thank you so much. thank you. so we're doing it. yes. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open. ♪ morning glory, america. i'm hugh hewitt. this saturday morning i'm diving into the russia investigation. that's right. plural. there are two of them. russia one is run by special counsel robert mueller and russia two which needs and deserves a second special counsel which mostly concerns the conduct of a few members of the senior level of the fbi and the department of justice during campaign 2016 and which triggered a demand for special second counsel by senators graham and grassley last week. i'll be joined by andrew

mccarthy to discuss both russia probes. first, the biggest stories of the week from the congress, white house, and pentagon with francesca chambers, heather cable, and courtney kube, the pentagon and national security for nbc news. let me begin with you, courtney. in the volcano explosion of news around the president's comments about various places around the globe, you have been covering north korea. fill us in. >> we saw for the first time in years north korea and south korea down along the dmz and they had a discussion. it was supposed to center primarily around the olympics. it started a week ago when kim jong-un gave his new year's day speech and made an overture to the south and said he was interested in talking to them about sending a delegation to the olympics. so far only two north korean athletes have qualified to go, some figure skaters.

but south korea septd almost immediately the next day. they got into negotiations how they were going to do it. they set the date for january 9th. and discussions occurred. they happened this week. they seem to have been relatively successful. north korea is now sending a delegation to south korea that will include cheerleaders and some media and the athletes themselves. and they have talked about continuing discussions now. they vice president set any dates for it. they haven't set any specific conditions. they have opened the door now for military discussions. it is is the first overture, the first little window into the potential for reducing the tensions between the two countries that we have seen in years. >> courtney, maybe it is the ping pong break through, but there is this background of the president tweeting his relationship with kim jong-un. whatever that means, i'm not sure. do you have any insight into that? >> no. so we saw tweets and comments from the president in the last week that really spanned all across the board from his

january 2nd tweet where he compared the nuclear buttons, his to kim jong-un's and said his was larger and actually worked. and then saying is he has a good relationship with kim jong-un or believes he does. we don't know what that really means. he has gone all across the gamut the last year or so. he said at one point several months ago in 2017 that he would be willing to speak to kim jong-un. that depending on the conditions. now he has opened that door again after weeks and months of in between where he did nothing but denigrate the north korean leader and insult him. so we just don't know. the hope is that this is the first time we have seen a little squeak of possibility to reduce the tensions. now, we have to also keep in mind during these talks on january 9th, the north koreans said to the south koreans we're

not interested in going after you, everything points to america. that opens immediate analysis after they first agreed was that north korea is trying to use this as a way to create a wedge between the u.s. and south korea because the relations aren't terrific between the two countries, the two presidents. that comment reinforces that idea a little bit. >> sure, it does. >> but at this point, you know, there's a little bit of hopefulness now that maybe they're on a path to some sort of negotiation and potential, you know, tension easing. >> the president's twitter feed and his comments in chambers have kept us focused on what happened in a meeting that happened thursday. i wrote a column about daca for the "washington post" on friday but it had been taken by events because they thought the daca deal was going to happen and then it blew up. what is the state of play with the daca deal and his s-hole

comments about people in haiti, el salvador and africa. >> they were saying there was a deal. the white house press secretary said -- i'm sorry, on thursday. the white house press secretary came out and said there is no deal, which created a bunch of chaos and confusion. president trump said earlier in the week he would be willing to sign whatever it was that the people came to him with on capitol hill. then all of a sudden the white house is saying no deal, contradicting the senators involved in the talks. then of course president trump tweeting there's not enough funding for the border wall and that it doesn't address chain migration the way he would want it to. so this is not something he would be willing to accept come directly goes against what he would is say, i will take what you guys are willing to give me. there is no deal. the white house remains hopeful there will be a deal. but we are running out of time. senators have said, lawmakers

have said that january 19th is the deadline. that's when the current spending resolution runs out. daca doesn't run out until march 5th. that's when they will start losing their statuses. otherwise, they could hold up that spending deal and force a government shutdown. it's really their own opportunity to push this issue. and so the idea that we get a deal before january 19th is looking slimmer and slimmer. >> heather cahill, welcome to the hill. you cover the hill for politico. congratulations, you're a roll tide even though they were legitimately this in the spot of ohio state. after all of this controversy, the president's very awful comments that have been condemned widely and denied by him, all that stuff aside, is there going to be a deal on daca and the wall? >> you know, that's a great question, hugh.

i was texting with aides on both sides of the aisle this morning. they're still engaging in staff level negotiations. as they both told me, they're very pessimistic right now. even before the president came out and panned the daca deal, it was getting heats from both sides of the aisle. senator tom cotton said this isn't a proposal. this is a joke. and the left said we're not going to negotiate on diversity visas. i don't know why this is in the proposal. so it was unclear even from the beginning if the senate deal had the muscle to get through both chambers even before trump went on twitter and blasted it. >> heather, i used the hashtag too obvious to fail, though. there are too many people who need this, the d.r.e.a.m.ers. there are too many people who want something. so are people just leveraging position, or do they really think it is dead, dead, dead? >> you know, that's a -- i don't know actually.

i think people are still in a position, they're trying to get their position up front and they're trying to use the leverage that they have. i mean, like you guys talked about earlier, the government funding does run out on friday. and there's no clear path on how we keep the government running behind then. both sides are going to have to come to some kind of agreement, even if it's not a deal that is passed and signed into law next friday, they are going to have to show some movement to keep the government open. neither republicans or democrats want a shutdown. they both think it is terrible politics. i think in the next few days we will see both sides come off the sidelines and start really negotiating. >> francesca chambers in the aftermath of the president's meeting which caused so much controversy with his comments, did you talk to anyone at the white house who believes they can revive the conversations at least because they had the good meeting that was televise and the terrible meeting that wasn't? do they think they can get it back on the rails? >> the white house absolutely still believes there is a

possibility here. like heather said that, january 19th day is coming one way or the other. so if the president does want the money for the military, as he has said in his tweets, and he doesn't want to see a government shutdown, there is going to have to be a deal of some sort by that day. and democrats are saying if there's no daca, they could force a government shutdown. hugh, i wanted to hit something on that we had talked earlier in this panel on north korea. that has also been something right now that has been very big at this white house because the president said in this interview with "the wall street journal" that he probably has this very good relationship with kim jong-un. that's very surprising and shocking because they are not known to be high-level talks between the united states and north korea for nearly 20 years. and for president trump to suggest that he was having conversations with him, which he suggested by saying they probably have a very good relationship. but then wouldn't comment on

whether he was having them with him. incident was really surprising and raised a lot of eyebrows. he previously even swatted down the secretary of state rex tillerson still engaging in diplomatic talks with kim and calling him little rock et man and short and fat. >> did the eyes roll when the idea of a good relationship between the president and the dictator emerged? >> candidly, the first person that i asked about that said they thought he just had the name wrong and he was actually talking about the south korean president. nobody is aware of any direct talks that they've had. the only real relationship we're aware of is this twitter war back and forth where they seem to call one another name and brag about the size of their nuclear buttons. >> maybe that is strategic ambiguity. thank you, francesca, courtney, and heather. i'll be back with a look at the two russia investigations with

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♪ welcome back. i'm hugh hewitt. you can hear me monday through friday 6:00 to 9:00 eastern on the salem radio network. saturday mornings i'm here on msnbc. this morning i'm joined by andrew c. mccarthy. the senior fellow at the national review institute and a former federal prosecutor. he is the man who led the prosecution of the blind sheikh behind the first world trade center bombing. he is author of the grand jihad and willful blindness but most recently a series of special counsel mueller's investigation as well as on the is very unusual behavior of a handful of the fbi and doj.

for purposes of keeping our story line straight, i will refer to mueller investigation as russia one and the congressional unchoiries as russia two. great to talk to you. thank you for coming in. >> good to talk with you. >> i share an enormous amount of respect for robert mueller and his team. am i right about that? >> i have a great deal of respect for mueller. of i have spotty confidence but a great deal of respect for the abilities of this team. >> and have you worked with with others on that team before? >> no. well, i've -- you know, our investigations over the years crossed paths. but i'm so washed up. i've been out of it for about 14, 15 years. >> washed up? you must have a reaction when you see former federal prosecutors on tv who actually never went into a courtroom, andrew. does that ever send you wondering where in the world they get their experts from?

>> no, not me. the thought would never cross my mind. >> let me begin with steve bannon, if i could. it was reported late this week that the former strategic adviser to president trump has begun cooperating glad by with house investigators. what does that mean for the mueller investigation and mr. bannon? >> usually you put witnesses in three different buckets. some of them are if it's a criminal investigation, some of them are targets of the investigation, which means they're likely to be charged. some of them are subjects of an investigation, which means that the grand jury will consider their activities and make a decision about whether to charge them or not. and most people fall into the bucket of just a witness, somebody who, for whatever reason, has relevant knowledge. and i think most of the people who are being interviewed by mueller probably fit that category. now, it's important to recognize that anybody who gives information to the fbi and the justice department, and that's

what mueller effectively is for these purposes, even if it's done voluntarily, as we have seen, if they make misstatements they can go quickly from witness to target. i think probably most of the people who are said to be cooperating in the investigation are in the position of just being witnesses. it's particularly hard to tell in this investigation because we've never really been told what crime they're looking at. this is really a counterintelligence investigation in the main. >> now, when we see the president saying he feels betrayed by stephen bannon, and ban don abandoned by perrers and bart bart. what does that say about the mueller investigation? >> hugh, all of that stuff is atmospheric. the first thing i want to know as a prosecutor is what's at the core. what am i investigating and suspect president trump has done

if he is the subject or the center of my investigation? if this is a situation where i don't have solid evidence of a crime, it's hard to assess what kind of value anybody would have to the investigation because until you -- really the reason that the justice department's regulations, which were not complied with in this case, require that you are articulate the basis for a criminal investigation before you appoint a special counsel, the way that we assess the value of witnesses is what their relationship is vis-a-vi vis-a-vis. in this country you are supposed to have the crime first and then assign a prosecutor. we don't assign a prosecutor and then go off and find a crime. as a result, it's hard to gauge what the value of witnesses is because there's no real

parameters around this investigation. >> when you have someone as high profile as steve bannon and a president who is upset with him, do you think he's going to turn andr , andrew mccarthy? and if he obscures narratives in his conversations with special counsel. >> if i were a lawyer for on anyone going to see special counsel, the thing i would drum into them is don't in vent anything. be truthful and answer the questions they ask you. the way you get in trouble, particularly if you're not in trouble in the first place, is to lie. you know, i think that would be very important advice, whether it's to bannon or to anyone else. it is sort of standard advice that you give to people. the term "turn" is problematic in this sense. people are in a good relationship and now in a bad relationship because something has happened between them.

so they were once alible and now they are hostile. what i understand by turn as a former prosecutor is somebody complicit who turns state evidence. who goes from saying i'm not guilty and fighting the case to becoming a witness for the prosecution. that's why it has to keep coming back to the corinne choiry here, which is what is the crime? and we don't know that. >> let me turn to russia too, andrew. we have three minutes. the steele dossier was described in the wall street journal on wednesday in deeply disparaging term. buzzfeed originally published this piece of paper which now has been revealed as largely untrue and a lot of gossip. and indeed andrew steele is running away from it in his british libel lawsuit. what is the problem with the steele dossier and what is the core issue about the senior fbi issues peddling it and the

department of justice official, bruce orr? >> the core problem with the steele dossier is former fbi director comey testified in a senate hearing in june 2017 that the dossier was salacious and unverified. and my point is if it was unverified in june of 2017, it had to have been unverified in september 2016 months earlier when credible reporting indicates that it was used in part to get a surveillance warrant from the fisa court. it's never a problem to take information, whether you're the fbi or the justice department from unsavory sources. in my past as a prosecutor, you know, i got information from terrorists, i got information from mafia guys, drug cartel guys. the thing is you can take information from anyplace. you have to vet it.

you have to verify it, corroborate it before you use it when you go to court to try to get some kind of a warrant. whether it's surveillance warrant, search warrant or what have you. and the real none of the question is, did they do that? and it certainly looks like they didn't. >> they referred mr. steele to the department of justice for a criminal investigation. how likely do you think it is going to happen? by the way, do you think we need second special counsel to look at lisa page and mr. orr? >> let's start with the last part first. i don't think we need another special counsel. i think that's what we have a justice department for. i don't see any reason why they couldn't investigate that. as far as the likelihood of whether this referral goes anyplace, it's very hard to tell you because they gave us a short public cover letter that's over a classified memo. we don't know exactly what's in the classified memo. but reading the tea leaves, it

appears what they're saying is something in the communications between steele and the journalists he spoke to, and we know he did that starting in september 2016 at the height of the presidential election, was inconsistent with whatever it is that he was telling the fbi. and i think that's the problem he has. but we're a long way from making a criminal case as far as that goes. >> andrew c. mccarthy, everyone has got to be reading everything you write and following you on twitter. i appreciate you coming in this morning. i hope you'll come back. thank you very much, andrew. i'll be right back. yea, so, mom's got this cold #stuffynose

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thank you for watching today. as i mentioned at the start of the show in friday's "washington post" i had an op ed about the fact that we have an obvious deal in front of us, one to allow the d.r.e.a.m.ers stay in the country and one that will secure the border with 700 miles of new fencing. it is so obvious, it's too obvious to fail. if anyone working on the hill or has a vote on this, keep in mind these are 700,000 people with real lives, families, churches and communities.

and we have a real border leaking like a sieve when it comes to violence and drugs. we need the deal. see you next week saturday morning right here on msnbc. up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. today we're bringing you america's number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i'm proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. gillette - the best a man can get. it's time for sleep number's 'lowest prices of the season' on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort your sleep number setting. and snoring? does your bed do that?

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good morning, everyone. i'm alex witt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york at the half hour. president trump's physical on friday went exceptionally well and he is in excellent health. the doctor of that report says he will release more details in a briefing on tuesday. government health officials say the flu is widespread except hawaii. it appears to be peaking but it is nearly three times as bad as last year. and the winner of the mega millions jackpot has been identified. the 20-year-old who bought that ticket at a 7/11 in port