the patriots. whatever the number is, i know it's a lot less than are rooting for the eagles. because the character of this team and because we're ready for another dynasty. it's your last chance to respond at smerconish.com before i read the results. you know the poll question today. which do you think was more politically potent? hash tag release the memo or the actual nunes memo? results in a sec.

you know, i used to be good at this. then you turn 40 and everything goes. tell me about it. you know, it's made me think, i'm closer to my retirement days than i am my college days. hm. i'm thinking... will i have enough? should i change something? well, you're asking the right questions. i just want to know, am i gonna be okay? i know people who specialize in "am i going to be okay." i like that. you may need glasses though. yeah. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today with td ameritrade. if yor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough, it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's.

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hey, time to see how you responded to the survey question smerconish.com. which do you think was more poe lithicly poe end, release the memo, last two weeks, or the actual memo now that we have it? wow, 8,000 votes casted. 71% say it was hashtag release the memo. meaning the last two weeks, campaign, all that was said about it, than the memo itself. i think that's the right call. i'm in the 71%. much more effective for the president when he had hannity working everybody in to a lather and we couldn't read what he was that you canni talking about. now i can read it and understand what it says. are there troubling aspects? yes. does it undermine the whole mueller probe? no. that's not how the president

thinks. he just tweeted memo totally vin kate's trump in probe. no collusion. ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. here's what i takeaway from the memo. the memo says in the first of the four fisa orders that were south and received relative to carter page, the court wasn't told that the underlying evidence gathering for the steele dossier was paid for by the doj. the court should have been told that. but that doesn't mean that the evidence was bad in and of itself. nor does it mean that the court wouldn't have gone ahead and provided the court order for a fisa investigation and surveillance of page to begin with. and that's what i think a lot of folks are missing in all of this. another one, what else is coming enduring the course of the program? smerconish, amazing how you mask that you are really a trump supporter. very clever and manipulative. truth be told, let me tell you truth be told. this is the truth be told.

my opening commentary of this program is one in which i articulated my viewpoint there is not much there there. if i was here to carry the president's water i would be doing what they do on fox is stoke your passions without much evidence. no, sorry, i'm not here to carry the water of the president. nor to do him in. my allegiance is only to you the viewer to tell you for better or worse how i see these things. one morph we have time. love how people are always trying to figure out. you know what it is, one more thing, take that off the screen for a second. you are so conditioned, truth be told, are you so conditioned to be believe anyone pops up on your screen has to be from the left or has to be from the right. when a guy like me comes along and doesn't have it all figured out, you don't know how to react to it. now i just ate up my time. i'll see you next week. thank you.

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tonight on the axe files. actress, activist, and outspoken talk show host, whoopi goldberg on her personal history with president trump. >> you never say his name. >> i don't. >> why? >> i can't. >> her hopes for the women's movement. >> women are saying, look, we are not take tg anymore. >> and the hollywood friends ships ever changed her life. >> robin was like anybody else. >> welcome to the axe