bring in jeff mason from reuters and president of the white house correspondents association and john bussey. john, a fine-tuned machine. >> that's what he said. a good opportunity for the president to respond to some reports. a good chance for reporters to follow up with him about it. you know, i think people can draw their own conclusions as to whether they agree with his description that it's a fine-tuned the machine. the president had his characterization of the first few weeks of his administration have gone. >> shepard: john? >> a stream of consciousness where you see that from president trump. it's not unlike his rallies. there were not clear answers to pointed questions. there's concern in the country, concern in washington about the campaign, his campaign's relationship with russia. we didn't get definitive explanations of what was -- what is or what isn't true. a lot of condemnation of the press, including "wall street journal." pretty much everybody got it from the president. "wall street journal" for a story in today's paper about the intelligence community now holding back some

john bussey is saying is not true. why bother?euters, cnn, fox news, all the local papers had coverage of this through the news agencies. it was covered. now look, there's a couple -- you said the vast majority of those on the list were covered. there were a couple on the list that i didn't know about. there was a knife attack against somebody in some part -- >> shepard: in a far away country in another continent. >> that might have been briefed someplace. it wasn't a major terror attack. the terror attacks are being covered and extensively. why is he saying this? it's a run-up to this court decision on whether or not he has done the right thing in executing this executive order on limiting immigration into the united states. it's partly that narrative to remind people that the world is a dangerous place, as sean spicer said today. he runs the risk of fear mongering, but he's trying to make the point, it is a dangerous place and you should be behind me. the constant litany about his language, the total dishonesty of the media, the

john bussey is here. the call with the australian prime minister happened saturday. we heard about it today. it's friday morning in australia. the herald is out. the top four stories about this. the first headline is up. "wake up, australia, it's trump time" and then talks about john mccain calling to straighten things up. >> the language the president at the prayer breakfast this morning -- >> shepard: "the hell with it". >> he says we have to be tough. we're taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. it's not going to happen anymore. america as victim. when donald trump said he would be tough, they imagined he would be tough with our enemies. >> shepard: like vladimir putin. >> yeah, not australia, mexico, germany over the euro, our nato allies. this has -- this has caught people off guard. it's caused some efforts at walk-back by john mccain stepping in, calling the ambassador from australia to the united states saying i consider you, the american people consider you one of our foremoves allies in the world and most trustworthy. the question for do

but john bussey is here from the "wall street journal." good day to you.ou ran the bureau in washington d.c. what is true and what is not? what do you believe based on what we're reading and what is the truth is. >> yeah. rebecca has a piece in today's journal. so what happened? a number of candidates that said i want to shape my own staff on the national security council. there was push-back from the white house on that. uncertainty whether or not people would be able to do so. sean spicer said he's got full authority on the national security council. then he says he's welcome to take whatever recommendation he wishes to the president who will consider it. so is that 100% or not? the issue is, do you want a political person on the national security council who might have a different agenda? rightly so, as far as the president is concerned, which is how did these decisions on national security play into politics of the decision making, how will they play with the public and do you want the national security council just to be the diplomats and the military

with us now, john bussey. what does that mean? >> we don't know. we'll probably know more at 4:00 when there's a pentagon briefing. >> shepard: 4:00 eastern. >> this was unusual. >> shepard: i don't think i've ever seen that. >> i couldn't recall either. >> shepard: the beginning of a war rumsfeld would come in on occasion. a completely different circumstance. >> different person. a little alarming, don't you think? >> shepard: it got our attention. >> felt urgent. >> shepard: i wonder if that wasn't the idea, to get their attention. >> maybe it was. we called them afterwards and said, what gives? what did he mean by that, they're on warning? maybe there were back channels that weren't working and maybe -- it's conjecture at this point. >> shepard: the iranians say that wasn't a violation. the united states says that looks like a violation. they have to figure out how to come together on this. >> chase solomon has win about this in the journal. there's been nearly a dozen ballistic missile tests since 2015. the world power, the so-called iran deal.

let's turn to john bussey. you have to -- he told a fib. he's apologized. that's not what this is.s is private citizen flynn before he was in the government speaking to the russian ambassador saying don't worry about the sanctions that the president put on you because you medeled in our election. the next president, the beneficiary of the meddling, when the next president comes into power, he will lessen the sanctions. where would he get information like that except from the future president? >> this is the issue the democrats want to get to the bottom of. there's the matter of having told the fib to the vice president. the vice president going out and saying, look, he didn't have that conversation with the russians when it turns out he had. that's one issue. the other is how long will donald trump want this to be in the news? if the democrats in congress want to hold hearings on exactly what happened, what was promised, was anything promised, on what basis, what that promise made, who knew what at what time, these are ways of keeping this issue very much in the public eye. somethi

john bussey is here from the "wall street journal." that's one question. there's more. >> a lot of questions at this stage. we're at the beginning of this. this resignation is not the end of it. this is the beginning. the investigation really gets momentum because there's so much concern about how this unfolded. if it was a trust question, why was that not dealt with when they first found that he had in fact talked about sanctions with the russian ambassador? that was in january. sean spicer says there's due process, we had to investigate this, look at. >> shepard: they had transcripts. >> and it was a trust issue. you said you didn't talk about sanctions. you did. i know that in january it's taken to mid february for the resignation to be asked for. that leaves the trump administration open to a couple things. one, allegations. one is that they hoped it would go away. or that it was the press. "washington post" particularly, "the new york times," the "wall street journal" writing about this. >> shepard: all in the same day. >> not a good place to be in. w

let's go to john bussey from the "wall street journal."you change it, start it off, it's as if this didn't happen. >> yes. you have to be sure that you address the court's concerns, where that the current ban doesn't have the proper due process associated with it. if you don't rewrite it sufficiently, it ends up in the courtney ways on the basis of why the case was brought to the court to begin with, which was at the proponents of the case say this discriminates against people based on religion and other issues. so all of these possibilities are out there for the president. if it goes back to seattle, he's got to think about an additional layer of complexity. if he decides of the four different possibilities, supreme court, bigger, ninth circuit court of appeals panel, rewrite it, going back to seattle and trying it, that means deposition, that means people being brought in to say what was on your mind when you wrote this. what about these tweets here, what about the statements on the campaign trail. don't they bolster our case, the people