and then to see al franken and ben sass and their nonsense, it was frankly stultifying, appalling, your reaction? carrie: actually, i thought there were educational moments that came out of the interchange with senator sass as well. i have to agree, i thought senator franken was as usual not really hitting it clear with the points. he seemed to, you know, like all of the other democrat senators we saw today. trying to lay the groundwork for gridlock. hoping to find something they can point to and say this is why i want to block a vote with this guy. that's what the base is pushing them to do. at the end of the day, they couldn't lay it on him. he clearly explained why so many of the cases they nitpicked and cherry picked out of his records weren't that unanimous or explained why the law compels his results, and i think he gave great answers on his judicial independence, no one is above the law, including the president, and trying to explain how you have to look at it as about the politics. at the end of the day, if they can't vote for neil gorsuch, i don't think there is anyone this pre

. >> mitch mcconnell, ben sasse, lindsey graham, john mccain, susan collins. >> ben sasse on the show this morning. >> there are a group of republicans who stood up from the very beginning and said, wait a second, like mitch mcconnell, just volunteered it in an interview. you don't think you're subject to judicial review. we're all subject to judicial review. then he was like wilford brimsly. yeah, they are pretty smart there. there are some other people smart in washington. >> it's a big morning. >> i'm not painting the republican party with one broad stroke. there are conservatives, moderates, independent republicans showing their true colors and putting country first. >> here is more of fbi director james comey yesterday confirming there indeed is a counter-intelligence investigation into russian influence on the 2016 election and any ties between the russian government and president trump's campaign. >> we have taken the extraordinary step in coordination with the department of justice of briefing this congress's leaders, including leaders of this committee, in a classified settin

kennedy: do you agrees with ben sasse that assange should be in an orange jumpsuit? chris: i'm terrified that the leaks are happening and i'm terrified of the substance of the leaks. i can't figure out what i'm more terrified about it's bad across the board. kennedy: i don't think assange is a hero. i don't see him as a digital folk hero. i think he's a narcissist. i think's a storeio path. i think the guy -- i think's a sociopath. i don't think assange bad, government intelligence apparatus good. chris: it's not clear hot good guys and bad guys are. frightening enough it may all be bad guys. kennedy: i'll ask dr. ron paul about julian assange in a bit. are the conversations you have with your lawyer about your spouse private? some college professors stage an experiment to try to prove that hillary clinton lost the election because of sexism. afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine. all seems beautiful

they already have, but you're looking at other senators like ben sasse, i call him sassy.en sasse from nebraska who was very critical of president trump, who had serious issues with the fisa court orders and the surveillance wiretapping and getting into those issues and then all of a sudden this issue turns into something bigger than the house and the senate intelligence committees can really handle when you have republicans who are critical and concerned that perhaps this was taking place. they just don't know about it. so when the president sends out tweets like this, you know, alleging that then president obama purposefully ordered wiretaps on his trump tower, well, that does make republicans very uncomfortable and as ben sasse says in a statement was very telling saying we are in the state of warping public trusts and these allegations must be thoroughly investigated. >> just to follow up on what molly was saying, first of all, it's obviously backward for a president to make an assertion and ask for evidence to back up the assertion. usually the evidence precedes the a

ben sasse from nebraska. assange should spend the rest of his life wearing an orange jump suit.n enemy of the american people and ally to poovladimir putin. he has dedicated his life to endangering innocent lives. i like the issue of microsoft putting out a statement yesterday. they put their e-mail address in there and said we hope if anybody has information to help us, the cia or wikileaks, they would just e-mail us here. maybe they can get that information and make these products safe for us and shareholders. of course, they have an obligation to them to try to keep their products as best as possible on the market. >> samuel, thank you. >>> let's check are cnn money stream. investors feeling good this morning ahead of the jobs report. stocks in europe this friday are up. asia closing higher. the bull market has been running for eight years. another streak going on. 100 trading days since the dow or s&p suffered a loss of more than 1%. that dates back to early october. 155 days. 185 is the record for the s&p. it started as optimism that hillary clinton would win the election.

here to talk about it and the process ahead is nebraska senator ben sasse. we were there today questioning begins tomorrow. for a lot of people, just hearing him talk was interesting because we haven't been exposed to him much. here is one of the pieces of his opening statement. >> in the west, we listen to one another respectfully. we tolerate, cherish different points of view. and we seek consensus whenever we can. my law clerks tell me 97% of those 2,700 cases i've decided word decided unanimously. and then i have been in the majority 99% of the time. that is my record, and that's how we do things in the west. >> bret: in the majority 99% of the time, those stats, might be tough for democrats to say he's out of the mainstream. >> i think so. you listen to today and you heard attempts at hyperventilating. i don't know what they had. the guys a judge. he knows what a judge is that he's agreeable and pleasant and people, regardless whether they were appointed by democrats or republicans, they think he's a good judge. >> bret: a lot of the democrats opening s

. >> bret: senator ben sasse said julian assange should "spend the rest of his life wearing an orange jumpsuit." the question is will the trump administration pursue charges against the wikileaks founder? >> let me say without confirming the validity of the documents that have made their way in the public domain, trafficking in national security information as is alleged wikileaks has done, it's a serious offense and it represents a compromise in the security of the american people. this president and this administration will take it very seriously and use the full force of the law and resources of the united states to hold all of those two accounts that were involved. >> bret: what did you first think when you saw the tweets about wiretapping from president trump? >> i know there were press accounts that alluded to those matters and the president and i are very confident that the bipartisan congressional committees that are examining issues will consider those allegations as well. the american people have a right to know and we are very confident those congressional committees will e

franken was talking about how arbitration provisions might go against the little guy, and ben sass saidight agree with you in the cases you're presenting so we, senators, congress, should change those laws. that's where the debate is. sometimes reaching a result that seems unjustice is often opportunity for congress to change it. >> the question is what the interpretation of the arbitration act is. the current supreme court, with a republican majority, has narrowed people's ability to get into court by reading a law that's been around since 1920s, more narrowly than the court used to. so i think it's important to understand that laws can be read in a lot of different ways. they're not always absolutely clear. and judges have to bring judgment to those laws, and conservativeconservatives and le very different views on how to read those laws. it isn't mechanical. amy howe is exactly right. and to the extent that judges suggest this is mechanical with the kind of balls and strikes metaphors or "i'm just a judge applying the law," they're hiding what is often gog, which is the exercise of j

joining me now is republican senator ben sass of the great state of nebraska. he was one of the questioners of judge gorsuch during today's confirmation hearing. senator sass, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you, jake, good to be here. >> so, i think a lot of pundits are giving judge gorsuch very high reviews for his performance today. take a listen to one interesting moment when judge gorsuch was asked about roe v. wade. >> roe v. wade decided in 1973, it was a precedent of the united states supreme court. it has been reaffirmed, so a good judge will consider it as precedent of the supreme court worthy of treatment like any other. >> the only question i have about this is that i don't know if you read the book, but judge gorsuch wrote a book against assisted suicide. and while the book in no way specifically talks about abortion, i think it's fair to wonder, to read the book and wonder how much the moral arguments he makes about life perhaps could apply to that. for instance, he writes in favor of bans on assisted suicide and euthanasia, quote, on the b

republican senator ben sasse, from nebraska, said in a state, "julian assange should spend the rest of his life wearing an orange jump suit. he's an enemy of the american people and an ally to vladimir putin. mr. assange has dedicated his life's work in endangers lives." when sean spicer was asked today if assange belongs in jail, will be to what he said. >> some republicans have said julian assange should be in prison. >> the u.s. government has had a position on him in the past. he's compromised, in the past, and undermined our national security and i'll leave it up to the department of justice to further comment on their disposition of him. >> let me translate that into english. today is thursday. usually, after thursday, we have friday. tomorrow will be friday. that was the most useless statement in the world. he is obviously got a short leash on him. don't say anything nasty about the russians or assange or wikileaks because they helped me get elected president. >> it's remarkable. and this is a devastating blow to the cia. reputationally as well as operationally. they have built

and you can understand if you were marco rubio or ben sass if you had president obama and you have the fbi and you have director clapper, the former head of the shl -- detective director of national intelligence all saying this didn't happen i'm not sure you want to side up to president trump who provided zero evidence it happened. >> he sure has, or has not, i should say. let's talk about your expertise polling. >> just one of my expertises. >> one of your expertises. that goes without saying, david, right? let's take a look at this, though. about two thirds of americans say a special prosecutor should investigate contacts between russians and trump campaign associates. do you think that this will put any pressure on congressional republicans or do you think that probably as i'm hearing, that the whole concept of a special prosecutor could open up so many different flood gates that public pressure would have to get a lot steeper than that. >> although it is pretty steep, yes i'm hearing what you are hearing is that nobody quite knows what happens when you open up that pandora's box of

we do have a few patriots out there, the lindsey grahams, the john mccains, the ben sasses of the worlde willing to be forth coming and put their country first but the silence on that side is deafening. i'm just wondering when are these people going to get sick of defending president trump and his conspiracy theories and his baseless allegations and the fact that he is, as robert is point out, this is not a game. this is undermining public trust in our government and it's essentially colluding and being an enemy of your own state. that's how much he is undermining our process here. i applaud robert and can't wait to hear more republicans stand up and speak out too. >> we always applaud robert, but it's about picking a side and it's not political sides, it's truth versus fiction. >> about your country. >> thank you both very much. appreciate it. somebody said this is not like seinfeld. this is not a show about nothing, this is a show about something. this is going to wrap up this hour. next up, "a.m. joy." why trump is proposing spending more on defense when it's already the world's most

court earlier which is gets me back to what he's picking up the breitbart reporting and senator ben sass, a reason can, called this a warping crisis of president trust and you have a president referencing mccarthyism, et cetera and lindsey graham, frequently a credit imof trump and he chooses his words very carefully and he says now that the current president has put this out there about the former president raising such serious allegations congress better get to work. >> if it is true, illegally, it would be the biggest political scandal since watergate. if the former president of the united states was able to obtain a warrant lawfully to monitor trump's campaign for violating 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. >> yeah, i mean, trump was trying to sort of muddy waters here on this issue and, you know, divert attention away from jeff sessions and russia and focus more on obama what he's unwittingly done is give more impetus to ben sass and lindsey gram to say not

nebraska's ben sass got a few laughs when we read the text message from his wife. >> my wife sent meext a little bit ago. and said, sure she dent expect me to read it. how in the world is gorsuch able to go so many hours at a time without peeing? >> sass said he wouldn't make gorsuch answer that. but he did add the supreme court bladder is something the whole country stands in awe of. >> luckily his answer wasn't -- depends. >> oh. >> the slow clap. expected there again today. a volt te on the health care bi one day away. during a closed door meeting the president warned republicans they will lose seats if they don't back american health care act. sources say he also said that they would be fools if they don't stick together. some insists the president was kidding. he said it was a great meeting. secretary of state, rex tillerson hosting the largest gathering ever of the coalition to fight isis, the first meeting in more than two years of foreign ministers from all 68 coalition countries. the gel, reviewigel reviewing t progress made and the efforts to defeat and destroy terror group

if you listen to ben sasse. i don't want national security secrets leaked ever. this goes back to when edward snowden was thrust on to the scene. it's a lot different than seeing what john podesta is make for dinner. it's a tremendous problem. liz: mark, what do you think about the white house exposing that wicky threeks came under obama's watch. >> this was rethreesd wikileaks in december it comprise data from 2013-2016. clearly it's under obama's watch. liz: how can you blame obama for it? >> it many under his watch. it was hacked by a government contractor. let's get to the bottom of that. where is the responsibility but with the chief executive of the united states. jessica pointed out that democrats should be up in arms about a national security breach, but they are not. that's the problem. just like jessica just said, in the summer, what were the democrats worried about? they were worried about the source of the leak. not the substance of it. they wanted to dismiss that it revealed the rigging. >> the substance what went on there is an issue. what happened

so you are already seeing lindsay graham and ben sass, two republican leaders saying with a win skpbg wink and a nod, saying they are going to look into this and so trump has really sort of taken a step that takes control of the narrative away from him in a sense. >> right. julian, i want to bring this point up. trump in all of his talk has had a rather complicated history with president obama, and here's a quick reminder for all of us. >> i think president obama is behind it, because his people are certainly behind it. >> and we are grateful to president obama and first lady michelle obama, for their gracious aid throughout this transition. he is the founder of isis. he's the finder of isis. i have great respect. the meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half, and it could have gone on for a lot longer. our president is the greatest divider i have ever seen. there's one line called place of birth and i would like to see what he said. >> talk about whip saw. do you think president obama will continue to be a target for president trump? >> yes , i think he will. and trump started his

when he was asked by senator ben sasse of the role of the declaration of independence.ith a reference to john hancock. listen carefully. >> no one remembers who john hancock was, but they know that's his signature. because he wrote his name so bigly and boldly. >> you just said bigly. [ laughter ] >> and i just won $5. >> you embarrassed me in front of my nephew and he loves it. >> he's the one that paid me the $5. >> bigly. if you don't know, something many feel that donald trump has said many times over the recent months. >> does he say bigly? >> big league. >> it is nice to see lighthearted moments. he talked about mutton busting on tuesday. >> bronco busting. >>> let's get a check on cnn money stream. stocks are mixed. investors paused as the vote on health care looms. that is important how tax reform may go. wall street watching. president trump's pick to lead the s.e.c. faces lawmakers today. the likely will ask him how he will police the wall street firms he defended as a lawyer. the s.e.c., the top cop for wall street. jay clayton advised goldman sachs on the ba

put an extra five bucks into ben sasse's pocket. remember that's a signature because he wrote his name so bigly sass sass you just said bigly. [laughter] >> and i just won five bucks. abby: senator going on to say the judge's nephew the one paying up. rob: former vice president meeting biden the golden retriever e. abby: he is the cutest thing. don't put me next to a golden retriever. rob: puppy's owner taking him to d.c. hoping to meet him. the two instantly bonded. abby: how you cannot? that is the cutest thing. what happens when a little girl please the pope for the very first time. watch. [laughter] abby: that is 3-year-old h estelle la snapping his skull cap off in roam. shrome. had everyone laughing. rob: first day and in the news. abby: can you imagine going to rome and seeing the pope live in the flesh. rob: "fox & friends" starts right now. abby: have a good thursday. >> raids and searches happening around the u.k. at this hour. >> police making seven arrests in birmingham. [gunfire] >> what a twist, house intelligence comm

take a look at what senator ben sasse of nebraska says about assange. just around the corner here.umpsuit the rest of his life. he has dedicated his life's work to endangering innocent lives. the good news for the tech companies and us if the products are hackable is the fact that so many tech companies believe they already had this information. apple indicated that they have seen flaws like this two years ago which have been patched. microsoft had something ingenious. they said here is our e-mail address. if you want to contact us, we wikileaks or cia, here is the l e-ma e-mail. when apple gets a hold of a flaw, they patch it immediately. you need to update your ios for the security features. >> the back drop is the salvadorian elections are going on. the right wing candidate will give assange the boot in 30 days. >> a great back story. thank you, samuel. >>> the government ethics office slamming the white house for not disciplining kellyanne conway after she told viewers to go buy ivan ivanka's stuff. expressing grave concern over the decision to forego punishment saying it risks

ben sass of nebraska refers to you as king richard, people say he's a dictator.hat do you say about that? >> i think it's completedly ill-founded. there is never specifics in those claims. and accountability is at the heart of this agency. we're about holding large financial companies 5:ibaccount to the law. >> are you not suggesting you are not accountable to the government? >> we are accountable and are expected to be. i have to be accountable to congress, i have to testify in front of them four times a year. i'm accountable to the courts. there's a number of cases they get to test the boundaries of whether we got something right or wrong. if we get something wrong, we fix it like everybody else does. >> doesn't accountability mean that somebody in government above you can fire you or change your budget? >> well, what they can do is replace you from time to time. that's the way the independent agencies work. nobody is talking about firing janet yellen at the federal reserve. nobody is talking about firing other independent agency heads. that's the principle of

and i'm just looking -- i mean i see marco rubio and john mccain and lindsey graham and maybe ben sasseots here? where are the patriots who are going to stand up and say we're not going to let our country and our democracy be taken over by an authoritarian. where is that? where is that outrage? we have to push past partisan politics at this point. this is -- we have been invaded. this is what this guy wants to do. he wants to destabilize america and he has already done that. the fact that we're yaking away about this and it's all over the air waves, he's done that. he's destabilized us. his first goal has been achieved. let's not let him achieve the rest of his goals. >> and i think that begs the question what happens if somebody believes that somebody is sort of a useful tool of the russians, if that's what you believe, what happens if it's so unstable that he's not useful anymore? shouldn't we be then thinking about what is that next thing that russia does to respond to a donald trump who can't help them? sessions is sidelined, he can't protect the trump team anymore. he's recused him

. >>> senator ben sasse is not mincing words of what julian assange's fate should be.e released a statement that read, julian assange should spend the rest of his life wear a an orange jufr suit. he's an enemy of the american people and an ally to vladimir putin. >> i think you have to assume that this is purposely timed, coming at a moment in which we seem to be getting closer and closer to understanding the true nature of the connections between the trump campaign and the russian government. all of this seems a little bit suspiciously timed to believe that its independent. >> the fbi is investigating the alleged leak and two sources tell nbc news that russia is a major focus. >>> heading to south korea where disgraced president park has been removed from the peddling scandal. janice, good morning to you. a big development overnight turning deadly for some protesters. >> reporter: good morning. after months of turmoil, it took only 22 minutes for south korea's constitutional court to deliver this historic decision to remove the country's president from power. park geu

ben sasse said, quote, we are in the midst of a civilization warping crisis of public trust and the president's allegations today demand the dispassionate attention of serious patriots. a quest for full truth rather than knee jerk partisanship must be our good if we are going to rebuild civic trust and health. well, it came after controversy over jeff sessions and his meetings last year with russia's ambassador to united states. he recused himself from any investigation related to president's presidential campaign after his meetings with the ambassador kislyak came to light. former and current officials say that the fbi was aware of the meetings because the ambassador kislyak was under surveillance. but late on saturday, jeff sessions went to mr. trump's florida resort to meet with his boss. jim acosta explains that the president is angry that sessions' recusal upstaged his address to congress. >> reporter: we can tell you that he was very frustrated on friday morning with his communications team before he departed for mar-a-lago. according to one source that i spoke to, quote, nobody has seen

the bottom of it, that sentiment is being echoed by other republican colleagues, including senator ben sass of nebraska who put out a statement saying the public needs more information about the president's allegations. he says that if there was wire-tappingings, it was either with or without a warrant from a special court known as a fisa court. if it was without that warrant then the president needs to explain what kind of wire-tap this was and how he knows about it. if it was with the legal court order, he says the president should ask that the application for surveillance be made public. to everyone, or at the very least to the u.s. senate. he went on to say, we're in the midst of a civilization-warping crisis of trust and the president's allegations demand the thorough and dispassionate attention of serious patriots. it's worth restating here, pamela, what shimon was saying, that former senior officials are saying the idea that then-candidate trump's phones were wire-tapped are just wrong. one official said it was just nonsense. >> shimon, for the fbi to be able to wire-tap someone's ph

>> go look at the statement that senator ben sass, republican from kansas -- kansas? i think so -- released yesterday. he talked about how we need to, because of these tweets, we need to get down to the bottom of this accusation and have some -- >> right. >> -- and have some disclosures that come out of this, because right now we are on -- and i'm going to mangle this slightly -- but a civilizational, like a threatening sense of -- >> like a crisis. >> -- of dislocation. >> right, right. >> this is a conservative republican saying that. there is a feeling out there that he's just rolling dice here in a reckless type of sense. >> and joe, i think that even those of us that are in the anti-trump in terms of policy, those of us taking part in the protests and all that, even we have tried to have a level of trying to communicate in a sane and responsible way as we express our outrage. it seems that there is no rules to where he would go in terms of allegations, statements, even the use of his language. >> and that's why it's very un-american and why you have most american

now, even republican senator ben sass and others say president trump those elaborate.one ever ordered any surveillance on u.s. citizen and any suggestion is false. the president is developing a new travel ban according to cnn. iraq will be removed from the list of banned countries. the original order blocked u.s. entry from seven predominantly muslim countries. that was halted by a federal appeals court. president trump could sign a new version of that as early as tomorrow. and the u.s. attorney general is at the center of a scandal accused of lying under oath about his contact with russia. now much of this revolves around what is meant by the words meeting. a justice department said the attorney general jeff sessions spoke with russian ambassador of the united states twice during the presidential campaign. but sessions did not disclose that information during his confirmation hearings last month. even though senators asked him about contacts with russians. >> if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian governme

president tweeted about the wiretapping, there was a few republicans that spoke out among them, ben sass, and he warned of a civilization warping crisis of public trust, and then calling on trump to show evidence to support his claims, but that has to be harder for a president that is known for pedaling his own conspiracy theories. >> it is strange, you know, if we were not talking about donald trump, for instance, if we were talking about bill clinton and george w. bush, for instance, this would be earth shattering. relatively speaking, this may not seem as strange because it is president trump. i think this goes to the question and deeper concerns that you do hear from lawmakers, which is how far is this going, all right? and, look, at the beginning of the week, at the beginning of last week he delivered an excellent not state of the union, but joint address, and everybody was praising him for that and you saw ae laytion from republicans. by the end of the week, he's back to this. that's where this concern comes from. >> what does the president think his powers are? if he believes a fo

i was sitting down from ben sass from nebraska and a very funny senator and principle conservative. i would say this about the family leave. it is possible that you agree with someone's objective but you have a different way of achieving that objective. so you can want paid family leave and do that by either mandating it from the government or just incentivizing public business to do it themselves. i kind of took that as we think it's a good idea. we may or may not have differences in terms of how we achieve that idea. >> all right. let's talk about the executive order on so-called travel ban. the president is going to i understand withdraw and then issue a new and revised executive order. you thought that it needed to have some clarity. have you been briefed? are you satisfied with the new product? >> i have not been briefed, but i am so far down the pecking order of the house, i don't expect to be briefed. i heard it was coming today and then i heard maybe it's gonna come later. i think he's doing exactly what he needs to do, which is have a different analysis depending on the sta

ben sass, who is a republican from nebraska, who has spoken out against donald trump, actually tweeted retweeted it and said, "yeah, give it to him." and i said, "wait a second, in 2017, it seems a subversive act to simply tweet the words of the first amendment." that tells you-- and i'm dead serious-- that tells you where we are right now. i hope the president corrects, and i hope he makes more decisions like he made with general mcmaster. that's good. i hope he stays off of twitter. but if he doesn't i think we all have to, again, do our part as americans. ( applause ) >> stephen: well, i know one of the things you do to blow off steam, to relax yourself at the end of the night is, you play the guitar, right? >> oh, thank god. i thought you were going to talk about my heroin problem. ( laughter ) >> stephen: no. that's the next time you're here. >> i play guitar as well. >> stephen: i understand you have a band called morning joe music. is that true? >> well, it was of the first thing that came to mind. >> stephen: yes? >> yes. >> stephen: would you play something for us right now? >

it goes to what you just quoted of ben sasse. >> the rules are such that you cannot comment on classified briefings and i won't violate the rules. >> okay. >> sorry. >> we are to sit here and to wonder and ponder? >> well, no. if we have a special prosecutor, they will get to the bottom of all of this. and that's what we need. a special prosecutor is much better than letting a lying department person do it for three reasons. this is in doj guidelines. first, a special prosecutor has much more freedom day to day, who to subpoena, what documents to look at, the path of the investigation. second, a special prosecutor can only be fired for cause. so if they're hitting some real stuff, they can't just be gotten rid of the way, say, sally yates was gotten rid of by the trump administration when she didn't do what she wanted. third, they have to report to congress. so we really need a special prosecutor. i am hoping that rosenstein will agree to that and admit -- make that -- say he'll make that happen at the committee meeting. i know our committee members will be asking him about it. >> let me

congress that it is better for them to not have to side with a guy who is doing that and in fact ben sasstor from nebraska, said that we are at a -- what did he say. >> a crisis. >> no, it was more. >> a crisis of public trust. >> he had a better word than that. >> civilization warping crisis of public trust. >> put it together. >> there we go. >> that is amazing! >> i think in some part of that though i think it's unfair to -- and i hate that word but i'm going to, i think it's unfair to blame trust for particularly the press. people have been distrusting the president, our present hosts included, have been distrusting of the press for quite a long time. they haven't helped themselves. i feel like i'm in "jerry maguire" help me help you because they content staly -- you want to talk about fake news and propaganda. i remember back with the reporting of the tea apartment and they didn't want crop people how the because they didn't want people to know black people were going to the tea party and writing stories about people upholding voter integrity, that we were racist and bigots and we to

and i have to tell you, i want to echo something that ben sass sent out in a powerful statement all weekend long, we have a crisis of trust in this country with so many of our institutions, whether it is us, willie, in the press, or government institutions. and so to have our president make these allegations, we have to run them down at this point. it has to be run down. the government has to. so many of these folks on capitol hill, because if we're ever going to restore trust, we have got to run down these allegations. >> yeah, and, chuck, let's talk about the president's state of mind on saturday morning when he woke up and made these tweets reporting from bob costa, at the washington post today, that suggests donald trump was furious that attorney general sessions came out and recused himself, didn't think he should have done it, thought it was a sign of weakness. >> that's -- that's donald trump going all the way back to when he first began his businesses and his empire in new york. remember, his mentor in many ways was roy cone, an infamous attorney from the mccarthy era days and roy c

probably the most memorable quote from this particular situation is that one from senator ben sass.tantiated roomers represents a civilization warping crisis of public trust. and, but, you know, the voters out there who support trump might just continue to see this this could be a, you know, that tv show "homeland" could base a whole season on this. >> and probably will. to the point about messaging, again, matthew. sessions recuses himself. trump said he didn't need to. sessions was listening to his lawyers. what about accusations of perjury that you may see there? back to the russians. >> i think, well first, the lawyers can talk about this. first, the idea of perjury is a difficult thing to prove, baz you have to prove he had the intent of doing that. i think this is just another example of donald trump's behavior chrks is basically to make the -- assert these allegations. he did it with voters. he said 3 million illegal voted in the election. that's why hillary clinton won. and you talked to his people, they were like, basically, i don't know what he's talking about, we ought to

let's go to the hearing where senator ben sasse started his questioning. >> we're obviously not goingo pursue very far but i do want to make sure everybody at home knows a litt bit what has been happening in the room over the course of the last six or seven hours because some of my colleagues are asking a bunch of tough questions that are really important for to you have to answer. at the same time there are a whole bunch of questions that have been asked today that are really asking to you take your legal career and your legal ethics and set them aside and play politician on tv today. and that really isn't your job and some of this questioning really hasn't been a fruitful use of our time. it's well-meaning to talk about the outcome of objectives of a whole bunch of these cases but i would submit it's dead wrong. i want to give you a couple questions we heard earlier today. at different times, how can we have confidence that you won't be for the big guy? at another point, hour can we know, how can we know you feel for the little guy? this sounds noble but it's fundamentally a corrupt

and senator ben sasse said, quote, we are in the midst of a civilization-what we civilization-warping crisis of public trust and the president's allegations today demand the thorough and dispassionate attention of serious patriots. >> i have never heard that before and i have no evidence or no one has presented anything to me to indicate anything like that. but obviously in the days to come you'll ask him, and i imagine they are going to answer. >> 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. >> i've seen no evidence of the allegations we have seen in the media, chris, whether that's a potential court application or denial of that application or resubmission of that application. it doesn't mean that has hasn't, it simply means i have not seen that yet. >> we'll bring in msnbc news investigative reporter joining us from washington, ken, we'll talk about a fast-moving week.