you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. morning, glory, america. i'm hugh hhewitt. coming up, a commission majority to return the internet to the net neutrality rule in 2015. but first rocky washington, d.c. this week. guilty plea entered by former national security adviser to michael flynn happened yesterday. the aftereffects of the north korean missile shot

reverberating and the passing of sweeping tax legislation and looming changes at the department of state and central intelligence agency. i'm joined to talk about these stories with steve core knacky, national correspondent for nbc news, hope sack who covers the navy and marine corps. for military.com and politico's jake sherman. steve, i want to start with you if i could. i really hoped to spend most of the morning how much ohio state has to beat wisconsin but now we have to talk about mike plain. when he pled guilty i thought he's been cooperating. who were they shooting at? who is the ultimate target of the mueller investigation is right now? >> it's interesting because it looks like this guilty plea has to deal with lying with the fbi about contacts with the russians after election day, basically in the transition period. so much of the conversation has been this idea of collusion,

what if anything was taking place during the campaign. it looks from the initial things that are being pieced together here we're looking at what happened after the election. it raises it seems to me, a potential different question. not one about this issue of collusion during the election but about this idea of the logan act, about trying to set foreign policy, take actions before somebody is actually in office. conversations with the russians about sanctions involving israel and -- skaous excuse me, what the obama administration did last september. are we in post election or preelection realm? it seems to be attentively on the post election side. then it is a question too of does flynn actually have, if he is cooperating, what mueller thinks he has and will he cooperate to the extent mueller believes he will cooperate. we have seen cases where the plea deal is struck. the cooperation is agreed to. and six months later the

prosecutor feels, hey, didn't get what i was looking for here. >> there are three possible targets i would say with one more second. jared kushner, donald trump jr. and steve bannon. in the speculation you have heard, are either thought to you to be the target or cooperating with mr. mueller against one of the other ones. >> it is all speculation. i don't want -- i don't have any speculation i have heard the a substantive enough level that i feel good repeating it here other than to say i think my role is to try to throw -- i know this is not the most glamorous thing to do in the moment, but throw a little bit of caution. it is a momentous development. it points to many possible directions. in terms of what we know right now, it seems to be in a post election realm. the names are all being speculated about right now. we will see what he gives to mueller or what he doesn't. >> that's the biggest story in washington. but the most significant story in the world what north korea

did this week. hope, you covered the military, navy, united states marine corps.. north korea popped off a missile that went up 3,000 miles and flew 600 miles east. how prepared was the military for that launch? >> well, if you have been listening to the generals who have been testifying this year, they expect and have been predicting that north korea has both the aability and the inten to hit the u.s. does it require another axle to carry it on their launchers? the specifics are new. this is exactly what they have been telegraphing and predicting. it is very interesting to me because we have been talking for years how north korea is this unpredictable rogue state and you don't know what they're going to do next. in fact, they are becoming very predictable. >> in terms of -- was there any

conversation in the halls of the pentagon or when you talked to the generals off the campus to shooting it down, to going after one of their launches? did you hear that speculated at all? >> you know, right now we are talking a show of action, whether it is military action. depleting their ability to launch these missiles. but north korea has a hair-trigger provocation. we don't know what is going to set it off. we don't know what they will respond to. >> it is really tense right now. into that tension, jake sherman, comes in stability from the white house about rex tillerson, cia director mike pompeo. i want to roll the tape from "meet the press" from october 8th when i was a guest earlier this year. >> they are discussing with the president and senator tom cotton

to the cia for the strategic reason that secretary of state uniquely must represent the president abroad. you think he's a moron. not just a moron, a bleeping mor moron, it doesn't work. secondly, you send them to confirmation hearings, they both have access to the data which will allow them to say there is no there there in the russian story. jake sherman, rex tillerson said it is an absurd story. what do you hear? >> i hear what you have been saying for two months, and i will give you credit. whenever i'm on your radio show you do say this. this is a real thing. this is going to happen. tillerson is, as you know, seems to have lost the trust of the president. pompeo and tom cotton are really of the same ilk and have been working very closely with the president. i know them both from serving in congress. they are both close to each other. they have the same world view. i want to insert one note of

caution here. i wonder if cotton would take this job. i'm sure you think he will, hugh. but cotton seems to have ambition to be in the white house one day. and the question is, is being cia director better for that eventual goal than a member of the congress, being in the senate. that's something he will have to wrestle with himself. he would certainly get confirmed. pompeo would certainly get confirmed. there is question about his ambiti ambition. >> h.w. bush, it worked for him. >> it did. >> hope, we have general mcmaster, general dunford, general mattis, germ kelly as chief of staff. if you sent two west point officer pompeo and cotton, it is the greatest national security team since schultz and reagan. but the general is welcome in your view? >> general john kelly has this

40-year military career. he knows one thing very well. you want to eliminate distractions and present a united front. president donald trump is not a team of rivals president. he doesn't want the lincoln cabinet. and i think general kelly knows that. he wants this united front that president trump feels comfortable with, doesn't feel like he has to feud in a public setting. so having these folks, the military background, which we know president trump loves is just in addition to to that. >> steve kornacki, do you see this transition happening at state and cia before the end of the year, or early next year, and does it help to bring it to a rock by scandal. >> i heard maybe it matters to tillerson finishing up the first year. if this is a matter of him finally taking the hint, getting the message of finally leaving

on his own without getting fired. i think you mentioned december and all the things going on right now, interesting complicating factor is what happened on december 12th in the alabama senate race. if doug jones, the democrat, is able to win that senate race, that is a seat democrats will pick up right away in the next two years they didn't think they would have and republicans didn't think they would have to worry about. it does raise the question if tom cotton is part of the scenario, i'm not sure cotton wants to move to the cia for his long-term political aspirations, arkansas used to be democratic. it has gotten republican. it is not as republican as alabama in an anti incumbent, anti white house midterm in 2018 it very well may be. do you want to inject that in stability into a special senate election in alabama too. >> my reporting is that cotton would indeed take the directorship of the cia were it offered by the president. and those discussions between the president and senior

advisers are ongoing. but i don't believe arkansas creates the same situation as alabama because there is only one roy moore. what do you think? >> that's probably right. special elections are weird things, and weird things happen. there is some reporting out there that there are democrats who are looking at it. it does seem like a safe seat, especially if the governor chooses somebody with a conservative record in congress who has already been elected, steve womack. another army veteran or french hill who is a republican from little rock. these are two members of the house with electoral history, have been vetted and could win a statewide race. there are ways to prevent arkansas from going democratic. there are steps you could take if you are the governor of arkansas. >> in a time of great in stability, they would welcome pompeo and cotton. thank you steve, hope, jake. net knew tralneutrality.

what's the future of the internet? like stop worrying about your boss fast, like wow, you're already asleep fast. when life keeps you up... zzzquil helps you fall asleep in as little as 20 minutes. have been vetted and could win a net neutrality.

i love kiwis. i've always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. super poligrip free. it creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. just a few dabs is clinically proven to seal out more food particles. try super poligrip free. ♪

or a little internet machine? [ phone rings ] it makes you wonder. shouldn't we get our phones and internet from the same company? that's why xfinity mobile comes with your internet. you get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. so all you pay for is data. choose by the gig or unlimited. and ask how to get a $200 prepaid card when you buy any new samsung device with xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. click, call or visit today.

hey, welcome back. i'm hugh hewitt. you hear me monday through friday on the salem radio network 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. welcome to a man a top the fcc. of course now the internet. at least for a couple more weeks. chairman, welcome to the program. it's great to have you. as i said, i'm a radio guy first. so i want to start with just a radio question. a.m. revitalization at the fcc. we need some more power. when are we going to get two millivolts. >> we're working on it. i have heard that is that the

noise floor is so much that everything from power lines to your electric clock might interfere with a.m. signals. we are working with engineers and broadcasters to see if we can make some noise there. >> we remain in floods, fires, hurricanes, people go to a.m. radios. you used to have to worry about bleed in rural america. but now it is too many devices screwing up our signals. >> you put your finger on why this is so important. i have been to houston, miami, and puerto rico and i have heard that a.m. were the lifeline for people in a moment of desperation. >> let's turn to net neutrality. you are much in the news. in a couple weeks you will take up an order whether or not to reverse the 2015 that the commission undertook on net neutrality. ben thompson, who runs a blog devoted to tech strategy or something like that. >> techery.

>> who can be against it? in other words, it's just a slogan. is he right? >> and i would urge any of your viewers to read carefully what ben said. he said the choice is regulating before the fact or regulating after the fact. if you regulate before anything bad happens, a lot of costs come along with it. that's why he cited and supposedly said pie is right we can return to the market based approach, have after the fact regulation to make sure there is no anti competitive contact. he supports neutrality. he recognizes that we can't have a free and open internet with these rules because we had one from 1996 until 2015. >> when i was reading this piece and it took a long time because this is not my wheel house. i'm a radio guy. it seemed to be counter intuitive where he ended up. he ended up with let's stay deregulated at least for a period certain to see what happens. is that carrying the date with any of your critics when ben

thompson says, yeah, pie is right. >> it does make a difference when he and mark cuban and others who have made their living based on these online platforms. they say, look, we need rules that promote more investment and infrastructure and we need more competition, not preemptive legislation from washington, i would hope people in good faith would take those comments with credence. >> i have a proposition for you. not one in 100 people know what net neutrality is.

>> voiced a concern this is a case as we say regulating one's rivals, urging federal agencies to regulate one part of the industry instead of one zone. i will leave that for others to debate. i'm focused on making sure we have a free and open internet for the entire internet economy. by empowering the fcc to take action against anti competitive from whatever part of the economy we will allow everyone

to innovate. >> some talk about pathway evolution. whenever you regulate, a pathway, and you go down a bit. but the problem with changing course is people proceeded down a bit. two years since the commission's order under president obama's commission definitive? will it cost too much to make the change back now? >> not at all. president clinton adopted a free approach in 1996. we had that until 2015. once we return to the framework, i'm confident the $1.5 trillion we saw in investment prior to 2015 will be replicated going forward. secondly, the important point i think people need to understand is we do have cops on the beat. we will be protecting consumers going forward. we're simply returning to the market based framework that served everybody so well. >> some of the companies are becoming content providers, twitter, facebook, they are producing content.

at the fcc do you view them as content that needs to be monitored? >> so i take a free market approach. these are private companies that tried to innovate on this online platform. the content that goes over their networks i don't think should be regulated by the fcc. others may have a debate about that. at the end of the day, we want to create rules of the road that provide for a competitive marketplace and let companies innovate. as long as they are not violating the law, i don't think the fcc should have a role. >> how can you not be behaving anti competitive when you're facebook and the algorithms and the googles. >> that's happening on capitol hill and other agencies. should you practice what you preach. you're urging the fcc for heavy handed on service providers because you believe free expression online. should you behave similarly? should you be transparent with

consumers about what you're doing and why. >> i spoke with hillary clinton and a book we both believed was vital. it worries about where we are headed with the aenormous concentrations of power. do you say talk to the antibiotic trust. >> it is for the antitrust to worry about. but we worry about concentrated marketplaces. whether we talk about wireless or radio business. we also have to be on our guard that the public interest, which is our standard, is always met. the transaction that's before us, if it's application for a regulatory solution that's before us, we always scrutinize everything through that lens of the public interest. part of that determination requires a competitive market. >> could someone persuade you to keep the order going forward. >> looking at the record we did, unprecedented amount of input. we have come to the conclusion

that the right approach was the clinton free market approach. >> you're not changing. >> i'm not changing at this point. if there are tweaks people want to talk about, i'm open to that. at the end of the day, i think the comments from ben thompson to other providers to the other folks who submitted comments on the road persuaded us we're on the right track. >> congress has not spoken. this is an old statute, promulgated under the clean air act. it just doesn't work. should a new construct in place for the monitoring of internet service providers and content providers. >> this is something congress has the prerogative and in some cases the interest of doing. i have long said where the fcc often gets into trouble, not just in court but public opinion, is trying to shoe horn the marketplace into these frameworks from yesterday. in this case putting the internet under rules from 1934

from the bell monopoly. >> and you were personally threatened because of this, as has your family. have they laid off? has the word get out that left, right, and center do not accept that. >> it is is an ongoing problem to deal with and has been extremely unpleasant for me. i'm used to some of it. but especially for my wife and my kids. they're not part of this public policy debate, nor should they be going into the debate. >> is it still ongoing? >> unfortunately there have been some security issues we have had to deal with in the world in which we live. >> radio also needs help when you get back. i'll be right back. don't good anywhere. we still need our radio. that's why i will be lobbying. i'll be right back. i no longer live with

the uncertainties of hep c. wondering, what if? i let go of all those feelings. because i am cured with harvoni. harvoni is a revolutionary

treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. it's been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. and is proven to cure up to 99% of patients who have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. before starting harvoni, your doctor will test to see if you've ever had hepatitis b, which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after harvoni treatment. tell your doctor if you've ever had hepatitis b, a liver transplant, other liver or kidney problems, hiv or any other medical conditions and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. taking amiodarone with harvoni can cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. ready to let go of hep c? ask your hep c specialist about harvoni.

thanks for watching. i want to finish up where we began with steve kornacki. we don't know what's going on into the investigation of michael flynn and surrounding him. i do suspect someone else is

cooperating with the investigation and that will come forward. we don't know who the target is. but we need to be far more cautious than we are accusatory. keep the information going on msnbc.com/hughhewitt. see you next week saturday morning here on msnbc. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ whatever it takes, wherever i have to go...i'm beating this. breast cancer treatment is continuing to evolve. ctca is definitely on the cusp of those changes. we really focus on taking the time with each individual patient so they can

choose the treatment appropriate for them. i empower women with choices. it's not just picking a surgeon. it's picking the care team, and feeling secure where you are. visit cancercenter.com/breast appointments available now.

hey there. good morning, everyone. i'm alex witt here at msnbc world headquarters at the half hour. here's what's happening. breaking news overnight. it took until nearly 2:00 a.m. eastern today before the senate passed that $1.5 trillion tax bill. the vote 51-49. tennessee senator bob corker was the only republican to vote against it, as did all the democrats. and moments ago the president tweeted his appreciation thanking house and senate republicans for what he calls the biggest tax bill and tax cuts in history. as for the president, he is preparing