vehles have conquered highways, mountains, and racetracks. and now much of that same advanced technology is found in the audi a4. with one notable difference... ♪ the highly advanced audi a4, with available traffic jam assist. ♪ this is cnn breaking news. president donald trump takes big action tonight. this is cnn tonight, i'm don lemon. president trump firing the acting attorney general, an obama appointee, for refusing to defend the executive order on travel restrictions for immigrants and refugees. and tonight the new acting attorney general orders justice department employees to defend the president's orders. i want to get right to cnn's

justice correspondent, evan perez. >> don, an extraordinary series of events as president trump fired sally yates, the acting attorney general, because she had ordered the justice department not to defend the president's executive order on immigration and refugees. the president's order rolled ought chaotically over the weekend, band travel to the united states of people from seven countries, deemed to be security risks. yates is an obama appointee and a nearly 30-year career lawyer in the justice department. on monday evening, she told justice department lawyers, quote, i am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution's solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand up for what's right. she went on to stay that she didn't think the executive order is lawful. a few hours later, the white house issued a statement attacking yates for being weak on illegal immigration. the statement said yates has betrayed the department of

justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the united states. the new acting attorney general is dana boente, the top federal prosecutor in northern virginia. he will remain in office until the senate confirms senator jeff sessions, expected later this week. >> thank you, evan. i appreciate that. i want to bring in andre bower, michael nutter, former mayor of philadelphia, and presidential historian douglas brinkley, who joins us by phone. national security analyst juliette kai yam. carl bernstein is also on the phone and senior political analyst david gergen. so we have a lot to get to this evening. so i want -- let's, carl, you're on the phone. just moments ago, the new acting attorney general, dana boente, just issued guidance on the travel ban to the department of justice and it says, and i quote here, i hereby rescind former

acting attorney general sally q. yates on january 30, 2017, guidance and direct the men and women of the department of justice to do our sworn dudey and to defend the lawful orders of our president. what do you make of this? >> first of all, he's within his authority to fire her. i don't think there's any question about that, but it just contributes to the chaos that has been sewn by an order that ostensibly was made to protect the united states. but in fact, it's very obvious, was made to protect and advance his own political position, and at the expense of the national security of the united states. what we are seeing, in terms of the haste of this order, the recklessness of the way it was promulgated, the message it sends, and it's antithetical to the history of the united states as an immigrant nation.

it has threatened or national security, instead of enhancing it. it also put hundreds of thousands of people into the streets, opposition to the trump administration, a former president of the united states, his predecessor, president obama, encouraging people to go into the streets. so instead of getting the people of the country behind him and legitimizing his election, he's now delegitimizing his own position as the president of the united states. and i think he's doing it at great peril to himself and the future of his presidency. >> douglas brinkley, the white house counsel for nixon, john dean, he said the way the trump presidency is beginning, it's safe to say it will end in calamity. it's almost a certainty. even republicans know this. is he right? >> well, i don't know, but i do think it's ringing all of our watergate bells right now, and people like john dean are being

listened to, because this smacks of what richardson did when he resigned rather than obey the executive order to fire the watergate prosecutor. the difference is, this is going to be a real circus with the confirmation hearing of senator sessions coming up. many people are just thinking it would go smoothly, but it's going to be a spectacular effort by democrats to go after trump and punish trump for this firing in such a dramatic way. >> andre, he says even republicans know this. what's your reaction? >> i think they're wrong. again, i think that the media and the political pundits are getting it wrong. i think the people out there in the heartland of america want to feel safe. the number one job of the

president of the united states is to keep the people of this country safe. there's terror and evil throughout the world. >> i want to say that john dean is neither part of the media, nor is he a political pundit. but go on. >> everybody's got their own opinion, but the vast majority of americans realize there are tough times around the world. they come to our shores more than any time in history. and president trump is doing exactly what he said when he ran for president, and he's delivering on those promises. he wants to keep this country safe. he believes in this country. he's saying, wait a minute, give us a few minutes, this is a protective pause, it isn't permanent, but let's step back and look at this and see what we can do to fix the situation. because we don't want people coming in that may want to harm our citizens in this country. >> juliette, are we safer now than we were friday before this executive order went out? >> oh, no. and in fact, we probably enraged many people that were helping us in the fight against terrorism. can i say some narrative that's going on out here that somehow people not in middle america

don't love their children too. i have spent two decades in saved and security, but i disagree with president trump on this order, it doesn't mean we don't care about safety and security. the process by which this executive order went through was egregious. and this notion that the trump people are disruptive and get to do what they want, sometimes disruptive is a way to mask incompetency. and i think that's what you're seeing over the last 72 hours. >> do you want to speak to that, michael? because there are people who are americans who do live on the coast and live in big cities, they just don't happen to live in middle america, maybe they weren't born there, they should be heard as well. >> everyone should be heard. but similar to juliette, but at nowhere near the level of expertise that she has. juliette and i serve on the homeland security advisory council and we care about the entire country. it's interesting that most of

the danger from time to time that comes to america and in recent times more home-grown than foreign, is actually in cities across the united states of america. you know, andre, nice try on that. the fact of the matter is that john mccain and lindsey graham, before tonight's monday night massacre, disagreed with mr. trump's executive order. and it is not known at the moment, whether or not that order is actually legal or not. this is the monday night massacre and i appreciate carl bernstein, i was a teenager during the course of watergate. i possibly knew more about watergate as a teenager than many adults. that's how i learned about politics at that time. the president may have the authority to do what he did, but he has breached the moral realm in doing what he did.

this administration, i think in the words of the folks from "saving private ryan," this was fubar at its worst. they are in complete chaos and confusion. they have not vetted these executive orders properly. that takes time, which of course is in opposition to his need, seemingly, to fulfill all of his campaign promises in a week or ten days. this is just a mess. >> also, john dean also tweeted out, saying, and i don't have the exact tweet, i'm paraphrasing, and this is for you, carl bernstein, that he's never seeing that the trump response to sally yates was nasty. he's never seen any attack like that politically. basically saying he's made this political and he didn't have to go that low when he could have just fired her and not said those things. >> i think that's true. if you look at the nixon firing, which is not quite comparable. nixon fired the special

prosecutor because nixon himself was the target of the investigation and was trying to obstruct justice. this is something else again. what this is, is a new president of the united states, who believes that he has a mandate, and it's very doubtful from what we're seeing in terms of the reaction from both republicans on capitol hill and people in the streets all over america that this mandate is not necessarily what he thinks it is. in fact, we now have more people in the streets than we have had since the anti-war movement in the 1960s. and this is an extraordinary thing that has happened in the course of two weeks. so instead of the good will that is usually afforded a new president of the united states, even one who had a remarkable victory by pledging to shake things up, yes, he's shaking things up, but he's also shaking

the foundation of his own white house, and it might not stop shaking unless some people around him come to their senses and unless he comes to the senses he may or may not have. >> david gergen, interesting, because i've seen at least one trump adviser saying that members of the media should be fired. heads should roll in the media after the election. this all started with the refugee ban. it snowballed into a crisis of leadership. should there be repercussions in the white house? should heads roll there? >> well, don, one might think that with an ordinary white house, but this is not an ordinary white house. i continue to think that many people around the president, starting with bannon, miller and others, and the president himself, they thrive on this kind of chaos. they thrive on the tensions and having people and they like to have donald trump right in the middle of it, and all the attention will turn to him. what he says next on his next

tweet, and tomorrow night when he goes on to his next controversy over the supreme court. so i don't think heads are going to roll at all. i think they're sort of -- a few are probably saying, it went too far. but i think some of them are down deep. they came to wash ington to disrupt. when they went into transition briefings, people on the obama side tried to help them understand how government worked. the trump side wanted to know, how do we change it? how do we blow it up? that's just what they've been doing. >> take a break here. our conversation continues. we'll be right back. america's beverage companies have come together to

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for the strength and energy to get back to doing... ...what you love. ensure. always be you. breaking news, president trump fires the acting attorney general for refusing to enforce his travel ban. i'm back with my panel. i want to play this. this is sean spicer today talking about a 5-year-old being

displaced because of the travel ban. >> that's why we slow it down a little, to make sure if they are a 5-year-old, to make sure they're with their parents and they don't pose a threat. but to assume that because of someone's age or gender don't pose a threat, would be wrong. >> is he asking how we can assume that a 5-year-old isn't dangerous? what do you think of that? >> i think sean spicer is trying to explain an executive order that is inexplicable. there's a reason why the executive order should have gone through the inter-agency review and it's not bureaucracy and slowness. if it had done the normal processes, the department of defense would have alerted the white house. we have translators who have come through, what should we do about them? if it had gone to the state

department, they would have told the white house, listen, it's unclear whether this covered green card holders and we haven't have had to wait 72 hours -- >> but to andre's point, they don't want to do that. they want to be disrupters and change things. maybe they figured they don't have to do it that way. >> you ask me -- i mean, you tell me -- no-no, what i'm saying is sure, they want to do that. the disruptive thing is just a term they're using to explain a policy that wasn't properly thought through. and it's not just them. let's just talk about first responders. there were reports coming out this weekend and i heard them, that this disruptive behavior doesn't fall on the white house, they're protected. it's the young customs and border patrol agents who are out there, trying to figure out what an executive order means, that their secretary, secretary kelly, hasn't even reviewed. so we're putting that burden on customs and border protection officials who basically sort of

wake up one day and said, the whole world has changed. you don't run government like that, not because you're afraid of being disruptive, but because the efficient and effectuation of policy, even though i disagree with the policy is -- should be the reason why you wanted to be president. if that's not the reason why you want to be president, then that's the debate we'll have for the next four years. presumably he wants the executive order to work. i fundamentally disagree with it, but the process they went through, in and of itself, was so objectionable for the people tolled to enforce it, to children, to green card holders, to the interpreters who were helping our troops in afghanistan and iraq. so that's -- so what the people want, i would assume the people want to figure out whether green card holders are protected. [ all speak at once ] >> hang on, mayor. andre, even supporters of the president said that they wish it had been rolled out in a more

professional and a more thought-out manner. do you disagree with that? >> of course, i do. first i want to point out -- >> you disagree with it or you agree with it? >> i agree with the way he rolled it out. you know, there are always going to be critics. but again, president obama's national security team recommended travel ban on these very countries. this isn't just this administration. the prior administration, that just vacated the office -- >> that is not true. >> -- had the same recommendation. >> he's right, andre, that's not true. and i can tell you the difference if you'd like me to explain that. >> stop saying that. >> look, mayor, you're going to disagree with any -- the day donald trump won -- >> no, no. >> let me settle this argument. [ all speak at once ] >> the trump administration's explanation is that they -- gentlemen, please. it started with the countries designated by the obama administration and that more could be added.

the difference is in the scope and breadth of the people impacted. trump's actions implemented a temporary ban to figure out how to give countries increased scrutiny. for now it's almost a complete ban. the obama administration's restriction provided extra security to people who traveled to these countries that are listed because they are hotbeds of foreign -- it did not specifically ban people from entering the u.s. because they were citizens from these seven countries. they're not the same. they're different. >> no, it recommended it. >> it just said these seven places had issues. it didn't ban people from coming in the country from these seven places. it said they needed extra security. >> there's a difference. yeah. and, don -- well -- >> okay. so douglas -- go ahead, go ahead, mayor. sorry for the delay. >> no problem. so hopefully we're clear on that. undrey, unfortunately, you're

wrong about that. i know you want to get that across. i wrote a piece today it's on cnn in the opinion section. it is clear that there's something wrong going on in the white house, in the administration, and specifically with the president. there may be some mental challenges with his judgment and the things that they are doing. and you can -- under your breath, whatever. but until we get a full assessment of what the president's health is, and what his mental state is, the actions that are taking place and as juliette laid out, you want to be disruptive, you have that prerogative. but it's what you do and how you do it. there's no immediate threat to the united states of america right now. this was a mess the way it was rolled out. and whether you agree with it or not, there are ways to do things that at least the department of homeland security, the justice department and other people

would actually understand what you're trying to accomplish. in this particular regard, as a former executive, this was a mess in terms of how it was rolled out, because no one in the government actually knows how to implement it. >> mayor, and that statement is yours. we have no indication that there's anything mentally or physically wrong with the president of the united states. >> i understand that. >> that's your assessment. carl bernstein -- >> the behavior -- >> douglas brinkley, i want to you, have we ever seen anything like this, you as an historian, have you witnessed anything close to this or similar to this? >> andrew johnson after the lincoln assassination, in the first week, months, were really chaotic. we like to use the word unprecedented. and this is unprecedented behavior for this reason. donald trump is acting as if he has won a landslide election.

fdr in 1932 did win a landslide. [ inaudible ] ronald reagan in 1980 did win a giant landslide. donald trump lost by three million votes. it was a very close election. we're a deeply divided country. he's entered the white house with very low public approval ratings at about 40%. and so he has most of this country opposing him and he's unifying opposition in -- [ indiscernible ] -- delusion going on out of the trump white house, then they don't have the right people in place. and some things are unraveling all around him. >> yeah. >> he's doing it in a

blitzkrieg -- >> douglas, we're losing your connection. i'm sorry. but david, i have about 20 seconds here. he's saying that -- these are his words. there's a delusion going on at the white house. president trump thinks he has a mandate, he doesn't. he lost the popular vote. there are more people who don't support him in this country than who do support him. if he under a delusion that he has this non-existent mandate? >> i don't know. i don't think so. he campaigned on this. you know, he made his points clear. people knew what they were voting for. there are millions of people out there who supported him through this crisis he's going through. at the same time, there are millions of other americans, and i think at least an equal number, if not larger number, who are gone from despondency, they're back to that. i think some of them are terrified by what they're seeing unfold. we haven't seen a government take charge like this in our lifetimes. >> thank you, panel. i appreciate it. we'll be right back.

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breaking news, president trump fires the acting attorney general for refusing to enforce his travel ban. i want to bring in now, cnn's senior political commentator, david axelrod, i spoke with him earlier tonight. >> it only took ten days for the former president obama to feel that he had to weigh in on this new administration's new policy they're proposing, or put into

place here. here's a statement that a spokesperson released today. he said president obama is heartebbed by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country. in his final official speech as president, he spoke about the important role of citizens and how all americans have a responsibility to be the guardians of our democracy, not just during an election year, but every day. citizens exercising their constitutional right to sebl, organize and have their voices heard by elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when american values are at stake. with regard to comparisons to president obama's foreign policy decisions, the disagrees with - why do you think he weighed in today? >> i think he signalled before he left that he was not eager to weigh in on issues of policy unless he felt that they went to fundamental american values, constitutional principles, and he laid out a few examples. this was one of them. if there were some sort of test,

if he felt a religious test, if he felt that people were being discriminated against unfairly, that he would speak out. so, you know, i think it was artfully done. he didn't mention the president. he really lifted up those people who are out and protesting this executive order. but i don't think he expected to be in the mix quite as quickly as he has been drawn in. it's a reflection of the pace at which and the nature of the things what president trump is doing. >> i want to get your reaction, david, to what rudy guiliani told fox news about the president's executive order, here it is. >> when he first announced it, he said muslim ban. he called me up and said put a commission together, and said, show me the right way to do it legally. i put a commission together with judge muk azy, congressman mccall, pete king, a whole group

of expert lawyers on this. what we did was, we focused on, instead of religion, danger. >> so david, does it sound like a muslim ban without calling it a muslim ban? i don't want to put thoughts in your head, but what did you get out of that? >> i took away from this that the president wanted to honor his pledge to have a muslim ban, and he wanted to find a legal way to do it, and rudy guiliani said this is the way to do it. but here's the thing about it. he talks about danger. the fact is that the u.s. has the most stringent screening already, and it's very, very difficult to come here as a refugee, as has been said ad nauseum. no refugees from the seven countries that have been named in this order have actually been involved in terrorism -- acts of terrorism here. the people who have are mostly home-grown terrorists who are

radicalized on -- online. and this is likely to actually exacerbate that. and that's the shame of this. it doesn't make america safer and it doesn't uphold our principles. so i think the president was fulfilling a campaign pledge, as he's been doing for his first ten days. and don, i want to be clear with you. i think that he probably is scoring with some of his supporters, with some of these actions and perhaps even with this action, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. and he runs the risk of galvanizing his base, but also shrinking it to its irreducible core. >> he's done that a lot and i think that's a strategy of the administration, they don't seem to want to reach out beyond the core. steve bannon, president trump's chief strategist role on the national security council as a permanent member is coming under fire now. the white house is defending it by pointing to your role on the national security council during the obama administration. listen to this.

>> and let's be honest, david axelrod walked in and out of meetings quite frequently by his own account and several of your accounts. what this show system that this administration is putting out in the public who is going to be going in and out of those meetings, not just letting people go in willy nilly. i think it shows that this administration is trying to make sure we don't hide things and wait for them to come out after the fact. so it recognizes the role that he's going to play. but steve's not going to be in every meeting. like axelrod, he'll come in and out when needed, but we wanted to be up front about it, and make sure that was stated, so it wasn't a story when he did. >> okay, so this is what you wrote on cnn.com. you said you woke up today as an alternative fact here. so clear things up for us. >> well, i was never a member of the principles committee. i sat in on one specific series of meetings when the president was trying to determine what his policy and strategy would be

going forward in afghanistan and pakistan. because i knew, and robert gibbs, the press secretary, also sat in on these meetings because we knew we were going to have to explain what the president's decision was and the process by which he arrived at it. so we sat in as observers, not participants. we never spoke. and generally, i was not present at principals meetings, nsc meetings, deputies meetings, terrorism briefings, never attended one of those. my role was very circumscribe. mr. bannon's role is quite expansive. he's clearly one of the president's top, if not his top national security and foreign policy adviser. as witnessed by the fact that he apparently was the architect of this order that went into effect this weekend without the advice of the department of homeland security, without the advice of the secretary of defense, without the advice -- of the attorney general. that's a lot of power to repose

in one aide. i never had any power approaching that and i would never have wanted that, because it wasn't within my areas of expertise. >> can we talk about this white house decision not to specifically mention jews in their holocaust remembrance day response? sean spicer says it's nit picking, everyone is overreacting. what do you think of that? >> i think it's absurd. i mean, who could draft a holocaust remembrance statement, or resolution, and not mention jews, six million of whom died in the holocaust. that's what the holocaust was all about. i can hardly wait for their chinese new year's statement, you know. it's really beyond comprehension. really, the impression you get right now is that this is a freight train rolling down the tracks and it's not really clear who's in control and what -- whether the brakes are working.

so they're getting some early warning signs here that they better slow down and get their systems down, so they don't keep making these kinds of self- -- >> inflicted wounds? >> -- imposed errors. yeah, self-inflicted wounds. >> david, thank you. >> good to see you, don. up next, how trump supporters feel about the president's travel ban. ting key nutrients from food alone. let's do more. add one a day women's complete with key nutrients we may need. plus it supports bone health with calcium and vitamin d. one a day women's in gummies and tablets. after becoming one of the largest broadband companies in the country. after expanding our fiber network coast to coast. these are the places we call home. we are centurylink. we believe in the power of the digital world. the power to connect. and that's what drives us everyday.

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breaking news, president trump fires the acting attorney general for refusing to enforce his travel ban. how do his supporters feel about his executive order? cnn's martin savidge has that part of the story. >> reporter: i sat down and had a conversation with seven trump supporters, all of them voted for donald trump and all of them agree with his executive order when it comes to immigration, including two of them who are immigrants. as thousands across the country protest president trump's travel ban on seven muslim-majority nations, here outside atlanta, his supporters are cheering him on. >> i'm glad to see our president taking the actions that he needs to take to provide the highest

degree of security for the american citizenry that he possibly can. >> reporter: he came to america decades ago. he too agrees with trump and said something that the group expressed about the order. >> it's temporary. until we figure out a way of securely vetting the people who are coming to this country. i think everyone wants to be safe. >> reporter: they all feel in the aftermath of 9/11 and subs consequent attacks in san bernardino, paris, and nice, the world changed, and america's policies have to change as well. >> i walked that same street in nice where the truck ran over all those people. so i'm aware that we're just a few steps away from terrible things that could happen. and i'm okay with a temporary stop to re-evaluate where we are. >> instead of blaming president trump, they said, blame the people who flew planes into

buildings, turned a holiday party into a massacre and mowed families down in the street. they don't hate muslims and resent those who say they do. >> the pushback ended up being, no, i don't like you because you're muslim. i don't like you because you're making me feel unsafe. >> reporter: lenny also agrees with the president but grapples with the impact on refugees. >> that's why i struggle. because i don't know if it's the right thing do did, but i believe it's a temporary thing and making sure we're getting it right is okay. >> reporter: vinny is the only one in his family to vote for trump, something they ask him about. >> how can you agree with our president, that so many people are left on the airports? i'm saying, yeah, there's a human side of it, which we could have done differently. but intent, i think the intent is right. >> reporter: bob says this is not about being fair to those immigrants who want to come to america. but about being fair to an entire nation of immigrants

already here. >> they've come here to create a society and a nation and they want to be protected. and right now, we have a threat and we are at war and we have to recognize that and do something about it. >> reporter: those we interviewed also said if you think this is some dramatic historic change for the united states, then, well, they say you don't know history. in times of crisis and conflict, the u.s. has limited immigration. only to open up once more. martin savidge, cnn, atlanta. martin, thank you very much. up next, more on our breaking news coverage of president trump firing the acting attorney general for refusing to enforce his travel ban.

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enforce his travel ban and also appointing a new acting attorney general, all within a couple hours. here to discuss, michael weiss, moving sheikh, former national security operative. thank you both for joining us. here's my question, michael. we keep saying this administration wants chaos, they thrive on it, they want to put people off-kilter. but what happens when there's a real crisis? >> they won't know what to do. you have a political actor, former ceo of breitbart news, a guy who describes himself as the purveyor, the platform provider of the alt-right, which i would consider to be essentially neo-nazis. a guy whose idols, include in no order of priority, satan, darth vader and dick cheney. a man who told somebody who wrote for my publication, "the daily beast," that he described himself as a lennonist, who wants to smash the state.

this guy now has greater access american intelligence. that scares the hell out of me. that means that when and if there is a crisis, and there will be, look at the home-grown terror attacks we've suffered in the last six months, i don't think this administration is going to know what it's doing. i think we'll be in a severe melee of confusion and discombopalation. what will happen, donald trump will tweet something everyone will pay attention and the terror attack will be yesterday's news. >> moving as someone who has been there before on the other side of being a jihadi, you have been a jihadist, are we more under threat? what's a bigger threat? people coming in from outside of the u.s. or home-grown terror, people who are already here? >> yeah, i just want to add that. the extremist part was one part of my life and i became an operative and i have a lot more

years operationally than as a bad guy. look, the reality is that the u.s. does a lot of extreme vetting as it is. you don't have people that are literally landing on your shores in boats with no i.d. and no clothes and no anything. these are people who, they go through extensive vetting. when they're in the refugee camps, they're being watched, they're being looked at. so at a utilitarian level, it has no purpose. as others have said, including michael, tnot a single citizen has committed an attack since 1965. so it doesn't work for national security and refugee vetting, because these people are already vetted. when you have interpreters from the military, who worked with the military, risking. >> translator: -- risking their life and theyday. >> uh-huh. >> go ahead. >> the one place that this is going to make americans and american soldiers much less

safer than they were two days ago, three days ago is iraq. all of these seven countries, you have libya, syria, iraq, iran, yemen and sudan. people from those countries have gone to iraq and blown up american soldiers and iraqi civilians. that's where the war on terror has been perpetrated. and if you listen to what the iraqi government is saying and clerics are saying, america now has a target painted on it back in that battle field. >> and let me put this up. this is from my colleague, fareed zakaria. this is from a conservative think tank group. they say they want to study it. they tallied the number of americans killed on u.s. soil from 1975 to 2015 by citizens of these seven countries. again, 19 75 to 2015, seven countries that are on this list. here's the deal.

iraq, zero. iran, zero. syria, zero. yemen, zero. libya, zero. somalia, zero. sudan, zero. so the question is, why are we banning people, america, from those countries when there's been zero attacks for u.s. citizens since 1975? >> i've heard a rebuttal which is to say 15 out of the 19 hi jackers of 9/11 came from saudi arabia and the gulf states. we should ban those countries. no, you don't combat bigotry by saying let's focus on the really bad muslims. there are good people who come from that country as well. the idea of a blanket prescription of people with a nation state. it's distinct from the extremist groups within and distinct from the government which give rise to the extremist groups.

i've talked about what the iraqi government has done to facility the rise of isis in the last decade. this is absurd, and you're alienating the constituency you need, make the word of dod, military, you're alienating the constituency you need to fight the war on terror. most of these countries with the exception of iran are sunni majority countries, and suddenly sunnis are going to think the united states really does hate them. and it has a war on islam on terror. >> it happens and could happen, but -- to put this in context, i think people think it actually is bigger than it is, but the actual threat here of being killed by a refugee in the u.s., extremely low. the chance of being killed by a refugee in a terror attack is 1 in 3,640,000.

excuse me, billion. you have more of a chance of winning the megamillions jackpot, being killed by a vending machine or a lightning strike than being killed by a refugee. there is a threat here, but do you think that is overplayed and maybe in this country that people are relying on fear to come to a political end here? >> yes. fear is the top of the dark side. look, you can give people statistics and tell people more people are killed by falling furniture than a refugee attack. in canada more people are killed by trains than they are refugee attacks or these kind of attacks. the problem is that people are not fact minded. they have their preconceived notions. it's usually based on ideology and they accept or reject facts on the basis of their ideology. they're not scientific about

what they do, and what's curious here is this is very similar to the radicalization process. you have a very strict cognitive frame, and now you have a demonization of an out group and now you begin to see that anywhere where this out group appears, you're scared. and i think the biggest lesson that people are losing in this is that you are letting the terrorists win. you're talking tough and saying that we're going to get tough on terrorists and annihilate terrorism, but yet, every day you go around carrying the baggage of fear and hatred which is exactly what they want from you. you're actually giving them exactly what they've been asking for. this is why everyone is saying these tactics, these measures, these processes, it's counterproductive at the end of the day. >> why does this happen? why do -- what do you think can be done to educate the american people about the actual threat

of a refugee attack here in the u.s.? >> look, you just cited the think tank with statistical analysis going back to 1975. the problem is we can sit here on the news and give facts. the president of the united states says it's fake news. they accuse the media of being -- it makes a conspiracy theory that this is a global plot to try to undermine or destroy the west and they're all terrorists until proven otherwise. >> thank you, gentlemen. i appreciate it. >> i want to play this is a clip from c-span from march of 2015. a confirmation hearing from the acting attorney general fired tonight by president trump. yates was asked to be the next attorney general how she would respond if the president asked her to do something improper. listen to this. >> well, um, you have to watch

out because people will be asking you to do things. you just need to say no about. do you think the attorney general has a responsibility to say no to the president if he asks for something that's improper? a lot of people have defended the lynch nomination, for example, by saying, well, he appoints somebody who is going to execute his views. what's wrong with that? a point of view is the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney general or the deputy attorney general say no? >> senator, i believe the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law and the constitution. and to give their independent legal advice to the president. >> our breaking news coverage of this extraordinary night continues with john vosz in los angeles.

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united states and around the world. i'm john vause. it's 10:00 p.m. in los angeles. you're watching cnn breaking news. a new u.s. attorney general has been sworn in and immediately ordered for the executive order on immigration to be enforced. the executive order stops people from seven muslim majority countries from entering the united states for three months. the order has sparked days of protests in the united states. and around the world. joining me here now in los angeles, california talk radio house, ethan, and john