untoward with the russians? to dan s point, we don t know. the kushner story is emblematic of all the problems we have right now with the russia story and that you had unnamed sources and sort of half-leak reporting in the washington post saying that he had met with the russian embassador to establish a back channel and that, you know, had potentially asked to use russian facilities to do this and he had subsequent reporting in which people close to mr. kushner said that this is nonsense, that he set up one meeting, one discussion and that there was never any suggestion from him to use russian facilities, so we just don t know and we are going to have to wait until we get to the end of some of the investigations to get some facts. paul: and we shall be waiting. thank you, kim. amid rising tensions with north korea, the pentagon missile defense program scores a direct hit, so can we build on this week s success? we will ask alaskan senator dan
paul: new developments in the russia probe as the house intelligence committee issued subpoenas to former national security adviser michael flynn and president trump s personal lawyer michael cohen but an unexpected turn the panel issued subpoenas related to unmasking of trump transition members by a trio of former obama administration officials, national security adviser susan rice, former cia director john brennan and former u.s. embassador to the united nations samantha power. we are bag with dan henninger, kim stossel and board member rigo. how significant is this in
affairs all getting increases. the epa and state department taking the biggest hits. with double-digit spending cuts. despite a proposed $54 billion increase in defense spending, osman to house minority leader says education and innovation, clean energy and lifesaving medical research. paul: the pound this week wall street journal columnist and deputy editors dan henninger, kim stossel, mary kissel and assistant editorial page editor james freeman. kim, what does this budget tell you about president trump s budget priorities? debts with budgets are. their blueprints. there are visions. it will go through a lot of modifications before they
look,s this is all the sorts of things that will be negotiated over the next two weeks. paul: kim, suddenly this is a discussion here some people saying, oh, well, look, trump should be bipartisan with this. he should reach out to democrats. don t try to do this with republican votes a alone. is that realistic? trump s getting a lot of advice.ou he s also got punitive allies who are telling him he should ditch this whole process. [laughter] and blame it on paul ryan which, fortunately, he has not taken that advice so far. but, look, he has done as much outreach as possibly could be done to democrats. he went into this saying let s work together.t the democratic response has been we will not help you, we not aid this this process in any form or fashion. so, i mean, the idea of him making any concessions when he s not likely to get think democratic votes in the end, i think, is a waste of time. paul: yeah. it s uninformed, i think, to think that any democrat s going to vote for repeal
the united states calls on north korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and refrain from any further provocations.on the u.s. commitment to the defense of japan and its other treaty allies through the full range of our military capabilities is unwavering. paul: secretary of state rex tillerson in tokyo this week,cr warning north korea that the u.s. will respond to its nucleaa aggression can saying nothing has been taken off the table when it comes to defending our allies in the region. the warning comes as tillerson embarks on his first official trip to asia where he s calling for a new approach after 20 years of, quote, failed diplomacy, unquote. we re back with dan, kim, mary and james. so, dan, this is interestingin because you re seeing the trump