i'm hugh hewitt. the president and senior officials are leaving from quebec soon en route to singapore. before we talk about what happened at the g-7 or the g-6 or the g-8, i thought i would start with our panel talking about china. courtney kube, josh of the national journal and ashley parker of the "washington post". courtney, we're lucky to have you. you broke a story about what the chinese are doing in preparation for the summit. cue us up there. >> a lot are surveillance techniques and tactics the u.s. has seen before the chinese before that they do oversees and domestically here in the u.s. some things american security officials are looking for the potential they will have waiters in restaurants and coffee shops and around the summit location and the hotel where delegations are staying. if you're out and your at dinner and talking about what happened that day, they might be listening and they can report back. other things they have done things that are covert and remind me of inspector gadget o

i'm hugh hewitt.oming up after the break, the man many favor to be the next speaker of the house of representatives, the current house majority leader kevin mccarthy. three of the beltway's best to review what just happened this week. political.com, al weaver of washington examiner and eugene scott of the "washington post". welcome all three. anna, what's your big story of the week? i will sit here and complain about the cavs getting screwed on thursday night's game. >> tough loss. but russia, russia, russia. this is the story that continues to permeate so many story lines. this was the revival of jeff sessions and donald trump and donald trump trying to pressure him to stop recusing himself. i think it is impacting every other story line and so many moves out of this white house right now. >> did you see it metastasize when the "washington post" wrote about andrew mccabe's fabrication. that is investigation five. do you have a score card at politico where you are following all of this? >> every time

i'm hugh hewitt. coming up after the break, the attorney general of missouri and josh holly joins me. but first to discuss the singapore summit, the department of justice inspector general's report, and separations of families at the border, i've got three of the very best correspondents in town. courtney kube of nbc news. she covers the pentagon and national security. tim alberta of politico and sun kim. along the white house on friday morning, he said it's not his fault. it is the democrats fault that families are being separated at the border. the republicans are being bills to the floor of the house, a, is what he said true? and, b, are the bills going to pass? >> a, what he said is not true. this is an administration policy. there is no gray area there. pardon me. it is black and white. this is a trump administration policy, the administration is choosing to enforce as a deterrent to keep people from crossing the border illegally. it is important to understand that these bills coming to the floor

i'm hugh hewitt. on friday afternoon, i sat down with secretary of state mike pompeo in his office on the 7th floor of the state department. almost exactly a year since is i interviewed him at cia headquarters in langley. here's part one of the interview. secretary pompeo, thank you for having us. >> hugh, it's great to be with you. welcome to the state department. >> great to be here. is the senate working with you to fill them so you can have the leadership for the best core in the world? >> the answer is we need to move faster here. everyone in the process needs to. we need to get our diplomats out to every corner of the world, and do it as expeditiously as possible. there were big gaps in important places when i took over. we will soon have our ambassador in place in south korea. but we need everyone helping. and i'm confident that senators menendez and corker will help to achieve that. >> you talked to leader mcconnell about this? >> he is moving folks through as quickly as we can. in august we w

i'm hugh hewitt. welcome to the last edition of hugh hewitt on saturday mornings.t comes on the cusp of a huge week of news concerning the supreme court and the president's decisions to meet with russian president vladimir putin in helsinki, finland. to discuss these two big stories, i'm joined by nbc's courtney kube, our pentagon national security correspondent. and seung min kim from the "washington post". welcome to you both. how surprised is the pentagon, which is your beat, and what is the reaction generally to the president meeting with putin? >> i think there is surprise they are going to meet and it's so soon, only three weeks away. there is a little bit of hopeful optimism that might break some of the stalemate in syria. it is not getting a lot of attention in the u.s. there is a precarious situation down towards the border with jordan in syria where everything is coming to a head. assad's tporgz are russian and iranian backed. they are coming into where the opposition forces are. israel is potentially going to get involved. potential this could be a terri

i'm hugh hewitt. welcome to the last edition of hugh hewitt on saturday mornings.t comes on the cusp of a huge week of news concerning the supreme court and the president's decisions to meet with russian president vladimir putin in helsinki, finland. to discuss these two big stories, i'm joined by nbc's courtney kube, our pentagon national security correspondent. and seung min kim from the "washington post". welcome to you both. how surprised is the pentagon,

on eff sessions talking the hugh hewitt show, every person that enters illegally should be prosecuted and you can't give immunity that bring children recklessly and -- host: at's wrong with that? ms. gianopoulos:t'no american. this is coming from folks that tout all the time that -- brag about family -- speaker ryan:ooha aery producti conference meeting in the house republican conversation to discuss. members were very engag a it's clear there are a lot of areas of consensus. i'm pleased that members on all sides of our conference are engagingto find solution. you know, one of the things that i don't like about this job is how things just float up to leadership to make big decisions, we too often centralize power around here. i'm happiest when the members, not thewhenhe members are making policy decisions, going through the committee process. i'm happy that we have had this process on display this morning in our conference. so this is a conversation that will continue and hopefully we can find a path ahead that's consistent with the four pillars that the president laid out and avoids

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i'm hugh hewitt. coming up after the break, the attorney general of missouri and josh holly joins me. but first to discuss the singapore summit, the department of justice inspector general's report, and separations of families at the border, i've got three of the very best correspondents in town. courtney kube of nbc news. she covers the pentagon and national security. tim alberta

i'm hugh hewitt.g up after the break, the man many favor to be the next speaker of the house of representatives, the current house majority leader kevin mccarthy. three of the beltway's best to review what just happened this week. political.com, al weaver of washington examiner and eugene scott of the "washington post". welcome all three. anna, what's your big story of the week? i will sit here and complain about the cavs getting screwed on thursday night's game. >> tough loss. but russia, russia, russia.

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hugh hewitt, saying this is trump's katrina. do you think that provided cover or fuel? >> it's what we have been experiencing for the last several decade. you have an american electorate that wants to treat borders as a real thing that needs to be enforced. you have an elite force that wants to keep american wages low. and what gets left out are the american people who actually want strong border enforcement. on that "time" magazine cover. it was a perfect encapsulation of the media narrative and it was completely built on a lie. and the what it is lying is influential. the way we learned this story, this mother had previously come to this country and been deported. she abandoned other children and her husband to took the child without permission. and only after being caught requested asylum. because we are not telling the truth about the situation, i totally agree with what richard is saying. we are not telling the truth about the situation in central america. and we are not talking about how the previous policy incentivized child trafficking. howie: this story had bee

i'm hugh hewitt. on friday afternoon, i sat down with secretary of state mike pompeo in his office on the 7th floor of the state department. almost exactly a year since is i interviewed him at cia headquarters in langley. here's part one of the interview. secretary pompeo, thank you for having us. >> hugh, it's great to be with you. welcome to the state department. >> great to be here. is the senate working with you to fill them so you can have the leadership for the best core in the world? >> the answer is we need to move

i'm hugh hewitt. the president and senior officials are leaving from quebec soon en route to singapore. before we talk about what happened at the g-7 or the g-6 or the g-8, i thought i would start with our panel talking about china. courtney kube, josh of the national journal and ashley parker of the "washington post". courtney, we're lucky to have you. you broke a story about what the chinese are doing in preparation for the summit. cue us up there.

joining us is hugh hewitt on msnbc. hi, hugh >> hello how are you? >> good.hat do you think about the tax cuts and whether or not they are going to be good for republicans? we had a guest on earlier who says they're very unpopular. consider this card they put out, much smaller card they put out, to be much smaller and a gimmick. >> the proof is in the pudding it had its 17-year high. it's dipped a little bit in june i think we will see 4% in the second quarter maybe a little bit under or a little bit over. the unemployment dropping to 3.8% headed down to 3.6% labor shortage leads to rising wages. you can't trick people on what they actually get in their paycheck you can't fool people to believe times are rough when times are great. the boom is real i think it's going to last as the deregulatory effects of the first year of the trump administration kick in even more and more broadly, that economy is going to accelerate then you motivate the base with the supreme court justice making a solid majority of five for the first time in my lifetime who are originalist

this is sessions being questioned by the conservative talk radio host hugh hewitt on tuesday. >> i understand the prosecution part, but is it necessary to separate the children? could they not be detained in facilities where at least mothers and infants could remain together? >>fant most are teenagers. although, we do have a number of young once now, more than we have seen recently. they are maintained in a very safe environment, not by the law team, the department of health -- homeland security, but with health and human services. amy: according to the florence immigrant & refugee rights project, infants as young as 53 weeks old have been brought to court hearings alone after theym their parents by u.s. authorities. can in while, beentseparated from their children in the united states gathered wednesday for a forum aimed at family reunifications. this is ana laura lopez, who's unablebe with her children in the u.s. >> deportations and deportees are more than just statistics and topics for current affairs. we are human beings s who went o the u.s. to work. we fought to have a better life, and

during an appearance today on the hugh hewitt radio show, sessions again defende policy. em >> brangham: docrats and immigration rights groups argue these separations are the clear intention of adminstration policy, but president trump today blamed democrats, tweeting: "separating families at the border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the democrats. border security laws should be changed but the dems can't get their act together!" the president is likely referring to laws passed under previous administrations, including one okayed unanimously by congress in 2008, and signed by president george w. bush. it called for releasing immigrant children into the "least restrictive setting" while their cases went through immigration court. all this led oregon democratic senator jeff merkley to visit the texas bord region sunday. video showed his attempt to enter a federal facility where some of these immigrant children were being held. he was denied entry, the police were eventually called, and merkely was told to leave. >> they don't want anyone to know what's going on b

on his radio show earlier this morning hugh hewitt pressed jeff sessions on this very issue. >> is it absolutely necessary to separate parents from children when they are detained or apprehended at the border? >> yes. you can't be giving immunity to people whong children with them improperly and illegally those children are being well taken care of within 72 hours. they're taken to the health and human services to be sure they're properly cared r. >> i'm not sure ever separating children from their parents means they're being well taken care of. >> he said most. >> let's examine this a little bit. where are these children waiting while their parents face legal proceeds? they're the short term border facility stations. these stations are meant as a temporary first stop. they lack adequate medical care and healthy food. the time limit of any immigrants to be held in a temporary shelter is 72 hours. as of sunday 300 of the 550 children in custody reached that limit, and half of them are younger than 12, class if ied by the department of homeland security, tender aged children. that puts

. >> laura: i want to play something from james clapper, he was on with hugh hewitt, and they were talking about whether or not information was leaked to cnn and participation of the new job. let's watch. >> i had no idea that i would end up working for cnn. in january, i had not thought about it. and the only reason i was appearing on television immediately after i left the government was the main motivation was to defend the intelligence community. >> you did not tip it off? >> no. >> laura: that seems to conflict with what he said. >> they are talking about the wrong thing. they are being taped on the contents of the dossier which all of the news organizations already had. the news was on january 6, the intel had reached the select about it. that gave the news organizations the hook to them report it. they had the dossier, they could not reported, it was unverified. the head of the fbi briefs the president-elect, that is news. >> here's james clapper, you are watching him. this is what the american people need to realize, this man was the single most senior intelligence official of the

i don't know he saw the interview last week a conservative tal sw radio host where hugh hewitt went after rather relentlessly and i appreciated it about i was that just session and stand for separating children from their mothers at their border and to hear his response i don't know how he sleeps at night. i don't know how can take this position and i would urge all of you to listen to the interview it was an important moment i think that session has turned the mandates of the justice department on their head as the abandoned civil right and completely stopped in its tracks embolden law enforcement against everything and then they began to promote after fergusono when trump is celebrated and i give credit because they highlight life without parole with incarceration that kudos for that and meanwhile he has put in place in attorney general that notnly has stopped all criminal justice reform underway that had begun reduce for the first time in decades the federal population but now massively increase the federal prison population and reintroduce solitary confinement every piece of work that

let's play something that senator tom cotton said to my colleague hugh hewitt a little bit earlier. >ool of thought that the united states should sit down, that the united states president should not sit down with two-bit dictators. i think there's some validity to that school of thought, with the nuclear weapons.tato u know, countries like iran and cuba and other two-bit regimes don't have nuclear weapons yet. they can't threat the united states in that way. >> so jeffrey, hearing that, does that just encourage a place like iran or cuba to work to develop their own nuclear weapons, so that they can be taken more seriously on the world stage? they have more leverage? >> yeah, it's been a while since i lived in washington, but i remember a gaffe being defined as telling the truth. and i think that senator cotton was both telling the truth, but also saying the thing that you're not supposed to say. one of the reasons that i think kim jong-un is not going to give up his nuclear weapons, he saw what happened to saddam and gadhafi and he saw the president pull offer the iran nuclear deal.

there was a debate in 2015 when hugh hewitt, the conservative talk-radio host asked him about the nuclearyou know, it's having nukes from land, from sea, and from air. and it was pretty clear he had no idea what the nuclear triad is. what's amazing about this stuff -- now, obviously, he's in charge of it. set right. >> is the idea that there is no, "o d >> seth: yeah. >> for instance -- >> seth: but there's no shame in not knowing things and bin. a million things. and it always happens during any presidential race. all candidates get caught not knowing things. >> seth: right. >> but for instance, he has this thing. he just did it thether day. you know nato, this -- this alliance we're in. the deal was, the commitment was, every country in nato has to -- has agreed to spend 2% of their gdp on defense spending. kind of a wonky thing, but that's an important thing. presidentrump portrays it as, you know, they're not paying their dues. none of these other countries are paying their dues. now, he has an argument to make about these other countries need to carry their weight more. but, it's not

what jeff sessions said to hugh hewitt was preposterous as well.ing that comparing it to a criminal matter which means he is saying that it is -- they're treating it as if it's a n the united states.itic at ridiculous c >> look, it's a master class in cynicism which is in turn born of a philosophy that streets people coming to this country as criminals and as liabilities. you heard it in the president's comments about people from you heard it in previous jeff sessions' comments about why do we need these people who are -- >> john kelly said they struggled to assimilate. >> there are two refugees at this table, i'm a son of a refugee and we're living the american dream and we're evidence that an immigration-based culture is also a success culture. you generally actually judge the success of societies by how many people want to come to them. not how many people wantrked ha other countries to make sure that the refugee crisis stays outside of the borders, with some success. some failures. we could do that with their -- there are options other than a c

the end of the day, this is what the administration has chosen to do, what jeff sessions said to hugh hewittas well. he's sitting there ask comparing it to a criminal matter. he's saying they're treating it as if it was a crime to ask for political asylum in the united states. that's a ridiculous comparison. >> look, it's a master class in cynicism which is, in turn, borne of a philosophy that treats people trying to come to this country as criminals and as liabilities. you heard it in the president's comments about people from s-hole countries. you heard it from previous jeff sessions comments about why do we need these people who are -- >> john kelly said they struggle to assimilate. >> so, there are two refugees at this table. and then i'm the son of a refugee, and i think we would all fairly say we're living an american dream and we're evidence that an immigration-based culture is also a success culture. you generally actually judge the success of societies by how many people want to come to them, not how many people want to flee them. angela merkel, the europeans work hard with turkey,

. >> that, of course, is attorney general jeff sessions with hugh hewitt this morning not backing offne inch defending the zero tolerance policy that includes in part separating migrant children from their parents at border crossings. president trump on twitter this morning said separating families at the board certify fault of bad legislation passed by democrats. border security laws should be changed but the dems cannot get their act together. remember, it was a trump administration policy announced in may that led to this. this morning we have new reporting too. look at this. hundreds of migrant kids who have been separatm their parents are stuck at border stations which are running out of space to shelter these kids. nbc news justice security officer julie ames is part of the team that broke that story. let's get into some of these numbers in your article. you have 11,000 unaccompanied kids in the administration. 55%, more than half of the kids being held at border stations have been there for more than three days and nearly half of them are under 12. plain w explain whooip wy the

radio host eric trump loyalist hugh hewitt says this may be the presidents katrina.to quote laura bush and religious leaders. mainstream outlets repeatedly accused the president of lying and saying he couldn't change the policy unilaterally until he did yesterday. there were mixed messages. jeff sessions, john kelly had publicly said that zero-tolerance could lead to family separations. but much of the media is leaving out important context. the conditions of these warehousing facilities for the children, they date to the obama administration. there was little outcry then. a court decree does require require that detain children be freed within 20 days. when chuck schumer rejected g.o.p. proposal for a quick fix, he wasn't accused of ignoring the children's plate. immigration is complicated. heartrending pictures of trying, crying kids are not. but for all the media english, 56% of republicans and the quinnipiac poll approve of the president's policy or migrant families. shannon? >> shannon: howie kurtz, thank you very much. up next, our "midnight hero" are making di

. >> that's from hugh hewitt, a fully minted conservative. reason i point that out, steve, is this is about having a heart, not a partisan stripe. we choose as a country how we enforce the law. you do not have to do it this way, where you get a democratic senator who won't get let into one of the facilities saying that he saw kids in cages. don't you think we can do better than that, steve? >> oh, i do, by the way. and i think that our laws should be reformed. this was happening, by the way, under president obama. this didn't just start happening, separating children from parents. but let's also remember here, when we have a lawless border, which we've tolerated for decades in this country, let's talk about the families who are separated permanently in the united states, because their family members are dead, because dangerous illegal immigrants have been tolerated because sanctuary cities have become a misbegotten policies in places like my hometown of chicago -- >> they're not new, either. they're not new either. let's bring in ana in -- >>

i don't know who saw his interview with a conservative talk show radio show host where hugh hewitt wentfter him rather relentlessly about how is it that jeff sessions could stand for separating young children, infants in some cases from their mothers at the border and parents at the border and to read sessions and hear him, his responses, i don't know how he sleeps at night. i don't know how he can at all be in the position that he is and i would urge all of you to listen to that interview. it was an important moment, i think, and i hope that hugh hewlett was-- look, sessions has turned, he has turned the mandates of the justice department on their head. he's largely abandoned the civil rights division and completely stopped police reform in its tracks and done worse by embolening law enforcement against the very kinds of things that a lot of law enforcement leaders were beginning really remote after ferguson and black lives. when trump gets for the johnson pardon. and i'm going to give the people at a.c.l.u. credit because they're highlighting mass encores ration and kudos, yes, he sho

on eff sessions talking the hugh hewitt show, every person that enters illegally should be prosecuted and you can't give immunity that bring children recklessly and -- host: at's wrong with that? ms. gianopoulos:t'no american. this is coming from folks that tout all the time that -- brag about family -- speaker ryan:ooha aery producti conference meeting in the house republican conversation to discuss. me