for a white house that tends to buck tradition and protocol with pride, parts of today seemed to operate with more norms than we are used to seeing. after the president and king of jordan made brief opening statements on a beautiful day in the rose garden, president took questions from two old school media outlets. julie pace of the associated press and john wang of pbs. he had just exited an interview with two reporters from the new york times in the oval office. it's enough to make you think things are changing inside the west wing. let's take on that theory. let's bring in our panel a kind of white house press corps in and of itself. white house reporter for the

associated press. eli of the wall street journal emains with us and katelyn collins, white house correspondent for the daily caller. we're awfully happy to have you and we've been watching you as we have all the figures in the white house press corps with great interest. the president's been good in terms of calling on you. i think sean spicer calls you in regular amounts. but can you blame us for thinking something was afoot with these four name journalists from more traditional outlets? >> it was a little bizarre today. like you said, the president had two reporters from "the new york times" come into the oval office and interview him. this is a newspaper he regularly denounces on twitter. he said "the new york times" is failing. so it was interesting he chose those two reporters to interview him. and whenever he pulled his health care bill, the first publication was the washington post.

so it's a little bizarre. if donald trump is going to stand by his tweets t seems counter productive he's giving so much effort to the outlets he criticizes. >> what did you make of his choice to start his day not only by calling of the new york times to the oval office in a meeting that ended up being about infrastructure and spending bills. but his choice to criminalize susan rice's actions, say it's going to be one of the big stories of our time. offering no further evidence and then such words in support of his friend bill o'reilly. >> well, whether changes with regards to who he reaches out to. the message is still clear. the president doesn't like any negative press and likes to make his case well known. i mean, he wants to be sure he reaches the most audiences. in this case he feels the new york times probably was one outlet he could reach the most

people who believe this opposite narrative to his own and so he wanted to talk to them as he does and as he has since he's taken office. and as far as the content, it wasn't too shocking. he had an agenda. he wanted to make that clear and that's how he operates in general. on the day to day in the white house when he wants to say something, he's going to tell the press stop, don't leave the room, i have something to say and he'll say it because he knows the media ultimately will get the message out to both his voters and his critics and that's what he's looking to do. >> and in this business as a practical matter, our coverage went up at 1:00 eastern today. we couldn't believe the news about susan rice, about bill o'reilly. that occupied the run up to the bilateral news conference and occupied some of the talk afterward as the president had

supplied two new leads prior to what they had hoped to be the focal point of the day. >> right. flooding the news cycle not a new development for donald trump. accusing someone with no evidence, defending someone in spite of ample evidence, not new for donald trump. i think the one thing you noted was interesting was so far at these two by twos when there are two questions from u.s. journalists and two from foreign journalists and that's it, the president has carefully selected who those questions are coming from and has looked to pick people who might give him a better chance of evading tougher questions. today he got very difficult questions on syria. i think that felt different in that moment. perhaps the president getting more comfortable with this format. perhaps he wanted to talk about syria. but that was one new development we noticed today.

hopefully econtinue to spread the questions around. and whoever he calls on will respectfully ask the most relevant and at times the toughest question possible. >> he did use a kind of familiar device today when talking about the susan rice story. saying it's going to be anung biggest of our time but then saying in effect you'll see. the evidence will come out. tonight i heard surrogate after surrogate saying the president perhaps has something. he must know something. i heard a journalist answer back saying, maybe the first lady shoplifted from burg dorf. we don't have any evidence but maybe it happened." >> i think that has been donald trump's style for a very long time now. he eludes he has something and then we don't really see it. this happened with the wire tapping claim. he said barack obama wire tapped him. he did not use quotes multiple

times and then we never saw evidence of that. and then it was changed to incidental collections, intelligence swept up when spying on foreign agents and we never saw evidence and the nunes stuff came out and they said that vindicated donald trump and it didn't. but as long as people start asking about other things in the news cycle, they kind of put it to rest. >> vivian, because deadline journalists are good at this, because we had your former colleague on last night and asked him for a headline. on the fly, if i asked you to write what journalists affectionately call a thought piece on what you've witnessed 76 days in so far, what would your lead sentence be or best attempt? >> never a dull moment. hands down. >> lead sentence and paragraph. thanks to all of our friends. thanks to the three of you for joining us. again, appreciate you coming on the broadcast.

coming up, president trump tells the times he, as we've been saying, thinks susan rice committed a crime. thinks it will become one of the biggest stories of our time and offers no evidence to back up this claim. more when "the 11th hour" continues.

the real question we need ask susan rice is did the president direct you do eves drop and sift through all of the mountains of intelligence we have? >> you need verify, not trust and it wouldn't surprise me that somebody in the obama administration, like susan rice, would do this. but i'm not going to prejudge. i intend to find out. >> and welcome back to "the 11th hour." senator lindsey graham vowing not to prejudge are susan rice. the president however, in that

new york times interview today, maggie haberman, glen thrush in the oval office. he accuses susan rice of committing a crime flat out. the president said quote, no, you have a lot of information. no, you have so much information. do you think she might have committed a crime? the president replied yes. i think. and the former undersecretary for foreign affairs and still with us defense, jeremy bash. how do you come out and criminalize a former u.s. ambassador, former security advisor with a glaring, yawning lack of evidence so far? >> it's not just lack of evidence, it's lack of knowledge about the whole process. this kind of ignorance of how the intelligence process works, that intelligence services give you that information. i went to just look at the

number of fisa requests, 702 requests that then ask for an unmasking of a u.s. person. about a quarter of them do. it's not unusual. something like 500 u.s. citizens names were revealed in 2015. having looked through those reports myself, you often see a name redacted or it says a u.s. person. most of the time it doesn't seem relevant. but if you're the national security advisor and looking at possible hostile foreign power interfering with the u.s. election, you might want to know some of those u.s. names they may be corresponding with. >> and once and for all i hear on a nightly basis mostly surrogates for the president say using active wding that they surveilled the trump campaign. susan rice surveilled the trump campaign. this process, correct me if i'm wrong, goes like this. representative comes to the

national security adviser to the president of the united states with precleared intelligence. you're reading through the intelligence. if you have a question. who is u.s. person number three in this transcript? they go back to ft. mead to the national security agency and get permissions to unmask that name if there's a formal request. and that does not mean it leaves that room, correct? >> absolutely correct. the target of the surveillance in the case that you referenced would be a foreign agent. say for example the russian ambassador. it's done pursuant to a court order authorized by federal judges to conduct surveillance against that foreign target and if an american happens to be talking to that target, say for example mike flynn, and you need understand the intelligence report, it's appropriate to understand who is talking to the russian ambassador. that's done all the time.

it's appropriate, lawful, necessary to protect national security. and i think the president's legations not just incorrect, it's dangerous. because when he's out there in the rose garden, talking about national security issues, all of the crisis we've been talking about tonight, the american people have to believe he's coming forward with facts, evidence. that he's basing his statements on information, verifiable intelligence and if he's just shooting from the hip or the lip without anything to back it up, he's not going to be able to be a credible commander-in-chief. >> what am i missing here? what is susan rice being accused of beyond that process we just agreed to? >> first of all she's like a red flag to a bull for people on the right. >> she's called typhoid mary. >> i can't plane is why exactly. i think they're conflating the idea of unmasking with leaking. unmasking, as jeremy said, is a

perfectly normal request that you are making and you have a court requesting. for a foreign person contacting an american. that is kept in a very, very, very tight circle. so they seem to think and even in the terms that senator paul was using that eavesdropping, there's eavesdropping going on. this is a report she's looking at for the identity of a u.s. person. she's not surveilling the trump campaign. >> i want to join you in thanking jeremy bash. he's still on live tv tonight not with standing the fact he's on the other coast and able to enjoy the high life for another week. thanks for being part of my coverage. another break. donald trump performs best when others up against an opponent. after defeating hillary clinton

who perhaps is the best foil for the oval office occupant? that is more questions when the 11th hour continues.

last night on our broadcast, he said he must miss hillary clinton. that he needs an enemy. he hasn't had a had clear cut opponent since election day. that doesn't mean he hasn't gone after many people and groups. a quick check of his twitter account in the last month shows he's still targeting clinton but trying on a few new attacks like leakers, the freedom caucus, republicans, mind you. obamacare, north korea and snoop dogg failing career and all. back with us, gentleman, who were with us earlier in the broadcast, michael steel and rick stangal. rick, along these lines, why as well is it so important for the

president to say the world is a mess. i think it is in part because he had never really looked at the world before. the world is a dangerous place. and he hadn't really realized that before. if you look at when obama came into office, the rise of isis, it was a much more dangerous place. it's a less dangerous place in parts because of the iran agreement. i think he's just looking at it in a way he hasn't actually looked at it before and goes, my god, this is really scary. >> you don't think there's any larger world view he needs to consolidate power. >> it's a foil in a way the world is falling apart. i need to fix it. i need to run against somebody i need to have something i'm

always pushing up against. in parent, because he doesn't stand for anything himself. he has no actual world view. he does need a foil. he does need to attack. he does need to say because he exaggerates everything, he needs to say the world is the worst it's ever been. far far from it. >> michael steele, the russians launched a basketball with a light on it called spudnick. yet the cold war between the u.s. and the soviet union means among other things, those are just american footprints up there on the moon if you believe those missions actually happened. i think they happened in a studio in california. kidding. having that enemy was in a way beneficial for both counties even though tom friedman wrote we found out the soviets couldn't build a light bulb after all. do you believe in this theory donald trump needs a clear and

defined enemy? >> i think donald trump is manifestation where the country finds itself post cold war. who do we look at as the main foil? for donald trump that becomes a very shifting proposition everyday. there's myriads of individuals and companies and institutions he can go after. hasn't really settled on any of that yet. i think it goes exactly to richard's point, what his anchored to? that comes from a place you're moored to principally. you have a value system you inject on others and they engage you in those principles and ideas. that's not been donald trump's main operation. he's a deal guy, i walk into a room i want to build a building, i build a building. this is a very different type of engagement and environment people respond back and they

actually push back as we've seen with north korea and we've seen with syria. today, the rose garden, this is my responsibility. yeah. you're president. that's the way he's discovering and putting various pieces together. there's not person he goes after on a day-to-day basis. he's trying to figure out who that enemy is. hillary was that representation in the campaign. who is it now. >> the fascinaing thing that came out was the transcript of the "new york times" interview with the president. the talk about his spending plans and big things, no talk about eminent domain or big bids, what will happen and how much money will be spent. isn't the most important question to him who are his friends as a 35, 36% president in the quinnipiac poll, who will he do this with? >> that was smart of him, when your ratings are -- ratings are the wrong words, that's his words.

if you choose a topic, subject like infrastructure which you can have bipartisan support where you can have public support, it does actually throw off jobs and investment and help the economy that is where i would be going for. i wouldn't be going for things like healthcare or tax reform. that actually splits people even more. here's something that could bring more of a consensus. >> promise people a new airport. they have to find a better word than infrastructure as sexy as it is. michael steele, thank you very much. mr. secretary, thank you. final break for us coming up, one of the most steadfast promises of trump's political campaign, build the wall. today, however, a realty check.

one of our last things before we go tonight. there are a few things you could set your watch to at every trump rally. when he was done speaking the song "you can't always get you want" by the rolling stones and when he spoke he talked about the big beautiful wall and getting mexico to pay for it. that was then and fast forward to today when the world seems to collide for the president. one of those hearings that doesn't get all the attention. his homeland secretary of security made it clear he

wouldn't get all those things the crowds chanted for. >> i will say this. it's unlikely we will build a wall from see to shining sea but committed to putting it where we can put it. i am looking at every variation on the theme and i will say boss, wall makes sense here. fening makes sense here, high technology makes sense here squlairvegs no doubt he will tell me to do it. >> there will be something in different places. the secretary of homeland security testifying before the senate of homeland security today. that will do it after another busy day. thank you for being here with us. good night for now from new york.

>> it's not only not going to get better. it's going to get worse every day. >> the ex-breitbart publisher removed from the national security council as the president does some high-stakes ad-libbing on foreign policy. >> my attitude toward syria and assad has changed. >> tonight, the white house shake-up with senator chris murphy and congresswoman maxine waters. then as advertisers flee from the factor, president trump defends o'reilly, saying, quote, i don't think bill did anything wrong. >> first of all locker room tock. >> rebecca tracer and gloria ryan are here to respond. plus senator tim kaine on the democrats fight to stop neil gorsuch. and congressman eric swalwell on today's hearings on the trump russia probe when "all in" starts right now.