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 hewitt. this is my new year's eve-eve show where we look back at this saturday morning 364 days before it, full of busy news, fake news, true news, big and sometimes forgotten stories. and i do it with a great panel of the beltway's young gun journalists. collectively, we broke down the avalanche of news from the still unfolding me too scandals, the

size of president trump's inauguration crowd. whether or not the topic and the controversy will still matter this time next year or indeed in 2020 when he is facing kamala harris for the white house. we snuck in a prediction there. you have to do these things subtly. will the gorsuch confirmation matter in four years? >> it is one of the few things that actually will matter. that was the rationale for reluctant republicans and social conservatives to back president trump's campaign. when it came down to it, it was the supreme court and nothing but the supreme court. i don't think there is any question it is one of the most consequential results of this entire year. >> and will be i think for the president. courtney, i want to go to north korea. it's our second story. justice gorsuch is in awe box that will stay there forever and not much is said about it.

north korea will be that way for how long? >> every week. it has the potential of being the biggest story of a decade potentially depending how it turns. it changes every week. nearly every day. we don't know what they will do. we don't know what the administration will do. foreign policy is so confusing right now. secretary tillerson and mattis pushing diplomacy and president trump tweeting diplomacy doesn't work. we don't know when north korea will do something that could be pro on vac active. senator graham said he thought there was a real potential that president trump could strike first before north korea. things to look for in the new year if north korea were to test any kind of nuclear bomb in the atmosphere that would be i think a game changer, a red line that the united states would have to do. >> has anyone used that term, though? >> no. absolutely not. i think that would be a game

changer in this back and forth. >> francesca chambers, north korea again. you do a lot of foreign travel. it has to be part of the buzz on the back of the plane every day that you are flying. >> i 100% agree with what you're saying. i don't want to be like accused of warmongering or scare tactics, but, look, this administration is looking at plans to be able to, if they had to, as you're saying here, to be able to go forward with some sort of a military option. i know they keep saying those are always on the table, but i am hearing they are trying to afford a military option if they had to, in march of next year. again, hopefully, we'll obviously not get to where they would have to do that. when they say the military option is on the table, the military option is on the table. >> general dunford said at the aspen security institute, that's what you pay us for. we have plans. it is hard to think about the unthinkable, but we have plans.

james homan, you get the collections of disasters. three hurricanes, a forest fire, las vegas massacre, sutherland springs. three terrorist attacks in new york. consequentially one was much more devastating than the other two. it has been a year of terrible sorts. >> and it numbs you. that's one of the problems. you're not asking the question of 5 years, 10 years. in the last couple of weeks, we have noted the five-year anniversary of sandy hook, which was such a tragedy regardless of what you want to do about guns, regulations or not. they come in such rapid succession. we saw people trying to advance their own political agenda with the disasters. whether that's tackling climate change with the shootings. you know, nothing has happened on bump stocks. the atf says it doesn't have the ability to regulate those. the congress has no appetite to act. it is not clear if anything is

going to come from this. our system for disaster insurance is fundamentally brok broken, the way that it works. >> i asked this to all of you. which resonates the most? puerto rico is without food, water, and energy in large parts of it. americans are suffering daily. we tend not to pay attention on it to it. >> i don't think it is not on the radar. it completely drifted off. we in the media have a responsibility to keep people paying attention to those things. "washington post" has a couple people in puerto rico right now working on a story. we have a videographer down there. it is is awful important. and the houston recovery is continuing too. a lot of people that were not going to have the happy holiday season in texas because of these storms that happened in august. we have collectively done -- it's hard. i feel there was a video recently of a woman dumping a ten disballs in front of her dog. and the dog is paralyzed because

he doesn't know which to chase after. it's hard in this environment so much is happening with disasters and other news to know which tennis ball to chase after. >> flint was the story of 2016. we have a dozen flints this season. which resonated? >> nobody is paying attention to any of it. to james's point, it is an incredibly difficult time to be in news media. that is not saying woe is us. if you travel the country, and i have been to a couple of rallies when the president has held campaign rallies. you talk about the big political development stories of the day, a lot of those major stories we think are a1 on everybody's radar, they are not paying attention to because they are busy with their everyday lives. when you get to continuing disaster relief and shootings, there was a school shooting last week that i didn't find out about until two days after it happened. so we have been collectively

desensitized, as james was saying, to so many of these things. >> we are not talking about isis because isis has been defeated. am i correct? is that an overstatement? >> it is an overstatement to say they have been defeated. they don't have their caliphate. there are 6,000 to 10,000 isis fighters in iraq and syria, the euphrates valley. i think people would be surprised how wide a swath is still controlled by isis. they have moved into africa, the sinai. at the end of the day, even though the caliphate is gone, their ideology is still very real. that being said, though, i think 2017 was a good year in the fight against isis. and i think the administration, the u.s. military has a lot to be proud of for what they have pushed. >> and a reminder as we approach

new year's, tens of thousands of americans deployed not just on the ships always at watch but on the ground in places like syria, iraq, afghanistan, in harm's way. we often don't write about them. they do their 11 or 13 months and come home. >> yeah. we found out in 2017 how many are in afghanistan despite we have been told it was somewhere around 8,000 or 9,000. it is closer to 15,000. they have always used funny math how many people are on the ground and because the trump administration has added several thousand more. >> francesca, on the disaster stories, which have stuck with you and you think we will still be talking about? i still don't understand las vegas. we don't have a motive. we don't have witnesses. >> i don't think that's going away. you're talking about 2020. you think he will be facing off against harris. you could potentially see chris murphy rise up because he's from connecticut. newtown is very, very important to him. and this issue has been very important to him.

and i think americans really do care about the gun violence tragedies and obviously conservatives and liberals disagree what the response should be. but this is a conversation that is clearly not going away. but to speak to what you were saying about neil gorsuch and whether that is still resonating, it depends on what president trump is able to get done in 2018. this may be the only thing the republicans really have to be able to say, look, this is what we did this year. they weren't able to get a full obamacare repeal and replace. maybe they will get it done before the elections. but i think president trump has said, look, this is something we did. that is not a time to hang your hat on going into elections. >> when we come back from the break, we'll look at the year. i think we ended up with the president on a winning streak. we'll talk a little bit about that and pick it up after the break. stay with us. his lapel he's got a purple heart. (bruce) we started talking about the service. i outrank him. (chris) [laughs] yeah.

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welcome back. i'm hugh hewitt with my year in review show. it's my 19th radio show next week 6:00 to 9:00 eastern standard time but the conclusion of my first year on msnbc. i wrap one a great panel today. francesca chambers, courtney kube, tim alberta. i want to talk about collusion, russia, mueller, comey. call it what you will. but it is is trump's twitter trevails. will we have move on significantly but a year from now? >> i doubt we will. it is drip, drip, drip. the president's lawyers convinced him to cooperate.

trump believes it will be wrapped up in the next couple of months. the fact that michael flynn turned. we don't know what he has, what he has delivered. there are interviews that still haven't been done as of the end of the year with prominent people. it seems likely trump himself will be interviewed. it is a story of unforced errors. i think if donald trump can take back one decision he made it would be appointing jeff sessions as attorney general. not only did the alabama defeat in december for republicans, but, you know, everything that set in motion. special counsel with bob mueller firing comey. there's a lot of things that if you had appointed someone who didn't have to recuse themselves, this would have been more isolated and controlled. it is frankly a cancer on the presidency. >> all four of you are fair minded. francesca, how do you keep track of it without a score card?

for a veteran who can remember watergate, this isn't nearly as complex. >> you have people behind closed tkaorg testifying on capitol hill. you're taking on lawmakers who are partisan. we obviously don't know what they are telling mueller on top of that. the president has been tweeting. one of the challenges for reporters this year. i think a major challenge is starting your day every day not knowing if they will tweet about russian collusion. >> great for a radio show. >> and it's great for television. but you're waking up every day looking at your clock and it's 6:30 and you think is he going to tweet. and when he starts tweeting it is so not what you thought he would be saying.

>> how much does the russia burden enter into the calculation? he is a legislature. a wonk. he wants to do stuff. russia drains the energy out of everything. >> i will take it a step further, hugh. i cannot tell you how many members of congress, especially republican members of congress, have had these conversations with me, other reporters that i know that the russia thing, more than anything else that has been fatiguing that the russian investigation and the layers of it, how it seems to expand drained the life out of people on capitol hill. they want to he escape this. you are going to see more retirements at the beginning of the new year. there's no question that for ryan, for mcconnell, for members of the republican leadership who are trying to keep the trains running and trying to pursue a legislative agenda is as far as tax reform, welfare reform, infrastructure, title thes in 2018, you only have so much band

width to pursue these things when the president trump is not only being investigated and his team for potential collusion but he is being investigated for obstruction of justice as well. >> courtney, the one great thing about the russia story, it has not invaded your building, the pentagon. mike pompeo, nsa people, general mattis, general dunford and the rest, it's just not touched them, has it? >> so that's actually been great as a reporter because i can kind of heisman the story. what's been difficult is the first time in my 13 years at the pentagon, we have a pentagon leadership who doesn't engage with the media very much. they have twice each in all of 2017. and secretary mattis likes to come by. he gets his dry-cleaning.

he stops by and chats with us. sometimes it's on the record, sometimes it's not on the record. there's never a camera. but one of the reasons is they don't want to get pulled into politics. they know right now they have a lot of gravitas with this white house. they call and the president takes their calls. >> and chief of staff kelly is sitting there as part of the team. the alignment of iran is the strategic pivot of the last year, the great win. do people talk about that other than dimly perceived by the news media. >> they do talk about it. it is actually something that nicky haley revealing the missile. it reminded me of baghdad when the u.s. military would bring out pieces of projectiles, efps

and say these are markings from iran. it reminded me of 10 years ago in baghdad when they were rolling these out, proving of iran's efforts in the region. and i think we will see more and more of that going in the new year. they are trying to make the case against iran, how they are aligning themselves, they are particularly causing troubles in iraq with the united states with who they are aligning themselves with. they will make that case, the administration, as a way to also make the case against the jcpoa, against the united states. >> and in favor of getting rid of she questeration. we have to do that. the time people of the year are silence breakers. we will talk about the me too movement which burst two months ago and continues to erupt. i'm shocked and appalled by the behavior of a lot of people i have worked with for 35 years. but i don't know that it is going to be over any time soon.

what's your personal reaction to this unfolding? >> oh, you put me on the spot first. i think the timing of this really had an effect on the senate race we just saw. we talked about how roy moore is not donald trump. and i think that the timing of the me too movement really encapsulated and had a huge effect on the senate race and how republicans lost that seat. i also think that the president is going to have a difficulty running away from this story broadly in the white house. they have said obviously none of the allegations against the president are true and that was litigated in the last election. okay. but there is actually ongoing litigation from one of his accusers. we have seen four or five pop back up in recent weeks saying they want him to be held accountable. that is also going to continue

to happen. sopbgs that continues to happen, it is still a national story. >> not just the senate race but in november we saw a massive swing in the gender gap. 2018 will be the year of women on steroids. it will be bigger than 1992. a lot of people will get elected to the house. there will be a culture change. the pendulum swings. this is a seminole moment. we haven't seen the last of it manifest itself. in some ways this is a latest effect of the "access hollywood" video from 2016, the fact that trump won, harvey weinstein opened the flood gates. and the flood greats are still open. >> one ahead of the curb was the pentagon. as a young woman working in that building and your beat, do you

think it has changed significantly? >> the military takes a lot of black eyes on sexual assault in the military. the reality is they do make a lot of efforts against a problem -- and sexual harassment, not just assault. let's be honest, it is never going to go away. you can't stop is it. the me too movement is wonderful, tremendous that it's coming out and that it is part of the conversation and conversation but it is is not going to end it. it probably won't curtail that much behavior. when i started i was one of two women. i was 10 years younger than anyone else. people called me honey, sweetie, young lady. that has changed. >> professionalism helps. >> it does. >> i have heard 30 to 40 more have problems. what do you think? >> this is going to cascade into

the new year's. this transcends the political. this is a cultural watershed moment. this is the problem with the nature of mankind. we have heard a lot about people saying as a father of daughters or the mother of daughters. i think this needs to be more about sons. i was not raised to treat women this way. as a father of two young sons, if they watch this tape one day and i'm gone by the time they watch them, i want them to know this is not how you treat woman. >> i'm proud of my boys in that regard and my son-in-law. thank all four of you for helping to close out a great year. everyone out there, have a great 2018. my final thoughts after this.

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