tv Americas Newsroom FOX News April 4, 2017 6:00am-8:01am PDT
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>> this is a lot harder than it looks. >> the entire cast will be wiped out. >> bill: good morning, everybody. now fallout fox news has learned susan rice is the obama administration official that requested the names of the trump team officials be revealed. now there are calls for her to testify about what she knew and when. as we try to sort through this today on a tuesday i'm bill hemmer. welcome to "america's newsroom." how are you doing, shannon. >> shannon: we made it through monday. i'm shannon bream in for martha maccallum. multiple sources say susan rice made the call to name the trump officials caught up in surveillance after rice flatly
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denied a connection. >> i know nothing about this. i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes on that count today. i really don't know to what chairman nunes was referring but he said whatever he was referring to was a legal, lawful surveillance and that it was potentially incidental collection. >> shannon: we will speak with south carolina senator lindsey graham in minutes. first we begin with white house correspondent john roberts. good morning. >> there appears to be little argument whether the national security adviser, susan rice asked for the names of the trump officials to be unmask and there's debate whether what she did in improper. the chairman of the house intelligence committee devin
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nunes was talking about this on capitol hill march 22 and said she -- he was troubled by what he read unmasking and reports that could identify would was being referred to in the reports. many white house officials have access to the same documents nunes and adam schiff have reviewed. at the briefing yesterday the press secretary was playing coy about all of this. >> looking into the matter i will say that we have continued to say i think there's a troubling direction some of this is going in but we're going to let this review go on before we jump -- i think it's interesting the level or lack of interest i've seen in these developments
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when it goes in one direction. >> some republicans are viewing this as proof the obama white house was playing fast and loose with surveillance of trump officials during the administration. the senator from kentucky, rand paul tweeting out, smoking gun found. susan rice said to have been spying on trump campaign. this morning the president tweeted out a report that puts the former u.s. attorney saying susan rice was keeping spread sheets of information about the trump transition officials. we'll be looking into that today. there may not be anything illegal or improper what susan rice did but one troubling thing did happen is the name of lieutenant general michael flynn was made public and caught up in collection of some transcripts of phone calls made to the
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russian ambassador sergey kislyak. >> shannon: the president tweeted at the beginning of march. >> it doesn't go the distance to prove there was wiretapping of the trump tower or his people were specifically targeted but adds to credence to the later claims by the white house that there was some surveillance going on during the transition. we heard this goes back to before the president name the nominee. it's a bill ball of wool and we'll continue to pull on it. >> shannon: thank you, john. >> bill: lindsey graham and armed services committee member. two big topics. let's start with susan rice. thank you for coming back. why would susan rice pursue this? >> i have no idea but i think we need to get to the bottom of it. susan rice misled the american
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people and appeared on sunday shows after the attack saying things that were completely false and untrue in terms of political manipulation of national security information. susan rice in my view has done it in the past. whether or not she did it this time i don't know but it's something congress should look into. if she was involved in unmasking trump transition figures was there a reason and i'd like to get to the bottom of it. >> bill: she worked for the president. who would have told her to do this? >> i have no idea but here's the one thing i can tell you about susan rice, i thought they manipulated the fact pattern in benghazi to the benefit of the president and tried to mislead the public. i know what they're capable of doing. i'm not going to prejudge here but i think every american should know whether the national security adviser to president obama was involved in unmasking
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trump transition figures for political figures. it should be easy to figure out and we will. >> bill: did she break the law? >> i don't know but i'd like the answer. let's talk to brennan and clapper. if she made a request it would be to them. i suggest we look through the requests made by susan rice. >> bill: based on that answer you're suggesting the story runs deep. >> i'm worried about trump ties to russia and who's leaking classified information to hurt our country. i'm worried about somebody unmasking information for political purpose. i'm worried about all three. >> bill: is this the information spread to what was it, 16, 17 other government agencies in the closing days of the obama administration? is this part of that? >> i don't know. what i do remember being told is
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the intelligence community assessed the russians hacked into the dnc computers and podesta's e-mails for political purpose to interfere with the election. after the election now we have allegations that the trump transition team through incidental collection their names were collect and unmasked apparently inappropriately. there's an easy question, did she ask for unmasking of trump transition figures if so i want to know why. >> bill: you mentioned benghazi. she did an interview 12 days ago. was she forthcoming? >> i don't know but when it comes to susan you need to verify not trust. and it wouldn't surprise me if somebody in the obama administration like susan rice would do this.
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but i'm not going to prejudge. there's a way to find out. i intend to find out. >> bill: understood. topic two, neil gorsuch. he'll be confirmed, correct? that's all we heard from republicans and it could be on a 51-vote count which would be the nuclear options. democrats argue it doesn't matter. if you don't go nuclear on this nominee you'll go nuclear on the next one. >> their fate is in their own hands. we allowed sotomayor and kagan to go to the floor without being filibustered. i ask neil gorsuch be given the same treatment. he's highly qualified. the highest rating the aba to give a judge, 2700 cases, one reversal. it's all politics. i won't allow a system where democrats get their nominations and republicans do not. president trump made an outstanding choice in neil gorsuch and i'm blame my democratic colleagues for
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creating this mess. >> bill: you said alexander hamilton would be rolling over in his grave. that was yesterday, right? >> yes. >> bill: if 51 votes is used for a supreme court nominee, first time ever, how does the senate change after that? >> we didn't have a filibuster available until 1948 in terms of judge. alexander hamilton is rolling over because advise and consent was to weed out a crony of the president. not to substitute your judgment for that of the president. it was about qualifications. this changes the senate. it's not a fatal blow to the senate. it's a serious wound. a fatal blow would be changing the filibuster rules. >> bill: senator, thank you for your time. lindsey graham the republican from south carolina. thank you. shannon. >> shannon: we've got a big show for you this morning.
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rand paul and u.n. ambassador john bolton and orrin hatch. >> bill: and we'll see where everything's going today with the republicans on the hill. so stand by for all that. in the meantime, this is a big story yesterday. new details today on the suspected bombers. the death toll rises in the subway attack in russia. we'll tell you about the manhunt and suspected motives and the identity of one of the attackers. >> shannon: and horror in syria. dozens killed on a suspected chemical attack on innocent civilians and attacks on those treating the survivors. >> bill: and the hill getting detail on the republican plan to replace obamacare. can the white house get enough lawmakers on board this time?
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what's the best way to get two servings of veggies? v8 or a fancy juice store? ready, go! hi, juice universe? one large rutabaga, with eggplant... done! that's not fair. glad i had a v8. the original way to fuel your day. >> shannon: more bomb threats under investigation in russia following yesterday's sadly bombing in st. petersburg.
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dozens were hurt and injured after the blast. police are identifying the suspected bomber. the russian citizen believed to be in his early 20s was born in kyrgyzstan and yesterday president trump called russian president vladamir putin to offer his condolences. >> bill: republicans said to be working on a new health care bill as we speak. mike pence meeting with members from the freedom caucus on the hill and sitting down with moderates early. this is one of previous bills chief critics. kentucky senator rand paul went golfing with president trump over the weekend. senator rand paul is my guest now. thank you for your time and good day to you. >> thanks, bill. >> bill: my understanding is seven hours you spent with the president. it's a long time. you met with members of the
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freedom caucus yesterday. is this back from the dead, senator? >> i think we're getting closer and closer. the important thing to remember is sometimes we get so caught up in our arguments we think we disagree on everything when in reality we probably agree on 80% to 90% of the stuff. we're getting to the point where all sides feel the obamacare repeal will be good for the public, bring down prices and let more people get insurance at a cheaper price. we have to get there. we haven't quite gotten there but i think we're getting closer. >> bill: you said repeal and two days ago you said the following during the match with the president. watch here. >> we had a great day with the president and both sides are getting closer and i remain very optimistic we'll get an obamacare repeal. >> bill: again, the word repeal. it's not repeal and replace.
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why not? >> it's still the debate. they're trying to put in the repeal and replace ryan plan. some conservatives don't like the fact we repeal all the obama subsidies and replace them with republicans subsidies. the idea i've offered to the president and others is if you have subsidies in place leave some of it in place. i'd repeal 100% of the subsidies but maybe the moderates want to repeal 80%. we split the difference and repeal 90%. >> bill: so the subsidies stay and you repeal and that's the strategy. >> and the conservatives don't have to affirmatively vote for 100% and that's a more acceptable compromise. >> bill: did the president like that idea on sunday? >> well, i think they're still opting for trying to get the ryan plan through and it may work but i told them if it
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doesn't get through thinking about it in a different way instead of thinking about it that we repeal everything but then replace it with republican federal government programs let's repeal 90% of it and some remains though we don't want that to happen. >> bill: i did not hear a yes in that answer. i'll let that go for now. you said you were still optimistic and would still use that phrase today. >> yes. >> bill: on susan rice. why would she want the names on the trump team? >> i see no legitimate reason for her to be searching a database and unmasking people. for us many of us, civil libertarians on the right and left were warning we're collecting too much data on americans. millions of american's data and phone calls are in the data bank. we should not let political figures search the data bank for political or any personal purpose. should the white house,
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republican or democrat, be allowed to listen to legislators phone calls? that's a separation of powers issue and it shouldn't be happening. >> bill: i know you want her to testify. this is the first shot you fired yesterday on screen. smoking gun found. you told president trump on sunday this could probably be very explosive. the words you used from yesterday in desiring this in washington. why did you say that? >> even before i saw the story the scuttlebutt for about a month is political figures in the obama white house, namely susan rice, were probably involved with this. then we get the story confirming sounds like dozens of times but at least a number of times she was unmasking people and realize when they do the unmasking they're reading a transcript and they already kind of know who it is. you can read the transcript and know who it is. we should not be recording the
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phone calls of the president. the national security adviser, of members of congress and letting thousand of people in the intelligence committee read these. this is a terrible i'd where and prone to abuse. >> bill: did president trump ask you about that on sunday? >> he didn't but i brought it up and he mentioned nothing about it but i mentioned to him i think the fact that there could be a political figure in the obama administration that was purposely searching a database confirms what the president said when he said the obama administration was doing something nefarious with regard to surveillance and sounds like they were. >> bill: rand paul, thank you. the republican from kentucky. thank you, sir. shannon. >> shannon: where does susan rice stand legally? some experts say she was just doing her job and well within her rights as national security adviser.
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our next guest, ambassador john bolton think rice could be in serious trouble. >> she was committed a kind of fraud on the intelligence gathering system and if she participated in that kind of fraud to help facilitate the political misuse of that intelligence she has serious legal problems. 2 not me! somebody will get it... ♪ (dog barking) anyone can dream. making it a reality is the hard part. from the b-2 to the upcoming b-21, northrop grumman stealth bombers give america an advantage in a turbulent world. and we're looking for a few dreamers to join us.
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so you'rhow nice.a party? i'll be right there. and the butchery begins. what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. let's go. i'm ready. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] [ tires screech ] hold on. [ upbeat music ] the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who's that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week! now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. >> shannon: reports president obama's former national security adviser susan rice asked for the unmasking of trump officials. if so, some say true. let's bring in john bolton number ambassador of the
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ambassador. lots of folks who cover these kinds of things, ethics and national security interests in laws say it was in her purview. you say maybe there's something else. >> i think it's a possible scenario but i've been involved in this myself when i was at the state department and bush administration. i asked for named to be we called it deminimized then to see what the unnamed u.s. person's identity was. the procedure is you have to go through the nsa and ask them to give you the name of the u.s. person and you have to give them a reason. it has to be a valid reason to help understand the intercept on nonproliferation issues or something like that. i'm not naive. the national security adviser will get her request to prove
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but has to give a reason. if not then if she said the wanted the names unmasked for national security reasons that's a fraud on the system and i would argue at least a possible violation of a section which forbids materially false statements to the u.s. government. she would have been asking for something under false pretenses. i think she's got big trouble if that's true. >> shannon: what if she can make a legitimate argument about russia and they were concerned about things going on. we heard one defense official say the information couldn't get d disseminate and there were relaxing of rules for spreading of data that can be spread to more agencies than initially
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through the win funnel. do you think they were coincidental or hand and gof -- glove? >> we hear from reports that the material devin nunes and adam schiff had nothing to do with russia. it goes beyond the question did susan rice give a legitimate reason for getting the names unmask and what did do you for the information. you're permitted to use it for intelligence not for political purpose which is the allegation. the top question i'm still waiting for the mainstream media to ask is the one made immortal during the watergate hearings what did the president know and when did he know it. i'm talking about president obama. this is his national security adviser.
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we can ask the president obama did you approve of what she did, did she do it under your orders and if you knew would have you stopped it. there's a host of questions. >> bill: what you do make of her statement days ago she didn't know anything about it. >> given susan rice's record you have to take that with a grain of salt. the wall street journal put it well she should be given her opportunity to testify under oath. >> shannon: good to see you. >> bill: it will be a big topic during the white house briefing later today and we'll see how sean spicer and others address it then. susan rice put out a message and was it used to spy on americans. >> russia's bad and we learned something worse and scarier, our own government violated the
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civil liberties of americans unimaginable even ten years autoing. >> bill: is there a smoking gun? our panel will debate. and this madness. >> shannon: time for tar heel nation the university of north carolina once again on top of the basketball world. highlights of the championship victory against gonzaga coming up.
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>> bill: there is an a lot of action on capitol hill. we're watching some events. two hearings and one the senate armed services committee here's testimony from strategic command and a fencing along the southwest border with mexico. at the top of the hour republican house leaders will hold a conference. we may get more detail on where
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the health care battle stands. then the debate over supreme court nominee neil gorsuch continues on the floor of the senate after he was voted out of committee 11-9 yesterday along party lines. stand by for all of that. >> the government has told us to fear russia. they hacked our elections and we're supposed to be upset and afraid. ok, russia's bad. now we learned something worse and scarier. our own government violated the civil liberties of americans in ways unimaginable ten years ago and anyone in washington seems upset about it. >> shannon: tucker fired up over reports that susan rice requested the unmasking of trump transition officials caught up in incidental surveillance.
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something she denied just last month. >> i know nothing about this. i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes on that count. i don't know to what he was referring but he said whatever he was referring to was a legal, lawful surveillance and it was potentially incidental collection. >> shannon: we have a former staff secretary to president bill clinton and a fox news contributor. david, would you like to hear more of an explanation from former ambassador rice. >> since yesterday was the start of the baseball season i have to give the story a swing and a miss. >> shannon: how so? >> yesterday, front page news the trump campaign did have connections and meetings with russian representatives 11 days
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before inauguration. while the criminal investigation by the fbi that apparently concludes is going on we now have the connection as of yesterday the connection between the russians and the trump campaign -- >> shannon: which the white house is denying. there's no connection here to be fair. >> we are going to be fair and balance and tell your viewers the whole story because yesterday my friend tucker carlson and i want you to know i like tucker, i've been on his show but i'm sorry he's turning into a high-paid smoke screen salesman for the trump white house. he's trying to obfuscate the news. it's fascinating. >> shannon: tucker has been hard on trump and the administration on many occasions. the susan rice story is newsworthy across all platforms. >> how? >> shannon: she was unmasking people's names. could have been with a
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legitimate reason but if she wasn't or shared or leaked the name and we're not saying she is -- >> that happens every day. >> shannon: it's potentially a felony. >> i have to fact check david on something the baseball season started sunday not monday. this is a very serious matter. if the shoe were on the other foot and it was scooter libby working for dick chenney there'd be outrage. let's get to the fact of russia. the surveillance usually the way unmasking happens it's the intelligence agencies themselves that do it. they're very careful about it and they do it only to better understand the context of the conversation from the foreign targets. was susan rice abiding by it?
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let's learn more. she was unmasking names to spread them throughout the bureaucracy to be leaked later. >> there's a mainstream press reporting "the new york times" this is what obama officials did. >> i want my friends on the right to react to this. >> shannon: it's about susan rice. we can go a million directions. this segment is about susan rice. >> there's a criminal investigation right now that includes the white house. that's a big story, fox news. >> shannon: there are other kinds of investigations that can tie into the clinton foundation. all kinds of things.
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>> i have the highest clearance given by the federal government in the white house. it's code word, i can't even tell you the clearance. when you talk about the national security personnel security clearance holder doing things within the bounds of the law, meaning, there was a foreign attempt to mess with our elections and the nsa was on top of that. we know it's regular practice if the american citizen is having that conversation they're name, their number, that conversation are swept up. it doesn't necessarily mean the nsc is taking action against americans. >> that's factually incorrect. >> shannon: that's beyond people getting caught up incidentally. >> the american person swept up incidentally their name is not revealed. you can't go around and surveil
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americans by supposedly legitimately targeting a foreign official so you mask the names. if the names were spread throughout the bureaucracy that's a huge story. you shouldn't ignore it and talk past it because it's uncomfortable to you. >> you guys on the right are trying to distract the american people from age -- an alleged crime. >> shannon: this is an alleged crime also. >> who are you fooling? >> shannon: let's see where the investigation goes if it's a felony leak of information that's criminal well. >> the fbi, the senate intelligence committee on a bipartisan basis have full-blown investigations into this. if susan rice is called up to testify, great. i want the truth. i want the truth about donald trump and the coordinating.
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>> shannon: david, let's bring you in for a final word. so far no investigation has shown evidence of collusion between trump and russia. >> did you read the story yesterday? >> shannon: yes, i did. >> the fbi is closing in on the white house. >> david, can i say something here. >> fair minded people want to know the facts about both and people concerned about civil liberties should be concerned about the potential abuse of this unmasking process. >> i look forward to the facts. >> shannon: we can all agree on that. david and rich. good to see you back. >> bill: a woman turning the gas nozzle on a thief. we'll show you what happened next. >> shannon: and the supreme court nominee neil gorsuch.
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what's the story behind green mountain coffee and fair trade? let's take a flight to colombia. this is boris calvo. boris grows mind-blowing coffee. and because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make even better coffee. all for a smoother tasting cup. green mountain coffee. >> off the mark and this is going to fall to north carolina. they're not going to be denied this time. >> shannon: and there it is. an exciting tournament, great finish. the unc tar heels are college men's basketball champions once again. they were calling it the redemption tour and defeated gonzaga 71-65 redeeming last year's devastating loss to villanova in the final. coach williams wins his third title. this was the scene, 9,000 fans
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packed in and on franklin street students and fans celebrating to the wee hours. this is their sixth ncaa men's championship. why is there always a fire involved? why is there a fire? >> bill: you know when your 20 -- >> shannon: couches are not safe. >> bill: congratulations to carolina. gonzaga had a great season too. come on, i won two coming off an nfl championship, too. here we go. the u.s. senate debate officially starts today on neil gorsuch and republicans look at going nuclear confirming gorsuch with a simple majority of 51 votes. orrin hatch chair of the senate judiciary committee. you've seen a lot of these battles over your time, senator. wow. this is what you said about your democratic colleagues just yesterday.
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>> it's pathetic. they're so stupid they picked somebody of his quality and ability. we have to do what has to be done here. >> bill: so what will be done? >> i hope we don't have to go to the nuclear option but it's available. it's procedurally acceptable. we don't want to do that but it's probably going to happen because they're taking the attitude they're against neil gorsuch no matter what. look, i've never seen a better nominee for the united states supreme court than neil gorsuch and i think they know that. >> bill: merrick garland has stung the left. would you agree with that? >> yes, accept -- >> bill: i get it. but would you agree it's revenge for that? >> there's no question about that. look, i don't blame them for being upset. it was a tough situation but i think the republicans handled
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that in accordance with the senate rules and really hardly ever has there been a person put on the court during a presidential year. in this case something this momentous wasn't going to happen. i think the democrats acted pretty irresponsibly on this. >> bill: you wrote a piece called gorsuch's foes embarrass the senate. your colleagues say if you don't go nuclear this time you'll go nuclear with the next nominee and it doesn't matter what they do. what do you think of that position? >> we prefer to have the vote on whoever it may be and i think the next one will be armageddon because the next one can determine how the supreme court's going to go for years to come and frankly that's one reason i think trump won. people realize we don't need any more of these far left liberal
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justices on the united states supreme court who fly in the face of everything we believe that's constitutional. >> bill: the next one goes armageddon? what's that do? >> it's going to be tough. the senate will withstand whatever. the senate will survive. the fact of the matter is it will be better if we hold hearings, make cases and then vote up and down. we've always done that before. i don't see why we shouldn't do it now and especially in the case of judge gorsuch who by any measure is one of the finest judge in the land today and one of the most interesting, knowledgeable people would could have been appointed. >> bill: the thinking is chuck schumer finds four or five more votes and prevents you from going nuclear and avoid armageddon. >> i don't think he'll get four or five more votes. i think every republican will vote for neil gorsuch and at
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least three democrats who have the courage. clearly we don't have 60. if they'll require for the first time in real history to have a partisan requisite of 60 votes we'll have to face that whatever way we can but neil gorsuch is going to be confirmed as the supreme court justice and he should be. >> bill: last question, senator, four decades in the senate. 14 sessions. you helped shepherd through ruth bader ginsburg and based on your history how does this measure up there, senator? >> it's disappointing. we can be very open and fair to their people but they can't be open and fair to ours. especially somebody like neil gorsuch who virtually everybody has to admit is one of the great judge in the land, a wonderful person, a person of great
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integrity and capacity. what they're doing to him is beyond. >> bill: will he be sworn in by friday afternoon? >> he'll certainly pass through the senate by then and imagine immediately after sworn in. >> bill: you'll be back to nine on the supreme court by the end of the weekend. orrin hatch the republican from utah. thank you, sir. >> shannon: we have developing news from syria. airstrikes reportedly dropping chemical weapons on innocent civilians. some video is really difficult to see. more than 50 people have died including many children. we will have a live update coming up. no matter how dusty the room or how high the pollen count, flonase allergy relief keeps your eyes and nose clear. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. for relief beyond the nose. flonase.
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paul ryan on a number of hot topics. >> after years of talk of cutting red tape it's now actually happen. rear we're returning power from unelected bureaucrats in washington to the states. a rule we overturned is blm planning 2.0 rule. it sounds innocuous to some of us but for the people in wyoming and around the west it was a huge power grab that would have hurt jobs and local industry. it was imposed with little input from states and no input from land owners and another example of a bureaucracy that was not listening to the people. ending the culture of overregulation it's going to take more than a few months but we have made a start and something we'll keep tackling to
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help the economy create more good-paying jobs. >> the speaker talked about the president yesterday signed four more congressional review act bills. these are bills passed 15 pieces of legislation focussed on creating jobs and saving taxpayers money. as we look at the bills that are already been signed by president trump just in the last few weeks the estimates are it saves taxpayers and small businesses over $60 billion. not to mention creating tens of thousand of jobs. that doesn't even touch the things president trump has done administratively like green lighting the keystone pipeline bringing billions of new investment into the united states of america. we'll continue to working to make sure we are getting more bills to the president's desk that creates jobs that removes the red tape costing jobs and forcing jobs to go overseas.
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in the meantime, our members continue to work hard to come to a consensus on making sure we can get a health care bill to the president's desk. we're not there yet but we're continuing the work and there's a lot of good work being done by our members with all of us together to continue to moving the process forward. >> we promised the american people an aggressive agenda and we're continuing to deliver on that. we're focussed on the issues. on the most important issues on people's minds. you heard about the work we've did in already lifting the regulatory burden that's impact sod many in the country. we've passed several bills health care related to improve choices, create more affordable plans for people. we're also working on cutting the red tape that gets in between the veterans and the care they need every day. we're not going to stop. americans need a simpler tax code and they want health care that's going to mean a better
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health care for them no matter where they live. with all these efforts i'm also excited to be joining colleagues of mine working on legislation dealing with the able act. several years ago i joined with senator crenshaw and others and was proud to get it signed into law which is creating tax-free savings accounts for those with disabilities. i remain committees that they have the opportunity to reach for the stars. that's what we want for all of our kids. this week we'll be releasing a package of bills able 2.0 that focuses on building on the successes of 529 able accounts. allowing able disabilities to work and put their earnings into an able account. it accounts for those who have a 529 college account to roll that over into an able account. it increases the age limit from 25 to 45. bottom line, it means that all
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people and all walks of live will have policies that will empower them not limit them. that's what a government of the people, by the people, for the people does. >> i'm liz chaney from wyoming. among many of the damaging legacies of the obama administration has been the strangling effect of overregulation. we have seen it in my state. regulations that were imposed not simply because they were necessary for safety or for health but in some instances in particular in the energy industry. resolutions aimed at killing things like our coal industry and fossil fuel industry. the speaker mentioned planning 2.0 which was a regulation we were able to reverse through the congressional review act and things like veterans second amendment rights and our energy industry have been
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accomplishments. we've been able in the house to pass 15 of them. we've had 12 of them the president has signed into law and we'll continue to work to lift this burden off of our economy, to lift the burden off small businesses and off industries across the country and certainly in my home state of wyoming. i'm grateful and excited to be here when we're getting things done. thank you. >> reporter: you want to talk about changes due to health care bill and also changes to the system is that acceptable to you? >> like i said, these are ongoing talks we're having. we want our members to talk to each other how to improve the bill to get consensus.
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those productive talks are happening. we're at the concept stages right now. the vice president has been instrumental in bringing together different groups from our conference. right now we're at the conceptual stage how to move forward in a way to get everybody to 16. we need to get the votes and the consensus of 216 of our members. it's premature to say where we are because we're at the conceptual stage now. >> it's about getting to the conceptual stage. we don't have a bill taxed or an agreement but these are the conversations we want. the productive conversations are happening and they're conceptual levels. it's all about getting premiums down and making more affordable premiums and we have other
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members who brought creative ideas which resolve around solid prote protects for people protections for people. [question inaudible] >> i don't know who it was but i'll say this, chairman nunes has my confidence. i met with the committee. they have my confidence. what's important is they do their investigation on a bipartisan basis to get to the bottom of things and investigate all things russia. that's what the will do. it will take time. i won't be played out in a 24-hour news cycle. it will be following the facts wherever they go and giving a real account all things russia-related to the appear people. >> reporter: to follow up on
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health care it doesn't sound like you think it's realistic there could be a vote in the house? >> i don't want to put an artificial deadline because we're at the conceptual stage. we have productive conversations among our members. it doesn't mean we have language and text ready to go and the votes are lined up. that's what you need to do in order to get that. meaning, get members talking. that's happening. get everybody engaging with one another, that's happening and concepts to improve the bill and we want to make sure when we go we have the votes and the consensus. we're close on consensus, 90% of our conference is there. 10% was not and now we're having the kinds of productive conversations interacting through the committees of jurisdiction and through the administration. that's where we are now.
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we have the trump administration. and so you know me. i want the appropriations committee to write the bill and negotiate the bill and we're working hand and glove with the trump administration on these things. that's point number one. we don't have to fight an administration that we disagree with on so many issues. we're now working with the administration we agree with. if appropriators will get the best deal that's how the process should work and i anticipate to move on that. >> reporter: what about the wall -- >> the appropriators are writing the bill and you'll see at the end of the month. thanks, everybody. appreciate it. >> bill: there we go, house speaker paul ryan covering a number of issues. one is health care and the other is what's happening throughout the hill. on the health care issue being remember now, mike pence met
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with members of the freedom caucus yesterday and rahm paul was with us and describes himself as optimistic. things are moving. whether they can move forward at a certain pace is an issue. he was more hesitant than i think other members of congress we've heard from lately. we'll see. >> shannon: and moderate members at the white house as well. herding the cats and trying to appease one side and keep them altogether is the trick. >> bill: point is, it's still alive. whether it advances to the point whether they can bring it back for another vote we shall see. fox news alert. here we go, susan rice finding herself at the center of an intention debate after reports she is the one that requested the identity of trump officials swept up in the russian investigation. south carolina senator lindsey graham was here with us one our ago in "america's newsroom" and
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said the intelligence community needs to provide answers and now. >> she claims she didn't do it and others say she did. brannan and clapper should know. i suggest we call them in and see if there was every a request of trump officials. >> bill: he mentioned them a few times. with me catherine herridge live in washington. where's the story today, catherine? >> thank you, good morning. a former intelligence official said susan rice and ben rose and john brennan had access to the intelligence of the unmasked names before the election and a brief window after. a source close to rice downplayed allegation the identification of americans in the intelligence reporting broke any laws and last month rice told pbs she had no first-hand knowledge. >> i know nothing about this.
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i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes on that count today. i don't know to what chairman nunes was referring but he said whatever he was referring to was a legal lawful surveillance and it was potentially incidental collection. >> the republican chairman of the house intelligence committee dev devin nunes said the unmasking was inappropriate and adam schiff has reviewed the documents but offered no comment on the contents, bill. >> bill: catherine herridge watching that with washington. with more is shannon. >> shannon: let's bring in john cornyn a member of the senate intelligence committee. a lot of information in the last 24 hours. do you anticipate susan rice will be called as a witness.
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how do you get to the bottom of what she did or didn't do? >> i believe she should be called as a witness by the senate intelligence committee conducting an investigation into the russian activities leading up to the investigation. also part of the investigation is how information about american citizens was acquired and whether it was illegally leaked to the public, classified information. all of that is going to be part of that investigation which i might add is a bipartisan investigation and it should be and we'll follow it wherever it takes us. >> shannon: the intelligence committee has been getting praise because it's bipartisan in nature and proceeding on a smooth track and there are critics on both sides who say either one side wants to know about the trump russia allegations. the other side only wants to know about leaking and the potential susan rice involvement.
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are you confident the committee can pursue those tracks and any other track in the middle of what you're finding? >> this is our job. another commission would take months. we're already underway. i was at the cia week reviewing raw intelligence products as we have access to on a bipartisan basis. it's important to get to the bottom of this. the idea one of our number one questions of russia trying to favor one person or another in the election or undermine confidence in our elections is a serious allegation as is the spying of americans and leaking of classified information. this is our job and we'll do our job in a bipartisan way. >> shannon: give us context. if it turns out the former national security adviser to the
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obama administration did legally or lawfully request the information but at some point shared it or spread it in a way that is questionable how big of a deal would that be? >> it's a big deal. we protect the privacy of u.s. citizens in foreign intelligence collection and that's part of the measures we have to assure people while it's important to get the intelligence it's also important to protect the privacy rights of american citizens. then the idea of leaking sensitive, classified information for political purpose really undermines the credibility of the u.s. government in general and that's some place no one should want to go. >> shannon: all right, some place you may have to go, judge gorsuch. are you heading to the nuclear option? i don't see another option coming thursday or friday. are you worried about changing things for good in the senate so that when republicans are a minority party they may have no
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way to stop supreme court nominees they truly find objectionable. >> in a way we're coming full circle because before the bush administration no one dreamed of filibustering especially supreme court justices on a partisan basis so this is unprecedented. we hope our democratic colleagues will show some independence and decide to give us an up or down vote for the judge. if not we'll do what's necessary to give neil gorsuch an up or down vote and see him confirmed. >> bill: senator, john cornyn of texas. thank you very much, sir. >> bill: we're also watching the house majority leader kevin mccarthy the republican of california is at a town hall event. the topic is jobs. we expect ivanka trump to speak in ten minutes and see what her
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message is and expect president donald trump at about 10:45. in 35 minutes from now. we'll keep an eye on that and when the message is delivered we'll take you back to washington, d.c. >> shannon: bill, we'll have more on the bombshell revelation on susan rice about the unmasking of trump transition officials swept up in surveillance and the way the media has been covering or shall we say not been covering the story. >> the white house and the president are still trying to make a lie true and they're using the president's twitter account, the white house press briefing podium and right-wing media to do it.
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>> shannon: it's a bombshell revelation being buried by the main media. we've been covering the susan rice story some are only covering it but for only the purpose of defending rice. a chief correspondent and a fox news contributor. thank you to our brain room here's what we were told abs world news last night, zero minutes. cbs evening news 45 seconds but primarily spent defending rice. byron, is this a story they can ignore?
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>> they're trying to and we're seeing polarized coverage. some that have covered it are trying to knock down the story or defend rice. we should remember one thing the news covering is not driving this story. the public officials at war with each other are driving the story. we know back in the obama administration they changed procedures around to have the bread crumbs theory and we have the ranking members and members of the national security council. they're the ones fighting about this. because they are it means no matter what the news organizations do we're going to find out about it. >> shannon: well, one of them may not be real excited about spreading the conversation. i want to play a bit of cnn last night. >> let us be clear about this, there's no evidence the trump team was spied on illegally.
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there's no evidence that backs up the president's original claim. on this program tonight we will not insult your intelligence and we won't create a diversion. >> shannon: they won't aid and abet and create an aversion. >> there's no evidence of president trump's specific allegations specifically on what obama had done on wiretapping of him but this is a different part of the story. that's what's so frustrating. so many have been spoon-fed by democrats and there's one story, the russian interference in the election and nothing else matters. others argue we ought to walk and chew gum at the same time. russian's a big story but so are the leaks and based on the new
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information on susan rice it seems like the gum chewing business got more serious and they can pretend it exists but that doesn't shape reality. >> shannon: byron, you talked about both sides pushing for the conversation and as they both push to the goal they are trying to get to proving collusion which so far no evidence has been publicly presented of that or the issue of susan rice, the more each side pushes on the stories are they forcing more disclosures on the opposite end of what they may not want to highlight as their top story? >> it almost doesn't matter because it's all good for us. the disclosure is now two stories. did donald trump or his associates collude with the russians to affect the election and did the obama administration spy on the trump transition
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team. we heard on the unmasking issue we heard what devin nunes said and heard him explain this stuff and adam schiff the ranking democrat on the committee has reviewed the same material and now he's very quiet. he's not saying anything about it. which means we need to see it so we can make our own judgments on it. >> shannon: there's reports news organizations had the information and were sitting on it do you think it's been change and now people only report in a way that lines up with their agenda? >> i think sometimes that's the case. i'd like to see the rationale why they sat on the story, could they not confirm it? susan rice went on pbs -- you played the clip weeks ago and said she didn't know anything and now it's she did nothing
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improper. that's a significant shift had had already. another question i have is if there was unmasking of u.s. citizens and trump team officials at the beheft of others why? what was the reason to unmask americans in the way it was done? that's a very serious question and i think ms. rice who is unfortunately known to be a liar on several fronds ought to be dragged up and put under oath. >> shannon: senator cornyn think that may happen. great to see you both. >> bill: more horrifying moments from syria. dozens reported dead after a suspected chemical attack on civilians. then, reports of rocket attacks that followed on the clinics that treated the survivors. the story as we're learning it next. ways wins.
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you wouldn't pick a slow race car. then why settle for slow internet? comcast business. built for speed. built for business. >> bill: a fox news alert. a suspected chemical weapons attack in syria. the graphics are disturbing. reportedly 58 are dead including several children. kitty logan has the report. >> it could be the worst report from syria. the video we're seeing coming from the town shows patients struggling to breathe and
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doctors frantically trying to save lives. a human observatory for human rights show many are struggling to breathe indicating a gas attack. several children are under 8 years old and several seriously wound and they're struggling to treat the victims with limited resources and many injured patients may not survive. there's no information yet on what chemical was used but judging by the chemical we're seeing it has a devastating effect so far. the attack happened in an area under opposition control. many people fled from aleppo when the city fell to government forces. there are hundreds of thousand displaced there and many rebel fighters. the syrian forces continue to attack the area from the air despite the cease fire activists claim a chemical agent
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was dropped in the airstrikes. the u.n. said almost be investigating a chemical watchdog said the investigation has begun. >> bill: kitty logan from london reporting there. >> shannon: now to a ceo town hall meeting where ivanka trump is now meeting and they're addressing the group today. let's listen in. >> the germans have led the way and the swiss have done a great job with it more recently. in england we've seen a lot of focus on apprenticeship training. really thinking about the role of vocational education and incentivized for students to consider and partnering with the private sector to really ensure
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what's happening the education taking place whether at a community college or an apprenticeship program matches ultimately their needs. so skill-based education. the last thing we're looking at is workforce retraining. for people that have been out of the workforce for a number of years looking to re-enter or people currently in the workforce but in a field where jobs are rapidly being displaced. how do we take large groups of people and think about how to retrain them in areas where their skills will be more relevant to the workforce of the future. it's a big topic. there's tens of billions of dollars allocated across over 14 agencies on this topic. so another area similar to what we were talking about with infrastructure is really taking a look at all the programs that are out there, consolidating those programs and working collectively. we had a meeting last week where
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we had the secretary of education wilbur. >> mick mulvaney was there. >> thinking about how to ensure everyone's working collectively with these goals in mind. >> secretary ross, are there ways to incentivize the private sector to further their investment in workforce training? many of them have taken a leadership role on this already. >> the big corporations seem to be finding a pretty good way to do it. if you have a large number of employment needs you can partner with local community college with even some of the high schools to accomplish the purpose. what's harder is to get the small business who has limited needs to be able to do it. so we've been focussing some on
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delivering mechanisms and one of the ones i'm intrigued with is integrating technology into the delivery mechanism. you have licensing problems at schools, you have all kinds of things of that sort so i think combining the human instructor element with internet-delivered service in education is a very important thing. specifically for the small businesses. we're looking at programs whereby they can both get an assurance of retention through a lone -- loan program through the students with the idea of gradually forgiving the loans as the student stays on with the employer. maybe over a five-year period and trying to match that with tax-deductibility to the corporation but hopefully not taxable income to the student as their loans are forgiven and
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couple that perhaps with some loans from the small business association so all this is administration to the little companies backed by the combination of the companies credit and the loans they had made to the students on some realistic loan devalue ratio. we're trying to get to the nitty-gritty of the how so this can truly be rolled down on a nationwide basis and help not just big companies but little ones as the younger companies tend to be the ones producing the job and expanding the most rapidly. >> shannon: you have been listening in to a ceo town hall and ivanka trump as they have a conversation how to get things moving in the united states of america. our economy and what we can learn from others and how to work together. >> bill: president trump's going to be in that room in 15 minutes. back in a moment.
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in the meantime, house republicans hashing out their plan for health care. how close are they to reaching a new agreement can live with? senator rand paul gave us a hint just last hour. >> we're getting closer and closer. the important thing to remember is sometimes we get so caught up in our arguments we think we disagree on everything when in reality we probably agree on 80% to 90% of the stuff.
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>> bill: so we now know republicans are back at it trying to find a better deal on obamacare. paul ryan 30 minutes ago describing the efforts to get more on more. >> get everybody talking and engaging and that's happen and now we're working on improvements to the bill. that's occur but it's not to say we're ready to go. we want to make sure when we go we have the votes to pass the bill and the consensus we've long been looking for. we're close on consensus.
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90% of our conference was already there. 10% was not. now we're having the kinds of productive conversations among our members interacting through the committees of jurisdiction and with the administration and that's where we are now. >> bill: he's known at the 51st vote, scott brown, good morning, senator. >> good morning to you and the viewers. >> bill: is this a head fake or for real? >> it's interesting. had they done that homework prior to setting an artificial deadline we wouldn't have suffered the embarrass to the republicans and president and given wind to the sails of the democrats in this unforced error type of thing had they done that. speaking with former colleagues they've working behind the scenes and want to get it right and it's good for america and businesses as well. >> bill: senator rand paul apparently is knee deep in this and spent hours with the
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president on sunday and with us an hour and a half ago. here's how he describes the mediation role. >> i would repeal 100% of the subsidies but maybe the moderates want to repeal 80%. we split the difference. part of the strategy is conservatives don't have to affirmatively vote we just have to acknowledge we're not getting 100% repeal. that's a more acceptable compromise to both sides. >> bill: it seems he's saying you keep the subsidies but lower the overall cost. does that get it done? >> i think that's right. he has a lot of pull in the senate because the democrats aren't going to help at all. you need all republicans and he obviously has mike lee and a couple others following him. and the fact that he spent seven hours, which, by the way i'd like to be the caddy next time to be the fly on the wall, the seven hours with the president coming up with compromises is what rand does. he works behind the scenes to
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get things done and that's good as well. >> bill: the moderates put the onus on the freedom caucus. do you sense a crack in that caucus? so you don't have to live is the sound bite of repealing and replacing obamacare on day one and on day 70-plus that hasn't happened. >> it hasn't happened and i think the failure to do it before and the president's kind of pushing back against the freedom caucus put pressure on them. but this pressure on the entire republican party. have you you have the house, senate and they were sent to fix the border, deal with obamacare and re-establish our strength in the world and build our military so let's get it done. >> bill: thank you, sir for your time. you want to get it done the
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right way because once you change it you own it. senator, thank you. scott brown from new hampshire with us today. thanks. >> shannon: the senate beginning debate on judge gorsuch's supreme court nomination promising to confirm him. mike emanuel is live in capitol hill in the middle of all of it. >> shannon, good morning. mitch mcconnell is expected to start the process to get neil gorsuch confirmed by friday night. there's never been a partisan filibuster of a supreme court candidate before in history. never before. republicans note judge gorsuch has received high marks from a variety of groups praising his temperament, knowledge and experience and say he's being treated unfairly by democrats. >> this is all politics. i will not allow a system where
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democrats get their judges and republicans cannot. trump won the election. he made an outstanding choice in neil gorsuch. if we have to change the rules we will and i blame my democratic colleagues for creating the mess to begin with. >> the senate judiciary voted 11-9 to advance the nomination of neil gorsuch. it was a party line vote and the democrats are furious judge merrick garland was never confirmed and some senators are hoping for a last-minute deal. >> given how much disagreement and how much distance there is between us i'm not optimistic. this hopefully will move the republican majority and talk with us about what's going to happen going forward. >> the major fireworks could come thursday when democrats would presumably launch their filibuster and mitch mcconnell
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may take action to move it forward. >> shannon: live on capitol hill, thank you. >> bill: we have stunning video showing a funnel cloud moving a parked car. severe weather ripping through the south and warnings from rescue crews even as the storm comes to an end. >> shannon: and president trump wiretapping tweets drawing criticism but after the newest development involving susan rice could his claims be some about what -- somewhat vindicated?
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it's turning out to be true. joining me now is julie roginsky and rachel fox news contributors. even house chair devin nunes saying what he said about wiretapping is not entirely accurate. he's seen no evidence of that. will this fill the bill or are we talking about two different things? >> you'd have to be crazy not to see the connection. these a political operative. she's absolutely tied to the president. if she knows it it's likely the president -- >> shannon: what if she had a legitimate reason? >> then why did she lie to pbs? >> it smells to high heaven. >> shannon: that's one thing that concerns people to say if it's legitimate and within her powers why act she didn't know about it.
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>> in the context of being legal what trump is doing it's so typical where you're taking somebody you've maligned in president obama and trying to make yourself the victim and he took something about president obama that was completely false and maligned him and turned it around and trying to blame president obama as if he's the victimizer. >> shannon: is it fair to say his adviser would know about the requests and the president wouldn't know? i'm guessing the two of you may not agree. >> i don't have the answer to that question but from what i read it puts into contest what they're looking at. it's not randomly picking names out. she's not a political hack. she's a former security adviser. >> shannon: she was clearly aligned with both the obama administration and hillary
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clinton's efforts. >> not just aligned but remember her credibility has been called into question not just because she lied to pbs she lied about a videotape in benghazi. this is somebody you cannot trust and why she went around asking multiple times for this american citizen to be unmasked is not just dangerous to president trump but our citizens. watch congress, they'll start reigning this in and the people to suffer are the american people because there's a breach of trust. >> shannon: you talk about our civil rights and our concerns about monitoring. should we be worried the government seems to have so much power? >> that's a concern we've all had including people going back to edward snowden but i want to come back to the original point which is donald trump made an in
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founded allegation and instead of owning up the allegation he's trying to victimize the person -- >> shannon: he feels vindicated that the national security adviser was asking for names to be unmask and it may be legal and within her duties we have questions. >> we don't know who the names are. >> the hypocrisy is astounding. if george bush had his national security adviser spying on him during the transition or unmasking the names of his national security adviser it would be the media and the democrats would be chanting lock her up. this is a complete double standard. this is the stuff that drives republicans crazy because we know exactly what would happen. this is the -- by the way, cbs, abc, nbc didn't cover it.
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>> you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. the president made a defamatory allegation against president obama and now it's typical deflection and i think people see right through it. >> shannon: a lot of people now want to hear under oath testimony from susan rice and get us to answers i think all sides want to get. julie and rachel. good to see you both. >> bill: thank you. we're watching the ceo meeting and mike pence was speaking a moment ago and now the president, donald trump has the microphone after his daughter had the microphone. we'll see what his message is on economy and jobs and so forth. let's listen. >> hello, ivanka. i know you know a few of the people in the room. >> i do. all the killers from new york.
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those great talent, great builders. >> i have to give you heads up ivanka chaired one of the sessions before this. tough act to follow. vice president pence listed some of the amazing accomplishments that have taken place since your election and 75 days in august. the stock market has had almost unprecedented sustained growth and unprecedented confidence for the manufacturing sector and other business sectors leading to massive sector and growth and got rid of resolutions that were stifling and strengthened our borders and military and nominated a great supreme court justice among many other things. how does all that feel? >> and we're getting unbelievable credit for what we've done other than the mainstream media which gives us no credit whatsoever. we are getting tremendous credit and if you look at the real
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estate industry and the mining industry, the farming industry, if you look at any of the major industries you see what's going on. in fact even today i was very happy as i read this morning early that our trade deficit with others has gone down very considerably in a short period of time. it's having a big impact. i'm meeting with the president of china thursday and friday in palm beach, florida. i think we're going to have a very interesting talk. i have a lot of respect for him. i've spoken to him a number of times but we have to do better because our deficit with china as you know $504 billion is a year. that's enough for a life time even steve would say that. that's a year. we're going to have a great meeting and i'm sure we'll have a fantasticing and --
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fantastic meeting and including north korea and that's a humanity problem so we'll be talking about that also. >> you've made it a driving force to bring in the best minds we can from the private sector to listen intently to them and take decisive action. how important is that and how important is it to reform government to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors? >> i brought you and gary cohen and great people and my friend, steve, is helping us out and we have a super star committee of 22 people and every time somebody calls me i say steve, put him on. no, we quantity -- we want to keep it small. they will go up and disappear and we'll put others on but we've had great meetings and learned a lot. one thing that did come up and it came up yesterday was gary -- is gary here?
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can you bring that chart, please? do you mind? this is sort of incredible. that's so beautiful. this is -- to build a highway in the united states this was just done yesterday i saw it for the first time. i'm speaking to some of my friends who are builders, really great builders and they've gone through the process. we've all gone through it in new york we call it the zoning process in new york. you start up here and this is anywhere from a ten to twenty year process. you have 17 agencies, you have hundreds and hundreds of permits. many of them are statutory where you can't even apply for the second permit until six months go by and the process -- this is to build a highway. a simple highway. it's 17 agencies, how many
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different steps is it? >> 29 different statutes, five different executive orders that apply to this process. this is indicative. it's the type of process a state government would have to go through to permit a highway federally. this is just federal, not state regulation. >> to it can take ten years if you're good to twenty years and then they vote and you lose. they don't want it. and it costs sometimes hundreds of millions just to go through the process. thank you very much. that's a great job you did. be careful. i don't want to have you fall. you'll be a big story in the paper if you go down. i just saw that yesterday. gary cohen walked in and showed me that yesterday and i said you have to do me a favor -- a lot of you are are pros and you
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understand it. it gives people going through the process an advantage like gary but it gave us an advantage if you go through the process but getting a road approved in new york is a horrible thing. that's nothing compared when you get into the highways and the dams. they don't even talk about dams anymore. hydropower is a great perform of power. they don't talk about it because to get the permits are virtually impossible. we've come to a halt. we have a tremendous person we put in charge of epa, scott pruitt who is an environmental person. he wants clean air, he wants clean water but doesn't think it takes you 26 years to get a permit to build a building and to have jobs. at which time those companies are usually gone, out of business, etcetera. we're really speeding up the
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process and try to take that process from a minimum of ten years down to one year. i say can't we make it four months? can we do out in four months? there is a certain logic to that but we'll be satisfied but it won't are any more than a year. so we have to build roads, we have to build highways. we're talking about a major infrastructure build of a trillion dollars perhaps more. when we have to do our jobs -- if we say we're giving to new york city hundreds of millions of dollars to build a road some place it doesn't help if they can't start because it's going to take 7 1/2 years to get the permit. have you a road there and you want to do it you have to get new permits for the type of asphalt, the kind of concrete you're going to use and there was a very large infrastructure build that was approved
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occurring the obama administration, a trillion dollars. nobody ever saw anything being built. to this day i haven't heard of anything that's been built. they used most of that money for social programs. we want this to be on infrastructure. i'm working with steve roth and with richard lefrack two great builders that know how to cut through red tape and i see elaine is here which is important and doing an incredible job, secretary of transportation. elaine will be working but we'll set up a committee headed by steve and richard and we're going to cut a lot of red tape but we don't want to send a billion dollars to new york and find out five years later the money was never spent. we'll be strong it has to be spent on shovels not on other programs.
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and but we're going to say if you don't spend the money and if you don't start, if you have a job you can't start with 90 days we're not going to give you the money for it because it doesn't help us and we'll be very strong on that. they have to be able to start within 90 days. >> we have some of the great business leaders in the country here if it's ok with you they have a few questions. >> hello, jerry. he didn't have to say his name. we know jerry. jerry speier, everybody. >> president, you're doing a great job and we're grateful to you for the sacrifices you're making. i hope you heard that. i think from new york's point of view we send a lot of money into
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the economy as a number of people have said it's over a trillion dollars. we're worried going to have a problem with congress with deductions. we're worried about various programs that help us and they're doing fine and the yankees are doing fine but what we're really concerned about do you have advice for us? >> i love new york and in some ways we're all lucky i'm from new york because new york has unique problems, so does los angeles, so does chicago. there are places that have unique problems. one of the problems you have is debt. deductibility is a big one because a lot of the states who don't have debt or little debt like in the case of mike pence where he did just a good job in
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indiana it's a triple-a rated bond and deductibility is not that big of a deal because they don't have that much to deduct. over here in new york when you look at what's going with us we don't know in terms of the municipality and in terms of the state we don't know if it can even make it if you don't have that. are people going to buy? so it's a very big problem and the problem i have is that there are many places throughout the country that are the exact opposite position and they consider that a gift to the state and a gift to the people and we know new york does things that a lot of people don't read about. you look at what the money that they contribute to our economy, to our country and people don't know about that. they don't maybe want to know about that. so you do have i call it a tale of two cities. you have different interests but
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i am watching over everybody, jerry. you're in good hands, ok. believe me, you can tell the people of new york. though i didn't win new york state -- i should have won new york state. >> i want to return to a conversation we just had on jobs, the workforce, the future, and so as we think about that, and we think about our skill sets and new york city alone, or public high school graduation rate is at 70%. the readiness of our students for college and careers is only 37%. as we look at the pace of change, we look at the digital transformation we'll see in the marketplace. we see what employers need and what our students come into our workforces are prepared to deliver. it will
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