a tv show and we're seeing it play out in real time. >> bill and brian, thank you very much. thanks to our international viewers for watching us. "cnn newsroom" is next. for u.s. viewers "new day" continues next. this is cnn breaks news. welcome to your "new day." we begin with breaking news. trump's national security advise irmichael flynn resigning. the fire storm how he possibly misled the white house about his possible communications about sanctions before president trump took office. >> alysin says possibly, because the facts don't point this is all about michael flynn. the intelligence officials warned the trump white house weeks ago that flynn had discussed sanctions with the russian ambassador before he took office that he might be vulnerable to blackmail. so, who else knew and who decided to do nothing about it?

those questions go all the way up to the top, our president, a major shake-up on just day 26 of the trump presidency. we have it all covered. let's begin with joe johns is live at the white house. >> reporter: good morning, chris, just a month into this new administration and back-door communications with russia have already claimed a casualty. general michael flynn was on the job just 24 days, he says, he gave the administration incomplete information. now the question is, who on the transition team perhaps now in the government knew about it? president trump's embattled national security adviser michael flynn stepping down monday night in a fire storm of criticism of misleading vice president mike pence and others about his conversations with the russian ambassador. an official telling the white

house that the flynn discussed sanctions with russian ambassador. despite repeated denials. acting attorney general sally yates informed the trump administration prior to being fired that general flynn was vulnerable to potential blackmail. in his resignation letter, flynn ined inadvertently briefed the vice president elect and others with incomplete information. despite reporting be i the washington post that the sanctions on russia was a main topic of discussion. >> according to two officials we spoke to who have been briefed on it, a main topic of the discussion. it wasn't something that kislyak maybe threw out attend of. kelly anne conway said that

flynn had the full confidence from the president. a different message, the president was evaluating the situation. president trump refusing to answer questions. about his controversial adviser. we still don't know what the president knew and when he knew it. in a statement, democrat adam schiff accusing the administration of not being forthcoming about who was aware of flynn's conversations with the ambassador or if he was on the instructions of the president or any other officials with knowledge. we in congress need to know who authorizes actions, permitted them and continued to let him have access to our most sensitive national security information despite knowing these risks. more tough questions for the white house today. they did hold a call this morning where they refused to answer questions and gave

absolute absolutely no new information. alysin. >> thanks, joe. michael flynn's departure comes at a pivotal time for president trump as he deals with two national security issues, north korea's launch of a ballistic missile and the travel ban. who will replace michael flynn? ryan brown is live in washington with more. >> reporter: well, alysin we're learning that three names have emerged from a senior administration officials. one of those names retired lieutenant general keith kellogg. he was the chief of staff to the national security council. he's been exposed to this administration. a long-term mb of the military, 36 years. a decorated army veteran.

now, some of the more high eer profile names in contention, david petraeus. he's due to meet this week in the white house to discuss about possible positions. he resigned as director of the cia after it was found out that he had disclosed classified and sensitive information. he's currently under probation. that probation is due to expire in a few months. finally, another name we're hearing is retired vice admiral ryan howard, a former navy s.e.a.l. he served as current secretary of defense mattis' deputy commander. hopefully, they're trying to fill this position as quickly as possible. given the national security challenges faced by the administration. we'll be looking to see if one

of these names emerges for the permanent role. back to you, chris. >> appreciate the reporting. . the priority is dealing with the questions of the man who just vacated the office, general michael flynn. chris collins from new york on the trump transition team. executive committee joins us now. congressman, appreciate you being here. >> good to be with you. >> you're the first member of the gop that we have had a chance to talk to about this, no word from ryan, no word from mcconnell, when you have man of flynn stature resign and in his own letter saying he misled maybe even lied to other members of the white house, why is everybody so quiet? >> well, valentine's day and i guess they're having breakfasts with their wives. really, all i can say, i'm sorry to see general flynn go. i don't know the details of what transpired. i know general flynn and i know he's very loyal to president

trump. he has a great america. he has stepped down, something he felt was in the best interest of the country. i live in the world. we move on from here. i'm not going to be one nor hope others will dwell on the situation or pile on to use another term, time to move on and find a replacement. i know kellogg. he's a great person to replace him. let's move on, we have a lot of issues to deal with. north korea, the travel ban, continued discussions with russia. it's a busy, busy white house. general flynn did what was in best interest of the country. time to move on. >> congressman there's zero chance that we're going to move on until the answers to the questions present them at least get noticed from the white house. they wouldn't take questions this morning. the white house hasn't taken

questions from an open other organization in days. . that was no mistake. do you believe that general flynn misled or lied to the white house? kellyanne conway on another show this morning is saying exactly that. >> well, i don't know the details of what was said. i wasn't part of the private conversation between he and vice president pence, obviously, again, general flynn did what he thought that was in the best interest of the country. if his deskrings of the events were, he was less than forth right, then so be it. he's decided to move on. i'm certainly not one to prejudge or judge what he said. >> do you think this was all about michael flynn? >> i absolutely believes that it begins and end with general flynn. >> yet we know for a fact that

the doj and intel chiefs let the white house counsel know that mike flynn discussed sanctions with his russian counterpart weeks ago, the white house knew, it can't begin and end with mike flynn because we know that the white house counsel was told that means the white house knew and did nothing for weeks, how do you explain that? >> well, i can't explain what exactly happened but there's nothing wrong with the incoming the national security adviser having conversations prior to actually taking off. it's certainly not allowed to negotiate or pretend that you're negotiating on behalf of the country until you're into the office. that's a nuance that i don't know the details of. but actually, having a discussion with the russian ambassador is nothing illegal about that. >> there's nothing nuanced, everything potentially illegal because of the logan act but the

law is pretty clear and this type of material negotiation of national security interests to the united states, if anything was going to trigger the law this would. it certainly wasn't harmless, but more importantly the question is, mike flynn couldn't have been doing this all by himself because we know that the white house was informed of what he was doing. now, he says he misled the white house and it has been suggested that he lied to the vice president. do you really believe congressman that no one really knew anything about what mike flynn was doing, even though they were told weeks ago, it should be a rhetorical question, it shouldn't be possible that nobody knew what michael flynn was. >>. >> i believe that general

flynn's decision to have the conversation he had. as to who knew what, if somebody was intercepting that phone call and listening in that's something that certainly has been suggested. but the details of it i certainly -- i have no knowledge of. >> what more do we know? december 29th they intercepted a conversation. >> who they? >> department of justice, sally yates, the woman who got removed for supposedly being a grand stander. she was doing her job then and here. they knew he discussed sanctions with his russian counterpart at the same time that the russian president mysteriously decided not to act the way it does every time in exchange with the united states. the united states kicked out some spies, closed down a couple of these safe houses that russia had usually they respond.

but not this time. you have no questions about who knew. you have no curiosity even though it deals with the heart of national security? >> to be honest, i just live in a world where i always move forward. in a busy world you don't dwell in the past. >> come on, congressman. it's valentine's day and for love the truth, you cannot say that you just want to move on and if there were the obama white house, if we were talking about president hillary clinton and you found out her counsel knew weeks ago that which means that her mouthpiece knew weeks ago that this man was playing with the russians about sanctions and you want to move on? yeah, collins is being a fair broker on this. >> well, that's actually the world i live in. guess what, now what world. guess what, he resigned.

now what, i don't dwell on the past. >> you don't want to know with if the president knew if michael flynn was discussing with russians about sanctions. >> the depth zblsh wait a minute, flynn tried to say otherwise. the white house tried to cover nilt a different way. everybody said otherwise. >> i said he had a discussion with the russian ambassador. that's never been. >> about sanctions. that's the key part. >> the detail here is, sanctions, if they talked about it that's one thing. if they negotiated about it as you pointed out that would be breaching the logan law. again, those details that i have zero information on, chris, i don't know the details of that. i'm not going to second-guess who said what. today is a sad day, general

flynn has resigned. it's in his determination that it's best for the country. i'm not going to pile on. >> yeah, it's not about piling on, congressman. don't mistake my intention. these are real questions. this doesn't go away because flynn resigned. we have to know who's in the business of appeasing russia within our white house. don't you understand the vital importance of that question? >> well, it's a new day as of 22 days ago, general -- president trump is now in charge. president trump can have any discussions he wants to have relative to sanctions or anything else negotiating with russia or any other country so what was said prior to january 20th is mute. at this point. it's in president trump's hands what doiscussions he has on

sanctions. who said what prior to january 20th isn't any concern of mine since president trump can have any discussions he wants to have related to this issues. >> what about the true? what about the trust? what the white house says is true is true is the? we saw that they didn't want to take any critical questions about mike flynn. we saw that the president of the united states feigned ignorance about the michael flynn -- he said i have no idea about these reports about mike flynn. i'll have to ask someone. now, we know the white house counsel knew and for weeks the white house did nothing. now we know the vice president came out and took the back of mike flynn, now he says he was lied to. we don't know anything about who was working with flynn, how this

was coordinated. why there seems to be this desire to shelter russia from responsibility for its nefarious actions. we have the president say iing he's not sure whether russians have separatists in ukraine. >> general flib has resigned and what he said or didn't say prior to january 20th at this point in time doesn't mean anything when in fact it's president trump and the team that he's got around him on any and all of these issues moving forward. again, i said, guess what, now what. this isn't something that we need to dwell on prior to january 20th because it doesn't matter any longer. what president trump does related to russia, related to sanctions, related to north korea, et cetera, is under his view as president of the united

states. the past is the past. >> it's also our present and future. because the questions lead us to an understanding of where we go to. the guess what, kellyanne said he had full confidence. the now what, sean spicer said we're reviewing the problem. chris collins, not an easy conversation. thank you for having it on new day. >> always good to be with you, chris. congress confirming two more members of president trump's cabinet. new treasury secretary steven mnuchin. s the president also congratulated david schulkin will lead the veterans affairs. they condemned north korea's weekend ballistic missile

launch. not a big surprise. all the big players there and you had japan call on pyongyang's actions a grave violation of the country's international obligation. nikki haley went further, scathing statement, saying in part it's time to hold the regimen accountable not only with our words but our actions. what could that mean? we have a live report from pyongyang coming up on "new day." we now know the white house knew general flynn had contact with russia last month and discussed sanctions. why did president trump wait weeks to take action? that's ahead.

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breaking news, white house counselor kellyanne conway speaking out on the resignation of michael flynn. listen. >> that fact is what became unsustainable actually. misleading the vice president was the key here and i spoke with the president this morning. he asked me to just speak on his behalf and to reiterate that mike flynn had resigned.

he decided that the situation had become unsustainable for him. >> lot of questions this morning. like, why did president trump wait weeks after being told by the justice department that flynn had communicated with a russian ambassador about sanctions and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail. joining us now, we have cnn terrorism expert phil mudd and bar ra starr. david zdo you believe that it's possible that michael flynn went rogue and had conversations about sanctions without the permission or knowledge of the vice president and president? >> well, it's certainly possible that the vice president wasn't informed. anything is of course possible. i just watched chris cuomo's superb interview with representative collins. i think people are in the wrong frame of mind. the problem is an unauthorized

conversation with its counterpart. that would be a violation of the logan act. what is going on here, that russia helped elect donald trump to the presidency. president obama imposed sanctions on russia for interference in the election. the beneficiaries of that interference seem to have one -- maybe flynn and others a promise of the lift og of the sanctions. that's so upsetting. it's the content of the foreign policy that's the issue here and no one should lose sight of >> it barbara, what's been the reaction of the pentagon? >> look, mike flynn is retired general. very well known to operate independently at times. i think we're just beginning to see the surface layer of this story, we don't know the fundamental answer to what

you're asking, did mike flynn go rogue or do it on his own? did president trump know that flynn was having these conversations what the content of them were or give approval to these communications with the russians. the fbi okay has been looking into these communications. there's a lot we simply don't know here. officials are just -- i think very ascant as to what happened. once they get a better determination of it's something much more long standing within the trumped administration theyl have to deal with in terms of their relationship with russia or violations of federal laws. >> phil mudd, we're trying to put these puzzle pieces together and see where they lead. on friday night, president trump was on air force and he was asked by reporters what he made of the reports that in fact mike flynn had had had these

conversations about sanctions with russia. president trump at that time said i'm not familiar with those reports. is there any way that now we know that sally yates who was the acting attorney general had briefed the white house, at least -- well, at the end of the last month about having discovered that there had been these communications, any way the white house counsel or the director of national intelligence wouldn't have told the president. >> you're sitting in a room in a briefer comes in and we said we intercepted some communications and in those communications there's a u.s. person involved. someone at the senior level, the acting attorney general. the fbi director said i have the right to know who that u.s. person is and they come back and say it's mike flynn. you have a responsibility to

tell the white house there was a conversation between the rush a shan ambassador and one of your advisers that might have involved activity that's illegal. they have had to conversation. one of his advisers walk in. i believe they would have. >> hey, david, this isn't the first top adviser to president trump who has been dismissed over connections to russia. we all know paul manafort during the campaign. what can you seduce from the past 12 hours? >> the trump campaign, now the trump administration has brought american foreign policy into align with russia. in some cases overturns 70 years of american policy. questioning whether the united states would honor nato treaties to countries targeted by russia,

like estonia. bringing american policy i line with russia with the annexation of crimea. so, it's not just about two individuals. and michael flynn made his paid trip to russia in december of 2015. 18 months into the russia war in ukraine. >> barbara, cnn has some new reporting. just in this hour, that bob harward is the top contender for michael flynn's just-vacated job. >> admiral harward he was the deputy at the u.s. central command and of course defense secretary james mattis headed up central commander. another possibility of a retired general by all accounts someone

with a very reputable record. by all accounts, a very competent retired admiral. the question is, another retired officer what the nsc needs at this point? the nsc is organization that fund mmentally may need geopolitical management expertise, everything from north korea, to the middle east, to global security, financial markets, all of the security port foal ya that affects world stability. is the retired admiral is the person to do it? we know that david petraeus, another retired general in the running, retired general keith kellogg, the acting head of the nsc right now? the question that may emerge in

the next couple of the days, is whether president trump still needs another retired military officer or does he need somebody with a broad portfolio of national security management expertise that may bring some stability to the white house on this. >> phil, leon panetta, former director of the cia, last night was talking about just how precarious the world is at this moment. that there's lots of crises happening in lots of pockets. without having the proper procedures and people in place, you know n the national security council it's dangerous time. do you think that there are voids in procedures right now that this illustrates, or is this a well-oiled machine that still goes on regardless of one personing resigning? >> i seshd at the national security council. this isn't just about national security. the complexity of the u.s. government. if you want to deal with north

korea, department of state, treasury department, cia, the national security agency and elements of the department of defense. it's coordinating those people at the situation room at the white house on stuff that's incredibly complex. i'll anticipate that the white house will name somebody quickly. with the north korean missile launch you have to have someone at the white house coordinating those -- >> i know bob harrward, great guy, a great guy, i think he'd be terrific. >> that's the high praise. >> here's the void, we need to know the flows of russian money. that's indispensable national security information and we don't have that. >> david, you have pointed out now more than ever the power of the free press is on display. that's how we all know about

this morning. panel, thank you very much for the expertise. chris? >> flynn and manafort both resigned over their deals with russia, was did that mean? we need to keep digging into here. what was happening inside the white house with the controversy of michael flynn unravel? much more of our coverage, new questions ahead. migraines steal moments from my life. so i use excedrin. it starts to relieve migraine pain in just 30 minutes. and it works on my symptoms, too. now moments lost to migraines are moments gained with excedrin. [heartbeat] bp gives its offshore teams 24/7 support from onshore experts, so we have extra sets of eyes on our wells every day. because safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better.

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don't take entresto®. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high potassium in your blood. tomorrow, i'm gonna step out with my favorite girl. ask your heart doctor about entresto®. and help make the gift of tomorrow possible. all right, we have more on our breaking news. new information and new questions surrounding general michael flynn's resignation as national security adviser. on friday, president trump seemed unfamiliar with reports that flynn may have misled the administration about his conversations with sanctions and his russian counterpart. listen to this. >> i don't know about it. i haven't seen it.

what report is that? >> the washington post is reporting that he talked to the ambassador of russia before you were inaugurated about sanctions -- >> two questions, how could the president who consumes more media than any of his predecessors not know about the michael flynn fire storm and if it's true and he didn't know, what does it mean his own counsel didn't relay to him information about what michael flynn was doing with the russians? let's bring in david drucker, correspondent for the washington examiner. as well as phillip rucker, white house bureau chief for the washington post. phillip the power of the free press on display. breaking this story that the white house was obviously trying to keep quiet, they wouldn't take questions about it over the last couple of days. they wouldn't accept any

questions about it this morning. now, some of the truth is out. do you believe that this story begins and ends with mike flynn? >> you know, i don't know what to believe. what rereported last night was that sally yates as the acting attorney general at the department of justice approached the white house counsel and explained to him that they had information about flynn's conversations with the russian ambassador and he was us is september nl to russia blackmail because of those conversations. we don't know if he relaid that to the chief of staff reince priebus or anybody else in the white house. >> well, kellyanne conway has just appeared on a couple of morning shows. david, let me play for you what she's saying this morning. >> the president is very loyal, he's a very loyal person.

but at night's end, mike flynn decided it was best to resign. he made that decision. >> had he not resigned the president would continue with him as national security adviser even though he misled the vice president and the administration about the con tents of that call. >> that fact is what became unsustainable actually. i think misleading the vice president was key here. i spoke to the president this morning. he asked me to speak on his behalf and to reiterate that mike flynn had resigned and he decided that this situation had become unsustainable for him. the fact is, general flynn continued in the position and was in the presidential daily briefing. as recently as yesterday. and as time wore on, obviously the situation became unsustainable. in tend it was misleading the vice president that made the situation unsustainable.

>> which the white house knew about it last month. and yet, yesterday, you went on the air and said that general flynn had the complete and full confidence of the president. >> and general flynn decided that he should resign last night and the president accepted that resignation. >> david, what do you hear there? >> yeah, well, normally people don't resign on their own volition. look, one of the thing that the trump administration has to figure out and the president has to talk about personally and he hasn't addressed this matter personally yet is, their management of national security product and intelligence. one of the reasons why michael flynn was having such a difficult time in his position was because you're not just an intelligence adviser in that role you're managing the national security apparatus closest to the president of the united states. for someone promising to up the national security level of the united states and dismaecisionmg

from the last administration, that's the question trump has to address now, how does he explain the mistake of michael flynn in this position and what has been going on the past couple weeks? >> phil i think the question focuses on two word question, who knew? who knew what flynn was doing? this was part of an appeasement policy that we have been seeing, whether it was trump denying russian involvement with the hacks. relying on julian assange about why he was questioning the hacks and on and on about not knowing that russia is involved with the separatists in ukraine. who knew about this?

who's on the same page with flynn in this campaign of appeasement of a russian understandable foe? >> i think you're exactly right, chris, and that's the big issue here with this white house, we don't know what the stance with the russia is going to be. now, there's this flynn controversy here and the other point of who knew? speaks to the credibility issue of flynn. he clearly misled the vice president. he may have lied intentionally to the vice president. but, the vice president was very upset about this. he was angry. he could no longer trust the national security adviser. that's a huge breach of trust inside this white house. >> why do we know that's true? again, if the white house counsel was told about this the idea they would keep it to themselves is a little

farfetched? why are we so confident that the vice president knew nothing about this, completely hoodwinked by flynn? >> we don't -- the conversation that happened between sally yates the acting attorney general based on our reporting was at the end of january, which came after the vice president went on television to make the misstatements about mike flynn. >> so the vice president -- >> that's important. so the doj and maybe others went to the white house counsel after -- >> he went on january 15th. i wonder if we have that sound. vice president pence went on and -- do we have it? >> he went on what flynn told him. >> he said no, they did not discuss sanctions. i have told under no circumstance circumstances they didn't discuss sanctions. >> it gives the vice president

cover on when he says flynn, you know, obviously misled him. flynn seems to own the same in the letter. that's a good thing to know this situation. again if this information was out there -- let's play some of the sound. let's give people context of what was said and when. >> having spoken to him about those conversations that happened to occur around the time that the united states took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanction and by him, he's talking about michael flynn. that gives you confidence that story is acceptable on its face. >> as far as we know, correct. the conversation from sally yates happened after trump's inauguration. >> david, something you

retweeted this morning, an excerpt of an op ed, former top aide to george w. bush, he's talking about what are we to make of this? what's going on in the white house? a large shifting sands at play. he says, with the travails of the national security adviser it seems that bannon is developing a shadow nsc to serve his well developed nationalist agenda. is that what's going on behind the scenes? >> there's no doubt that steve bannon's vision for u.s. and foreign policy is more oriented towards nationalism rather than sort of the u.s. as an internationalist leader. and when you have one part of the white house weakened particularly in a white house like this and even the last one so much power is centralized in

the white house and away from the cabinet agencies it can give adviser a lot of power. we saw this during the trump campaign. competing power centers and on occasion you would have one power center on the outs and another one moving in and taking, you know, control of the power vacuum. what we still don't know is exa exactly what happens to issues of forgny and national security. on one hand he has said a lot of things that has differed from past administrations. yet, he just hosted the japanese prime minister. so,ty think it remains to be seen what the president wants. >> david, you know what do you hear that, david? do you know what that is? silence from the gop leadership. ryan, mcconnell, not a word

about -- >> they just want to get through the day and get tax reform and obama karr repealed. >> that's not how it works. they have a responsibility to the american people. >> why you'll hear as much silence they can get away with, they have a domestic agenda than trump's ungoverning style. >> thank you. so, we saw the chairman of the campaign paul manafort he'll rememb you'll remember, he resigned. now, mike flynn, russia looming large in this. the unknown about the connections between that country, the kremlin, and what ever is going inside our white house now. we have information, next. you do all this research

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but that's just the headline. the story is who knew what flynn was doing and how deep does this appeasement of russia go within our white house? let's bring in our guests, makers and takers, rona few rue haar, and a economic adviser to the trump campaign. we start with you, are you shocked with what has happened in the last 12 hours or so? >> is that a trick question. >> we just had a congressman, chris collins on, it's in the past and let's move on, and that is absurd on its face. how important do you think this is? >> i am not a national security expert, but i will say this from

the perspective of the domestic agenda, it's a big distraction from what trump wants to get going on, and so is it a big problem? for now it is, because this is going to dominate the news cycle probably for the next 48 hours and it means trump is not talking about the things he wants to be talking about. >> what do we know about the business ties between the white house or donald trump or michael flynn and russia? >> we know very little. really that's part of the problem here. even before this episode, the fact that we did not have a grasp on what the trump administration ties are with russia are a issue. >> would taxes we have revealed anything? >> some things, but russia is an opaque economy, and anybody doing business there are dealing with unsavory characters.

it would be better to have a tax release, i don't think that would put all the pieces in place. >> in terms of how we are to understand this coincidence, paul manafort, deep roots working with russians, he steps down over those questions. mike flynn, now, once again, this veiled enterprise of apparent appeasement of russia, he has to step down. how much concern should there be about our white house and its compromised entanglements with the kremlin? >> i am not an expert on those issues, but i will say this, when it comes to his domestic agenda and some of the business ties, i think some of the criticisms are unfair. look, if you want to meet a payroll and know how to hire people, you want the best in the

business and people that have done it, and there are some allegations there are too many people in the business community in the white house, what trump has created, in large part they are unfair. but i will say this. i think trump has to be more cognizant of the optics of some of the decisions he's making. the fact that three of his top advisories on the economy are from goldman sachs, that doesn't always look so good. >> ben rhodes has just tweeted he sees a connection so let me read this for our viewers. when campaign chairman there's more. i know you are not a national security expert, however, it does all ducktail in some ways together, but if you believe there's a financial upside for

people, and we know there was for manafort, he made a lot of money dealing in that region. >> going to steve's point about optics, and it doesn't look great. what trump ran on was helping main street and this is all about the 35,000 feet, you know, money and russia, and money who knows where, and this sense of wealthy people, wealthy companies, and interests flying over national concerns about people on the ground, and youngstown, ohio, that sort of group, this divide between countries and companies and the wealthy, and the 99%, that's in evidence to me today. >> you were brought in to help give good ideas for the domestic agenda and to the extent there's a base of people that felt forgotten and want to know if their jobs are coming back and that was huge motivation for trump, and nobody was voting for

him to make things better with russia, and there's such emphasis to talk about russia and defend russia to the exclueson of the agenda you were set up. they have not done tax breaks, and have not returned jobs as excessive as the foreign issues. what do you make of that? >> look, i'm an old reagan republican, and reagan was obviously tough on the old soviet union and called it a world empire, and the world is upside down when you have liberals attacking russia and a republican president defending putin, and the optics are bad, but i think your main point is the one i was trying to make, which was the reason donald trump was elected was because of economy and jobs, and no question about it, and that was issue number one and two in every poll for the last three or four years, and this has been a big distraction, and some of

these problems -- this is a big one with his national security adviser having to resign. it takes the whole focus off of the whole domestic policy economic agenda for now. >> i think trump is going to pivot very quickly back to the issue of jobs and the economy. just watch. >> very quickly, he has been meeting with a lot of business leaders, and -- >> more than we have ever seen. >> that's good, by the way. >> yes, it is. >> that's a good thing. >> it could be. >> it's certainly good for the people who voted for him, and this is what they wanted. >> not all ceos are on the same side. i think one of the most fascinating business stories is some of the tax proposals are pitting manufacturers against retailers, and a lot of retailers are anxious about import taxes, and business is not all on one side here. >> here's a point, i think one of the reasons barack obama did

not succeed in terms of his economic plans is precisely because he did not meet with business leaders. i remember he set up a business panel, and he met with them one time in his first couple weeks in office and said i don't want to hear these business groups anymore. if you want to rebuild the economy, what is wrong with getting the top executives -- >> nothing. >> just as long as everything else doesn't eclipse it to your point, all the other news coming out. >> thank you, and great to talk to both of you. thank you. >> again, the thing that you should be listening for most closely this morning is silence. republican leaders in congress, ryan, mcconnell, where are they on the flynn resignation? where are they about these all-important questions of who knew what was going on with the apparent campaign of appeasement? up next, we ask two senators about this stunning shake-up. we're lettin' you go. it's that splenda naturals gal, isn't it? coffee: look, she's sweet, she's got natural stevia,

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good morning. welcome to your "new day." we begin with breaking news. president trump's national security adviser, michael flynn, resigning. he says he misled the white house about his communications with russia before the president took office. the big question is, who knew? who knew what flynn was doing with russia? the roots could go very deep. >> and then late last month flynn may have been compromised last month andil blackma blackmail. the major shake-up