pentagon. that's it for me, thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. erin burnett out front starts right now. breaking news the fbi director quote incredulous accusing obama of wiretapping his phones and tonight the white house won't say whether they have confidence in the fbi director james comey. republicans unveiling their bill to parts of obamacare, what does it leave in place and the meeting filled with exkplatives. we have new details behind trump's rage. let's go out front. good evening i'm erin burnett we begin with the breaking news. a source telling cnn that's fbi's james comey's reaction. we're also learning that comey had fbi officials reach out to staff at the justice department over the weekend.

part of that discussion, a request that the justice department publicly knock down trump's allegations. tonight white house spokesman sean spicer to cnn moments ago dodging the question when asked twice if comey has his full faith and confidence to remain as director of the fbi. >> reporter: what's the president's view of james comey right now? does he have the president's full faith and confidence to stay on as the fbi director? >> we've only heard unsubstant alted sources make those claims. director comey's not commented on anything he has allegedly said so i'm not going to comment on what people say he might have said. >> reporter: that was sara marie you heard asking that question. smeez out front of the white house. and this is the reality, they're at very serious odds tonight. >> reporter: that's right. there does seem snob distance between the president and the fbi director about his allegation that came seemingly out of the blue over the

weekend, a serious allegation the notion that a former president wiretapped then presidential candidate donald trump. but if you think trump is baking down from that allegation, no, think again. >> president trump leveling a stunning attack at his president sayser, former president obama stied on him at trump tower. this weekend trump tweeted how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. had this is nixon water gate, bad or sick guy. his allegations appeared to have been inspired by a breitbart argument that was make its way around the white house. he hasn't been able to back up his claims. sean spicer offered no evidence today but insisted the president has no regrets. >> sounds like you're saying the president does not regret making that allegation on twitter. >> absolutely not, no way.

he's made it very clear he wants the committees to look into the 2016 election that may or may not have been proper with respect toss wiretaps or surveillance. we hope that they do that. >> meanwhile, sources tell cnn that the fbi has asked the justice department to refute trump's claim that obama ordered a wiretap of trump's phones last year. the fbi's request came because such a wiretap would be illegal. the president can't just order eavesdropping on a u.s. citizen. a court would have to approve the wiretap request, and that would mean a judge would have had to have found sufficient evidence to do so. today, spicer declined to say whether james comey still has the president's full confidence. >> but what about the president with the fbi director? >> i haven't asked him that yet. he's focused today first and foremost on this effort keep the country safe. >> over the weekend the former director of national intelligence also said he was aware notify such wiretapping during his tenure.

>> for the part of the national security apparatus that he oversaw as dni, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect or the candidate or his campaign. >> a spokesman for the former president insisted he's never ordered surveillancech any u.s. citizen saying a cardinal rule of the obama administration was that no white house official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the department of justice. even members of the republican party said they weren't sure whoot president was referring to. >> if it's true we're going to find out very quickly and if not he'll have to explain what he meant by it. >> his tweet came ahead of a very busy week for him. he has the new travel ban they unveiled today as well as the healthcare plan to repeal and replace obamacare.

sean spicer dismissed that notion and said, look, we can all walk and chew gum at the same time. >> thank you very much and whiewhite house would not say whether he still has confidence in the fbi director, we're getting new information now as to what comey thinks about the wiretapping. pam, what are you learning about what the fbi director says. >> reporter: well, we're learning that the fbi director had a level of disbelief, if you will, after the president tweeted that the past president, president obama, ordered a wiretap of his phones during the campaign. of course, as sara mentioned, a president can't order a wiretap of a phone and the fbi acts independently of the president when it comes to going to the fisa carts to ask f fisa courts to ask for this. director comey of the fbi was concerned that this allegation could be bad for the fbi's reputation given the magnitude

of the allegation and the fact that he believed -- he knows it was wrong, according to a person familiar with the matter. and so that was really behind what we saw, what we reported on over the weekend. staffers in the fbi reaching out to career personnel at the department of justice asking for doj to come out and publicly knock out this allegation and say it's not true. as we know that has not happened and we're told by a person familiar that there say level of frustration with the fbi director that that hasn't happened. but, of course, this is really a unique and interesting situation where you have the director of the fbi seemingly at odds with the president. >> all right. thank you very much. it certainly is. pamela brown, thank you. chris stewart who sits on the intelligence committee, i appreciate your time this evening the you just heard the fbi's incredulous to president trump's accusations.

the press secretary refused trice to say that the president has confidence in comey. do you have confidence in james comey tonight? >> we do. i think he's one of the finest men in government, he's shown integ gietty in some very difficult political situations and we have much to learn. the reality is there's no reason for us not to have trust and confidence in director comey at this time and in the investigations going forward we'll be working with director comey on that. he's been very forthright with us in the past and i would expect he would continue to act that way. >> you have confidence in him, but the reality of it is of course cons gressman the hez has made a huge allegation it was out of the blue, everybody was dumbfounded, you, us, everybody. should he be making a claim like this publicly and then not putting any proof out? >> it say serious claim and it is much better if we have some evidence to support it at the same time. but the problem it it's not the only time we've seen that. for the last few weeks we've seen this narrative that

previous trump administration or that their campaign officials were in some way colluding with the russia government again kout without any evidence that officials have had to say we don't have evidence to support that. i don't think either one of these is heflpful. we started this investigation, by the way, not in the last month or so, we start today in september. and i think it's better if we do that and probably don't have as much political grandstanding and a little less -- a little less focus on the cameras a little more focus on finding out the trulk a truth and finding out for the american people. >> constant communications we've had evidence of but colluding no, nor have we reported that. on the issue of wiretapping, the president could clear this up so

quickly. if there's proof he knows about it. if a request to wiretap him came he has the ability to declassify that request codo that right now and that would mean you, me, the american public all see the requests. if the request exists why isn't he declassifying it and letting us all see the classified information? >> i think the quicker this type of information comes out the better it is. if the president has information and he could declassify that without endangering national skurtd, i would encourage him to do that. we're left doing our work and doing the very best we can to answer these questions for the american people. >> just because he comes out and alleges something is true on twitter, is it worth you running it down, spending time and resources to trun down because he says it's true with no evidence thus far? >> i was asked that in an earlier interview today and i had to say, look, this is the president of the united states making a very serious accusation. i don't know how we could ignore

it. and that would be true of regardless of who the accusation was or who the president was. if any president says this type of behavior took place we have a responsibility to tell the american people either it did or it didn't. i don't know how could say that seems unlikely therefore -- >> he's the president so it carries merit just on that basis of his office. >> just for example we're pursuing allegations of improper conduct between individuals and perhaps russian intelligence and we don't have evidence of that either. but some of the accusations have been made and so we need to answer that question. >> but u.s. intelligence deemed it important enough to brief the president on a 32-page daus see a with james comey at the fbi. we have learned that some of the meetings did take place, there are some faktsds that go with that including u.s. tels deemed it important enough to brief the president. this isn't just a tweet from the

president. >> as in background now, this is not me speaking as member of the intelligence committee this is background saying they did go to fisa courts in june and they were declined and they went back in october. >> but he could declassify this so we could all see what the allegations were. >> well that's true but i'm giving you an indication that there was some indication that, you know, there was some reason to believe that. so i'm going to let the president answer that. again, i haven't cons eld with him on this, i don't know what his thinking is. i would encourage all of us ar not just the president but all of our organizations and entities declassify the information as appropriately as we can as quickly as we can. the american people want to know if it's true or not. i think we owe them that type of an answer. >> part of the reason i'm asking this issue about him declassifying is that the president of the united states can't just order eavesdropping on a u.s. citizen. you referenced a fisa court, a specialized judge has to deem

the evidence -- has go in and say here's the wiretap and they have to approve that. so there's two things here, either they found something that required a wiretap, or trump is falsely abusing president obama. both of those things are bad for president trump, are they not? >> i don't know that there's, you know, if you're interested in creating a scenario that's bad for any one individual here i think we do do that for a lot of different folks and a lot of hypothetical theories. i think the more important question is just getting to the truth, just answering the question for the american people. and, you know, intel committee we work in a bipartisan way, we don't work with the cameras blazing in front of our faces. we had a representation of working across the aisle and being serious about our work. i hope and expect that we continue to do that because these questions that you're asking me tonight deserve to be answered and they deserve to be answered in a serious and thoughtful way that isn't pa lit

sized and done for a political advantage. >> i do want to ask you about the other breaking news that the hour. we're getting you're first look at the gop leadership plan to replace obamacare. do you support it? >> i haven't seen it yet. of course you know there's been all sorts of iterations of this. >> yes. >> i hope that i can i suppose that i will unless there's something dramatically different in that this is something that we promised the american people that we would support and i look forward to look on it later tonight. >> i appreciate your time. we have attorney general jeff sessions in a letter to congress again insisting he did not lie during his confirmation hearings, it's a triple down. what's the reaction on capitol hill? one of the senators top democrats out flont evening. why is he so angry tonight? and why barbara striez and is blaming president trump for ruining her diet.

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>> i think two components that you hit right off the bat that are important. the repeal of the individual and the employer man datsz. the willingness to allow individuals to stay on their parents' plans through the age of 26 and the ability to maintain coverage if you have preexisting coverage so long as that coveraging is continuous. but twloz kind of thorny issues that this bill gets into. one is how to replace the obamacare subsidies. these would be repealed after a three-year transition period and replaced by refundable tax credits. those credits would be based on age going up as you get older. those would also be capped based on your income. after you hit a $7,500 tresh hold the amount of money you get through the tax credit starts to go down. the other issue is medicaid. so many of those states took the medicaid expansion offered by obamacare, what would happen to that. how it would work from here on out until january 1st, 2020 they would are allowed to continue

expanding their medicaid rolls. at that moment the medicaid kmangs would freeze and most of these individuals would be grand fathered in and based on the republican plan cycle out over time. those states that didn't take the medicaid expantension they would be given money to make up for that. this is really just the first step. >> all right. thank you very much but please stay with me because you know a lot about this and where it's going. marc, let's start with the basics here. they repealed obamacare a lot of times, 40 something times, whatever, you know the number i don't but a lot of times. now it matters because they've got the presidency and they can actually get this done. >> right. >> but that's if they can get all the votes among even their own party and success is not assured. >> it's not assured, but if there was ever a time for them to repeal and try to replace it, this would be the time right now because to your point, they own the white house, they have a majority in the senate and of

course they were so successful many times over having the house ma swrort to try to get something done. but the devil's in the details. we don't quite now all the details about how this would be funded. we also know bottom line this is going to start on wednesday. like they're talking about harking up bills starting on end. >> really fast. >> correct. >> so david, here's the issue. when you look at the details, it looks a lot like obamacare. you just heard phil if you're up at to 26 you get to stay on your parents' plan, preexisting been conditions, medicaid is hanging around. a senator tweet the just when this plan was unveiled still have not seen an official version of the house obamacare replacement bill but for me it reports this sure looks like obamacare like. it's significant because senator paul has a lot of people who will follow his lead. if he's already calling this obamacare light, can it get through? >> well, couple things, erin,

right off the bat. they campaigned on this, they promised the american people they would come up with a bill to repeal and replace, they've done that. a lot of their supporters are going to appreciate that fact. at the same time, they have come up with a bill that's going to be a hard swallow among republicans on the hill. not only do we have conservatives warning this is too expensive and it sounds like obamacare light has senator paul is arguing, there are four senators who are more moderate who have written they will not support this if medicaid is going to be scaled back for 10 million people or so who have gotten on to obamacare in these last years. so it's a hard slog ahead and i think critically, you know this so well, the congressional budget office has not had a chance to look at this yet. they'll have to score it. they'll have to tell us how much it's going to cost and a lot of conservatives ever going to be watching those numbers and they're going to say how much

coverage it will provide. nobody knows. >> and there are so many questions, phil, but when you first glance the these headlines, what you see is a lot of the things people liked in obamacare are staying, right? kids on their parents' plans, preexisting conditions, medicaid expansion. but yet they're taking away the manned date which is what paid for that. so it sounds like you're keeping everything people like and you're not paying for them. >> they want all the things that people liked about obamacare to be in the headlines but david hits on a key point. how many people are covered, how much does it cost. and i can tell you from sources that were working on this over last couple weeks, the congressional budget office which is is going to give us answers to that though this haven't finalized those answers yet, have delivered a straight series of bad news to republicans as they worked through this process. millions who would be falling off of insurance rolls based on this plan. the cost in general which would frustrate a lot of conservatives moving upwards. we've seen a lot of tweaks in the last 72 hours in how this

plan actually ended up. but there's no escaping the fact the way they view this it's through access to care, not covering everybody, despite what the president said a couple months ago. and when that in mind, democrats have an issue to attack on it's. something we're going to hear about constantly and republicans have to figure out a way to sell their idea that access to care is what this bill provides. >> of course we always had access to care it was called the emergency room and it's the most expensive care could you have. >> no doubt about that. not other we talking about losing the mandate but dismantling the manned dates on. >> all the pays for are gone. >> all the pay fors are gone. if and to phil's point they're talking about creating an open market which will provide better care and lower costs. bottom line is heading into the summer will you get enough republicans to back it.

this is mayor best opportunity to did so but, again, devil's in the details. >> thank you all very much. and next more breaking news, the attorney jeff sessions he's tripling down tonight. we have the letter and we have the tapes. more breaking developments kim jong-un supervising ballistic missile launches today. four of them. how big of a threat is north korea right now?

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breaking news the attorney general jeff sessions tripling down tonight amending his controversial testimony where he failed to mention that he met with the russian ambassador twice last year, the same ambassador u.s. intelligence officials one of moscow's top spies and spy recruiters. the attorney general looking at this letter, he is not giving an inch. >> that's right. he says he did not say anything incorrectly because he believes those questions were about the political campaign and he says,

quote, i'll quote he wrote here in this letter saying that i do not recall any discussions with the russian ambassador or any other representative of the russian government regarding the political campaign on these occasions or any other occasion. now, what he did in those letters that he did acknowledge that he did speak twice with the russian ambassador, which he did not disclose during the hearing, once durgs the republican convention in july and once in september of 2016, but he's saying i did not recall those discussions about the campaign and campaign activities which is why he said that. he did not mislead the committee in any way but he believes he needs to amend the record because of these questions that have been raised about these meets. >> so is this satisfying his critics who of course have been very, very vocal. >> absolutely not, not the democrats. they want him to come before the committee and answer some key questions including senator chris coops. this is what he said. >> i think it would be more forthcoming if the attorney general which return to the

judiciary committee and answer our questions in full. >> did he lie under oath, do you think. >> i don't know that and i look forward to reviewing his written response. he didn't answer the question presented in a straightforward and trujful way. >> they said he will not bring sessions back before the committee until their regular oversight hearing of the justice department, and we don't know when that's scheduled yet but expect tomorrow when sessions is number two at the justice department, he will be heading to the judiciary committee for his own confirmation hearing of how he would run this once sessions is not there pr tomorrow. >> thank you so much. senator, i appreciate your time. you know of course the attorney general has committed this letter, he is tripling down, he says he did nothing wrong when he testified that he had no contact with russians during the

campaign. what's your response to that? >> well, he still hasn't answered the question. you know, he was long overdue in recusing himself. there's still questions out there about what the conversations were with the russian ambassador and he needs to answer those questions. we haven't seen the written responses to the questions that were submitted to him in writing before his nom -- before his approval during his nomination hearings, so we also need to take a look at that. but fundamentally it doesn't answer the same basic question, which is what did he know about the russians and any contacts between them and the trump campaign. >> so i want to play, because this comes down to the full exchange, he references it here in his letter, the full exchapg between him and senator franken during the confirmation hearing. i want to play it.

here it is. >> cnn just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week that included information that, quote, russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about mr. trump. these documents also allegedly stated, quote, there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the russian government. again, i'm telling you this as it's coming out, so, you know. but, if it's true, it's obviously extremely serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you

do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and i did not have communications with the russians. and i'm unable to comment on it. >> so, senator, sessions says in this letter my answer was correct, i did not mention to communications i had with the russian ambassador over the years because the question did not ask about them. do you think his answer was truthful. >> what he said was he didn't have communications with the russians when clearly he admitted had a meeting with ambassador in december. but the fundamental question, anne, erin, is not about jeff sessions it's about what ties does the trump campaign and does donald trump have with the russians. why has he been so unwilling to

criticize vladimir putin, why has he been so unwilling to take action against russia when they have clearly hacked our election and with the goal of trying to influence the outcome when they are hacking into the french and german elections and disrupting our alliance with europe trying to undermine western democracies. >> those are the big questions but when you say specifically about him that he had the meetings, which of course we now know he did but he did not say so when asked, are you then now when you take all of this together saying he lied and he should resign? i know you have not yet said that, but if he did lie, that would be the answer that would make sense coming from you. do you think that he should resign? >> well, that's why i think he should come back before the committee and answer those questions. and why we need independent investigation of what's gone on with russia, what they have done to hack into our election system to try and undermine our

democracy and why donald trump, as president, isn't doing more to address that. >> also today, senator, the president signed a new travel ban which of course you're aware of. this includes changes from the original, other countries are on there but not iraq. people who have visas can come in but not green cards and if you're in one of the six countries you can apply for a waiver. does this satisfy your concerns? >> no, it doesn't. the fact is, it still is counterintuitive to american values in the say country of immigrants. we have built this country with immigrants, whether it's irish or franco-american in new hampshire with greek italians or whoever. they bring to this country a work ethic and a culture and we should recognize that and honor that. i met with an iraqi immigrant earlier today in new hampshire

who start the his own business who went back to fight on the american side in the war in iraq, and for us to deny access is not only anti threat cal to the values of this country, but it also is not good national security policy because we need the cooperation of our moderate muslim allies and to deny them access to this country sends the wrong message. >> thank you very much. i appreciate your time this evening. >> thank you. >> and next, north korea launching four miss ilz into the sea of japan. are they on the brink of an underground nuclear test. plus, trump said after his big speech was drowned out. what is going on behind closed doors with all the yelling at the white house? truck. it's been touring the country telling folks about our heart healthy idaho potatoes, america's favorite potatoes, and donating to local charities along the way.

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breaking news, korean state news reporting kim jong-un supervised the lawn 67 of four ballistic missiles today. they just spoke on the phone been it and the trump administration is saying it's racheting up its defense.

they're saying u.s. intelligence is watching for sounds of an underground nuclear test in north koreaya. james wools decide, is with us. great to have you with me. i appreciate it. four ballistic missile tests in one day, the korean ruler on-site to take credit. what are their real capabilities against the u.s. right now? >> the koreans hold a good chunk of south korea at risk. their ar till rear can range into the middle of seoul. and they have substantial forces in south korea, the danger first and foremost is there. they cannot reach the united states yet with a ballistic missile that has a target on the surface of the earth. they're just a bit short of that. but they could detonate a nuclear detonation in an

orbiting satellite because they have orbited several packages of 30, 40, 50 pounds, that's easily done. if they did that, they could conceivably not completely haywire the electric grid in the united states and that would be a real disaster. >> so let me ask you about that, because you actually say you're biggest fear is not a massive explosion from a nuclear attack like we have seen, the pictures of hero sheema or something like that, but it's actually what you're referring to an electromagnetic pulse attack. this would be apok coly pick, right. >> it's hard to get away from that word. the reason is that the electric grid, if it's hit, even, you know, clocks and automobiles and everything that has any kind of

a computer in it, a computer chip could be vulnerable to being taken out by line of sight from detonation above the earth. and there's a dispute about how much of the transformers, how many of them would be taken down by a nuclear detonation of a satellite in orbit. but i think quite a few. some authorities think fewer. >> and you say they have the ability to do this now or soon or -- because you say this is something that could. the scenario was pretty horrific. eventually over time because of the loss of power it would kill 90% of the u.s. pop litigation. >> it's easier to did in space, it's much easier than detonate a weapon on a target inside another country. the first thing the russians and we did in '57 and '58 is orbit satellite. so a satellite in orbit that has a nuclear weapon in it and the weapon is detonated, sfift, 60,

70, 80, 150 miles in space could knock out a major share of our electric grid and that would be terrible because all of our -- our infrastructure depends on the grid. and if the grid goes, food, water, all sorts of other things go with it. >> we had a poll done earlier this this month that showed 48% of americans think north korea is a very serious threat, 70% say isis is. are americans wrong in that here to put north -- is isis so far ahead of north korea? >> i think isis is coming up on the inside track as soon as they get some kind of a nuclear weapon i guess they might pass north korea in that rating. but both of them are extremely troubling and i think north korea is still first and foremost because it does have nuclear weapons and has orbited satellites. >> thank you very much. james wools decide, i appreciate

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new tonight, the knives are out for president trump's chief of staff, reince priebus. this is the word from sources close to the white house. one telling us that priebus used this morning's staff meeting to try to regain control after a series of negative stories the and those stories are creating a livid president trump. tom foreman is out front. >> reporter: the blistering series of tweets raised extremely serious accusations about the obama administration wiretapping phones at trump tower with zero evidence to back the claims. nonetheless, president trump's team stormed the talk circuit echoing his outrage. >> i think the american people have a right to know if this happened. >> and god bless the united states. >> reporter: what spurred the roaring tweet storm?

after the president's widely praised speech to congress, sources say he was furious to see questions about his team's ties to russia again stealing headlines particularly galling was attorney general jeff sessions' decision to step back from an investigation into the matter. >> i have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. >> reporter: one source told cnn nobody has seen the president that upset, while others said in a meeting laced with expletives, trump accused his staff of fumbling the sessions situation, creating a mini disaster. tv cameras captured the an animated meeting in the oval office involving trump's senior staff including chief strategist steve bannon, press secretary sean spicer, ivanka trump and her husband jared kushner and chief of staff reince priebus. >> there was nothing wrong with talking to the foreign -- >> about sanctions. >> the current sanctions that were being put in place by the obama administration. i just answered the question.

>> reporter: although priebus has been visible in defending the white house against the russia questions and was originally slated to travel to florida with the president for the weekend, that changed. priebus stayed in d.c. some sources say because of the chaos. the white house says he had a family commitment. but this is clear -- the president took off. the tweets started flying. and so did the spin. >> he got elected about 118, 119 days ago and we still hear the democrats and others screaming russia every day. it's attenuated. they haven't shown any connection. >> reporter: the lack of evidence from the president for his claims is still a problem, however, because while he may be privy to some information we don't know that justifies these accusations, until that is known, it can look an awful look like this is all about the fury and not about the facts. >> thank you very much, tom foreman. a lot of sound and fury, mark preston. sniffing what? >> that donald trump is one

angry individual and really when we talk about the white house and we talk about the inner circle and all the disruption and chaos and donald trump being angry about it, donald trump should look inward because the chaos is being created by him and they're just trying to go out there and clean it up. at some point you have to wonder when are they going to say to themselves, enough, i'm out. >> you're right, but also sources but just a gut here, how many of them had any idea he was going to drop that tweet storm over the weekend, right? >> who would ever think that a president of the united states would accuse his predecessor of eevsdropping and he did it on a saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. i mean, it's just very strange timing that he would do it at that time and quite frankly use twitter to make that accusation. >> we know that he does like to tweet at that hour and drop things at that hour and that's strategic. but we're hearing he's incredibly angry. when you're angry, you do things in the heat of the moment.

almost as if somebody told him something right then. not like he slept on it or someone told him something? >> or he read the breitbart.com story and said, i'm so mad. just so our viewers know at this time he came off that speech to congress with good reviews and then the jeff sessions situation hit. and then the internal turmoil of him fighting with his staff hit. and i think the anger built up. by saturday morning, he wanted to try to turn the page on all the attention on him. >> and yet his approval rating within the statistical margin of error seems to actually have ticked up during all this. >> but it is still within the margin of error. if you look at our cnn poll, what i found interesting was the people who are fervent trump supporters are 11 points shy of people who are anti-trump supporters. >> that's a huge margin. >> yeah, that's a huge margin. jeanne moos on barbra streisand saying she's abandoned

her diet and why she blames trump. nd discounts, like paperless, multi-car, and safe driver, that help them save on their car insurance. any questions? -yeah. -how do you go to the bathroom? great. any insurance-related questions? -mm-hmm. -do you have a girlfriend? uh, i'm actually focusing on my career right now, saving people nearly $600 when they switch, so... where's your belly button? [ sighs ] i've got to start booking better gigs.

tonight, why barbra streisand is blaming the president for stress eating and what maple syrup has to do with it. here's jeanne moos. >> reporter: what does president trump have to do with barbra streisand eating pancakes? the singer sure had great timing. >> it's ihop's national pancake

day. >> reporter: when she tweeted donald trump is making me gain weight. i start the day with liquids, but after the morning news, i eat pancakes smothered in maple syrup. and babs isn't alone. >> i do think i'm doing a lot of stress eating, to be honest. swear at the tv and have to get the munchies. >> reporter: trump's supporters were swearing at streisand and rewriting her lyrics. ♪ the way we were >> reporter: became the weight we were. and you don't bring me cheesecake anymore. streisand has been vehemently anti-trump rewriting her own lyrics at a hillary fund-raiser. ♪ and if by chance ♪ he gets to heaven ♪ even up there he'll declare chapter 11 ♪ >> reporter: and doing a duet with jimmy fallon. ♪ i can do anything better than

you ♪ ♪ no you can't ♪ yes i can >> reporter: while streisand jokes about trump-induced weight gain actress lena dunham cites the opposite effect. >> i donald trump became president and i was unable to eat food. >> reporter: she was responding to howard stern saying she looked smaller. >> try soul crushing pain and you too will lose weight. >> reporter: though dunham is joking, there is anxiety in the air. >> my stomach starts to bubble. >> i think we're experiencing trump fatigue syndrome. >> reporter: clinical psychologist lauren bisque said people thought once the election was over, it would be over. but nope. >> actually my practice has picked up since the election. >> reporter: are you having any symptoms because of the heightened political tension in the air? >> no, just allergies. >> reporter: guess he doesn't need extra pancakes. but she might. >> i want one day without a cnn alert that scares the hell out of me. >> reporter: jeanne moos, cnn, new york. anything with pancakes and maple syrup is delicious.

i need no excuse at all. don't forget you can watch "outfront" anytime, anywhere on cnn go. ac 360 starts now. >> thank you for joining us tonight. there's still no evidence for trump's latest unfounded claim that president obama wire tapped him. there is a firestorm raging over it in washington we'll bring you the latest on that in a moment. but first the genesis of the claim that prompted james comey to go so far as to ask the justice department to refute it over the weekend. think about that for a moment the nation's top lawman asking for a public denunciation of the sitting president of the united states. that's where we are tonight. let's take a moment to look at where we got here. saturday morning the president is at mar-a-lago according to t"the washington post" still steaming over jeff sessions recusing himself from any investigation involving russia and the justice department. at 6:35 a.m. he tweets, quote, terrible, just found o