burns and nicholas confessory, political reporter for the new york times. the white house is pushing back on the heightened call to investigate the alleged ties between the trump campaign and russia. at what point would a special prosecutor have to get involved and what do you think it would take for republicans in both chambers to push for that? it s the call for the justice department to appoint ta specia prosecutor. the pressure would be intense and there would have to be more concrete investigations coming out in press reports to trigger that. there has to be a credible argument that s impossible for justices to handle this on their own. i think members of congress are trying to talk about it and we saw darryl issa the california with a pro from the outside, but it would be a hard thing to get the justice guys to sign off on it right now, i think. caitlin, how big a deal is that? darryl issa being the one who is
the things that he wants to do. some interested in what directive he s sending lawmakers in congress, and i ll bet he s talking about the support that he believes that he has as a presentation of the man that he believes that he has compared to what we re seeing in the polls which is very low approval ratings, very low favorability. caitlin hughey burns and nicholas confessory, appreciate seeing you. happening now in louisiana, police are investigating the suspect behind last night s crash in new orleans when a driver plowed through a large crowd in a mardi gras parade. sarah dallof is there, and what do we know about the status of the victims? reporter: let s start with the victims. amazingly, there were no deaths last night when that truck driven by a suspected intoxicated driver went over that median there behind me and plowed into the crowd that was enjoying one of the city s famed mardi gras parade.
hear this week when trump addresses congress if he outlines any kind of priorities as it pertains to obamacare, that will be interesting providing any kind of directive that we haven t seen specific plans from him yet and they re realizing the political dynamics of this and any change they make whether it s repeal and replace and whether it s fixing. they re going have to own that politically and that s a stark realization for a lot of these lawmakers. i m curious, nicholas, what do you know about preparations of the president s speech to congress? do you expect it to be dram atticly different from the cpac speech which kind of appeared to be a somewhat standard stump speech for him. is he capable of giving a different speech? it s possible, but don t count on it. i think every time you see trump with a big moment like this, a big speech and people talking about a modulation or some nod to decorum, it never happens. it never, ever happens. it s always pure trump. he could use the s
making the call for a special prosecutor? think we have to think of it in a couple of ways. on the one hand darryl issa used to be the person in charge of investigating these kinds of things and on the other hand, he barely survived his reelection in 2016 and he is from a district that democrats will be targeting in 2018. so we have to kind of keep an eye on, you know, 20, 24 districtser so that hillary clinton won, that democrats are targeting or districts that trump barely won and democrats are targeting, too. so you will have this little bit of a divide considering lech ral politics and the next administration coming into play and i don t think he represents the broader republican party because most of those districts are pretty safe and supportive of donald trump when you look at the polling in those districts. take what caitlin is saying, nicholas, and look back on cpac, what is your sense of the future of the conservative movement after this apparent enthusiasm
address it in some coherent and competent manner and they ve decided to push out this baseless charge, this flat-out lie and they are doubling down on it, and maybe now it will become the ultimate test of loyalty in the trump administration, who is willing to lie the most aggressively on this particular issue? you know, it s interesting. you re echoing the sentiments of nicholas confessory of the new york times , and it was absolutely, flat-out false that what stephen miller is putting out there. why do you think the president and his team are still arguing voter fraud? first of all, it s three months after the election. he s the president of the united states. because he s obsessed with it. we can try to come up with some sort of grand plan here. here s an administration that ought to be talking about obamacare repeal, infrastructure, tax reform, bringing jobs back and yet on a daily basis they undermine their own agenda. they have self-inflicted wounds. they distract from it and