0 deep rift between the musical direction. the pop band of brothers is splitting up for good and going their separate ways. have you missed an interview you want to check out go the brooke log at cnn.com. that's it for me. see you tomorrow. to washington we go. "the lead with jake tapper" starts right now. if president obama likes his current spying program can he keep his current spying program? i'm jake tapper. this is "the lead." national lead. president's top intelligence men on capitol hill now facing questions about why the nsa is tapping the phones of some of our closest allies. what exactly the president knew about it. will the nsa have to put an end to it? national news, we heard this over and over. if you like your health plan you can keep your health plan. now thousands of americans are finding out that's not true. including our guest, former democratic congressional staffer that has been an enthusiastic proponent of obama care. she said things are changing and she doesn't know why. after six decades of funs and parodies, is "mad" magazine still hooking kids on satire? good afternoon. welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. top intelligence official in the country and the director of the nsa are testifying on capitol hill as we speak. when pressed about report the nsa has been tapping the phones of foreign leaders, even allies, director of national intelligence, james clapper said that's long been par for the course plans and intentions of foreign leaders would be important for the united states to know. >> that's a hearty perennial as long as i have been in the -- intelligence business, 50 years, leadership intentions in whatever form that's expressed is kind of a basic tenant of what we aring to collect and analyze. >> the white house has long denied german media reports president obama was told in 2010 that the nsa was spying. tapping the phone of german chancellor angela americael and letting it go on. they press whether the white house would have been told foreign leaders were being tapped. >> would it, in fact, any value of that information find its way to at least the national security council in the white house? >> it certainly could. it may not have position specifically related to a specific selector or any specific collection target. what they would see, though, would be the output of this in its total dimension. >> i want to bring in chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. we just heard james clapper explain this discrepancy or at least intent to explain the discrepancy between intelligence officials saying the white house and the national security council had been briefed and saying president obama did not know that america i will's phone had been tapped. translate that for us whether he intended to or not clapper gave president obama some cover there. as he said, presidents read this kind of intelligence all the time. they are looking at the output. they may not necessarily know what the source of that output is. so it is plausible that the president might have read something that resulted from the contents of america i will's conversations without knowing that it came from listening in on one of her phone calls. and that's actually something that the administration had been telling tuesday last couple of days. clapper, to some extent, backing that up. >> also, jim, sa director general alexander suggest something of the reporting on the ms a has been, quote, completely false. pa what exactly was he talking about? >> they are talking about the reports the msa listened to 60 million phone calls, 70 million in france. he said that's the misreading of a single slide released by edward snowden and said a few things about it. one, not the nsa listening in on this call data. it was the nsa, the u.s. and all of its nato partners. the cold data had nothing do with the spanish and french but a collection of call data listen -- listen to it in a number of countries in support of military operations. he said it is completely false. one, this was the msa doing this and, two, it was european citizens, french, and spanish citizens that were being listened to. pretty aggressive knockdown of that story and some of the source of some of the greatest criticism from european side of nsa surveillance. >> jim, part of the white house pushback has been everybody does it. clapper also saying that foreign countries also spy on the u.s. so -- looking at that further, is it possible that the president's blackberry is being read by the germans or the british? >> i asked this of a former official yesterday. i was being -- he said, sure. they probably go after it. i don't know if they would have success. nsa has advantages. but one of the points that mike rogers made in this hearing, and clapper and alexander, in effect, everyone's hands are dirty. they say, yes, we are the target of foreign intelligence operations but also say that we go after not only our allies but -- the leaders of our allies. used the term leadership intentions are both a reasonable and acceptable and valuable target for american intelligence operations. and -- than falling under that umbrella may the phone calls of america i will and others. >> chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. thanks. congressman adam schiff of california sits on the house intelligence committee and stepped out of today's meeting to speak to us live from capitol hill. thanks for joining us. quickly, james clapper was also asked if our allies are guilty of the same sort of thing. here is what he said. >> do you believe that the allies have conducted or at any time, any type of espionage activity against the united states of america, intelligence services, leaders or otherwise? >> absolutely. >> do we know of any cases of this actually happening in recent years? >> well, i don't know that i can talk openly in terms of what we know about our foreign intelligence agencies and how they operate and target people in the united states? but i think it would be naive to presume that they are not very active in trying to collect on us even though we are allies. it does happen. at the same time, i have a concern about this potential wiretapping of our leaders, of our allied leaders, and the garage it is doing to our reputation and damage that it may do to the operation we immediate -- cooperation we need from them in pursuing terrorism cases. there is a real cost. the question is, is this justified? i think the president has indicated this is not consistent with our values and my guess is that while he may not say as an absolute, it won't happen again, there would have to be extraordinary circumstances to justify any kind of a tap on a foreign leader of an allied nation. >> the chair of the senate intelligence committee, democrat senator dianne feinstein, who has been a defender of the nsa, she says she is now totally opposed to spying on u.s.al ice and demanding review of all surveillance programs. do you think that's a good idea? >> absolutely. i raise this today with general clapper. i think there has to be a real discussion about the intelligence community's obligation under a -- national security act of 47 to inform congress of significant intelligence activities like these that have such tremendous blowback potential. i'm not confident in light of these recent allegations that we are getting those full briefings, we do know the full scope of what is going on overseas. we have a lot more visibility of what happens here at home. we all have more safeguards in domestic surveillance because we have the fiza court as well operating and that can be improved. we have lot less visibility overseas and plainly, that's going change in the intelligence committees and has to change. >> congressman, you sit on the house intelligence committee. how much have you learned from edward snowden as opposed to from u.s. government sources that should be briefing you and your fellow members of the intelligence commit i don't the nsa programs? >> you know, some of these programs i don't have all that much compassion for members of congress that -- protest to be taken aback or surprised. some of them need to do their homework better. on other things, most recent allegation is a very good example if this is true, it certain sly not something i was made aware of. i would be surprised if other members were made aware of. chairman and senator feinstein wasn't. these are precisely of the magnitude that should be disclosed to congress because if it became public, as it has been reported here, the policy imp implications are tremendous. congress should be, along with swift, weighing this is it worth the risk or are we gaining such great insights we can't gain other ways we should undertake these operations? we need a much better level of dialogue and discussion and oversight and there are going to be changes made for sure. >> that's one of the points, congressman. i think we always hear from the white house and nsa and director of national intelligence clapper. there is congressional oversight of the programs. oversight of the programs. public is represented because there's oversight by congress. you didn't know about this. >> part of it is what kind of disclosure are we getting? are we getting disclosure in the form we have high confidence? intelligence community comes to us and says we have high confidence if we extend our stay in afghanistan, we can count on the support of germany or france. not telling us why they have that confidence, confidence based on a wiretap, of one of the leaders, that's -- a very different story than informing us of that kind of selector program, key leader program. that, to me is not an informed consent or even an informed process. i will be interested to get to the bottom of what did they share with us and one last point i would make, i raised this with director clapper today. if the intelligence community was too concerned about the sensitive source of information that they couldn't share with the intelligence committee what does it say it was accessible to a low-level system analyst like snow general? that, i think, raises a profound question as well. >> congressman schiff, one last question for you. i they you are a loyal democrat and strong supporter of president obama. which is more disturbing to you? president obama knowing that merkel's phone was tapped and not being forthright or him not knowing? which isn't reassuring either. >> well, i mean, either way you have it, it is a problem for the united states. it is a problem for the president's relationship with the chancellor if this turns out to be accurate. there's no good answer because there is no good outcome here either way. that's part of the reason why i think we need a better disclosure if indeed between didn't get it here and we need to make sure that whenever there is the potential that this kind of blowback were notified and our programs at home and overseas as the president has said are consistent with our values. >> congressman adam schiff, democrat of california, thank you so much for your time. we appreciate it. >> thanks. >> coming up, is a democratic staffer defended obama care and even as voters screamed in her face, now she is the frustrated one. plus, he likes smart, nerdy stuff. one of his former top aides shows insight into what is on the president's ipad. what's he reading? 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