if you like. >> reporter: it would be ironic if fire would take some of the heat off the iceberg. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> can't wait to see that. thanks for joining us. see you tomorrow. anderson is next. good evening. thanks for join us. the growing divide between the eyes and ears of the country and the next president of it. and new reporting on what could be the president-elect's plan to restructure big pieces of the intelligence community including possibly reshaping the cia. we'll talk to the reporter who broke that story coming up. meantime again, mr. trump cast doubt on the agencies in question on their consensus that russia hacked the democratic party and hillary clinton's campaign chair. instead he appears to be placing his faith in the man he once said should face the death penalty. wikileaks founder julian assange who published what the hackers stole. this comes less an taddei after a tweet seen as a slap at intelligence agencies including

the people who will be briefing him on the hacking. it also comes alongside tonight's breaking news which may put intelligence jobs in flux. more on that soon. but first pamela brown on the fight. >> reporter: tonight president-elect trump escalating his ongoing battle with the u.s. intelligence community tweeting just days before the prefectubr the intelligence briefing on so-called russian hacking was delayed until friday. perhaps more time needed to build a case. very strange. intelligence officials are pushing back denying there was a delay in the briefing and that it was always scheduled for friday. trump also siding with wikileaks founder julian assange, a man wanted by the u.s. for leaking classified information, who in an interview with fox news denied russia had anything to do with handing over the stolen documents from the dnc and john podesta.

>> we have said repeatedly in last two months our source is not the russian government and it is not state party. trump tweeting julian assange said a quote 14-year-old could have hacked podesta. why was dnc so careless? also said russians did not give him the info. on capitol hill today vice president-elect mike pence defended trump's skepticism. >> the president-elect has expressed his very sincere and healthy american skepticism about intelligence conclusions. >> reporter: u.s. officials tell cnn trump's continued public attacks are hurting morale of the intelligence community with one official saying it's a sad day when politicians put more stock in vladimir putin and julian assange over the americans who risk their lives providing objective, nonpartisan intelligence analysis. cnn has learned trump has already been briefed by intelligence officials on the russian hacks.

but that the comprehensive report due this week will provide a fuller picture of why the u.s. is putting the blame on russia. >> i would suggest to individuals who have not seen the report or been briefed on it that they wait and see what it is that the intelligence community is putting forward before they make those judgments. >> pamela joins us now. the president-elect has met with intelligence officials in the past. is there a disconnect between his public and private persona with this community? >> according to intelligence officials, there is a disconnect, anderson, which is leading to some of that confusion among these officials. publicly he's been combative when it comes to the intelligence community's findings, mocking the assessment as we saw on twitter last night. that's been going on for months. but then behind the scenes privately it's a different story i'm told by officials. donald trump is very polite, professional, deferential, he'll

ask questions at times, but not what you might expect based on what we see playing out publicly. so there is this difference there and the hope is, anderson, after this briefing on friday between trump and the leaders of the intelligence community that relations will improve. >> appreciate the update. one note on a commitment the president-elect made over the weekend to share the inside knowledge he said he had on the hacking, he said he'd do it today at the latest. today came and went without a word. tonight new word president-elect trump tend to take on the intelligence community in ways that go beyond rhetoric. "the wall street journal" reporting he's planning to restructure and pare back the office of the director of national intelligence and perhaps the cia as well. damon paletta joins us now. this restructuring of the office of national intelligence and perhaps the cia, what are you learning about it? >> sure. remember the office of the director of national intelligence was established after the 2001 terrorist

attacks. ways to get intelligence agencies to share more information so there were no surprises. a lot of republicans and donald trump's top national security adviser michael flynn are suspicious of dni. they believe a lot of the information that comes out of there is politicized and spun in a way to make quite frankly democrats feel better about the intelligence they're getting and with flynn now in this senior role, he was at the defense intelligence agency and pushed out of that job in 2014 by the director of national intelligence. now flynn is in the driver's seat and is prepared to push this proposal that would make it nor of an analysis center and more power back in the cia's hands. >> you also write about possible reorganization of the cia, essentially less people at their headquarters in langley which is where their anl littal branch is and other branchs out in the field and trying to get more

people out into the field. >> exactly right. i think there's a lot of belief within the trump organization that people at these headquarters are more susceptible to political pressure. they have more interaction with politicians and they're more likely to say things the politicians want to hear. when they're out in the field, whether the middle east, russia or elsewhere, they're more likely to focus on intelligence gathering. obviously the risks are that, you know, decentralized intelligence community maybe they don't share as much information, maybe they miss things and they're more susceptible to terrorist attacks or other counterintelligence issues. hard to get that balance right. i think right now the trump phones feel like they need to shake things up and this is the way they should approach the intelligence community. >> people in the field are covert positions, the director of operations, which is very different than the an littal branch in langley. in they're talking about more people in the field, they're talking about more covert operations and that requires people back in the united states

supporting them and a lot more contractors in the field protecting those assets. >> right. talking about more raw intelligence coming in and maybe not as many analysts in washington kind of deciphering what that means. we have to look what happened over the past month. the trump folks are upset at the way this news came out about the assessment that the hacking operation last year by the russians was done in a way to help trump win. they feel like that's very political and undermines his winning the white house. it doesn't make it look like he won fair and square. they're pushing back and resisting deeply and we wonder what all these tweets are about, why does he keep hammering on this assessment by the cia, keep promoting putin on twitter. this is what it's coming to. once he's inaugurated, this all is going to start rolling after january 20th. >> thank you very much. plenty to talk about with bob

baer and steve hall and jeffrey lourd. bob, you were an officer in the field reporting from "the wall street journal." what do you make of the idea of more officers in the field, few iranaly fewer analysts and everything stateside? >> i agree there are too many people at langley. you have more people in the field, streamline your operations, restore the director of operations. i know some of the people advising the trump transition team and they're right and they guarantee me there's going to be a bloodbath at the cia and dshgdni, director of national intelligence. i think it's a sideshow to citing somebody like assange, a mouthpiece of russian intelligence or taking the word of vladimir putin whether he hacked or not. i find this extraordinary that trump would side with the

russians in any sense or russian agent of influence. it's "the twilight zone." another thing, this isn't a war against the cia. most of this information about the hacking is coming out of the national security agency. they've gotten into frock fiber-optics, the mehta data. assange going on about a 14-year-old being able to hack john podesta is nonsense.tadata. assange going on about a 14-year-old being able to hack john podesta is nonsense. this is a sophisticated code established by the fbi -- >> according to "the new york times" on how this happened there was a lot of missteps along the way by the dnc who got the call from the fbi, weren't sure it was a real fbi agent calling them. seemed like a ludicrous cast of characters at the dnc who had no idea about the impact. >> they had no clue. and the obama administration,

putting guilt where they should have doepg something about it early on, we should have seen this report right away. this is an act of war as mccain called us. the russians are after us. nothing do with who was elected president. they are trying to undermine our system and we have to deal with the facts and we're not. inciting julian assange or putin and taking their word is like i said the twilight zone. >> steve, what kind of impact does the this potential restructuring have on the intelligence community? is it a big deal? is it lack of faith in the intelligence community? >> first of all, i have to agree completely with bob with regard to julian assange. this is a guy who's a fugitive from justice, holding up in the ecuadorian embassy in london so he doesn't have to face rape charges in sweden. if you have all the members of the intelligence community telling you one thing and you're going with julian assange, maybe there's a plan there. i'm just not sure what it is.

with regard to reorganization, let's not forget john brennan also embarked on a reorganization about two years ago. it had some morale issues inside the agency but you're looking at the president-elect saying maybe we need to go through that process again. reorganizations in any organization, there is a personnel price to pay, there is a morale price to pay. i agree with bob nobody's going to disagree more people in the field, more opera tichs in the field, that's always a good thing. but there is an important tooth to tail ratio supporting though operations and political stuff that goes on. when you go into a reorganization, especially before you've set foot in the oval office or before your national security team is in place before you can see close up what's going on, it's a strange way to go about it in my view. >> jeff, what do you make of donald trump seemingly siding with julian assange and citing him, someone he previously said

should get a death sentence? >> i think he's the outsider, the executive. some is meant to stir his troops to better performance. i don't know. i've listened to the assange interviews here that sean hannity had with him. you know, he's quite adamant the russians weren't involved. obviously i don't know. but i do think -- bob is right here. having been in government, whether it's the central intelligence agency, the director of national intelligence, or housing and urban development or the justice department, these organizations can get very, very scle ronnic and out of date and get out of date quickly or ideological in a sense. when any new president, but particularly this one, an executive's executive, he is going to demand from his employees and the federal government that they produce. clearly that's what he's about here with the intelligence

field. but i think you'll see this in other areas as well. >> bob, to jeff's point, is this perhaps a way to push the intelligence community, push the people who are going to be reporting to him to work harder, to scrub hard on the intelligence, to rethink assumptions or is it something that kills morale? >> i think jeff's right. frankly, i'm surprised i agree with him 100%. yes. you're right. it needs to be stirred up. granted didn't help the director of operations. it was essentially eviscerated by brennan over the last two years. the people that trump is relying on are friends of mine. i don't agree with him politically, but it needs to be reorganized even if the morale is hurt and get it away from politics. if it turns out this whole hacking, russian hacking thing

is based on politics there should be a serious criminal investigation of some sort. i don't think it was. i think the russians did hack, but, yeah, let trump's guys get in and stir it up and make the place efficient. and trump is absolutely right. in 2003, 2002, with the national intelligence estimate, the cia let everybody down by putting a lot of trash in it under political pressure and it's time to correct that. >> steve, in terms of getting more cia officers into the field, that's not something that happens overnight. the training for it can last for, you know, years, certainly, and just the support personnel. it was one thing when there were large scale u.s. forces in iraq also in afghanistan, cia officers could operate in conjunction with the u.s. military and get operational security from them. it's a different scenario on the ground in a lot of places they need to operate. >> absolutely. this is a significant challenge

to anybody who's trying to manage operations inside the director of operations. you cannot just come up with these people. with the area i'm most familiar with in russian operations, just training somebody in russian language can take the better part of a year and a half to two years to get them to the point you want to them not including the more specialized training required for some of these tours. same true for paramilitary type of operations. it is quite a challenge and any reorganization is going to have to take that into consideration. but i think one thing you have to consider again when you're talking about a reorganization, even if it's well intentioned in terms of getting, you know, more people out into the field, there are morale issues that -- context of this is important is what i'm getting at. you'll get a lot of younger officers. when you say i'm going to put you through a long series of training exercises and learning languages and doing things and by the way we're not sure that

the president-elect really has much belief in your intelligence and what you're doing, you put all of that together and get to a tipping point where actual productivity out of the organizations and especially cia can be threatened. >> bob baer, steve hall, thank you. jeffrey will stick around. we're talking obamacare next, mainly the president's effort to preserve it, the gop wanting to replace it and the political cost of changing a law that affects so many people and so much of the economy. we'll talk to people in coal country who voted for donald trump and may face losing obamacare benefits. americans - 83% try to eat healthy.

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tug of war between the

incoming and outgoing administrations in plain view today in washington. on one side, president obama, on the other, mike pence. the flag in the middle obamacare and what will become of it. michelle kosinski reports. >> reporter: president obama on capitol hill today urging democrats to battle with all they've got against republican plans to gut his signature law, obamacare. >> thank you. >> looking out for the american people. >> reporter: democrats don't have the votes to block republicans. so his message to avoid, quote, rescuing them, hoping them craft their replacement. >> the president asked us are you ready? you have the fight in you. he didn't need to ask. >> reporter: he spurred democrats to use tactics like the tea party did in opposing obamacare, to go out to town halls, tell the stories there are millions of constituent who is benefited from the plan as well as hold republicans accountable for what they come up with, the president saying

democrats ought to start calling it trump care. >> they want to repeal it and try to hang it on us. not going to happen. it's their responsibility. plain and simple. cutting health care wouldn't make america great again. it would make america sick again and lead to chaos. >> reporter: at virtually the same time republicans girding for the epic fight led by vice president-elect mike pence, a meeting described by attendees as more pep rally than policy discussion. >> the promises of obamacare have all been proven to be false. if you like your doctor, you can keep it. not true. if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. not true. >> this law has failed. americans are struggling. >> reporter: the president-elect also jumping into the debate in a series of tweets seeming to warn republicans not to work too closely with democrats. dems owned the obamacare

disaster with its poor coverage and massive premium increases it will fall of its own weight. be careful. the white house today hammered republicans for not yet presenting a replacement plan and pointing out the congressional budget office estimates that cutting obamacare could add to the deficit over time. >> the republican ideas are actually bad for people. bad for the economy. bad for small businesses. they have bad ideas. >> michelle kosinski joins us from the white house. will president obama continue to work on this even after he leaves office? >> one of the members of congress was leaving and he said the president made it clear he would keep lending his voice to this issue even as a private citizen. one of the things president obama said to lawmakers today was he envied them, they are still going to be on the field as he put it, fighting for this when he leaves office. the white house, though, backed away from him getting really involved, at least publicly here. they said he's going to try to do what past former presidents have done and back away.

they said the president believes it's time now for others to take the lead. it's time for fresh blood as they've put it. and he's not going to go engage on a regular basis, although they wouldn't rule out him at times feeling like he wants to lend his voice. so i guess it will be on a case-by-case basis. they made it sound like he'll try to stay out of the fray but they're not going to rule out him jumping in from time to time. >> michelle, appreciate it. back with jeffrey lourd and joining us christine quinn. errol lewis. kirstin powers. chuck schumer as said democrats, their strategy is to try to make republicans own whatever the ramifications of repealing obamacare are. >> that makes sense. this is the first chance for republicans to show how they'll lead now that they have control in washington and something they've been promising they want to do for a long time.

everybody's said what are you going to replace it with? they don't seem to have any idea other than this maybe repeal and delay where they will repeal it and then sort of kick the can down the field in four years maybe and give them time to come up with a replacement. >> errol, it seems they would have to have something to replace it because we're talking about tens of millions of people. >> one would hope. a complicating factor, as you suggest, there's something like 18 million insurance customers that the insurance company might not be so eager to shed all of a sudden. so they'll probably weigh in. the swamp has not been entirely drained. they are donor. they have lobbyists and friends. my expectation is there's going to be a big round of finger-pointing and sort of positioning and that what we'll see for sure is renaming of things. parts of obamacare they want to say they repealed but they'll

have to keep. they'll try and rename it and say it's entirely new and different and rebranded and the kind of compromise that will let everybody kind of move forward rather than impose catastrophe on the health care market. >> jeffrey, donald trump during the campaign was saying he wants to keep coverage on pre-existing conditions, allow them to keep their coverage. also now the idea of people as they're older up to 26 years old can stay on their parents' insurance. again, not a lot of details. >> you have the dr. price, member of congress, who will be the head of health and human services who knows this forwards and backwards, members on the republican side who know it forwards and backwards. it will be forthcoming. to kirsten's point, embrace it. i don't think president obama managed this would be called obamacare and would become synonymous with a bad thing.

i may have said i've been stopped by people and this was their gripe running up to the election, a man stopped me in the store, had a stroke, had to deal with obamacare. he was furious. the political decision has been made to replace it. so the republican party and the trump administration i hope should be bold, go out there, and take the credit for it and change it. >> i think there are people who like obamacare. there are problems with it but it is incredible for the republicans at this point to now be in a position to do this and not have a plan. so many times be telling the democrats you don't know what you're doing, we have a better idea and to not have any plan. >> i don't think that's true. we just don't know it. >> that's slightly ridiculous with all due respect. so that's ridiculous because we throughout the whole campaign we heard there'd be a plan. now they've been up on capitol hill trying to take it away with

nothing to replace it. donald trump promised i think in "60 minutes" interview, nothing would be repealed, people not worry, until there was something to replace it with. his vice president is saying something totally different. this shouldn't be about politics. it's what should be happening. that's not a joke. i think that laugh is demonstrative of the problem we have. what should be happening is republicans and democrats should be listening to americans, find out what works and what doesn't and together write a plan to fix it. but all we're seeing is pivots to don't own it. people are sick and they need care. >> if this election was a mandate on whether or not obamacare works, donald trump did win this election. >> but he won the election, which pains me to say, but it is a fact -- i did it so leave it

alone -- to psi i'm going to repeal obamacare and replace it. now he's saying we're going to repeal it. hang on, there will be something maybe tomorrow. there's nothing. >> would you agree they have to have something to replace it with immediately? >> i think they should make it as quickly as possible. >> what happens in those three days if you get sick? >> right, you don't want that to happen here. these are smart people. surely they have been talking about this for months and months. i think they've been talking about this for years. >> why can't we hear what they've talked about? >> is problem is not donald trump. >> then get pence off capitol hill. >> the problem for republicans is that the obamacare is actually based on a republican idea. the idea they would have come up with probably is what obamacare -- >> that was romney care. >> it came out of the heritage foundation and that used to be a republican idea. the only other ideas i've seen

and i'm open to hearing them are sell across state lines -- anything else? >> portability. >> that's going across state lines. it really is astonishing that after all this time the republicans don't have the health care plan. >> those are the buzzwords. across state lines. free market. marketplace. everybody to who has pre-exi pre-existing conditions can remain. >> once you add those elements he talked about in the "60 minutes" interview you're back to obamacare or some version of it because the reality is you can't do all of those things, can't protect from pre-existing conditions and keep people on their parents' policy up to 26 without subsidies. take away the subsidies, you got nothing. take away the young invincibles, if you don't have some way of getting healthy people into it -- >> thus far, there's not -- >> this has not -- the bottom line, this has not worked.

and change has been demanded and it's coming. >> you don't agree. >> i believe it has worked and in some states you see that fabulously. how it's worked with the states that are committed. can it be made better? yes. this is a political game causing fear and may cause people to have real health life effects. >> we'll take a break. just ahead, the latest battle over obamacare kicks off, coal miners are wondering if their votes will hurt their health and finances. and an alleged assault in chicago. police say suspects beat a man on camera, streamed the video live online. very disturbing. afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine.

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obamacare. they'd all be gone. don't matter how many years you got. >> three sentences in the affordable care act made it easier for victims of black lung to get monthly federal benefits if they worked 15 years or more in the mines. and if they died, the benefits automatically extended to their

widows. >> he'll be drawing his $643 and i think 42 cents. >> once a month. >> once a month. >> reporter: patty just got her first payment, her husband crawford after 32 years in the mines died in 2007. >> to say it with somebody you lived with 45 years, to go from that to this is very hard. >> reporter: getting the payment can also be difficult, even with the law it took her three years. now her black lung widow benefit along with social security and a tiny $62 a month pension keeps her financially afloat. so this money is important to you. >> absolutely. absolutely. it's not a large amount but it's enough to pay the bills. >> reporter: keeping up with the bills here for many a lifetime struck l so trump's full-throated promise of jobs

was a powerful missage. the unemployment rate in the county 23%, more than twice the national average. >> this area has seen a terrific decline in the number of coal mining jobs in the last five years and those jobs tended to be high-paying jobs. >> reporter: steven sanders represents miners applying for black lung benefits. as jobs have evaporated, obamacare benefits more important than ever. >> president-elect trump promised people he was going to restore mining jobs. i don't think he thought about what the affordable care act might mean to miner ace pliing for black lung benefits. >> linda adams' tony husband tied thee years ago. she's applying for benefits. you supported trump in this election. >> i did. >> reporter: if obamacare xwoes away? >> i'm going to be in a world of

pressure. >> reporter: today adams devotes her life to helping others apply for benefits even if obamacare is abolished. her enormous expectations squarely on president trump. >> if he don't come across like he promised, he won't be there the next time, not if i can help it. >> reporter: trump's future opposition already taking shape if jobs don't return and obamacare benefits vanish. miguel marquez, cnn, kentucky. >> high expectations. ahead, jeff sessions, naacp stage a sit-in as his alabama office calling for him to withdraw in from his consideration. how the protest ended and the allegations of racism that kept sessions from a seat years ago. and an alleged beating and a big break in the case.

confirmation hearings for several donald trump cabinet picks are set to begin next week including jeff sessions, nominee for attorney general. he is facing fierce opposition op multiple fronts. naacp activists were arrested after a sit-in at his office in mobile, alabama. more than 1,000 law professors opposing sessions' nomination. democratic lawmakers about to do all they can to stall it. the controversy surrounding him goes back decades. drew griffin reports. >> reporter: republican senator jeff sessions, the first u.s. senator to come out in support

of donald trump, was a u.s. attorney in alabama when then president ronald reagan nominated him for the federal court. but the appointment broke down at sessions' 1986 confirmation hearing when allegations over his alleged racial remarks took center stage. allegations that sessions angrily denied then and now. >> i am not a racist. i am not insensitive to blacks. i supported civil rights activity in my state. i have done my job with integrity, equality, and fairness for all. >> transcripts of that senate judiciary hearing show that thomas figures ark black former assistant u.s. attorney in alabama testified sessions called him boy and joked about the ku klux klan. >> i have never called him boy. >> reporter: and gerald hooefr, a justice department lawyer, also testified. sessions called the naacp and

aclu un-american and communist inspired. he recalled sessions said he thought they did more harm than good when they were trying to force civil rights down the troet throats of people trying to put problems behind them. in a heated exchange with then senator joe biden sessions denied calling the national council of churches and the naacp un-american. >> my opinion is they have not. they may have taken positions that i consider to be adverse to the security interests of the united states. >> does that make them un-american? >>, it does not. >> does that make them poxes un-american? >> no. >> reporter: is sessions also denied a statement he thought klan members were okay until he learned they smoked marijuana. >> this assertion is ludicrous. i detest the klan. >> reporter: he went on to testify that i am loose with my tongue on occasion and i may have said something similar to that or could be interpreted to that. his seat on the court was denied

but ten years later he was elected to the senate and went on to become the judiciary committee's top republican member. he told cnn's dana bash in 2009 that the allegations of racism were heartbreaking. >> that was not fair. that was not accurate. those were false charges and distortions of anything that i did. and it really was not. i never had those kind of views and i was caricatured in a way that was not me. >> reporter: today gerald tells cnn he stands by his testimony from 30 years ago. >> the allegations that i made against him, the things that i had heard first hand from him were things that demonstrated gross racial incensensitivity t black citizens of alabama and the united states. >> reporter: hebert says sessions shouldn't be anywhere near the cabinet. >> he has never backed off of the comments e made at that time. he never has apologized for them. the fact he would be considered

to lead a government agency at the cabinet level is very alarming to me. >> reporter: hebert has not seen jeff sessions since they sat next to each other during that hearing in 1986. since then sessions has gone on to become the attorney general of alabama and for almost 20 years now the u.s. senator. drew griffin, cnn, atlanta. joining me angela rooi, also william smith. currently chief of staff to representative gar palmer. you work for senator sessions. you know the guy. did he exhibit racist behavior? what do you make of the allegations from 30 years ago? >> he never exhibited any variable racial behavior. if you look at mr. hebert's testimony, he has provided false testimony to the senate judiciary committee during that confirmation hearing. if you look at the real transcript, mr. hebert had to supplement his testimony to admit he lied during that

confirmation hearing. >> so you're saying categorically that sessions is being smeared on this? >> that's exactly right. there's no doubt in my mind that senator sessions is being smeared. if you look at the transcripts and look at testimony that hebert provided later on he had to come back and say, i'm sorry, i lied at this confirmation hearing. >> angela, how do you reconcile what william is saying about senator sessions that he knows personally? >> there are a couple things here. you hear often people who exhibit racist behavior saying things like i have black friends. and that does not negate institutional or systemic racism. i don't know if jeff sessions is racist or not, but i do know that he acknowledged perhaps saying that the naacp was communist or un-american, an organization that's worked to protect not only the rights of black people in this country but all people since 1909. i don't know if jeff sessions is race itself or not but i know a

deputy u.s. attorney who worked under him said he called him repeatedly "boy "and told him to watch how he talk todd white folks. i don't know if he's racist but he's worked fraudulently by the way to prosecute a lead organizer that worked with dr. king and two other civil rights activists for voting fraud, 1986, anderson, the same year he stood before the judiciary committee for that nomination hearing. i don't know if he's a bigot but he's worked vehemently against immigrants in this country, he supportsed bying a wall -- i'm not done, william. i don't know if he's a bigot or not but i know he's said some horrible things about the lgbtq community and has a posed them. >> politically he doesn't agree with you. >> i'm not talking about politics, anderson. i'm talking about human decency. you don't call a grown black man "boy." >> your response? >> i don't think she knows much about human decency. >> really.

>> she never met jeff sessions. i spent 20 years of my life around him. i know him well. to sit around here and say a person you've never met, a person you don't know, a person you've never talked to is a racist is inappropriate. >> so let me ask you, william -- >> let me ask you something. have you ever met jeff sessions? >> when did you hear -- yes, i have met him. >> the answer is no you have not spent ten minutes with him. >> let her respond. >> william, let me help you because even though we're both attorneys somehow you actually missed what i said repeatedly. what i don't know if jeff sessions is a racist. i don't know if he's a bigot. i gave you the fruit. i know one thing. we know a tree by the fruit it bears. you can call it what you want to. i don't know -- >> you don't like jeff sessions. >> let her respond. >> you don't like his policies and that's your big problem. but the american people liked the policies he's come up with.

that's the reason he's been elected by overwhelming amounts and the reason the american people stand with him. >> they haven't said that. >> voters have voted -- >> in alabama. >> in alabama to be their senator for many years. >> sure. >> he's put himself in the public arena. >> i hate to say this, anderson, but let's be honest. we have people who society vote in the south who don't necessarily stand with where i stand on voting rights. jeff sessions had the opportunity to work to ensure it was easier for people in this democracy to vote and he's opposed that as well. >> how did he votes on the voting rights act? he voted for. >> what has he done to move the veeting rights amendment act, will zblam. >> let me talk about what he's done. when you and naacp was opposing janice rogers brown, a fine african-american jurist to sit on the bench, jeff sessions was defending her. where are you at? >> again, william, you're making

a lot of assumptions. >> i'm asking you a question. >> that's fine. >> let her answer. >> you've attacked me on my human decency -- >> i'm asking you about jeff sessions. >> you know where i was when he was fighting for civil rights. what i will tell you is -- >> you don't know his record. you have a bunch of rhetoric. >> these are the facts. you don't like them, because you're the one black guy he hired on the committee doesn't make him a civil rights, it doesn't, i'm going to leave it da. >> you can leave it at that, because you have nothing. >> i have a lot. i gave you a list, but you don't like the list. >> appreciate your perspective. angela rye, as well. we have information on an alleged beating that was broadcast on the internet, shocking video, the story ahead.

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there's more breaking news tonight. chicago police say four people are in custody after beating a man and streaming the attack live on facebook. the details are disturbing as they are bizarre. rosa flores joins us with the

latest. i know chicago police held a press conference about this tape. what do they say? what do we know about this? >> reporter: i just got off the phone with police with a few more disturbing details. the victim was targeted because he has a mental health challenge. they describe hem as someone very tender. they were able to find the offenders. four people in custody. but let me set the scene here. according to police, officers were patrolling on the west side of chicago when they saw a man that was disoriented and traumatized. the police officers sent him to the hospital, actually, and then there was a battery call that came in. police officers responded to that, and they were able to link the evidence from this battery call to this disoriented man, and then there you have it. video on social media that was able to fill in the picture. now before we show you this video, we should warn you, that it is very disturbing.

take a look. >> [ bleep ]. >> [ bleep ]. >> you [ bleep ] a whole patch out, boy. >> why you do this? >> [ bleep ], [ bleep ]. >> donald trump! >> oh, my brother, my aunt. [ bleep ], [ bleep ]. >> you represent trump. >> hot head speaking. >> [ bleep ], we're going to put this in the trunk, put a brick on the dash. [ bleep ]. you understand? >> are that was broadcast live on social media, while they were doing that, right? had they're talking about donald trump. they're saying, i mean, it seems like, in their words some sort of a racial dimension to all this. >> reporter: you know, it really

does sound like that, anderson. we asked the police about that. is this a hate crime? is this somehow related to politics and all the tensions from the election. police are still vettiinvestiga but they do believe it is more related to this man's mental challenge. you see in the video, he's white. the offenders, we saw in the video are black. so it raises all of these questions, but at this point they are still investigating. >> and what about the victim in this? how is he doing now? >> the police say that he's very traumatized. they say that he had a lot of difficulty to even start speaking to investigators or the police, because of the condition that he was found in. police say they don't know if he spent24 or even 48 hours with this ground, and they don't know exactly what they did to him, of

course, they're still investigating that. he's still being examined. and, but, anderson, we should know more within 24 hours. that's when we're expecting for charges to be filed. and when those charges do happen, we'll know a little more as to what transpeered.flores, . and up next, the ongoing war between donald trump and u.s. intelligence agencies.