and that he only recently found out about an nsa operation that wiretapped german chancellor's angela merkel's phone. but other officials say he or at least his staff did know. which is it? is he aloof and out of touch or not coming clean with us. or is there something completely grey in the middle? i want to bring in editor at large of foreign policy magazine and democratic strategist. i want to begin with you maria. a key member of the homeland security committee said of the surveillance issues if the president didn't know that raises serious questions about what he's doing as chief executive. isn't that fair? >> here is the problem with that. and the president said this on fusion network in his interview recently. we don't know whether he did know or not because it's classified. and that's as it should be when