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world headquarters in new york city. the time is 1:00 in the east, 10:00 out west. here is what is happening. new reaction from house intel committee ranking member adam schiff on whether he expects fbi director james comey to flat-out reject president trump's wiretapping claims during a closely watched hearing tomorrow. >> director comey will say that definitively tomorrow? >> i expect that he will and i hope that we can put an end to this wild goose chase because what the president said was just patently false and the wrecking ball it created now has banged into our british allies and our german allies. it's continuing to grow in terms of damage and he needs to put an end to this. >> tomorrow's hearing on russia's alleged interference in the u.s. election kicks off a very busy week on capitol hill. also on tap, senate judiciary committee begins confirmation hearings for neil gorsuch, president trump's supreme court nominee and on thursday the house will vote on the

republicans' health care bill, a proposal president trump is confident will pass and he's even burying the hatchet with one of his biggest critics, senator rand paul. >> i like him. he's become a friend of mine, and he's a good guy and he means well. i think, ultimately we can all come together. >> it's going to get done? >> we want something done and we want to start on the taxes and we want to cut everybody's taxes, and business taxesnd the middle income taxes and everything will be cut, and i can't do that until we get this done. >> meanwhile, hhs secretary tom price is facing mounting concerns about how many people will ultimately be covered under the administration's new health care proposal. >> the plan in its entirety is the one that the president has assured the american people, every single american will have access to affordable coverage that works for them and not for government. >> you're saying that after the third part of this has passed and the president has signed it into law and time has gone on so that it's implemented every

american will have insurance? there will be universal coverage? >> every american will have access to the kind of coverage that they want. >> let's bring in nbc's kelly o'donnell. she is in west palm beach florida traveling with the president. kelly, how much of a showdown is tomorrow's intel hearing will be and how likely is it we will learn more than what we're hearing onside's sunday shows whether or not there was collusion once director james comey gets up there with others and testifies? >> reporter: well, there are some big questions that need to be answered and people have been wondering for, really, a case of the meddling issue during the 2016 campaign and this question of collusion between trump associates and russians. that's been out there for months and so there's a real chance when the fbi director talks tomorrow and testifies before congress that people will hear some things and be able to try to put the pieces together. that doesn't put an end to it, but it really puts in the most

public sense a discussion of these issues which have been sort of a shadow over the early weeks of the trump presidency. there have been differing views about whether these contacts that may have happened amounted to any interference. we do know separately from the obama administration that they believe that there was an intent by russia t mess with the election in terms of the hacking and exposing of emails and that piece of it which we've learned a lot about, but did the trump team have any hand in that? that's a big question, and there is a difference of opinion that at this point seems to come down on party lines, as well, with democrats wanting to press this more and so far the top republican on the house committee saying he doesn't see any evidence of that. today the house top democrat nancy pelosi was interviewed on one of the sunday shows and the question of is james comey, the fbi director, the right person and the right figure to carry this investigation forward? >> do you have faith in director

comey to carry out the investigation into russia and the meddling into the campaign. >> i think what he did was wrong during the election and i don't know who they would appoint so there's the question of that, i'm hopeful that he could go forward in a very positive way, and i think it's important for the director of the fbi not to be subjected to the president thinking that he's going to investigate him so he would terminate his service. >> reporter: and when nancy pelosi's referring to what comey did wrong during the election in her words, that of course, has to do with his public comments about the hillary clinton email investigation which democrats felt was very damaging to their cause during the election, and of course, fbi directors serve a six-year term -- i'm sorry, a ten-year term and he's only six years into it so james comey could conceivably have quite a bit of time to go, but the issue of whether or not he is the right figure will undoubtedly be

part at least of some sof the questioning tomorrow as the committee takes a look at this, and of course, some of the answers may still be of a classified nature and there may be some things that we'll hear comey and others say they'll have to do a private session where the members of the committee can know about it, but not discussed in open hearing, but it will be highly watched, jacob. you can imagine there will be great interest in this. >> no doubt about that. high ratings as the president of the united states would say. kelly o'donnell joining us from west palm beach, florida. join ing us is congresswoma nancy spear. tomorrow is a big day on the hill with fbi director comey and national security agency mike rogers testifying in front of your committee. do you think we'll get straight answers on the russian interference? >> i presume mr. comey has an ongoing investigation into a

number of persons who may have been engaged on one level or another with russia. so we're only going to get information that is unclassified in nature, but having said that, i can underscore for you that this is as big, if not bigger than watergate and it will be incumbent on this committee to have access to the documents that comey and others have within the fbi to be able to do the kind of thorough investigation that is necessary. >> that's a bold statement to make, congresswoman, as big if not bigger than watergate. we also heard your colleague adam schiff say there's direct collusion, evidence of direct collusion this morning on "meet the press." can you -- circumstantial evidence, i should say, can you clarify a little bit, what is going to make this as big, if not bigger than watergate? >> let's underscore the fact that president putin engaged in one of the most nefarious kinds of activities, meddling in the

u.s. election. it hasn't been done before. he did it surrtitiouy, and then i believe he probably did itull well knowing the persons here in the united states that he could influence, and i think we will not have all of the answers right away. watergate went on for a very long time, but in part, we need to follow the money, very similar circumstances. >> can i ask -- i want to ask you a very specific question. the words exactly by adam schiff, were there circumstantial evidence of collusion speaking of the trump campaign and russia. have you seen the same evidence. >> actually, the ranking member and the chair of the committee have access to more information than i have at this time, so moving forward, it's my hope that the full committee will have access to the same information, but as of yet, there's circumstantial evidence of an entire web that putin put in place ensnaring many of the people who now have very respected positions within the

u.s. cabinet. >> earlier today right here on msnbc i spoke with a colleague of yours, congresswoman barbara lee from california about the wiretapping claims and here's what she had to say. >> president trump needs to apologize to president obama because in one of his tweets he said bad guy, sick guy. we have to remember that president trump is the founder of the birther movement. he has done this over and over again, trying to delegitimize our first african-american president and at some point he needs to keep his views to himself, but minimally, he needs to apologize. >> so do you agree with congresswoman lee there? does the president need to apologize to former president obama directly? ? i've been saying that publicly for over a week. it was a reckless statement. he charged theormer president wi a criminal act. he had no evidence to support it, and it's very much like the

guy who is cheating on his wife and wrecks the car to deflect the discussion. the truth is that we have a serious problem of collusion and with the russians by u.s. persons and that the russians engaged in a very serious effort to undermine our election, and it's incumbent on us as democrats and republicans to get to the bottom of it. >> what's your biggest question for the director of the fbi tomorrow, james comey, and what do you expect him to say to you in response? >> he's probably not going to tell me who is under investigation, but i intend to ask him about hypotheticals of how the russians operate and how they ensnare their victims and how many of those victims are now serving in cabinet posts. >> are you worried that he might decline to answer questions that are too politically contentious? forget about classified

information especially about questions between ties between trump administration members and russian officials. >> anything we will talk about will be information that's in the public, that's open-source information. so he'll be able to opine based on open-source information. >> this is being billed, as you said, as an open source, as an open hearing and do you think parts of this would have to be moved behind closed doors due to the classified information? >> i'm sure there will be closed sessions, as well. we'll have to open hearings this week and next week, and beyond that, we will probably have a series of closed hearings and this investigation is going to go on for months. >> and so let's say that the investigation, yours and the committee and the investigations playing out in the intelligence community do confirm collusion between the administration or the campaign and rugs. what are the consequences for that? >> i think they're quite serious. i think they're pretty obvious they are probably gro for

impeachment. >> all right we'll have to leave it there. congresswoman jackie spieir. we'll look forward to tuckingalo you again. new report of a rocket engine test in north korea. concerns over north korea, we're at the forefront of secretary of state's rex tillerson's visit to asia and it wrapped up overnight after a very important meeting with china's president xi. matt is in seoul, south korea, how significant is this new test with south korea? >> reporter: thanks, jacob. as you mench owned this test for a new missile engine, the images just came out today, but they were taken yesterday during this test. the north korean media have called this a miracle and the u.s. and their allies here in the region are definitely going to be referring to this as a major new problem because this aefrj incould be attached into

an intercontinental ballistic missile or icbm. that's what north korean leader kim jong-un has promised that he's going to be building this year and a missile like that could strike american shores. however, they're going to be facing off against a new administration in washington, one that has met their missile tests and their nuclear tests with increasingly bellacose rhetoric. rex tillerson was in south korea just in the last couple of days and he said that a preemptive strike against north korean missile facilities is not off the table and he denigrated 20 years of what he called failed policy against north korea's nuclear capabilities. this is a new attack. it means that there's going to be sabers rattling and not just for south koreans and north korean, but for north korea's ally, china. they're in a very, very difficult position now and of course, they're also dealing with some very, very angry rhetoric from donald trump himself. they're going to be decisive in

determining whether or not north korea is able to escalate its nuclear capabilities going forward. jacob? >> all right. matt bradley in seoul, south korea, thank you very much. political infighting inside the white house. the new report of how the trump team is split into two groups inside the west wing, vying for the president's attention. that's coming up. (vo) what if this didn't have to happen? i didn't see it. (vo) what if we could go back? what if our car... could stop itself? in iihs front-end crash prevention testing, nobody beats the subaru impreza. not toyota. not honda. not ford. the all-new subaru impreza. more than a car, it's a subaru.

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people inside these intelligence communities? >> i don't think so anymore. i think it was largely people who maybe were there, had classified information who are now no longer there and decided to leak it. >> to what end? >> i think to hurt -- i mean, clearly to leak michael flynn's name talking to the russian ambassador. that was clearly designed to hurt general flynn. >> that gentleman was house intel chair devin nunes this

morning on where he thinks some of the leaks about the trump administration are coming from. i want to bring in philip rutger, political reporter for "the washington post." good to see you. >> hey, good to be with you. >> we are playing that sound bite for you because in part it plays to your article today and i want to read a little bit from that, inside trump's white house new york moderates spark infighting and suspicion. who are these new yorkers? it's always new yorkers. what's their role in the administration? >> the people we're talking about here are specifically gary cohn, the director of the national economic countsil and dina powell who is an ascendant figure in the white house. she entered as senior adviser on economic initiatives and now is the deputy security adviser overseeing strategy on foreign affairs and what they have in common is they were both executives at goldman sachs. they're part of a broader group within the white house of business types, people who are worldly, smart, sophisticated, have the president's ear a are

trying to steer his policies, but also moderate his tone and his image and work with jared kushner and ivanka trump to try to bring that moderation into the trump white house. >> i want you to talk, phil, about what you wrote about this incident that happened in the past week about president trump's plans after his trip to michigan. explain what happened there and is there a sense one side is winning this war to get the president's attention at this point? >> the short answer to your second question there is yes, but i'll explain what happened last week. on wednesday the president went to detroit and faced an auto event and faced the deliberation of where he would go after detroit, would he go to nashville, tennessee, to pay homage to andrew jackson, or would he go to new york to see a play and justin trudeau had invited him to join him in new york for "come from away" which celebrates the generosity of foreigners and immigrants and the new yorkers in the white

house were urging trump to go to that play. they thought it would be a moderate move and steve bannon advised trump, no, no, no, go down to nashville for jackson and gave a nationalist speech down there and it was one of the moments that trump really liked, but it speaks to this tug-of-war that we see playing out on domestic policy on the budget, on health care, on foreign policy all across the board between these different influences. >> tom brokaw had a really good piece about the play and the fact that ivanka trump ultimately ended up going with that play with the canadian prime minister. so when it comes to the white house, phil, who in there is actually trying to mitigate what is going on between these two factions? >> well, jared kushner is the son-in-law, the president's son-in-law, ivanka's husband and he's senior adviser in the white house and he's probably the most powerful and important figure in the white house and when different senior aides are fighting or can't get along, he brings them into his office and puts them on the couch and sort of plays a couples therapists and tries to get them to make it

work. sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn't, but i'll tell you what's interesting, jacob, my colleague bob costa and i talked to 18 different officials in the white house, people who are close to the president and his friends inside and outside and almost everybody made clear that these tensions are real, they exist. they're continuing. the factions with ith in the white house are constantly evolving and trump sort of likes this chaos and it feeds a competitiveness among his advisers that ends up benefiting his administration. that's his view. >> it's cliche to say it sounds like an episode of "the apprentice," and it's gotten so bad that it's formed an alliance between steve bannon and reince priebus who were on the opposing side to the white house and when we saw them appear together at cpac. >> you're exactly right. when the administration started there was a sense that the defining divide would be between steve bannon and reince priebus, the outsiders, the nationalist

versus the gop establishment forces and what's happened after those tense couple of early weeks is that bannon and priebus started to see it was mutually beneficial for them to work together and that's what they're doing now. they're working together to try to keep trump to his campaign promises, to try to influence policy from a conservative standpoint and in many times they're at odds with these new yorkers, these business types that we were talking about earlier. >> in that interview today devin nunes said he thinks the people leaking from the administration may be out of the administration now. how strongly do folks like reince priebus, dina powell and those doing the leaking inside and trying to undermine him in other ways. >> having been one of the reporte reporters that talked to difference sources e the leaks come from everywhere and every faction and they're advisers in the white house trying to influence the president and trying to influence the policy by shaping these narratives in

the press. they know that the president reads newspapers like "the new york times," like "the washington post," he watches cable news. they try to convey messages to him through reporters oftentimes and really speak to what's going on inside the white house. >> he watches and reads despite saying we're all failing. phil rutger from "the washington post," thanks a lot, man. >> thank you. >> take care. loud and proud, lawmakers to face a rowdy town hall. that is coming up here next.

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welcome back to all of you. i'm jacob soboroff at msnbc world headquarters in new york. at the half hour, here is what we are monitoring. breaking news from afghanistan. an afghan soldier has opened fire inside a base wounding three u.s. soldiers. officials said the man was shot and killed to end the attack.

there is no word at this hour on the condition of the three who were wounded. of course, several u.s. troops have been killed in afghanistan in recent years in so-called insider attacks carried out by afghan police or soldiers. now turning to politics, democrats are calling on the fbi to put president trump's wiretap allegations to rest tomorrow when director james comey testifies before congress. >> i think it's really important because that's a terrible accusation to make, and what are they doing but doubling down on it now quoting sources saying that the president worked with the british intelligence to also spy on the president. of course, it's not true. so let's just grow up. the justice department, the fbi has to really clear this. >> joining me now nbc's intelligence and national security correspondent ken

dilanian. what do we expect and can we expect comey to knock down these allegations tomorrow and could he if he wanted to? >> well, jacob, i expect this to be one of the more drama of theic days of the trump presidency and all signs are pointing on the idea that comey will point to this wiretapping claim in some way and explain why it isn't true. when you say put it to rest. i don't think he can put it to rest as long as the president of the united states continues to make the claim that it is true, but for it to have happened the fbi would have to have been involved and james comey and the fbi director mike rogers can explain to the committee and the public why it is just not possible why president obama could not have ordered a wiretap in trump tower and why there's no evidence of that and that's what we've been hearing all week from the republicans and the democrats. to the extent they'll put it to rest as a factual matter we'll hear tomorrow. >> we've heard from top members of the intelligence committee, adam schiff, and republican

congressman devin nunes and we heard from jackie speier here, i should say, what stood out to you? >> adam schiff went further than he has in the past saying there's circumstantial evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and the russian hacking operation interfering in the election. he hadn't said that before. devin nunes, the chairman of the house intelligence committee said he hadn't seen any evidence, my suspicion is nunes as a trump supporter takes a narrower view of what evidence is than schiff as a democratic pporter. >> is it as simple as that? is it coming down to politics? or are these two -- they're looking at the same information, right? >> they're both given the same highly classified briefings, schiff's is not proof. we're aware of in the public domain of circumstantial evidence and they've reported on intercepts of meetings between

the administration and russians and when were those meetings? that's they're having to look into and schiff is looking at that and maybe other things that we're want aware of and saying that's circumstantial evidence and nunes is saying no hard proof. >> we talked about what you suspect to come out of tomorrow's hearing and what -- how much comey can actually reveal. say he does come out and confirm this circumstantial evidence that we've been hearing members of the intelligence committee talk about today. then what? >> i actually doubt that he will do that. this is highly classified stuff and it's a counterintelligence investigation. i'm looking to see whether he'll confirm that the fbi is xa examining those things and that's a question in my mind and he'll talk more about the russian hacking operation and the thing that the intelligence community has presented in public and what they did and how they did it and potentially whether there were americans involved and it's difficult for him to talk about a pending

counterintelligence investigation. >> so you're saying, ken, this isn't going away any time soon. >> absolutely not. >> i want to bring in vit gemali and author of "how to catch a russian spy." good to see you. >> i agree with ken, they're going to have to address this claim by the president that essentially there say wiret and the danger with that is as ken is saying by admitting it or denying it. they're essentially admitting or denying that there is a larger investigation and just from a law enforcement standpoint they don't like to admit that investigations are going on until they're ready to present something. so i think comey will do a lot of fancy footwork, and i have to say many of us are probably going to be left wanting in terms of the larger questions and as ken said we will get a direct answer as to the president's claim of a wiretap. i have to ask you, naveed that you have been invited to speak about your own experience with russian intelligence.

what's the point you want to make most? what are you going to say? >> look, when i look at russia and when i look at how they do this, there's always this idea that russian intelligence focuses on actually stealing information. in my experience, what i found is no, that's part of it, but what the russians are often after are, frankly, buying people and when you look at flynn or roger stone or any of these other associates and the question of did they have contact with russia? i think that there may have very well been a two-pronged part to this attack and one is to mess directly with our elections and the second was an enter by the russians to get into the trump inner circle and that doesn't mean that the people they contacted were doing anything illegal and i certainly think there was a concerted effort to make contact and manipulate people. >> ken, does that square with wh y'r reporting andhe information that we have at present? >> it does in a sense, but the interesting question and naveed is the expert on this, even if

that happened whether there will be criminal charges emerging from it and if not, then what happens? presuming the congressional intelligence committee still conducted a there are owe investigation and will be able to tell the american public whether anyone in the trump campaign cl campai campaign colluded. >> you want to respond to that? >> foreign contact with even intelligence officers even with an intent to recruit, it happens day in and day out. that act does not rise to something illegal nor is it something that should be prosecuted. the question is did these people as we saw with general flynn, after the fact, registering as a foreign agent, did these people after the contact happened did they follow the proper protocol and report it and if they didn't that is of concern and potentially if they hold a clearance, that may be something that's elevated to the level of something that could be

prosecutable. >> adam schiff whom we heard from this morning we all heard a texas congressman and former undercover cia officer offered a different take on russia's role. let's all listen to that. >> this is how the intelligence community refers to the russian involvement or attempt to manipulate our elections. it will go down in the history of mother russia as the greatest covert action campaign not because president trump won, was there no manipulation of the vote tallying machines. it will go down as the greatest covert action because it created a wedge, whether real or perceived, between the mice, the intelligence community and the american public. >> naveed, what's your response to that? >> absolutely. that is at its core, that was russia's primary motivation. look, they want to destabilize us, and also they just want to make us look weak and it's not so much that the audience necessarily was the american people, but it very well could be former soviet states and there is a large push in eastern

europe to join nato and that terrifies the russians and i think a large part of this is to say to those country, look the american democracy, the democrat see that you aspire to become the nato you enjoy may not be what you think it is and that may be a large motive of why they did what they did. >> you hear a lot of republicans saying the biggest issue here isn't president trump's claims about wiretapping, but instead the leaks of classified information. ken, what's your take on that? is there some truth to that? >> obviously, there have been a lot of stories about things that were classified and as an intelligence reporter, i don't have a problem with that and that's my job and i make a living with that stuff and former covert officer, he knows what he's talking about. i completely agree with that and we are tied up in knots over this. this whole issue, how are folks going to believe president trump if he has to address the nation

and talk about a strike on north korea now based onntelgence that he's seen from the intelligence community that he's now been in a fight with and that he's questioned the veracity of, the russians if that was their aim, they certainly appeared to have succeeded. >> we'll leave it there. good to see you both. thank you very much for taking the time. >> coming up, how the tech industry is dealing with president trump's revised travel ban and that is next on "meet the press" at the top of the hour, the director of the management and budget mick mull vainy and we've been talking about him from the house intelligence committee. stick around. here?

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here's the deal. the super pac plans to raise and spend $100 million. that is eight times what it spent back in 2014. this week dozens of tech companies signed on to a friend of the court legal brief filed in support of hawaii's restraining order against president trump's second attempt at a travel ban. msnbc's savannah sellers has more on this. savannah, so what's the deal? >> hey, jacob. as you said the travel ban was halted by a federal judge in hawaii putting a stop to key parts of the executive order. tech companies have signed a brief supporting the challenge to president trump. it contains real examples from the tech community of what would happen if that travel ban was actually implement pld for example, they write after implementation of president trump's travel ban foreign-born founders of the company began exploring the possibility of moving their company outside of the u.s. and taking the company's jobs with them. however, we're not really sure

what that's going to shake out to look like, but it was signed by these companies, lyft, air bnb, dropbox, pinterest and we know there's outspoken protest from these leaders. air bnb was tweeting right after the travel ban they would provide free housing and the lyft ceo -- excuse me, yeah, the lyft ceo would provide $1 million over four years pledging to donate that money and there are companies interestingly missing from the list. google, apple, facebook and companies that signed similar briefs in an appeals court last month after trump's first executive order. the google ceo put out this staff memo just after the travel ban saying we're upset about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on googlers or their families and could create barriers to bringing talent to the u.s. apple ceo tim cook who said i've heard from many of you deeply concerned about the executive order noting it is not a policy we support. very interesting that they didn't sign on now. mark zuckerberg said, like many of you, i'm concerned about the

impact of the recent executive order signed by president trump and microsoft ceo wrote they will tcontinue to advocate on this important topic. it does seem the community is very vocal and keep pointing that the workers come from the countries affected by the travel ban and there is a big fear and president trump could potentially ended up reforming a visa ban known as the h 1 b visa bringing highly qualified people from overseas with the visas available and the tech companies rely on this visa and what's interesting it's not necessarily from the countries affected from the travel ban. it's mostly from india, from a professor from howard university, it's primarily from india. for example, microsoft has 3,770 total h 1b visas, and this is

from fiscal year 2013 and it's looking at the original seven countries from the first ban. similarly, google has 15 actually from iran. facebook has signed on to seven from the specific countries and six from iran and one from iraq and air bnb who did sign on to the latest brief has 15 employees on the visa from those countries and in total the countries from the original travel ban only account for the .4% of the h-1b visas. >> i'm looking at the names of the companies, google, apple, facebook and microsoft are amongst the ones that didn't sign on after signing a brief after the first travel ban. strange again, about the radio silence from all of them. do you expect to hear anything from the days or week ahead? >> it is. another one i mentioned is uber who is not on there, but they have said they are in the process of adding their name to the brief. it could be something that solely happens over time, it's interesting there was such strong support from the top

leaders the companies and nothing now. >> savannah sellers, thanks a lot. >> thank you, jacob. now to some money headlines. the president's proposed budget slices about 20% of funding for the national institutes of health, a potentially big blow to medical research. more than 80% of the nih budget, excuse me, reportedly goes to grants for scientific study. you can count tanning salons, by the way, among supporters of the republican healthcare plan because it would lift the 10% tax on tanning sessions since obamacare -- a lot of jokes that we could do about that one, but i'm just going to leave it at that, since it went into effect in 2010, nearly half of the nation's tanning salons have closed with only about 9500 still open. march madness, mega milli s millions, americans are expected to wager a staggering $10.4 billion with a "b" on the ncaa tournament and only 3% of

that will be legal wagering. amazing. and now to a new ranking of cities with the best and worst credit scores in our money news, among big cities, san francisco has the highest score of 711. honolulu and seattle round out the top three. detroit has the worst at 583, followed by memphis and then cleveland, ohio. coming up, the next four days will have a profound impact on the supreme court and the nation, but will the gorsuch hearings be a fair and thorough examination of the judge's record or little more than a bunch of political theater? the one and only ari melber joins me next. i have asthma...

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on the supreme court minee, is it going to be filibustered, do youthin and what will democrats do? >> they don't have any good arguments against him, but they are furious that we're going to have a conservative nominated and confirmed.

he will either get 60 votes and be confirmed or whatever other procedural steps are necessary. >> senator ted cruz on the confirmation hearings that get underway tomorrow. joining me now, ari melburn. that is coming up at 5:00 p.m. eastern. >> that's hard for me. >> nicely done. >> i had 50/50 odds of getting that right, just like ted cruz gave -- >> so four days of hearings seems like a lot of hearings for a supreme court nominee. is that normal? >> it's pretty normal. and the judiciary chairman can change it one way or the other. the other is to give ample time, what a lot of viewers will call more than enough time for this nominee to explain himself and for senators to question him. look, we have seen the merrick garland example, where there were no hearings and democrats

fuming over that. i spoke with senator schumers office this weekend. the flip side is of course taking the process seriously. who is this person? is he qualified? what kind of judge would he be? >> right. i mean, the political question is always, look, the supreme court is different than every other court and every other nomination. you fly through cabinet nominations and it's big problems or lying that will get you in trouble. here it's more than that. on a permanent seat, what are the issues? do you want to make it about the judge, the history or the future, the travel ban and all these issues headed for the court. >> let's talk about that. one of the issues on the table is this travel ban is tied up in the courts and could end up on his desk. how is that going to factor into this? >> it gives him a credible and real reason not to talk about it

because he will say, senator, i appreciate the question, but i cannot speak about pending cases. so we're not going to hear some block buster tomorrow saying it is or is not a muslim ban. it was a stinging blow to the trump administration, one of the many things that has been overshadowed with some of the other news is that that travel ban is on hold, even though they rebooted it trying to make it more legally valid. >> i think what you will see, though, is a broadest discussion of how he approaches executive power. it is neither a dis, nor a compliment to make the observation this president is different than other presidents. he is proud of that. his supporters like it. i do think that will raise the stakes for tomorrow because one of the questions will be how are you going to deal with a president that says his power won't be questioned or see you in court in all caps or these so-called judges or as he said

during the campaign, i think so regrettably, a judge's skin color was relevant to how he runs the court. >> and some of that language has ended up in court with this second blocking of the travel ban. quickly -- >> say say watch what you eat. watch what you tweet. >> can you please give us the ts of wwe supreme court slam down tonight at 5:00. >> this is the ultimate stakes. there is a permanent seat on the supreme court, which is currently split four/four on so many issues. it will either be this person or trump or another. it is a huge question for our country. what we're doing tonight from 5:00 p.m. on is digging in. a lot of experts and advocates helping people understand why this matters and what might happen. >> huge stakes, you heard it.

chief legal correspondent, the most of wwe supreme court clash tonight 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. eastern. see you again soon. stick around. "meet the press" is coming up next.

this sunday, credibility crisis. president trump's unapologetic defense of his unsubstantiated claims. >> as far as wiretapping, i guess -- you know, this past administration -- at least we have something in common perhaps. >> did president obama wiretap mr.trump? the former head of u.s. intelligence -- >> there was no such wiretap activity. >> the speaker of the house. >> i have not seen any evidence of this. >> the republican house intel chair. >> we don't have any evidence that that took place. >> the top democrat on the house intel committee. >> thus far we have seen no basis for that whatsoever. ow