. >> "smerconish" starts now. >> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. we welcome our viewers in america in the united states and around the world. we are officially in the longest shutdown in american history. and no sign of relief. meanwhile, the "new york times" reporting back when james comey was fired, the fbi felt compelled to investigate whether the president was actively working to benefit russia. the headline is devastating. my view is the story raises more questions than it answers. and i'll explain. plus after cancer surgery, justice ruth bader ginsberg missed her oral arguments 25 years and will remain out next week, where the 85-year-old justice is still working. i got an idea how to keep her looped in. >>> america is going greenlt at least when it comes to legalizing pot. the author of a new book is here saying advocates are experiencing serious mental health and societal side effects. plus, listen to this 911 call. >> one of the patients just had a baby. we v had no ideaed he was pregnant. >> a 29-year-old woman in a vegetative state since

smerconish is next. >>> i'm michael smerconish in friday. we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. the government is back in business, well for three weeks at least, meanwhile, get me roger stone, said robert mueller and the unpaid fbi workers obliged. stone indicted for obstruction, false statements and witness tampering remains defiant. has mueller met his match in the dapper dirty trickster? and like many americans, one businessman was confounded by the outcome of the 2016 election. unlike most, this millionaire is spending money to find out what voters really want. will richard haik richard haig run for president plus. >> ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can for your country. >> jfk's inaugural address encouraged people to sign up for public service, will that survive today where we found servants not get paid for a month. a new series featuring the declutter expert marie kondo is trying to help us let go. first i went to an orgythere once. that was roger stone's answer. i think mine was not

"smerconish" is next. >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. we welcome in our viewers in the united states and around the world. sometimes you wish you weren't right. but i was early if calling bs on that explosive buzzfeed story claiming they had evidence that michael cohen was told to lie to congress and last night mueller's office calling buzzfeed's descriptions regarding cohen not accurate. a huge problem for journalalism. what happens next? >>> plus the president is due to speak at 3:00 p.m. on the stalemate on its 29th day. will the gamesmanship ever end? pelosi blocks the state of the union. pelosi takes away her planes. i'm betting if the unpaid tsa workers start to interfere with our plane travel, that's when the shutdown will immediately end. and the tragic deaths of four americans in a deadly syrian blast this week was a political rorschack test. some say it's prove we need to stay. others argue, it confirms we stayed too long. senator rand paul is here. >>> plus, the "wall street journal" calls him the capitalist for the common man

i pose this question to cnn political commentator and host of cnn's smerconish, michael smerconish andsk that, michael, because just the visual if you were to actually have the president go through with this, an oval office address or submitting it in writing that would be extraordinarily defining and i don't think anyone would pay attention to what is in the state of the union. >> i'll do you one better. he doesn't need to stay relegated to the oval office. the constitution requires him to brief the congress. thomas jefferson delivered it in writing and for 110-plus years it was then in writing and then shifted back to a presentation to the congress. what stops the president of the united states from going to michigan or ohio or pennsylvania? you get the theme. delivering a speech saying this is the state of the union, delivering a written version as well to the congress and seeking to one up nancy pelosi. you were very careful to read that letter precisely. she didn't disinvite him. i know some have mischaracterized him as having been disinvited and it's brinksmanship and it's gainsm

a cnn political commentator and host of "smerconish," michael smerconish with us now.ant to talk to you about one of the stories that the president is questioning the intelligence of his intelligence officials which isn't exactly new, right? he doesn't believe in meddling in the 2016 election and he does say publicly that u.s. intelligence is naive and he needs to, quote, go back to school. what do you think about this? >> i think you're right that the seeds were sown in the russian imbroglio when he didn't buy into that intelligence because it suits his interests not to. that's probably where the base of this lies, but i think we've been awfully lucky so far. this is awfully dangerous stuff. what would we do in the case of a national emergency where the president is telling us one thing and the intelligence sources are telling us something else? because it used to be that the political differences ended at the water's edge and we would unite as americans against the common foe. i worry that you were talking about venezuela. what if the president wants to do something

michael smerconish, thank you very much. you can catch michael on his show, smerconish, every saturday at 9:00 a.m. eastern. as she gets ready to be speaker, nancy pelosi becoming the highest ranking official to float a possible indictment against president trump. i will be speaking with a member of the house intelligence committee. senator bernie sanders is responding to allegations of sexual harassment and violence on his presidential campaign, but is what he said adequate? the bizarre moment when the president rewrote history. a u.s. president defending the invasion of afghan stachblt so now, i use heavy duty swiffer sweeper and dusters. for hard-to-reach places, duster makes it easy to clean. it captures dust in one swipe. ha! gotcha! and (new) sweeper heavy duty cloths lock away a twice as much dirt and dust. it gets stuff deep in the grooves other tools can miss. istan. my place is a lot cleaner now. stop cleaning. start swiffering. about the colonial penn program. here to tell you if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to

eastern. >> "smerconish" starts now. >> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.our viewers in america in the united states and around the world. we are officially in the longest shutdown in american history. and no sign of relief. meanwhile, the "new york times" reporting back when james comey was fired, the fbi felt compelled to investigate whether the president was actively working to benefit russia. the headline is devastating. my view is the story raises more questions than it answers. and i'll explain. plus after cancer surgery, justice ruth bader ginsberg missed her oral arguments 25

♪ >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.e welcome our viewers in the united states and round the world. no sooner was the 116th congress joined in before the divide was laid bare, a congresswoman drarp dropping the "f-bomb" is it it a winning strategy for a house led by nancy pelosi? >>> will california's new set of laws from everything from gun ownership to sexual harassment to plastic straws end up going nation wide? >>> and while rr they're happily sending off their dna to get family trees, they're helping law enforcement. does that benefit out weigh privacy concerns. >>> a student hung an f-nazi sign and was asked to remove it because it wasn't inclusive. of who? nazis? >>> and 11 years after i co wrote a book with his widow, the case back in cort. everything about this case is controversial, except the underlying facts. but first democrats were much more successful during the campaign than after in mavrging the divide in the party as to whether pursue impeachment. democrat of michigan, the first palestinian american wom

. >>> "smerconish" is next. ♪ >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.united states and round the world. no sooner was the 116th congress joined in before the divide was laid bare, a congresswoman drarp dropping the "f-bomb" is it it a winning strategy for a house led by nancy

smerconish is next. >>> i'm michael smerconish in friday. around the world. the government is back in business, well for three weeks at least, meanwhile, get me roger stone, said robert mueller and the unpaid fbi workers obliged. stone indicted for obstruction, false statements and witness tampering remains defiant. has mueller met his match in the dapper dirty trickster? and like many americans, one businessman was confounded by the outcome of the 2016 election. unlike most, this millionaire is spending money to

"smerconish" is next. >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.tates and around the world. sometimes you wish you weren't right. but i was early if calling bs on that explosive buzzfeed story claiming they had evidence that michael cohen was told to lie to congress and last night mueller's office calling buzzfeed's descriptions regarding cohen not accurate. a huge problem for journalalism. what happens next? >>> plus the president is due to speak at 3:00 p.m. on the stalemate on its 29th day. will the

let me bring in michael smerconish. that interview, you can see all these things when you look at rudy giuliani and cuomo, the thought bubble is, say what? >> i was watching it in realtime. i never miss when chris hosts mayor giuliani because the entertainment value is always a ten. they are like two relatives at a family picnic having a political squabble and they often make news and they made news last night and i believe it was deliberate. say what you will about mayor giuliani, a lot of political disagreement about his view of the world these days, but he's a smart guy. that was very deliberate. that was not a slip of the tongue. it was an attempt by the mayor to distance his client, the president, from paul manafort at all and i think the only reasonable conclusion is to say that this development recently that quote/unquote, mistake by the manafort lawyers because remember, that's supposedly how we are in the loop about him sharing that polling data. >> yeah. >> must have landed with a thunderclap in the white hous

michael smerconish, great to get your take on all of this.ou very much. >> and really remember to watch smerconish tomorrow morning for his interview with senator rand paul. you will get a sense of how republicans are responding to this. 9:00 a.m. right here on cnn. >>> cnn has learned than president trump went to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his meetings with vladimir putin. we now have a minute-by-minute timeline on what happened on one of those key days, the most key days perhaps of this administration in that timeline is really surprising pay the cnn reality check next. when i needeo create a better visitor experience. improve our workflow. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah! now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. means they won't hike your rates over one mistake.iness is rolling in. see, liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. switch and you could save $78

let's go now to michael smerconish. what's your reaction to that?ld have been high on that the ricks, brianna. i don't know if it had transpired as planned or if it would have been substantive and it would be must-watch television, that's for sure. i am more surprised by the stated rationale. i am more surprised by the threats against the family than i am that this was looked at with displeasure perhaps by the investigators and not just mueller and also the southern district who continue to look at the administration. so that's really the only surprise to me was the explanation given as to why it would be postponed. >> and you would want to know more about that, obviously, but when you look at the issue of the ongoing investigations, this is a real -- this say real issue, right? where there are a lot of things that michael cohen would not be able to talk about and it would be very difficult to navigate that, presumably, but if you were his lawyer how would you have advised him? >> well, if i were the united states attorney for the southern district

. >> joining us now is michael smerconish and cnn political commentator.you've had the chance to see the exclusive cnn video this morning of roger stone being arrested before sunrise this morning at his home in florida. he was indicted by robert mueller's team on seven counts. your thoughts. >> so like everybody else, i've been pouring over and marking up the document. it's not good news for roger stone, obviously. but, as you've pointed out, we're talking about obstruction, false statements, and witness tampering. what we're not talking about is conspiracy or, as i'm sure the president will be saying later today, it's not collusion. but here's the important thing. nothing prevents special counsel robert mueller from charging in succession. and by that i mean this is not necessarily the total game against roger stone. this may only be the opening chapter. the second observation that i have is that roger stone famously said i have actually communicated with julian assang and i wondered in this document, because roger then backed off of those statements, i'v

>> looks like the romney family is much like the smerconish family and a lot of other families in that a butter knife away at the thanksgiving table, you've got somebody who disagrees with you politically. >> but would you actually go after a family member on twitter? >> not on twitter. maybe at the thanksgiving table but not on twitter, no. >> thank you again posh coming on. a and. >>> well, up next, an intern killed by a lion. a toddler rushed to a hospital after a rhino encounter. we'll take you live to the miami zoo to hear from an expert about what can be done to prevent these types of accidents. but that's not stopping anyone o, that's good! tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? news flash: nobody's perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ (coughing) need a change of scenery? kayak search

. >> joining us now, michael smerconish, former republican member of congress and john avlon senior political analyst. i want to play more of the announcement from kamala harris and what struck me was her word choice, how she kept on saying we, we, we, inclusive. listen to what she says. >> we all stand together. it's about we, the people. we rise together or we fall together as one nation indivisible. i'll fight for an america where we keep our word and where we honor our promises because that's our america. and that's the america i believe in. that's the america i know we believe in. >> a representative, you are not accustomed to weighing in on democratic presidential primaries, but i'm curious how you assess this yesterday in the message she was sending. >> the inclusive type of message we i used it a lot because i wanted people to feel like this wasn't about me, it was about them. when we talk about we, i remember using words like the america i know there are is the america that we have grown up in. and so i think that using that inclusive lack wa inclusive language is good. when it comes