right now. it's just starting. it's just getting itself into the atlantic ocean. it's just starting to bomb out and get to that wind condition and get to the very heavy snow. we're not even there yet. this is the snow we already have. this is about a 6-foot pile of snow. i can tell you by the consistency of this snow that this is probably snow 10-to-1 snow. and i say that because we're going to get 2 inches of liquid. about 2 inches of liquid water. if it's a 10-to-1 snowfall the entire day, that means we're going to have 20 inches of snow here. if it's a 7-to-1 snowfall, which is the snowman kind of snow, we'll have 14 inches of snow. and if we mix over to a little rain/snow mix somewhere around 2:00, which is possible, we'll have a lot less. we may only have 10 inches of snow. but if you are in western massachusetts, if you're in connecticut, hartford, providence, all the way up to worcester, allentown, the poconos, schenectady, down to the south, even to the blue

ridge parkway, you are 20-inch snowfall totals all day long. because it's going to be cold enough there. boston, long island, especially eastern long island, south of toms river, new jersey, all the way down to wilmington and east of annapolis, that's an all-rain snow, not cold enough to make any significant snow there. but 20 degrees tomorrow morning here, if we get a little bit of rain, that's going to make even more problems, chris. >> what do you see as the shredding snowman, snowball factor so far, with the snow density? >> reporter: so far we're at about 8 to 10 inches per 1 inch of water. i think later today, we could get all the way down to 7, which means right here where i'm standing tomorrow morning, there will be 15 inches of snow on the ground. >> that wasn't the most helpful answer, but thank you very much for the accumulation score. we'll be back with you in a little bit. this massive nor'easter is forcing lots of schools to close. a lot of them made the decision yesterday, especially in major u.s. cities.

the city of philadelphia declaring a snow emergency as the storm makes getting around very, very treacherous. cnn's ryan young live in philly, where they could get more than a foot of snow. how's it feel? >> reporter: well, good morning, chris. so far, we're dealing with so far the ice needles at this point. the snow you can see behind us on this side, that accumulated mostly overnight. at this point, it's really almost a rain event. in fact, all the cars that have gone by have been slushing through this mess. the snowplows, not even having to put down the plow as they push through the area. you're really just dealing with water. that's what's really left here at this point. just this sloppy mess. cars have been out. there's a guy riding by on a bicycle in the last hour and a half. people are not worried about the actual snow at this point in this area. of course, schools are closed. we've seen delays at the airport. 2,000 pieces of equipment on the roadways. so far as they drive by, they've been splashing us with more water than ice.

poppy? >> all right, ryan young, thank you very much. try to stay warm out there. you've got snow, sleet, whiteout conditions creating quite a headache for anyone trying to drive. hazardous road conditions, i know you're with a safe driver, obviously, but what does it look like? are there any cars around? >> reporter: good morning, poppy. you mentioned the cars around. it's 6:00 a.m. eastern time. this is prime-time for rush hour. any other day but today, you would see the new jersey turnpike, a ghost town. there are speed restrictions in place. 35 miles per hour is the max. i have not seen many cars actually heeding that warning. in fact, a short time ago, i saw a jack knifed tractor-trailer on the opposite side of the turnpike. you know, there is a state of emergency in effect here in new jersey. really, the urgency here is to really keep people off the

roads. many heeding that advice, though the ones we do see, certainly going a lot faster than 35 miles per hour. chris? >> they have a very cool silhouette shot of you, alisyn, that has your face laid over the actual road. it's like you're the spirit of the highway. >> reporter: it's amazing how i can do that, huh? >> you did. you've got a lot of different tools in the box. keep us informed of what's going on out there. we'll have much more on the winter storm throughout the snow. it's going to mean different things in different areas. and we'll give you all the coverage, all morning long. let's turn to politics. republican leaders are frin dame control right now because the cbo, the congressional budget office, came out with its scoring of this health care replacement plan and it was blistering. 24 million americans will be uninsured over the next ten years if this plan goes into effect. cnn's sunlen serfaty live in capitol hill with more. now, of course, removing the individual mandate means a lot

of people won't choose, perhaps, to get insurance. that goes into this number, as well. but many were taken by surprise, why? >> reporter: that's right, chris, because frankly, republicans leaders were not expecting such a tough report. and certainly, this bill already was facing a very tough slog ahead. but these new numbers certainly are devastating, potentially to the fate of the bill's chances up here in congress. now, republican leaders in the white house, they are shifting now into damage control mode, essentially trying to downplay the impact of this explosive new report on capitol hill. the congressional budget office projecting 14 million americans could lose their coverage next year, with 24 million people uninsured by 2026 under the republican health care plan to replace obamacare. >> we disagree strenuously with the report that was put out. >> reporter: the white house denouncing the findings. >> we believe that our plan will

cover more individuals at a lower cost and give them the choices that they want for the coverage that they want. >> reporter: their strategy, attacking the non-partisan office throughout the week, even before seeing the numbers. >> if the cbo was right about obamacare to begin, there would be 8 million more people on obamacare today than there actually are. sometimes we ask them to do stuff they're not capable of doing. >> reporter: but the report does provide some good news for the gop. the cbo also predicting their legislation would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over a decade. and though premiums are expected to increase by up to 20% over the next two years, the cbo anticipates they'll actually drop by an average of 10% by 2026. >> something the cbo may have gotten right in this report, it's that the premiums are actually going to come down in cost. >> reporter: but the hardest hit by those higher premiums, older, lower income americans, shattering this promise by then-candidate trump. >> we've got to take care of people that can't take care of

themselves. >> reporter: the report complicating the gop's already-troubled efforts to pass their bill. house speaker paul ryan trying to put a positive spin on what they call unreliable numbers. >> i'm excited about this analysis. and yeah, i think they sort of overestimate the uninsured number, just like they overestimated who would be insured by obamacare. but i do believe that if we're not going to force people to buy something they don't want to buy, they won't buy it. >> reporter: but some senate republicans using this report as new ammunition against their own colleagues, demanding changes to the bill. >> i don't think it's good news, even if it's half right. i think the responsible thing would be to look at the cbo report and can we find ways to deal with the issue they have raised? >> reporter: now, there are a lot of moving parts on all of this, this week. today, president trump has a phone call scheduled with speaker ryan and the house majority leader. vice president pence will also but here on capitol hill, later today. he'll be meeting with senate republicans at a time when many

moderate republicans simply are not onboard with this plan, just yet. then on thursday, you have the house budget committee, who will begin marking up its portion of this bill. the goal of all of this, chris and poppy, is to have a full house vote on this bill, potentially as early as next week. >> all right. sunlen, thank you very much. if it were easy, anybody could do it. this is going to be hard. let's see if the man who calls himself the great negotiator, donald trump, can get it done. let's bring in our panel of experts, cnn political analyst, patrick healey. cnn political commentator and senior columnist at the daily beast, matt lewis. and cnn political analyst and reporter for "the washington post," abby phillips. so, brother healey, we start with you. the first line of attack is attack the cbo. how effective will that be, in fairness of fact, it was a mixed bag nanlts of tin the analysis it's not a perfect institution.

but the man running it is an appointee of price. how much heat with they give the cbo and get away with it? >> a lot of heat. president trump and the white house have the bully pulpit like no others in terms of going on the attack. and the reality is that president trump wasn't elected arguing dollars and cents and numbers and facts and figures and all of these details. he focused on repeal and replace obamacare. repeal and replace obamacare. if they continue that mantra, they can at least know a lot of the republican base, a lot of the folks who are going to be voting in 2018, who members in the house need to be concerned about, they just want that law repealed and replaced. that's what they want. and the issue is more in the senate. that's where you get into much stickier, you know, area, because in part, a lot of members, some of the republican members, don't have these same concerns politically. >> and you know, what tom cotton said, he said, we're going to lose the house if you guys vote for the bill the way it is. >> the thing is, the president

can't argue with these numbers. let's take a look at what the cbo says. 14 million more people uninsured. 24 million more people uninsured by 2026. premiums will go up over the next two years. then they'll come down, matt lewis, but they're only going to come down for younger, healthier people. they're going to go way up, way up for people -- this is a stunning analysis. a 64-year-old making about $24,000 a year under this analysis would pay half of their income, $14 plus thousand for health insurance. you can't argue with those numbers. that's the issue. >> it's unbelievable. and he's right. they're going to attack the messenger. that's what you do in politics. you want to discredit the cbo, because these numbers are damning. i also agree, i don't think this hurts him with the conservative base, because he's going to do to the cbo what he said to the fake media and the failing "new york times" and all that. >> this is his guy. those are details that people may not appreciate, who aren't

following this closely. >> a laundry list of tweets here where trump was lauding the cbo, for years. >> consistency -- >> the 64-year-old gets that bill. a lot of these people are people who voted for donald trump, right? in iowa and -- >> i think that's the point. i think republicans would actually be better off if this thing fails rather than pushing it through. and i think you're right about the senate. that's where things really become different. will tom cotton? is it politically palatable to pass a bill that covers less people? >> that's why they keep saying access. donate sleep on the house. you have a real division going on there. abby, let's bring you in and put in some of the numbers that go into this coverage bogeyman that people are afraid of. before obamacare, you had an estimate of about 41 million were without coverage. after obamacare, 28.5 million without coverage. that's an important note. the idea that the aca was a panacea for our health problems is false.

they still have big problems. it needed fixing. now you have 52 million. the numbers are daunting, abby. but can anybody be surprised? if you're cutting the amount of money that the individual gets, whether you call it a subsidy or tax credit, if you cut the amount of money that goes into medicaid, whether you pass it on to the states or not, you're going to have less people getting covered, because the money won't be there. >> that's right pip mean, this bill is designed to sort of thread this needle between being too expensive and doing what it's supposed to do, which is stabilize the insurance market. and what has happened is that it doesn't provide snuff tax credits to incentivize people sufficiently, to get insurance. and it also makes it perhaps prohibitively expensive for older americans to afford insurance under the plan. and maybe it accomplishes $337 billion in deficit savings over a decade, but some of that deficit savings comes from the fact that the government will be

outlaying less money to cover people under medicaid and cover people, pay for some of these tax credits. there's a little bit of a feedback loop here. it's worth saying, though, the white house is saying, this doesn't take into consideration all the other stuff we're going to be doing down the road. the problem is that no one really knows what to paycheckma that other stuff, because there's no paper, no text, no documentation. >> paul ryan was asked that, this is part one of basically a three-step plan. and part of it is going to be buying insurance over state lines and what price is going to come out with an hhs. i just wonder, patrick, is it too early to call this a win for democrats. they have a plan, right now, obamacare, which aetna, big insurer, calls a death spiral, which humana pulled out from. do democrats have the answer? >> no, day don't. to matt's point, the best thing for republicans may be to let obamacare stay in place and two years from now, the degree to which the premiums are further

up, the exchanges -- to say the bugs in the system are becoming even more apparent. but this is sort of classic opposition party politics. you're not going to have the democrats sort of coming forward with their own bill, their own sort of like fix-it bill right now. where they need to get into place, if they get into the senate and democrats can start trying to build some sort of coalition with the susan collins or lisa murkowski and may be able to show what they can do. >> especially in those states that are depending on that medicaid expansion that they don't want to have to answer to those -- >> right. ohio, rob portman could come through. coming up for us, president trump's budget director, mick mulvaney will join us in our 8:00 hour, he'll react to all of these numbers. >> and we'll test this idea of whether the aca is in a death spiral or not. the economics don't create such a clear picture. mr. mulvaney is the perfect guy to make the case for this plan that we're seeing right now and against the aca, we'll test it. tomorrow night, you get to join wolf blitzer and dana bash.

a live town hall with the man of the moment. the job of re-doing all this health care stuff, secretary tom price, hhs. he's going to have a town hall. he'll get to address people's concerns tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. eastern, only on cnn. so the white house trying to walk back president trump's baseless wiretapping claim. they now say, when we said wiretapping, we didn't mean wiretapping. what is going on with this? when can you trust what comes out of the white house? next. an unlimited data plan is only as good as the network it's on. and verizon has been ranked number one for the 7th time in a row by rootmetrics. (man) hey, uh, what's rootmetrics? it's the nation's largest independent study and it ranked verizon #1 in call, text, data, speed and reliability. (woman) do they get a trophy? not that i know of. but you get unlimited done right. (man 2) why don't they get a trophy? (man 3) they should get something. (woman 2) how about a plaque? i have to drop this. my arm's getting really tired. unlimited on verizon. 4 lines, just $45 per line.

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all right. the justice department is requesting more time to determine what, if any, evidence supports president trump's wiretap claim. the new deadline is set for next monday. the same day the house intel committee is distinction to hold its first public hearing into russia's election meddling. now, it appears the administration is mow trying to walk back the president's allegations. cnn's joe johns live at the white house with more on this. what do we know now, joe? >> well, chris, this appears to be just the beginning of an attempt to walk back that sensational claim made by the president on twitter. this morning, we're learning

that when the president wrote he was wiretapped, he didn't necessarily mean wiretapped. and when he said president obama did it, he didn't mean that, eithe either. >> any comments on the wiretapping? >> reporter: the trump administration looking to buy time, failing to meet a congressional deadline to present evidence to back up the president's unsubstantiated claim that former president obama wiretapped the phones at trump tower during the campaign. the house intelligence committee agreeing to give the justice department until next monday's hearing to provide proof, suggesting that they may subpoena the administration if their questions go unanswered. this as the white house is now offering a new explanation for the president's baseless claim. >> he doesn't really think that president obama went up and tapped his phone, personally. >> reporter: the press secretary's comments run in contrary to president trump's own tweets. in which he explicitly points his finger at obama, going as far as calling his predecessor a

bad or sick guy. sean spicer also asserting that trump did not literally mean "wiretapped." >> the president used the word "wiretapped" to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities. >> reporter: president trump did put wiretapping in quotes, but only in two of the four tweets he fired off last saturday. kellyanne conway, a counselor to the president, even suggested it went beyond that. >> do you know whether trump tower was wiretapped? >> what i can say is, there are many ways to surveil each other. there was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets. any number of different ways. and microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. >> reporter: then attempted to walk back her statement on "new day". >> i was answering a question about surveillance techniques generally. >> he didn't ask you about it generally, though. that's just true in the transcript. you may have answered it generally, but you were asked specifically. >> chris, i'm not inspector

gadget, i don't believe people are using their microwave to spy on the trump campaign. however, i have -- i'm not in the job of having evidence. that's what investigations are for. >> reporter: a bizarre reference to a 1980s cartoon. to justify yet another unsubstantiated claim. moments after the "new day" interview, president trump accusing journalists of being rude to his staffers. we're not expecting to see president trump in front of the cameras today. he was expected to meet with german chancellor angela merkel, but that meeting has been pushed back until friday, because of the weather here in washington. crust and poppy? >> joe johns at the wlous, thank you so much. let's bring back in our panel. abby phillip is with us, patrick healey and matt lewis. all right, so spicer is saying, truly, that because there were quotes used, patrick healey, that does not mean that we should take it literally. he had a long exchange with peter alexander of nbc about what we should take literally or not. let's just show a tweet sans

quote, for a moment, because the president did not use oquotatio marks in this one. "how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. this is nixon watergate, bad or sick guy." all right, so spicer's explanation doesn't hold up there. >> no, i don't see any air quotes in that tweet. i mean, he -- you know, president trump has been using twitter for years to communicate. he thinks to communicate quite effectively and directly to voters and americans. he was not, as near as we can tell, suggesting this was an iffy proposition. he had a clear accusation to make about wiretapping. he had a clear hit to make in calling president obama a bad or sick guy. what he didn't have was any kind of evidence to back up the use of the word "wiretapping." and you have to wonder, god, does president trump sort of understand what the word "wiretapping" mean? the implications of that? this is a dangerous path for the white house to go down.

you see the press secretary using sort of air quotes, you know, at the podium. do you want an air quote presidency? where everything can be sloughed off by saying, well, you take him too literally. you take the president too literally. this is very dangerous politics to play. i know the white house sort of likes to make the argument about sort of fake news and the failing "new york times" and cnn and so forth. but how seriously can you take a presidency that just goes to kind of air quotes as an argument? >> well, look, don't discourage the attacking, because it's never done better for your subscription rate than right now. we see reaction formation to what the president says all the time. if he attacks something, brother lewis, people often wind up cottoning to it. you see it in "the times" subscriptions and cnn's ratings. but that doesn't mean it's good for america. we know what's going on here. they're trying to say, treat the wiretapping the way you are all these russian connection. there's a fundamental difference, and that was the

point of the conflict with kellyanne. it wasn't personal or about disqualifying the president. it was, you are a phone call away from answering this question. you can get the answer right away. you can declassify whatever information you get immediately. nobody has more power to do that than the president. you're not doing it. and therefore, this is not a as genuine a pursuit as those other things and it does play as a distraction. that just the truth? >> i think you're right, not just a distraction, though, i think there are long-term consequences that could come from having a president that says things and americans aren't sure if he really means them or not. when you're the president of the united states, your words have consequences. that's why diplomacy matters so much. that's why you sweat the precis. is this the right word? have we vetted this information before we put it out? people can go to war, you know, over something that a president happens to just say. i think this is irresponsible, that's an obvious point.

but when you say "wiretap," when you say the president did something, you either mean he literally did it or he ordered it. and so, in a tweet that has 140 characters, they're now walking away from two different parts of their statement. >> look, and, you know, we haven't heard paul ryan or really any other big name republicans backing up the president's claim, evidence-free claim of wiretapping. this at the same time -- >> they're not shouting it down, either, by the way. >> they're asking for evidence, though. they're asking -- they've set these deadlines and asked for -- >> but even that's the middle road here, right? if this had been president obama, if this were hillary clinton who put out something like this, they wouldn't be saying, let's wait and see the evidence. they would be all over it. >> abby, i wonder what you think the play is for the white house on this. and because come monday, i mean, the house intel committee has extended this deadline for the department of justice to provide any evidence, but the deadline is monday, or they, you know, they can subpoena it and they very well may, if there's anything there. and you've got comey, who's

going to testify. he's going to be directly asked this question. what's the play here for the white house? >> the white house wants this to go away. they want people to just forget this. i mean, part of the strategy, not just with this, but with other issues is to push things off to cloud to public record so it becomes less clear what was said. there are more questions asked and confusion abounds. at the end of the day, they're hoping that everyone is distracted by something else that comes up, so that they're not always asking questions about this. the problem is that this is a really big deal. the current president of the united states accusing the former president of breaking the law is a really big deal. it's maybe an even bigger deal than any of the other unsubstantiated allegations that the president has made since taking office. and for that reason, you know, i actually find it hard to believe that this one is going to just fall off the radar. the very fact that there are congressional investigations and the fact that the white house themselves put congress in a

position of needing to have an investigation is problematic for them. i mean, the best that they can hope for is that the justice department comes back and says, you know, here's what we have. they hand over a couple of seats o of paper, something fairly thin and we have a discussion about that and we move on, settling this as an issue, where they provided very little evidence, if any at all. >> but a big part of the intrigue will come down to how his party handles what the president says. and there's a piece of sound in no small irony, breitbart, the fringe right of the conservative movement, put out a piece of sound from october. cnn reported on this before, but we've never heard the sound. it's paul ryan back then, before the election, talking to members about his inability or lack of desire to defend donald trump. listen to this. >> his comments are not anywhere in keeping with our party's principles and values. i am not going to defend donald

trump. not now, not in the future, you guys know, i have real concerns with our nominee. i hope you appreciate that i'm doing what i think is best for you, the members, not what's best for me. and so i want to do what's best for our members. and i think this is the right thing to do. i'm going to focus my time on campaigning for house republicans. for mpb everyone on this call, t going to be a turbulent month? many of you are facing tough re-elections, some of you are not. but with respect to donald trump, i would encourage you to do what you think is best and do what you feel you need to do. >> now, what an interesting shift, patrick, from that to now. ryan has been as quiet as anyone in the face of whatever donald trump says, no matter how outrageous. breitbart is putting this out, they want to hurt ryan because they don't like this health care plan. they don't think it's conservative enough. their legacy is bannon. he probably doesn't like this, but for completely different

reasons. but either way, ryan's in the sling. >> yeah, no, it's a complicated stew. the reality is that paul ryan was pretty clear throughout the general election that he was not going to defend president trump when he went down, when president trump went down these rabbit holes. these sort of, not only the really offensive remarks that donald trump made on that -- >> that was right after the "access hollywood" tape came out. >> right after the "access hollywood" tape, when a lot of republicans were kind of moving away, but now you're seeing speaker ryan, a leader of the party. he just wants to focus on repeal and replace obamacare. he doesn't want to have to get into defending every tweet that donald trump is a candidate or as president made. he sort of knew that was a problem. but it is, as you point out, chris, breitbart sort of wading into this. sort of deciding, you know, everything that breitbart does is essentially trying to send a message to someone like speaker ryan or sort of saying, we're watching this, we're going to -- we can cause you a lot of

heartburn, you know, over this. and specifically, it's about this bill. >> and the timing, look, right after the cbo comes out with this number, that is pretty devastating for republicans. >> this could compromise their ability to get passed more than anything that's happened this far. >> exactly. thank you guys all very much. we appreciate it. we're also watching this huge storm up and down the eastern is seaboard, blizzard warnings across the northeast. you're looking at live pictures out of new york city right now, early in the morning, but we're in the beginning stages of seeing a foot of snow at least dump on new york. chad myers has the latest forecast, next. >> can't even see him. he's already kplaelt covered. calcu... moy shall we initiate the restart sequence? ♪ thrivent mutual funds. managed by humans, not robots. before investing, carefully read and consider fund objectives, risks, charges and expenses in the prospectus at thriventfunds.com.

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go on hikes, she's a very family oriented dog. dog chow's been a part of my family's life for over 40 years. my grandfather made it and now i'm making it. as a micro-biologist i ensure that dog chow leads with high quality ingredients. my name is bryan and i'm proud to make dog chow in davenport, iowa. a powerful winter storm slamming the northeast this morning, also the mid-atlantic, as well. tens of thousands of people right now in the direct path of this storm. our meteorologist, chad myers, is in central park with the latest. where does this fall in terms of sort of epic, epic storms? >> reporter: well, you know, the bench marc is the blizzard of 1888, which dropped between 50

and 56 inches in the city, but it snowed for 36 hours. this is not that storm. this is going to snow for 12 hours. we're going to cut that number really by a third and that's where we're going to see, somewhere between 15 and 20 inches. is it paralyzing? sure, for some people. harrisburg, lancaster, york, yes, paralyzing. but what you'll notice right now is that it has picked up. it has picked up in the last about 30 minutes. let's go up to this light. all the way up here. and you can begin to see the amount of snow coming down. also, the wind picking up. that's because the low itself, on the bottom left of your corner, you can see the radar. on the bottom left, the low itself. the spin of the low, not the eye of a hurricane, but the spin of the low is now in the water. that is intensifying the storm. that's going to continue to make the storm stronger and stronger, all day long. we won't see the peak for many, many more hours, chris. we'll have a long day out here. a lot of snow, probably 15 to 20 inches in a lot of spots.

>> chad, appreciate you being there. we'll check back in a few minutes. the republican party turning own one of their own. blasting republican congressman steve king. you probably heard him here on "new day" yesterday. if not, we'll remind you of what he said that had people saying, hey, not only are you in hot water, we've got to talk about what's right in america, next. say goodbye to extra taxes and fees on your wireless bill... ...and hello to t-mobile one. right now, get two lines of unlimited data for a hundred bucks. taxes and fees included! two lines, a hundred dollars, all in, all unlimited. switch today.

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a muslim american, an italian american, a christian american, a jewish american. you do realize that they are all equal, right? they are all the same thing. we don't need babies from one of those groups more than we need them from other groups. do you agree with that? >> well, i would say that -- >> why do you pause on a question like that, congressman? what do you mean, it doesn't depend on any definition. steve king had my hands going. the iowa republican congressman slow to answer in an interview about the equality aof all different kinds of americans. he was doubling down on a controversial tweet voicing concern for a right-wing anti-immigrant dutch politician saying we can't restore our

zaiflgs with somebody else's babies. lawmakers in his own party even turning against him. let's bring back our panel, abby phillip, patrick healey, matt lewis. abby phillip, i was surprised. we have steve king on a lot. and i know he gets a lot of heat for things. sometimes, i think he's just trying to provoke conversation. but this one left me with my head scratching. i don't understand where he was trying to go with this. and we saw a very quick rejection of him by a lot of his people. even jeb bush came out and said this was the wrong thing. how did it play down there in d.c.? >> i think it was remarkably slow, the degree to which it took quite a while for his republican colleagues to condemn it. but beyond that, steve king has been saying things like this for quite some time. months ago, in the campaign, he talked about how european civilization had really been the only civilization to contribute to modern society, which is factually inaccurate.

but, it's also something that is not uncommon with -- for this particular member of congress. and it's surprising that, you know, it took hours and hours for folks to come out and give some fairly tepid condemnations of this comment and beyond that, no one is saying, hey, i think it's time for you to step aside. >> right. and so to your point about sort of the tepid reaction from some of his fellow republicans, paul ryan saying, you know, i don't think this statement reflects what is special about this country. but then he said, i would like to think, and i haven't spoken to steve about this, but i would like to think he misspoke and wasn't really meaning it that way and how it sounded. hopefully he's clarified that, he didn't. matt lewis, he doubled down on it last night on another network. and he has tweeted things akin to it in the past. so why would paul ryan respond that way? >> well, he's trying to duck the question. and i think paul ryan does a

have a very noble and positive position on things like immigration. he comes from the same kind of school that i come from, called a reagan/kemp school that believes that more people equals more ideas. and that we're benefited -- we benefit as a country from having diverse viewpoints. so, i think what steve king said is dangerous. it's actually representative of a sort of fringe strain that's becoming more popular on the right, right now, both internationally and in america. i do though, think, that there are elements within what he was trying to say, that i'm sour rro see get caught up in this. i think most mainstream conservatives would say, more americans, white, black, whatever, should be having more babies. and that a civilization needs to be basically reproducing and having kids in order to survive. part of the reason we need immigrants, frankly, is because we're not having -- americans are not having enough kids. and i also think it's just fine to defend western civilization. starting in 2015 with the magna

until today, western civilization has created great things. there are elements i think he's right about, but the larger point, i think is very toxic and pernicious. >> can i follow up one point about what matt is saying. i remember being in iowa in january of this last year during the caucuses and steve king has a really power base there. the republicans, you know, were all sort of courting him. ted cruz, you know, got him, got his support. and steve king wasn't talking about babies back then. you know, he was talking about civilization and american values and the importance of that. but he wasn't using this kind of language. and i just think there's something to what matt is saying about the fact that this sort of language has become -- is -- there's a power to it. it's becoming the empowered kind of far-right, being able to sort of say these things and not have them being swatted down.

to feel that there's a sort of normalization going on around it. it's different than it was a year ago. >> it comes with a movement that we've seen arise of white nationalism across this country. >> sure. >> as well. >> the context is important. thank you all very much. coming up for us, conflicting accounts of the last hours of michael brown's life. what does this surveillance video that a lot of us are seeing for the first time, what does it really show and why does it matter. what could it mean? plus, this big blizzard is not going anywhere anytime soon. eight different states in the bull's-eye here in the northeast. we'll take you through the latest numbers and what is still to come. kevin, meet your father. kevin, meet yourkeviner. kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin

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a lot of talk about ice and snow, but now it's time for a little march madness. the ncaa tournament tips off tonight on turner's trutv. we have coy wire joining us with the bleacher report. are you ready to go, my handsome friend? >> i am ready, and i know you are too. i got a chance to talk to dickey v., legendary coach at all levels and commentator since the '70s. we got some bracket picking tips for us. i asked him who he thinks is going to win it all, and here's what he had to say. >> my good feeling tells me when it's all said and done, the zags are going to prove all the naysayers out there, gonzaga, that they're legit by getting to the final game. in the final game, they're going to run into a real dplem. they're going to run into the explosive team, north carolina, and when it's all said and done, the tar heels are going to cut

the nets down and win the national title. >> all right. real quick for you, guys. big storm warnings across the northeast, we're keeping our eyes on what kind of impact the weather could have on the sporting world for you. both the nicks have home games tonight. and the new jersey devils and the washington capitals, poppy, both have home games. but as of right now, they are still scheduled to drop the puck. >> there you go! coy wire, thank you so much. up next for us, prosecutors and a documentary filmmaker clearly at odds over newly released video of michael brown in that convenience store just hours before he was shot and killed. the attorney for the market, the ferguson market that brown allegedly robbed before he was killed, he differs quite a bit from what the documentary filmmaker says. he's going to join us live, next. (vo) love.

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all right, back in 2014, what happened in that convenience store with mike brown? this is part of a growing controversy because of this footage from a new documentary film. the filmmaker claims brown was in this ferguson, missouri, market, doing a drug deal. there was a barter for exchange going on. and there is evidence that he did not rob the store. hours later, of course, he would be shot by police. but the prosecutor who investigated the case in 2014 says that that's nonsense.

>> mr. brown had a discussion with them, picked up the bag, started to walk out of the store. one of the clerks said something to him or more. he returned, put the bag back on the counter, continued a discussion with them, and then took something off of the counter itself and walked out of the store. >> at no time does the little bag come back across the counter. >> now, very important for the investigation here. the st. louis county police department says that not only can they not confirm this, but they said, if it did occur, what the filmmakers says, the incident is still irrelevant to our investigation, because this is about what happened with darren wilson, the officer, and michael brown. and there's a big misconception that somehow officer wilson was referring to what happened in the store because of what happened with michael brown. the police say, that's not true. let's just stick with what happened in the store. jay cansler, the attorney for the owners of the ferguson market, joins us now. thank you very much for joining us, mr. cansler.

the filmmaker says what was going on in the store was not a robber, but a bartering, he said, that's what this market is known for. that you can go in and barter for things. this was a barter of cigarillos and marijuana and some type of exchange. do you accept that notion? >> no, it's a lie. it's a falsehood on both fronts. there was no barter here. and that's not something they engage in. >> so when he says, this is a shady store, we asked a lot of people in the community, this is what goes on there, you say no? >> no, it's absolutely not. people in this community love this store. it's been around for a long time. this is a deceptive documentary based on a false premise, put out there by a documentary with the intention of doing nothing more than garnering publicity for an otherwise unknown documentary filmmaker. >> so what happened in the store? >> michael brown walked into that store that night with a bag

of marijuana, what looks like marijuana, he tried to buy merchandise with that, cig reconcile lo arillos and sodas. and the clerk said no. he had thrown the bag of marijuana on to the counter. and when he comes back and puts the bag down, the bag of merchandise, he picks up the bag of marijuana. when you watch the entire video, you watch him leave with that bag. there can't be a transaction when mr. brown leaves with what he -- the filmmaker says he paid with. he left with the marijuana and you can see that. what the filmmaker did was take a four-minute interaction with lots of moving parts and he boiled it down to 20 seconds, laced them together into this false documentary. >> michael brown had experience in that store. what if your clients told you what they knew of the young man? >> what they told me was the truth and that's probably that he had never been in the store

before that evening. that's another false premise that this documentary filmmaker put out there. they didn't know michael brown. they didn't have a relationship with him. and if you watch the unedited footage, what you see is a very heated argument going on that evening. not one between friends, but one between a store owner and somebody that's trying to illegally purchase material, merchandise with marijuana. and it just didn't happen. >> so there is no battering there, there is no weed trade there. michael brown did not have a relationship with the people there. they didn't know him? that's what you're saying? >> that's right. that's right. that's the truth, chris. and the problem is, the filmmaker, himself, never came to the store, never talked to the clerks, never talked to me, never talked to the owners. he just took this video and o chopped it up into 20 seconds and then attached an outrageous story line to it. >> one other quick thing. was there a physical altercation between someone from the store and michael brown? >> the next morning, there was, between the owner and michael brown, he was -- michael brown tossed him into the chip rack.

>> why? >> because he came back the next day because he could not purchase the cigarillos with marijuana, he came back the next day to steal them. >> did they believe that mike brown was a drug dealer, or just somebody to buy paraphernalia to maybe use drugs? >> somebody that came in and didn't have money and then was trying to buy merchandise with marijuana. you know, you get, in the retail business, you get lots of strange characters. that was just one of them that evening. that's why they didn't call the police. this has kind of been blown out of proportion. it was a non-event until this filmmaker put it together in this false narrative. >> as we promise, counselor, we're always going to tell both sides of the story. thanks for coming on. thanks to you, our international viewers for watching on newsday. for you, "cnn newsroom" is next. for our u.s. viewers, let's get after it. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. good morning. welcome to your "new day." alisyn