to quote defend the lawful orders of our president. plus the trump administration naming a new acting i.c.e. director. >> it's been a stunning 12 hours and the next 12 hours will also be action packed. mr. trump preparing a prime time announcement tonight for his supreme court pick. all of this as the president enters his 12th day in office. we have every angle covered, starting with news from the white house. >> it has been an extraordinary series of event overnight. once again, this administration shaken by this. there are republicans this morning wondering why the president did not hold off until he had his attorney general in place to sign this executive order in the first place, which would have avoided all of this. all of this is what democrats are calling a monday night

massacre. in an extraordinary move, president trump firing acting attorney general sally yates. her dismissal coming via hand-delivered letter, only hours after she stood in dwiens of the president's travel ban. she is not convince ds the executive order is lawful, citing the solemn obligation of the department of justice to seek justice and stand for what is right. >> we had a monday night massacre. sally yates, a person of great integrity, who follows the law, was fired. >> the white house attacking the career prosecutor, claiming yates betrayed the department of justice and is weak on borders. after she instructed the justice department not to defend the president's executive order on immigration and refugees. immediately following the swearing in of new acting attorney general dana boente.

yates's replacement reskinneding her guidance right away. >> i want to make sure i have the law and the facts. >> appointed by president obama in 2015, yates garnered bipartisan support. jeff sessions seen her asking her if she would bend to political pressure to then president obama. >> the views the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney general, or deputy attorney general say no. >> senator, i believe that the attorney general or deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law and the constitution and to give their independent legal advice to the president. >> in yet another swift move monday night, president trump naming thomas homan as the new acting director of u.s. immigration and customs enforcement, demoting dan ragsdale to deputy director. meanwhile, the president's travel ban met with growing

outrage in washington and across the country. only ten days after leaving office, former president obama weighing in. a spokesman saying the protests are exactly what we expect to see when american values are at stake. trump's white house slamming any opposition. telling dissenting state department officials to quit their posts if they disagree with the policy. >> i think they should either get with the program or they can go. all this as president trump moves up his supreme court nomination announcement by two days, scheduling a prime time address tonight. >> i think you will be very impressed with this person. >> now, the person has met personally with at least three finalists for that supreme court position. that's to replace the year long vacancy of the late justice antonin scalia. cnn has learned that the two leading candidates are neil gor such on the federal bench in colorado and thomas hardiman.

this is a lifetime appointment. they are both 50 years old. the confirmation hearing of whoever is nominated is going to be embroiled in this legal fight over immigration. several senate committee votes scheduled today also as president trump's cabinet nominees. the one everyone is focusing on is attorney general jeff sessions. we have more from capitol hill. >> reporter: senator sessions confirmation hearing was already one of the most contentious but the outcry over donald trump's executive actions and orders really adding some fuel to the democratic fire here and pushing that specifically against senator sessions, you have top democrats like senator schumer who are saying -- demanding that senator sessions come down and say publicly if he agrees or disagrees with president trump's

travel ban. we know senator sessions in a written statement, chairman leahy overnight says he has no direct role in president trump's recent executive orders. but many senate democrats will be pushing him further to say whether he agrees with it or disagrees with this. all of this likely to play out today as sessions faces a committee vote in senate judiciary. >> thank you very much. sally yates abrupt firing and the immediate replacement for the acting attorney general muddies the water between justice and politics. all this as senator sessions is expected to take over soon. how is it going to play out inside the justice department? we have evan perez live from washington. you couldn't get a more on the nose exchange to then senator

sessions talking to sally yates about whether or not she would bend to political pressure and enforce an unlawful law. >> all weekend long, sally yates wrestled with what to do with an executive order that the trump white house did not consult her on. she was several top lawyers in the department who didn't feel they could defend the order which travels most travel from several seven majority muslim countries. it was written largely in secret and they unveiled it on friday without providing very many details to frontline homeland security employees on how to deal with passengers who were already in the air. the chaotic roll-out led to emergency court hearings that showed how ill-prepared they were. yates has worked as a federal prosecutor for nearly three decades and by standing up to president trump and getting fired, yates also became a big hero to many inside the

department. but at the same time, other justice department lawyers are very uncomfortable with this showdown. they think yates should have just resigned without instructing subordinates not to defend the executive order. the new acting attorney general, dana boente has now rescinded her decision. >> we have a lot to discuss with our panel. let's bring them in. david gregory, jackie kucinch and matt lewis. thank you very much for being here. to get us started, read sally yates statement that she gave last night. the language is quite strong. she said i am responsible for insuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution's solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right. at present i'm not convinced that the defense of the

executive order is consistent with these responsibilities nor that i'm can convinced that the executive order is lawful. she was gone shortly after that. david gregory, what's happening in the past 12 hours? >> she took a principled stand. the trump administration doesn't like the independence of the justice department, but that's what it's supposed to be. you could argue if you are opposed to what she did that this is just politics by another name on her part as a holdover from the obama administration, but there are a lot of people who think there are at least parts of this executive order that are unlawful, that the courts are going to have to intervene, and that maybe congress has to intervene and there's no question that the social fabric of the country has been torn apart by this. you see people in the streets who think this is unamerican because it's clear that the trump administration didn't just want to improve upon the vetting that already exists. they had to do the most dramatic, the most bold, and the most offensive to a lot of muslims around the world which is to put this ban in place and

by taking that more extreme step, you've seen the reaction. >> let's play again -- i know it was just in the piece and it's early, everybody is waking up. jeff sessions will probably be the next attorney general. exactly this conflict between politics and justice played out in yates' confirmation hearing with jeff sessions. listen to the exchange they had. >> if the views of the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney general or the deputy attorney general say no? >> senator, i believe that 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. >> matt lewis, do you believe that jeff sessions can give that same answer right now and work for president trump? >> i do. look, and i think that president trump's executive order might be bad policy. it was certainly rolled out haphazardly and procevocatively

and i would argue the chaos is not unintentional. but i do believe that it is legal and a lot of legal experts agree. that the president has wide discretion to make these sorts of decisions. of course, president obama paused refugees coming in, migrants coming in from iraq. >> slowed it down, they would say. >> yeah. and somebody -- you could use the same argument to say well, that's, you know, that's not legal. i think that she made a mistake here, and i do not think that -- even though -- it's a very interesting clip, i think that she actually is the one who erred legally, here. >> you are not a lawyer. >> i just play one occasionally. >> i think it's an important zinks, though. jackie. this is somebody who is a career prosecutor. she's in the business of deciding whether or not something is lawful or unlawful and matt is right, there are

legal experts who say everything in here is legal and there are a hell of a lot who don't say that and there are federal judges who have moved against the actions taken in furtherance of this order to say there is no legal question is at best generous to the president at this point, isn't it? >> again, i'm not a lawyer either, but i would like to remind everyone that this particular order was drafted by one of jeff sessions' very close aides, stephen miller. so on this question, it is a matter of legal opinion clearly because you have people on both sides who can argue both sides of this issue, but, again, the law isn't necessarily my expertise, but it seems like this is something that's going to be debated. that said, i don't know that this imperiles jeff sessions. i doubt that they take that out on jeff sessions. >> david, i know you say that the justice department is

supposed to be independent. obviously, there's been lots of talk whether or not it's been politicized and in fact the white house released this statement after yates' firing that they certainly thought she was political. the acting attorney general sally yates has betrayed the department of justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the united states. she's an obama administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration. don't you expect to be attorney general to be if not in lock-step with the president to share the president's world view. >> i understand the anger within the white house. to disagree with her legal opinion is one thing. to then take the extra at the point and -- step and try to take her down because she's an obama appointee because they needed to be there because their person wasn't confirmed yet is something other. you know, you are not in a political brawl every day and yes, the justice department is

independent of the executive. it's a political appointment at the top of the justice department, but there is certainly plenty of examples of disagreements between attorneys general and the president. go back to the clinton administration and how clinton got along with janet reno. so look she's rendered a legal judgment here and there are federal judges who have attacked some parts of this and matt is also right there's wide discretion, but what you are seeing from the trump administration is a scorched earth strategy on this and what exactly was the harm? i mean, again, if they wanted to crackdown on this, they could have tightened up existing vetting procedures. you know, if you are a syrian refugee, it's not like going to disneyland coming to america. it takes months. so they could have tightened it up. they could have restricted the flow. here they wanted a ban and the president talked about wanting a muslim ban for his whole campaign and rudy giuliani said he wanted a muslim ban and he wanted to find out how to do it

legally. they sent a message. they don't care in the white house. they think that any time the media hyperconvenient at this lats and the democrats weanies complain about it. the more is the better. >> you don't have to hyperconvenient at this late. this is all calm. it smacks of a very authoritarian outlook toward government. kellyanne conway says hey, why aren't you firing people who said bad things about donald trump and predicted he would lose in the media. you have this attorney general doesn't agree with me, they are out. you have sean spicer saying hey, these career people who make this state department function, they don't like what they do, they should get out. this is very clear in terms of what they want. it is as david says a scorched earth policy. how do you feel about that as a conservative? >> well, i think it's like the roll-out obviously people are saying it was botched or it was incompetent. i think that's actually part of

the strategy. i think that donald trump said he was going to be a disruptive force and i think that stephen bannon and stephen miller, this is not an accident or a mistake. i think that they actually view politics as a continuous battle and right now they are flooding the zone. there are other executive orders that aren't being paid attention to because we're focused on this. i think this is part of their philosophy of how to govern. it's going to be constant battle and it's going to be being provocative, sometimes for the sake of being provocative. >> we have much more to talk about in terms of cabinet qirmingses today -- confirmations today. >> president obama speaking out for the first time since he left office. what he said and will president trump respond? our panel discussions, next.

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roads nowhere to be found.... ♪ and it's exactly what you're looking for. ♪ ♪ we're hearing from former president obama for the first time since leaving office. he's speaking out against the trump immigration travel ban. let's bring back our panel. let's put out what the president had to say about this. where is his statement. president obama is heartened by the level of engagement taking

place in around the country. exactly what we expect to see when american values are at stake. he goes on to defend that, matt lewis, what he did in 2011 was not a ban. it was in direct response to a threat that had been posed by an iraqi. it was traveling to those places, not simply being from those countries. the idea of same country, same policy is bogus. >> it's certainly not exactly the same and people are saying should president obama be speaking out about this now. after all, president bush faded away. and there's a sense that's an appropriate thing to do. you have to let the new president sort of have some space. i felt like this statement was pretty tempered. it was not somebody flying off the handle. this was a pretty modest and moderate statement, and i also think just in this day and age

with donald trump breaking all of the rules, to expect president obama to kind of go -- completely go dark, i think is -- >> especially if they are going to falsely interpret obama's policy to defend trump's controversial policy, someone has got to speak out. >> and jackie, there you have it. the rule book has been thrown out, so while presidents often respected that tradition of i'm no longer in the oval office. i cede to my successor. that's clearly what president obama is is not going to do. >> president obama hinted that he would speak up if he felt the need to do that. i don't know that he thought he would be doing it this soon, perhaps. but he did signal that this could be something that he would do and, listen, you know, as matt said, this was very tempered. i don't think that president

obama really wanted to do this, but his policy is the one that trump -- the trump administration is presenting as the basis for their own, and that as you said, chris, is not the case. >> may i just add i think it's a popular outgoing president who is uniquely in a position to stiffen the spines of democrats around the country. he wants to play that role and democrats have some thinking to do and some strag eyesing to do. i think there is a progressive movement. it's trying to figure itself out. it's galvanized. because of the divisions in this country because of trump have become more social than political. i think we're in a different day here. >> also, they have been given a big gift in the form of steve bannon. clearly he has the influence that many feared he would. he just went on record describing himself as a lennonist, saying he wants to

destroy the state. >> that's the thing that people need to understand when they talk about this botched roll-out. he's not playing by the typical this is how you run a campaign, this is how you do public relations. this guy is a radical. he's a revolutionary. he has studied how to be disruptive. he believes in a philosophy of constant combat. most americans, we like comity, we like peace. the way he studied leftists, i would probably say other revolutionaries by design. >> as a conservative, to know that the head of the dni, the dni and the head of the joint chiefs has been replaced with a political operative that doesn't get senate confirmation, who has said that he marvels at lenin, the author of red terror where they killed people at the opposite end.

>> i don't think he should have a vote. we should know this is a guy who is the marco rubio line about let's not pretend that steve bannon doesn't know exactly what he's doing. he knows exactly what he's doing. he has a philosophy that i think is studied from pretty radical and revolutionary people. this is not your normal american politics, republican party politics. >> and, yet, jackie, the trump white house is sort of pretending nothing to see here. yes, steve bannon will now be sitting in on these national security council meetings, but you know what, david axelrod did that as well. david axelrod has responded. i was not a member of the committee. i did not speak or participate. i sat on the sidelines as a silent observer with robert gives because we would be called upon to publicly discuss the president's decision on that critical matter and the process by which he arrived at. our access also came with

limits. >> steve bannon pushed back on this and said he would be part of the meetings. this is highly unusual. steve bannon, despite being a student of war and daily beast has a good story about that on the website. he doesn't have any real experience, he was in the navy, but any real military experience in terms of policy. he doesn't have it. he is a disrupter and he and stephen miller who is playing a big part in policy have been bomb throwers. they haven't been legislators. this is just the beginning to matt's point to how they are going to run things. >> the one good piece of news of people who are afraid by the right hand of the president being a lynnin -- leninist, there's very little threat of communism meeting donald trump's ear. are you surprised by how susceptible this president is to this extreme thought? >> no, i'm not surprised.

people questioned his qualifications for the job. he's only enforced or fortified by steve bannon who is a key adviser. so his influence is growing. he's more secretive. we know how puj i will database -- pujilistic he is. this is a president with lower approval ratings and a hardcore base. we'll see how it plays out, day at a time, policy at a time. as long as these divisions in the country become more entre h entrenched and become more social, the president is losing an opportunity early on to send a message to the public about what's most important. does he want to be free of politics and these influences?

does he want the military to have a good role or is he going to go entirely a different way? america first. isolationist. ethnic and economic nationalism. if he goes down that path, i think it's going to become increasingly divisive in the country. >> panel, thank you. there's a lot of news coming out of d.c. after a staff shake-up that we just heard about there. but first a big change for the boy scouts of america. the children previously banned will now be able to join the troop. who? when? next. what i love most

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canadian officials are calling the college student who opened fire and killed six people in a quebec mosque a lone wolf. thousands lit candles to remember the victims in quebec city last night. the suspect faces six counts of murder for what authorities say was an act of terrorism. the public safety minister says the attack would have been difficult to prevent. iran conducting its first missile test since president trump took office. a u.s. defense official says the failed medium range missile test, much like this launched in

2015, posed no threat to the u.s. and its allies in the region. the u.s. mission to the united nations, now requesting the security council hold a closed door meeting about this test. during the campaign, president trump criticize the iran nuclear deal and vowed to renegotiate it. the boy scouts of america are making a major policy change, they are opening the door for transgender boys to join the scouts. they are now going to look at the gender on their applications than their birth certificates. slick travel conditions across the northeast today. it's across new england all the way to the great lakes. let's head to chad. >> one to two inches of snow can be worse driving than four to five or six inches of snow because you don't slow down. this weather is brought to you by purina, your pet, our passion.

puppies out in the snow this morning, all across the great lakes from chicago to grand rapids, into detroit, toledo and cleveland, but a light snow at best. probably only one to two inches. i think the alleghenys could pick up 4 to 5. it is that slick morning commute before the sun rises this morning that could get you in trouble. there's your heaviest snow. alleghenys, maybe the poconos here. that's it. 4 to 6 inches of snow. it warms up today. very close to 32 or above. a little bit of afternoon sunshine, most of that snow should be gone. >> thank you very much. there is now a revolving door at the doj. the acting attorney general was fired for refusing to defend the controversial travel ban. there's a new acting attorney general who was hired to do the opposite. senator sessions is expected to take over in just days. a look as what's happening inside the doj with someone who knows all the players.

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. within hours of president trump firing acting attorney general sally yates for refusing to enforce his travel ban, really for what she said was i will not defend this ban in court. a new acting attorney general dana boente is sworn in and he says he will defend the trump immigration order. so what authority does he actually have and what does this kind of cycle of changes mean for the doj? let's bring in former u.s. attorney general michael moore for more insight, he snows both -- knows both sally yates and dana boente. you were an obama appointee as well. what do you make of the moves of the doj in the last 15 hours? >> it's an unusual time for the department. i know both of them. i have great respect for both of them. it will be a unique transition. we all expect dana's time as the acting attorney general to be very brief, but i do think as we

think about what may happen during the rest of the sessions' confirmation hearings that sort of the activities in the last few hours might impact that somewhat and that might actually have the effect of drawing out dana's tenure a little bit longer. >> do you understand why yates would have looked at this order and the legal ramifications that have happened since it went into effect and questioned whether or not to defend it? >> certainly. i've known sally for a number of years. she's a consummate professional. she's a good lawyer. she's prepared. she's cautious and i think when she looked at the order she realized it was poorly timed, it was poorly drafted, it was poorly prepared. it was not very well thought out and it was poorly implemented. when you took all of those things and you looked at the impact that it could likely have, the possibility that it was fact a religious discrimination test, that she had to make a decision about whether or not it would withstand constitutional

scrutiny. she made that decision. i was proud yesterday to call her my friend and i'm especially proud to do that today. >> well, the white house is -- a lot of the law and the politics gets confused in these situations, right? and the white house is saying she wouldn't enforce it. that's not really accurate. she said she wouldn't defend it. the factors that you laid out, a lot of them sound like political factors, how do they play into a legal reckoning for how it would be rightful for her to say i won't defend this? >> everything that happens up there has to do with politics. certainly there's this marriage of law and politics. we certainly hope the department of justice within that building, we are true servants of the law and the people. i truly believe that sally saw her job as a serve vant to the constitution and a servant to the american people. i recognize that, you know, we can talk politics and we can say was there a political motive here or not. i've heard that for a long time. i mean, these executive orders, i can remember not too many

years ago hearing about executive orders and references were made to the king. i guess when you change administrations, it's okay to have a king. it just depends on which team's jersey they are wearing at the time. in this case, though, i have every confidence and while i recognize that the president does have a great deal of discretion when it comes to border security issues, i think that when you really look at how the order rolled out and you look in fact that courts have made decisions about it, there have been some initial decisions by district courts around the country, it just was poorly implemented. you had agents at different locations within the country at different airports not knowing how to enforce the order. not knowing which provisions to be enforced, not knowing what to do and people were being sort of left in the lurch until a further decision was made. i applaud sally's gut and her strength and her courage for coming forward. i'm mindful that we do not want an attorney general who is

simply a puppet for the white house. we want an attorney general in this country i believe who has the fortitude and the courage to stand up to the president when the attorney general thinks that the president is overreaching the executive power. i think she did that. >> especially in a climate where the current party in power railed against executive orders, said never again, railed against the attorney general for being politicized, said never again, and now here we are. what are the potential impacts on the working of the doj, even under an expected attorney general sessions in this environment? >> well, you know, i do think that it will be a good thing to have a senate confirmed attorney general, whoever that may be. it looks like it will be jeff sessions. i think he has experience with the department. i think he has friends in the senate and on the senate judiciary committee who probably have his ear about things like this, and i think that's important. you know, as far as how the

department will work, i think you may see more of these orders. what we hope is that senator sessions, if he becomes attorney general, will use the same tests that he asked of sally yates during her confirmation to be deputy attorney general. that is if you are asked to do something by the president, that you believe is wrong, that you believed does not withstand constitutional scrutiny are you willing to push back and say no. what we hope is senator sessions would do the same thing should he be become attorney general. >> we know how he asked the question. now how will he answer it. thank for joining us. how are these first 12 days of the trump white house going over with conservatives? one high-level republican speaking out in very stark terms. he's next. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine.

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countdown to super bowl 51 is on. the week of festivities started last night. andy scholes is a good supporter and he had to go to that event in houston. he has more on this morning's

bleacher report. >> this year's media day was held at minute maid park. you can always count on this event for players to be asked interesting questions. along them was peyton and eli manning older brother was wearing a $100 suit. as was tom brady mask. brady actually got emotional when he was asked by a seven-year-old reporter who his hero is. >> who is my hero? that's a great question. well, i think my dad is my hero because he's someone that i look up to every day, and -- my dad.

>> pretty cool moment there from tom brady. the atlanta falcons actually had a memo of panic during opening night. kyle shanahan misplaced his backpack. it has the falcons offensive game plan in it. it was missing for 30 minutes before a reporter brought it back. chris, can you imagine what we would be talking about this morning if that backpack with the falcons offensive game plans was still moving? i think it would be backpack-gate. >> it certainly would have a gate on it. no question about it. enjoy yourself down there. your enthusiasm is infectious. one high-level republican says president trump created a dark and divisive america from day one. in fact, that was the plan. is the trump presidency really as stark as he says. we're talking to him live. you decide next.

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president trump firing the acting attorney general who refused to enforce his travel ban and swearing in a new one. the latest action fueling concerns of some republicans about the trump presidency. one of them is elliott cohen. he served as counsellor to former secretary of state condoleezza rice. he just written this in the atlantic. many experts saw the dangers last spring and summer, which is why we signed letters denouncing not trump's policies, but his temperament, not his program, but his character, and we were right, and friends who urge us to tone it down, to make our peace with him, to stop saying as loudly as we could this is abnormal, were wrong.

it will get worse. elliott cohen is the director of the strategic studies program at the johns hopkins program school of international studies. thank you for being here. >> good to be with you. >> why do you feel so strongly about this? >> i feel so strongly about this because i love my country. the style of leadership that we're seeing is really something completely unlike anything that i've seen in my lifetime. a president who is divisive, who is angry, whose subordinates want to see reporters fired. the president tweets about his enemies, lying, this is way, way beyond the norm. i was not a great admirer of president obama nor some other presidents, but this is profoundly different and it is very disturbing. it should be disturbing to awful us as citizens. >> when you say it will get worse, what makes you want to predict that? >> well, i'm a historian, and

i've -- i have served in government and one thing that i know both from my reading and from what i observe is that the longer you are in power, the more intoxicated with it you become. the less easy it is for you to receive inputs from the outside that suggest maybe i'm wrong, and i think, you know, when you come in the way this administration came in, and particularly the way this president came in, i don't see any prospect that this will get better. they may get tactically a little bit better. you may see a little bit less of the gross incompetence with which they handled this decision to shutdown immigration from seven countries, but i think that, you know, the fundamental -- because the fundamental issues are as i said issues of character and issues of temperament, there's no reason to think they will get better. >> what's the most alarming sign to you so far? >> i was very disturbed starting with the inaugural address. go back and look at our greatest president, abraham lincoln.

he's reaching out his hands to the south at the time -- really at the beginning of the civil war, when the issues are monumental. when it's clear the country is going to be attorney apart -- torn apart over the issue of slavery and he stretched out his hand to the other side. from the very beginning, this has been an angry presidency. he's not interested in dealing with his opponents. he denounses them, he wants to punish them. he's going to appeal to the minority of americans, i repeat a minority of americans who voted for him. that's just very disturbing. that is not what presidents do. it's not president obama did, not what president bush did, not what president clinton did. it's out of the norm. >> yet, his supporters say that this is exactly who he was on the campaign trail. this is exactly what they like about him. they like that somebody is, you know, blowing up the system as we know it, that somebody is taking charge in a way that they didn't think other people did. this is not false advertising and people voted for him.

>> he definitely is who he is on the campaign, and that's one of reasons why as long as ago as last year, i thought he would be a disaster for the country. again, remember those people first, it is a minority of americans by at least 3 million votes who voted for him, but i think, you know, even in that respect, i disagree with you. when you look at a lot of polling, a lot of trump supporters has serious reservations about the way he talks and the things he says and his behaviors. they didn't like hillary clinton. i understand that. they have concerns about the way the country is going. i get that. the idea of blowing up the system, we're talking about the constitution, the rule of law, we're talking about practices which have kept this country free and prosperous for centuries. blowing that up, that's a convoluting thought. >> does condoleeza rice agree with you? >> i haven't talked to her about

it. i speak for myself. >> in the end, however, he will fail. he will fail because however shrewd his tactics are, his strategy is terrible. "the new york times," the cia, mexican americans and all the others he has attacked are not going away. with every act, he makes new enemies for himself and strengthens their commitment. how can you be so optimistic about that given how you feel we are -- where we are now? >> you know, i am a glass half empty kind of guy, i freely admit that. i tend to see the dark in the short run, but i have a deep and abiding faith in the country that my grandparents came to as immigrants. i know our history, and i think i know the temper of the american people and i think they will reject what is a really dark picture of the world, a dark picture of this country, and dark picture of the way to do business. so it's my faith in this country. >> mr.co help, i know that you have advice for some of your

fellow conservatives and friends who are considering working in the administration. what are you telling them? >> well, i tell my students in particular, many of whom want to go into public services, civil servants as diplomats, military officers and so forth. they should do that. i think there's a big difference between the career professional people who help run the country and keep it on track. i think it's very different being a political appointee. i've been a political appointee. there are some parts of the government i think people should be willing to serve in. i have enormous regard for secretary mattis and the defense department. i've known him for a long time. i think that's okay. i would stay away from the white house. it's toxic, and you know one thing that washington people can frequently fool themselves about is to think, well, i will influence them. when the truth is they will influence you. the tone in an administration is set from the top. the problem is with the guy at the top, and he is going to set the tone. >> mr. elliott, cohen, thank you for sharing your candor with us and your perspective on all of this. >> thank you for having me with

you. thank you to our international viewers for watching cnn "newsroom." that will begin for you in just a few seconds. we're "new day" and that continues right now. >> they should either get with the program or they can go. >> sally yates abrupt firing muddies the water between justice and politics. >> i actually had a very good day in terms of homeland security. >> it's not a muslim ban. this is about public safety. >> it will make us less safe. not more safe. >> why would you implement this travel ban without having your attorney general in place? >> democrats are acting deliberately slow. they are not behaving well at all. >> steve bannon is driving decision on trump's agenda. >> in those meetings, we were purely observers. steve bannon is going to be a principal at the table. >> this is "new day" with chris cuomo and alisny