open and that will happen fast. >> dana: a lot of breaking news. it's about getting the government open and border security. thanks for joining us. i'm dana perino. here's shep. >> shepard: reporting begins now. three major stories breaking now as dana reported, the house speaker, nancy pelosi, makes it official. the president is disinvited to give the state of the union address. michael cohen says he won't testify before lawmakers because he said the president and his lawyer threatened his family. and revolt in socialist venezuela. a new man steps before crowds of protesters, declares himself in enter rim president and the united states and canada state in support. first, the state of the union address is cancelled. the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, just told the president and all of us that he's not welcome until the government is reopened.

this began about 1 1/2 hours ago when president trump wrote a letter to the democratic leader explaining he does plan to deliver the annual speech in front of congress as scheduled. that letter reads in party "it would be so very sad for our country if the state of the union were not delivered on time, on schedule and very importantly on location." moments ago, the speaker answered that letter with one of her own saying she won't consider a resolution that authorizes his address in the house chamber until the government is reopened. so now what? john roberts reporting live from the white house. where they go something. >> i don't know. yet to be seen. clearly i mean, this is all parliamentary language in this letter that nancy pelosi sent the president just a short time ago after the president sent nancy pelosi this one. forgive the highlighter. it's the way i keep my notes. but the president is not welcome in the house. again, it's in parliamentary language, but she's basically

saying you're disinvited. i can't remember that ever happening where a speaker of the house told the president you can't come up here and give the state of the union address. so now the president has to decide, we don't open the government and she can't get a concurrent resolution before the house, but the house and the senate have to pass concurrent resolutions to authorize a joint session of congress in the house of representatives. so that's what she's blocking as opposed to saying you're not welcome up here. so now the president has to see if he can go to the senate and deliver it or maybe he might deliver it from the oval office or maybe as we were hearing yesterday, he goes to some location outside of washington d.c. and delivers it. the president in his letter to nancy pelosi basically called her bluff on this issue of security. her letter that she sent to the president on january 16 said, listen, the department of homeland security, the u.s. secret service, the leading asies in protecting the state of the union had been unfunded 26

days. now 33 days. there's concerns about security to which the department of homeland security and the u.s. secret service said she never talked to us about that. we're just fine. so the president in his letter said, there's no security concerns regarding the state of the union. therefore,ly be honoring your invitation. i look forward to seeing you on the evening of january 29. now nancy pelosi saying no, you won't. so now we'll wait and see what the president comes up with. i do know, shep, they had a number of suggestions on what the plan b should be. one included some sort of an address on the border. another one was campaign-style rally before a couple thousand people. i'm told neither of those things happen. the white house still planning its cards very close to its vest as to what will happen in the wake of this. >> shepard: trying to get the big broadcast networks to cover it while not in that particular venue will be their challenge. because we know that's what they want. another big story breaking, michael cohen who now says he

volunteered to testify before a committee of congress and now says he will not because of threats to his family. >> this should become as no surprise. last week his former attorney now turned p.r. person, lanny davis, one of bill clinton's former attorneys laid the ground work last week saying, well, michael is having seconds thoughts about whether he should do this. he feels like he's been threatened by the president's rhetoric. he said last week he's not 100% there yet. we discovered today that he's 100% not there. in a statement, lanny davis said due to ongoing threats from president trump and mr. guliani this weekend and mr. cohen's continued cooperation with john going investigations, by advice of counsel, his appearance will be postponed to a later date. mr. cohen wishes to thank chairman cummings to allow him to appear. he looks forward to testifying at the appropriate time. we don't know what that is. unclear what the threats are that davis refers to.

i contacted davis when the statement first came out about exactly what those threats were. could he give me any detail. lanny would only say "nothing further than the words of the statements." so they're not putting details to any of this. the president was asked about this just a short time ago in this pool spray. listen to his response. >> i would say he's been threatened by the truth. only been threatened by the truth, by me or his other clients. >> so the president has tweeted on many occasions about michael cohen. one he tweeted last week, which has been cited by people that talked with michael cohen, sounding threatening, a tweet in which the president said if michael cohen lying to reduce his jail time, watch father-in-law. the president tweeted on occasion of michael cohen's father-in-law. cohen took that to be a threat,

watch out, father-in-law. i don't know if it was meant that way, shep. >> shepard: john, thanks. background on what michael cohen's attorney is saying about postponing his testimony and the alleged threats to cohen's family. rick leventhal is here with details. it seems to be about that matter regarding his father. >> we don't know what these threats are that michael cohen is talking about. as i dodd in these situations, shep, when there's a story about michael cohen, i called michael cohen. went straight to voice mail. so i don't have any information from michael cohen about what he's so concerned about, what the threats against him may or may not be. he did say that -- his attorney said that cohen has to put his family and safety first. so what are the threats? we just don't know what the threats are. the statement said as recently as this weekend, the president and his attorney, rudy guliani, made threats that cohen was concerned about. this weekend, rudy guliani was on jake tapper's show on cnn.

the two of them went at it for a bit. i'll let you hear what he said on jake tapper's show. >> he should give information maybe on his father-in-law because that is the one that people want to look at. because where is that money? that's the money in the family. i guess he didn't want to talk about his father-in-law. he's trying to get his sentence reduced. >> that was the president on judge janine's show. >> shepard: that was specific. >> yeah, talking about this father-in-law. is that it? we don't know. we don't know. >> shepard: all right. second question. and that is the testimony here is going -- whenever it happens will be quite limited. >> so here's the thing. michael cohen was supposed to speak to congress on february 7. this week we learned that he didn't want to answer a lot of questions. so he was not willing to testify about any investigations related

to president trump. his testimony would exclude any matters, including that involved the attorney general of new york, that involved the u.s. attorney's office and the southern district of new york and that involved the office of the special counsel. so he wasn't going to answer any questions about any investigations involving his former boss. all he would talk about is anecdotes that involved working with him. that's all that he was going to speak about before we heard today that he was concerned about his safety and wasn't going to speak at all. if he does speak, it has to be before march 6. that's when michael cohen goes to prison for an estimated three years. >> shepard: rick leventhal, thank you. let's get reaction from ellison barber on capitol hill. what about it? >> hi, shepard. yes, we just heard from the chairman of the oversight committee, the committee of course that we did expect cohen to testify in front of this next month. as well as the chairman of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff. in a joint statement, they said

we understand the legitimate concerns for the safety and security of mr. cohen and his family members in light of the attacks last week by president trump and again this past weekend by his attorney, rudy guliani. the last week reference to suggest that the concerns are over what both john and rick have discussed, the threats related to michael cohen's father-in-law. but lawmakers here are not giving information there. a statement that we've heard democrats say after the president tweets about mueller, the special counsel investigation or anything related to russia, they say the president should not make statements or take any action to obstruct congress's independent oversight and investigative efforts. not a lot of republican reaction just yet. we have reached out to some republican members on that oversight committee. congressman jim jordan, who is the top republican on that committee, reached out to his office. they were holding off on

speaking just yet and said in passing us over to the spokesperson that speaks on behalf of them now, minority on the oversight committee. in the past, congressman jordan expressed skepticism about this michael cohen interview in general. take a listen. >> their first big hearing, the first big hearing, they're bringing in a convicted felon that is a star witness in the mueller investigation and they're going to have him in an open hearing environment answer questions. michael cohen. that's strange. >> other democrats were waiting to hear from the oversight committee before they would speak with us on the record. they said they would talk and maybe have something to say after mr. cummings put out his statement. obviously we have that now, shepard. we'll see if we hear anymore from lawmakers here on capitol hill. >> shepard: what has chairman cummings said about the possibility of subpoenaing michael cohen? >> when we asked him that earlier after this news broke and he wouldn't comment, but

then in that statement with schiff, he did say this. when our committee began discussions with mr. cohen's attorney not appearing before congress was never an option. we won't let the president's tactics from fulfilling our constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities. this will not stop us from getting to the truth. we expect mr. cohen to appear before both committees and we remain engaged with his counsel about his up comincoming appear. they say not testifying is not going to be an option. shepard. >> shepard: more ahead on the historic fight over the state of the union address and the parent fall of a socialist government. venezuela in turmoil. today a new man steps to the podium before the screaming masses and proclaims i am the new leader. moments later, president trump and canada's prime minister back him. turmoil in venezuela.

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>> shepard: so the state of the union address is cancelled. the state of the union address as we know it. the way the state of the union address works, the speaker of the house invites the president of the united states to address the two houses of congress and the supreme court justices and all of us in the house chamber. that's the state of the union address. that's cancelled. can the president move it somewhere else, somewhere else in washington or down on the border, in a stadium and it still be the state of the union address? some of you are arguing that it can be. as it turns out, eh.

chad pergram is our main man, our senior producer, this is a matter that is technically and for the moment unclear? >> right. this is an extra constitutional question at this point right now, shep. the term state of the union resides in article 2, section 3 of the constitution. it just says the president has to provide this information from time to time. as we discussed, president george washington gave the state of the union. they stopped that process in the early 1800s with thomas jefferson. woodrow wilson rekindled it in 1913. can the president still call it the state of the union? it was formally started to be called that in the mid 1940s. here's the other question. some people are started to chatter here on capitol hill, what happens if the president comes to the capitol next tuesday night and says i want to

come speak? first of all, the house of representatives has to be in session. as house speaker nancy pelosi indicated earlier today, they have to pass a concurrent resolution between the house and senate for the president to come into the chamber and speak. he has floor privileges in the house and senate. what i have right here, this is the house rules book. article -- rule number 4 in the house, it lists who is able to come in to the house chamber and speak. that's very important, shep. the president is one of them. the librarian of congress, the architect of the capitol, heads of departments, foreign ministers, governs of state. at the end of the day, even if president trump comes to the capitol, he cannot speak without the concurrent resolution. nancy pelosi, when she returned to the capitol a couple moments aid said that's not going to happen. kevin mccarthy said he would

submit a concurrent resolution. the house doesn't have to take it up. here's some concern that they have on capitol hill. you remember in 2016 in the summer, they had the guns sit in. they wonder if the president might come into the house chamber and have a rump session with just republicans and have republicans try to stream it live. >> shepard: and then there was a time when nancy pelosi was speaker, if i'm correctly remembering, and the republican -- >> august of 08. >> shepard: the republicans talked about gas prices too high. she ignored it and let it happen. >> she looked the other way. republicans came in to the chamber each day, held a rump session. the house was not in session. technically that was a violation of the rules, but house speaker nancy pelosi looked the other way. >> shepard: if she shuts it down and says there's no activity going to be happening here, there's nothing into which he can walk. >> that's right. he's welcome in the capitol. he could come to the house

chamber. the rule book is silent. if he can come in the chamber if the house is out of session. he can't speak in front of a joint session of congress unless they both approve it. >> shepard: imagine they hold up a cell phone and he talks to it and they stream it. >> that's what getting people concerned here if they go down that route. >> shepard: might as well get the whole circus in town. there's another thing that is happening right now. the president was going to have a get-together with conservative leaders to talk about the shut down. you know, do some talk about what it is their next moves will be. that is closed to the press. not unusual at all. a lot of events at the white house are closed to the press. this event is closed press. you know who the decider is? the president is the decider. he just made a new decision. the cameras are allowed in. so in a moment, we'll hear the

president and conservative leaders giving their take and thoughts on how to take on the shut down and thoughts about how to end the shut down. the democrats have said look, this is solid. we won't talk to you. now nancy pelosi says about anything business. none at all until the government is reopened. that is it. unless and until there's movement, that is it. now, there's bipartisan legislation that they can bring together if they wanted to that does not include a wall. they can reopen the government pdq. the president says no on that. standoff. how long might this go? breaking news now i'm told in venezuela. we have just gotten new word on the crisis in venezuela. maduro was pushed aside and now they brought in a new leader. this new leader supported by the president of the united states

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we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. >> shepard: breaking news from the white house. the white house pool has just been instructed to gather together as we're about to hear from the president of the united states and conservative leaders on breaking news on the government shutdown. we're expecting that to happen just moments from now. live coverage on fox news. first, breaking news on another front. a new man today rose before a mass of government protesters and proclaimed himself new leader. president trump supports him. the last hour, the united states no longer recognizes nicholas

maduro as the leader of venezuela. the white house issuing a statement that reads in part" today i'm officially recognizes juan guello as the new president of venezuela. we encourage other governments to recognize him as the new leader and we will work constructively with him to restore constitutional legitimacy. canada just did that. breaking new, the crisis in venezuela just took a new turn of global significant. moments ago, venezuela's nicholas maduro said he no longer recognizes the government of the united states, will no longer work with the united states. he's order united states diplomats and united states persons to abandon venezuela immediately. all of that must happen with the next 72 hours. the 35-year-old new man is the country's main opposition leader. he just swore himself in as

president. he encouraged thousands of venezuelans to flood the streets to protest maduro that began a second term earlier this month. it was to last six years. these are the pictures where people have come out by the tens of thousands. countries around the world, including united states, maduro's election a fraud and a dictator. venezuela has sunk deeper and deeper into a recession as his government prints more and more money. these are live pictures now. the new leader has made his way to a microphone. the international monetary fund predicts inflation in venezuela will hit 10 million percent this year. to put that in every day terms for the people, bloomberg news has been tracking the price of a single cup of coffee. over the past year, bloomberg

reports its sky rotted from half a bolivar to more than 500 bolivars. that's made wages essentially useless. people say it's hard to buy anything. hospitals report they're crowded with malnourished children. the poverty rate has forced more than three million people to leave the country. now the new leader put himself in position, the elected leader by fraud says the united states has said we're breaking off relations and the united states persons must evacuate immediately and there's questions about whether the military might step in. steve harrigan is reporting live. he covered venezuela extensively the past decade. is there a possibility now, is there a suggestion that the military might still be with maduro and he might arrest this new leader? >> shepard, that's been how the government has done in the past.

that's how they stayed in power. two years ago, there were similar demonstrations against maduro. he killed -- his government killed 120 protesters on the street. they threw the leaders in solitary confinement and basically were able to cling to power for two more years. are they able to do that now? some things have changed dramatically. first, you have this 35-year-old relatively unknown, juan guido. he's declared himself president, interim of venezuela. he can't have the supreme court do it. that's because the supreme court are all backers of maduro. he's got the united states backing and more than that, countries are lining up. they're splitting. mexico going for maduro. the u.s., canada, argentina down the line going for the new guy, guardo. there's uncertainty. you have two presidents in venezuela. at this point, looks like both sides are digging in.

it's uncertain and could be violent, shepard. >> shepard: the united states haas been backing this new man who has come forward now. ostensively the opposition leader. what is the u.s.' leverage with canada and others? >> the trump administration has said two things, which i think deserve a lot of attention. first, that nothing is off the table. second, that they will hold the maduro government responsible for any actions against the venezuelan people. so if they do round up the leadership, if they do slaughter the demonstrators, the u.s. is saying it will hold venezuela responsible. if all options are on the table, that includes military options. one of the most severe economic options would be oil sanctions on venezuela. the u.s. is the biggest buyer of oil from venezuela. that would cripple an already dying economy. that would be one move that we see quickly against the maduro government, shepard. >> shepard: steve harrigan with the insight there. steve, thanks. we'll keep live pictures on and

watching here in the newsroom in new york. we'll watch for breaking developments on a very, very tense situation there. a live look at the white house. i mentioned we're expecting the president's meeting with conservative leaders in just a moment. he's opened this up to press, which previously they sad no press at this. now the president has changed that order. we will hear from the president and conservative leaders on the shut down in just a moment. the senate is getting ready to vote on not one but two different bills that would end the longest government shut down in american history. the problem is neither of those bills has the support necessary, we believe. let's get to the chief congressional correspondent, mike emanuel on capitol hill. two votes on thursday, right? tomorrow? >> absolutely right, shep. votes on two different measures. the one that president trump offered over the weekend. it would trade some border security money for temporary protections for some immigrants. democrats have come out against

it. it's not entirely clear that it will get to 60 yes votes. >> i plan to vote yes on the first one, the one that is being offer by leader mcconnell and then i plan to vote no on the second one, which will be the schumer proposal. that will be part of the positioning that we'll find in the senate to begin with. >> then there's the second proposal. legislation favored by democrats. it's a bill approved by the house of representatives, would reopen the government through february 8. does not include wall funding and one independent senator says democrats should hold the line. >> we have given to the president. we say it's -- a little bit of the wall, not the whole wall. there's some things for daca. the problem is, we have a major debt ceiling in march, we have budget votes the next two years. is this going to be the way he does business every time? >> some leading lawmakers suggest a way out of this is to

keep adding to the pot, if you will, keep putting items that people here want approved. so somebody feels like they get something out of this final package, shep. >> shepard: mike, up there on the house, what are leaders saying about all of this? >> they're very anxious, obviously. they've been trying to get a way out of this. they're voting on individual government funding bills and the majority leader basically said he's watching to see what the senate does. >> we're hopeful that the senate will vote to open up the government of the united states. i think they're going to reject the president's plan because the specifics in it are very negative. ought to be subject to further negotiation. >> meanwhile, a leading republican is critical of nancy pelosi. >> she literally rejected an offer that hadn't even been presented to the nation for at least another seven minutes. that shows you how unserious she is. she's not serious about solving

this crisis. she's not serious about reopening the government. >> senate vote scheduled a day before furloughed federal workers are due to miss another paycheck. >> shepard: mike emanuel on the hill. waiting for the presidential meeting with conservative leaders. i mentioned that they allowed the cameras in. we're expecting that in any moment. that's on the partial government shut down that could affect when you get your tax refund. last week, the administration order tens of thousands of irs employees to get back to work to process the funds without pay. but union leaders tell "the washington post" that hundreds of workers have the okay to skip out during the shut down. they expect more people to call out as part of a sort of coordinated protest against the shut down. kristina partsinevelos is reporting live in new york city. >> yeah, the skip-out is in reference to hardships that is in a clause in their contract. hardships meaning financial

limitations. you have a lot of federal workers that are saying they don't have the money to full up a tank of gas to get to work. they don't have the money to pay for child car. they're opting to stay home. that's why "the washington post" is stating that there's hunts that are using this exemption. however, the irs won't say exactly how many people won't show up. we know tax season starts or tax filing starts monday. so what does this mean for you? americans watching right now, you have to file your taxes. you could be facing long wait times on the phone. right now the phone services are done. they're expected to be up next week. the taxpayer assistance centers are expected to continue to be closed. those that often file first, those are expecting returns. there's a huge possibility that you will have returns. why? half of the staff has been called back and just to put it in context, last year they literally went through 154 million returns with six million refunds averaging about $2,089.

>> shepard: at one point, there was a suggestion that we could file on a piece of pain they are size. as things move forward, it will be more complicated this year, huh? >> yeah, it is. you and i spoke about this months ago. i took a shoot of paper and said the new tax forms will be the size of a postcard. that's number 1. you have a different form. many different forms. some people will be unfamiliar. they'll have questions about that. and then you also have within 2018, the new tax cuts and jobs act that came into effect. so of course people will have questions about that. so the big warning is should you be filing asap right away to get ahead of the long lines and cues on the phone? we still don't know according to the irs how many people will protest and use this hardship clause within their contract to call out and not go to work. >> shepard: kristina partsinevelos, thank you. >> thank you. >> shepard: we just got new information from the white

house. here's how this works. the president has an event. they notified the white house pool. the event gets set to start and then they say, okay, white house pool come in. that means the cameras come in, the president starts to speak. information begins to flow. that has just happened. so they're in there now, speaking now. the cameras are there. in a moment, not sure how long, it's up to the president how long he wants to talk and allow those around him to talk. once that is finished, we'll get that video played out for you and bring you that? just a minute. right now, the house oversight committee of course newly is led by democrats. oversight does the investigation. this committee is investigating the security clearance process at the white house and within the trump transition team. the committee released a list of names that includes white house advisers and significantly the first son-in-law being questioned specifically. catherine herridge is live in washington. hi, catherine. >> hi, shep.

according to the media released from the democrats, the investigation is limited and targeted focused on a dozen and current administration firms. some were dismissed or resigned for cause. others pursued by the special couns counsel. the most high profile include the current national security adviser, john bolton, the president's son-in-law, jared kushner and the former national security adviser whose sentenced for lying to federal investigators in the mueller probe is still pending. the focus is on alleged mishandling of classified information. the statement reads -- >> the letter alleges the white house is defying federal law by

failing to provide congress about security clearance practices. last summer, the white house said they were exploring if they could pull security clearances for former justice department officials which they did in a dramatic fashion for the former cia director john brennan. critics of the white house said it was retaliation for speaking out against the president and his policies. here's the white house press secretary on the issue from last summer. >> any benefits that senior officials might glean from consultations with mr. brennan are now outweighed by the risks posted by his erratic conduct and behavior. mr. brennan has a history that calls into question his objectivity. >> the white house reached out to the comments. if we get an update we'll have that for you, shep. >> shepard: thanks, catherine herridge. there's breaking news now. the president has just made news. i told you the white house pool was called in. the president there with conservative leaders about to

discuss the shut down and all of a sudden, what does he discuss? the state of the union address. what does he say? the state of the union address is cancelled because she is afraid of the truth. it's cancelled because she doesn't want to hear the truth. she's afraid of the truth. quotes from president. the she in this case, though her name was unmentioned, is the house speaker nancy pelosi. so here's what is happening right now. the pool is in there. the president is still speaking. he's speaking on other matters. we'll have it all for you from the white house after this. ewda. a newday va home loan lets you refinance your home and take out 54,000 dollars or more to pay credit card debt, or just put money in the bank. it even lowers your payments by over 600 dollars a month. as a veteran, you've earned the powerful va home loan benefit that lets you refinance up to 100 percent of your home's value.

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>> shepard: update. breaking news. this just in from the white house pool in the last 15 seconds, they've just finished the president has just finished speaking i'm told on a number of topics. now the white house pool will take that to the play back position, cue up the video and we'll play it for you so you can hear it all for yourself. until then, more now on another of or top stories. michael cohen now saying i will not testify as i said i would on february 7, i believe it was, before a congressional committee. he says i won't do that because i feel my family has been threatened by the president and rudy guliani.

let's go to jeffery cramer, former federal prosecutor, assistant attorney, now managing director at the berkeley research group. good afternoon. >> afternoon. >> shepard: this thing that would be of great interest here, he wasn't going to testify about anything of note anyway. he was just going to give anecdotes. he wasn't going to talk about the southern district stuff. he wasn't going to talk about a lot of things. >> you're right. substantively-wise, it wasn't going to amount to much other than get more theater. so the essence of what he was going to testify about wasn't going to educate the american public about what the president may or may not have done. the interesting part here is the president's comments that precipitated mr. cohen to feel threatened and not even to go in for that limited purpose. >> shepard: this notice that he feels threatened. so people understand, his lawyer, lanny davis, who many of you remember from president clinton, his lawyer, lanny davis, sent out a notice saying

look, he feels threatened by the president. would you see this as a legal move, political move, some combination or what? >> it's a theatrics move as we've seen from the white house. it doesn't help the president's defense or nor move the ball forward at all for mr. mueller. what i think it does show is the president not wanting anything negative being out in the public. the last thing he wanted was someone like mr. cohen who knows exactly where the skeletons are buried for about a decade of doing work with the president to get before a microphone. right now everything has been filtered through legal documents. more anti-septic. it's different for the american public to see him and assess on their own his voracity. >> shepard: in a legal setting, a courtroom, were someone to threaten a witness, that is a crime. is what happened here a threat against this witness before a

congressional committee and if so, what is that? >> there's two ways to look at it. one, objectively, would a reasonable person feel threatened? the second part, the subject. was there -- did he feel threatened? the second part is yes. i was a prosecutor in new york and chicago over a dozen years. i've heard my fair share of people getting threatened in wiretaps not to testify. i have never seen it sent out to 50 million people before. >> shepard: this was a threat in your estimation? >> i think any reasonable person would have to view it as such. what else is it? if it's not a threat, what else is it when you say look out for the father-in-law? the president has known mr. cohen for ten years. maybe there is some substance there. that doesn't matter. why else would you say that but to stifle mr. cohen from testifying? >> shepard: if the goal was to keep mr. cohen from testifying or urge him not to strongly and now mr. cohen is not going to

testify, then how might congress react and would the congress have any sort of remedy here? >> not a remedy for the threat right now. that may be a component of mr. mueller. i don't think that tweet leads to any criminal liability. congress has two choices. they cannot do anything because there was a voluntary appearance or they could subpoena mr. cohen, again, going back to your initial point, even if they subpoena him, there's no revelations there. it's anecdotal at best. mildly interesting and humorous anecdotes but not significant. >> shepard: they couldn't subpoena him to give temperature on the subject at hand, on the facts of the matter because they might be an interference with the mueller investigation? >> they could. but they defer mr. mueller not have a witness testify about things that mr. mueller may want him to testify at trial some day. >> you wonder if michael cohen is -- he might be on a witness

list. you wonder if they use what he has. >> shepard: he does have a problem with a truth. all flippers have a problem with the truth. the question is he corroborated by documents. we saw that with mr. gates in the manafort trial. mr. manafort is going to jail. >> shepard: remember, most of what has been cited here, it's our understanding, is not from cohen testimony. not from what cohen has told them. not singularly but from a bringing together of all the evidence. remember the raid on the office and the apartment and the hotel room and all the rest. they got a lot of documents. somewhere there's a safe as well. >> that's correct. >> shepard: thanks, jeffery. i've been telling our viewers breaking news. two-minute warning so in two minutes, we'll have the play-back. we know president trump said one thing. we know president trump said the state of the union is cancelled and we know he said it's because

she can't handle the truth for doesn't want to hear the truth. the she is the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. john roberts is in the yard. this was unexpected but not surprising. >> say it quite the way tom cruise said to it jack nicholson. she doesn't want to hear the truth. it's a shame the state of the union was cancelled. the president went on to say, she's cancelled it. it's a great blotch on the incredible country we have, a very negative part of history. i'll let the president say what he said about nancy pelosi. he didn't seem very surprised. i think the strategy of him giving that letter to the speaker of the house was i'm going to call your bluff here on security. nancy pelosi said it was because of security concerns owing to the government shut down that they couldn't have the state of the union. the president said dhs and secret service in charge of security said there's no

problem. i'll see you tuesday night. nancy pelosi said she wouldn't allow the house of representatives to consider this current resolution to use the chamber. so now it's pretty starkly political, shep. >> shepard: here's what's about to happen. this had been previously scheduled. the president with leaders from conservative side of things. they were going to do it on the schedule today for the white house. i'd said they will have discussions on the closing of the government and it said closed press. the president said open press and here it is. interesting, right? >> thanks very much. thanks for being here. a lot of friends in the room. great friends. mr. vice president, thank you. secretary nielson, thanks very much. we're doing a great job at the border considering we don't have the tools. they tonight give us the tools to work with. meaning they have to have a wall. we have to have a barricade of some kind, a steel barricade. it's already designed.

we're building a lot of wall as we speak and we're renovating a lot of the other wall. otherwise, by the way, with what is coming up because of the strong economy that we have, we haven't had an economy like this in over 50 years. would you say that is correct? >> yes, sir. >> and because of the strong economy, everybody is pouring up and we're stopping them. it's a lot of work. we have a lot of incredible people at the border. you have to thank the border patrol agents and the ice agents. i see in long island, they don't want ice. the radical democrats don't want ice there because they're doing too good a job. i always talk about long island. that's one of the hot beds for the ms-13 gangs. i just saw this morning where the radical democrats don't want them there. because they don't want to do anything to disturb ms-13. when you think about it, ms-13 is about the most violent gang, they say one of the most violent anywhere in the world. they have done -- we're sending

them out by the thousands out of our country. so we think it's too bad. but i would say this: the state of the union speech has been cancelled by nancy pelosi because she doesn't want to hear the truth. she doesn't want the american public to hear what is going on. and she's afraid of the truth. the super left democrats, the radical democrats, what is going on in that party is shocking. i know many people that were democrats and they're switching over right now. they're switching over quickly. so i hope they know what they're doing for their party. so far they haven't. if you know, i won the senate, meaning we won the senate, altogether. we get no credit for that. they don't talk about that. they talk about the house. other than a couple people like from kentucky where i went and campaigned for andy barr and for some others. they won their races. but i couldn't campaign too much. too many people. we did a great job with the senate. people don't want to talk about

it. i will say that the american people want to hear the truth. they have to hear the truth. the truth is all about and said i think and i hope well, we were planning on doing a very important speech in front of the house and the senate, the supreme court and everybody else that is there. it's called the state of the union. it's in the constitution. we're supposed to be doing it. now nancy pelosi, or "nancy" she doesn't want to hear the truth and she doesn't want to hear more importantly the american people hear the truth. we found out that she cancelled it. that's a great blotch on the incredible country that we all love. it's a great, great horrible mark. i don't believe it's ever happened before. it's always good to be part of history but this is a negative part of history. this is where people are afraid

to open up and say what's going on. it's a very negative part of history. i'd like to start today, wore talking about shut down, we're talking about conservative values. these are the great conservative leaders of our country. they have very strong views and we'll be doing that after the press leaves. but they're's very strong viewsn the shut down. we have to make our country safe. we've done an incredible job with such poor tools. we have catch and release where you catch somebody and then you have to release that person into our country. we have so many different elements of rule and regulation. it's a very sad thing that has gone on. this has happened over a long period of time. you take a look at the visa lottery. when they have a lottery, you think they put the best people? it's a lottery.

does anybody think they're putting their best people in? you have chain migration where as an example, the killer, the man that ran over people in the west side highway in new york, eight people killed, 12 injured. when you say 12 injured, nobody knows how badly injured they are. this isn't like they had a headache. this is big, big and horrible problems. loss of legs and arms. and worse. and this man brought in many people. many, many people through chain migration. so these are all democrat principles no good for our country, they're hurting our country. if we did what we had to do, you would bring crime down in half in our country because so much comes through the southern border. honduras is doing nothing for us. guatemala is doing nothing for us. el salvador is doing nothing for us. we pay them hundreds of millions of dollars a year but we're

going to be stopping soon. we're looking at it right now. we don't want to do it because when caravans form in the middle of a country, the country could easily stop those caravans from forming. very easily. i actually think they encourage the caravan us because they want to get rid of some of the people. a lot of gang members there. the last caravan, we had 618 people with criminal records, some of them very serious. i won't forget the man that was interviewed where he wanted some kind of pardon or whatever when he came into the country. the network person said, well, what did you do? he said murder or something to that effect. he goes whoa, murder. well, we have -- that's what we have. a lot of very dangerous people that want to come into our country. we're not letting them in. we want people to come in based on merit. we want people to come in that

can help us successfully run all of these companies that are pouring into the united states because of what we've done and all of the incentives that we've given. because this is where the action is. steve moore is one of the great financial gurus, he will tell you how well we're doing as a country. we have a lot of people that really we need. we have the lowest unemployment rate we've had in much more than 50 years. with african american, asian american, hispanic american, we have the lowest unemployment rate we've had in the history of our country. that's why when you look at the hispanic polls, i'm up 19%. the reason i'm up 19%, i don't think it's the unemployment. i think it's the fact that they understand better than anybody what is going on at the border. they say that president trump is the only one that is saying it right and he's doing what you have to do. that's why people were so surprised when they saw the poll

that just came out where i'm up to 50% with the hispanic and up 19 points in a short period of time. because they get it better than anybody at the border. they know what is happening at border. they know it's a big scam. the democrats don't want to stop people. that means automatically massive amounts of crime. we're not going to put up with it. so nancy pelosi, knowing these facts and knowing something that she can't win, that she just went out and said let's cancel for the first time in the history of our country, let's cancel the state of the union address. and it's a disgrace. she used it on the basis of the shut down. when she asked me to make the address formally in writing, most of you have a copy of the letter, when she asked me to make the address, she did it during the shut down, well into the shut down. a couple weeks. so the shut down was going on.