>> harris: we are awaiting the white house press briefing this hour, the president speaks up for the first time about steve bannon's explosive comments. sarah sanders is expected to several to lecture and shortly as the president's attorneys are now trying to stop the publication of michael wolff's new book "fire and fury." in it, steve bannon slams that 2016 2016 trump tower meeting with russians as treasonous. last night and this morning, steve bannon seemed to backtrack on his criticism. here's president trump. >> did steve bannon betray you, mr. president ? >> he called me a great man last night, he obviously changed his tune pretty quick. thank you very much. i don't know, i don't know. >> harris: an important day to get word from the white house, that coming up in a moment but

let's first go to white house correspondent kevin corke, joining us live from the briefing room which will be a hot spot about 45 minutes. >> bottom of the hour we are expecting sarah sanders to come out and address reporters. if you know anything about the white house, it probably won't happen at the bottom of the hour but it will happen nonetheless. very interesting, i think i should point this out, harris. the president's lawyers are pushing back very forcefully. a flurry of letters going from his lawyers offices today, not just to steve bannon but also in particular to the publisher of the book "fire and fury." the president saying listen, you can't keep putting out false information, it could lead to libel, false statements and other mischaracterizations. we will tell you more about that throughout the day but let me share some of the excerpts from the book and trust me there are some explosive ones. a number of them circulate the idea that steve bannon thought

he was the guy in charge. i want to share a couple of you, i think the folks at home will find them interesting. he also believed the president's daughter ivanka what at one point bring down her father. the president in this book apparently appointed the chief of staff john kelly without even telling them about the job first and the author questions the president's ability to function on the job and that's a narrative you've seen played out on other networks since the very beginning of his administration. all of this is happening as the president's lawyers are standing in letters to steve bannon, this one accuses him of repeated violations of the terms of his separation. those comments through this response from the president himself, "steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me. he only pretends to have influenced a full a few people with no access and no clue whom

he helped write phony books." for his part, bannon seems to be backing up just a bit. he says that despite the controversy he has committed to the trump agenda. >> there will no be daylight between the agenda and the folks at breitbart and the web site. i don't think you have to worry about that. >> as you can well imagine, there are a number of excerpts from this book that continue to generate a great deal of excitement among some who may not like the president and others are just wondering about the veracity of the claims. they are out there, we will be talking about them at length today and i'm certain that when sarah sanders comes out it will probably be the first question she gets. >> harris: we will move on, thank you. questions are now being raised about michael wolf and steve bannon's credibility.

this after steve bannon's criticism of that trump tower meeting appears to contradict what he said about russian collusion allegations last fall. >> there's nothing to the russia investigation. it's a waste of time. >> what do you believe? you know what the national security institution believes, what do you believe? >> that there may have been -- look. it's a total and complete farce. russian collusion is a farce. >> harris: that's a total and complete shift from what he told michael wolff. michael wolff has reportedly had his own issues with the truth. even admitting in one of his books that he conveyed it, and i am quoting him here, "unreliable." an important day to get you on board, not just for this but for some other issues coming up as well. first of all, with all of this, you've seen a buildup response from the white house. where are you now? >> i think you outlined some of

those things very well. by his own admission and quite frankly, his reputation as one of a crackpot fake news fiction writer. you don't have to look far. the people quoted in the book, many of them have already come out on the record and said you lied, i never said those things. it's obvious that this book is filled with falsehoods and out and out lies. the president's never want to shy away from a fight and this is obviously a hit job on the president and one that is filled with lies and we believe the future will prove our side of that case. >> harris: an hour and a half ago the president went on the record and said look, i saw steve bannon changed his tune pretty quickly, i don't talk to him. where are we? is there some sort of a break with steve bannon? he did payroll and what is that look like? >> there is no doubt he was briefly on the campaign but he wasn't on the ballot and i

believe he over exaggerated his role in the campaign in the white house. he outlined a vision of the future, give a voice to the folks who have been forgotten across this country. you have seen the results. in the face of unprecedented negative news, 90% of the stories against this president are negative. all the incoming we see were dominantly is about palace intrigue. in the face of all that, this president has come to a town that doesn't budge and moved it mightily by his own hand, gotten tax reform for middle-class, crushed isis, incredible economic growth for the first time in 30 years, tax cuts, tax reform, we are talking about immigration for the first time in 30 years. these are the types of things he's done without and quite frankly despite steve bannon.

>> harris: you see the new push from the white house is to get this book blocked, do you think that can get done? >> i don't want to lay into any legal battle, i will leave that to the attorney. the fact remains, so much of this book is out and out lies. i mention some of the folks, they have all come out and said that is absolutely false, i never said those things, this is something the attorneys have in their quiver i am short and they are going to use it but i am not an attorney and i will leave that up to them. >> harris: i want to talk a little bit about the president and where his focus is today. you mentioned immigration. we've got the meeting with g.o.p. senators coming over to talk about that, break that meeting down for me and what you think it will look like. at january 19th is a heartbeat away, we got to talk about these things. >> these are the tough issues the president would not shy away from. bureaucrats and guys in this position doing nothing for the

better part of 30 years, the president is here just a year and i've mentioned all the things he's done so far. this is an important want to try to tackle. any conversation about daca, the president has made clear it must be tethered to ending chain migration and the visa lottery and making sure -- give the folks along the border everything they need to make sure illegals with nefarious ideas and goals don't come into this country. >> harris: i want our viewers to know, that's coming up at 2:15 eastern. i understand of the vice president will be there for that. we've had a couple of talks today, one on immigration and one on what things will look like ahead. an important day to have you aboard with all the news breaking about that book and i am glad to get your perspective on it. thank you very much, we will bring you back. >> thank you, harass, happy new

year. >> harris: let's bring in the anchor of fox news sunday chris wallace. i caught a bit of news there talking about a reminder that steve bannon was not on the ballot. does that create enough separation for this white house with this book? >> i am very fond of hogan, i have known him for years but he was spinning like crazy today. let's review. of course steve bannon was not on the ballot but he was the chairman of the campaign in the crucial months of the general election. he talks about him as some aid in the white house. he was the chief strategist. president trump announced that reince priebus would be the chief of staff and steve bannon would be the chief strategist and they would together in effect run the white house staff very early in the transition. he was a major player. i can understand why the president and the people around him don't like what steve bannon is saying now but you can't walk away from the fact that he was a key player in the final, crucial

months of the campaign and a very key strategic player in the early months, basically the first six months or so of the drum presidency. >> harris: hogan didn't actually say that he was a minor player, he said he wasn't on the ballot. i do want to ask you about michael wolfe's reputation and where we stand. if you are hearing inside the beltway, if there is some sort of nondisclosure, hogan couldn't speak to the legal issues, he didn't want to step on that case but what are you learning about this? is there some sort of nondisclosure agreement that could say you can publish but you can't put this in a? >> no. any nondisclosure agreement would be between steve bannon and the trump organization. i wonder whether there is a nondisclosure agreement once he was no longer working for the trump campaign and working for the united states government as an employee. i don't think they're such a thing as a nondisclosure agreement with a u.s. official which is what steve bannon was

as the chief strategist in the white house. he may have a cause of action against bannon, you are a lawyer, i am not. i don't see how he could has ha cause of action against michael wolff. i was talking to a former senior administration white house official, he had -- michael wolff did, almost free access in the white house. he was repeatedly invited in, the communications team are urged all of the senior advisors to cooperate. they thought this was going to be a positive book for the president. you can argue whether it's accurate or not, we will find out about that, he says he has tapes of the lot of the key interviews he did. but the fact that he was in the white house, this is with the approval of the president. >> harris: outside of what we know that -- steve bannon hasn't refuted what he said about donald trump jr. and of the

meetings that had to do with russian officials. outside of that, is there anything problematic to this white house? we've heard a lot of the gossip and the palace intrigue about how people did and didn't get along, outside of that element of it, isn't it just another book, how do you see it? >> we don't know. we haven't seen the book, i know i haven't seen the book. we've only read excerpts from the book. you do have steve bannon as you said suggesting that the meeting that donald jr. and jared kushner attended with that russian lawyer was treasonous. he also says he thinks there is zero chance that those folks brought the russian lawyer up to meet the president that he also talks about the possibility that there was money laundering going on which may be how the whole

issue of russian collusion plays out. the fact that steve bannon says this doesn't mean it's true or it's evidence but it adds fuel to the fire of the special counsel's investigation. >> harris: it's a lot for the publisher to try to figure out. between now and the release, i would imagine the onus is on that editor to try to shore up those facts. for those of us who have written books we know that's the case but in the meantime the president is talking today about immigration and before i let you go, he's getting a fast start on his legislative agenda. what do you see coming down the pipe ahead of january 19? >> let me just say one thing about the book, they are not trying to sort out fact from fiction. this book is already in print and at bookstores. the legal vetting has already gone on and i would assume they felt confident enough to come out with the book. that part of it i suspect -- i will be very surprised if they were able to stop the book or if it is withdrawn voluntarily.

as far as the agenda, getting back to issues that really affect people's lives, we had that meeting between the big four, is january 19th and the government funding. an awful lot of things that democrats want to attach to it, they are in effect saying we are not going to get a spending deal unless we get a daca deal and republicans are saying absolutely not, they are separate, there is a separate deadline. democrats are coming under real pressure from a lot of their base, especially obviously hispanics and pro-immigration people saying you need to take care of this now. >> harris: the democrats promised that they would do the job that the dreamers are holding them accountable for it and then you saw so much anger in the end of 2017 because the spending resolution that got us to january 19th didn't have daca in it. a lot of people are holding the

democrats accountable. chris wallace, i know what i will be doing this sunday, watching "fox news sunday." check your listings, everybody. thank you very much for being with us. paul manafort is suing special counsel robert mueller and the justice department. he claims mueller exceeded his mandate on the russia investigation. could this be part of a legal strategy that pays for his defense? the dow reaching an all-time high today and it is hovering across that 25,000 mark for the first time in american history. president trump tweeted this -- you know what i say? stay close.

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is playing out over my left shoulder here. areas in the northeast doing what they can to brace for a blizzard like conditions and what is being called a bomb cyclone or bomb genesis. boston is expected to get 18 inches of snow. >> they are expecting about 12 inches here, 18 inches of snow in the boston area. the big concern is coastal flooding and power outages. we are talking about 2-3 feet of snow along the coast. this is a photo taken here in boston, taken by someone on twitter. you can see the water has come in with that storm surge because of what happened with high tide and you can also see the chunks of ice in that water, that is also a concern. that ice has been moving in because it's been so cold here,

that connect as shrapnel. the concern is wet snow, freezing rain and you have high winds, 50, 60, maybe even 70-mile-an-hour gusts that can cause those power outages all along to nantucket, plymouth, and those areas. the governor spoke earlier toda today, he said it is about new englanders taking care of one another and reiterated that people should take care of their heating vents in their homes. >> take care of your homes inside and out. make sure carbon monoxide detectors and smoke alarms are working. shovel your driveways and sidewalks and be mindful of frozen pipes. >> after the storm, the windchill could reach minus 20 in the next two days. >> harris: all right. thank you very much. former trump campaign chairman

paul manafort is suing the justice department and special counsel robert mueller. he claims mueller exceeded his mandate. both he and his business associates face money laundering and other charges as part of the russia investigation. let's bring in robert driscoll, former deputy assistant attorney general. we knew they had gone far afield and we know that's what investigators sometimes do. can he win? >> no, i don't think he can win the underlying lawsuit but that doesn't mean the lawsuit is not a good idea or a strategy on the part of the defense team. even if he did win, i think some other opponent could bring the same indictment. the regulations are much narrower than the independent counsel statute which was allowed to expire which had some concerns raised about it. i think it's a pretty savvy move in that it's got this narrative in the news that mueller

overreached and went back about matter is that all predated the trump campaign. the underlying case, there is a gag order that wouldn't allow the defense team to put all that out there and in this case they can put that out there. there may be a jurisdiction problem, i am sure lots of smart people would say there was no chance of succeeding long-term but by forcing mueller to defend it there be benefits. >> harris: can anyone rein in mueller? should they try? you talk about overreaching. >> i think the way it is supposed to work under the regulations is that every expansion that mueller does to the probe is supposed to be signed off on by the deputy attorney general and that would be the deputy attorney general's job to stop the special counsel, the special counsel going too

far afield. deputy rosenstein is petrified, he has proved every step of the way what mueller has done. that's what's being challenged here. to the extent this lawsuit can survive procedural challenges, maybe the defense can find out exactly how those approvals went down, and those kind of things which would all be helpful. >> harris: what are the worst of the charges against paul manafort right now? >> there is nothing related to trump for the campaign necessarily. there is some money laundering charges, some tax charges. >> harris: can he go to prison for any of that? >> for sure. the gain or loss becomes a factor in terms of sentencing guidelines. the foreign agent registration act, things like that. you could face significant jail time. >> harris: do you think he will? >> i think he could, i don't

know enough about the underlying case. it certainly seems like the doj came down very hard on manafort, people typically aren't indicted under the foreign asset -- foreign agent registration act. a lot of it comes down to technical past offenses and things like that that probably most people wouldn't understand. he is in serious jeopardy based on the indictment. >> harris: what does this tell you about what robert mueller might have in terms of collusion with the white house and russia? does it tell us -- does it inform us that that is a strong case are not? we don't know what he has. sometimes you can telegraph where people push and poke. >> i think there could be two options or both options could be available. this is a very small number of people above manafort on the organizational chart for the campaign. another thing you have to remember is when you compare the

manafort indictment to flynn, social counsel mueller is sending a message that if you cooperate you will be treated a lot better than if you don't cooperate. he has not cooperated and he ended up with an indictment. general flynn did a plea bargain to one count which likely will not result in jail time at all. it's also a message the special counsel is sending to other potential witnesses to say hey, if you play ball with me, i can make your life a lot easier. if you don't i can make your life very difficult. >> harris: the conventional wisdom, if he finds there is no evidence, he is not found any of collusion with the white house and russia, you move on from this pretty quickly, is that how you see it? >> i don't think there's any real benefit to attacking mueller or trying to derail him now for the white house.

from what is publicly available, we don't know what mueller has. right now there are some folks that are collateral to the campaign that got into some trouble with some lobbying and tax issues that are essentially unrelated to the campaign and are trying to take advantage of access to the campaign but there's nothing that goes to the president or any collusion that has been typically discussed in the media. i think from the president's team, you sit back and hope this goes as quickly as it can and try to move it along, and wait for things to clear. if it up being that manafort is indicted at the end of the road, i think that will end up being a win for the president. >> harris: thank you very much for your expertise. what will be the fallout from the new explosive white house tell all? we had a member from the white house team on a few minutes ago and what it may mean for the presidents supporters

and some candidates are backing away from steve bannon. we are waiting to hear more from the white house briefing. here sarah sanders yesterday on the presidents supporters. >> the presidents base is very solid. it hasn't changed because the president hasn't changed and his agenda hasn't changed. i wanted to be clear. i wanted it to last. so i kept on fighting. i found something that worked. and keeps on working. now? they see me. see me. see if cosentyx could make a difference for you- cosentyx is proven to help people with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...find clear skin that can last. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting cosentyx, you should be checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms. or if you have received a vaccine or plan to.

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>> harris: as we await the start of the white house press briefing, the trump-bannon fuse raising big questions for what this could mean. sarah sanders at has already insisted nothing has changed. >> the base and the people who supported this president, those pinks hasn't changed, the president is still exactly who he was yesterday as he was two e started on the campaign trail. his agenda hasn't changed and he is continuing to fight for and push for that agenda and i think

the base is extremely excited and happy with the job this president has done in his first year in office. look at all he has accomplished, i think they're pretty happy with where he is. >> harris: follow-up from bannon's remarks about the president and his family also putting pressure on candidates he is already backed with at least four already distancing themselves from steve bannon. for more reaction, we are joined by rnc spokesperson kayleigh mcenany. why from the rnc? >> it's important to stand behind this president. he is the leader of our party, we stand in lockstep with him and we wanted to make clear there is one person who speaks to the republican base, one alone, not steve bannon. it is president trump, the man who won pennsylvania and michigan, states republicans haven't won since the '80s.

the man who won 304 electoral votes. that was donald trump, we stand beside him especially at a time like this. >> harris: some of the more incendiary remarks said to be from steve bannon in this book were comments about the donald trump jr. meeting with russian officials at trump tower, calling them treasonous. we've seen steve bannon walk's rhetoric but we haven't seen him refute any of that which means potentially he really said it. of how problematic is that for the white house? >> it's not problematic. i would note in the lawsuit against bannon he is also being sued for disparaging statements and at time defamatory statements. that is for a legal team to sort out but what i would say with regard to that statement in particular, the don jr. meeting was not treasonous at all. it was a part for the course meeting to get opposition research, hillary clinton had similar meetings like this with foreign agents, foreign powers. i believe it was ukraine if i am

not mistaken. there have been examples of this with other campaigns. nothing turned up and if bannon categorized it that way, completely off base. >> harris: why is bannon such a loose cannon? sorry for the rhyme. >> he was summing who was standing behind the conservative populist movement the president created. it's unfortunate but that's why we take our guiding steps from the leader of our party. that is president trump and no one else. >> harris: rnc fund-raising arm of the party, your people talking about the vision and that's never good at. what is your take on how things are really kind of fanning out in the white house? this book says it is chaotic. >> it's not chaotic at all and all you have to do is look at the presidents record of successes, confirming more circuit court judges than any president in modern history, tax cuts we haven't seen in three decades, record-setting regulations being withdrawn and removed. there is a record pace here of

achievement. if it's as chaotic as the media wants you to believe he would not be getting that done. one more thing i want to point out, this is the same 2016 playbook we are seeing play out again in this book, the idea that i am going to mischaracterize the president and his family members and dragged them through the mud because they are achieving too much. i saw this effort to define and demonize the president, this book is another iteration of the 2016 iteration of that. >> harris: some of these candidates are saying wait a minute, maybe i better take a better look if he is on my side, if he is someone i want to help. what is his role in the party? >> it's a fair question, i am encouraged to see the four who have come out stand behind the president. if that means backing away from steve bannon, that's what has to be done. we encourage every candidate to make the decision that is right for their campaign in that decision is standing by the president. >> harris: what do you do with steve bannon?

>> we hope he has come around, today he has said president trump is a great man. we hope he continues to say the truth which is -- i think, i am going to quote orrin hatch, probably the greatest president orrin hatch is ever served under if not the greatest president of our time. >> harris: president trump is taken a lot of criticism for his tweets on north korea but with north korea now talking to the south for the first time in nearly two years, does the president deserve some credit for moving the ball forward? >> the fact that we have china working with us on sanctions against north korea, a year ago nobody thought that was possible. you may not like the tactics but the actions and what those tactics are producing, we have to say have been successful. patrick woke up with a sore back.

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between the united states and south korea until after next month's winter olympics. that decision comes after kim jong un reopened cross-border communications with south korea for the first time in nearly two years. the president taking credit for that development, tweeting "with all of the failed experts weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks of dialogue would be going on if i wasn't firm, strong, and willing to commit our total might against the north? but talks are a good thing." let's bring in duncan hunter, a member of the armed services committee. good to have you along today to break out this development. how much is the president right about taking credit and why do you think he doesn't normally get it on this issue? >> he is totally right, it's not about his tweets, it's about the military might and the way he's presented what america will do to support our allies in the region and that we are willing to go to war with north korea. number two, the reason he

doesn't get the accolades is because people don't like him. and by people i would say the media. the people to get the accolades are the liberal press and the liberal press doesn't like trump so therefore he is not going to get any credit for this. but he is doing the right thing and i will tell you, what he needs to do, what i would like to see the president do is say no more north korea launches, period. we will shoot down every single rocket you want in the air, we will shoot it down before it even gets into space. we are going to shoot them down over kim jong un's head. that will be a great 2018 for me if trump could finally shut north korea down and make it a no-fly zone for intercontinental ballistic missiles. >> harris: can he do that next week? the bets are that we will see another missile test. >> here's what's easy about it. it north korea is only about 15.

you could have f35's up ringing north korea right now, shooting down any launch they made with air to air interceptor missiles. that is doable right now, yes. >> harris: that's a great detail to have. i would imagine they are also talking about guam and those areas that are close in. talk about where you apply pressure from the president. he has taken a lot of heat on that one tweet where he said he had a bigger nuclear button. >> that was probably a silly tweet and i think it detracts from what he's been doing. the only thing we can do more is get china to be on our side, we've been trying to do that for decades. they are selling them oil. sanctions don't work if the biggest nation in that area is not sanctioning north korea while we are trying to sanction them. you have to continue to apply

military pressure and make it i know missile area. say if you are going to launch missiles we are going to shoot them down and you are not going to get any practice, it's not going to help you. we are not even going to let you fail, we are going to shoot them down over your head. that would be the right choice in my opinion. i don't think that's an act of war, saying we are not going to let you practice shooting nuclear missiles at the united states, we are going to shoot them down. we are not shooting you but we are going to shoot them if they go up and are anywhere near our allies or us. >> harris: that's an interesting point because when the president tweets, critics among democrats especially say you are committing to us to nuclear war but what you are saying is he may want to tweet what you just said. >> the funny thing with this is if we don't shut down their nuclear program, we are going to mutually assured destruction type foreign policy with them. because that's the only thing you can do. if north korea gets 50 intercontinental ballistic

missiles, we can't shoot 50 of them down, that's why we have mutually assured destruction with a country like russia. the only way to stop them from becoming nuclear and getting into that situation is stopping them now, period. there is no going forward after they have decoys on their missiles and they get scores of missiles, we are not able to take those down. stop them this year and make it so my kids don't have to listen to stories about a nuclear north korea for the next decade. >> harris: i want to let our audience know, you served three combat tours overseas. when you talk about preempting all war is what i hear you saying, you come at it from that kind of experience. i want to give you the last word on this point. how significant is it that the north and south are going to talk? >> it's huge. it's a really big deal. any talking is better than no talking whatsoever and anything that will make the north koreans pick up the phone and engages a

good thing. i don't think that's happening because of tillerson or because of talks, it's coming because the u.s. has shown its military might and president trump has showed his resolve, that's why this is happening but it's a great thing. >> harris: representative duncan hunter, on the program today for the first time. we will bring you back, thank you very much. an influential republican senator is now demanding answers from the justice department on which memos james comey shared with his friends and whether they contain classified information. we will talk about it with the power panel, stay close. now i have nicoderm cq. the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. it's the best thing that ever happened to me. every great why needs a great how.

>> hi, everyone, i'm dana perino and we are awaiting the white house briefing on a very busy news day. we will see what sarah sander says about the president's lawyers trying to block publication of that explosive new book and issue a cease and desist order to steve bannon. there will be questions about jeff sessions ending the policy of not enforcing federal laws banning marijuana. some scary reports from the boston area where there is major flooding that includes giant chunks of ice. we will take you there live on "the daily briefing." ♪ >> harris: new questions about

fired fbi director james comey's actions. senate judiciary chairman chuck grassley says four of the seven memos comey wrote about his interactions with president trump contain classified information. comey admitted to sharing some of those memos with his friends. it's called leaking. that friend was a columbia law professor who leaked some of the contents to the media. grassley is now asking the justice department about when the memos were classified and by whom. back from outnumbered, steve cortes. and a communications consultant and former senior aide to democratic senator chuck schume senator chuck schumer. steve? your thoughts? >> my thoughts are, let's add to this to the list of fireball offenses for james comey. the first we know of was drafting the exoneration memo for hillary clinton months before the investigation even commenced. what he is shown to us is that

he is an incredibly partisan hack. by the way, he does dishonor to the agency, to the fbi, and to the thousands of agents who worked very hard to do dangerous work to protect us and they don't expect their leadership to be political and partisan in the way he nakedly was. >> harris: some of these materials may not belong to him, they may have belonged to the united states government. >> there is a record being built as to offenses comey may or may not have committed. in this case it sounds perhaps i hope worse than it really is, so you can look back and engage in a little bit of revisionist history. i enjoy with being on set with you and we get along but i disagree with so much of what you just said. comey is the opposite of a political hack and i have set on set before that he was right to reopen the investigation into hillary clinton's emails. >> harris: you have said that. >> they are also right and what they are doing.

the fbi is staffed with law enforcement professionals who i don't believe deserve this criticism. in this case i think they are building a record to look back and say see, we were right. >> the rank-and-file fbi, of course. the agents are doing terrific work, as i said. the leadership of the department of justice and fbi have shown themselves to be incredibly partisan and frankly incredibly anti-donald trump. this isn't my supposition on my guess, we know this from the texts we have of people within the mueller investigation or the department of justice, we had a deeply polluted leadership of our law enforcement community which frankly does need to be purged. >> harris: can i put it this way? we don't want to go too far down the road of supposition, what if this were a different president and fbi members have been shown not to like the current president. like anna obama, what if that

happens? what if you saw text messages between two agents having some affairs together, what did trey gaudi call it? a paramore. what if that happened with the president you liked? >> interestingly, the obama administration was very tough on leakers, so much so that folks that supported free and open internet -- >> harris: this is about being anti-whoever is in the white house -- >> i strongly a suspect it will be a different reaction. we could talk about this and have a good time doing it but in this case i think it is interesting that senator grassley himself is the one calling for this because what it shows is turning the page on the relationship between the stalwart establishment republicans after, not a success. saying we now represent the president and we are moving forward with this. the message is interesting and we can disagree on that but the messenger is fascinating. >> all of this is inside politics, inside baseball.

let's get back to what matters to the american people. tax reform, growth, security. the president is winning. >> harris: happy new year. we are awaiting the white house press briefing where we expect to hear more reaction to that explosive tell-all book that includes steve bannon's claims about the presidency. stay close.

>> harris: i am reading your comments on social media. you can ask me anything i get my answers on twitter.

clap back about something that you saw on "outnumbered overtime" weekdays at 1:00 p.m. eastern or read other people's comments on facebook. and check my stories and pictures on instagram. at the bottom of your screen, "outnumbered overtime," i am harris, here is dana. >> dana: fox news alert, the white house briefing set to start at any moment now. as a contentious battle heats up between president trump and steve bannon. hello, i am dana perino, this is "the daily briefing." white house lawyers are taking steps to stop the publication of that book containing highly disparaging comments according to bannon. with the white house now, what is it saying about the former true strategist? >> saying a number of things, but if i use the vernacular of the day, "stay in your lane" the message from the president. they are pushing back in according to the flurry of cease and desist letters, it is obvious that the president was none too pleased by what he