however, i do think that the tweeting on trump's part this morning with jeff sessions is smart. he knows that we'll be talking about it all day long. he's turning up the heat and turning up the screws on sessions -- >> neil: jessica, is that going to work? there's all sorts of ways to work the message and get it out. >> i don't think so at all. you brought this up earlier with your former attorney general mike mukasey. it's not how you treat somebody in your cabinet. jeff sessions were with him from the beginning. maybe i'm with ted cruz or john kasich. he was there be his side and he was right to recuse himself from the russia investigation. and i don't understand why public humiliation of a cabinet member is ever a good policy and now force jeff sessions to have to come out and humiliate him back. >> neil: we'll see. the humiliation continues. nothing of that here. guys, thanks very much. >> thank you. >> neil: to let you know, hope hicks, very young communications director is stepping down on the day stocks were down, on the day why finished one of our worst months in some tim

it's clear from trump's side he's not happy with jeff sessions and i think jeff sessions is sort of daringim at this point. jeff sessions has the job he's always wanted. attorney general. he's not going to walk away from it and a tweet -- i think given their history, this tweet won't change that. >> i wonder if that daring him to fire him is also something that we're seeing with chief of staff john kelly, clearly trying to bre serve his reputation for creating order but when he's putting out this cutoff of june for security clearances an going to be revoked. jared kushner didn't even turn in all of his updated information until after that. so he puts this statement out, it's extraordinary, chris, as i told jared days ago, i have full confidence in his ability to perform his duty in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing the peace effort and integral part of our relationship with mexico. john kelly versus the president's son-in-law? >> yep. the question i have and i don't know the answer to this, is kushner a collateral damage and john kelly trying to save himself? all of this st

jeff sessions not going anywhere.statement john roberts is passed on from the white house the white house agreed to initiate the appropriate process of complaints against the department that was fully a eponymous long as i'm attorney general will continue -- continue to do so, to do work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law of the constitution. i.e. i'm not going anywhere. judge napolitano with us. what you think i'm a judge? >> he continues to get bashed publicly by the president in the latest bashing was disenchantment with what sections told maria bartiromo when she said are you going to investigate the fbi abuse of isaiah abuse of isaiah. he give a long-winded answer without specifics that could be only interpreted to mean yes, the inspector general the the justice department is going to investigate. the inspector general runs the team of bureaucrats with violations of the internal department of justice regulations. that means the team of prosecutors and a team of fbi agents looking to see if laws w

that is jeff sessions, striking back.he attorney general, just moments ago, defending himself after president trump attacked him this morning on twitter. his response and the future of his relationship with the president, next. i have type 2 diabetes. i'm trying to manage my a1c, and then i learn type 2 diabetes puts me at greater risk for heart attack or stroke. can one medicine help treat both blood sugar and cardiovascular risk? i asked my doctor. he told me about non-insulin victoza®. victoza® is not only proven to lower a1c and blood sugar, but for people with type 2 diabetes treating their cardiovascular disease, victoza® is also approved to lower the risk of major cv events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. and while not for weight loss, victoza® may help you lose some weight. (announcer) victoza® is not for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take victoza® if you have a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are

jeff sessions has worked with laser-like focus to reverse those gains. just last week, sessions effectively closed an office within the justice department that helped make legal aid more accessible to people who don't have enough money to pay for a lawyer. and that, just the tip of the iceberg. under jeff sessions, the u justice department killed off a reform initiative that allowed local police departments to voluntarily partner with the federal government to improve policing. the justice department has abandoned its long-standing efforts to hold local police forces accountable when they routinely and systematically violated constitutional rights of american citizens. justice ends the -- sessions ends the justice smart on crime initiative which allowed prosecutors to divert some low-level, nonviolent offenders into rehab programs. this was a program that saved money, avoided incarceration and improved safety in our communities, and it improved the lives of these offenders and their families. instead, sessions instructed all protect prosecute -- prosecuto

jeff sessions. right here on fox business. you know, i used to be good at this. then you turn 40 and everything goes. tell me about it. you know, it's made me think, i'm closer to my retirement days than i am my college days. hm. i'm thinking... will i have enough? should i change something? well, you're asking the right questions. i just want to know, am i gonna be okay? i know people who specialize in "am i going to be okay." i like that. you may need glasses though. yeah. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today with td ameritrade. charles: well the big news all day, the battle brewing between president trump and his attorney general jetion. jeff sessions. this as trump has a history for slamming sessions for not appointing a social prosecutor to investigate hillary clinton to e-mail server. according to a report that jared kushner and ivanka are locked in a death match with chief of staff john kelly. we've got a lot of things going on in the white house and i want to shake it out and

>> well, we've already seen jeff sessions to date take a great deal of abuse from the president, erikas not by any means a new fphenomenon we're seeing but jef sessions has shown he's not willing to step down from this job. he offered his resignation or suggested to the president earlier in the term that he would offer his resignation if it would please the president but president trump didn't show much of an appetite for actually firing jeff sessions. so given that, jeff sessions is just in a position where he's having to take this abuse from the president and do his job day to day. we've seen to date that jeff sessions is willing to put up with that from the president and do what he thinks is right. the funny thing is in this situation, that jeff sessions is doing fundamentally what the president wants, he's just not going about it in the way the president would prefer. >> which we saw, definitely in the tweet. when we look at -- there's so much going on here today, i'm jumping around a little bit but we have so much to cover on a day when any other day we would be looking at paul ma

your thoughts on what jeff sessions just told me. >> my thoughts on him is that i used to like jeff sessions he's been a very weak leader here and this is a department that needs to be very very strong leadership and i think because of his absence, it just is not functioning well. maria: well he just broke news he said there were 27 leaks of confidential information. >> he didn't discover that this morning where are the indictments? maria: now, but this is a felony to leak confidential information of this sort and any said there were 27 instances of it. >> it seems to me that the only part of the justice department that is really working is the inspector general. maria: yes. >> and the fact that if you laid back there and say we have 27, that's not good enough. really, whose working on it? what are you doing? maria: he did say we're going to restore the rule of law and we are going to investigate the fisa abuses but he names michael horowitz and rod rosenstein to do it. >> the only person he's got that the american people can look to at this point is the inspector general. maria: right exact

can jeff sessions stay in his position? >> he's not made of steel. it undermines the work he's able to do. from what we understand from people close to jeff sessions for a long time, he sees this as the top of his career and potentially the last position that he will have in government. i don't think he's planning another go at the alabama senate seat. e he really wants to hang on to this as long as e he can. he may have even become accustomed to being the scapegoat when the president wants to kind of distract from the other news of the day. another piece of this that is so confounding is the fact that he's really coming after him because of the inspector general looking into fisa abuse. the president himself held up the nunes memo say iing there's clearly problems with the fisa system that theren shouldn't be a page used as part of the russia investigation. so does he not want that investigate investigated? does he want the it investigated? does he not understand the context or what fiez is a really does. there's a lot of questions to ask here. >> s

he said awful things about jeff sessions going back a long time. beleaguered, very weak, very disappointed with him. he did a terrible thing. disgraceful. look at all those comments. and sessions is still there. he hasn't quit. >> sessions has taken a pounding from the president. this presents a narrow problem and a wider problem, wolf. the narrow problem is that the president continues to either not understand or not acknowledge that he understands that the role of the attorney general is not to be the president's personal attack dog. not to be his roy coen. there are reasons jeff sessions has been recused from the russia discussion. the wider problem for the president is he's sending a message to all his close advisers -- if you get crosswise with me, i'm going to be merciless, and it will never end. >> how much public humiliation can the attorney general take? >> he's taken a lot. but he fought back today. >> yes. >> i would argue -- he put out a press release and basically said, sorry, the i.g.'s going to handle this. and by the way, the preside

jeff sessions says the time for the i.g. to get to the bottom of this is now and the press secretary says the president agrees. >> it's something he has had frustration over. i would imagine he certainly supports the decision to look into what we feel to be some wrongdoing. i think that's the role of the department of justice and we're glad they're fulfilling that job. >> keep in mind the i.g. is also looking into the use of that private email server by former secretary of state hillary clinton at issue there. was she attempting to use that server to avoid federal record keeping rules? we'll keep an eye on that story as well, sandra. >> sandra: any reaction from the white house about jared kushner's changed security clearance? >> it's been amended. two ways you can go about this. on the one hand you can glide by the suggestion that this changes anything at all. or you could admit outright that because of his unique international, financial entanglement he won't get top secret clearance any time soon. it seems to me based on

how can jeff sessions stay on the job? how can he live with himself and show up to work every day with the president attacking him like that? >> well, it's rough existence. it's been some time since the president has come after jeff sessions in this way. these are harsh words this morning. all i can really say, jeff sessions as far as i'm concerned is a man of high integrity. i think he served our nation well and served the state of alabama well. i'm glad he's in the cabinet. i think he's done amazing work at the department of justice and it strikes me what jeff sessions decided is that his work on behalf of the american people as attorney general is more important than being upset about a president who likes to communicate -- >> it's not being upset. >> president trump does. that's all i can say about it. >> but again, crosses the line from upset to humiliated. you would think at the certain point he should defend himself earn justify the actions he's taking. robby, eric swalwell, democrat from california he's opposed to

and grassley said, last year when the president wanted to fire jeff sessions over his recusal from the r investigation, grassley stuck his neck out for sessions, and this was no way to treat a friend. in fact, earlier today, i checked in with grassley's office, grass still angry at jeff sessions. he said jeff sessions promised to help him with this bill, he's gone back on his word, and he needs to do better. >> sreenivasan: all right, carrie johnson of npr, thanks so much for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> this is "pbs newshour weekend," saturday. >> sreenivasan: at least 13 people are dead after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit soexutheasterno last night. all thirteen were killed today when a helicopter carrying ofrvficials ing the damage crashed during landing. 15 others were injured. there are, so far, no deaths as a result of the quake itself, or its strong aftershock. dozens of buildings were damaged and nearly a million homes and businesses were left without power. today at an international curity conference in munich president trump's national secuorrity adv.r. mcmaster called on

the hit against jeff sessions, the tweet, why is jeff sessions asking the attorney general asking toestigate potentially massive fisa abuse. at the end, he says disgraceful. all caps. he keeps slamming his own attorney general. >> he's called him every name under the sun. i think it was different because he went after the inspector general. i spoke to a source familiar with sessions and i think he was so in the weeds, the president was on there one. that i bringing up that others were supposed to investigate this. almost dictating this. i think enough was enough. >> everybody, stick around. more breaking news we're following. cnn is learning the trump administration is weighing military action with north korea if they develop a nuclear missile capable of receiving the u.s. mitzi: psoriatic arthritis tries to get in my way? watch me. ( ♪ ) mike: i've tried lots of things for my joint pain. now? watch me. ( ♪ ) joni: think i'd give up showing these guys how it's done? please. real people with active psoriatic arthritis are changing the way they fight it. they're moving forward with cos

maria: welcome back attorney general jeff sessions is ordering an immediate review following the news that the fbi did not act on a recent tip a month before the confessed killer in the florida high school shooting rampage. before that news came out i asked sessions about the missed signals from the fbi in the case >> yes, there clearly were and even the schools refused to let the person come in, or bring a backpack because they were concerned about it. i met with a group of sheriffs yesterday. they all believe that we need to do a better job of receiving these signs and acting on them and following up on them better. that is probably the most valuable thing we can do to stop these kind of cases. we see the recent incidents, maria of the grandmother who was concerned about a grand child and that appears to have been a dangerous situation that her going to the police and them acting on it may have prevented, so absolutely we've got to do better about that. we're going to review department of justice policies and we're not perfect either and we're going to make sure we're getting to the

ask jeff sessions. and supporters of michael flynn are urging the former national security adviser to consider withdrawing his guilty plea in the russian probe. calls come amid reports that former fbi director james comey told lawmakers last year that flynn did nothing wrong. the case is being handled by a new judge that has been tough on the justice department in if the past and has ordered prosecutors to share evidence with the flynn legal team. our next guest has been out front covering the developments. we're joined by byron york. good to see you. what is the latest on the possibility of flynn's reversal, the plea reversal? >> we don't really know what's going on. that's really the latest here. we do have some hints. you're right. back in march of last year james comey, who was then the fbi director, told congress that the agents who had interviewed flynn do not believe he had lied to them. that interview was january 24th of last year. something changed between there and when flynn pleaded guilty in

the jeff session news, what is your take on this? the president considering our attorney general for putting inspector general horowitz in charge of the investigation into the fisa warrants? >> well the president is entitled to his opinion and i would respect that general session said what he needed to say. he is going to fulfill his obligations under the law and responsibilities under the justice department. and i think both are compatible statements. trish: is inspector general horowitz the rightfy to lead this. >> i don't know much about him. i'm not in position to speak to that end. with any measure of true understanding. trish: does it bother you he was a president obama appointee? >> well it is, always somewhat troubling when you understand about perspective as they come in to do their job. you know, i think at the end of the day we want people to abide by the law. we've seen how some people have gotten disqualified in the fbi and justice department who came in with a political agenda. we trust that is not true for him. trish:

if he did fire rosenstein, not like jeff session would be in charge. that would elevate the next person at the justice department to become the new official in charge of overseeing mueller and that's a very important hands on role. right? mueller has to come to you if he wants to bring charges against somebody new. he has to come to you if he opens up a line of inrequestqui. anybody in that oversight role is in a position to say no, to any of those requests for mueller or to deny resources to the investigation, there is really one person in government who's legally in a position to have the special counsel and the senior justice department official who oversees the mueller investigation who right now is rod rosenstein. they laid the groundwork to fire him. if they fire him, the next person that would step up and have the job is the number three person in the justice department who is rachel brand who tonight without warning quit. in october 1973, it wasn't a stand off and a list of non-sense accusations against the surveillance warrant for a guy who sa

i talked to someone who is friendly and supportive of jeff sessions. he actually believes in the work he's doing at the justice department, the conservative work he's done as attorney general. he's essentially, you know, t trying to ignore this as much as he can. if jeff sessions was not the attorney general f the attorney general had not recused himself from this investigation, he would be overseeing the mueller probe here. he's not. and the frustration for the president is it would be virtually impossible or very difficult to confirm a new attorney general. so that means he's just going to keep stug aewing and boiling ov this. the question is, is there anything jeff sessions could do short of resigning to make the president happy? i don't think so. >> that's the president's fault, not jeff session's fault. the president gave him the job. a good lawyer could have told him, this is where we're going to head. help me with this one. we have to be care informal ofu business, but if you watch the president's mood and behavior, then you see the cnn reportin

and about jeff sessions for having recused himself from the russia matter. the president has been quite blunt about the fact that recuse he thinks was unfair to him because he expects the attorney general to be in position to protect him from something like this russia investigation. at some point, though, president trump and the white house i think woke up to the fact that the way they were treating the attorney general in this matter struck people as not the way law enforcement is supposed to work and at some point, i think they came to the realization that attorney general jeff sessions resigning and being replaced by somebody who wasn't recused or attorney general jeff sessions trying to unrecuse himself from the russia investigation would be at least politically impractical or possibly criminal injustice by the president. at some point they try to stop getting sessions out of there and zero in on another path to shelter the president from the russia investigation and zero in on rod rosenstein, instead. according to four sources familiar with the situati

ask jeff sessions!" some good questions. provocative. here's another one. r sessions' days numbered? let's asked our guest. attorney cameron smith, who served as counsel to senator sessions on judiciary committee and also joining us from northern california is republican attorney john. great to see you. cameron, you worked with senator sessions. a hero to conservatives. the president just can't -- she's like a dog with a bone. he cannot drop. he cannot drop the fact that jeff sessions recused himself initially from this case. i don't think he needed to recuse himself either but nevertheless where is this going? >> the question is why does he keep doing this? why does he keep eroding support for the department of justice? we need the president to restore our confidence. with been through this. we wanted department of justice that enforces the law, but when he keeps doing this and undermines our confidence there. if he doesn't have confidence in jeff sessions to do the job, to root out any corruption in the department of justice, you should fire him. >> laura:

and he said, well, we just got a special counsel and attorney general js jeff sessions just resigned. i said what, i knocked on the door and rob portjeff was sitti. he said he was going to resign, i said you can't resign we're going to talk about this. jeff sessions delivered a letter of resignation but reince priebus said he talked about the president out of accepting the resignation letter but that didn't stop the president for continuing to push jeff sessions being fired. the bood book says take everything you heard and multiply it by 50. the author of the book will join us next with more of what he learned about the chaos inside the trump white house. ls nothing like a back seat? why give it every feature you could want, along with a few you didn't know you needed? it's simple. you can build a car, or you can build a cadillac. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac ct6. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac ct6 from around $549 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer. from around $549 per month. on your medicare part d looking toprescriptions?e money

the best or nothing. >>> do you stand by jeff sessions as your attorney general?> joining us now chris whistle. p the author of "the gate keepers" soon to be released in paperwork with a new addition to the trump administration. i'm not sure about the sub title when it comes to the white house. the white house chiefs of staff, we've had two, are they defining the trump presidency. >> i have to concede that. donald trump is one of a kind. he may be the only person defining his presidency. it's been the most dysfunctional white house in modern history. and what i learned in reporting this chapter in the paper back, it's a wild ride. the first thing reince priebus told me when we sat down to talk off the record and then i got it on the record, was take everything you know and multiply it by 50. he would hasen to note even john kelly said it's the most difficult job he's had. and he would note for every crazy thing that president trump tried, like the executive order on immigration, there was ten things he stopped. >> that's what i expected. when they get out of it th

now attorney general jeff sessions announcing the inspector general will announce alleged government surveillance abuses. how big of a deal is this and why does president trump seem less than pleased about it? >> fox news alert. president trump publicly calling out his own attorney general following a big announcement from the nation's top cop. yesterday attorney general jeff sessions said the doj inspector general will investigate alleged abuse of government surveillance powers against the trump campaign. the move following the release of two house intelligence committee memos. here's the attorney general. >> we believe that the department of justice must adhere to the high standards in the fisa court. yes, it will be investigated. i think that's just the appropriate thing. inspector general will take that as one of the matters he'll deal with. >> president trump tweeting this morning, quote, why is ag jeff sessions asking the inspector general to investigate potentially massive fisa abuse? will take forever and has no prosecutorial power and already leaked with reports on comey, et

and president trump once again uses twitter to blast his attorney general jeff sessions. why the president is so upset with his hand-picked choice to lead the justice department. ♪ david: this news just breaking across the bloomberg, just as we came on the air. we have a report from bloomberg that the superintendent of the new york department of finance has written a letter to the kushner companies, including jared kushner's family companies. she is seeking further details between deutsche bank and his company. deutsche bank has made substantial loans to the kushner chiefies, and now the superintendent responsible for banking regulation in the state of new york has written a letter, saying by march 5, we want to know what those loans are about and the criteria were that you used deutsche bank in deciding to make those loans to the kushner companies. this is an important development in the son-in-law of the president, and there has been a lot of speculation about this relationship with the kushner's and the president himself. shery: we have seen president trump reiterated

he thinks jeff sessions should be much more aggressive. trump's anger with sessions has not abated over the last several months. these attacks are still growing very public and continuing for months and months. meanwhile, sessions remains in the job. recently, the last it was clear that the president's advisers believed these would continue and he would not stop criticizing sessions publicly but it was still not clear whether there was any intention to move sessions off of this particular job. we also know in the last year, there were a lot of efforts made to keep sessions from resigning in the face of these criticisms from his boss. but obviously, john, this saga continues and president trump wants his department of justice to be more aggressive in investigating the prior administration, investigating the use of the foreign surveillance program in the overall russia investigation. that's ultimately what a lot of this is about. >> he called his attorney general disgraceful. the president of the united states called the attorney general he n

. >> it works for jeff sessions. the president wanted him gone for a long time and look, the personal bodyguard that delivered the letter to comey is not around any more. so there may be no effective way for trump and -- in this instance to fire rod rosenstein. i think that is right. but the other thing trump is trying to do is put pressure on the justice department. he has this idea that he pressures the justice department will quit or bend to his will. and to some extent, it is worked. we are to -- we are really lucky that jeff sessions had to recuse himself. and it wasn't a choice. he to recuse because he was involved in the campaign. because you do see sessions bending to trump's will and even today sessions who is recused from the investigation and shouldn't have anything to say about the memo because it relates to an underlying investigation he's recused from and putting out state giving credence to the memo and saying it he will refer it to the right people at the justice department, things he has no business

do you think jeff sessions should have recused himself of all things russia? >> absolutely i think jeff sessions did the absolute right thing and the fact the democrats obama administration and clinton folks did something improper doesn't mean we should do so. jeff sessions was advised by career individuals the right thing to do was recuse himself and he followed that advice and if he had not followed that he would have lost all credibility within the building so yes i believe jeff sessions did the right thing and i'm still confident in the department and confident at the end of the day we'll get to the bottom of what happened here. maria: it's interesting when you have a special counsel you have to scratch your said and say you have to get somebody from the outside to investigate things what about the 93 u.s. attorneys that work within the system or the 10,000 lawyers who perhaps could do this in terms of the special counsel you do believe then we'll see justice. there are a lot of open investigations right now that people are wondering where is the accountab

publicly as of late because his attention has been focused elsewhere but he has been frustrated with jeff sessionsstems from sessions recusing himself from overseeing the russia investigation, something he did last march and something that has continued to antagonize the president in the recent months since then. now with this flurry of headlines over the russia investigation and the indictment of those 13 russians on friday, it is something that has resurfaced. and we're told as the president watched the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein's press conference on friday, he voiced his anger at this once again and someone who spoke with the president said he'll never get over sessions recusing himself. john? >> jeff sessions, attorney general appointed, nominated by the president of the united states who serves at the president's discretion. thanks so much. joining me right now is u.s. congressman castro from the state of texas. he's on the foreign affairs committee also and intelligence committee. congressman, thanks so much for being with us. if i can, your reaction to this latest statement fro

against the nomination of then senator jeff sessions as attorney general.rt of that speech, she read from a letter written by coretta scott king decades earlier about sessions and his role in suppressing the black vote in the south. here's what happened. >> there are mothers, daughters, sisters, fathers, sons, and brothers >> mr. president. >> they are. >> mr. president -- >> the majority leader >> the senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from alabama as warned by the chair. >> i'm surprised the words of coretta scott king are not suitable for debate in the united states senate. i ask leave of the senate to the continue my remarks. >> the senator will take her seat. >> senator mitch mcconnell later tried to explain his actions but his words backfired in spectacular fashion. >> she was warned. she was given an explanation. nevertheless, she persisted. >> those three sentences and especially those three last words. nevertheless, she persisted resonated with women across the country and became a rallying cry for resistance. now one yea

"jeffs session"?he bottom of that. you can research that? great. let's get back to the tweet itself. trump asks, "question: if all of the russian meddling took place during the obama administration right up to january 20th, why aren't they the subject of the investigation?" i'm not sure you understand how investigations work. that's like saying, "i'm the new police chief. when i was running for police chief, i stabbed a guy, a bunch. why didn't the old police chief stop me? there's your crime, okay? stab eddie-stabbedy. stab, stab, stab. here, look." and that's not the only way trump thinks he's better than obama. he also tweeted, "i have been much tougher on russia than obama. just look at the facts. total fake news!" first of all, sir, thank you for labelling your post "total fake news." that's a real time saver. secondly-- secondly-- secondly, i did look at the facts. you've refused to impose any new sanctions on russia. and a ton of people in your campaign lied about and then were caught meeting w

>> jeff sessions also talked about the school shooting in florida. he made these remarks during a speech at the sheriff's conference in washington dc. as a native floridian, i know this is a painful day. loss thatans feel the andave seen in that school the people we lost. it is certainly a tragic event. we are going to work on it. we will do something about it. it cannot be denied that something dangerous and unhealthy is happening in our country .>> mr. president, i ask we -- country. we are once again watching the images of children terrified. it is an image we do not need to continue to see. parents go to sleep fearful that their kids will not be safe even when they go to school. thatts have told me children cannot longer stand at the bus stop by themselves. parents take turns being out there every morning and afternoon. we have to confront the problem, there is no doubt about it. i think effective enforcement of , focusing on criminal and dangerous people, who have thepeople legal ability to do so, it can reduce file in's and improve public safet

ask jeff session. no s. our pal phil rucker at the washington post write up the piece titled trump's tougher on russia claim fits a pattern of striving one of obama. jennifer puts it this way. trump is personally weaker than obama in dealing with putin in spite of him, his national security staff has continued and in fact strengthened obama era policies in certain discrete areas. with him there, however, russia has a sympathetic ear and rhetorical helper who will attack the fbi, the free press and democrats rather than putin. the president's twitter broadside comes as tensions between white house chief of staff john kelly and the president's son-in-law are at a high point. "the new york times" writing today, quote, mr. kelly, his job at risk and his reputation as an enforcer of order and discipline, tarnished by the scandal is working to revamp the security clearance process, starting with an effort to strip officials who have interim clearances of their high-level access. kushner concerned that mr. quell i

that's eatin good in the neighborhood. >> dana: hi, everyone, i'm dana perino, attorney general jeff sessionsnse to president trump's tweet about him. we will tell you what sessions is saying now. senate democrats signaling they won't back a bipartisan bill beefing up background checks. chris wallace weighs in on that and on the moving tribute to billy graham. we have special election results in two states all at the top of the hour on the daily briefing. ♪ ♪ >> harris: so some developments to tell you about on the special counsel's russia investigation. cnn is now reporting robert mueller's team is looking into president trump's personal business dealings with russia before his presidential campaign. you'll recall during an interview with the "new york times" in july of last year, the president was asked whether mueller looking into his finances would be unrelated to russia. and whether that would cross the red line. here is what the president said, quote: i would say yeah. i would say yes. i think that's a violation, end quote. later in that interview, the president was asked whether that w

i find it interesting that he goes after jeff sessions. and that relationship continues to fray over the past year of the administration. it doesn't seem to be getting any better, when he continuously makes the underhanded comments to say someone should look into it, it's pretty obvious no one knows what he's talking about and that sessions has not undertaken that or hearing the underhanded cries. of course, it just stands to note that you ask how long the obama administration stuff can go, it really feels sometimes, when you have the president phoning in to judge jeanine's show on fox, that was an old campaign move. and the obama attacks were an old campaign move. and it seems with the speech at cpac, we're feeling a lot of the old campaign vibes coming back to the surface. >> right, it's cyclical. kevin, i want to ask you, when we weed out the politics of how this plays out, how much do the revelations matter to the mueller investigation? >> i'm not sure that the politicize politicized democrats and republicans, it's so politicized, i'm

jeff sessions, the attorney general splitting the difference over his own department.stant special watergate professor and nancy is a retired federal judge and nancy, let me begin with you, how do you read sessions in all this? >> well, i mean, i think he's scrambling for a position of credibility here. it seems to me he's going back and forth. it's hard to see. i mean, the whole issue here is sort of fleeting alliances and allegiances. i don't know where he has any credibility at all under the circumstances. >> you means in terms of defending the integrity of the department as it comes under increased pressure. >> right. the danger here is that after all the attacks on the department, let's assume trump gets his way and there is a house-cleaning. the department then evolves from that will be a department that will not be independent, will be a department very different that is really captive of the white house, which is not what the constitution intended. >> nick, let's say this memo is basically blows over, which essentially i think it will. it's meant to kick up dir

priebus ran out to jeff sessions car.ndow and said what the hell is going on, jumped in, brought him back into the west wing and got him to say. >> that was pretty shameful. you and i may disagree on whether sessions is an a.g. but to treat someone like that who was such a loyal supporter early on is really sad. i knew a lot of people on the outside who are friends of donald trump who were working around the clock make sure he didn't get rid of sessions because he was always a loyal character to donald trump and was doing his job faithfully as a attorney general and maybe fighting off some of trump's demons. kennedy: in michael wolff's book, because he wasn't granted access that long. reince priebus is gone. yoyou are a writer and editor-in-chief in washington, d.c. >> as soon as bannon and priebus and a couple of these guys were gone. the leaks that were every day have basically evaporated. kennedy: was that all bannon? >> he has a kind of fan as -- f fantastical idea of everything. he's definitely someone who used the m

call 1-800-501-6000. >>> attorney general jeff sessions is now firing back at president trump.rlier, the president tweeted this. why is attorney general jeff sessions asking the inspector general to investigate potentially massive fisa abuse? will take forever, has no prosecutori prosecutori prosecutorial power, and already late with reports on comey, et cetera. why not use justice department lawyers? disgraceful, close quote. let's go to our justice reporter at the justice department for us. i take it you're now getting some response from officials there, including a statement from the attorney general himself. >> yes, a rare statement from the attorney general after months of tweets and public humiliations and dressing downs. the attorney general is now breaking his silence and firing back against the president. i want to read you the statement that we just received from him in full. he says, we have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary. what he means there, of course, is the ref

ask jeff sessions. jeff sessions, the attorney general of the united states.tweet, the president misspelled the name of his attorney general. he left out the ""s" at the end. david gregory and gloria borger are still with me. it's pretty amazing, gloria, the president is recommending that his attorney general, who he clearly doesn't like because he recused himself from the russia investigation, go ahead and start a criminal investigation of the former president. >> well, you hit the nail right on the head. first of all, it all goes back to jeff sessions not recusing himself from russia. the president's anger is just smoldering over that. he gets angrier and angrier every time something happens in the russia investigation. which has occurred. so he also believes, i'm told, according to a source with knowledge this morning, that he believes that sessions' justice department is not aggressive enough on lots of things, and that would be investigating democrats, uranium one, obama, hillary clinton, whatever it is. he also was surprised to learn, i was told, that th