joining m me from the, uh, about-to-llaunch kayak centraras george wolfe, who is coordinator of the loseles river expedition. what is the a appeal fofor you f the l.a. river? >> you know,w, water's such a fundamental t thing, and dear tus, and nenecearary fo alall of us. . and so, we feel e that we're just kind of, y you know, fighting this f fight for--for everybody, including e e armyorpsps, and the county, a and the city. >> 4 out the 52 miles are designated as "traditional navigable waterway." but they'll tell you it's perfectly navigable. but you can't put a boat in it. >> 4 being... >> right, because it's an incompatible and unsafe activity, what you're doing. >> yeah, and didn't you love that phrhrasing? >> i think there's an, uhuh, innate appeal to this notion of, you know, fighting for whatt peopople reay y knows ththeirs. >> well, and here we are,, finally. ultimately, we hope that this trip willll raise consciousnesss about the l.a. river. even on the way here, i was stuck in traffic, and i was thinking "i can't wait to get to that river..." >> [laughing] >> "and get my feet

and remember, wolf, that both george papadopoulos, the trump campaign former foreign policy adviser and michael flynn, they've both been charged with lying to the fbi already in similar circumstances there. so a number of points the president made today don't stand up to the facts of this investigation. >> and they both pled guilty in response to those, that indictment, as well. so the investigation will presumably, is continuing not just on collusion, but obstruction of justice, potentially, and there have been reports, money laundering is also potentially being investigated. >> interesting, that's something that steve bannon made comments in the now famous "fast and fury" book about money laundering being a focus there. we know that financial records have been turned over. so that very well could be an investigation inquiry as well, line of inquiry, as well. >> yeah, it continues. thanks very much, jim sciutto reporting for us. let's get some raeaction to all of this. we're joined by sheldon whitehouse, a democrat on the judiciary committee. senator, thanks very much for joining us. >

and i had a teacher, tobias wolfe, who told me once, george, in your writing career you're allowed three dream sequences. so don't use them up, you know? [laughter] so about halfway through this book i could feel that my imaginary reader was starting to look askance at me, there's too much ghosts, too many ghosts, too much sort of free energy. and i also thought back to that first day when i saw willie lincoln's crypt, and i thought why did that move me so much? part of it was because i did, after that incident, do some research. and you find out such heartbreaking things about that. for example, willie was abe's favorite. he was his favorite because he was the most like him. he had the same, you know, beauties and the same problems. also the lincolns had a party schedule at the white house. the party was set up to reduce costs. it was all in place, the invitations were out. the two boys got sick with what we now know was toy find. they -- typhoid. they consulted a doctor, the doctor said i think it'll be fine. so they had the party, and it was that night that willie took a turn for the

george spencer, nbc10 news. >> what a dramatic day in court. new developments, tom wolfe's declaration to fight the opioid epidemic. they say they already feel the difference just two weeks after declaring it an emergency and keeping drugs out of a brooks county prison. new data show the precipitation drug monitoring program is making a difference. >> the truth of me matter i'm hoping none of this -- i want to report to the governor this is what we got accomplished and managed to get done and all the departments coming together and from there hoping for the best. >> since the declaration the state's opioid hotline received more than 300 calls. >>> coming up, all new at 5:00, remember their friend. >>> soft-spoken, neat, mild, would do anything for you. >> the man killed by a hit-and-run driver. what his co-workers are sharing about their friend and the young children he leaves behind. >>> also, a message for what colin kaepernick is saying about this rapper and what they're doing to help the community. >>> an alleged sheriff takes the stand and alleged bribes involving the

wolf, who we should look for to testify this week. another former campaign official, corey lowe endewendow expected to talk largely about contacts he had with the trump foreign policy advisor, georgeapadopolous, who we know pleaded guilty to the fbi after lying about his contacts with russians during the campaign season, wolf. >> interesting. the house intelligence committee moving forward with these interviews. paul manafort, the former trump campaign chairman, rick gates who worked with him, they're back in court tomorrow as well. what are you learning about that hearing? >> yeah, this is going to be a pretty significant hearing. we're going to learn a lot about the direction that the special council's team wants to take this case as well as what the defense -- how the defense is prepared to push back. we know that the special counsel wants to have a trial date set by the middle of may. the question is whether or not the judge in that case agrees to it, wolf. already thousands of pages of evidence have been turned over as part of the discovery process, and the special counsel has said roughly 2,200 pages of that are relevant to this case. so this could shine some new light into

wolf out there. good morning, america. great to have you all with us this morning and george is in washington covering the state of the unionyou were up all night. i bet you didn't even go to sleep so i'm sure you were just gazing at the moon. >> the problem is i'm stuck in a basement down here, amy. i know it looks like i can look out the window. that's just a green screen so i never saw the moon last night. >> well, you can watch it on abc. >> well, that's good. well, amy, i was here, of course, for the state of the union and we want to talk more and bring in our chief white house correspondent jon karl and, jon, i think both of us were struck yesterday all day long from the white house from the president himself, we kept hearing unity, unity, the president is going to reach across the aisle. it doesn't seem like that's what happened last night. >> reporter: he sure tried to reach across the aisle. he talked about coming together. he struck an optimistic tone in much of the speech but the democrats in that chamber simply were not buying it, george. through much of the speech, in fact, even when he walked in there, if you

wolf. >> according to that report in "the new york times," senator, the dossier didn't prompt the fbi to begin its russia probe back in 2016, it began when one of donald trump's advisers, george papadopoulos, boasted to an australian diplomat in london about dirt russia had on hillary clinton. the australians eventually passed that information along to u.s. government sources. does it seem likely to you, senator, that papadopoulos also shared that information with top trump campaign officials? >> it seems hard to believe that if this trump campaign aide, papadopoulos, had access to very damaging dirt on hillary clinton stolen by the russians and praufr proffered to him that he felt so enthusiastic about that he was bragging about it to a senior australian ambassador serving in london, it seems hard to believe that he wouldn't then also share it with the trump campaign. this is a compelling lead that is worthy of being followed up and it suggests that there may yet be evidence that ties the path of the e-mails that were hacked by the russians from the dnc and the trump campaign. >> all right. senator, stand by. there are other developments unfolding, even as we spoke right now

wolf made about how we all think about the president are ridiculous on his face. >> was he unstable when he passed the tax reform? >> the media made similar claims about ronald reagan and george bush. what they have in common is they are republican presidents. >> president trump's allies have been out in full force defending the president's mental stability, after speculation from a book "fire and fury." in a series of tweets over the weekend, the president compared news coverage of him to ronald reaganing writing the democrats and their lap dogs are taking out the old ronald reagan playbook and screaming mental instability and intelligence. i've had to put up with fake news from the first day i've been running for president. now i have to put up with a fake book written by a totally discredited author. ronald reagan had the same problem and handled it well. so will i. i want to bring in callan from "the washington post." you have a piece out saying trump's ill-advised claim. what do you think they have wrong here? >> i think the comparison to reagan could apply but i don't think he should want it to apply. saying there's equivalence here, he's sort of opening the door to the