something much on the long train ride back. by the way, that is a great point. he needs an airplane. all right.t. this show, please tune in tomorrow night and we will show you the question i asked. i got asked a question by the president at the press conference. i don't think fake news cnn liked that either. jason chaffetz will be thelet n. jason chaffetz will be the guest host as we head home. laura ingraham, you got into it with crazy jim acosta. what happened? >> laura: he was upset. i was getting ready cpac, my speech and eating breakfast. then i hear he is all upsetea because only you and the chinese and the russians got a question. then i'm reading, wait a second, didn't like forbes or n.p.r. and a number of other outlets got questions but not poor jim acosta. we need to get a care package or something to him. bring some of that good seaweed, the dried seaweed you can get in vietnam. elixirs maybe. he is having a hard time. >> sean: laura, we are talk show hosts. we do news. we do straight reporting, investigative reporting. even sports and cultural

issues and opinion.. there are folks -- >> laura: horoscopes. i do horoscopes. >> sean: maybe on your radio show. good for you. i heard you gave a great speech at cpac. is that true? >> laura: yeah, it was a lot of fun. we had a good time. you have to tell jokes and get out. that is my view. tell a few jokes, get a few digs in, talk about how much you love america and get off the stage.if i can do that, thas great speech. you did a great job with the president.om we watched. >> sean: thank you. >> laura: get home safely. >> sean: thank you. we will. we are not leaving for another 20 hours and then another 26 hours, but we'll be there eventually. >> laura: i can't wait to see your scooter ride home the whole way. >> sean: wow! >> laura: scooter. >> sean: listen, it might be a high-speed train built in 10 years. >> laura: all right. thank you so much. i'm laura ingraham and this is "the ingraham angle" from washington tonight. are the president's critics i rooting for america's failure? my angle will answer that in moments. plus, she spent the last 24 hours being demeaned for her

mere presence at michael cohen's hearing yesterday. tonight, trump, family friend lynne patton will be here responding to being told she is nothing more than a prop for the president. former governor chris christie is here. what are his take-aways from what happened yesterday inis vietnam, with the summit and the cohen hearing. he will tell us. raymond royal will highlight hollywood's complete blind spot when it comes to jussie smollett. you will not believe what they are saying tonight in hollywood about smollett. but, first, trump haters root against america. that is the focus of tonight's angle. you know the phrase "always wrong but never in doubt"? p that pretty much sums upre the partisan reporters, the democrats turned socialists and the never-trumpers who justt sit around talking to themselves. do you remember the predictions back when the

president was calling kim little rocket man and setting up his first north korean summit? >> he has to realize that we, you know, we could be heading toward world war iii with the comments he is making. >> we are probably closer to an outright war with north korea than we have been in a long time. >> there is a coming war most likely. possibly a full-blown war with an emerging nuclear power. >> laura: of course none of that happened.d. in fact, the region arguably more peaceful and more stable since trump's engagement. and, kim jong un has stopped testing warheads and is no longer making random threats to his neighbors. even as the president embarked on his second north korean summit, traveling halfway

across the glove, his motives were impugned. >> are you worried because of what is happening here he may detract or make a bad decision with kim jong un because he isg trying to distract from cohen's testimony? >> it is inconceivable to me that this is not going to be ang huge distraction for him. >> the need to come up with something spectacular out of this meeting in order to overshadow what we will hear on capitol hill today. >> is he attempted to give too much or claim too much in order to obscure what is going on here in congress? >> laura: remember, those are the experts. clearly, again, none of that happened. the president walked away from the deal with kim because he was unwilling to back off sanctions in exchange for only kind of partial denuclearization. in other words, it would have been a bad deal for you and me, for the whole region. >> president trump: they were willing to denuke a largere portion of the areas we wanted, but we couldn't give up all the sanctions for that. so we continue to work it. s we'll see. but, we had to walk away from that particular suggestion.

we had to walk away from that. w >> laura: now, you would think that the president would be praised by the media. even maybe some democrats, if they were fair. pragmatic response, right? of course not. he defied their expectations and acted in the best interest of the country. but, as expected, many of those pundits masquerading as journalists gloated and ran away..ta >> he staked his presidency on something that is much more difficult than reality tv.di this is not something that can be wrapped up in the season of the "apprentice." >> laura: send me a memo when "apprentice" analogies are retired. getting old, isn't it, jim? the house speaker was delighted to pile on. >> i guess it took two meetings for him to realize that kim jong un is not on the level. he was a big winner, kim jong s un in getting to sit face to

face with the most powerful person in the world, the president of the united states. >> laura: so the president is damned if he does, if he does make a deal because it would all have been just a distraction from cohen, right? and, he's damned if he doesn't because he claims to be a deal-maker but he didn't bring home a deal. the critiques are unserious, unsurprising and in a sad way unpatriotic. these people are actually hoping for america's failure on the world stage to say, see, we told you so. making progress with a brutal regime of a dictator won't happen overnight. it's extremely difficult. but, it really is good news that america is talking to kim and the north koreans. and, it's certainly better than being on the brink of war. but, the amazing thing about liberals is their capacity to flame out and quickly pivot because they said trump would

destroy the economy, and we have today the healthiest economy in the g7. they said manufacturing would not come back. well, the u.s. economy added 284,000 manufacturing jobs in 2018. the most in 21 years. so, of course, hearing that the media just yawns or ignores it altogether or they will claim obama deserves the credit. yeah, right. have no fear. the liberals have a new narrative. when the news is too good or their prognostications fail to materialize, they simply write a new narrative. so now they are putting all their hopes in the great trump slayer michael cohen. >> this will be the opening act. what you saw today -- and i still think russia will be a sidebar to this, is a peekhe inside a criminal enterprise.

>> this is just the beginning of what i think is a very serious and probably impeachable offense. >> this is the first unofficial hearing of the impeachment process. whether you want to call it that or not, that's what history will show this. >> laura: you see the kind of glow that chuck todd had when he said that? i mean, this group is so regularly wrong on so many issues. tor regularly failing to read the history of this administration. the policies and the goals. or, even worse, they foresee fail to foresee it's coming altogether. why should we listen to any of them now? particularly when the president is making a positive difference? historically for america and security, frankly, of the globe where north korea is concerned. they refuse to acknowledge it for a reason. because acknowledging trump successes would mean acknowledging their ownac failures. and rooting against america is always the wrong strategy. that is the angle. all right. joining me now for reaction syndicated columnist michelle malkin. we never have her in studio. great to see her. former dnc communication

director alice miranda. and michelle, i want to start with you.you would think folks e happy in this case. they were predicting doom and gloom, nuclear war. trump says the deal is notay good walks away, and he is blamed for that, too. >> it doesn't matter if it's trade or the environment or nukes. i you said it in the opening. trump is damned if he deals and he is damned if he doesn't. and i think it says a lot about the, in particular, the beltway press.e about 24 hours ago when he wasas boarding the plane, they thought he was going to give away the store. when he walks away, why didn't you give away the store? right? you cannot understand and appreciate the beltway press unless you understand first than the people don't perceive themselves as american citizens first. they are citizens of the world. so any deal that benefits of america is something they will be against. we live in the bizarre-o world.

if he is too soft, if they consider him too soft they will yell. if he acts aggressively, they will yell, as well. you can never satisfy the people. that is what i know, walking away is the best thing he could have done here. >> laura: gordon, you have interesting insight. i want everyone towh understand about how this was good for the relationship with china and how it puts them in a box. >> it certainly takes the chinese ruler and nerves him. he needs a trade deal with theuo yates for a number of reasons. the economy is probably contracting and he is blamed for the, quote/unquote, "trade war." now trump has shown him look he might walk away. i think the chinese felt thathe trump was going to make concessions, that he was under a lot of domestic pressure from the financial services industry and others to give in to china. and now trump is showing them look, i don't care what you think. i'm not bullied. i can walk away. i think chinese are in a panic. >> laura: louis, when we think about how difficult the situation is.

madeleine albright tried. hillary went over there in 2010. many administrations have tried to make progress. none of them have, really. we at least are talking to north korea. why, from the democrater perspective, all for peace, we are all about love and peace, so why aren't they rooting for that? >> we all about a denuclearized korean peninsula. there is nodm disagreement there. there was progress in the clinton administration but we have seen -- >> laura: but they haven't been testing. they are talking.haven't come t, but w it's better than being on a brink of nuclear war, which is what joe scarborough and the crowd was saying a year ago. >> what is concern and robert made the case, since april they have been flouting the sanctions and actively just basically poking fun at the united states. >> laura: what are we supposed to do? p we can only do our sanctions,

right?the. >> the sanctions are not being enforced. so the reality is we are rooting for him to succeed here but he has put himself in a difficult situation when he stands next to a dictator. and warmbier question, defers to him. >> laura: i'm glad you t brought that up. michelle, i want to talk about this. i don't know why the president felt the need to react the way he did on otto warmbier.r. i think this happened under obama, remember. warmbier was taken hostage under obama. i don't know if he didn't want to -- he wanted a deal, he didn't want to insult them at the moment. i don't know but that was kind of a -- again, they seize on that, so it's otto warmbier otto warmbier. i understand it's important. of course it's horrific. but what does it really have to do with the larger question a here about whether we can ever get to a peaceful situation? >> i can't get into his mind, but the plain fact is that this happened under obama and it was trump that helped bring otto warmbier back. it was the left that mocked

otto warmbier because they had this idea that since he was some goofy jock from america that the whole thing was a joke.. and people forget that context. i think the bottom line here is, though, as you were saying, that these sanctions have been cheated for so long. that is wh he walked away. what did north korea want? they wanted us to lift the sanctions before, right? this is so much like, you know, kind of like amnesty before enforcement. it's the same rock. >> laura: i think that this cohen on the other side split screen of north korea, that wass kind of lame, to tell you the truth. they didn't have to do that. the president reacted to that tonight with sean hannity. let's watch. >> president trump: the fact they held it today where i'm working on something that is important for the world, not

only our country but the world inappropriate. the democrats, the hatred is so incredible. they couldn't help themselves. that's the way it is. >> laura: we had other networks last night as kim and trump came out to start their conversation, they weren't covering it.we we had kim answering a question from the press only fox news was covering this.ew they weren't even running with it on the other networks. >> it's worse than inappropriate. politics should stop at the water's edge. and, clearly, when you have the president is there on a critical mission for all americans, they should have held the hearing next week. because they could have delayed it a couple of days. instead what they did, they undercut president trump's bargaining position with kim jong un because kim is looking at that saying, look, this president is wounded. >> laura: he thought wrong though. kim thought that trump maybe was weakened because of the cohen. maybe, who knows? but the president was not weakened. the president said, we are not doing this deal. >> that is important. what this has done, it has told the north koreans their narrative about trump is wrong. as i mentioned, it's the same with the chinese. now i'm sure they are

rethinking the way they look at the president of the united states. >> laura: china has been o manipulating us, too, right. kim making four trips to china. we have no idea what the undercurrent of china is in these negotiations with northh korea, as well. >> also you have kim probably seeing xi jinping on the way back to pyongyang as the way the reporting has been. this is really bad. the chinese are now on the other side. >> of course. joe biden, one second, joe biden spoke out today. we want to get to this and have you react. let's watch.hi >> we coddle dictators. you cannot think of anyone who has thrown their arms around or chosen the word of dictated and thugs over even our own intelligence communities. the love affair, love letters with kim jong un. our national reputation is being tarnished. t >> of course, obama's apology tour, michelle and hillary getting the translation buttonns wrong with lavrav.warranting tol

of it failed. your thoughtses on that. >> a lot of chutzpah from joe biden. of course, the people that brought us the pallets of cash and the iran nuke deal. >> i'm glad you brought up the iran nuke deal. because this is one of the problems with the actual negotiations taking place is that trump's negotiators were willing, now that it has been reported, they were willing to give north korea a pass on full transparency. >> laura: that was totally wrong. the white house came outut yesterday and said the report by nbc, we reported this last night at 9:12, i believe, that was completely false. another example of fake news. demonstrated as fake. luis stop the nonsense. it's wrong because the president walked away -- luis talking over me. we talked about this last night.t. the ground is tilled. we put it to bed. the white house said it was false and nbc reported a false narrative yesterday. that is why the president walked away from the table. don't repeat falsehood on the show. >> north koreans came out and

said something very different -- >> so now you are -- [overtalk] >> let's talk about -- >> you don't know why we know who is telling the truth? donald trump has told 8,000 lies. >> did the d.n.c. send you that? are you still at the d.n.c. there? i love it. panel, great to have you on. by the way, she was told her appearance at the cohen hearing yesterday looked like she was a "slave" on the auction block. trump family friend lynne patton will respond to thatri vitriol.ha plus, congressman mark meadows who brought her there is also facing some really nasty criticism. they will both join us next.

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check in from afar with remote access, and have professional monitoring backing you up with xfinity home. demo in an xfinity store. call, or go online today. >> laura: it was the moment from yesterday's hearing that revealed a lot about today's democratic party. to rebut michael cohen's continued and fraudulent claims of racism against president trump, congressman mark meadows invited trump family friend lynne patton to the hearing. here is how it went down. >> do you know lynne patton? >> yes, i do. >> i'm responsible for lynne patton joining the trump organization and the job that she currently holds. >> well, i'm glad you acknowledge that because youec made some very demeaning comments about the president that miss patton doesn't agree with. in fact, it has to do with

your claim of racism. she says that, as a daughter of a man born in birmingham, alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist. >> just to make a note, mr. chairman, just because someone has a person of color, a black person, working for them does not mean they aren't racist. the fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman in this chamber, in this committee is alone racist in itself. >> mr. chairman, i ask that her words be taken down -- >> i we -- i reclaim my time -- >> mr. chairman. >> excuse me, would you like to rephrase that statement? >> just because someone has a person of color, black person working for them, does not mean they aren't racist.

>> miss tlaib, so i understand, you are not intending to call mr. meadows a racist, is that right? >> no, do not call mr. meadows a racist. >> laura: wow! joining us now is lynne patton who didn't get a chance to respond yesterday but does tonight. lynne, first, great to see you. >> always great to be here. >> laura: how did that moment feel to you? >> well, you know, laura,me for me, the only prop in that room as sean hannity just said was michael cohen for the democratic party. i was never there to represent my entire race. i was there to represent one man. one man who, by the way, has done more for the black community than the last probably three presidents combined. not only has he just created urban council funneling $100 million of capital to the opportunity zones, into urban and rural communities, but he has given more money to the historically black collegesthan,

he's given more to universities and colleges than the last administration, given more money to public housing than the obama administration. he has given -- than the last administration. he just passed a prison reform bill in three decades. >> none of it matters to the left. because actual facts and evidence and progress and success counter-narrative to them. they just say he is a terrible person and will tank the economy. and start world war iii. all they have racism, racism cohen, racism. i want you to react to a few comments that were made about your appearance yesterday. the first one on msnbc. let's watch. >> to bring a block woman out--t and have her stand like she was on auction block.she cot speak, you couldn't swear her in. exhibit "a" we have a backil person here. she can't tell you what she

thinks, will tell you how she feels and that will prove that trump is not a racist. >> laura: you are a slave on the auction block, lynne? really? >> it's really actually kind of sad and pathetic. i was so fired up this morning. the only race card was played in the room were the folks on the house democrat committee that basically are taking the word of a self-confessed purgerer and criminally convicted white man over the words and testimony basically ad experience of highly-educated black woman who rose up through the ranks of one of the most competitive real estate companies in the world, to speak before 25 million people in front of the republican national convention and now works for one of the most successful administrations in history. you know, people count -- they tout me too, they tout all these things but a black woman stood

there and said donald trump is not racist. he has empowered more women inin the trump organization. >> laura: but you are a threat to them. your very presence at the hearing -- it's great that congressman meadows brought you. o that's why it bugs them because it they took them off the narrative. they hate when it happens. by the way, cnn also came in and they basically -- you went from being a slave on the auction box to being a wedding planner. let's watch. >> you are going to pick someone like lynne patton, who is basically the wedding planner for eric trump, with no experience whatsoever working at h.u.d. that is who you trot out? the personal assistant of the family to say, oh, he's not racist? >> first of all, it's unfortunate.you are a real jour. there are so many glorified bloggers that are posing and journalists. if they took the time to not be lazy and google eric trump's real wedding planner they would see 2014 article long before the president even won that was an interview with the real wedding planner in "people" magazine. t

so, you know, these just peopleu are internet parrots. if i cared what overpaid pundits and internet trolls said i would have stopped getting out of bed three years ago. the opinion means nothing. like the president, we are moving forward. >> laura: lynne, the great thise is that, i had a chance meet you once a long time ago at trump tower. but you are someone who is not going to be silenced. you are not intimidating. if you are a conservative woman, and you support conservative ideas, you support trump, you are not a real woman in their eyes. unacceptable. >> there is no place for us. >> laura: no, unacceptable. thank you for joining us. i appreciate it. lynne patton. >> thank you so much.

>> laura: she wasn't the only one who came under fire yesterday.ht >> republican congressman mark meadows brought a special guest, lynne patton. a trump administration official. as if she were a live prop. trotting her out in an attempt to prove that this president couldn't possibly be a racist. i have a black friend, prop. a black employee. prop. c'mon, y'all. >> laura: c'mon, y'all. >> well, i mean, listen, we can talk about this all night long. certainly, there has beento a lt of headlines today. i think that the bottom line is this. in congress, what we need to do is seek the truth. and the truth is that michael cohen was given 30-minute opening statement by the democrats. that i don't remember -- i have been on the oversight committee for over six years now. there has never been an opening testimony of 30 minutes. and then closing of another 10 minutes. thinkra: do you

someone helped him with his testimony? >> i think davis wrote the testimony, when you look at it. it was really a combination of some of michael cohen's personal knowledge and then a whole lot of things that have been reported pulled into that. really designed to try to just damage this president. we have seen that over and over again. here is the interesting thing. jim jordan and i have put forth a letter today citing six ways that michael cohen has contradicted himself. and perhaps committed perjury. and so we committed that and sent that to the new attorney general for criminal referral to have them look at it. >> laura: what specifically? >> when you look at -- john has done reporting on this. just one claim he never wanted d to work at the white house. it's been refuted over and over.

i was refuted while we were in the hearing. now i think john solomon has between nine and a dozen -- >> laura: but he also refuted collusion. he said a lot of things that were positive to the president. >> yeah. >> laura: against the narrative of the left. i didn't see him do the whole phone call with donald jr. >> the phone call, if you look at it -- >> laura: i think the republicans are a bit of -- it's a bit of a pickle with cohen. some things you said you want to say, see, he said this. other occasions, he is lying about that. >> we can. you know that yesterday was his greatest attempt to do as much damage as he possibly could. >> laura: this is payback. big-time payback to trump. >> he came in and said i'm a new man and all of that. he should tell the southern district of new york that.t, they asked him to cooperate and he refused to do that. if you look at that, if you -- >> laura: aren't they stillor working with him? >> they put in there that it

was very, very strong wording that he is just not cooperating. >> laura: were you hugging the congresswoman tlaib on the floor of the house? >> we are all about being civil.l. >> she was an outrage. you are being kind.. her comments were outrageous. >> we are in a civil society. that separates us from all other nations is a civil society. i felt compelled to offer a hand of friendship and say, listen, if there was anything i did that personally offended you, it didn't come from my heart. she hugged me. and certainly we looked at moving forward to hopefully work. >> laura: that is good. the word "racist" is thrown r around too casually. >> fortunately for me i know i'm not a racist. >> laura: but even that that is so defensive. when they call you a racist you're the racist for bringing up race. the president's record should stand on his own. i was driving in chicago and he said something -- >> we all say hurtful things.

so it's more important that we reconcile. >> laura: congressman, i'm, glad you had the hug. a kumbaya moment. good for you, you are the bigger man. thank you for joining us. michael cohen created the storm on capitol hill yesterday, and we'll have more on that with chris christie when we come back. oday.

>> i do not want to go the white house. i was offered jobs. >> you know i don't lie. >> there is a chance he'll be asked. >> would you go? >> 100%. >> laura: well, that is just>> one of the little white lies michael cohen told in yesterday's hearing, but does it discredit his entire testimony? some of the things he said about no collusion, actually helpful to trump. so where does it leave us all? michael cohen testifying behind closed doors today on capitol hill. joining me now with answers chris christie, the former governor of new jersey, author of a new book "let me finish." trump, kushner, bannon, new

jersey, the power of in your face politics. governor, thank you for being here. in your opinion, what is the most important take-away for president trump from yesterday's hearing,then we're s north korea deal. >> i don't know if there is just one. the fact that michael cohen said there were multiple reasons for payment to stormy daniels, that supports the president view he had one reason. that was to protect his wife from that. michael cohen twlling the story about lying to the first lady seems to back that up.no proseca case on that. secondly, he said the president didn't direct him to lie. somehow he understood code word or signals. no one believes someone is a purgerer and a thief and willco convict him of reading code words. cohen said there was no collusion. my frustration yesterday was that nobody on the republican side depended on the president on the merits, on the substance. i mean, after two or three

congresspeople on our side saying cohen is a liar and tthief. i get it. now get to the stuff you were talking about which was thereoo was good parts of his testimony that we should be trumpeting and hitting back on to get the record clearly for the american people. i think congress failed miserably on that yesterday. >> laura: you know what i always say? in these types of high-stakes hearing, it would be better if the congressmen had more humility maybe, it would be better if they brought in a professional prosecutor somebody who does it every day. or former prosecutor. every day. that is how you run it. trey gowdy, i love them all but unless you do it every day y all the time, you get a little rusty.on >> no doubt. >> laura: politics get in the way. they missed the opportunities on that. >> right, they not only missed -- you got it both right. they missed it. and politics get in the way. we all want the bite that they

think will be on the news of them raising voices or yelling and screaming.s in the end, i felt some of the better points made yesterdayng were made quietly and thoughtfully. i think we would have been better off if we had people on our side doing more than that. we had some cohenho bashing stuff. of course. he earned it. but we didn't do as much as we did. we should have got to the substance. >> did you know him? i only met him a few times. i didn't much about him. did you have interactions with him? w >> very briefly. something similar to you. i would see him in trump tower when i was there, we would say hello to each other. i don't think i was ever in a meeting with michael cohen. >> laura: it goes back to the people you hire. it's very important to get the hires right. i think we have all done that hired people, that was a mistake. in the end, it was a bad hire. in the end, jeff sessions was not the right person for

attorney general.you know i waso be attorney general. >> i know. he was a bad hire. bad hire. there was a number of bad hires early on in this administration. that is what we talk about in the book that it crippled the president's ability to be even more effective than he has been. to me that is the thing he has got, that he started to turn around in second half of the second term but needs to do more of it. >> governor, we will get in the southern district of new york, some of thel comments about where the land mines might be for the administration and a lot more including the wanton use of the race card against this president and the administration. you have known the president for a long time. chris christie will stay with us over the break. don't goe t away.

is there any other wrongdoing or all legal act that you are aware of regarding donald trump we haven't yet discussed today? >> yes and, again, those are part of the investigation that is currently being looked at by the southern district of new york. >> laura: back with us now, chris christie, the former governor of new jersey. governor, you said the sdny is going to try to indict the president when he leaves office. on what grounds? >> no.o.th that is what i said that is the investigation he should bemo most concerned about for him and the people around him because they have no limit to what they can look at, laura. the sdny is not like robert mueller who is restricted to just look at russia and russia-related items.

the sdny can look at anything they want to look at. they have two tour guides. what i said is they can't indict the president until he leaves office because there is a clear justice department ruling that says sitting presidents cannot be indicted. i don't think there could be any way u.s. attorney in the southern district would try to violate the rule. if they did, i think bill barr would stop them.au >> laura: i think nbc trying to mischaracterize your comments. i will move on to a story that just broke tonight about jared kushner's security clearance, governor christie. there was a report that we will put up on the screen. again, this is "new york times." maggie haverman. president trump order the chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner top secret security clearance last year overruling the flag from intel officials.according to four peod only the matter. the disclose sure of the memo contradicts statement by the president who told the "new york times" he had no role in

the son-in-law receiving clearance. kushner's legal team responded saying in 2018 the white house and the security clearance officials affirmed mr. kushner'r security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone. that was conveyed to the media at the time. et cetera.ia your reaction to this? >> listen, if true, it's bad. it's bad in this respect. this is what i write about in the book, laura. having family in the administration is a very tough thing to deal with. because, now, when jared was not getting his security clearance, it's much moreul difficult for a president who is also a father-in-law to be objective about his son-in-law and his daughter. and so, here's the problem. the president had the right to give security clearance to whoever he wanted to. but just say that is what you did. don't say you had nothing to do with it. ivanka went on television and

said that her father played no role in her security clearance or her husband's. if this times report is correct -- >> laura: she might not haveve knowledge of any of it. she doesn't necessarily have to know about it. >> then just say you don't know. say you don't know. don't affirmatively say he had no role. and the fact is that the problem here is that, you know, if in fact these memos exist, as s was reported in the story from john kelly and don mcgahn, you know this make what is the president said not true and what ivanka said not true when they didn't have to. just say, listen, i decide who gets security clearance, i'm the president. i trust them. i need them. i i want them. i'm giving it to them. end of discussion. >> laura: yeah.ra we all commit unforced errors in our lives. and it's an unforced error. >> that is my point. >> laura: if the reporting is accurate. i'll also say kushner, i know for a fact he had an incredible role in the mexico trade deal. he is trying to do something extraordinary in the middle east.

very difficult, obviously. she is trying to do something extraordinary and expanding women's opportunities. family members, not family members, i think people need to be judged on their results. but it does put people in difficult positionsat different. >> it makes it hard. that is why we haven't had family members in position. now what will happen -- one thing from cohen yesterday now the house will subpoena them.a frankly, for a house overnight committee given that they have jobs in the administration. >> yeah. >> they are subject to the subpoenas. where eric thought he would not be. >> laura: they will be salivating at the opportunity. no doubt. governor christie, thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. up next, why is hollywood still defending jussie smollett? raymond arroyo is here with up to the minute details on what is happening. don't go away.

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check in from afar with remote access, ♪ and have professional monitoring backing you up with xfinity home. demo in an xfinity store. call, or go online today. >> laura: wait until you hear how the hollywood reporter is attempting tonight to excuse jussie smollett's conduct in chicago. joining us now with the details, raymond arroyo, foxs news contributor. n "new york times" with a new and best-selling book. what is the hollywood reporter'e rationale for defending smollett? >> under the headline i'm about to break, jussie smollett, pressure of the

hollywood fame. they dug all a 2018 billboard'm interview with smollett where he says i admit i'm jealous, i admit i'm insecure and i'm not good at certain things. then in a comment didn't't get much attention at thees time. smollett suggested that the pressure might be catching up c to him. he said, "i'm in my 30s and i'm trying my best to learn that i can't bend anymore. i'm about to break." the upshot here is the pressures of fames got the best of this guy and he snapped and then he faked or possibly faked the attack.now some hollywood ag him. ellen page is defending him. >> she is the worst of all. >> she is still saying i had to reason to doubt jussie. she says it raised the issue -- >> she blamed mike pence. she said mike pence inspired the attack. shameful. >> now tyler perry is weighing in. watch this. >> this is sad. >> he is adamant he is telling the truth. everybody that i know that i know says he is not the type of person to do that.t. he is so convincing in the

story, i'm just hoping and standing with him, hoping that it turns out in his favor. >> why is he hoping that the actor has endured a racist homophobic attack. you know i love me some tyler perry. i love him. he brings hope to people and lifts people.brings them togeth. >> i like him, too. that is disappointing. >> to hear that is so disappointing. remember also it was the police superintendent, eddien johnson in chicago who said "smollett took advantage of the pain and the anger of racism to promote his career." this is not racism. >> we don't want racial attacks, we don't want hoaxes or racial attacks. tyler perry is retiring madea.

from wigle, we get is nigerian brothers, trying to pin it on them saying that he mistook them. >> and he wrote the $3,500 for the five workout sessions? good workout sessions. >> i don't want workouts like that. you'll find me at the madea family funeral. >> laura: is that what it is called?ll >> maybe smollett should have been at the madea family funeral.ho >> laura: the left doesn't like madea. >> and spike lee attacked him saying that it's racial stereotyping and now they are going after "green book."for th. they don't like to bring people together. that is wrong. we need narrative of the brotherhood and unity. >> laura: stay there. my special guest at cpac is tonight's last bite.

>> this is mayday >> my daughter, maria. [applause] >> this is the future, my friends. our next generation is going to be better than we are and i want

the best for her. that was my daughter maria. i had to bring her out on stage, last-minute thought and she enjoyed it. love that. what a great moment, that's all-time we have tonight. shannon bream and the fox news at night team take it from here. >> she's a chip off the old block. we begin with a fox news alert, the president is arriving in washington to something unusual for him, bipartisan praise, he ended his summit with a north korean leader kim jong un without an agreement or leaving early, he walked away because he was unwilling to give into north korea's demand the us with all sanctions without the ironclad promise from kim to illuminate his nuclear arsenal. hear from the president in an exclusive interview about that moment when