princeton losing to notre dame by two. oh! i really think that's what they're doing in the press secretary's room. they're watching the game. i'm melissa francis. here's shep. >> shepard: it's noon on the west coast, 3:00 on a very busy day in washington d.c. the white house unveiling the president's budget plan. while the pentagon is pleased, other departments will night to tighten their belts. after all, border walls are not free. winners and losers in the trillion dollar budget. two judges knocking down the president's travel ban. the president is said to be livid and not giving up. >> we're going to fight this terrible ruling, we're going to take our case as far as it needs to go including supreme court. >> ahead why the judges rejected his ban and how the president can fight back. surveillance at trump tower.

no evidence. today a blockbuster rebuke from republican and democratic senators responding this afternoon to the president's claim of surveillance. and what we just learned about russian payment to the president's national security advisor, michael flynn. let's get to it. we're waiting for the daily briefing from the white house. it was to begun an hour ago and then they postponed it to 2:30 eastern time. behind the scenes, they're working on something and the list of available matters is getting long and longer. today a stunning rebuke of president trump's claim that president obama wiretapped trump tower. richardburg berg and mark

warner, we see no indications:surveillance by any element of the united states government before or after election day 2016. notice they didn't say wiretap. this was broader. possibly because last night in an interview on fox news, president trump appeared to double down and widen the accusation beyond wiretapping. >> wiretapping is old fashioned stuff. that really covers surveillance and many other things. nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes. that's very important. but "wiretap" covers a lot of different things. you'll see an interesting items coming the next two weeks. >> shepard:. trump referenced his original tweets and he extended the story by two weeks. he mentioned it's to note that he put "wiretap" in quotes. he said "terrible.

just found out that obama had my lines wiretapped." is it legal for a sitting president. new low. he doesn't have anything in quotes this week. i bet a good lawyer can make a great case out of the fact that president obama was tapping my phones in october just prior to the election. that's important and it's crystal clear. president trump said it's a fact that president obama was wiretapping his phones. that is wrong. there is no evidence of any kind that even remotely suggested this is even possible. leaders in his own party are making that perfectly clear. one more tweet from president trump on the subject. "how low has president obama go to tap my phones in the sacred election process? this is nixon watergate.

bad or sick guy." all evidence indicates that is not true. so will the president apologize and back down or dig in and double down? maybe we'll hear from sean spicer. let's listen. >> sorry for the delay. budget day. i was supposed to kick this off with director muldaney. he's on a ton of calls. my goal is to time this out right to finish this up, directs or the mulvaney will walk in on cue and he will talk about the budget and walk through q&a on that. hopefully this all works. i'm going to skip passed the part where i say thank you director mulvaney. as the director will say, the president's budget blueprint keeps his promise for america's security first.

policies restore and respect our hard-earned tax dollars. there were additional nonbudget events of the day. this morning the president had a bilateral meeting with the prime minister of ireland. our nations have important economic ties. the president was proud to host him in the oval office and recommit to strong social and economic relations between the u.s. and ireland. this afternoon the president made the remarks at the friends of ireland luncheon at the capitol. this celebrates peace and security in ireland, started in 1983 by president reagan and speaker o'neal and attended by every president and speaker from ireland since then. while at the capitol around now, the vice president is swearing in former senator dan coates as the next director of national intelligence.

former senator coates has shown the subject matter, expertise of sound mind and judgment to lead our intelligence community. the president and kenny will attend to st. patrick's reception and participate in the shamrock ceremony. they present a bowl of shamrocks as a symbol of the found and lasting relationship between the two companies. the president and mr. kenny will make remarks. i have a few more notes before i get to director mulvaney. i wanted to share with you this letter that should be going out shortly, if it hadn't already, wishing the oldest living survivor of pearl harbor a happy birthday. our nation owes him for his

legacy fighting to ensure se prosperity for millions, a copy of the letter will be sent out if it hasn't already. we extend our warm wishes to ray and his family as they celebrate his 105th and the president says he hopes he has several more birthdays. the president announced his intent to nominate several individuals to key post at the department of defense. robert gagle as the director of cost assessment. elaine mccluster as principal deputy. dare i have norquest as undersecretary of defense. patrick shanahan as deputy secretary of defense and david joel trackenburg as principle undersecretary for policy.

the president is extremely glad to have these men and women on board to assist secretary mattis. this afternoon, the president declared a major disaster in california and helping state, local tribes for mudslides this january. karen pence will lead the delegation to the 2017 special olympics world winter game in austria. the house budget committee met this morning and approved the american healthcare act making it now the third committee to move the ahca forward. we're working hand and glove with the house to consider improvements and consider this thoughtful and thorough process will lead to legislation that reforms our health care making it more affordable and accessible to every american. since we won't have a chance to meet tomorrow in light of the president and chancellor

america's press conference, want to walk you through the schedule. the president will welcome chancellor merkel to the white house. that i have a series of meetings and will have a roundtable focusing own vocational training focusing on american and german business leaders. they will have a press conference in the afternoon. we'll have details on the day later this afternoon. also tomorrow, the president will attend a listening session with veterans affairs and v.a. secretary schulken. it's incredibly important to the president that we reform the v.a. system so they can full film the promises made to the men and women that risk their lives for our nation. he look forward to helping change the veterans administration. monday, the president will meet

with bill gates. that afternoon, the president will welcome prime minister abaydi to the white house. wednesday, the president has invited all 49 members of the congressional black caucus for a productive discussion. i want to remind everybody that i did via twitter that the lottery for the white house easter egg roll is open until saturday this coming saturday. everyone who is interested in attending can go to recreation.gov for details. at his rally, the president addressed the decision by the federal district court in hawaii to block his lawfully executive order. as the president said last night "the law and the constitution give the power -- the president the power to suspend immigration when he deems it to be necessary in the national interest." the court don't bother to quote

the relevant statute in its opinion which could have shown the president has the authority. you heard it before, but since the court didn't, let me quote it again. 8 u.s. code 1182 states "whenever the president finds the entry of any aliens or any class of aliens in the united states would be detrimental to the united states, he may be proclamation and for such period that he deem necessary suspend all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem appropriate." the department of justice said in a statement that they strongly disagree with the federal district court's ruling which is flawed in reasoning and scope. the president's executive order falls within his lawful authority in seeking to protect our nation's security. the department will defend his

executive order in the courts. the department is exploring all available options to vigorously defend this executive order. we intend to appeal the flawed rulings. the department of justice is determining the legal strategy and timing. we expect action to be taken soon to repeal the action in the fourth circuit. the danger is real and the law is clear. the president was elected to change our broken immigration system and he will continue to exercise his constitutional authority and presidential responsibility to protect our nation. just before i get to your questions and then before i introduce director mulvaney, i wanted to follow up on a couple questions. john decker asked on the enforcements of the president's executive order to restrict lobbying activities of employees which includes a five-year ban on lobbies agencies where you served from a lifetime ban on foreign governments. i said i'd get back to john.

the executive order has section 5 which focuses on enforcements. the order outlines that each agency head is tasked with working with government ethics to establish procedures for determining potential violations of the ethics pledge. should a violation be determined, the executive order authorizes the department of justice to enforce the order through several mechanic isisms seeming an injunction or civil penalties like a fine commensurate with the nature of the violation. the department expects the department of justice to vigorously enforce this order. several of you asked where the house is in regard to additional legislation as outlined in the third prong of the acha. and the president's plan to reform healthcare. pleased to note that last night leader mccarthy in the house

introduced four pieces of legislation that will remove burdensome regulations, lower costs and increase access as we noted. the competitive health and reform act, which eliminated antitrust protection for insurance provider, creating competitions so americans are not left with one choice for healthcare coverage. the protecting access to care act, hr 12-15 which limits frivolous lawsuits that unnecessarily drive up healthcare costs and the zoe insurance protect action which protects workers that get their healthcare workers that self-insure. finally in terms of following up from yesterday in regard to the doj's indictments of russian hackers on yahoo data, this shows the commitment of the

united states to bring hackers to justice. like i said yesterday, as though this is a lawful enforcement action, anything beyond that i would direct you to the department of justice and the fbi for further details. before i continue, let me turn it over director mulvaney to talk about the budget. director? thanks very much. good afternoon. happy day before st. patrick's day, also known as budget day. most of you heard me talk about the budget before. i'm not going to say much in opening, this is the america first budget. we have an america first budget. we have an america first budget and shouldn't surprise me that we have an america first bucket. we've seen the details. $54 billion of additional defense spending. more details on where that money is going. we're seeing increases at the v.a., increases within the department of justice for law enforcement.

increases in the department of homeland security for border security and immigration controls. increases within the department of energy to deal with a nuclear triad. corresponding reductions offsetting dollar for dollar in other programs. the largest reduction is a 31% within the environmental protection agency. the next largest production on a percentage basis is department of state and the other departments are reduced in lesser amounts. the smallest reduction we have is nasa, which is just less than 1%. there again as with many of the agencies, you'll see certain line items in the budgets, this is the message the president wanted to send to the public, to the press, to capitol hill. he wants more money for defense, more money for border enforcement, more money for law enforcement generally, more money for votes and school choice and offset that money

with savings its where so all of that is done without an additional dollar added to the deficit. this budget does not balance the budget. this budget reallocates and reprioritizes spending as any family or business would do. this budget does not, for those of you that weren't here last week, does not address the big picture items like policy changes, revenue flows, tax policy, mandatory spending. the top-line spending budget. that's why we call it the budget blueprint and not the full budget. the full budget, which will contain the rest of those pieces and parts will be released in may. before i take questions, i'm going to do something i don't ordinarily do. i'm going to call on "the new york times." they're in trouble. apparently -- where is my new york times guy? matt and alan. okay. they're in big trouble. i'll give you the first question. you have to deliver this message. they printed that i'm the father

of 17-year-old triplet girls. my 17-year-old daughter wishing that had happened but my two 17-year-old sons are upset. if you can clarify that, that would be great. i'll give you the first question if you have one. >> okay. we're not great at math at the "new york times." >> math is right. the gender is wrong. >> sir, during the campaign president trump, candidate trump, talked about the national debt which has reached about $20 trillion. you reached that in your budget message this morning. is there a plan as the president talked about in last year's campaign to eliminate the national dead in eight years? he said in the campaign it would be easy to eliminate the entire debt, not the deficit, but the debt in eight years. is that something that this president is committed to try to do? >> it's a good question, a fair question. it's not the right time. the budget doesn't deal with the

debt or the deficit. it's the first part of the appropriations process. we'll send this up to the hill now. the appropriations committees of the house and the senate -- the house controls the power of the purse. congress controls the power of the purse. excuse me. this is the first step in that process. we'll address the issues of the longer term deficit and debt. we'll have to do with revenue flews, tax policy. it's a fair question. now is not the right time. >> the 28% that comes from the state department. you're leaving a lot of discretion to the people in charge there. how much is intended to come from the foreign aid budget? >> a lot of it. as i said before, one of the reasons that you have seen a dramatic reduction in the state department on a percentage basis is not that this president thinks that diplomacy is not important. nothing can be further from the

truth. secretary tillerson has had one diplomatic success on the deal he cut with iraq. this budget protects that core of the state department. it so much happens that the foreign aid that the president talked about, much of the money goes to climate research, green energy, are in the state department budget. if the line items were in the department of commerce, you would see the department commerce having gone down by a similarly large percentage. the answer to your question is, most of the cuts in the state department focus on foreign aid. yes, sir. >> yes. the budget showed a .8% decrease for nasa. but you've also talked about in the administration using private companies like space x for more of that. so does this show -- some of this, is it going to be shifted to the private sector and does this show a commitment on the administration's part for its

science and nasa? >> if you do what we do, go back to the president's speeches, the interviews in talking to him, we tried to identify his priorities. one of the things he told us, i'll sometime looking at america being involved in space exploration. the overall top line number at nasa is reduced be i a small fraction, individual line items that deal with specifically space exploration are plussed up. part of the intent there is to promote exactly what you just talked about. yes, sir. >> your own experience in the house tells you that a lot of these cuts haven't been voted for before. you consider this budget an opening bid and do you expect a lot of push-back from the republican s on the cuts? and those of us that traveled with the president he said he didn't want to touch social security, medicare, the big entitlements. the fact that's not in this budget, is that a signal that

those programs will remain untouched and the federal budget said, that ignored 70% of spending and -- >> i'll deal with the second one first. the president will keep his promises he kept on the campaign trail. no reference in social security here. no reference to medicare here. no reference to medicaid here or the other mandatory programs. that's not what this budget is. this is the discretionary part of the budget. half is defense and the other half is everything else. so because it's not here doesn't mean we're dodging the issue. you would never see any budget blueprint that deals with the spending numbers. social security, medicare and medicaid. 0 the other question not being popular on the hill. i can recognize that. i've been on the hill enough to know that some of these are very unpopular. keep in mind, the president is in a unique position. i've been a member of congress. i represented 700,000 in south carolina. it was my constituency, my

district. we're always dealing with special interests back home or lobbyists from back home. the president is beholden to none of that. the president has drafted a budget for the nation because that's who he represents. he does not have to ask lobbies for this or special interests on this and he didn't focus on how these programs might impact a specific congressional district. we know that going into it. the message we're sending to the hill is, we want more money for the things the president talked about, defense, national security and we don't want to add to the budget deficit. if congress has another way to do that, we're happy to talk about it. yes, sir. >> james bates from al-jazeera. the united nations says the world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis wins world war ii. 22 million people facing starvation and famine and you're cutting funding to the u.n., funding to the foreign aid budget.

are you worried some of the most vulnerable people on earth will suffer? >> we're reducing aid to the u.n. and other foreign programs. that should come as a surprise to no one that watched the campaign. the president said specifically hundreds of times, you covered him, i'm going to spend less money on people overseas and more money on people back home. that's what we're doing with this budget. yes, ma'am. >> tell me about your focus on dollar for dollar offsets in fiscal 18. fiscal year 2017 request, you didn't insist on dollar for dollar offsets. why are you not concerned about adding to the deficit in 2017? >> the point -- the question deals with 2017 request, which is a $30 billion -- $1. 5 billion for the wall. it's not entirely offset.

one of the reasons is time. i have a somewhat colored history with the overseas contingency operation. i will tell you we went through this and made sure the money being requested is true oca. it's focused truly on the areas that we involved overseas. afghanistan. so we have send them $18 billion in proposed reductions. not all were offset. yes, ma'am. >> the president has called for eliminating funding for public broadcasting and the national endowment for the arts. the republican congress sent the appropriations bills. will he veto them and tell the republican leadership to send bills that defunds them? >> the message the president is sending, we want to defund them. there's reasons for doing that. there's a simple message. i put myself in the shoes of

that steel worker in ohio. the coal mining family in west virginia. the mother of two in detroit. i'm saying, okay, i have to go ask these folks for money. i have to tell them where i'm going to spend it. can i really go to those folks, look them in the eye and say i want to take money from you and give it to the corporation for public broadcasting. that's a hard sell. something we don't think we can defend anymore. as to specific vetoes, you and i both know it doesn't come over by one. they come over in large appropriations bills. we'll work with congress to go through the process and make determinations on whether or not to sign appropriations bills or have veto them. yes, sir. >> several places in the budget that you talk about eliminating funding for un authorized programs. are you laying down a marker and you think spending discipline would be disapproved as congress authorized everything? >> we hope so. for you that are not familiar with this we spend a lot of

federal money on programs that are not authorized at all. remember, spending is sort of -- to break it down, it's a three-step process. you have to budget for it first, then authorize it and then appropriate it. a lot of the programs that we spend money on for years have been unauthorized spending. they used to be authorized and lapsed and some of them were never authorized in the first place. that i were appropriated without any authorization. yeah, the message is that is not the right write a to do it. it's the wrong way to do it. you heard the president talk on the campaign trail about at least 5% reductions to unauthorized programs and that's when generated this budget. >> you talk about this budget with promises the president made. from housing and urban development, does this budget blueprint call for a 13% reduction, $6 billion. the president said to urban black voters, he said what do

you have to lose? turns out what they have to lose $6 billion that goes to programs that benefits those communities. what do you say -- >> nobody will get kicked out of their houses. we looked at the hud budget. i talked to dr. carson about this. we looked at government building and infrastructure. what secretary carson and i talked about is a way to do it better. we realized we're working on a large infrastructure for example that we hope to roll out this summer. what secretary carson wants to do is take the money for the infrastructure that is in hud right now and not very well-run and move that into this larger program. you'll see the same line items the department of transportation for the same reason. these do not mean the president is changing his commitment to infrastructure. far from it. we're saying for years and years we built infrastructure like this and it doesn't work well.

>> do you -- >> let me finish. we're taking it out of the discretionary budget and moving it to the larger plan this summer. >> the community development block grants support a variety of different programs including in part meals on wheels that affect a lot of miles per hours. in austin texas, one organization delivers the meals to thousands of elderly said those citizens will no longer be provided those meals. what do you say to those americans that are losing out, not on housing but other things. >> i think meals on wheels is not a federal program. it's part of the block grants that we give to the states. there's been many states make the decision to use the money on meals and wheels. here's what i can tell you about cdbgs. we spend billions on those programs since the programs. they've been identified as the second bush administration as ones that were not showing any

results. we can't do that anymore. we can't spend money on programs because they sound good. great. meals on wheels is great. it's a state decision to fund that particular portion of it. take the federal money and give it to the states and say we want to give you money for programs that don't work. we can't defend that anymore. wooer going to spend money, spend a lot of money but not on programs that cannot show that they actually deliver the promises that we made to people. >> talk about programs that do work or don't work. there's a program called the shine in pennsylvania. rural counties that provide after school educational programs for individuals in those areas which just so happens to be the state that helped propel president trump to the white house. i'm curious what you say to those americans that say 800 individuals will no longer, children that need it most, will no longer be provided in the most needed communities -- >> i have to memorize 4,000 line

items. let's talk about after school programs. they're educational programs. they help kids that don't get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. guess what? there's no evidence they're actually doing that. there's no evidence they're helping results or helping kids do better in school. when we took your money from you to say look, we're going to spend it on after school programs, the way we justified it, the programs will help kids do better in school and get better in jobs. we can't prove that is happening. >> the administration was saying no after-school programs are doing their job in helping educate -- >> again, now you're asking me a question i don't know the answer to. don't believe we cut all the funding for those types of things. >> you talked about the steel worker in coal and the coal miner and pennsylvania. they may have an elderly mother that depends on the meals on wheels program that may have keds in head start. you described this as a

hard-powered budget but is it a heart ache budget? >> no. it's one of the most compassionate things we can do. >> cut programs and help the elderly? >> you're focusing on half of the equation. we're trying to focus on recipients of the money and the folks that give us the money in the first place. it's compassionate to say we're not going to ask you for your harder earned money anymore. single mom of two in detroit. give us your money. we're not going to do that anymore unless we can guarantee -- let me finish. unless we can guarantee to you that that money will be used in a proper function. i think that is about as compassionate you can get. >> i have a question on the border wall. you know, the budget as i understand it asked for $4.1 billion. so 1.5 for this year and 2.6 for the following years. there's no mention at all of whether or not mexico will help

pay for it or reimburse the u.s. for it as the president's pledge. so where is that money coming from for the border wall? >> a couple things. your number is corrected. it's 1.5 for 2017. back to your question about 2017. 2.6 for 2018. people have asked me, does that build the whole wall. no. it doesn't. it gets us a start on the program. you'll see some of the wall being built this year. obviously increase funding in 2018. it will take longer than two years. the source of funds, it's up to the president and the treasury and the state folks. we're at omb and take the money that we have and allocate it on a budgetary process. it's up to somebody else to figure out where the money comes from. >> the budget for doj zeros out reupbersments for illegals. some of that money that goes to sanctuary cities. is that part of the president's promise to withhold money from sanctuary cities and are there

other elements intended to carry out the punishment that the president talked about? >> i'm not familiar with that line item and homeland. there's increases in homeland that deal with this topic. you'll see an increase in homeland for increase in den tension facilities. it's a fairly significant increase. the president has said he wants to stop the catch and release program. he just signed an executive order to do that. we fund that. we increase the amount of money for detention facilities for folks coming into the country illegally. i'll give you a follow up. >> a question about the cuts you're making to transportation and housing. you said those will be paid for later with other appropriations, but this would be balanced. i know you've been a fiscal hawk yourself. sounds like a bit of a shell game where you're saying now this is a balanced budget but you're not stopping to pay for other things because they'll be paid for later. all this stuff has to get paid

important. >> it's not a balanced budget. still a $488 billion deficit next year. we didn't add to that in order to spend more money on the president's priorities. regarding moving projects out of the base budget for the agencies and into the infrastructure, the infrastructure program is something that we just recently started. probably wouldn't come until summer or early fall. we have to do obamacare repeal and replace and then taxes next. i -- you're making an assumption i'm not willing to make. you're making a sum shun that it's going to go for the deficit. i'm not willing to do that. yes, sir. >> one, there's robust funding for embassy security. does that mean will there be an increase considering all the criticism that the president and republicans levied against

president obama for supposedly cutting embassy security? >> that's one of those line items i leave up to secretary tillerson. he and i talked about the state department budget and how he decides to allocate that. may be there are some embassies that don't need more and some that do. so we gave him the flexibility. the gentleman in the back. >> many countries around the globe thinks the president will cut the foreign aid because most of the countries getting the aid were not with the u.s. supporting terrorism and how doesn't trump feel about those countries? this u.s. is not asking that we don't have to spend on those country against the u.s. >> again, i come back to what the president said on the campaign, which is that he's going to spend less money overseas. to your question. this came up the other day, which is the hard power versus

the soft power. there's a deliberate attempt here to send a message to our allies and our friends like india and adversaries with other countries, shall we say. this is a hard power budget. this administration tends to change course from a soft power budget to a hard power budget. that's a message that our adversaries and allies will take. i'll take more. yes, ma'am. >> explain more about what message the trying to send by eliminating a lot of funding for science and climate change research. just to follow up later. >> sure. a couple different messages. we talk about science and climate change. let's deal with them separately. on science, we're going to focus on the core function. reductions in the nih, national institutes for health. why? thank you. why?

because we think there's been mission creep. we think they do things outside their core function. there's tremendous opportunity for savings. we recommend a couple facilities be combine and cost savings from that. again, this comes back to the president's business person view of government, which is if you took over this as a ceo and you look at this on a spreadsheet and say why do have have seven when we can do the same job with three? that saves money. the answer is yes. part of your answer is focusing on efficiencies and do what we do better. as to climate change, the president was straightforward saying we're not spending money on that anymore. we consider that to be a waste of your money. that that's a tie to his campaign. >> meals on wheels. you mentioned it's one of the programs that was determined had not been doing its job effectively. what evidence are you using to make that statement? is not feeding considers in and of itself the fulfillment of --

>> my understanding from having been in the state government -- i may have this wrong. i've been wrong several times today. my understanding of meals on wheels is that that is a state determination. federal government doesn't directly fund that. it funds the central community development block grant. the cdbgs. some states take the money and do meals on wheels. other states in localities might choose to do something. we look at the cdbgs. we do that and a say there's $150 billion spend over four years without the appreciable benefits to show. >> how sean does this for 1 1/2 hours every day, i have no idea. i've been up since 4:00 a.m. back over to sean. thanks very much. talk to you soon. >> thanks, guys.

anyway, so kick it off. jonathan carl. >> so sean, before yesterday you said you were extremely confident that the house and senate intelligence committees would ultimately vindicate the president's allegation of trump tower was wiretapped. i'm sure you've seen the senate intelligence committee has said they see no indications the trump tower was surveilled. that seems to be a blanket statement. what is your reaction? >> it's interesting to me that, you know, as a point of interest that when one entity that claims one thing you cover it ad nauseam. when devin nunes said it's very possible yesterday, there were crickets from you guys. he said there was no connection to russia. crickets. when tom cotton said the same -- you don't want to cover the stuff -- >> he said no evidence of wiretapping oh the house --

>> no, no. here's his quote. the direct quote. "i think it's very possible." that's when he said his communications could have been swept up in collection. >> you said no indication of wiretapping. >> and the president is very clear when he talked about this and talked about it last night. he talked about wiretapping, he meant surveillance. there's incidents that have occurred. nunes couldn't have said it more beautifully. you chose not to cover it. you chose when richard burr and others went out and said -- >> you said point black -- >> hold on. where was your passion and concern when there was no connection to russia in crickets from you guys. at the end of the day -- hold on. i'm making a point. the point is this. number 1, it's interesting when evidence comes out and people that have been briefed on the russia connection comes couldn't

and said there was none -- you continue to perpetuate a false narrative. he said it's very possible, like i said, we should know later. you only cover the part -- let's go through what we do know. hold on. let me. i'm trying to answer your question, jonathan. calm down. if you lock at what "the new york times" reported on january 2017, they said "in its final days, the obama administration has expanded the power of thesh that natural security agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government's 16 other intelligence agency before applying privacy protections. the new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the nsa may do with the information gathered by their moth powerful surveillance operations unregulated by wiretapping laws." when sarah carter said the obama

administration allowed information accepted by fisa warrants or the national security agency to be shared by a longer audience. intelligence normally reserved for a handful of intelligence leaders was spread throughout briefings up there scores of workers and soon leakses began in media organizations, often in stories lacking context of how national security investigations are concluded. march 3, fox news bret baier said the following. "the court to monitor communications involving donald trump and several other campaign officials." then they got turned down in october. then they renewed it into a startup wiretap at trump tower with computer and russian banks. a judge says -- jonathan, i'm going to -- you can ask, you can

follow up. a judge says no go to monitoring trump tower. that go back in october and guess a fisa granted. this -- they don't come up with anything and the investigation continues. we don't know it. november 11, 2016, days after the election, heat streak said "two separate sources have confirmed that the fbi was sought and granted a fisa warrant in october giving counter surveillance for ties to russia." the first request was in june. the second was drawn more narrow le and granted in october after evidence was preserved of a server possibly related to the trump campaign and alleged links to two banks. sources suggest that a fisa warrant was granted to look at the full context of related documents that concerns u.s. persons. two separate sources have

confirmed that the fbi sought and was granted a fisa warrant giving counter intelligence permission. they go on. the f fisa warrant covers in i person connected to the investigation and covers donald trump and three further men that have formed part of his campaign or acted as media surrogates. on january 19th, "the new york times" reported the following. "american law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examines intercepted communication and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation of possible leaks between russian officials and associates of president-elect donald trump. one official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications have been provided to the white house. it's unclear which russian officials under investigation or what particular conversations caught the attention of american eavesdroppers. the legal standard for opening

these investigations is low." andy mccarthy writing a national review suggested "from three reports from the guardian heat streak and "the new york times," it appears the fbi has concerned about a private server in trump tower that was connected to two or two russian banks. heat streak says it's possible financial and banking offenses." he said "offenses" because it denotes crimes. when crimes are suspected, there's a criminal investigation. not a national security investigation. we go on. sarah carter reporting, "intelligence professionals tell the news that some of the russian intelligence was to a larger audience in january. this would happened in the final days of the obama administration when they expanded an executive order 12333 which allows employees with a need to know have further unfetterred access. the new rules allow the nsa to share raw signal information

including names of those involved and phones conversations and e-mails. the expansion of the order makes it difficult to narrow in on the leaks and too difficult to access of the raw data said a u.s. official that spoke on anonymity and not granted to speak on the authority. numerous outlets including "new york times" have reported on the fbi investigation into mr. trump's advisors, bbc and revealed the existence of a multi-agency working group to co court nate investigations. on february 14th, "the new york times" again refers to phone records and intercepted calls. let me quote them. "american law enforcement intelligence agency intercepted the communications around the same time they discovered the information about russia and the hacking three officials say. the intelligence agencies thought to learn whether the trump campaign was colluding with the russians on hacking or other influences for the election.

the officials said so far they have seen no evidence of such cooperation. the officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to trump campaign officials and other associates of mr. trump. the call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger drove of information that the fbi is sifting through." days later, "the new york times" reports, in the obama administration's last days, some white house officials scrambled to spread information about russian efforts to undermine the presidential election of donald trump, connections between the president-elect and russians across the government." being increasingly hard to escape conclusion that individuals in our government were instead trying to undermine the new president by saying "at intelligence agencies, there's a push to process as much intelligence to keep it at low classifications levels to ensure a widespread leadership across the government." in some cases, european allies.

this allowed to as much upload of intelligence as possible. sean hannity went on on fox to say "protections which are known as minute mimization procedures have been put in place to protect americans that are not under warrant. "by the way, their identities are protected. their constitutional rights are to be protected." this was not the case with general flynn. a transcript of his call was created and given to intelligence officials who then leaked this information, which is a felony to the press that printed it. last on fox news, judge andrew napolitano made the following state. three intelligence sources said president obama went outside the chain of command. he didn't use the c.i.a., fbi or the department of justice. he used gchq. it's the initials for the british intelligence spying

agency. they said the president needs transcript of conversations involving candidate trump's conversations involving president-elect trump. he's able to get it and there's no american fingerprints on this. this leads to a lot. >> despite the findings the bipartisan findings -- >> they're not findings. there's a statement out today. they have not begun this. the department of justice asked for an additional week. the statement says that at this time that they don't believe that. they have yet to go through the information. the department of justice, as you know, has not supplied this. i just read off -- it's interesting. when "the new york times" -- hold on. >> so are you saying that the president still stands by his allegation that president obama order wiretapping or surveillance of trump tower

despite the fact that the senate intelligence committee says they see no indication that it happened? does the president -- >> no. he stands by it. you're mis characterizing what happened today. at the same time, they acknowledge that they have not been in contact with the department of justice. so but -- again, i do back to what i said. it's interesting -- >> but the fbi -- >> it's interesting, were you coming to the defense of those members that there was no connection to russia. no, no. you want to comment and you want to perpetuate a false narrative -- >> i said clapper said that -- >> when the individuals -- when chairman nunes has said there's no no, sir. that got zero reporting. i said you don't include that in the question. the bottom line the president said last night that he would -- there would be additional information coming forward, a

ton of media records out there that indicate that something was going on during the 26 election. where were the questions from the times when that went out? >> jim? you were just quoting sean hannity there. the house and senate committees -- >> i also -- i get you're -- >> you're citing sean hannity -- >> you also tend to overlook all the other sources. i know you want to cherry pick it. you do. where was your concern about "the new york times" reporter? you didn't have a concern with that. >> we have done plenty of reporting on all of this, sean. >> you want to cherry pick one piece of commentary. >> these are associated to the russians -- >> how do you know this? how do you seem to be such an expert on this? >> i'm saying that this has been looked at, sean -- >> how do you know it's been looked at. hold on. i'm sorry. i'm afraid -- can you tell me how you know all of this has

been "looked at?" >> you're asking me -- >> you made a statement. you said "all of this has been looked at". >> all other outlets -- >> so when the outlets. >> it sounds like during the context of that investigation there might have been some intercepted communications, the house intelligence committee chairman mentioned that. we reported that. others have reported that on our air and various publications. sean, what you're refusing to answer, the question that you refuse to answer is whether or not the -- >> i'm not refusing. i said to it jonathan. >> you have a senate and house intelligence committee both leaders from both parties on both panels saying that they didn't see any evidence of any wiretapping. how can the president go on -- >> that's not -- you're miss characterizing what chairman nunes said. he's following up on that. to suggest this -- you're stating that you --

>> you said you take the president literally. >> we cleared that up. the president has said when he referred to wiretapping, he was referring to surveillance. >> it sounds like you and the president are saying now, we don't mean wiretapping anymore -- >> no, no. >> other forms of surveillance. what is it next? >> jim, i think that's cute. but the end of the day we talked about this for three or four days. what the president had wiretapping in quotes, he was referring to broad surveillance. now you're going back. we talked about this several days ago. the bottom line, the investigation in the house and the senate has not been provided all of the information. when it does -- >> what other -- >> the president addressed that last night. he said there's more to come. these are merely pointing out there's widespread reporting that throughout the 2016 election, there was surveillance done on a variety of people that came up -- >> and the investigation --

>> you find it interesting -- somehow you seem to believe that you have all of this information. you've been read in on all of these things, which i find very interesting. >> i haven't -- >> you're coming to some serious conclusions for a guy that has zero intelligence classification. >> give me some credit. >> a little intelligence, maybe. >> clearly. i wasn't done. clearance. maybe both. >> come on. those two panels have spoken with the fbi director and -- >> i understand that. >> they said there's no evidence of this. >> this question has been asked and answered. it's interesting how you jump to all of these conclusions about what they have, what they don't have. you seem to know all the answers. at the end of the day, there was a ton of reporting -- >> a week from now -- >> hold on. there's been a vast amount of reporting, which i just detailed about activity that was going on in the 2016 election. there's no question that there was surveillance techniques used throughout this. i think by a variety of outlets

that have reported this activity concluded. so -- when you ask those two people whether or not -- chairman nunes when you said it literally, the president has been clear that he didn't mean specifically wiretapping. he had it in quotes. to fall back on that is a false premise. that's not what he said. he was very clear about that when he talked about it yesterday. major. >> just to be clear. you're good and the president is good with stories of other sources. >> no it's interesting. when it comes to the russia story and the on-the-report sources that have been briefed by the fbi continue to conclusion there's nothing there, you fall back on the anonymous sources and have a false narrative. when it comes to us talking about the reports, you criticize anonymous sources. it's interesting the double standard exists when it comes to us citing stories and then how you intend to use them. >> let me ask you what the president said last night. he was asked by tucker carlson.

you're in charge. you can ask them -- >> you can. >> let me ask any question. he said he was reluctant to do that. earlier this week, has the president corrected the justice department to collect and distribute information to the various relevant congressional committees. if i remember your answer correctly, no, he hasn't. has that changed? has he directed the justice department? >> no. >> is he asking himself for the intelligence agencies that report to him to provide him specific answers to these underlying questions that are separate from the reports you're cite something. >> no. >> why not? >> because we covered this beautiful. that gets into interfering and the appropriate process is to allow the house and senate to do it -- i understand that. as i mentioned the other day, major, if we ask them, you'll turn around and said you interfered with them. it's a catch 22 for us. the bottom line, the president made it clear that he wanted the house and senate intelligence

committee to collect the information and make a report. that's what we're doing. in order to make sure there's a separation from us so you can't turn around and accuse us of forcing or pressuring an agency to produce a document. we're asking them to go through the process of the separation of powers and actually going to the different entities. the department of justice said they want an additional week. we're allowing that to play through. >> is the president making these statements based on classified information? >> i'm not going to get into how the president makes a decision. what is clear, there's clearly widespread material pointing to surveillance that was conducted in the 2016 election. >> is that information available to the members of the house and senate? they're looking at that same information and -- >> no, no. that's not true. >> is there other information?

why won't the president -- >> i'm not going to get into that. the president discussed that last night on his interview. we'll let the process play out. i understand what he discussed. they have clearances in the house and the senate intelligence committee. they can conduct this. alexis. >> i'd like to ask you about two topics. >> i called the question. alexis, if you don't want to ask a question -- gabby? >> in the case against the travel ban, it was included one of the president's treweets. does it give the president any pause that this virtual paper trail is having an impact on advancing his agenda? >> well, i mean, i think that the department of justice statement speaks for itself when

it's comes to that last night. the federal law that i read out clearly gives the president the authority. this is what we argued in the first one. for a judge to ignore that statue and talk about tweets or interpreting something that happened on the campaign trail is not keeping with how they're supposed to interpret the law.i'm not going to continue to comment. we tailored that second executive order to comply with the judge's order. so to say how the first order was conceived makes no sense. i'm going to let the department of justice litigate that. the second order literally was tailored to concerns that were rentered by the ninth circuit in the first executive order. so for them to turn around and make arguments that are nongermane seems odd.