year for the american people. god bless you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] >> joining us on the phone is the white house reporter for reuters. thank you very much for being with us on a sunday morning. they want to begin with where the week begins with the president, the fbi and the justice department. guest: that's a good question, steve. the fallout from the memos and the last week continuing ramifications from that is where we will start on monday. whether or not anyone at the fbi decides to step down, i think it is still an open question.

and whether or not the president sort of response to this ongoing question if he will fire somebody else at the department of justice as a result. important context, white house officials said he was not considering firing deputy attorney general robert rosenstein, for questions continue. i think the fallout will continue as well. host: in a video to fbi employees, basically telling everyone to stay calm and carry about their job. that is not sound like he will step down. there were reports earlier in the week some inside the white house for third he may step down. guest: i agree. there were those reports and i think you are right to say that message he sent out to employees suggests he will stay. it is clearly a tough time for people at the at the i -- at the

fbi, and he is trying to show leadership. it has got to be a surreal place to be right now given that criticism coming in such a withering away from the president and from republicans in congress. host: and also criticisms aimed at paul ryan. the washington post saying he is damaging the u.s. constitution. how do republicans fight back from this? guest: the flip side of that is some republicans and the ones who are advocating for the release of that memo, up to and including president trump believe he has not been treated fairly and believe this memo was what he has in fact been saying for months or longer is true. there was no collusion between the campaign and russia, and the russia probe has been unfair.

the flip side is this is a party that for years, decades, has --n considered for t or portrayed itself as the party of law enforcement. two up and that and to now be the party that is directing so much ire at an agency like the although different but related that used to be the party of free trade and that has been up-ended with the policies that president trump has brought in. so how it recovers is sort of, you know, it'll really depend on how it continues to react both to this and to other issues. host: a lot of speculation on the two motorcades but the white house announcing that melania trump will travel the president

tomorrow to cincinnati. so what is your take on all of that? guest: well, i think that's interesting. i think that that is probably, you know, a way for them to try to reduce some of the speculation about what's going n in their marriage. and it's hard not speculate after she dropped out of the trip to davos and went to congress for the state of the union address, wore a white pantsuit in what some people believed was a show of solidarity, perhaps with hillary clinton or a dig at her husband. and even when she got off the plane in florida the other day that the two of them along with their son, baron landed there, she didn't look marlie pleased with her husband. and so at least the speculation, when you're a public figure like that but going to cincinnati is

no doubt the east wing way of saying look, we're ready for that speculation to be tamped down. host: and policy-wise, what's the purpose of that trip? guest: to sell tell. this is something that the president is very proud of the it's one of the white house's main, if not only significant legislative achievement from last year. and he wants to draw attention to that in the middle of all of this chaos about the memo and some of the other things that have charactersized this white house. they want to show look, we did chief some of the promises that we did from his candidacy of 016 and from the campaign. so other white house and the administration officials talking about it as well and that will e the focus on monday. host: a preview of the win the

olympics games with the opening ceremony on friday in south korea and jeff, you posted a sorry saying that the vice president will be present at the games, not just for ceremonial purposes but also try to offset the charade that he expects from north korea to put on what they sent a team and march into the opening ceremonies with their south korean counterparts. can you elaborate? guest: yes, and i thought that was very interesting. my travel with the vice president on his trip to israel and the middle east earlier this month and we had a chance to talk to some of his top advisers and during that trip and looking ahead towards the korean trip, they foreshadowed the fact that one of the reasons he was going to asia and being such a high level leader of the delegation to the olympics was to do just what you said. and that is to offset the propaganda that they expect the leader of north korea to do in a

very effective way. and they did not want the olympics to sort of be dominated by north korea. they didn't want there to be this impression of major unity between north and south korea and let that sort of win the icture of the day. when the american and the united states does not see the -- what's going on with north korea as positive and despite perhaps some distance of being crossed or being bridged between the two parts of the korean peninsula, still wants to draw attention to the major, major differences and the major problems that are coming out of the north. host: a busy week here in washington and at the white house. jeff mason covers all of this for reu

the senate's back at 3 p.m. eastern to consider the -- to be secretary of commerce for intellectual property. and the director of u.s. patent and trademark office. a vote on that nomination at 5:30. 2. senate live on c-span >> tonight, author bill james talks about his book, the man from the train, in which he investigates one of the deadliest serial killers in history. >> many happened within 100 yards of the railroad track. us of the things that helped identify his crime as opposed to so many else's is they usually happened at the intersection of two railroad tracks.

it's at the intersection of two railroad tracks because he knew, after he committed his crime he had to get out of town before dawn and he didn't want to be stranded there waiting for a train to come through. being at the intersection of multiple railroad tracks give him the opportunity to get out of town before the crime was discovered. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on a.pan's q and day -- q and about some of his districts prosecutions of people a thailand-based sex trafficking ring. this is about 40 minutes. much, and thank you very much for the invitation to be a part of this next session we are very lucky to ve