With democrats actually to put together to deter the iranian regime from cracking down more than it would have to or help provide communications devices to the dissidents in iran. i had 48 hours this weekend where i was talking to a lot of people interested in iran, former bush administration officials and former obama officials, they were like maybe we can put this behind us for awhile and unite as a party and administration and congress. this is a moment. it would be huge if we could help the protesters in iran in terms of american foreign policy. we don t have to relitigate, you know, what happened in 2009 or the nuclear deal in 2015. and we all talked ourselves into this about ten of us talking on the phone. then you get up this morning and trump is attacking people individually on twitter. and look at congressmen and they re mostly interested in relitigating every foolish or not so foolish fight they have had for the last year. it s a limb worrisome. i m hopeful people could do so
Branches of government, both houses of congress and the white house, you will be held responsible for the government shuts down. democrats face a lot of pressure on this, too. the president is correct there are a lot of hispanic leaders very disappointed when nothing happened to fix and extend the daca program before the end of last year. if democrats fail to deliver on that again, think that s a political problem for them. they didn t insist it be part of the government funding program. they did not hold the line for d.r.e.a.m.ers or these young people, but i don t think that means d.r.e.a.m.ers will be flocking to the republican party. you don t think they re, quote, going to fall in love? i want to turn to the fact that the president took credit for commercial aviation s safest year, quote, since taking office i ve been very strict on commercial aviation. good news, there were zero deaths reported in 2017. we should note the last fatal commercial airline crash was in 2009. the
We re back with our panel. stibing with the politics lead, what could be another pending republican civil war in a dope red state just as we saw in alabama. senator orrin hatch of utah, the longest serving republican in the senate, just announced this afternoon he will retire at the end of his seventh senate term and thus will not be on the ballot this november. this sets the stage for trump nemesis mitt romney to potentially run for the seat and trump s former strategist steve bannon who leagues romney to try to put one of his more nationalist candidates to run in that race. president trump had previously asked hatch to stay on. let s bring in cnn s sunlen serfaty on capitol hill. sunlen, how will hatch s retirement affect the senate? reporter: well, it opens up the senate seat in utah, jake, a solid red state, and, of course, gets some new blood up here in congress. hatch had been serving mere for over 40 years and there was a lot of speculation where he would retire or not at the
I think it s pre-emptive so that you don t believe whatever the report comes back with. if it comes back and clears him, they can crow about it and they should if it turns out there was nothing to this. assuming there is a report that shows sigg wrongdoing, collusion or obstruction, the president and the white house have laid the groundwork to say you can t trust any of it. bill, you were saying before the break you re surprised there are republicans carrying water for the administration, given the fact that general flynn, his own former national security adviser, has pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi for his official duties for president trump. there seem to be a number of republicans in congress who are pounced on other issues other than the investigation. they re focused on whether or not the people investigating this matter are biased. a few months ago they were focused on the unmasking. it seems to really be anything they can find that might be something other than the focus.
Australian diplomat in which papadopoulos told the diplomat that the russians had offered dirt on hillary clinton and then when wikileaks posted some of the hacked e-mails from the dnc, i believe, australia then called u.s. intelligence services and that, the new york times says, is what prompted the fbi investigation. is it possible that something like that would have prompted an entire investigation? well, it s possible, but i and, again, i don t know the specifics here because george papadopoulos was not a name on my scope when i left now almost a year ago. i think it would it probably was one of several stimulants for the investigation but was not the only factor. all right. james clapper, retired general, former dni. thank you so much. happy new year, sir. new information about the possible roots of the russia investigation. did a trump campaign official s boozy congress in a bar lead to