i just want to ask this question first of the panel. it seems to be that the russia

thing is not going to go away and for donald trump the way out of this is war. is anyone else worried that he's itching for a war? good morning and welcome to "a.m. joy" coming to you from los angeles. that was bill maher's big question when we joined him on hbo's "realtime" on friday night. for donald trump it seems that the world's most powerful military isn't powerful enough. he's looking for less talk and more military action. with a proposal that would slash budgets for the state department and the u.s. agency for international development by up to 37%. meanwhile he's proposing a $54 billion spending spree on the u.s. military. this week trump, ever the showman, appeared on an aircraft carrier while playing the serviceman role he evaded by getting five draft deferments during the vietnam war. >> we will give the men and women of america's armed services the resources you need

to keep us safe. we will have the finest equipment in the world, planes, ships and everything else. we will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and, if required, to fight war and only do one thing. you know what that is? win, win! >> and yesterday we got an indication of what that war might be. "the washington post" is reporting that the pentagon is pushing to expand the u.s. military's role in a planned assault on raqqah, isis' capital in syria. joining me now, ted lu, general barry mccaffrey, retired u.s. states army colonel lawrence wilkerson and msnbc national security analyst evelyn farkes. thank you all for being here. congressman, i want to start with you on the question of the military budget. the united states already spends more on defense than at any time

than we have since world war ii. the u.s. accounts for one-third of the entire planet's military spending and the pentagon gets 11 times more money than the state department or usaid and 69 times more than the epa. do you, as a member of congress, see a reason for us to ramp up military spending if we -- if donald trump is not intending to get us into a war? >> thank you, joy, for that question. the problem is donald trump has not set forth a coherent strategyor why we need this increased defense spending. more fundamentally i served on the budget committee and his proposal is divorced from reality. you cannot increase defense spending, infrastructure spending and cut corporate taxes. that blows a hole through our federal deficit and federal debt. >> lindsey graham said the two things won't work. john mccain says he thinks there should be more military spending, but let's listen to lindsey graham on thursday and he's talking about the proposed cuts to the state department.

let's listen to that. >> it's dead on arrival, it's not going to happen. it would be a disaster. if you take soft power off the table, then you're never going to win the war. what's most disturbing about the cut in the state department's budget, it shows a lack of understanding what it takes to win the war. >> i want to go to you on this, general barry mccaffrey, because you have not only senator lindsey graham opposing the idea of concurrently ramping up the budget but general james mattis, trump's own defense department leader, he agrees. >> there's a couple of different things on the table here. i totally agree with the congressman, it would be insane to cut the state department by that much. it's hard to imagine how the overall budget proposal out of the trump administration makes sense. but lets keep in mind now that we have a huge defense readiness problem since sequestration took place in 2013. one-third of the army brigades

are ready to deploy in 30 days, that's it. 62% of the naval aircraft are grounded for lack of spare parts and maintenance. we've got a huge readiness problem because of the sequestration. i might add when you start looking at compared defense budgets, there's been a massive decrease in funding for the armed forces since '86. we used to be 6% of gnp, now it's 3%. so we need to separate the nutty ideaf cutting state by a third and the larger issues of the overall budget and understand we do have a huge problem in readiness of the armed forces. >> to stay with you just for one moment general mccaffrey, readiness for what i think is what a lot of americans are concerned about. i mean you did have when he was still there general michael flynn say in february that we were putting iran on notice, which raised a lot of eyebrows

as to what that actually means. you do have now this plan that's apparently been submitted by general mattis and others that would ramp up u.s. involvement in syria, so are you talking readiness to have yet another involvement in a land war in the middle east? >> well, look, i think another legitimate criticism of this administration is they don't have a strategy on the table, so they're thrashing about, they're making announcements. there's no real analysis behind a lot of this. but again, when you looked at the armed forces, it's gigantic, 2.2 million men and women globally deployed, a tremendous real defense responsibilities countering china and the pacific rim, north korean nuclear threats, iran threats to the persian gulf and the sea transit zones. when you look at that, there is an immediate ongoing disaster in military readiness, much of it

caused by sequestration which comes out of the training and maintenance budgets disproportionately. so i think we need to talk about the trump problems but not lose site of the fact we've got a readiness problem. >> other organizations have poibtd out sequestration is hitting the services to military members. colonel wilkersowilkerson, just in the terms general mccaffrey put in, you have two problems, sequestration that is hurting readiness but also this idea of taking the money out of state to put more money into defense. you had 120 retired generals submit a letter opposing cuts to the state department. your former boss, general colin powell, has also opposed this idea. and in news day he opposed the idea of cutting the state department budget. you can't fix the budget by cutting the state department and

have an effective state of diplomacy. a lot of us feel like we've seen this movie before, with the bush administration. who had to idea to win two simultaneous wars in afghanistan and iraq while not having any plan of winning the peace. do you worry that we are ramping up this movie again that the trump administration may be planning a war without having any plan to the peace? >> joy, i do indeed worry about that. i don't see, as general mccaffrey said, any strategy from this administration at all. instead what i see is a president who's looking at the institution besides churches has the highest institutional rating in poll after poll in america and is trying to hug them close and make them his friends. let's get to two other issues. we're spending a trillion dollars a year on national security. we'll spending over a trillion to secure a nuclear weapons complex. that's something we haven't examined thoroughly and we need to.

and as far as general mccaffrey's point goes, let's just look at what readiness is all about these days. it isn't about legacy systems. i'm sorry, general. you and i have been surpassed by technology. it's about systems like 3-d printing and artificial intelligence and robotics, which are, incidentally, cheaper than what we've got now. we're fielding these legacy systems. a 21, 22-year-old girl in a basement on moscow with a dr. pepper on the left and glazed doughnut on the right and a keyboard in between is going to take those systems out. chief of staff of the air force talked about the f-35 being a system of systems and how it is going to defeat any enemy it comes up against. that f-35 and its systems are going to fall out of the air because of that pimple-faced dude in moscow who's got that keyboard taking care of all of our systems. we're putting our money in the wrong place because we have no strategy. >> i want to go around the table

and first let general barry mccaffrey to respond and then get evelyn on that same question. is donald trump proposing a big ramp-up in military spending in the wrong places? >> well, joy, i'm not sure if you directed that to me. >> yes. >> larry makes valid points. the whole notion of cyber warfare is a game-changer in many ways. but look, we can't get cute about this. the chinese are building a global naval and air power capacity. the crimea and ukraine got invaded with people not just in little green suits but self-propelled artillery. when you talk to the baltic nations and poland, they're not worried about getting hacked as much as they are about getting invaded, so let's not get cute with the notions that legacy systems are gone. if it wasn't for those naval carrier battle groups, we'd be in serious trouble all along the

pacific rim. so you've got to have a balanced strategy. the criticism of the trump administration are on track. the budgetary concerns are on track. the state department obviously is a major tool of u.s. national security, but don't misunderand this i a serious immediate readiness problem in the u.s. armed forces. >> evelyn, i want to go to you if included in that is an administration that doesn't see russia as a threat and would prefer to sight as an ally. if those baltic nations are worried about getting invaded, they're worried about getting invaded by russia. >> right. a lot of really good points have been made. you can't just throw money at the defense department and expect them to spend it wisely without giving them guidance. the guidance starts with the national security strategy. the president needs to come up with a very clearly articulated prioritized list of what our

u.s. national security priorities are. he failed to do that actually the other night when he addressed the joint congress. that would have been the perfect place to say the immediate threat right now that we face in the united states is, frankly speaking, a russia that's countering us on the international front, breaking international law and hacking into our democracy. second, we face a china that's trying to reduce our freedom of movement for us and our allies in the south china sea and the east china sea. then we have terrorism, et cetera, et cetera. and then after you list those priorities, then you look at the defense department and you say, okay, how do we address those priorities. we need a ready army because we're deploying these new forces into europe. we're deploying them on a rotational basis. maybe they need to be put there permanently. we don't even have a secretary of the army in there to advocate for the army. so i think the questions need to actually stem from a clearly articulated overall policy with regard to our national security interests and on the issue of

state department funding, general mattis himself said it so well when he said if you don't fund the state department fully, i need to ultimately buy ammuniti ammunition. you can't conduct foreign policy or national security policy without the state department involved. >> evelyn farkas brought up the tuesday speech in which donald trump got many plaudits from pundit world for point out the widow of the navy s.e.a.l. killed in the operation that he ordered in yemen, ryan owens, but i want you to hear what he said tuesday earlier in the day and whaegsd about that same raid. i want to talk about that on the other side. >> well, this was a mission that was started before i got here. they came to see me, they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected. my generals are the most respected that we've had in many decades, i believe. and they lost ryan. >> well, i have to turn to my general here on this panel,

general barry mccaffrey. what did you think of that passing of the buck by donald trump. >> oh, you know, it's just completely outrageous shirking responsibilities. it's mum bbo jumbo. but let's also talk about the larger issue here. the white house can't run, should not run the tactics of special operations raids in the middle east. they have got to outline the political objectives they want to achieve, maintain political oversight of this process. over the last 15 years we've moved a lot of these tactic aal decisions into the white house. it's nonsense. they don't know what they're doing. it's possibly going to make more sense now that we've got jim mattis in defense. but that raid where this chief was killed in action, this is dangerous business night after night they're doing this. they're the best people on the face of the earth. there's no way the so com and

se centcom generals conducted that operation unless they thought it was worth it and would work. those navy s.e.a.l.s. know their lives are at work so we've got to get the white house out of minutia out of defense ongoing operations. >> i want to really quickly turn, and i'm going to turn to you first on this, congressman, we did have this morning a statement out of the white house, speaking of strategy, their strategy to apparently change the subject from a lot of this stuff is the president is no looking for and requesting, this is the statement from sean spicer this morning, requesting that as part of their investigation into russian activity the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch, executive powers were abused in 2016, wanting congress to investigate the obama administration for perhaps getting a fisa court warrant on donald trump's trump tower. your thoughts. >> bring it on. i want to know what are the connections between trump and his associates and russia. for there to have been a wire

tap at trump tower, that would mean an independent fisa court judge sat there, reviewed the evidence and concluded there was probable cause that there were one or more foreign agents in trump tower. that means the president of the united states right now is in deep do-do. bring it on, investigate, let's show the american people what was in those wire taps. >> colonel wilkerson, if there is indeed a far-ranging investigation into potentially the trump administration or somebody in the trump campaign getting a fisa warrant issued on them, do you worry that the distraction, this sort of obvious distraction would be to launch a military exercise somewhere around the world? >> joy, i think the congressman's point is a valid one and i'm really concerned about what's happening right now within the 17 entities of our intelligence community and that's the dni all the way down to the national geospatial agency. we're talking about people in the bowels of these intelligence agencies leaking things.

leaking even classified data. and we're talking about people at the mid-level and people at the top using that data, even perhaps in the white house using that data. and a fight going on between all those echelons of the bureaucracy. this is a dangerous thing to be happening. we need the intelligence community to remain entirely what it should be, providing information for the president and other decision-makers and advisers to make the best decisions. we don't need this kind of leaking all over the place in order to embarrass people and maybe get special prosecutors appointed and so forth. this is a very dangerous thing we're doing. >> and one of the people who may have leaked the existence of that fisa warrant might actually be the president of the united states through his twitter account. >> and, joy, i have a lot of experience with that because the administration i worked for leaked a lot. >> absolutely. well, in some ways we feel like we're having partially a replay of some of that, but we will definitely have you back. thank you very much congressman

ted lieu, colonel lawrence wilkerson, general barry mccaffrey and evelyn farkas. this marks the 52nd anniversary of the selma march. what is the future of civil rights under attorney general sessions? we'll discuss next. i'm so frustrated. i just want to find a used car without getting ripped off. you could start your search at the all-new carfax.com that might help. show me the carfax. now the car you want and the history you need are easy to find. show me used trucks with one owner. pretty cool. [laughs] ah... ahem... show me the carfax. start your used car search and get free carfax reports at the all-new carfax.com. whfight back fastts, with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum -tum -tum -tum smoothies! only from tums

chooarmy versus army.ion. nation versus nation. the battle has begun. evony: the king's return. download now.

the white house press secretary and the president himself both said today that they think you should not recuse yourself from these investigations. >> i did share with white house counsel, or my staff has, that i intend to recuse myself this afternoon. but i feel like -- of course they dn't -- they don't know the rules, the ethics rules.

>> while we continue to talk about jefferson sessions' meetings with the ambassador -- the russian ambassador, there's something we are not talking about, whether the attorney general has displayed any capacity in his long legal and political career to protect voting rights and ensure fair treatment by the police for all americans. well, today we observed the 52nd anniversary of bloody sunday, when civil rights protesters were beaten by police as they tried to cross the edmund pettis bridge in a march for african-americans to have the full unfetterred right to vote. joining us now, ymaine lee. brooks released a statement

saying the meeting was politely and necessarily blunt, cordial and candid. any reporting out of that? >> there is a real concern in the justice community about whether this general sessions' department of justice will be an adversary against their efforts for justice or an advocate for justice. this long-awaited meeting between mr. brooks and jeff sessions, let's not forget that mr. brooks was arrested trying to call for the resignation or at least block jeff sessions incoming as the head of the department of justice. 50 years later after so many people fault a very bloody struggle to earn the right for black folks to vote in this country and access to the franchise, we see so many of those rights being dialed back, section 5 of the voting rights act gutted and jeff sessions saying the provision wasn't needed. i think mr. brooks and other folks in the justice community would have a different story to tell, especially in a community

like selma. alabama passed a very strict voter i.d. law. these communities throughout the south especially, once the cameras and once the civil rights workers left, they have dilapidat dilapidated. so that meeting last week was a good first start i'm sure everyone would say but is it enough. 50 years later after bloody sunday, after so many people laid their bodies on the line for this right to vote and to see that repealed is troubling for many. >> cherylyn, you're part of a panel later honing in on this question of voting rights. you've now had the department of justice under jefferson sessions file a motion to dismiss the previous doj claim that was made when attorney general holder, i believe, or loretta lynch was in saying that the texas voter i.d. wasment to discriminate against

minority voters. your thoughts on that. >> we've been shouldering this case since 2014 and shoulder to shoulder we have all argued and contended that the texas voter i.d. law not only has the effect of discriminating against black and latino voters in texas but was created for the purpose of discriminating against black and latino voters in texas. this case has been heard by three successive federal courts. the first was a district court judge who after trial held that we were right, that the law not only has the effect of discriminating but was created intentionally by the texas legislature to discriminate against black and latino voters. we went on appeal to the fifth circuit court of appeals, not a very liberal federal circuit court and they found the law has the effect of discriminating. they held off on finding that the law intentionally discriminates but found that it has the effect of discriminating. then we went to the entire fifth

circuit federal panel and they found that the law has the effect of discriminating but they sent back the question of whether the law intentionally discriminates back to the trial judge. so last week we had an argument before that trial judge about whether the law intentionally discriminates. and as our lawyer, janae nelson, was on her flight to texas, we learned that the department of justice was no longer willing to stand by the contention that the law intentionally discriminates. there's something at stake here, joy. we should understand that a finding of intentional discrimination may provide us with the remedy of having the state of texas placed under preclearance. again, there's a provision of the voting rights act in section 3 that allows for that, so that's clearly what's at stake. this was obviously disappointing. it wasn't entirely surprising. but i think it is a window into our concerns, the concerns that we raised at the confirmation hearings about attorney general sessions and the commitment that this department of justice will have to vindicating the rights

of every american to vote. >> and the concerns that coretta scott king raised in her letter of 1960. another thing that has taken place under sessions' tenure at the doj is jefferson sessions is now disputing prior doj findings on chicago policing, now saying the report was just pretty anecdotal, not scientifically based. he's also disputing now the official position of the doj is to dispute the findings in ferguson on the police abuse of citizens there. your thoughts on that. >> when you think about all the gains over the last few years, so many young people especially took to the streets to demand that black life has value and black life matters. when you think about ferguson, when you think about baltimore, you think about cleveland, you think about now chicago, in terms of really having a clear-eyed look at the systemic kind of abuses that police departments have heaped on poor

communities of color especially, local municipalities like ferguson, buoying their budgets on the backs of black people, that was troubling to say the least. we've seen in those reports, again report after report from ferguson to chicago to baltimore, clear, not just anecdotal evidence, factual evidence that these communities have been abusing these people of color. to see those dialed back is not just troubling to those protesters but again what does this mean, especially a place like ferguson. we were just at kind of the ground level just at the beginning. now certainly these consent decrees, these agreements between the local police and the federal government are expensive, they are intrusive, they place monitors inside these departments. but at least it seemed to so many that there was some progress being made. now that seems to be dialed back. >> joy, what's even more disturbing is that the attorney general said he hasn't read the chicago report. he had only read a summary of

it. these are the findings of his own department, the department that he's leading. and so you think about baltimore, you think about chicago. we're talking about the resources of the department of justice going to providing this important context about policing. this is -- this is disturbing. we would think that the attorney general would read carefully the report, would take seriously the work of his own department and it's not clear to me that he's done that in this case. >> indeed. i wish we had more time because there's also the history of this attorney general, political prosecutions, there's his statement that we have some sort of systemic crime problem. you just saw the statistics that we do not. but we will have to do that at another time. thank you both for being here from selma. >> thank you, joy. >> sessions' home state of alabama. coming up, donald trump turns his back on american steel workers. more "a.m. joy" after the break.

this is the silverado special edition. this is one gorgeous truck. oh, did i say there's only one special edition? because, actually there's five. ooohh!! aaaahh!! uh! hooooly mackerel. wow. nice. strength and style. it's truck month. get 0% financing for 60 months plus find your tag and get $5500 on select chevy silverado pick-ups when you finance with gm financial. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. the markets change... at t. rowe price... our disciplined approach remains. global markets may be uncertain... but you can feel confident in our investment experience around the world. call us or your advisor...

t. rowe price. invest with confidence. so we know how to cover almost alanything.ything, even a "truck-cicle." [second man] how you doing? [ice cracking] [second man] ah,ah, ah. oh no! [first man] saves us some drilling. [burke] and we covered it, february fourteenth, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ that's how i feel about blue-emu pain relief spray. odorless and fast-acting. it soothes all my muscle aches and pains. and it's convenient for those hard to reach places. and if you're like me, you'll love blue-emu super strength cream. it's made with real emu oil, it's non greasy, it's a deep penetrating formula that works itself down into your joints. take it from me. it works fast and you won't stink. blue-emu, it works for me it'll work for you.

or is it your allergy pills? holding you back break through your allergies. introducing flonase sensimist. more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. using unique mistpro technology, new flonase sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. most allergy pills only block one. and six is greater than one. break through your allergies. new flonase sensimist. ♪ okay, i want to play you a little bit of what i think was

the single most effective tv ad of the entire 2016 campaign. roll tape. >> it will be american steel, justike the american steel that built the empire state building, that will fortify america's crumbling bridges. it will be american steel that rebuilds our inner cities. it will be american steel that sends our skyscrapers soaring. >> that ad, which ran in heavy rotation in states like ohio, wis wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania, states that donald trump wound up winning, was put out last year by the rebuilding america now pac. its top donors were not american workers but billionaire friends of donald trump, like linda mcmahon, who's now heading the federal small business administration. another big donor was the geo group, a private prison company that runs dozens of prisons and immigrant detention centers and whose stock has nearly doubled

since election day. but i digress. trump and his backers have promised again and again a return of american manufacturing and especially steel. >> we have cleared the way for the construction of the keystone and dakota access pipelines, there by creating tens of thousands of jobs, and i've issued a new directive that new american pipelines be made with american steel. >> but it's not that simple. in fact remember the keystone pipeline? well, it's going to be built, thanks to donald trump reversing an obama executive order, but it will not be finished with american -- but it will not be finished with american steel, but rather with steel from someplace else. i'll give you two minutes to guess which country that is. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ lease a 2017 lincoln mkx for $369 a month. only at your lincoln dealer.

they build a pipeline in this country, and we use the powers of government to make that pipeline happen, we want

them to use american steel. and they're willing to do that, but nobody ever asked before i came along. even this order was drawn and they didn't say that. i'm reading the order and saying why aren't we using american steel. they said that's a good idea, we put it in. >> one pipeline that will be exempted from trump's buy american rule, the keystone exel. the keystone, since it's already under construction, will not be required to be built with american steel. instead much of the steel pipe is being provided by a subsidiary of a russian company, partly owned by the russian billionaire roman abramovic, whose wifes a friend of inka trump, even attending the ingution as her guest. it's possible that you'll

remember her from this moment in 2014 when she was photographed sitting on a chair shaped like a bound black woman, for mlk day. she later apologized. joining me now is leo girard and jane kleb, chairman of the nebraska democratic party and malcolm nance, msnbc contributor and author of "the plot to hack america." thank you all for being here. jane, as part of the group bold nebraska, you opposed and tried to stop this pipeline from happening and you actually got a look in person at these pipes that are not made in america. your thoughts on this exemption from buy american steel. >> you know, i think this proves what a liar trump is. there's no other way to say it. he promised american workers throughout the campaign, he promised americans just a couple of days ago in his joint address to congress that keystone xl will be built with american steel and that is a flat-out

lie. this steel comes from russia, india, and it's essentially a foreign pipeline made with foreign steel kped eheaded to a foreign market. it is terrifying that we are allowing them to use 'eminent dough nan to landowners. that kicks open the door for any other country to take land for their projects. not only is it foreign steel but a foreign corporation that's going to take our land. keystone xl has not started construction. they don't even have a permit to cross the border and haven't started the process to obtain a process in nebraska yet. >> leo, last year this show traveled to ohio and we talked to some of your union guys, a half a dozen guys who worked for republic steel and there are only two essentially steel companies in lorain, both of which were in the process of laying lots and lots and lots of people off. we found that these steel workers were open to donald

trump, particularly on this idea of steel jobs coming back. these guys were in the business of making steel pipe. that's what they did for a living. do you think that people like that, we don't know whether these guys voted for donald trump or not, but if people voted for donald trump on that basis, do you think they have been betrayed? >> it's too early to say that because we need to take a long position on what was going on. i want to come back to what was said about the steel that's sitting on the ground. that steel was made by wellspun, an indian company. it wasn't spun into pipe until it came to arkansas and it got spun into pipe and has been sitting on the ground several years. one of our issues with steel, we need to enforce our trade laws. there is a buy america provision that was passed in 1982, but it's so full of waivers that it's hard to get it enforced. in 2000, america made 125 million tons of steel and consumed about 140 million tons.

this year that just passed, 2016, we made 85 million tons of steel but still consumed almost 140. that steel came from china, it came from india, it came subsidized, it came dumped, so when president trump says he wants to rebuild the steel industry, what we need to do first and foremost is enforce our trade laws. if we do that, the steel industry will go back. we've got tens of thousands of workers in the steel industry but thousands are still on layoff. >> leo, you're talking about making 80 tons and consuming 140. one of the american companies that's been doing that for decades is donald trump's own construction firms. he never built his buildings with american steel, he used chinese concrete, chinese steel or concrete. so do you think -- i mean really back to the question of people in your industry, your guys, the union guys, some of them voted for donald trump. >> yeah. >> thinking he was going to bring back american steel.

do you think that donald trump letting keystone off the hook because there's pipe laying on the ground you said, you and jane said for years, that wasn't made here, do you think that's a betray betrayal. >> there's nothing that he can do about that when it's there. what i'm more concerned about is the long term. we've got to get back to making 125 tons. we're only going to do that if we enforce our trade laws. look, we've been -- we did a video of then candidate trump buying chinese alum yinumalumine glass, chinese steel. now we want him to live up to the commitments he made and the first step is enforcing our bulgaria aren't dumping that ia into our market and trying to starve our companies out. in aluminum we went from having russia dumping its aluminum. we went from china dumping its aluminum and we went from 14

smerlts to 4. we know they're breaking the law. enforce the damn law. >> malcolm, to that point about these foreign companies and whether or not they're abusing us on some of these trade laws, this particular 230erforeign co, the russian oligarch, what do we know about him and any connections to vladimir putin and is it surprising that he'll be profiting off of this pipeline? >> nothing surprises me when it comes to the trump administration and the russians. he is one of the first people who was one of the great backers of vladimir putin. this is a man who went from in the early 1990s selling rubber ducks on the streets of moscow to owning one of the largest oil companies and now one of the largest steel manufacturing companies. he owns 33% of wellspun stock, which means for every pipe that you saw in that photograph

there, russia owns one of them. this man is one of vladimir putin's closest associates, his closest friends. he is worth a lot of money. estimates up to somewhere around $20 billion must say, and the trump administration would make a decision to benefit him personally, this is a man whose wife is best friends with ivanka trump. that tells you just exactly where the money is going. >> very interesting. we will keep on this story. thank you so much to leo girard, jane kleb and malcolm nance. coming up in our next hour, the media's desperate desire for donald trump to just act presidential. the latest on the russia ties and lies, and i'll be joined by actress and comedian kathy griffin and filmmaker rob reiner. mo "a.m. joy" after the break.

will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. for over 100 years like kraft has,natural cheesees you learn a lot about what people want. honey, do we have like a super creamy cheese with taco spice already in it?

oh, thanks. bon appe-cheese! okay... i trained as hard as i could when i was a navy seal, to stay alive. i have more than 30 pieces of shrapnel still in my leg. but i still push myself to the limit. if it weren't for my tempur-pedic, i wouldn't be able to sleep on my left side at all. my unit put in a special request to get one and i realized that tempur-pedic was exponentially better than anything else. it gave me a huge performance advantage, it still does.

tempur-pedic. this sleep is power. an empire was born evony the original empire-building game that started it all. so what became of this legendary game? well... it just arrived on your smartphone! evony download it now and play for free!

everything your family touches sticks with them. make sure the germs they bring home don't stick around. use clorox disinfecting products. because no one kills germs better than clorox. so we know how to cover almost alanything.ything, even a "truck-cicle."

[second man] how you doing? [ice cracking] [second man] ah,ah, ah. oh no! [first man] saves us some drilling. [burke] and we covered it, february fourteenth, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ whfight back fastts, with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum -tum -tum -tum smoothies! only from tums

attorney general jefferson sessions continues to face scrutiny for meeting with the russian ambassador during the campaign and for failing to disclose those meetings to congress. one key question, did sessions knowingly lie under oath, and if so could he be prosecuted for perjury? joining me is lawrence tribe, always great to talk to you. >> great to talk to you, joy. >> thank you so much. i want to direct your attention to a tweet that you put up on friday. you said why the immunity afforded by the speech and debate clause can't shield sessions, testifying as an ag nominee and not in his senate roll. describe what the speech and debate clause is and why it's

not a shield for him. >> the speech and debate clause is part of the first article of the constitution and it says that for their speeches and debates, which is just a phrase for their official actions in the house or the senate, members of congress can't be investigated, prosecuted or really questioned. but in this case sessions was testifying at his own confirmation hearing, not in his official capacity as a senator. that was just a nice title that you happened to hold, but he was like any other witness. he was under oath and he was relied on to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which he swore to do. >> and former white house ethics lawyer for the bush administration, richard painter, tweeted misleading the senate in sworn testimony about one's own contacts with the russianis is good way to go to jail. do you think jeff sessions is at

any risk of going to jail for any perjury that he did in front of congress? >> it's not clear who would prosecute him. but it's not easy to convict somebody of perjury. even if the person is in a high person to convict of perjury, you have to show that he intended to lie. it looks like he did, but we don't know quite enough. and that he was lying about a material matter. this was very material because in cleveland at the time that he did talk to kislyak, the most important time, what was going on simultaneously was the drafting of the rnc platform. and it turns out that donald trump put the kabash on a really tough stance against putin and weakened the pro ukrainian independence part of the platform. that was something putin very much wanted. it looks like there's the kind of back and forth that makes the

sessions' role in meeting with kislyak look pretty darn suspicious. >> and wasn't bill clinton pursued for disbarment over lying in talking about monica lewinsky? >> yeah. and this is no monica lewinsky scandal, this is a scandal that 17 intelligence agencies concluded go to the very heart of things by saying that they are very confident that the russian government was responsible for a campaign of hacking into the dnc computers and then really pursuant to the invitation that donald trump snarkily gave on tv, releasing incriminating-looking things about hillary clinton. so this is foreign interference in the very heart of our democracy, way more serious than anything bill clinton was ever

even accused of doing. >> and professor tribe, i want to direct ur attention to the white house statement this morning from the press secretary, from sean spicer, saying that president trump is requesting that as part of congress' investigation into russian activity that the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016, essentially wanting them to investigate the obama administration. this is what senate minority leader chuck schumer had to say about these events, which are triggered by donald trump's tweet storm accusing president obama of wire tapping him. take a listen. >> president obama has flatly denied that he has done this, and either way, chuck, the president is in trouble. if he falsely spread this kind of misinformation, that is so wrong it's beneath the dignity of the presidency, it is something that really hurts people's view of government. its civilization warping.

>> your brief thoughts on this, professor tribe. >> briefly, it's a ridiculous tweet accusing president obama of something he didn't do, couldn't possibly have done. it's the fisa court that would have issued a warrant. and it's a typical trump move to take people's attention away from the stuff he and his attorney general are doing wrong. i hope the american people won't fall for it. >> and if there's an investigation, and we find out that there was a fisa warrant, we'll find out why there is a fisa warrant. i'm not sure why he want to trigger that himself. professor lawrence tribe, thank you. >> thank you, joy. why were news pundits fawning over donald trump's inside voice speech to congress tuesday? and rob reiner and kathy griffin join me in studio. so much nor comore to come, liv los angeles. before fibromyalgia, i was a doer. i was active.

then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. she also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain and improve function, so i feel better. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans.

so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. call now and find out about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, it helps pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. to me, relationships matter. i've been with my doctor for 12 years. now i know i'll be able to stick with him. [ male announcer ] with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. plus, there are no networks, and virtually no referrals needed. so don't wait. call now and request th free decision guide to help you better understand medire...

and which aarp medicare supplement plan might be best for you. there's a wide range to choose from. we love to travel - and there's so much more to see. so we found a plan that can travel with us. anywhere in the country. [ male announcer ] join the millions of people who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an organization serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. remember, all medicare supplement insurance plans help cover what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now - and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is.

i thought it was by far the best speech i've ever heard donald trump give. it was one of the best speeches in that setting i've ever heard any president give. >> he became president of the united states in that moment, period. >> this was one of the best addresses to congress that any president has ever given. >> mr. trump stuck to the script on the teleprompter. >> critics and supporters alike praising president trump saying he sounded truly presidential. >> being truly presidential on the big stage. >> weekend to "a.m. joy" coming to you live from los angeles. several journalists and pundits thought they saw trump stick the presidential landing during tuesday's speech, when he falsely claimed that the yemen raid was higy successful while leading a standing ovation for the navy s.e.a.l. who died as a result of trump's own orders. when he talked about reducing the trade deficit without

offering a specific plan. when he somehow managed to not do any of this. >> this american carnage stops right here and stops right now. >> the leaks are absolutely real. the news is fake. >> yeah, i think the media is the opposition party in many ways. >> yes, for simply avoiding the usual weirdness and reading off the teleprompter in his inside voice, that meant that trump seemed incredibly presidential. but the beltway media's undying dream of a trump pivot were quickly dashed by brand new conspiracy theories from the leader of the free world posted on his favorite medium, twitter, just days later. he launched a barrage of accusations against president barack obama bright and early saturday morning starting with this. terrible. just found out that obama had my wires tamd in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism! a few minutes later, and tweets later, this was this.

how low has president obama gone to tap my phone during the very sacred election process. this was nixon/watergate bad or sick guy! kevin lewis released this statement. a cardinal rule of the obama administration was that no white house official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the department of justice. as part of that practice, neither president obama nor any white house official ever ordered surveillance on any u.s. citizen. any suggestion otherwise is simply false. joining me now, actress and activist, eric alexander, lisa bloom, yashar ali and bersha. i'm going to go with you first because that was your montage at the top of the break. from "the boston globe" joshua green announced that senior white house officials, people in the white house, actually described trump's speech to this reporter as nationalism with an

indoor voice. why is donald trump's indoor voice seemingly so irresistibly compelling to some members of the media? >> i think that so much of what we're seeing in this presidency is not normal, that some members of the media revert back to norms whenever they can, even if it's just for a fleeting moment. it's kind of like a coping mechanism that they're using, but sadly it's not an accurate one. >> and, you know, brandon freedman, who used to work for the housing and urban development department, he tweeted the way the media responded to the navy s.e.a.l. moment to the way veterans responded to it, responding a lot more soberly and seriously because this was a solemn thing. someone died in this raid and trump was praising the applause. do you think there's a need for trump to pivot just so that journalists can cover him the way they normally cover a appella president? >> but journalists are human beings and human nature calls

for wanting to believe that people can change, which usually isn't true. a point to that is that this is not a partisan statement, to expect anyone to change at that age and in the white house is a fool-hardy approach, because you wouldn't expect obama to change, you wouldn't expect hillary clinton to change. people soften, but they don't change fundamentally. and that's what people were expecting on tuesday, which, you know, there's two years of evidence. my father always says in god i trust, all others must bring date av data. the data has been around for two years or 50 years since he's been a public person. so i think it's actually human nature less about being a journalist, more about being a human being and a citizen and hoping someone can chamber of commerce and stop being so bombastic and frankly very dangerous. >> erica, it's not all of journalists who are sort of falling for this kind of thing and yearning for it.

you had a tweet by nick kristof who said when leaders go berserk furiously denying anything is going on and blaming others, that's when you're getting close. he's referring to donald trump's allegation that obama was jake from scandal and bugging trump tower. it is strange, watching the media covering donald trump, does it feel like they are covering almost a tv show? >> yes. and i think the need for normalcy is deep in this country. when van jones said he had done something presidential and extraordinary, i thought perhaps it was a jedi mind trick. maybe this worked somehow. you know, i really had to think because van jones, i so admire his thought process. but i think the need to normalize trump. but to me he's a grave robber. he used this widow, carryn owens

and stained his soul with her tears and the blood that her husband spilt to make himself look good. that means that he has no bottom. he's a hollow man. he has no integrity. to me to say that's presidential, we need to re-examine the standards. >> the serious underlying point here is thatomeone did die in this raid and we sort of walked away from the underlying questions of whether the raid was necessary, whether it was prematurely planned and executed, whether the way donald trump called for it at dinner with jared kushner and some of his aides, that gets lost and we focus on the applause. >> just because donald trump can sound out words on a teleprompter does not make him presidential. when those words are essentially anti-thet cal to everything he does. it's incumbent on the media to do more than say good for you, you would do well on hooks on fa phonics. his attacks on president obama,

i just came back from two weeks in west africa. what i heard over and over again when people found out i was american, i used to admire your country and why does your president hate us? >> wow. and that is, i guess, the bigger picture is that around the world, we have an image that is in large part created by our president, right? the president sort of embodies kind of the avatar of who we are. as you look at the international response to donald trump, are you seeing a shift to what lisa was saying, this sort of view of us as a more erratic and strange country because of him? >> yeah, absolutely. i mean i think you're seeing that even on the microlevel with people who are just trying to get into our country on completely legal visas but facing 14 hours of sbar datab e interrogation, not using their phones or communicate with anyone. we're seeing that not just from the seven band countries but people from canada, muslims from the uk. when you have that happening on the microlevel, the president's

policies affecting people for no discernible reason, that quickly spreads to international media and how people are viewing america as a whole, and it's not a good look. >> i want to sort of now get into this turn that donald trump has forced us into and a lot of people see it as a distraction from whatever else is going on, particularly the russia stuff. but sarah huckabee sanders was on george stephanopolous' show this morning and was asked to comment on this pretty outrageous allegation that prt obama wire tapped someone in trump tower in order to impact the election. let's take a listen to that. >> there have been quite a few reports i know that jonathan and others earlier in the program mentioned that it was all conservative media, but that's frankly not true. "the new york times," bbc, have also talked about and reported on the potential of this having happened. i think the bigger thing is, let's find out. let's have an investigation. if they're going to investigate

russia ties, let's include this as part of it and so that's what we're asking. >> and yashar, is tre any reporting that donald trump uld have been getting this idea of being wire tapped by president obama from someplace other than breitbart, which is where we're hearing he did get it? >> he's doing what he does very well and that is coming up with a very simplistic argument that leaves out many details. the reporting that sarah huckabee sanders was referring to was about fisa warrants for people that had ties to the trump campaign. it wasn't about donald trump himself. so, for example, i brought this up yesterday. paul manafort owns a department in trump tower. you know, could someone that paul manafort was dealing with and speaking with regularly have been the subject of a fisa warrant? absolutely, and it sounds like that's a fact. but that has nothing to do with donald trump's phones. donald trump is a united states citizen, and the fisa court doesn't get involved in that

kind of stuff. you have to get -- there has to be probable cause when it comes to a u.s. citizen. he does this very well and his team does this very well. so they take a kernel of truth and then they blow it up and it's hard to push back against that because they're getting it from somewhere, it's just not the full picture. >> and i wonder, lisa, if by tweeting what he did, did donald trump then essentially put in the public domain, and put on public record the idea that there may have been an actual fisa finding, which was not from president obama, it would be against the fisa court against somebody who lives in his building. >> let's be clear about what probable cause means. it means that somebody at fisa and probably the department of justice had good reason to believe that a crime was being committed at trump tower and probably we're talking about the russian connection. so thank you, donald trump, for letting us know about that even though you can't spell the word

tap, it only has one p, and it doesn't start with president obama, it starts with the justice department. >> can that me made public because he made it public? >> somebody would have to make it public and who's going to do that. >> we have one more piece of sound i'm told from martha rad it is interviewing sarah huckabee sanders on whether or not a fisa court issued a warrant to surveil someone in trump tower. this is sarah huckabee sanders. >> the president of the united states is accusing the former president of wire tapping him. >> i think that this is, again, something that if this happened, martha -- >> if, if, if, if. >> i agree. >> why is the president saying it did happen? >> i think he is going off of information that he's saying that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential. if it is, this is the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that i think we've ever seen and a huge attack on democracy himself and the

american people have a right to know. >> because we're being tough on my profession here, that was an example, i think martha just gave sort of a textbook example of doing it right. >> yes, and god bless her. this man is terrified. to me he's running scared. you don't do these types of mistakes if you had nothing to hide. you know, if i were him, i'd play dead and hope this whole thing washes over me and they won't smell my flop sweat. it's like you see "lord of rings," the eye, he's trying to twist that eye away from him and it's not going to work. democrats should be focused. there's all sorts of elections happening. garcetti is running. antonio french in st. louis. i'm really happy that if we can stay on task and sort of ignore some of it, but it really has to be dealt with because this man is running the country and to me i think he's terrified. >> ted lieu this morning, congressman ted lieu said bring it on. if the trump administration wants congress to do a full-throated investigation of

the potential that there was a fisa warrant against someone in trump tower, he was like, great, let's do it. then we'll find out why if there was an investigation into potential espionage. >> it sounds like that's what sarah huckabee sanders said in that first bit of sound that you played, add this into the rest of the russia investigation, and i think that's a very, very welcome message. you know, nothing is going to be found, but we might as well. when the president of the united states makes that kind of accusation, which i know this word is banned now at msnbc, which is unprecedented, you better -- you better investigate it, because it harms your democracy. just one quick thing going off of what lisa said in west africa. i've got relatives in iran that are laughing about all of this stuff that's happening because it reminds them of iran. it reminds them of what an authoritarian regime looks like.

we are powers based on the soft power we hav globally where we can say to people this is the way it should be. and now that's diminished a bit. >> that's what i got in africa over and over again too. we know this kind of man, this is not new to us. we know corrupt authoritarian dictators. we're sorry you're just getting used to it. >> let me give you the last word, because this appeals to a younger viewer, a younger audience. the feedback that you're getting on donald trump from that younger demographic what are watching this, do they see this as an abnormal presidency in general? >> yes, absolutely, and they're following along every bit of it. the exciting part of it is that they're incredibly engaged. you were mentioning some of the elections coming up next. they're ready to see where they can make a difference because they understand that this type of current status quo just can't stand. >> i can tell you all where you can make a difference. you can vote. that's how you can make a difference. that's how you can make a difference all y'all out there.

thank you very much. some of our favorites here, thank you all. up next, donald trump thinks president obama is as bad as nixon. well, we'll see about that, because we have nixon's former white house counsel, and he'll tell us what he thinks about that idea. stay right there. man: proper etiquette is essential for every social occasion. so the the broom said, "sorry i'm late. i over-swept." [ laughter ] yes, even the awkward among us deserve some laughter. and while it's okay to nibble in public, a lady only dines in private. try the name your price tool from progressive. it gives you options based on your budget. uh-oh. discussing finances is a big no-no. what, i'm helping her save money! shh! men are talking. that's it, i'm out. taking the meatballs. or keeping a hotel's guests tcuttinconnected.i to 35,000 fans... businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink.

hei don't want one that's hadch a bunch of ownersd car? just say, show me cars with only one owner find the cars you want, avoid the ones you don't plus you get a free carfax® report with every listing it's perfect. start your used car search at carfax.com companies across the state are york sgrowing the economy,otion. with the help of the lowest taxes in decades, a talented workforce,

and world-class innovations. like in plattsburgh, where the most advanced transportation is already en route. and in corning, where the future is materializing. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today at esd.ny.gov

donald the distractor has struck again. in the early hours of saturday morning, the president, donald trump, began unleashing a tweet storm accusing president barack obama of wire tapping him during the campaign and going so far as to comparing the baseless claims of nixon/watergate. pete williams spoke to a senior u.s. official who told him

trump's tweets appear to have no basis in fact and that he and other officials have no idea what the president is talking about. but it just so happens i have someone with me today who knows quite a bit about presidents and wire tapping. john dean is former white house counsel to president richard nixon and author of "conservatives without conscience" which i recommend everyone go back and re-read. i read it before but i think it's time to re-read it again. sir, the comparisons that president trump is making to nixon, first of all, saying that president obama wire tapped him, is that even possible? >> no. not in today's world. >> right. >> he's not likely to use outside groups like nixon did. so he would have gone through the fisa system. and that's very clear, it's an established procedure, nothing wrong with it, and it would only be to trump's detriment if that indeed has happened. >> and that's the point. so from 1978 on, to get a wire tap against a u.s. citizen in particular, you have to go to

court, make a finding and there has to be some probable cause. in this case it would be probable cause of something pretty serious, like espionage, in order to get that tap on an american citizen. >> or it happened that they had a bank or somebody else that they were looking at and trump got swept up in it. the other reason the analogy breaks down is nixon didn't succeed in wire tapping anybody. at the watergate in particular, the reference that trump made, there was no knowledge in the white house indeed that was being done, so it breaks down. >> do you see an analogy between the way that donald trump seems to think about what a president can do feels very nixonian that he has a much more inflated view of a president's powers for him to believe that a president could even in theory because an election is ongoing and tap the opponent of his candidate. >> trump's mind is a mystery to me still. i don't think he understands the presidency. i don't think he knows what levers are really there, what he

can and can't do, so he may have thought this was something a president could do an he's just never asked. so his ignorance is playing into a lot of this as well. but i think that it's just a false charge. he seems, joy, and you've seen this in other instances, where he projects out what he's doing and what he feels guilty about, he's trying to place in other people. when hillary accused him of being a putin puppet, he called her and it just made no sense, like this makes no sense. >> a president obama spokesperson issued this statement. a cardinal rule of the obama administration was that no white house official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the department of justice. as part of that practice, neither president obama nor any white house official ever ordered necessity surveillance on any u.s. citizen. any suggestion otherwise is false. we now have reporting that the current white house counsel is seeking to get trimanscripts of

any wire taps and attempting to interfere if there is an ongoing investigation. is that legal? is there a precedent for that? >> well, first of all, the white house counsel can get some things, but not everything. and this is an area of national security where it might touch on them. the investigators are not going to give it to him. i'm not sure what good it would do to have, anyway. they certainly must understand the procedure by now and know that what trump has tweeted out early in the morning made no sense and they're now going to make no further statements and that's smart. they ought to zip it. they have already gone too far and again caused themself a problem. >> the one wise part of that statement that the white house issues might be neither the white house nor the president will comment furthering in such oversight is conducted. i hope that applies to his twitter feed as well. let's listen to former director of national intelligence james clapper. he had a back and forth with

chuck about this question about whether there was wire tapping afoot toward the end of the obama administration. >> for the part of the national security apparatus that i oversaw as dni, there was no such wire tap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign. >> i was just going to say if the fbi, for instance, had a fisa court order for surveillance, would that be information you would know or not know. >> yes. >> you would be told this sgle why e. >> if there was a fisa court order on something like this. >> something like this, absolutely. >> and at this point you can't confirm or deny whether that exists? >> i can deny it. >> there is no fisa court order. >> not to my knowledge. >> of anything at trump tower? >> no. >> so this is a flat denial. >> interesting. >> what do you make of it? >> it kind of puts to rest. he said he would have known had such a fisa tap been out there. and there was no such tap. there have been repeated early

sort of from fuzzy information sources over the last year that indeed there were fisa taps that picked up trump towers and it looks like all trump did is just took what was out there in the ethers and tried to make it fact. which again is frightening. because a president could find the answer to this before he makes the statement. >> couldn't he -- he oversees. >> he is the one person who for sure could have gotten that information. >> and so then what do you make -- i know you said his mind is a mystery, this attempt to transfer the entire russia scandal onto president obama? >> i think he was angry. there was a whole slew of tweets that morning. and he'd like to point the finger off of him. that's the way a lot of bullies handle themself. when they're caught, they say it's not me. and we know already this is a man who just does not accept responsibility for anything. >> yeah. >> and he's going to try to

point and deflect and he's in trouble. >> is he at risk of one of these former campaign staffers, let's just say one of them wound up in legal trouble, somebody like a michael flynn. could they take down this administration? >> who knows what these people know. and who knows what all went on. but the answer is yes. i am living proof of that. >> so they should be worried. >> yes. >> but he probably shouldn't project his worries onto twitter. >> no, not wise. >> don't make them public. john dean, it's always such a treat to talk to you. really appreciate it. after a couplef weeks off, "saturday night live was back last night with even more political humor that the trump administration probably won't enjoy and this is proof that reading a teleprompter doesn't make you presidential because surely i'm not. >> are you sure you don't want a chocolate? i always say life is like a box of chocolates. sure are a whole lot of brown ones in there.

are your allergies holding you back or is it your allergy pills? break through your allergies. introducing flonase sensimist. more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. using unique mistpro technology, new flonase sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. most allergy pills only block one. and six is greater than one. break through your allergies. new flonase sensimist. ♪

"saturday night live" returned last night with kate mckinnon spoofing jefferson bow regard sessions as forrest gump. >> this whole mess began with a congressional hearing. a senator from up north started asking me all these questions about russia and if i ever talked to them and i got so nervous and confused. i got as worked up as a double donged piggy in a room of sows. so i said, no, i never talked to any russians ever and that's all i got to say about that. i talked to the russians. twice. you know, i met with a fellow who turned out to be russian on account of he was the russian ambassador. his name was sergey kislyak.

now, i remember any words with the name gay kiss in it. >> this meeting never happened. >> i wasn't going to remember it anyway. >> up next, filmmaker ron ryeinr will join be to discuss the russian ties and russian lies regarding donald trump and company. stay with us. because, actually there's five. ooohh!! aaaahh!! uh! hooooly mackerel. wow. nice. strength and style. it's truck month. get 0% financing for 60 months plus find your tag and get $5500 on select chevy silverado pick-ups when you finance with gm financial. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. hi! hey! i've made plans for later in case this date doesn't go well.

same here. wouldn't it be great if everyone said what they meant? the citi double cash card does. earn 1% cash back when you buy, and 1% as you pay. double means double. so we know how to cover almost alanything.ything, even a "truck-cicle." [second man] how you doing? [ice cracking] [second man] ah,ah, ah. oh no! [first man] saves us some drilling. [burke] and we covered it, february fourteenth, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ whfight back fastts, with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum -tum -tum -tum smoothies! only from tums .. to f...nerve pain shoots and burns its way into your day...

...i hear you. when that pain makes simple errands simply unbearable... ...i hear you. i hear you because my dad struggled with this pain. make sure your doctor hears you too. so folks, don't wait. step on up. and talk to your doctor. because you have places to go... ...and people who can't wait for you to get there. if you have diabetes and burning, shooting pain in your feet or hands... step on up and talk to your doctor today.

very quickly, do you still believe the intelligence community's assessment that the russians interfered in this election and did so to try to benefit donald trump? >> well, i've never doubted -- i've never -- from back in october i've been telling people, i was in the middle of my campaign and i refused to talk about wikileaks because i said repeatedly it was the work of a foreign intelligence agency trying to influence our elections. the key here is to understand not just what they did but how they did it because they're going to try to do it again and

again, not just to influence elections but to influence political debates in washington, d.c. >> the flurry of speculation continues over donald trump's unfounded wire tapping claims, but the real issue at hand, what to do about russia. joining me now is director and activist rob reiner, one of the many public figures voicing opposition to the trump administration and one of our favorites on this show. >> thanks for having me, joy. i love being on your show. >> and we love having you on. so let's talk about this weird tweet storm that donald trump went on, which disappointed so many in the media who thought he had his presidential bearing. but is it a distraction that donald trump is somehow cleverly trying to throw at the media or is it something else? >> i don't think donald trump does anything cleverly. there's no plan here. i mean he's just -- he's out of control. and if i were advising him, i would say don't be tweeting about wire taps and fisa

warrants, because that -- that goes back to you. i mean ultimately the crux of this thing is whether or not he was in bed with vladimir putin in more ways than one and did they affect the election. so if you're talking about wire tapped, the only way you get wire tapped is if there's probable cause. and if there's probable cause, maybe you did something wrong. i mean that to me would be the worst strategy. >> exactly. it seems counter intuitive that it could be a distraction that leads back to yourself. we played marco rubio a little earlier. he's one of these senators that gets credit for standing up to donald trump, although he said he would be honored to help him become president, even though he knew how donald trump was during the campaign. anyway, i digress. this is a little more of marco rubio talking about this wire tap issue on "meet the press." >> the term "wire tap" is thrown about loosely. i don't have any basis, i've never heard that allegation made

before by anybody. i've never seen anything about that anywhere before. but again, the president put that out there and now the white house will have to answer to exactly what he was referring to. >> the white house has said they're not going to comment anymore. but congressman ted lieu was sitting in that very chair this morning and he said, sure, let's have an entire investigation of it. >> absolutely. you go back to the original sin here, if you will, is that we were -- we were invaded by russia. now, the question is did donald trump have any part of that. he's already invaded our country. he's already there. and i'm just looking -- i mean i see marco rubio and john mccain and lindsey graham and maybe ben sasse or somebody. where are the patriots here? where are the patriots who are going to stand up and say we're not going to let our country and our democracy be taken over by an authoritarian.

where is that? where is that outrage? we have to push past partisan politics at this point. this is -- we have been invaded. this is what this guy wants to do. he wants to destabilize america and he has already done that. the fact that we're yaking away about this and it's all over the air waves, he's done that. he's destabilized us. his first goal has been achieved. let's not let him achieve the rest of his goals. >> and i think that begs the question what happens if somebody believes that somebody is sort of a useful tool of the russians, if that's what you believe, what happens if it's so unstable that he's not useful anymore? shouldn't we be then thinking about what is that next thing that russia does to respond to a donald trump who can't help them? sessions is sidelined, he can't protect the trump team anymore. he's recused himself. flynn is out of government. carter page is now doing interviews, he's out on his own. can you even in your creative

mind what happens next? >> it's scary, it's scary. because if you look at the capacity that cyber warfare has, and if you know about stuxnet, which some people do and don't know about that, they were able to weaponize, you know, a cyber warfare and actually go in and blow up centrifuges in iran. that's what scares me. we don't have anymore at the helm of our country right now. he is -- you know, i hate to say it, we don't want to use the word mentally ill, but he is mentally unstable, this man, and so who is going to take charge here when the next attack. if the first attack, which was going into our elections, which we know happened, if it had been that a bomb blew up in new york, everybody would be going crazy. that's what happened. he blew up something. and now he could blow more stuff

up. so we have to be -- you know, we've got to make sure that our country is stable. and right now it's not stable. >> you know, when i was on with bill maher the other day on friday. >> you were great, by the way. >> oh, thank you. he asked a question that was quite frightening to think about and we had larry wilkerson on earlier and i asked him and i'll ask you too. are you concerned with donald trump clearly angry and enraged, he's angry sessions stepped down and doing a military buildup at the same time, that we could wind up in a situation where billmaher speculated could a war behe answeto his pr problem. >> absolutely. you talked about korea. look at iran. he wants to -- you know, he wants to strengthen the position that we have against iran. there are ships sitting right off the coast there. i mean who's to say -- it could be the uss cole which is out

there. who's to say that all of a sudden the uss cole gets attacked, how did that happen, and the next thing you know you're off to the races and a war. the whole thing is scary to me. we're -- to have somebody at the helm who is mentally unstable is frightening. >> if the president of the united states walked out onto that red carpet to talk to the cameras and said we've been attacked and we have to go to war. would you trust the information you were getting from him and from his administration? >> no, no. because he's a pathological liar. everything he says, you don't know. i mean it's -- you know, it's the sociopath who cried wolf. i mean everything he says, whether it's crowd size or now about the wire taps and the fisa stuff, you don't know what to believe with him. he's -- you know, something is wrong with him. >> i think the question, and this is the question -- you probably get this question a lot too.

what are the american people to do, then, if a percentage of the population doesn't trust the president of the united states and the people around him, what should people do? >> well, what has to happen now is responsible republicans, and we're seeing more and more of it. you know, david frum and george will and william kristol, responsible republicans have to stand up and say we can no longer allow this. we cannot have a mentally unstable president. and so they have to step up and say something to protect us, to be patriots and protect us. >> it's interesting that you say that. "saturday night live" did a piece that's very timely on that very subject. let's play that. >> republicans have blocked the first attempt -- >> we may not have it. >> don't have it. oh, we do, we do. here it comes. oh, we don't have it. >> don't have it. >> well, it would have been

hilarious. it was essentially there is this patriot that you're talking about but they're tbd. >> oh, yes, yes, i saw it. >> do you see in any of the people out there that you've heard speak up about donald trump, i mean ben sasse, is there somebody who you think could actually create a mass movement behind them among other elected republicans who are afraid, they are afraid of being tweeted at by trump or attacked by their own constituents. do you see it out there? >> the one person is john mccain. john mccain is a war hero. he -- you know, he has been very outspoken. he has credibility. and trump has besmirched him throughout. he is the one person who could step forward and say for the sake of national security, for the sake of our democracy, i will stand up and say we have to have an independent investigation that is

nonpartisan to really look into this. and he's the one guy i see that could do that. >> yeah. and i think a lot of people are definitely looking to john mccain. isn't it interesting that even liberal democrats are now looking to conservative republican john mccain. >> those are the people that are going to save us. they have to be -- you know, you talk about national security, you talk about patriotism, these are the people that have put that out there. we need them now more than ever. >> indeed. rob reiner, you are the best. thank you so much. >> oh, thank you. >> we've got to go to break. coming up at the top of the hour, much more on the what the former dni says about donald trump's unfounded allegations of wire tapping. first, actress and comedian kathy griffin will be right in this chair next to me in studio. don't go away. boost it's about moving forward not back. it's looking up not down. it's feeling up thinking up living up. it's being in motion... in body in spirit in the now. boost. it's not just nutrition.

it's intelligent nutrition. with 26 vitamins and minerals and 10 grams of protein. all in 3 delicious flavors. it's choosing to go in one direction... up. boost. be up for it.

when i got into my accident ♪ i broke almost every bone in both my legs. when i came home from the hospital i needed to be able to recover. tempur-pedic allowed me to do just that. because i don't have the average body type anymore i feel like my tempur-pedic really conforms to my body shape. power is not giving up, it's choosing to thrive. tempur-pedic. this sleep is power. gave us the power to turn this enemy into an ally? microsoft and its partners are using smart traps to capture mosquitoes and sequence their dna to fight disease. there are over 100 million pieces of dna in every sample.

with the microsoft cloud, we can analyze the data faster than ever before. if we can detect new viruses before they spread, we may someday prevent outbreaks before they begin. if the trump presidency has you yearning for his predecessors, be sure to pick up my new book edited with the great e.j. dionne, "we are the

change we speak, the speeches of barack obama." we combined a list of the greatest and most significant speeches throughout his political career. it is currently available at all your favorite retailers, so be sure to pick up your copies. we'll be back in a moment with the great kathy griffin live here in studio right next to me here in sunny california. it's beautiful. was it a hard place to get to? (laughs) it wasn't too bad. with the chase mobile app, jimmy chin can master depositing his hard earned checks in a snap. easy to use chase technology for whatever you're trying to master. beneful healthy weight because the first ingredient is chicken. (riley) man, this chicken is spectacular! (jessica) i feel like when he eats beneful, he turns into a puppy again. you love it, don't you? you love it so much! (vo) try beneful healthy weight with chicken.

with real chicken as the number one ingredient. the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says, "you picked the wrong insurance plan." no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car plus depreciation. liberty mutual insurance. or is it your allergy pills? holding you back break through your allergies. introducing flonase sensimist. more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. using unique mistpro technology, new flonase sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. most allergy pills only block one. and six is greater than one. break through your allergies. new flonase sensimist. ♪

comedian kathy griffin had a special guest at her show in tucson on saturday night. a 78-year-old woman whose confrontation with police went viral this week. police body cam video appears to show an officer pushing fritzy redgrave to the ground during a pro-immigration rally last month in tucson. again, fritzy who was pushed to the ground is 78 years old. police say the tape is under review. kathy saw the video and asked to find miss redgrave so she could invite her to her tucson show.

fritzy deserved a night of laughter. finally the two connected and met face to face before last night's show. >> fritzy? >> hi. how are you? oh, my goodness. >> i thought of my mom. she was on "my life on the d-list" and social media stuff and my mom is feisty. my hero. you're the wind beneath my wings. >> love it! i am joined now by actor and comedian kathy griffin with the author of the really great new book "kathy griffin's celebrity run-ins, my a to z index." >> she's a celebrity. >> yes. >> tell me all about fritzy. >> first of all, as a am coic, i'm doing 50 shows this year, 50 cities. so fox ain't got nothing on me with the real america. one thing you do on tour is you really go to real america and i love to do my research and development because you always want to start the show with

something personal. i hit the jackpot because tucson very much went viral last week, and i thought, social media will help me find this woman, and so i saw the tape like everybody else and there were protesters there from blm and a group called lupe, and i started to talk to all of the different groups and i spoke to fritzy and got her to come to the show. almost everyone from the protest was able to come to the show. >> awesome. >> it was really fun. i know a lot of people are watching this, stay in your league. you're just a dumb comedian and if that's all i can do is give people a night of laughter when she was pushed down and pepper sprayed. >> how about when her friends were trying to help her and they got pepper sprayed. >> you have the ability to respond on a scale that individual people can't. you can give this woman something that she otherwise wouldn't have. first of all, is she okay? >> she's okay. in fact one of the things i said was how are you? >> when my mom falls down it's all hands on deck and she was super cool and she said she had united states brooes, but i'm

really fine and she wrote me a next text because i brought her on stage and she got a standing ovation and she was adorable. thank you for putting a human face on all of us. fritzy herself is the first to say i've been doing this a long time and don't forget loupy and blm and all of the these folks. the protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful and it was odd and it wasn't even one of the big ones and things get out of hands quickly. >> we're in the age where viral video can change the outcome of situations. they were protesting immigration. i want your take on all of these stories about the trump administration talking about separating moms from their children and seeing moms deported at their son's baseball games. where do we go from here? >> i attendeded a bunch of panels and one of them was about criminal justice reform, and there are a lot of things we can do. i didn't know that that community they're struggling with phrases like citizen

re-entry as opposed to convicted felons. so you can't get a job or anything. starting a dialogue like that is good and making more people aware of this and when i went to the panel on dreamers and undocumented folks, it was interesting. the thing that struck me is i attended several panels andes s cecil richards is one of them, and cecile richards and who very famous, everyone on the panel were begging to be seen as humans. i was, like, that's where we are? you have americans who are just saying we're not really seen as humans anymore. >> yeah. >> so i think obviously, one thing that's exciting a lot of people doing things, fritzy says she's been protesting her whole life and she's a role model and by the way, she's an inspiration to be doing it at 78 and look at her, taking the hit and she's got the sign and she then met with the police department which i think is quite brave, you know?

>> absolutely. >> and she does like the police chief, and the officer who knocked her over told her was off the streets and that's things like that that can be progress and it's about shining a light on this stuff. another thing that we never thought we would see is the celebrity as president. someone that you admire, oprah winfrey was asked whether or not she might want to succeed when donald trump -- >> wait, did i miss the election? because i've cast many, many absentee votes. >> can you imagine? the state of the union! gayle is vice president? when can this happen and how soon? did you see the interview where she's saying i watched this guy donald trump and he's a reality star and a famous guy and then i started going oh, and then i thought oh, a celebrity can be president? oh. she probably didn't know she was setting up a firestorm of people like us wanting her to start tomorrow. is that possible? >> i think we have that clip. let's take a listen. >> it's clear that you don't

need government experience to be elected president. >> that's what i thought. i thought oh, gee. i don't have the experience. i don't know enough and now i'm thinking. oh! >> should the campaign start today or tomorrow? >> i don't think there should be a campaign. >> oh! >> i think that there should be a citizens executive order like mayberry when they make a citizens arrest and we can just start the inauguration. i think we can get that little jackie evancho with the trans brother and sister. >> she does love to sing. >> fine. i have no problem with it. >> plan enacted. see? it's all better now. thanks all of you for joining us today. be sure to join us -- i forgot what's on the prompter. president oprah has completely blowny m mind. francis rivera has more news at the top of the hour. (gasp) hey, deb, there's a budget meeting today. budget meeting? sweet. budget meeting.

budget meeting. budget meeting? if you compare last quarter to this quarter, you'll notice that there's a strong fiscal pattern... it's no wonder everything seems a little better with the creamy taste of philly, made with fresh milk and real cream. no artificial preservatives, flavours, or dyes. whoo-ah! will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. find out how american express cards and services befi was a doer.gia, i was active. then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain.

she also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain and improve function, so i feel better. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. that's how i feel about blue-emu pain relief spray. odorless and fast-acting. it soothes all my muscle aches and pains.

and it's convenient for those hard to reach places. and if you're like me, you'll love blue-emu super strength cream. it's made with real emu oil, it's non greasy, it's a deep penetrating formula that works itself down into your joints. take it from me. it works fast and you won't stink. blue-emu, it works for me it'll work for you. i love how usaa gives me the and the security just like the marines did. at one point, i did change to a different company with car insurance, and i was not happy with the customer service. we have switched back over and we feel like we're back home now. the process through usaa is so effortless, that you feel like you're a part of the family. i love that i can pass the membership to my children, and that they can be protected. we're the williams family, and we're usaa members for life. call usaa today to talk about your insurance needs. good being with