agriculture sonny purdue. although he's disappointed to see that democratic senators who first expressed their support for albert acosta, they seem to have stuck to a party line vote. the president looks forward to having him officially on the team and in the cabinet as soon as possible. also this morning the department of commerce and first responder network authority, firstnet, announced that at&t will build the first broadband network to first responders. this step was part of the 911 ability to communicate seamlessly across the jurisdiction. it's also a part of the public ability of private and public partnerships to drive innovation and solve some of our busiest problems while growing jobs and growing the economy. the president also had a lunch

on opioid askand drug abuse. the commission, which is going to be chaired by new jersey governor chris christie is the next step in the president's promise to the american people that he would take real action to keep drugs from pouring into our country and corrupting our communities. under governor krichristie's leadership and working closely with the white house office of innovation, the governor will bring people the best way to treat this epidemic. many members at the lunch played a key part in passing the bipartisan comprehensive addiction and recovery act, also known as cara. the first federal legislation addiction over 40 years which authorized over $181 million to fight the opioid epidemic. part of the mission will be to make sure those funds are spent

efficiently and effectively. too many lives are at stake to risk wasting money on this effort. moving on, this afternoon, the president will welcome the president from denmark for a working visit. we'll have a reading from his visit at their conclusion. i know hunter asked about the house and sent a passage disapproving of the federal communications regulations on privacy rules from last year, so let me just expand on that a little and get to your question. the white house supports congress using its authority under the congressional review act to roll back last year's fcc rules on broadband regulation. the previous administration, in an attempt to treat internet users previously such as google and facebook reclassified them as common carriers, which is like a hotel or other retail outlet, and open their door to an unregulatory framework. this will allow service providers to be treated fairly and consumer protection and privacy concerns to be viewed on an equal playing field.

the president pledged to reverse this type of federal overreach in which bureaucrats in washington take the interests of one group of companies over the interests of others, picking winners and losers. the president will sign the congressional review act than all previous presidents combined already, and he will continue to fight washington red tape that stiflz americ stifles american innovation, job creation and economic growth. we are currently reviewing issues related to the agreement and expect to have a decision by the time of the g7 summit late may-ish, if not sooner. before i take your questions, i want to speak quickly about judge gorsuch again and the process behind his nomination and confirmation. from the beginning, i think the president has been clear and 100% transparent about his choices, if he had been elected, who he would choose from.

i think transparency is unprecedented in modern times, at least. during the campaign he gave the american people 21 judges of which he would choose his choice for the supreme court on. the white how else sent him one of those judged as and he did i. prior to nominating him, he spoke with 20 judges, including every member of the judiciary committee, to seek their advice and consent on the nomination. the consensus was the pick should be a respectable mainstream judge. as i laid out before from unanimous consent of the 10th circuit of appeals to the extraordinary low rate of majority of opinions by company descent, judge gorsuch is a definition of a mainstream, respected judge. he has offered the senate plenty of material to vouch for that. since his nomination, judge gorsuch met with nearly 80 senators in respon senators. in response to the committee, he provided 70 pages of written

answers in response to 299 questions for the record by democrats on the committee, the most in recent history, which he submitted within six days of receiving the questions. over 75,000 pages of documents, including speeches, case briefs, opinions and written work going back as far as college. and over 180,000 pages of e-mail and paper records related to the judge's time at the department of justice. in fact, the department of justice provided access to many documents that would normally be guarded by many privileges in a historically unprecedented move with senate democrats. the judge sat for three rounds in nearly 20 hours of questioning by the senate judiciary committee during which he was asked 120,000 questions, more than twice as many as justices sotomayor, kaelin and

ginsberg. he wishes they would look beyond the political gains and see how eminently qualified he is to sit on the court. more and more it looks like democrats just want reading and questioning for nothing more than political theater. finally, before i take your questions, a letter was transmitted just recently to the ranking member and chairman of the house and senate intelligence committees that said, in the ordinary course of business, national security staff discovered documents that we believe are in response to your march 15, 2017 letter to the intelligence committee seeking, quote, documents necessary to determine whether information collected on u.s. persons was mishandled and leaked, end quote. we have and will invite the senate and house ranking members and chairman up to the white house to view that material in accordance with their schedule. with that, i'm glad to take a few of your questions. cheryl? >> i'm trying to gauge the

probability of a government shutdown at the end of april. are your directions to the capitol hill to hold firm on the spending cuts that the president wants or to try and wheel and deal and get a bill that can keep the government open? >> i don't know that they're mutually exclusive. >> there's pushback on capitol hill. >> there generally is. but i think we want both. i think we want to maintain some of the spending priorities as well as some of the reductions in the 2017 budget. we want to do so responsibly and do so within the priorities that the president has laid out. i think his funding requests and priorities are laid out in the budget that director mulvaney detailed and sent up for the remainder of 2017. there is some key things in that, and i think that it is going to begin a conversation that we will continue to have with the house and senate, but i don't think both of those goals are mutually exclusive. obviously we don't want the government to shut down but we want to make sure we're funding

the priorities of the government. john decker? >> thanks a localit, sean. i wanted to ask about some news the president put out on twitter. he seems to be picking a fight with the freedom caucus. the freedom caucus, as you know, has 30 members. does the president understand how important this caucus is, this coalition is, in terms of enhancing a replacement bill for the affordable health care act and passing the rest of his legislative agenda? >> of course he understands the goal of all legislation is to get to a majority in the house, majority in the senate. but at the end of the day, he recognizes that he has a bold and robust agenda he is trying to enact that he ran on and told the american people that he would do when he was president, and he's going to get the votes from wherever he can. >> can you pass that agenda without the help of the caucus? >> mathematically, yes. but secondly, i think there are a few members of the freedom caucus both prior to last friday and since then who have

expressed a willingness to want to work with him rather than necessarily as a bloc. i think there continues to be some promising signs in that -- with that. so, again, i think part of it is if people are more concerned about voting as a bloc and in the best interests of the constituents of the american people, he's hoping the american people will see the bigger picture, the goals that we outlined and sometimes not be the enemy of the perfect. >> it seems like he would be favor in primarying some individuals in the freedom caucus who opposed his agendas. did he read that correctly? >> i'm going to say i'll let the tweets speak for themselves. it would be improper for me to discuss the election or failure of any candidate from this podium. >> sean spicer, two questions from you, if you don't mind. >> i want phenomenal answers

from you. you got -- >> yeah, i got it. two white house officials, including the "new york times," provided nunes with the report he got last week. the director of intelligence on the nec who was hired by michael flynn, started going through these documents after the wiretapping tweet. i wonder if the president thinks it's appropriate for white house officials to be conducting what is basically a political task to find information but then validates something the president said. >> i read the report, so i'm assuming your reporting is correct. i would just suggest to you that the letter that was submitted earlier to the chairman of the ranking members of the two committees, two intelligence committees on the hill, the reason that the white house has asked them to come up is to view that information. and again, i don't want to get in front of that, as i've said

before. we are not as obsessed with the process as much as the substance, and i think that our goal is to make sure that the ranking members of both committees, as well as the chairman, see the information, the materials that are important to this, and then worry about the outcome at the end. >> then on a different topic, with ms. walsh's departure today, are you expecting any more staffing shake-ups in the west wing? >> no. katherine. >> are you. [ inaudible [. >> i'm saying in order to comment on that story would be to validate certain things that i'm not at liberty to do. >> for days you haven't been able to tell us who you met with -- >> there is an assumption, as i said before, we cannot condone -- in the same way that you protect sources, when i call you and say you've got 18 anonymous sources, and you go, i can't reveal my sources,

chairman nunes in conducting an investigation and a review has the opportunity to have his sources. our view was that the smart move was to make all the materials available to the chairman and the ranking member of the relevant committees, and i understand the obsession with the process piece. but we are focused on the substance of it, and i think the goal is to make sure that people have the substance that are looking into this, that we have asked to look into this -- >> so the house didn't make it available already? >> no, we have sent a letter within the past few hours to both of those committees informing them that we wanted to make that available to them. >> what kind of message do you think this sends to people watching this? >> i think it sends a message that we want them to look into this, that i think that as we have maintained all along, i think there is a belief that the president has maintained that there was surveillance that occurred during the 2016 election that was improper and that we want people to look into

this and take the appropriate, legal, responsible steps to both understand it and then address it. >> i want to read to you something you said here at the podium on march 23rd when you were originally asked if the white house may have had any role in providing information to did he ha chairman nunes. you said, i don't know why chairman nunes would come here and need a brief on something we've briefed him on. it doesn't really pass the smell test. i can't tell if you're disputing that or not which identifies two people in this white house as the sources of this information. i'm just trying to put these things together. you said it doesn't pass the smell test on march 23rd, now there's reporting within the white house that they were the sources of this. i'm just trying to put those two things together. >> number one, the first quote that you're reading, if you actually go back, i was very clear that i said based on what chairman nunes has said, the

following doesn't make sense. >> and you've learned something new since then. >> no, because again, major, i commented on this both yesterday and today, that your obsession with who talked to whom and when is not the answer here. it should be the substance. in the same way that when you guys print a story with 18 anonymous sources, your obsession is the substance. it seems now you continue to look at it from a backwards prism which is what happened? who drove in what gate? what were they wearing that day, as opposed to what was the underlying substance of this. did something happen in the 2016 election? we're not going to engage in that kind of leaking that has been a problem. in fact, if you look at obama's deputy assistant secretary of defense that is out there, evelyn farkas, she made it clear that it was their goal to spread this information around, that they went around and did this,

and she said, quote, that's why there are so many leaks. she had admitted on the record that this was their goal, to leak stuff -- literally she said on the record, trump's team. there are serious questions out there about what happened and why and who did it. and i think that's really where our focus is, in making sure that information gets out. >> can't the process, from your vantage point, validate the importance of the substance? >> i think there is a review that we've asked for -- >> and you told us you're willing to look into and ask questions about the process and provide us answers. >> please don't put words in my mouth. i never said i would provide you answers. i said i would look into it. the responsible thing for us to do is provide the people doing the review the materials they're looking for. or some of them. we don't know exactly what they're looking for, what they've seen and what they haven't. our goal is to be as forthright as possible. they asked the intelligence community in a march letter for

information. we have -- are willing to provide them with the information we have -- the materials we have. our obligation is to make sure the review is done in both the house and the senate as we asked for a few years ago, not to make sure we leak information out to you. sdplz when you say "we have information," are you disputing the reports of the "new york times"? >> i'm not disputing reports, i'm -- >> you're saying we. >> no, i'm saying we in the white house is not going to confirm -- we are not going to start commenting on one-off anonymous sources that publications publish. >> if it were wrong, would you tell us? >> i'm not getting into it. i get it. how many times can you ask the same question? hunter? >> the president is pushing for a major tax cut, increases in defense and infrastructure spending on the border wall.

does eng thhe think this has to gender neutral? >> i think when it comes to tax reform, he's got three underlying goals. one is tax simplification, two is to lower the rates and three is to grow jobs in the economy. part of it is, if you look at it, we're not there yet. we're beginning the process of engaging the stake looked at as well is what are the economic and job creation prospects of it, he's looking into it. >> i know you won't identify mr. nunes' sources, but isn't it clear that some of the white house sources needed to be involved with him getting information here, because he would need their help exiting the complex? >> i can't get into who those

individuals were. if i start going down the path of confirming and denying one thing, we're going down a very slippery slope. i made my position on that very clear. jessica? >> thank you for asking about the visit with the chinese president. can you talk about the location and it was chosen for this. as you can imagine on any trip, no matter who the foreign leader he remembered. they're appropriate and go back in forth in terms of how much was discussed, what was discussed. everything was discussed on both sides. that was a long negotiation with the government of china and their representatives lasting

several weeks now. >> so how did you agree on mar-a-lago? >> both sides discussed locations and topics and being length, et cetera, for aspect of the trip and this is what we both. a few things. he's spoken on the phone with him a few times. we have big things, trade to north korea. there are issues of security to be addressed, and i think there will abe lot of that on the table over the two days they talk. >> they are expecting the white house to be frapd. >> kind of to put a floor under the relation shim.

the rebalance and hit it in the prior administration. ma many. if you have any hash tags, let me know. but i think right now we're sfrnlt about egs ploegs rather than come patriots sfchlt. >> is there anyone in the white house or national security team to try to find information about wiretapping? >> i'm not aware of anything directly. i would have to look into that in terms of -- again, there's two sides of this. one is the information side and two is the policy and the activities and the legal piece of what happened. and those are big buckets, if you will. >> so it's possible? >> i'm not going to comment on it.

>> don't the daily questions about this make it necessary to have some kind of cabinet making? >> no. how many do you want? >> do you think the house intelligence committee investigation is still valid given all these questions? >> how is it not valid? >> all these questions of where devon nunes got his information. wouldn't it be smart to have an outside independent investigation? >> they issued a report earlier in terms of involvement in the 2016 election, and then you've got two congressional committees looking into it. i'm not really sure the exact need. i think that people are doing -- i understand sometimes there is a need for you guys to have more information, more sources. i think this is being done in a

responsible way where people are discussing what they know at an appropriate classification level and information is being shared. >> can you quickly talk about the timing of inviting the leaders of this investigation to the white house now? is it because of this report? why not do that initially? >> i think a couple things. one is they tasked the various committees in mid-march or the agencies, rather, to provide information. we felt we had information that was relevant, and i think there were some, you know, there's a desire to make sure that both sides of the aisle who are looking into this as well as both chambers had that information. anita. >> eric trump gave an interview a few days ago to forbes magazine saying he would update his father quarterly on the business including giving reports. one question is, have they

spoken about the business since january? and two, how does this not violate what the president said about how he would deal with the business? >> two things. i don't know if they've spoken. it's not -- that's maybe a question better directed to the trump organization. but secondly, i think everything that he's done is in accordance with what the council's office and the ethics folks -- >> i believe he said he wasn't going to talk to his children, his sons, about the business. how is that -- >> again, i think everything that is being done in terms of reports or updates is being done in a consultation with the council's office. so i think that's it. ju justin? >> i want to ask about the substance. it's sort of unclear what you guys are telling the chairman and the ranking members. is it information that would validate the president's claims about surveillance during the 2016 campaign, or is it

information about the russian investigation? >> i'm not here to share that. that's why we invited them to view that in a classified setting, an appropriate setting. it's not to be shared with people that don't have the appropriate clearances. >> you're not intending to imply this is the information that chairman nunes has been talking about. >> what i'm suggesting is that there has been information that has been -- material that has been made come to light and that we want to make sure that the people who are with conducting the review have that information, have access to it. >> they gave the bankruptcy yesterday. i'm wondering if there is any effort within the administration to sort of help them navigate this bankruptcy, considering that -- >> i'll have to check on that. obviously there are a couple departments that would be

interested in that. steve. >> i want to ask you to elaborate what you so far have told us. you said in the normal course of business, the national security staff discovered documents. can you explain how these documents were uncovered? >> that's why we've invited them up into a classified setting is for them to see these materials and understand this is not the setting appropriate to discuss th that. again, we're not here to go through the process. our job is to get to the substance of this and make sure the people who have the appropriate access and authority to look into this matter and take appropriate steps have that. >> are you in a position right now to deny or rule out the possibility that national security staff already informed the chairman of the house intelligence committee? >> i'm not going to get into further details on this. again, if i can go back for a second to something that the obama administration's deputies

and secretary of defense noted very clearly on the record that they were engaged in an effort to spread information about trump officials that had come up in intelligence. that's not -- that is several networks. forecasts made that proclamation about what was going on during the obama administration regarding the trump team. that is something they made very clear on the record. john? >> a couple things, sean. first of all, in the freedom caucus, in response to the president's tweet to congressman amash of michigan, he responded on camera saying, most people don't like to be bullied, in response to the president, also saying that sending out such tweets was constructive in the fifth grade and they allow a child to get his way, but that's not how government works. could you take a moment to respond to congressman amash? was the president trying to bully the freedom caucus? >> no, i think this is consistent with everything he has said since friday of last week. and i think that he is looking

for members on both sides of the aisle who want to be constructive to achieve the goal of a central system. i think his comments and his tweets speak for themselves with respect to how he feels and why. >> following on that, is this a divide and conquer strategy? >> no, it's a math strategy, to get to 216 and continue to move the agenda forward. >> you've accused people in this room several times of being more interested in process than actually the substance of things. but when information is discovered by the intelligence committee chairman and the house, at the white house there is an attempt at exculpatory with what the president has tweeted about. one person who was involved in covering that information was a white house staff member who was kept in his position over the request of the national security adviser by the political leadership here at the white house. does the process not then take

on some relevance? >> well, the process in the sense that we are -- as i've noted, we have invited the chairman and the ranking members who are reviewing the matter here. it doesn't mean we look at members from the media to come and look at it. >> that's not what i asked. what i asked was, when you have this connection of dots all the way along, does the process -- does the providence of this information not become relevant to the overall investigation? >> it's up to the people who are conducting the review to decide that, not to the people in this room to decide it. it's up to the people who are cleared to look at that information and material to look at it and make their evaluations. i think they are conducting the review. you've seen it clearly on the other side.

zeke, thank you. i'm sorry, i couldn't hear you. >> has the president already been briefed on this information that you're now inviting the congressioncon gre gregs -- congressional chairs to answer? >> i will look into where and how that stands. blake. >> the timeline of the health care first, tax reform second. there was a fox poll released yesterday that said 73% of americans would tax reform to happen this year, with health care at least being on hold. is health care the number one priority for this administration? is tax reform the number one priority for this administration at this point, or is health care kind of still taking up some of the oxygen? >> i don't know if it's taking up oxygen. i think there's plenty of oxygen for both to go on. i think the president would still like to see it done.

but if you look at the timeline we're looking at several months. it's not an either/or. can you lay out to us to what is supposed to be happening? is the president giving detailed strategy? >> it's a little of both. they're talking about the process they intend to partake, how this will lay out, who they're engaged with, how they'll go through this process. then any updates he has or any principals he wants to suggest are incorporated into that plan as they begin to meat with st k stakeholders, but part of it is to level with him how they intend to do it. >> there's infrastructure hanging out there, so can all of

those go together? >> lots of tracks. remember, they're not all the same people. some of them overlap, some don't rk . some will take longer because of the legislative calendar and the number of individuals involved and the complexity of the situation, but there are a lot of things that can be moving at once. >> thank you, sean. turning to the foreign front remember, the twice poisoned russia dissident and vice chairman of the continued sanctions against russia. he also called to secretary of state rex tillerson to meet w h

with. ma he also said he was meeting with members of congress with both parties but he would be happy to meet with any administration officials. are there any plans for president or anyone in the white house to meet with mr. caramutza and will he meet with them? >> it's probably appropriate for him to address that, too. >> i would like some clarity that you gave yesterday to hunter and major. i thought it was just that when you asked. sole system.

are you saying you will not answer that question. they want to make all these individuals available, that getting into source of process is not the proper way to conduct this review, and we want the people conducting it to fully understand the materials, not necessarily who came in what time and whatever. >> just to clarify again, you asked the questions, you were not given answers? >> no, i'm just saying -- >> you said you asked that -- let me finish. you said you asked yesterday, you didn't get the answers, so what you're telling us today is you're never going to get the answer, you, yourself, you'll never get the answer of who cleared chairman nunes. >> what i was saying was the decision has been made to focus on the substance -- let me answer the questions, please. the answer i'm giving you was

that the decision was made internally to focus on the individuals doing the review, both houses and democrats and snas. >> the president has expressed his affirmation that russia interfered with the 2016 election. that is the center piece of the investigation at the fbi and the senate intelligence community. can you update us? what is the president doing now in the administration to respond to director comey's testimony.

. >> what is the administration doing to respond to that preliminary finding already that we already know that is continuing? >> the executive order that the president signed that continues the national emergency deals with looking into malicious attempts and cyber attempts to come into the united states. that's what the side was. >> some totality so far. >> i'm not going to get into that, but there is an emergency that so to come in and the national emergency will come in under the president to address the threats we face from abroad and from a variety of places. april. >> sean, so -- did you call on

someone else? i'm sorry. go ahead with her. sean, what is the ultimate goal of the leaders coming in to get this information, and will it be information that nunes received plus, or will it just be basically a synopsis of a synopsis of what nunes received? >> well, it's going to be the materials that are relevant to the discussion in the area that they're reviewing. that's up to them to decide the relevancy of that. i think we have, the national security committee, has come upon some materials they want to share with them. it's up to them to make a decision about the relevance of those documents and what they lead him to believe. there's two issues here. one, april, is what do they see and what do they want to see in addition to that or as a result of those materials?

so, in other words, they may see things and say, hey, this is interesting, i wonder if there is a pattern. this is interest, i want to see mo more. but that's part of the idea of your first question of sharing information with them, is to allow both members of the committees on a bipartisan basis to come in and review materials that we think is relevant to the issues the president talked about with respect to surveillance, the unmasking of individuals, the and lihandling, et cetera, et cetera, and then it's up to those members what to do with that information, how to explore that more in depth. >> so in their questioning, they could actually wind up getting what nunes received, possibly, if they dig and ask different questions just sitting in the intelligence meetings like the president does, digging? if he decides to dig more, he'll get more? >> it depends. i think that's possible.

i don't want to pre-judge what they ask and what comes in response? it may have to do with what documents we have. they may have to go on a particular trail and follow up with aeng. as you saw from media reports, the nesa has been asked to provide documents from the house. my understanding is it was ongoing, and maybe some materials that they see prompt them to ask additional questions. but that's part of providing it to them. it's an ongoing review. and what we want is for them to see these materials and come to conclusions or need more information to come to a conclusion. but this is part of that review process. >> are they allowed the same type of briefing with their ranking and who they are no matter him being the head of the intel committee, are some of these other members allowed to see the same things even though they are not the head of the committee? are they allowed to see that?

>> my understanding would be that they would. >> and lastly, sean, do you know who allowed him inside? >> no. >> you don't know? >> no. kayla. >> has anyone in the white house ever raised the possibility of a cabinet position later on f devon nunes. >> not that i'm aware of. >> sometime will the president answer these questions himself? >> i'm not good enough? >> not that you're not good enough, but they didnyou didn't claims, he made the claims. >> i'm sure he liked doing it so much. let me see what i can come up with is with, cecilia. >> from what you know about this case, do the materials document

what happened in this case? >> i have not seen the materials. >> why not just be mor forthcoming about this entire process, who let nunes in? if the president of the united states could tweet this claim about wiretapping, doesn't the american public have a right to know more? >> yes, they do, and i think th's why we're going through a process. i say this respectfully. i understand that you want all those process answers, what do do they dmom. the relevant questions are on unpublished sources -- glen, i'm answering her questions if you would be polite enough not to interrupt is her. do you accept his apology?

i would argue that you guys -- when you write a story and you call and say, i have four anonymous sources, and i say, who are the sources, and you say, i'm sorry, i'm not revealing the substance i'm asking you about, but when the shoe is on the other foot, you're all about the process. there are two subcommittees that are reviewing this situation, and those committees are looking at the relevant information and talking to relevant people. to kwoyour point about the proc, we've encouraged individuals to testify or meet with or discuss those that have been approached. i think that we are doing the responsible thing by making sure that documents and materials are shown to people with the appropriate classifications and the appropriate settings, and that the people that the different committees would like to discuss these matters with are made available to them. i think that's the responsible way of handling this.

>> i have two questions, one on venezuela. today the supreme court of venezuela said they decided to take over the congress and they say there is a coup underway? would you consider there is a coup underway and what can we expect the united states to do? the other question, has obama changed? because president obama sign also bilateral deals with brazil, china and india, and what happened to those? >> well, on the first one, respectfully i would refer you to the state department. the only supreme court i'm really focused on right now is ours and getting judge neil gorsuch confirmed by the senate. i think the state department is a more appropriate venue to discuss the activities over there. second, i think when it comes to things like the paris treaty as

i mentioned at the outset, that is bei -- those are separate. >> i understand. but i think those are things we'll have updates for on all these things as we move forward. right now i have nothing. >> the wall street journal reported this morning that the trump administration is boasting more modest changes to nafta. for example, they're looeg. is the white house stepping away from the more sweeping changes that the president proposed during the cam panl. that is want a statement of administration policy at this point. there is nothing in those documents that we are confirming, or in that report, rather, that we are confirming. zs not a statement of immigration policy, that is not an accurate assessment where we are right now. i think our goal is to get

robert lightenhauser settled. with that i'm going to say goodbye. i'll see you tomorrow. i'm sorry, i promised two days in a row. >> many republicans were very critical of on you president obama handled the iranian green revolution about six years ago. if mass protests across russia develop into a movement, what does the administration feel its role should be regarding that? >> i'm not going to -- that's a hypothetical question to talk about what would happen. when it comes to protests, we obviously encourage, as we did last sunday, the government of russia to allow the peaceful protests of individuals throughout their country. we obviously support the people to have a voice in every government throughout the world. >> on the subject of partisanship and obstructionism,

whose responsibility does the president feel. >> i think it's a two-way street stchlt, the president and the first lady extended an invitation. there is an opportunity rkts i think, to engage in a discussion. i would argue when you look at tht fight on gorsuch, i don't sdarpg with the you don't necessarily agree with some of the rules and some of the philosophies of. p. it is odd to see that these individuals -- it is one thing to vote no. it's one thing to say we don't agree. but to now talk, ask there's no

one that i'm aware of, even on the left, to say that judge gorsuch isn't qualified to serve as. when you go back to president obama, secretary clinton, republicans have joined with draem krats -- democrats. to see this said by general schumer, and there was someone who said you are really going to make a difference doing this. when you have an election, you can assume a republican president is going to choose republicans for appointments and for federal judgeships, and the

jurn yorz will da the same, aits difficult to understand why, when you've got someone as qualified as gorsuch, and i think it sets a divide in this country when we can't allow people who are qualified, skpan universally so, to get on the bench. i would ask you, what is -- you know, i remember a few years ago there was all this talk from the get-go of obama, democrats made hay about how they want to see him as wa one-term president. i've heard similar things from democrats saying how they want to feed his agenda and there's nothing said by quite, over the

course of the last 70 days in the trump administration than there was in the obama administration. i think that makes people want to move on areas of agreement to move this country forward. thank you. i'll see you tomorrow. >> a much calmer sean spicer leaving the white house press briefing today. . here is what we have learned sormd far r. two white house officials played a role in providing surveillance docs iing rpg. the white house also say it can't get into intel sources. they also say a new letter was sent to heads of both intel committees, staffers on nunes and adam schiff's teams. both confirmed they received those letters. all of this as the senate intel

committee holds its first public hearing in russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. as usual we've got our team p of, peter alexander, who was in that press room. a notable today that sean spicer neither confirmed or denied this "new york times" report, when just the other day he flatly deni denied. should we tamed fmd. he was striking his deflectives here. what struck me, though, that was. of the house and senate overcharge committees. he did not face why dana would

have seerd frld. the. the question that remains, i tried to get a sense of timing when they found this that they providing it. he didn't answer it. that question of timing is striking. it seems very convenient that people are skeptical of the way people are handling this. that on this day sean spice we're say that just hours ago they sent information to the two oversight committees. >> and we are getting matt rosenberg into the chair as fast as he can. but we have from you the new york time to talk about in general, sean spicer and why the white house cannot say simply who let devin nunes into the white house grounds. usually that's something very easy to reveal. that's not a secretive thing. but also the other day, sean

spicer talking about who could have potentially played a role in getting nunes' information. >> well, look, on tuesday, spicer said in a briefing, in a manner that seemed hypothetical about, two sources who may have given intelligence. now that seems like a leading answer and it raises the question all along if the white house knew all along exactly who these sources were. which then gets into the problem of who authorized those two people to provide that. >> a reminder that it's msnbc news has not confirmed this reporting but we have matt rosenberg who is one of the co-authors. >> talk to me about what you were able to up cover and the names of the two white house staffers that helped, according to your reporting, nunes get in to see that information. >> we've been told, there were two people. a guy names ezra cohen watnik. he is called the senior director

for intelligence of the national security council. he can see almost everything. we're told that he began to look for this intelligence oregon, after mr. trump tweeted about being surveiled by the obama administration. we have one saying this was part of an effort to find the justification of the tweets. and how intelligence was shared in the white house and they came across this information. either way, they did come across it and we're told that it was mr. ellis, his name is michael ellis. he is a lawyer in the council's office of the white house. he was a general counsel for the house intelligence committee, the committee led by mr. nunes. we're told it was mr. ellis who allowed mr. nunes to view the information. >> while msnbc cannot confirm this, we can confirm from multisources, web confirm that

ezra cohen watnik. the new national security adviser at one point did try to push hill out saying that he was in over his head. but that ezra cohen watnik complained to steve bannon and donald trump ended up securing his role there above the head of h.r. mcmaster. that's nbc news reporting. we haven't confirmed "the new york times." talk to me about the defense sean spicer was making. he is talking about -- he's not talking about process. he doesn't want to talk about it as in who got devin nunes information. now they have a new argument about why they think the obama administration was actually spying on the white house. >> well, the second argument involving it is complete nonsense. they've taken a clip of her speaking on morning joe about a story that was published in the

new york times previous day where there are anonymous officials talking about how they endefrd to make sure the information about what had occurred, that it disseminated and it wouldn't go unseen. so this is blowing up an old story that had been throughout for political purposes. secondly, going back to spicer, today, he was having quite a few problems in that press briefing. he didn't want to outright deny story, he would deny the post a couple days ago. and he also did not want to be nailed down on who let if congressman nunes to the white house facility. which is a simple call to the secret service. let me see the visitor log on this day and we could not immediately and satisfy the public's need for information. he had previously deny that had this had, that the whistle blowers had been from within the white house. nunes also, too.

>> so these two individuals are now having to recant "the new york times" reporting is corroborated, which i expect it will be. 38 have to recant their statements. >> is this something they're going to be seizing on, this reporting out there, if it is confirmed by other sources, that the white house had two members on staff who least played a role in getting nunes' information. >> katie, i think this has been long suspected. and we had started to hear these two names bubble up in conversation and i know you've been reporting that we are still working on independent confirmation of this report. this has been underlying the entire push to get nunes to recuse himself from this investigation. this idea that the white house provided this information and we now know more about that is

simply going to amplify those calls. i wouldn't be surprised, although we haven't gotten any reaction along those lines. if you have more peep going farther than saying we should recuse. we've had one democrat based on the previous couple of days. i forget how far along we are in this week. he should say he should step down as the chairman. i wouldn't be surprised if you hear more people echoing those calls. we are waiting to hear from, we spoke to the ranking member schiff on the house side earlier today. but of course, it was a handful of minutes before this report came out. so we are waiting for more reaction from him on this. we're told he is in meetings this afternoon. this is of course the day congress flies back out because they are not in session tomorrow. so we are going to try to track these people down. but i think ultimately this is going to continue the narrative that we have been talking about and i think that's part of why the chairman and vice chairman

on the senate side who seem still in that maerg they're having in their investigation, i think they're trying to make very clear he contrast to what's going on here and the potential contamination of this investigation. >> let's get right to denny, congressman, give me your reaction to that "new york times" report. >> you can't make this stuff up. i can't confirm or deny one way or the other the veracity of the "new york times" report. but i can confirm this. it absolutely makes it appear as though there has been collusion and coordination between chairman nunes and the white house. and look. there look up purgatory in the dictionary. there's a video of sean spicer spending the rest of time answering questions about. this so my advice to chairman nunes, if he were to come to me

as den, crack history book. flip to the are page marked watergate. it is not the underlying crime that gets you. it is the cover-up. the best disinfectant is sunshine. call back the acting attorney general yates and others. issue subpoenas for records, tax records banks statements. by all means, will you finally turn over to your fellow committee colleagues whatever information you have about this thing that is created a great distraction from the issue at hand. which is get at the truth behind the russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion or coordination with possible officials. >> they seemed to indicate that devin nunes was on getting information to your committee about the information he received was and who he got it from. but cheryl nunes has been pretty clear that he won't be revealing his sources.

have you had any conversations with him about trying to figure out exactly what he found out? >> we have conveyed to him in the strongest terms possible, which is why as you will recall, last week, he looked us all in the eye and he apologized. but of course after he apologized we learned that he had not only been in receipt of these documents. he received them on white house grounds and he'd been to the white house the night before. he told us then that he would get us these documents. we have yet to receive them. >> congressman, one last question. you have to answer in it 10 to 15 seconds. the white house is calling your chairman and your ranking member over to the white house to get some top secret information. what do you make of that? >> i think there's a legitimate separation of powers here. we should not be coordinating in any way with the white house why we are investigating the white house. the fbi is underway. the senate is underway. frankly, i'll tell you this.

i wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if there are not local prosecutors now beginning to investigate some of these issues circling around russian interference in the 2016 election. specifically mr. manafort's real estate disease. and i have to say the, go zags. >> abusing your opportunity there. i appreciate it. that will do it for me. i'm katy the tur. a busy afternoon. we're going on start just where she left off with the breaking news. the white house responding to a "new york times" report citing current american officials, xlams two white house officials provided house intelligence chair den nunes with reports suggesting the president and team members were swept up in incidental surveillance. and friendly fire. a week after the health care failure, president trump lashing out at his