, the obama white house released was that neither he nor the white actually orderedderred. we are parsing words a bit here, aren't we? >> it's very funny if you think about it because you have this circumstance, you know, if "the new york times" had hope of being neutral, one thing is they can do is simply print all the pictures with democrats meeting with russian embassador. nancy pelosi was meeting with the russian embassador. maria: right. >> i think one of the things we have to recognize and i keep trying, frankly to say this to the trump team over and over again, they have a group of people who are their mortal enemies, the new york times is one of them. the post is one of them. the folks are going to be against him every day, they are going to attack them every day and they have towns that they're living in a hostile environment. maria: we are trying to figure out if there was legality done. corey lewandowski told judge janine that then senator jeff sessions was wiretapped. >> let me just say, if they were actually wiretapping the united states

. >>> did the obama white house really leave a trail of bread crumbs about the trump-russia connection for government investigators to find a bit easier? i will ask the former director

appeals because that was the court that had primary jurisdiction overof cases coming out of the obama white house with its regulations and the like and in order to get a court they would be moreo likely to rubberstamp an approved of obama policies senator reed felt it was imperative to pack the d.c. circuit court of appeals which unfortunately he was able to do with a bota democrats on the other side of the aisle to break the center rules to change the rules for the purpose solely of rubberstamping obama administration policies. the question before the senate this time is very different.

claimed in his words: "just out: the same russian ambassador that met jeff sessions visited the obama white house 22 times and four times last year alone." the defense of sessions was followed quickly by an extraordinary barrage of accusations against his predecessor, barack obama. offering no evidence, president trump accused president obama of tapping his phones at trump tower during the campaign, claiming: "nothing found. this is mccarthyism!" mr. trump went on to ask: "is it legal for a sitting president to be wire tapping a race for president prior to an election? a new low!" then another, saying: "i'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that president obama was tapping my phones in october, just prior to election!"

lo, we had a situation where the obama white house targeted conservative groups through the irs, the er of that unit, the irs, was over at obama's white house 24 times a more. she used the fifth amendment. they deleted and destroyed evidence and emails, and yet there was never any complaint by anyone in the media about this, and they -- >> there was a lot of coverage about that. >> why was that irs official constantly going over when she was in charge of political 501c3s, they were clearly targeting. i don't think there was any question. i think when you look at this, president trump looks at this situation and says here i have high level conversations that are top secret with heads of state. i don't think you can get more secret than that, and within hours of those conversations, the transcripts of those secret conversations are leaked out by obama holdovers in his administration, and no one in the press is making an issue. that's a federal crime, and so when he sees this type of behavior that this targeting has been going on, i think he's acting with some emotion here, and he obviou

diplomats and government officials including unnamed obama white house employees. the fbi says the hackers were in it for the money, pay by the russians and allowed to exploit credit card numbers and other data they stole to launch fraud schemes. cyberexperts say russia is depending more on hackers to do the dirty work. >> the hackers have better skills and better technology and better training. second, it gives the russian intelligence agencies plausible deniability. >> reporter: the officials say no decisions have been made about whether and how to retaliate. the u.s. could kick out russian diplomats as happened in december. or impose more economic sanctions as it has already over ukraine. matt lauer asked nikki haley about russia's hacking anding in

maria: welcome back, the white house demanding action after president trump accused former president obamaretapping trump tower before the election. a white house statement says this, quote, reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling. president donald trump is requesting that as part of investigation into russian activity the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch, investigative powers were abused in 2016. joining me right now fox news contributor newt gringrich. mr. speaker, always a pleasure. what do you make of the situation we make this morning develop as we speak? >> i would say that if you want to sophisticated analysis go to andy mccarthy's column. convicted the terrorist who is bombed the original world trade center bombing back in '93. he's had a 20-year experience looking at these things, does so as having been a professional justice department prosecutor. he thinks there's a lot here. he thinks that there's some very troubling

illegally -- [ laughter ] it would be the biggest political scandal since watergate. >> now, the obama white house has said neither the former president nor the white house ordered a wiretap. but they're not explicitly saying that a wiretap didn't happen. if the allegations are true, could we compare this to watergate? >> watergate took a couple of years to play out in full. so i think -- it feels like we're kind of early in this saga. so i think it's hard to know how much like watergate any of this could look at the end of the day. the former president has denied personally directing a wiretap. it would be quite a scandal if a sitting president personally ordered one of a private citizen, let alone a presidential candidate. it does not sound like there's evidence to suggest that that occurred. what's clear is there are a lot of open questions, new questions based on yesterday's development. so, if anything, i think it heightens the need for some sort of independent investigation with someone at the head who has the credibility to produce findings that everyone can feel confident in. so i think th

and what the obama camp is saying this morning. >>> white house turmoil. president trump reportedly going ballistic in the oval office. what set him off? cameras capturing an animated steve bannon, one of his top aides. why trump took off for florida. leaving him and chief of staff reince priebus behind. >>> agony in mosul. residents fleeing isis' last stronghold in iraq some, barefoot in their haste. the raging battle with civilians caught in the middle. >> hundreds of thousands of people besieged by isis, starving to death. >> plus, the new evidence this morning of a possible chemical weapons attack. >>> and new patdown procedures. why your airport screen may feel a lot different than before. >> someone who is inexperienced would be very -- could be very threatened. >> the reasons behind it. and who's in line to get one? >>> and good morning, everyone. as you can see, dan harris not here. it's so nice to have tom llamas by my side. tom, thanks for coming in this morning. >> great to be here. busy sunday morning. >> certainly is. >>> we want to get to our

plausible claim that trump and his associates were under surveillance by agencies overseen by the obama white housei think that's entirely plausible. you don't think that's plausible? that's a big deal. >> when you say overseen by the obama white house -- >> tucker: they are part of the obama administration, that's part of the branch of governmen government. >> you can make the same charge of the fbi going after it hillary clinton. right? >> tucker: yes, you could. >> exactly. i'm saying we don't know, you know, what the direct kind of relationship is between the fbi and what they sees a their responsibility about disclosing information. they are now entitled to be suspect about sharing things with donald trump. >> tucker: but we do know that the intelligence agency, cia particularly, are in effect acting like their own government, they're unelected on february 16th, 2017, the "wall street journal" reported and no one has refuted it that the cia was withholding information from trump. normal job is to give them information. information he was asking for. withholding it because they don't think he s

today on the failure of the ryan/trump repeal and replace bill today, but one member of the obama white houseghed in to throw shade for both of barack obama's presidential terms. pete souza was the white house photographer documenting them. souza was ronald reagan's photographer taking photos like this. throughout the obama white house, he posted photos on instagram. lately, he's been digging through archives and throwing shade, actually a lot of shade. for instance, after president trump signed the travel ban, this of talking with a young refugee. after the trump advisers had trouble finding lights, he posted this, those damn lights. this photo, writing mayor garland, just saying. the post today may have stung with the caption, before voting on the affordable care act in 2010, president obama met with members in congress on both sides of the aisle over the course of many months. this was taken after hours long meeting with the entire republican house caucus, which he responded to questions and critiques. it was carried live on cable tv. ♪ ♪ everyone deserves attention, whether you've saved a

and knowing how the obama white house operated. you know, the irs targeted conservative organizations, i believe illegally. the head of that unit at the irs was at the obama white house 24 times meeting with advisers. she pleaded the fifth amendment, they deleted e-mails. there was never an investigation, never a special prosecutor. and for them to say that the president didn't know about the irs issue, it is another thing where i think if somebody looks into this, they might find there is a lot more there. laura: newsmax ceo chris ruddy speaking to katty kay. in other news from around the frenchleaders of the center right republican party have unanimously backed embattled presidential candidate francois fillon in next month's election. mr. fillon lost support after being told he faced full investigation for embezzlement. he denies the charges. earlier the former prime minister juppe ruled out stepping in to replace him. the u.s. supreme court has decided not to rule and a landmark case involving the bathroom rights of transgender s

she told the obama white house, she left in 2015, when president trump was president-elect trump, she told the obama white house to put away information they were gathering on the trump transition team. how does a mid-level, a mid-level assistant deputy secretary, how does she have access to this information. why should she be advising the current white house on this? >> dana: i don't know her at all. she made those remarks six weeks ago. not new information. the information we have today is that the sources came from the white house. that's the new development. the other stuff, the unmasking of flynn, still unanswered questions. >> eric: i will tell you. i'm sorry, lisa. on this topic, hopefully they're going to call some of these witnesses. find out what she was involved with. who else. senate intel committee held its first public hearing today on russia's meddling in our election. the fbi is investigating whether the trump campaign in any way worked with the russians. is the president himself under investigation? speaker ryan doesn't think so. because i do not believe that's the ca

comment on the failure of the ryan/trump repeal and replace bill today but one member of the obama white house weighed in to throw some shade, and that's thing 2 in 60 seconds. >>> for both of barack obama's presidential terms pete souza was the official white house photographer documenting all eight years of the obama administration. souza was also ronald reagan's white house photographer for six years taking photos like this before his second inaugural address. throughout the obama white house souza posted photos on his instagram account but lately he's been digging through his archives and started throwing shade. a lot of shade. for instance, after president trump first signed the travel ban souza posted this photo captioned "talking with a young refugee." after the trump advisers reportedly had trouble finding the lights in the cabinet room he posted this captioned "those damn lights." and ahead of trump's announcement of his supreme court nominee, this photo writing "merrick garland, just saying." but souza's post today may have particularly stung with the caption "before voting on the af

and get amazon chime at no additional cost. >>> for both of barack obama's presidential terms pete souza was the official white houseight years of the obama administration. souza was also ronald reagan's white house photographer for six years taking photos like this before his second inaugural address. throughout the obama white house souza posted photos on his instagram account but lately he's been digging through his archives and started throwing shade. a lot of shade. for instance, after president trump first signed the travel ban souza posted this photo captioned "talking with a young refugee." after the trump advisers reportedly had trouble finding the lights in the cabinet room he posted this captioned "those damn lights." and ahead of trump's announcement of his supreme court nominee, this photo writing "merrick garland, just saying." but souza's post today may have particularly stung with the caption "before voting on the affordable care act in 2010, president obama met with many members of congress on both sides of the aisle over the course of many months." this picture was taken at the end of a multiple ho

ben rhodes says there is a cardinal rule at the obama administration, no white house official ever interfered with any independent investigation and neither president obama nor any white house official ever ordered surveillance on any u.s. citizen and any suggestion otherwise is false. operative word to me, ordered. >> that many right. there is a big difference between ordered and knowing everything else about it. ben rhodes doesn't deny they knew of everything else about this fisa warrant tapping into the trump campaign in the middle of the fall election. if this happened, folks need to understand this is what the tactics of a police state are, to use intelligence gathering against political opponents. it makes watergate look like a joke. they were bugging the office of a secretary with a piece. hardware from the 50s. this is entirely different if it's true. judge jeanine: when the president made that allegation, and this is based on open source reporting, which means a number of credible reporters, media reported on this, or a lot of source supporting there was a fisa warrant, a trump tower

can you categorically deny that the obama white house didn't seek a fisa order? >> i can categorically deny that the white house was involved in directing or interfering or influencing an fbi investigation -- >> that's not what i'm asking. can you deny that the obama white house did not seek and obtain a fisa court-ordered wiretap of the trump campaign? >> the simple answer is, i don't know. it's not because i'm no longer in government. the fact is, even when i was in government, i was not in a position of being regularly briefed on an fbi criminal or counterintelligence investigation. no one at the white house, including the president of the united states, should be in a position in which they're trying to influence or dictate how that investigation is being conducted. >> do you know whether the president was given information about surveillance at trump tower? >> what i can tell you. first of all, i'm not aware of all of the details of how the president was briefed by the fbi. what i can tell you is that the president was not giving marching orders to the fbi. a

. >>> did obama white house officials leave a trail to make it easier for congress to investigate russia and the election? i'll ask a man who would know, the former director of national intelligence under president obama, james clapper. >>> and president trump's tweet claiming president obama tapped his phones. can the white house provide evidence, or is the president just trying to get people to stop talking about russia? >>> joining me for insight and analysis, tom freyiedman from t "new york times." kim strassel. democratic polster cornell belcher and danielle pletka from the american enterprise institute. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >>> good sunday morning. it's a pretty good bet that the white house hoped and expected that the big story this week would be president trump's initially well received speech to the nation on tuesday night. instead, almost immediately the white house was back in a defensive crouch, forced to fight off a parade of new revelations linking the trump campaign to russia. perhaps to distract everyone from the drip, drip, president trump yesterday

are using wiretapped information and the wiretapped communications have been provided to the obama white house"new york times" reports the obama white house knew there were people wiretapping trump world. it sounds like what president obama tweeted about, right? but after the trump tweet march 4, now here is the "new york times" headline. trump offering no evidence says obama tapped his phones. the headline was written by the same writer, michael schmidt. people look at the headlines and wonder is the "new york times" not a good enough source. november 15 a woman in michigan reported to police she was attacked by a man who scratched her in the face. she claims it was a hate crime following the election of donald trump. it turns out she scratched herself in the face. she was depressed and made up the story. the number four or possibly 8 years will be eye opening because "watters world" will show how they cover the same thing differently. jason chaffetz received negative press when he said this about the healthcare bill. >> americans have choices. rather than getting that new iphone maybe they s

spokesman for former president obama, said in a statement: "a cardinal rule of the obama administration was that no white house official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the department of justice. as part of that practice, neither president obama nor any white house official ever ordered surveillance on any u.s. citizen. any suggestion otherwise is simply false." ben rhodes, a former top national security advisor to president obama, flatly denied mr. trump's charges, tweeting:" no president can order a wiretap. those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you." house democratic leader nancy pelosi, also in a tweet, said in part: "the deflector-in-chief is at it again." small groups of supporters of president donald trump held rallies across the nation today from palm beach, florida, near president trump's estate, to a state park near philadelphia. more than a hundred people gathered to show support at the washington monument in the nation's capital, and others rallied outside trump tower in new york city. rallies were planned in 31 states, according to the

a cardinal rule of the obama administration was that no white house official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the department of justice. as part of that practice, neither president obama nor any white house official ever ordered surveillance on any u.s. citizen. any suggestion otherwise is simply false. very vigorous denial there. and we've had other former senior officials in the obama administration point out that a president doesn't order wire-taps. other officials have said this is nonsense and it didn't happen. >> we're hearing a last-minute addition to the president's public schedule today. what can you tell us about that in. >> that's right. couple of things, we knew he was planning to have dinner tonight with commerce secretary wilbur ross, but they've added a meeting at 6:30 on this official schedule that was put out, a meeting the president will have with the attorney general, jeff sessions and with the secretary of the department of homeland security, john kelly. an hour later the president will sit down with sessions and kelly, and also with the co

appeals because that was the court that had primary jurisdiction overof cases coming out of the obama white house with its regulations and the like and in order to get a court they would be moreo likely to rubberstamp an approved of obama policies senator reed felt it was imperative to pack the d.c. circuit court of appeals which unfortunately he was able to do with a bota democrats on the other side of the aisle to break the center rules to change the rules for the purpose solely of rubberstamping obama administration policies. the question before the senate this time is very different. those who would break precedent are those who would filibuster a supreme court nominee like judge gorsuch because it's never been done before.es but i would ask her democratic colleagues if judge gorsuch is not acceptable to them as they are ever going to be a nominee from the trump administration that you would find acceptable? they tried to pick judge gorsuch and they have been unable to do so set to keep moving the goalposts and raising different issues because they frankly are desperate to find some reason to

as part of that practice, neither president obama nor any if white house official ordered surveillancen any u.s. citizen. any suggestion otherwise is false. but mr. obama's statement says neither he north white house ordered the wiretapping. not that in trump's organization wasn't tapped. the other big story of the day. president trump issuing an extreme vetting executive order. iraq lists in the previous order a was removed this time because of improved screening and reporting by the iraqis. green card current visa holders exclude from the president's new order. jeff sessions ann and john kelly described the order as critical to our national security. >> we cannot compromise our nation's security by allowing visitors entry when their own governments are unable or unwilling to provide the information we need to vet them responsibly. >> we are not immune to terrorist threats and our enemies often use our phone freedoms and generosity against us. today's executive order will make america more secure and address long overdue concerns about the security of our immigration system. lou: pres

to fix. >> a crisis reveals that initial character. >> it does. >> you weren't there in the obama white housei remember the underwear incident. there's a lot of things that the white house learned. >> and how you lock down the chain of information about who knows what, what they need to know and who -- >> and they were 11 months into the presidency then and still making -- >> and having the wherewithal to not answer questions or not put information out until you're sure that it's right because i get -- i mean, every time there's a major incident or terrorist act or something, the first reports were always wrong, without exception, always wrong. and you have to be careful. >> last word. >> you need allies to trust you in an emergency, right? if trump calls angela mkel and he says we have problem and something is happening in estonia, you need it to be a reliable statement. >> that was the word of the economist in that deadly cover that they had today. thanks for being flexible with me. >>> after the break, has the internet taken the fun out of april fools? has the internet taken the fun out of

white house. thank you. >> bill: another report saying the obama white house may be driving the news on russia. "the new york times" long report this morning. in the final days of the obama term they left a trail for investigators that relate to russian hacking. why would that be? rich lowry with me now to examine this. good morning to you. when you read that story and the details in there, what is the sense among trump supporters that they take from this report? >> it will increase the sense among trump supporters this was a partisan operation to delegitimize his election and all sorts of rules were bent in order to create mine fields for trump coming into office by the loose group of shadowy officials the operation to take down michael flynn came from. >> bill: overall the impression "the new york times" give you the obama team had evidence and wanted the make sure as many people in washington saw it as possible before they were out of power essentially. and they wanted to preserve the record. why would that be? >> the obama folks will tell you we had a presidential candidate who won and elec

i guess the key question, what did the obama white house do and why did they do it? >> the idea here was that they were afraid if this information were contained -- the smaller group of people this information was contained among, the harder it would be for investigators to found it. they're learning in november and december a scope of what had happened and the sense that this really big russian meddling campaign and of possible collusion and contacts between the trump campaign and the russians. it's still uncertain what was going on in those meetings. so there was this last-minute race to process the information and spread it out, giving it to congress. at the same time, this includes names and sources, methods on which they're listening in on people to the kremlin. that's the crown jewel for intelligence. there are people who are really afraid that this people could be exposed, that these assets to be compromis compromised. so they're trying to bury this as tightly as possible into channels that only intelligence officials would be able to see to keep political app

obama. white house spokesman sean spicer said evidence will vindicate the president.g it's untrue. saying if there were proof, they would know that by now. >>> president trump on the road, he'll be attending an auto rally in detroit. that review would open the door to less stringent rules on emissions requirements. president trump ends his day by a rally in nashville. >> we know how those energize him. >> the president's new six-nation travel ban facing three new legal challenges in federal court ahead of its implementation tomorrow. yes, this ban is supposed to go live to me. a challenge brought by refugee aid groups in maryland as well as challenges in hawaii and four families in seattle. those will all be heard today. the seattle challenges will be heard by judge james robart. the same judge who brought the first travel ban. and the judge is expected to decide whether the legal decision that halted the original ban extend to this one. >>> well, budget cuts at the environmental protection agency may be more significant than originally reported, according to a close

in the obama administration's last days some white house officials scrambled to express information to undermine the presidential election and about possible contacts between soeshlgtsz of. are don't jvrmt trump and the russians. they had two aims. to make sure it isn't duplicated necessity lexes and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators. that headline was followed moments later by another one. this time from the washington post as we told you. sessions met with russian envoy twice last year and counters he -- encounters he did not disclose. he did not disdisclose contacts between members of president trump's campaigned and representatives of moscow during session's confirmation hearing to become attorney general. here is the moment from his confirmation hearing on january 10. >> if there is any evidence that any one of affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate and i did not have co

he released this statement saying, "a cardinal rule of the obama administration was that no white housefficial ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the department of justice. as part of that practice, neither president obama nor any white house official ever ordered surveillance on any u.s. citizen. any suggestion otherwise is simply false." joining me now, white house columnist at "the hill" and gabrielle levy. first your reaction to the statement by the obama spokesperson. >> it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for -- it doesn't seem to be a legalistic statement. it's pretty clear. i think, though, this does go to the idea that the idea of if we're talking about fisa court warrants, these are not things that are produced in, frankly, the slightly cartoonish fashion that president trump is suggesting. where a president would go and say get me a wiretap on someone's phone or my would be-be successor's phone. that's not how it works in the f first place. the statement from president obama's spokesperson seems to be very clear. >> gabrielle, where are president trump

questioning the integrity of former president barack obama, who, of course, has unequivocally denied any of this happening. the real problem for this white house is that a series of officials, both people who worked inside the obama white house, people now in a position to know, no one hasny indication that this has come from anywhere but first conservative radio picked up by breitbart, of course, formerly headed by steve bannon, close senior adviser to the president, and that was the base for this tweet. as for now, what the official line from the white house is, maybe he's privy to some intelligence that we don't know about. and the president would like congress to look into this as well as look into leaks from the -- what he believes are people within the intelligence community, kate. >> if i could just drill down on that tweet for another minute here. the president actually called his predecessor, quote, sick, which is a lot different than what he's said in the past. this is a hat tip to aaron blake and the fix at "the washington post." to look at the evolving relationship between donald trump and barack obama. here's a little replay. dece

earlier he called on congress to investigate whether the obama white house abused their investigative powers. in a series of tweets saturday he accused obama of wiretapping him before the election but provided no evidence. an obama spokesman denied the charge. trump called the surveillance a fact, but sunday a white house spokeswoman described it simply as a possibility on abc's this week. >> if this happened. >> if, if, if, if. >> i agree. >> is it did happen? >> look, i think he is going off information that he's seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential. >> reporter: james clapper, the director of national intelligence during the alleged surveillance, said if the fbi conducted such a wiretap, he would have known. >> the part of the national security apparatus that i oversaw as dni, there was no such wiretap activity. >> reporter: democrats suggested trump was trying to divert attention from questions about his campaign's contact with russian officials. >> the president is the deflector in chief, anything to change the subject from where the heat is. >> rep

his shocking claim that former president barack obama wiretapped some of the phones inside trump tower during the campaign. we haven't heard from white house officials. they haven't provided proof or evidence to back up these claims. but let's look at the tweet that started it all. he said how low has president obama gone to tap my phones. in response to that, democratic congressman adam schiff says if there is something bad or sick going on it's the willingness of the nation's chief executive to make the most outlandish claims without a scintilla of evidence to support them. if true, it could lead to serious trouble for former president barack obama and his staff. they are accusing him of wiretapping the campaign headquarters of his political adversaries. if false, it gives critics of president trump a lot of ammunition. >> what have he heard from president obama? reporter: he put out a statement, a denial, denying this is true. but it's not quite as ironclad a denial as you might have thought. but you will note that he doesn't offer that same denial for the f.b.i. or the department of justice. it's not really his place to do so, but it's

this controversy has been dogging the white house for a month now ever since the president tweeted out that he was being wirmd by the obamatration. but today the white house began to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. the press secretary today lashed out at questions about white house involvement in providing information to the chairman of the house intelligence committee. >> if everyone was treating the president of the administration fairly, you would ask a series of much different questions about the substance than the material. >> reporter: after weeks of playing defense the white house appeared to find a small hole to run through today, intelligence officials telling fox news the two white house staffs who assisted in devin nunes' search for intelligence were not his original source. and that nunes has been investigating the surveillance and unmasking of trump officials since well before the president sent out those now infamous tweets. >> when he came out initially and talked to the media, he made it very clear that he had been looking into this. he had stated this much earlier than the president had ever