you are watching the fox news channel. reporter: explosive accusations from president obama alleging that president obama tapped the phone lines of trump towers. are these alleged taps even legal? we head to mar-a-lago where president trump is about to meet with some of his star. kristen fisher is there with the latest from his camp. reporter: it's been over 12 hours since the very tweeted out

his shocking claim that former president barack obama wiretapped some of the phones inside trump tower during the campaign. we haven't heard from white house officials. they haven't provided proof or evidence to back up these claims. but let's look at the tweet that started it all. he said how low has president obama gone to tap my phones. in response to that, democratic congressman adam schiff says if there is something bad or sick going on it's the willingness of the nation's chief executive to make the most outlandish claims without a scintilla of evidence to support them. if true, it could lead to serious trouble for former president barack obama and his

staff. they are accusing him of wiretapping the campaign headquarters of his political adversaries. if false, it gives critics of president trump a lot of ammunition. >> what have he heard from president obama? reporter: he put out a statement, a denial, denying this is true. but it's not quite as ironclad a thought. but you will note that he

doesn't offer that same denial for the f.b.i. or the department of justice. it's not really his place to do so, but it's pretty noteworthy that he at least left that door open a little bit. >> what is team trump doing right now? they are at dinner, correct? >> they are at dinner. they are having a big dish at mar-a-lago. about an hour ago president trump had a meeting with his attorney general jeff sessions. right now they are all sitting down at dinner at mar-a-lago along with his newly confirmed commerce secretary wilbur ross and senior staff members including steve bannon and steve miller. a lot to talk about tonight at dinner. >> geraldo rivera joins us now

in studio. two lawyers together tonight, perfect timing in terms of this story to go over the specifics. the president is down in mar-a-lago, he started this morning when he tweeted the information. it sounded like he just received it. >> i woke up this morning to do fox and friends and was greeted with the news. the president of the united states is with the attorney general and general kelly and steve bannon. i think it's incumbent upon the * to clarify his tweet this morning. with all due respect to the commander-in-chief, he can't put out something as exclusive as these extraordinary allegations, that the 44th president wiretapped the 45th president. this is very, very nuclear stuff. the president has to tell us

whether he really believes the tweets that he issued this morning are accurate. are they literally true, or are they hyperbole? he has to tell us that. right not you consequences are enormous. first of all, pair threatically. one of the nicest things about the transition has been the relationship between president trump and president trump. they have been respectful of each other. president trump has gone on to suggest president obama must like him because he's so giving to president trump. for him to call president obama bad or sick, there must be something going on. is it paranoid ravings of the new president? i don't think so. he wouldn't just get up and read "breitbart" and start railing.

when you consider that the f.b.i. and everybody in the world now agrees that russia has been hack or hacked our election, then that's what the investigation is about. so was there a fisa court, was there a foreign intelligence court warrant to justify a surveillance of trump tower? that is a very, very crucial issue. >> so people understand what you are saying. exactly what is fisa, how do you get that kind of authorization to conduct what we loosely term wiretapping. the f.b.i. usually is the ones that will be the prove the proft request. >> the justices from the federal detective court. they are appointed by a supreme court judge. the court is secret.

you never hear what happens in the fisa court. a fisa court concerns foreign intelligence. there has to be evidence that a foreign government or agent for a foreign government has been conducting espionage in the united states or against the united states. is there probable cause for a fisa judge to issue a warrant? is there probable cause someone in the campaign and later in his transition and later in his administration was conspiring to do what? were they working to undermine the democrats and the election of hillary clinton. were they telling vladimir putin, don't worry about obama's sanctions, they don't mean anything to us. once president trump takes office, you won't have sanctions. what is going on? what is donald trump talking about?

it's incumbent upon the 45th president to tell us what's going on. >> if this is true, it's explosive. if the administration was involved. if they did put this forward, what was the justification for it. it seems there was something president trump was made aware of. it was an excited utterance in the form of a tweet. it must be based on something he was told by the intelligence community or some information he came across. >> either the wiretap was legal, that is it has a fisa warrant attached to it or the tap is illegal. if the tap is illegal and someone is snooping on people in trump tower, then it is water w- then it is a digital watergate and a felony.

>> if they were listening to foreign agencies or foreign governments conducting espionage in the united states and it was picked up pursuant to a legal wiretap and warrant there would be no foul play. >> what is the probable cause? what is the legal justification? how in the world did they get a warrant? >> there has to be some means or ground available to say there is sufficient evidence, there is some kind of crime that occurred or something going on which relates to espionage, which is suspicious because we have gotten information about the democrats during the election, president trump, candidate trump saying there was a nefarious relationship going on with russia. >> i love that the trump team is showing all the prominent

democrats with putin. good for the goose, good for the ganders, let the democrats be embarrassed. >> that russian ambassador was at the white house 22 times under president trump. i'll ask you to stand by for a moment. are accusations like this too much for twitter? or is it the only way president trump can get a fair shake? a former bush administration official says she knows the wiretapping did in fact happen. she'll fill us in when we come back. stay with us.

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kip * while we are watching and wait. kimberly: while we are watching and waiting for details about accusations about wiretapping trump power tower. one white house advisor says it happened. >> my source from the white house told me she thinks it's all true. she said there were concerns that trump -- inside the white house. there were concerns trump and his around gats may have been colluding "the russians as a possible bargaining chip to influence the election so a wiretap was conducted. kimberly: they believed this information was correct, went to the fisa court, said we have this information and believe and therefore we want this granted. it seems highly suspicious.

it seems to be used for improper per means saying we want to spy on them to see what they are doing during this election process, this tight race between candidate trump and hillary clinton. >> right. after 7 1/2 years with the obama administration heard there were concerns. and she said she is not sure who secured the warrants. that's her one question. who secured the warrant. but the white house and the administration, they were concerned and did discuss the wiretapping. kimberly: we have geraldo rivera still here with us on the set. does that change the opinions you have on this? so for probable cause in a first sa context it's difficult to attain. you have to have the goods. in this context, in the context of a presidential election, a closely contested election where two camps were out to kill each

other, imagine the level of probable cause you would need for a judge to issue a warrant. i just think if this story is true, there is something explosive going on. that's why i want president trump to tell us that he misspoke or put it in context. to talk about nixon and watergate. he owes us a clarification. >> my source said the intelligence community did its due diligence given the threat of the russian influence. they did their due diligence. she is confirming the white house and administration was aware of it. kimberly: what's going to happen next? we get this information, it sounds like at least, we don't know, it's breaking news and the story is developing. it sounds like this did occur and we have to check into what was the reason behind it.

>> if they did due diligence and came up with nothing. due diligence doesn't mean they found something. could they have don't investigation and found zero? that's what the president said in one of these tweets. they looked into us and found nothing. if that's the case, that's what the president can tell us tomorrow. they did it, they were crawling all over me and they found nothing. let us know. kimberly: you think about the stories developing, the allegations against general mike flynn, the allegations against jeff sessions. it seems to be following the same narrative of pushing the russian story and trying to tie in president trump and at the time his campaign and election with them. if you even saw that in the wikileaks email with podesta. there were allegations of tying

the russians in. >> my source doesn't know who secured the warrant. >> you mean which person? >> yes. did the president know? >> the president wouldn't order it, but he had to know. kimberly: the president can't order it himself. the f.b.i. or an intelligence agency has to put fit forth. what generated this request, this interest. what was it based on. there has to be a legal reason and it can't be one side was trying to weigh and tip the election based on their ideology or political orientation. >> general flynn and jeff sessions are not accused of espionage. they are after he kiewltsd of not telling the truth under oath. that's different than national security and they were dealing with the russians. kimberly: president obama's

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what are your thoughts on this? >> i'm concerned right now we have so much politicization of the intelligence community and the left and the right. we have to root it out. we have to have intelligence agencies that are not cheering for one political party or another. the other guest talked about there has to be a wiretap approval to do due diligence. the idea you would put something forward just to double-check during a highly partisan presidential campaign is outrageous. we note original approval oral request was denied? june. then there may have been one approved after that. in the middle of that we had the obama and hillary surrogates

screaming about russian ties and trying to make the case that there must be something there because they see smoke. so of course a partisan intelligence community is going to say we should do due diligence to make sure this is not happening. i finds that all outrageous. we must have an intelligence community that's grown up enough, and i know many in the intelligence community who are outbraidged their colleagues who are being partisan on the left and the right. we cannot have this type of proper stlesm ongoing whether in the obama administration or trump administration. kimberly: this cannot happen under the trump administration either. you can't have loyalists off rating within the intelligence community affect and impacting outcomes. if you have people who are still there that are throilists to the obama administration and strongly opposed to president

trump, this could be a serious problem. for the president to put something out like that on twitter regarding this issue, it makes me think he was privy to some information that was upsetting enough that he took to twitter to put it out there. >> we know there have been massive intelligence sleeks trying to embarrass president trump from the beginning. we saw transcripts. the "new york times" reported on possible transcripts. mike flynn called. we know they tried to amend bear is the president with his calls with other heads of state. hopefully the trump team has been going through the intelligence community leadership and asking them to get rid of the partisans whether they be left or right, get rid of them. the one troubling thing i have to say throughout all the

campaign is we saw a second-term president, president obama become so part snant of d become so partisan in the he selection campaigning for hillary. he literally said if you didn't vote for hillary he would take it personally. that signals you are putting your thumb on the scale with all the levers of government. there is a lot of smoke here and our congressional leaders must come clean. i want to see the transcript about all the possible allegations about trump ties or associate ties to russia. let's get it clear what the intelligence community says they are doing when they say they are doing their due diligence. kimberly: we need to see the

transcripts to see what is going on. if there are misdeeds or criminal activity, they need to get to the bottom of it. up next, if these alleged wiretaps were to investigate the election, they would have bugged hillary clinton, too, right? tony shaffer is on deck.

now back to "watters world." kimberly guilfoyle in for jesse. kimberly: the idea of a sitting

president wiretapping the next commander-in-chief is almost inconceivable. but that's if the news breaking tonight. the president wrote in a series of tweets. terrible. just found out obama had my wires tached in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism. is it proper for a sitting president to be wiretapping just before an election. turned bun by court earlier. a new low. how far has president obama gone to tap my phones just before the election. this is nixon watergate. bad or sick guy. tontony shaffer, great to see y.

explosive news. this happened this morning. you were on "fox and friends" talking about it. some information and news has developed throughout the day. confirming what you have said this morning on the fox news channel. tell where we stand now. >> we stand where you were talking about earlier with everral go dough. due diligence -- with geraldo. due diligence is not a standard for discovering probable cause. a candidate had contacts with foreign nations and were being looked at for pay-to-play. that to me is the probable cause you would need to do the collection in was no evidence of this on the trump campaign. rumors have been floating around about this since before last summer, the rumor they would do something extraordinary. reason we are see knowledge it

displayed the what it is is because they, president obama and the clintons didn't think they could lose. so what president obama is seeing is the true capabilities. and what should have been matched with probable cause. there is no restriction on how much we can collect on foreign powers. that didn't exist because the fisa court request was turned down in june. this is a fishing expedition resulting in i believe a major violation of the u.s.18 code. kimberly: they were casting a wide net. this was turned down on a prior case before the court. what was the justification and probable cause that was

proffered right before an american election for president, and especially when you have someone in the administration, in the white house, president obama who is actively campaigning as was the first lady michelle obama for hillary clinton. now you have this information coming out with now the commander-in-chief, the 45th president, saying what was going on. what could be the justification? >> i think they lied. someone had to lie. i had to go to the white house to brief these sources of operation. when you get to this level of issue. the president is personally aware of everything going on. so his statement today about this denial, denial was a confirmation. we have to understand he was tacitly knowledgeable and he is responsible. the buck stops with him. so i think we have to start with that premise. the president knew, when did he know.

what did he know and why did the just justification go forth. that's something that has to be resolved. >> there is information also that we saw today on twitter. a former obama speech writer issued and wrote this statement out. we'll give it here for our viewers. i would be careful about reporting obama said there was no wiretapping. the statement just said neither he nor the white house ordered it. >> that tells me there was an investigation that was prompted by someone. the operations i ran the white house didn't direct but i had to brief them on all aspects of it and get feedback. in this case everything going on in the intelligence and special operations and justice department was being coordinated in the white house by president obama's personal staff. there is no possibility president obama was not fully aware of what was going on and

this was a fishing expedition, there was nothing factual to it. i said on the network a few weeks ago. the trip wire is laid out. there has been significant leaks of intelligence information to certain outlets, not you guys, "new york times," "washington post," msnbc, nbc. and those leaks came from inside intelligence officers i would say were probably involved in this very collection we are talking about. they leaked it. kimberly: colonel schaeffer, thank you. are the accusations like this too much for twitter? or is this the only way president trump can get a fair shake?

kimberly: president trump says president obama bugged trump tower. >> have you heard that? >> again, like i said, none of us in congress or anybody i know in congress has been presented

with evidence to the contrary of what you just said. bret: you believe it to be true? >> we have seen no evidence that anybody in this campaign or any on the per american was in on it with the russians. we know they had to work to counteract. kimberly: the president facing criticism for the way he delivered his message. are accusations like this too much for twitter or is it the only way the president can get a fair shake in. obviously a big explosive breaking news day. first thing we hear about it, not from the mainstream media but from president obama. he went straight to the people, conveying his message to say something he just heard or for had been privy to. >> i'm not so sure trump even knows what he heard.

this man tweets about things that are not accurate all the time. but the problem they may have if this is true, that means they have probable cause to bug him. the president of the united states can't order a bug. kimberly: you are making a specific allegation towards president obama or his administration and those who work for him. >> if he was bugged and the administration had to have probable cause to do it, there is evidence, there is some smoke for a judge to say we can bug these lines and here is the reason for it. kimberly: here is the issue. speaker ryan said there was no evidence of untoward activity between u.s. citizens, americans, anybody in the trump administration with the russians. so what is going on here?

>> it's difficult when you look at the particular jurisdiction that issues these fisa warrants, it's anne,,it's an ex-parte pro. they had to put forth probable cause. that is the standard, but the judges don't cross-examine these people to find out, are you telling me the truth, are you holding back? you are telling me one thing that makes them look guilty and holding back 3. >> things that make it looks exculpatory. if the judge found probable cause, we don't know what it's based on. whatever it's based on is classified secrets so we can't know. >> we don't even know if it's true because trump tweets things that are not factual.

i believe he's trying to throw us off the russian story. i believe that many the purpose for us to be talking about it. kimberly: you are saying the president trump, the commander-in-chief would make up a false story to distract us? >> he tries to distract us all the time. kimberly: i are doubt that's the case. we know they went to this court back in july in the summer, it was denied. so on what probable cause could they possibly then have justified getting a wiretap in? for what purpose? it looks untoward. it's something that should be investigated. there was a major election going on where the president and many in his administration were all in for hillary clinton. >> absolutely. because having a warrant application denied is such a rare occurrence in this court.

and to go back and make a reapplication, this is a law that if you misuse this process or reveal something you are not supposed to like this leak, it's five years in prison. it's a felony. it's something that should be investigated to see what happened there. >> i think we can agree this is something that should be investigated. get to the bottom of it. >> or if in fact this wiretap happened. up next, a classic "watters world" takedown just like you [ dog barking ] [ bell rings ] [ male announcer ] customink offers custom apparel that will help grow your business. choose from one of our awesome designs or simply upload your own logo to the best collection of products like t-shirts, polos, jackets, and more. it's fun and easy to promote your company

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>> the bible teaches us there is no greater act of love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. ryan laid down his life for his friends and his country and our freedom, and we'll never forget ryan. [applause] kimberly: that was president trump at tuesday's speech to a joint session of congress, saluting the sacrifice of fallen navy seal, william ryan owens. his wife carryn receiving a standing ovation. but some critics are accusing the president of turning her into a political prop. jesse: we have some of the things you tweeted about this. bad decisions happen, war is war, right until potus publicly

exploits a widow whose body is still warm. f that, f all that. if watching potus exploited didn't make your skin crawl, i worry about you as an american and as a human. let me ask you why are you attacking a grieving widow. >> i'm not attacking mrs. owens. jesse: you are because you are suggesting she is a victim and being exploited as a political prop. >> do you think the which dove a navy chief will tell the president i can't make it. jesse: at first she said she didn't want to go, then she decided to go. no one made her go. >> sure, whatever. she is not literally coerced into going. i have no problem with the president honoring mrs. owens.

what i have a problem with is hours before he completely passed the buck saying they had gotten her husband killed, they lost him. jesse: this isn't about the raid. president obama threw generals under the bus so does that mean he can't honor any victims from san bernardino? of course it doesn't. he can honor whoever he wants it's not about the raid. it's about this widow and her husband and the long service that he has given this country. >> there is nothing with honoring that. there is something wrong with honoring it when you give contradictory answers about what happened here. mistakes happen, war is war. we lost a member of a navy seal team and that's awful. and that does hatch. that's not the issue here. jesse: when hillary clinton

trotted out the kahn family, gold star parents during the dnc, were they being exploited also? >> well, there son hadn't died a month before. i don't think it's exactly the same situation. jesse: you are smithing hairs. >> if they wanted to do it, they can do it. that's fine. >> do i get to talk here? jesse: go ahead. >> my point you blew off as splitting hairs. president threw the raid under the bus and said this was cooked up under obama. and the bay of pigs raid was cooked up under president eisenhower. president kennedy executed it. but he didn't try to pin it on ike. jesse: hillary clinton during a

speech at the funeral of chris stevens blaismed an internet video. >> what does that have to do with anything? jesse: you are saying president trump is exploiting this person because the raid didn't go pass smoothly as planned. i can't believe would denigrate service and sacrifice of this family by accuse her of being a pawn for the president. you wouldn't say that to her face, would you, john? >> sure, absolutely. jesse: if you would say that to her face, you would probably get slapped in if the face. >> i served in the navy. did you? >> i didn't, but i thank you for your service. jesse: i think your hate for trump is clouding your perception. kaya kyle said ... how would you

like to react to that? >> fine. she is a seal widow as well. that's her right. i do want to raise one issue with you. if you do your research you will have realize i was an extremely harsh critic of hillary clinton over benghazi? jesse: i did and i found you to be a trump hater as well. and i think you should be ashamed of yourself for putting down this poor widow and saying the entire country is out of bounds for applauding beautiful moments. everybody in america thought this was a beautiful moment except you and a few kooks.

>> sure, whatever. jesse: you throw in with the people on "the view" and bill maher, that's fine. before it was about her, it wasn't about your political agenda. >> i don't have a political agenda actually. too maybe if you served you would have a better perspective. god bless america.

kimberly: your comments on president trump's wiretapping accusations have been coming in. i will be here with you again at 10:00 p.m. on the greg gutfeld show. you have next, "justice with

judge jeanine." spirit welcomed the "red eye." i'm tom shillue. let's check in with tv's andy levy. >> coming up on the big show print y or millennials buying cars? the answer will drive you nuts. you are welcome. a norwegian news site makes you take a test to prove you read an article before they are allowed to post a comment about it. i believe i will get called nasty names for doing this, i guess i showed them. finally, we will show you a new yorker cartoon that is said to "speak to every woman who's been mansplained