a categorical denial he was in any way involved and other former obama administration officials made this on it that the president himself did not order wiretaps. we are still waiting official comment from the white house. you heard from my colleague, jeff zeleny, who did speak with an administration official was able to shed some light on where the president may have gotten this idea that somehow the former president was involved in wiretapping. he has returned to mar-a-lago and spent several hours at the trump international golf club in west palm beach where he played at least a few holes of golf. upon arriving there, we were told he would have meetings and make phone calls and may hit a few balls. we did get video of him on the golf course and now back to mar-a-lago but still waiting for any sort of proof or evidence to back up these explosive allegations. >> athena jones, thank you so much. appreciate that. so we are hearing from other senior former officials under the obama administration who are also denying the phone wiretapping claims. one saying, quote, this did not happen. t

a senior administration official told cnn that white house staff didn't learn of the president's tweets until after he sent them. what else are you learning from inside the trump team? >> we're still awaiting official statement from the white house, from the president's press team. we also asked for evidence, any evidence they can offer to back up the president's explosive allegations, but my colleague, senior white house correspondent did speak with the senior administration official who said as you noted that they weren't surprised by the president's tweet storm this morning. that's not very surprising because often the president does take to twitter early in the morning. today, it was starting at 6:30, around 6:30 a.m. and it's not as though he often runs these tweets by his communications staff, but this official said that they don't believe the president is trying to get ahead of any particular story that's about to come out, but rather, he's angry about all of these stories about russia and the questions that are being raised about campaign aides and ties with contact officials an

and the senior administration official describes this to me as sort of a miss direction play, a way for the president to get positive press and to speak to whoever he's in front of at the moment and give them what they want. he may have felt like the path to legal status would be more appealing or better received in an audience of anchors that he felt would be better addressed to joint staff of congress. what does he believe and what is he prepared to do from this white house, is this something we can see him championing. as of right now, i think their focus is clearly on health care reform, tax reform. we'll see. maybe it's something they can see down the line. brianna. >> we saw republicans up on the hill do a double take when we heard about the pathway to legal stat status. so maybe not surprised with the change. sara murray at the white house. thanks so much for that. we're going to talk about president trump and lawmakers huddling together over lunch today on how to repeal and replace obamacare as they've promised. we just learned that their focus today is how to sell the plan and

tonight, another administration official tells cnn there's a review under way for officials to come uph a way to counter kim's weapons threat. military options are always on the table in these discussions. general walter sharp, who commanded u.s. and allies forces say the u.s. should be ready strike north korean missiles on their path before they are launched if there's an imminent threat. >> the way you deter north korea is have the capability and the demonstrated willingness and the demonstrated planning and exercises to be able to respond strongly enough that north korea clearly understands that if they do that provocation they will be hurt more than we will be. >> reporter: general sharp says if u.s. forces hit kim jong-un's missiles first, he could retaliate and possibly on the 28,000 u.s. troops in south korea. u.s. forces might need to preempt that hitting conventional forces at the same time they strike missile facilities. dangerous proposition. >> certainly is. thank you very much. much more ahead on the breaking news of the attorney general. we want to give you a heads up abo

and we've had other former senior officials in the obama administration point out that a president doesn't order wire-taps. other officials have said this is nonsense and it didn't happen. >> we're hearing a last-minute addition to the president's public schedule today. what can you tell us about that in. >> that's right. couple of things, we knew he was planning to have dinner tonight with commerce secretary wilbur ross, but they've added a meeting at 6:30 on this official schedule that was put out, a meeting the president will have with the attorney general, jeff sessions and with the secretary of the department of homeland security, john kelly. an hour later the president will sit down with sessions and kelly, and also with the commerce secretary, wilbur ross and his wife, along with aides, steven miller and steven bannon, and white house counsel don mcgann. all of that taking place in the coming hours at mar-a-lago. all closed-press, but these are additions. this is interesting coming in light of the fact that we're hearing that the new travel ban, the new revised travel ban will be co

senior administration officials say it looks forward and backward. forward in terms of protecting the environment, although we don't have specifics on that. backward, they want to review president obama's policy that reduced carbon emissions at power plants. the supreme court put that on hold last year but they want to take a close look at that. keep in mind president trump on the campaignra called climate change a hoax though an administration official recently said that he believes in climate change. so we'll see what happens with that later. part of this is fulfilling a campaign promise, providing more jobsl for miners, the executive order that he is planning on signing would ease restrictions on -- get rid of a morator using coal that could provide those jobs. a lot more when the president signs that order. >> curious to hear a lot more when that happens. tracie potts for us. thank you. >>> this morning the republican chairman of the house intelligence committee devin nunes is under fire. top democratic lawmakers are calling on nunes to step down

obama administration officials scrambled to preserve any information about possible contact between president trump's campaign aids and russia before mr. trump took office. the officials quickly spreading information about russia's efforts to leave a clear trail of intelligence. >> i have nothing to do with russia. >> the white house repeatedly denied any such contact. >> what point, how many people have to say that there's nothing before there you realize there's nothing there. >> so what is russia saying about all of this? it's foreign ministry spokeswoman posted something on her facebook page referring to cnn. russian ambassador to the u.s. considered by u.s. intelligence to be top russian spy and recruiters. she writes do you think this is the media bottom or do they have to fall further? the administration was hoping to get on policy today with a trip out to the tidewater area of virginia but apparently the white house is back into drama mode. back to you. >> joe, thank you for all of that. so top democrats calling for attorney general jeff sessions to re-sign for failing to disclose the

but my colleague, a senior white house correspondent, did speak with a senior administration official in washington. that official says that the white house colleagues only learned about the president's tweet storm after he began tweeting early this morning. he wakes up and begins tweeting early in the morning, not in any way running the tweets by any of his staffers. this morning he began the tweets at around 6:30 a.m. now, this official pointed to a story on the conservative website breitbart news that has been circulating around the west wing which followed up on comments made by radio talk show mark levin. that claimed the president, president obama, was trying to undermine trump's presidential campaign and his campaign on russia and possible ties between russians and trump associates and these stories -- that story in particular angered the president according to this senior administration official. and just a couple of hours ago, the president's social media director and adviser tweeted out a link to that very same breitbart news story which could be the basis for the tweets fro

and also tonight, wolf, senior administration official telling our sara murray that his comments floating the idea of doing a compromise deal that would include providing legal stas us to some of those undocumented immigrants was a miss direction play aimed at generating some positive news coverage while taking a harder line approach in his speech. they're saying that is perhaps not the utmost priority for the administration right now as they try to focus on some other issues on the president's agenda. wolf. >> he did get some positive coverage of the hours that immediately followed that statement by the president to a group of journalists in the white house including myself. stand by. we're going to get back to you. i want to bring in democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut, a member of the senate foreign relations committee. senator, thanks very much for joining us. >> sure, thanks for having meful >> let me tell you precisely what the president said on the record yesterday. it's a direct quote. the time is right for an immigration bill. the president said as long as there is com

argues, reagan's administration had quote, accepted that promoting human rights was a major goal, that the united states and -- had to be evenhanded in condemning abuses. state department official george lester, who -- his personal papers are here at the university of texas if anyone is interested in learning about him more, argued that over the course of the eye -- reagan administration quotes, human rights policy had become institutionalized. neither trupin exposed its contrast from the early days of outsider hayes with the early days of george h.w. bush's presidency writing quote, it is unthinkable that secretary of state james baker would propose replacing a concern for human rights with a concern for any other cause. i argue that progress on human rights was made in the reagan years. i think the extent to which a positive evaluation can be formulated however, people should look very closely at the influence of george schultz. reagan's administration -- because chelsea's entry into the administration i think, argues a turning point. toward greater attention for human rights, and that he pressed these issues in the years that followed throughout his secretary ship. the other

vindicated, absolutely convinced he will be, but at the same time, katie, you listen to the administration officials statements and you see a little moving of the goal post. we heard sarah huckabee there saying, if again and again, and that white house official said to me, even if it turns out that they weren't surveilling trump tower, the president will have a very good case to make that the there was a lot of sabotage by obama. that's very different than going all the way with wiretapping. but, he believes it and as this official said to me, what you're hearing from the people inside the white house, they say the president has a very good nose for these things. >> a very good nose for these things. do you think the president's nose for these things, whenever he brings up some idea he has in his head or if he tweets an allegation, does congress have to act right after that if if he tweets that the president -- the former president wiretapped him? does congress have an obligation to investigate his claims? >> i don't know that anybody has an obligation to take this accusation mor seriously than the

a need for trump administration officials, obama administration officials, the fbi to all come out ond say, here is what we know, here is what we don't know, here is what is fact, here is what is fiction. right now it seems there's a whole lot of distrust on both sides. if the fbi says there was nothing having to do with russia in the trump campaign, a whole lot of folks on the left who are going to say, no, i don't believe you. and if they do say there's a connection, there's a whole lot of folks on the right who say, i don't believe you because of that. isn't there a need in washington right now for everybody to come out and just be transparent and just be honest about what they know? and sort of put all these old notions, you know, we have to protect our sources and we have to protect our information to rest just for a moment? >> right, but that's what's so difficult. that's where all this tension is coming from like thebi and white house,n you have a commander in chief sitting there making it up as they go and demand his agencies come up with the rationale that they back him up. h

. >> reporter: senior administration officials tell nbc news expect the president to tout what he calls promises kept on jobs and trade, and he'll speak broadly about health care. >> all i can do is speak from the heart and say what i want to do. >> reporter: mr. trump's other big focus tonight, national security. after rolling out a budget blueprint that boosts defense spending by slashing domestic programs and foreign aid, that's sparking backlash "now is not the time to retreat from diplomacy development." >> it would be a disaster. >> reporter: some democrats boycotting the address. other women lawmakers wearing white, the color of suffrages. the president said he's working to improve his messaging. >> i give myself an a plus for effort. in terms of messaging, a "c" or "c" plus. >> reporter: he's facing questions about whether the trump campaign had contact with russian officials. it's unlikely he will address that tonight. but house speaker paul ryan told matt lauer exclusively today -- >> we need to get answers. we need to make sure that nothing happened that shouldn't have happen

if you are in the trump administration and you are sitting on contacts you had with russian officials, and you haven't said so by now, time is running out when that starts to feel hike a scandal. it's remarkable tob to me that somebody could still be sitting on that this deep into this story. who knows what's going to come out next. we'll be right back. ♪ if you've got a life, you gotta swiffer >>> earlier this month we tloortd russian opposition leader has posted an hour-long video outlining and showing a whole bunch of secret properties owned by the russian prime minister. he officially lives just on his government salary and has in other source of wealth or income. his anti-corruption group actually flew drones with cameras over the walls of his 45,000 square feet mountain chalet in sochi. he sent another drone over the fence of this gigantic country house complete with its own large man-made lake. there was also this 30,000 square foot mansion in the moscow suburbs. it also had its own lakers different shape. they also got this footage of his 17th century villa in at us canny comp

they were widely criticized, the senior administration officials.hey are trying to preempt that. president trump, absent from this rollout should not go missed. the fact of the matter that he is relying on his cabinet secretaries to push this out speaks volumes to the heightened political tensions and awareness clouding and surrounding the issue. vonnie: it was fascinating to hear the different approaches. we heard from rex tillerson who seems there is serious. jeff sessions was a little more enthusiastic about the new order. homeland security secretary john kelly immediately referencing 9/11. got fromact sheet we the white house they talk about an example of an individual as a refugee from somalia who later became a naturalized citizen who attempted to set off a weapon of mass destruction. explain to us with a story comes from. erik: it was in portland, oregon. in 2010 with a reletting the big christmas tree thousands of people showed up to see it. this individual, this young man, believed he was setting off a car bomb at the site. actually it was

and a senior administration officials tells us, it will look forward many terms of protecting the environment. we're waiting to find out specifically what those details will be. what we know is the president said climate change is a hoax, but more recently, a senior administration official says he believes in it. what's happening today, laying the groundwork for new energy policy and a new philosophy on climate change once we find out exactly what it is he's going to be signing today. >> that's key, once we get those details clarified. nbc's tracie potts. thank you. >>> this morning the republican chairman of the house intelligence committee devin nunes is under fire. top democratic lawmakers are calling on nunes to step down from his post and recuse himself from his investigation in russia's interference in the presidential election. >> i think it would be worth while for the chairman to recuse himself from any investigation involving either the trump campaign or the trump transition. >> chairman nunes seems to be more of a partisan for the president than impartial actor. his actions look li

. >> that new draft of the travel ban could be signed monday according to administration officials.igning will be at the department of homeland security. but the plans can change. two other say it will replace the one that stalled in federal courts. it banned entry to all refugees. the new ban won't affect green card holders and those with visas. >>> coming up, more heavy rain coming through tonight. more showers on the way. lawrence is back with the complete forecast. . >>> heavy rain continues tonight. the storm system took a long time to get here. flood advisory has been issued by the national weather servicez because çof the heavy rainfall not because we're expecting the rivers to overflow their banks. out there right now toward san jose we're seeing moderate amounts of r>rainfall. a lot sliding east. you can see the rain moving through, making its way to the : east bay hills. millipedeis rain in your direction. in fremont heavier rain making its way east. livermore the rain is heavy there in the next few minutes. scattered showers around the bay area, once you get behind this

we were concerned that the obama administration officials involved in this would be known by the trump administration. guess what? the president of united states is donald trump so of course he would know that. and it brings up the third issue, the third issue is what in the world do they think they have that they could justify doing this and sean, i sit on your program weeks ago -- loretta lynch, john brennan,it these were the ones to be looking at. look who signed off on theses orders and wanted this unmasking. you have the whole issue ofhe unlawful unmasking. leaked information by the way to a third party he was no longer a governmentir official. >> sean: it was more than that according to one report, she was an advisor to hillary clinton at the time. >> that would even make it worse but at that point, you are pouring felony on top of felony. >> sean: based on what she said on that show, is a legal jeopardy? >> don't call me but she needs to hire a lawyer. how she got information trying to hide it from the incoming administration. the fbi or department of justice -- >> sean: when sh

administration today. dr. ben carson is officially the secretary of housing and urban development after the senate confirmed him by a vote of 58-41. just within the past hour, rick perry was confirmed to lead the energy department, an agency he once pledged to eliminate. the former texas governor was confirmed 62-37. the number of americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to its lowest level in 44 years. just over 220,000 americans filed initial jobless claims last week. that is 19,000 less than what the labor department was expecting. >>> former president obama has been named winner of the john f. kennedy profile in courage award, presented yearly. jfk's daughter caroline kennedy and her son will present that award to president obama this may. >>> shares for snap inc, snapchat, soared when it opened on new york stock exchange. puts the company's value at $33 billion, comparable to the likes of marriott and target. more on snapchat and the markets later this hour. >>> first, as we say, we're about 30 minutes away from hearing

presidential collection but it was the obama administration officials that blocked him from doing so. two sources with knowledge on the matter -- russian president vladimir putin said accusations of russian interference in the election our lives. take a look. >> although this things are fictional, lies. all these are used for domestic political agendas. >> you and the russian government never tried to influence the outcome of the u.s. presidential election and that there will be no evidence found? >> ronald reagan was debating about taxes and no. no. >> sean: i don't take putin at his word and nobody should and his history with a little mixed up. it was actually president george h.w. bush who said read my lips. but the sentiment stands that russia was not involved. as was discussed by james comey and clapper and admiral rogers. we continue now with fox news contributor laura ingraham. i don't really care what putin says in that sense but here is the problem. when you look at the narrative that has gone on all this time without any evidence and that it must be learned with newt in the

and the response from a senior administration official was, hey, listen, we want this speech to have a moment to breathe. essentially -- and i'm paraphrasing here -- but drive this narrative. you look at the polling come out overnight, this is a time for the president to potentially take a little bit of a victory lap, the administration not wanting to step on that message from this revereised executive order. on the way back from the capitol, i'm told from a senior administration official that the president felt he had connected, he felt like his speech worked. that's part of the reason why you're seeing the executive order pushed a little bit. the other part could be that the administration is trying to cross those t's and dot those i's to make sure that this eo doesn't get caught up in court like the other one. >> and riding to and from the motor raid with ivanka and jared kushner. in the writing with steve miller. you had the ying and yang of donald trump. you know it better than anyone having been on that campaign. but it was really a split personality, if you will, in that speec

he left it to senior administration officials to sell one of his signature policies. secretary tillerson: it is the president's solemn duty to protect the american people, and with this order, president trump is exercising his rightful authority to keep our people safe. nick: while citizens from somalia, sudan, syria, iran, libya, and yemen are still affected, iraq is not on the list. people with legal residency in the u.s., those who hold green cards, and those who already have visas will not be subject to the ban. syrian refugees, originally banned indefinitely, are not singled out for harsher treatment. the trump administration claims some refugees pose potential terror threats. atty. gen. sessions: more than 300 people according to the fbi who came here as refugees are under fbi investigation today for potential terrorism-related activities. nick: by delaying implementation until later in the month, the white house is hoping to avoid a repeat of the botched rollout of the original travel ban, removing iraq, a key ally, designed to make it more politically palatabl

that -- all obamaa administration officials generally are -- thank you i appreciate the timelinem well aware of when it was. if you see me rushing to her camese, at some point she on, went on television and talked about actions that she enter college took disparate classified information. instead of defending her it might be worth asking her what she is talking about, who she spread it to come why she did it, was it appropriate, who cleared her to do it? peter voser questions, instead of asking me to defend what a former obama administration official revealed things that shld be concerning. question, are you more concerned about that or russian interference in the presidential election? >> as an american citizen i am concerned about the fact that people potentially were sharin informationbout other americans for political purposes, using classified information to do so, leaking it. that should be concerning to everybody. that's not what i said, please stuff tried to -- the answer is, if someone is interfering with our election tt is not good. someone leaking classified informatio

we are told by an administration official that was the first time they knew about it. but, of course, senator sessions is more than simply a senator who is supportive of this president. of this campaign. he was one of the earliest senators, the earliest senator on board. he was part of the fabric of this campaign. really from most all of 2016. several of his staff members went on to work for the president in the campaign. so, wolf, there is no closer person or no clos closer cabinet member than jeff sessions to this white house. we're not told if the president will address this here. he is in newport news, virginia. he's here to talk about his military budget. how he plans to increase the military budget by some $54 million. that's still his message today. but i can tell you it is being overshadowed somewhat by another connection to russia here. so we will hear from the president in about an hour or so time when he talks about his original message. we'll see if he addresses it. other administration officials earlier were calling this simply a partisan development. they

. >>> promise from a top trump administration official who says no one will be worse off financially under the republican plan. >>> hoverboard tragedy after a house fire is sparked by a hoverboard safety. >>> safe sleep. the simple idea cutting number of sudden infant deaths. >>> the small town that found a voice in a living room and built a radio station all its own. "nightly news" begins now. >> announcer: from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is "nbc nightly news" with kate snow. >>> good evening. hopefully you remembered to spring forward today and reset your clocks. but spring is a distant promise for much of the u.s. tonight. snow coated parts of the carolinas this morning. there is more coming tonight. almost 100 million people are under winter weather watches or warnings. flakes falling right now in minneapolis, as you can see in this live picture. chicago ready for a messy commute in the morning. the east coast and new england bracing for the biggest snowstorm of the season. we begin tonight with sara dolloff. >> reporter: with just over a week to the start of s

communityelligence intelligence if the result or interception includes an administration official, the president-elect or the president-elect's transition team? i said early on, there is a series of questions. there is no simple yes or no. any provision for you to cease collection? -- result in in of a u.s.tion official? adm. rogers: on the basis of exposure. cease ofu required to a person -- collection of a order, incidentals that collection or inadvertently, the collection results in the collection of communication of incoming u.s. administration official, the president-elect, or the president-elect transition team -- are you required under the minimization procedures to seek collection? not automatically. >> the reason why this is important is intuitively, we would all know that incoming administration would have conversations with those that mayintelligence community be collecting against, either by making phone calls or receiving phone calls right. it's intended to collect the privacy rights oam

. >> meantime, the senior trump administration officials says the president's son-in-law jared kushner and former national security advisor michael flynn also met with the russian ambassador at trump tower in december. >> the top campaign advisor says he and two others met with the russian envoy sergey kislyak during the republican national convention last july. >> i'm not going to deny that i talked with him. >> so you did talk with him. >> i will say that i never met him anywhere outside of cleveland. let's just say that much. >> the only time that you met him was in cleveland? >> that i may have met him possibly, might have been in cleveland. >> okay. for more on attorney general jeff sessions' decision to recuse himself, here's cnn's pamela brown. >> i have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. >> reporter: just three weeks into his job as the nation's top cop, attorney general jeff sessions announcing he is taking himself off of any investigations regarding russia after revelations that he failed to disclose two meetings he had with russia's ambassador t

we'll see what these administration officials have to say as well. told they are not expected to take any questions, although you can imagine some of the reporters in the room will certainly try to shout out one or two questions at them. >> a question, has the administration given any detail on what the iraqi government did to clarify, give more information that satisfied the administration, and whether the other six countries on the list were afforded the same opportunity to give more information that would make the administration comfortable with the people who would be coming into the country? >> reporter: no, on the conference call this morning all they said was the iraqi government has been very cooperative in terms of providing the information they need to vet and screen immigrants coming in from that country. they're saying these other six countries, people coming in from those countries tend to overstay their visas in dispore portion nat numbers. in is not a muslim ban. this is an effort to limit immigration from countries where they feel the

interestingly today a senior administration official told our white house reporter sara murray that that comment made to a bunch of us tv anchors was a misdirection play, he was just trying to please the liberal media before offering some red meat to his base. what do you think? do you have any hopes for a compromise immigration bill? >> well, what you've just told me points to a problem that we've seen not only on the immigration issue, but just on about every controversial issue, which is you get four or five different answers on each controversial issue, depending on who you talk to at the white house, and it's unclear who is empowered to speak for the president and honestly who is telling the truth. the president has flip-flopped on issues. his aides say different things than he does. so, really it's impossible to know. >> you sit on the house intelligence committee. yesterday cnn reported that law enforcement sources think that many of the bomb threats being called into jewish community centers and jewish day schools are coming from outside the united states. can you confirm that? a

if you are in the trump administration and you are sitting on contacts you had with russian officialsand you haven't said so by now, time is running out when that starts to feel hike a scandal. it's remarkable tob to me that somebody could still be sitting on that this deep io is story. who knows what's going to come out next. we'll be right back. protecting those inside and out. and it's the mercedes-benz of today that will help us get there. the 2017 e-class, with innovations no car has offered before. and that will change driving forever after. lease the e300 for $549 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. but when we brought our daughter home, that was it. now i have nicoderm cq. the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. it's the best thing that ever happened to me. evy great why needs a great how. why pause a spontaneous moment? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex.

"the times" saying two administration officials played a role in getting him intelligence. one of those officials, ezra cohen-watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the national security council. nunes holding a mystery meeting on white house grounds that's never been explained. >> that your obsession with who talked to whom and when is not the answer here. it should be the substance. >> reporter: but who talked to whom does matter. nunes says he received information showing the trump team was incidentally caught up in surveillance. the next day, he made a public show of bringing that intelligence to the president, instead of the bipartisan committee he runs. >> what i've read bothers me and i think it should bother the president himself and his team. >> reporter: the president said it backed up his baseless claims that president obama wiretapped him. >> do you feel vindicated by chairman nunes coming over here, sir? >> i somewhat do. i must tell you, i somewhat do. >> reporter: democrats on the hill, even some republicans, crying foul, asking, why the show? why wo

he's talking to administration officials or somebody. look, even if he's talking to mike pompeo, the cia director, who he knows very well, who he recommended for the job of cia director -- >> who he's allowed to talk to, by the way. >> right, and there's nothing wrong with it, but that's still an administration official. and when i talked to nunes, he said look, i have sources i've been cultivating for years and if i explain too much of where this information came from and how i obtained it -- because remember, he only viewed it. when he announced this information, he had no documentation. he was hoping to get it from the nsa on friday, but he had no documentation, but look, that's his explanation. he is going to have to explain more if this starts to look like he was coordinating with the white house to provide the president cover, because that's what we're really talking about here. >> he's physically performing his oversight duty, right? he is in charge of congressional oversight over house intelligence. he is physically performing th

senator, i was talking to a senior administration official who said it didn't matter what the policyey didn't want to deal. they meaning the house freedom caucus, and the white house and president himself was a captive in an internal house fight. you agree with that? >> no, i don't. it always comes down to policy. the idea that people are rekals trant and don't want to do anything for the sake of not doing anything isn't true. the freedom caucus had a vision of what they wanted to do. they didn't want to keep the federal government in control. that's really the bottom line. they didn't want the federal government in line. >> so, do you think they were right to torpedo this? >> i've said for now a couple of months that the approach should have been a more conservative approach, which was basically turn this all over to the states and get the federal government out of the health care business. i think that's really what the freedom caucus wanted. i think had the house started there, had reince started with a bill that included the study committee and freedom caucus and conservative blo

officials. so we have the obama administration look at more team trump conversations than ever before. the director of the dni saying we want to to look at this more careful live, the information could be sensitive. republicans have as many questions that they want answer won't be quite. lou: russia no parts of this investigation nor the transscripts tore whatever documents may be that were the result of the surveillance of trump transition members including perhaps the president himself. charlie, your thoughts? >> from the beginning the media focused on the suppose connections between trump and the trump campaign and russia. but all along the far, far, far graver story here, the one with far graver constitutional crisis level scandal is the notion that you have an outgoing president who spied or whose administration may have spied on a political enemy, his arch political enemy in the middle of a presidential campaign. if that is what happened, it's 10 times worse than watergate it's a scandal that is a constitutional crisis if that happened. and all of this worrying about ties between

backing, reagan administration officials undertook efforts to convince el curb its repression. to give you one example, george schultz admonished the government there quote, death squads and terror have no place in a democracy. overall, the administration overlooked the massive loss of life in central america for the goal of eradicating communism there. east,ng our focus to the i think would fear we can see the greatest administration activism on human rights is berlin east-west relations. i would argue george schultz spurred much of this by making human rights one of the four points on the agenda he formulated for all discussions of the soviets. in many respects, i think reagan's agreement to an emphasis should not have been surprising. after all, there is a very strong connection between reagan's anti-communism and his support for human rights. -- reaganrvised supervised with victims of the communist oppression in the soviet bloc. there were a number of individual people with which the present became personally involved, the most prominent -- prominent of which repent -- pente

administration official, president-elect or the president-elect's transition team? >> it depends under what authority we were -- as i said early on, there's a series of questions we go through. is there criminal associated activity, does the conversation deal about threats to u.s. persons, breaking of the law. there's no provision. >> are you, under any circumstances, required to cease collection if the collection results in either the inadvertent or incidental collection of an incoming u.s. administration official, the president-elect or the president-elect's transition team. >> purely on the basis of exposure -- i want to make sure i understand the question. >> are you required to cease? if you are undertaking lawful collection under the foreign intelligence surveillance act of a person or individual, either because they're a foreign person located outside the united states or the person you're collecting against is the subject of a fisa court order, if incidental to that collection or inadvertently the collection results in the collection of communications of an

flash forward to december and according to a senior administration official, the president's son-in-law, jared kushner and the former security adviser, michael flynn, wret with the ambassador during a previously undisclosed meeting. sean spicer talked about two interactions between michael flynn and the russian ambassador. this meeting was not known and not disclosed to reporters at that time. that is new information as well. we should point out, as for the information we got from j.d. gordon, he did not have conversations about any sort of proquo colluded with the russians to help the trump campaign in the election. he said it was the kind of stuff he said as a national security analyst. interesting to note, he had a conversation with sarah huckabee sanders about the contacts he and other trump campaign advisers had over the summer. it's clear that this white house is trying to get a handle on how many of these trump campaign associates, advisers and so on had conversations with the russians. >> very important for sean spicer and the time line of michael flynn. interactions did not inc

but democrats and obama administration officials say look, this stuff was there.as serious intelligence. we wanted to make sure other people knew about it, that it wasn't just sitting at a safe at the cia in langley. >> how many documents are we talking about, or do we know? >> reporter: we don't know. 234 gener in general, there are hundreds, if not thousands of intelligence reports related to the circle of information about the russian hack. >> how can we or can we at this point characterize the nature of these reports? what do we know about what was in this stuff? >> reporter: we know very little. just that it was based on classified intelligence, very sensitive intelligence about the russia hack. which, as you know, the investigation includes into whether trump officials colluded with the russians. >> ken, thank you. again, all eyes on the briefing room here. we are expecting that briefing to start any moment. for now, let's take a look at what we're seeing about microsoft's pulse question. should general michael flynn get immunity in exchange for testimony ab

given pete williams' reporting that the administration officials are saying they have no idea where thiss coming from. they're not -- you know, it's not coming from anything official. so that's as good of a guess as any. but it's true that this has sort of opened up a can of worms for the administration, because either way whether or not there is really a fisa warrant here, whether or not it's just coming from a website that the president is reading, neither version of this is particularly good for him. >> nall, let's take a listen to what senator lindsey graham said at a town hall this morning about these allegations. >> if the former president of the united states was able to obtain a warrant lawfully to monitor trump's campaign for violating a law, that would be the biggest scandal since watergate. i'm very worried that our president is suggesting that the former president has done something illegally. i would be very worried if, in fact, the obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about trump campaign activity with foreign governments. >> nall, what do you make of

we have seen other senior administration officials telling me they do want to see a vote on this today. they have made clear they feel like the president has done everything he can. met with these members, made promises to the house freedom caucus to try to bring more conservative votes along, spoke with moderates to get them on board and the president feels his role is done, he's done as much wrangling as he can, there's though in this white house a deep sense of frustration that republicans have been campaigning on this so long, that it's republicans not including not necessarily donald trump who have been thinking about this seven years and now looking at a plan to actually repeal and replace obamacare and can't get on board to do it. we heard about repeal and replacing the health care law nearly every day on the campaign trail. this is something he wanted to do initially in part because it's what republicans have promised to do so long but in no way does the president feel like this is the most exciting item on his agenda, not the one he cares about most deeply. he wants to move on

have there been other contacts between the president or senior administration officials and the attorney general? regarding this matter? have there been any attempts to interfere with the investigation in any way? have the a.g. or his close associates personally managed the work of career officials at the department of justice or f.b.i. in the course of the investigation? the inspector general has the ability, the right, and the only fwation to find out answers to these questions and more. the revelations that we learned about last night are extremely troubling. did the president know about the meetings? where these the only two meanings -- meetings? or other russian officials. there has been revelation or after .tories shifting like quicksand if there is truly no there why won't they tell the truth? we have an obligation to get to the truth. we must evaluate the scope of russia's interference. penetratednment has to the highest level of our government. nothing less than the sank to tea of our process, the primacy of the rule of law and the integrity of our executive branch is at stake.

>> reporter: well, administration officials have said this is really where president trump is in his element, as a negotiator in and deal maker in chief. it's really the art of deal. and one of the most important parts of negotiating is leverage. and for president trump ever since he entered the world of politics, that leverage has been the backing of the american people, and that's why the white house is going on the road and making its case directly to the voters. particularly in states like kentucky where the president won in a landslide. today vice president mike pence aims to capitalize on that overwhelming support by pitting the health care plan's critics against the president and putting them in the same boat as the state's former democratic governor. >> now, i know that not every politician this kentucky supports our plan to repeal and replace obamacare. i know your former governor, steve bashir, has been defending obamacare all over america. and he might even have something to say about my visit here today. and i welcome the debate, i really do. >> reporter: the white house

that handled russia, that -- all obama administration officials generally. thank you. i appreciate the timeline. i'm well aware of when it was. my point is, you seem to be rushing to her defense. at some point, she came on television and talked about actions that she and her colleagues took to spread classified information and instead of depending her, it might be worth asking her what she's talking about, who she's spreading it to and who cleared her to do it. maybe you could ask that instead of asking me why a former obama administration official is revealing stuff that should be extremely concerning. >> one other question, which is, are you more concerned about that or russian interference in the presidential election? >> well, i think that as an american citizen i'm very concerned about the fact that people were potentially sharing information about other americans for political purposes and using classified information to do so and leaking it. that should be concerning to everybody. >> the russian interference -- >> that's not what i said. >> which is w