good evening, we begin tonight with new tweets and a new chapter in the president's ongoing effort to divert attention from the russia story and the ongoing investigations by the fbi and congress. and just moments ago push back from a close associate of the obama administration, just like the president's early morning tweets more than a month ago that accused president obama of wiretapping his phones, the latest allegations are big on

insinuation and short on evidence. these tweets on saturday, quote, wow, @foxnews just reporting big news, source, official behind unmasking is high up, known intel officer is responsible. trump team spied on before he was nominated. if this is true, president went on to say, it does not get much bigger, would be sad for u.s. then yesterday, more tweets, including this, the real story turns out to be surveillance and leaking, find leakers. finally this morning, finally this morning, @foxnews, from multiple sources, there was electronic surveillance of trump and trump associates. all of that sounds ominous but there appears to be less here than the president of the united states would have us believe. jim sciutto joins us for the report. let's start with the unmasking that the president mentioned.

what's the latest on that? >> reporter: just a short time ago i spoke to ambassador rice, and this is the first comments by someone close to rice. i'll read it in quotes, the add that ambassador rice improperly sought the identities of americans is false. there is nothing unusual about making these questions of a senior official whether democrat or republican. that's coming from someone that works for ambassador rice. but let's go beyond that. i spoke today with former senior u.s. intelligence officials, the senior most who served both republican and democratic administrations, and this is what they have told me about this story. they said, one, this is not unusual. this happens. when you are briefed on intelligence like this, sometimes senior national security intelligence officials can be asked to identify those individuals in those conversations or on the other side of those phone calls. it's not up to that senior u.s. national security official to

make that decision, it's then up to the intelligence agencies, the nsa, they decide what's appropriate to then unmask for that senior official. it is legal, there are protocols that have been put in place since 9/11 that allow this to happen. and i'm told, this very meticulously logged, someone said to me, described it, it's like catholic baptismal records. it's so well logged. you can't do this in secret and you can't do it without the approval of the intelligence agency. every day they're getting briefings on intelligence, in those briefings, an official such as rice might say to further understand it, i would like to know who those names are. and that's why they would make that request. which then as i said would have to be approved by the intelligence community. that's what i'm told. and again to note by senior intelligence officials who work for both democrats and republicans, this appears to be

a story, largely ginned up, partly as a distraction from the larger investigation. these investigations continue, but particularly on the house side, there are now questions coming from both democrats and republicans about how bipartisan this investigation can be. tonight members of the house intelligence committee, meet to try to find a way forward in the committee's russian investigation. even gop senator john mccain says any hope of a bipartisan effort under the committee's republican chairman devin nunes is now lost. >> if we're really going to get to the bottom of these things, it's got to be done in a bipartisan fashion and as far as i could tell, congressman nunes killed that. >> reporter: on friday, the top democrat on the committee congressman adam schiff examined classified intelligence reports of intercepted communications, referencing trump campaign officials. this several days after his gop

counterpart nunes first viewed them and claimed they showed evidence of possible surveillance of trump advisors. >> how does the white house know these are the same materials that were shown to the chairman if the white house wasn't aware what the chairman was being shown? these materials were produced in the ordinary course of business. well, the question for the white house and for mr. spicer is the ordinary course of whose business? because if these were produced either for or by the white house, why all of the subterfuge? >> reporter: that is raising questions among senate republicans as well. >> i think the whole episode is bizarre. if he did in fact receive intel from white house staffers, to then go brief the president is a bit odd. why can't they just show the president what they've got? so that whole episode was kind of strange. >> reporter: meanwhile, new revelations about former national security advisor michael flynn.

flynn was paid thousands of dollars in local speaking fees in russia. the intelligence committee is to far not interested. president trump backed flynn's request in a tweet. congressman adam schiff told cnn's "state of the union," that is clear in its purpose. >> he is not afraid of what general flynn has to say. and basically daring congress to give him imprumunitimmunity. if we make the judgment, we can say we don't want the story to come out. it was a strategic move and a transparent one. >> a lot to cover. jim sciutto, stay with us. i want to bring in our panel. we have mike durham, and gloria borger.

julian kyam. let me just clear up a few things with you, this whole thing about susan rice, you're being told by people close to her and other i guess former intelligence officials that you're talking to, this is not completely unusual for a national security advisor to ask for some of these to be unmasked. how widespread would the name of somebody amassed be distributed through the upper echelons of what was then the obama administration? it wasn't just susan rice that would know mike flynn is who it was. >> i have asked both people close to rice, and also former intelligence officials who have been given similar requests and they told me that information was shared from the briefer to that senior national security official. so ambassador rice would ask her briefer if the intelligence committee approves that request, would then come back and share that information exclusively with ambassador rice. now the open question is, does an ambassador rice or someone else in that position that's requested unmasking then share that information with someone else? that's possible. we don't know that at this

point, but it's not sort of put on a memo and distributed around 35 people in the white house, at least by protocol. >> the next question is, if that information is leaked out, i think it was david ignacias at "the washington post" who originally wrote that mike flynn was the one who initially spoke to the ambassador. is it a clear line from the american who unmasks the name to who gave it to a reporter? >> it's not clear. it's depends on how many people knew, right? we're in a zone here, that i'm certainly aware of. i think we should be aware of where intelligence is being politicized, there's no question. and frankly you can argue about both sides and leaks are not new in washington. we have seen that many times before in multiple administrations, and the fact is that the argument from the trump administration is that there were leaks in the obama administration, of course there

are some leaks that are due to the trump administration. it's sadly the way things work in washington, as we have seen for some time. >> gloria, what do you make of this reporting that someone close to susan rice telling jim sciutto that someone had improperly requested the unmasking of these individuals. and that a senior national security official whether democrat or republican. >> well, you know, i was talking to a former senior intelligence official who basically said the same exact thing to me today. he said to me, look, no one was a target, this wasn't about surveillance. this is about trying to understand the information that has been presented to you. and if you are trying to understand what you're reading and you feel that a name needs to be unmasked in order to understand the context better, then you're going to ask for that to be unmasked. and i was also told, this is audit trailed, this is for nsa

officials to look at. this is like lifting a post it from a document saying, oh, yes, here's the name. that's not the way it works, there are lots of checks and balances here and it's not widely distributed once the name is known. >> i heard what you have written about this, and i guess the question that i keep coming back to is, fine, unmask something. for a senior official to ask to be unmasked, that's one thing. for a name to leak out to a reporter, that raises questions about who leaked it, obviously. and if that senior official took the extra step of leaking it, that's a different issue, isn't it? >> absolutely. you brought up michael flynn's name being leaked to david ignatius. that's what we need to think about here. that's just not a normal leak, that was the use of surveillance intelligence for political purposes. they leaked the name to flynn, i mean they leaked the name to

ignatius, together with a lie that flynn was engaged in illicit negotiations with the russians, and this wasn't true, so they mischaracterized the nature of the information they received. there's supposed to be a firewall between the national security administration and our domestic politics and possibly susan rice ran a truck through the firewall. we need to investigate this seriously and find out exactly what happened. >> juliette, what do you make of that? do you believe that? >> no, i mean, look, the law recognizes that senior national security officials will seek to unmask it. there's a series of rules, and presuming there's a fisa wiretap itself was authorized by a fisa court. this would be a story if it wasn't susan rice, that asked for it but president obama's chief of staff or an adviser. when she asked for the

unmasking, who is this american citizen, let's assume that it is about mike flynn, she hears that the ambassador is talking to someone, an american, citizen "a" about the election and about cyber attacks on the election. she doesn't know at that moment that citizen 1, citizen a is a trump person. so the idea that she's unmasking trump people, no they're unmasking themselves because they're talking with people under foreign intelligence wiret wiretap. >> you're not arguing that it was inappropriate for susan rice or some senior official to request someone be unmasked in order to understand. what you're arguing is, how did they use that information? are they then using it for political purposes by leaking it, is that correct? >> i'm actually arguing both. look, the unmasking is not a

crime, but these names are masked for a reason, because frivolous unmasking is a backdoor to domestic surveillance. >> but you don't know whether it's frivolous or not. >> but we shouldn't jump to the conclusion, i think the other panelists are jumping to the conclusion that this was all done on the up and up. but we know for a fact that this information was used illegally. i mean it was a crime, this leaking of flynn's name and it was a political crime. and so this is taking place in a certain context, we have to be worried about it. >> if i could just add for clarity there, when i have been speaking to ambassador rice's people there, they made the point that she's not clear exactly what they're talking about. it's not clear that the unmasking we're talking about was flynn, which was then led to the david ignacias story. the fact is it's been explained to me, there's an intelligent

briefing every day, through the course of months and years in this job, you might ask for unmasking for any number of people, in conversations with people from any number of countries. in fact nunes didn't specify that this was russia specific. so having a career in that position as national security advisor some names, it's not clear that we're talking about the one that led to the flynn leak, that connection has not been established. and the point they will make, is that in that position, you might ask for unmasking so you can better understand a series of intelligence reports over time. so to be clear, what we know right now, we don't know that the unmasking led to the leak. no one has established that. we have to make that clear. >> but we do know that there was an unmasking of flynn's name, that's the only way it could possibly leak, so somebody unmasked it, and then somebody leaked it. they might be the same person, they might be different people.

susan rice was doing unmasking, there may be other people there are doing the unmasking too. >> it was described to me today as sort of looking behind the curtain, you don't know who's behind the curtain, until you lift it. and that if you have, and it was described to me last week that these conversations were diplomat to diplomat largely. and so if they're talking about something and they mention citizen a, and it involves national security, then whoever it is is going to unmask it because they're trying to understand the context and the meaning and the importance of this conversation. so only when you lift that veil, do you really know who it is. >> how did that information leak out to the reporter and the

leaking is a whole other issue, which mike has raised. we have to leave it there. there's more to talk about, gloria, we're going to have more to talk about with you, including the latest on the president's first supreme court nominee and why getting him confirmed could change the way the senate has been doing business for decades, the nuclear option, just ahead tonight. and coming up next, the secretary of everything. he has no washington credentials. and now, jared kushner is on a mission to iraq. a look at whether that's a good idea. among his many duties and the way official washington is reacting. there's a more enjoyable way to get your fiber.

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not since robert kennedy served as his brother, president john f. kennedy's attorney general and closest as visor, has anyone that any president's orbit wield the power that jared kushner apparently does. he's also overseeing relations with china, mexico and canada.

he's the middle east's troubleshooter. now he's in iraq at the request of the joint chiefs of staff. if it seems like this 36-year-old with no government, national security policy experience, has a lot on his plate, you're not mistaken. if you're wondering where this leaves the secretaries of state and defense, you're not alone. the conversation on that shortly. first the background from michelle kaczynski. >> reporter: more than a seat at the table, trump's son-in-law and senior advisor jared kushner, seems to be at the head of every table at the white house from streamlining government in the white house to achieving peace in the middle east. president trump says jared is such a good kid, and he'll make a deal with israel. tonight, kushner is in iraq, invited by the joint chief of staff to see the situation firsthand. to get an update on the fight against isis, prompting this bewildered tweet from president obama's deputy national security advisor ben rhodes, kushner in iraq before the national security advisor or secretary of

state, totally normal. but it's not just iraq, but the president appointed kushner on a list of other issues, including trade deals, communicating with china, heading up the office of american innovation which includes updating the entire government's technology structure and tackling the opiod epidemic crisis. >> he's very good at politics. >> reporter: he's held meetings with foreign leaders when rex tillerson was noticeably absent. today the president was asked how he can do all of this. >> there's a lot of relationships that jared has made over time with different leaders, mexico being one of them you mentioned, that are going to continue to have conversations with him and help facilitate. that doesn't mean it's not being done in coordination with the state department. quite the opposite. >> he's a direct line to the president where the other institutions are not? >> great. i think that's good for government. >> reporter: so is jared kushner, who sources say has won

the president's confidence by projecting a lot of confidence especially when he doesn't have the experience or knowledge of the defacto secretary of state. to many, it appears that way, and appearances have influence, to the point that some diplomats like the chinese ambassador have been dealing directly with him. sources say it's also worked well for middle eastern delegates. like the saudis. for them, government is a family affair. kushner also was at the center of negotiations to get the president and mexico to the table in d.c., which then collapsed after president trump's executive order on immigration and some executive tweets. >> and the larger question is, up until now, we haven't seen regular order in this administration when it comes to making foreign policy. it's supposed to be centered around the national security council. they make the policy, and now there's a lot of freelancing going on. >> reporter: as jared kushner works in iraq and prepares to meet with chinese president xi on thursday, a man with no diplomatic or foreign policy experience may be the

most high-profile member of the administration doing just that. why and how are the lingering questions. outside the white house and around the world. >> that was michelle kaczynski reporting. general hurtling and amanda kingston. general hurtling, let's start with you, what do you make of jared kushner, obviously he doesn't have foreign policy or military experience, i give him credit for wanting to know something and going to the middle east to learn for himself. president trump, you know, during the campaign was talking about taking iraq's oil and saying there is no iraq and no iraqis. i get why the chairman of the joint chiefs would want him there because he knows that curber cur kushner has the president's ear. but is it weird that the secretary of state's not involved in this? >> i don't want to comment on

that, but i will say that if i were chairman of the joint chiefs, i would do exactly what general dunford has done. i would ask kushner to go with me not only to iraq but to other places because he does have the trust and confidence of the president. this is something in the military we call leading up. you get to the principal through other people by informing them and helping them become part of your argument. and i think since mr. trump, mr. tillerson and jared have not been to iraq, just the very visit to baghdad, meeting with prime minister al-abadi, and it's interesting seeing some of the pictures, i know some of those guys, and they are going to say, is this the guy we deal with? and kushner will suddenly get some real quick information in a very short period of time on the ground in iraq. but he will also get a 16-hour plane ride back and forth with the chairman of the joint chiefs and get a whole lots of information not only on iraq, but on other parts of the world.

and that will allow chairman dunsford and secretary of defense mattis to help trump when it comes to the national security of the united states. >> is there a down side? >> here is my question, what is the job of jared kushner on advising the president? also, what is he advising? given that he doesn't have a lot of foreign policy or diplomatic experience. how is he synthesizing this information. i would like to see something to know where his world view is. >> we really know nothing about him. >> but it's even more necessary because donald trump hasn't flushed out many foreign policy positions, so it's very much up for grabs. but lastly, what is his qualification for this job and how is it not nepotism? i think it's fair to say, had jared kushner not married the president's daughter, he would not have this job. so because of that he needs a lot more scrutiny, because there's a lot of the stake here. just recently, a lot of civilians were killed in iraq, we need someone who has a strong position, that request implement

whatever the president wants to do, but also convincing the american people. >> congressman kingston, should jared kushner be the one going to iraq before secretaries of state and before others? >> i don't think it really matters, and i'll tell you why, he is the president of the united states, when he goes over there, they're going to think this is very, very important, otherwise president trump would not have sent his son-in-law. and all the information that he's going to get on the ground and during the plane trip, he's going to go back to donald trump and he's not going to go through five layers of people, he's going to sit across from him at the breakfast table and say here's what i learned. >> is that the best way our government works when it's a question of who has the president's ear? i mean it sounds like a royal court more than sort of an

organized system of government as we traditionally know it. maybe it works but what is your concern. >> robert kennedy, i guess he was a lawyer of some note, but when john said you're going to be my attorney general, he probably wasn't the most qualified in the land, but these are intelligent. i know jared kushner well enough. not very well, but well enough. very capable businessman. you'll probably agree, i have been over there many times, the first thing they're going to ask him, is how committed are you? will the united states be here? and that's probably going to be the number one lesson that he's going to learn is that we have to have the commitment and he's going to go straight back to president trump and say what is your commitment level? >> we should be concerned about the messages that he relates to the president, but also sitting as a representative of the u.s. government, given that we're so

involved in foreign conflict, what message is he sending optically to those foreign leaders, look at those pictures, he often looks like the youngest, most inexperienced guy in the room. >> most of the grades of people who have died in iraq and afghanistan are younger than jared kushner. he is very capable and they are used to dealing with people who are family members or people who are intelligent. >> we should just point out, he's never served in the military, nor has he served in diplomatic service, he's worked for his dad's company and that's why he's so rich. i mean he works for his dad's company and now he's working for his father-in-law. general kingston, the president's policy on the ground is being determined by the u.s. military, they are bearing the brunt as they have for years, so

it seems like it's going to be the chairman of the joint chiefs who's going to be doing the most talking at this meeting. >> the thing that concerns me the most is yes, you are absolutely right, a lot of the actions that are taking place around the world not just in iraq, are currently left in the hands of the military, and that's not a good thing. i'm a military guy, and i'm saying we need national security strategy and we need national security policy, we don't need more executive orders. and i don't see any of that happening. if jared kushner comes back after a four-hour tour in iraq, with some ideas, that hey, we have got to give some guidance to the military, that's a very good thing. but having been in iraq for many years of my live and seeing these visits and congressional delegations coming over, there's not a whole lot of policymakers who come over to determine what kind of policy or strategy we have, they just want to see the game and go back and report on tv. and that's unfortunate. what we really need is for

kushner to go back to the president and say this has been working pretty well over the last year and a half. we have got to come up with a strategy, if you continue to say things in tweets and in speeches that don't link up with what the diplomats and the military think they're doing, we have to get -- to use that expression from that 1980s movie, one band, one sound, from "drumline." right now, everybody is not on the same page. it's great for him to visit. it's great for him to be with the chairman. and i think the chairman probably took the approach of, hey, i'd rather roll up my sleeves than wring my hands with this administration. let's teach these guys. >> smart move. just ahead, late developments in the senate battle over neil gorsuch. one more lawmaker announcing he will push the senate towards the nuclear option. we'll explain that and a live update, next. hey team, i know we're tight on time, but i really need a... ...sick day tomorrow.

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so you'rhow nice.a party? i'll be right there. and the butchery begins. what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. let's go. i'm ready. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] [ tires screech ] hold on. [ upbeat music ] the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who's that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week! now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. one more democratic senator has added his voice to block supreme court nominee neil

gorsuch. democrats have enough votes to block the nomination unless republicans move to an extreme measure. we have the answers. >> judges gorsuch's answers were so deluded with ambiguity, one could not see where he stood. >> reporter: the partisan battle lines are now drawn. >> the first time in history to conduct a filibuster, i think that's unworthy of the senate, i don't think it's the right thing to do. >> reporter: the senate is now headed toward a high stakes showdown over president trump's supreme court nominee neil gorsuch. >> democrats are setting a very dangerous precedent. >> reporter: today, democrats brought in enough support to successfully filibuster gorsuch when he faces the full senate this week. >> you're not ready to end debate on this issue. so i will be voting against closure, unless we are able as a body to finally sit down and find a way to avoid the nuclear option. >> reporter: according to cnn's vote count, senator coons' vote makes it the 41st democrat to

sign on for the filibuster. making it impossible for the republicans to get the votes needed to break the filibuster. >> it's an amazing theater that we have created here to create this pretext for a partisan filibuster, that's not going to be successful. >> reporter: meaning republicans also have to make good on their promise to institute the so-called nuclear option to get gorsuch through. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell not mincing words what he intends to do when gorsuch faces the full senate. >> what i can tell you is that neil gorsuch will be confirmed this week. >> reporter: the nuclear option will change senate rules so that gorsuch and future supreme court nominees will only need a simple majority, 51 votes, rather than the 60 votes that have been established under long standing senate rules. >> yeah, this is going to be very bad. the judges have become more ideological because you don't have to reach across the aisle to get one vote any longer.

this is going to haunt the senate. it's going to change the judiciary. and it's so unnecessary. >> we're now ready to vote on the nomination of judge neil gorsuch. >> reporter: today the last step before reaching the senate floor, giving democrats the opportunity to sound off on the process. >> so this nomination is not the usual nomination. it comes in a different way, and it has proceeded in a way of excessive spending of dark money that in the time i have been on this committee, i have never seen before. >> reporter: so here's what happens next, tomorrow at some point, mitch mcconnell will move to end the debate on neil gorsuch, that will set up a key senate vote, we expect that filibuster to not be defeated. that will be what triggers senate majority leader mitch mcconnell to set up a nuclear option. this sets up a final

confirmation votes potentially for neil gorsuch on friday, but 51 votes will all he needs to get through, just a simple majority. >> a lot to discuss. a lot to discuss with the panel. it seems like this is just as much for the next possible supreme court nominee to come along than it is about neil gorsuch. >> the overwhelm -- they can't stop a majority. the republicans from getting a majority. the republicans either will confirm with a simple majority, or they'll change the rules, so they need a simple majority. neil gorsuch is going to get confirmed one way or another and democrats with 48 votes are not going to able to stop it. >> what about- >> it is the nature of our politics today.

and it's the stakes of what's before the supreme court. and the supreme court is where abortion, affirmative action, campaign spending, it's where all the final decisions are made on those subjects and those are the most controversial decisions in american politics and democrats and republicans disagree about them. so it's no surprise the fight is so intense about what gets on the court. >> we'll have the rest of the panel join in a moment. the fury we're seeing play out. the blocked domination of marek garland and how it has shaped the confirmation of gorsuch in a moment. storm of tiny bubbles, it has long been called the champagne of beers. ♪ if you've got the time welcome to the high life. ♪ we've got the beer ♪ miller beer

as we have been reporting on the battle of president trump's supreme court pick, democrats have enough votes to filibuster the nomination and republicans are vowing to use the so-called nuclear option to push gorsuch over the finish line. it was exactly one year ago that president obama nominated marek garland. here's what they say about it at the time. >> the right of center world does not want this vacancy filled by this president. >> it doesn't have as much to do with who the president nominated, it has entirely to do

with appointing a supreme court nominee during an election year. >> i don't think we should be moving forward on this nominee if it was the last year of this president's term. >> mitch mcconnell has made it pretty clear, they're not going to vote on this until after the election. >> most republicans agree that it should be brought up after the elections to avoid the politics. >> democrats and their liberal allies say do what we say now, not what we did then. >> back with the panel. the next nominee, whoever that is would be required to have the 60 vote threshold. who would believe that either side would ever stick to such a deal? >> not me. i don't think that that's an option. i think given the world in which we live and the politics that govern our world, i don't see that happening.

and you talk to democrats and democrats will say, you know, republicans invoked the nuclear option when they refused to consider judge garland, all those clips you just showed. so the finger pointing will continue, each side will say the other one invoked the nuclear option. but in the end, i think lindsay graham was right earlier in your show when he said, look, if we end up just approving judges by just majority vote, they're going to be more ideological. and that's just unfortunately the way it's going to be because nobody will have to reach across the aisle anymore. >> i guess the -- how is it good for your party to do what the democrats are doing? >> i think it's good for a party because the positions of judge gorsuch are in total disagreement with many of the core values of the the democratic party.

i know there's been a lot of discussion about why not wait until the next one? this is for the supreme court of the united states, every person on it matters. every person on it matters if you're outraged about citizen union, if you want to protect marriage equality, if you want to protect workers' rights, the environment, a woman's right to choose. so this is an extraordinarily important position. let's put this into perspective, every nominee except thomas, every nominee since eisenhower has either been appointed or approved unanimously or with 60 votes or more. so we're not asking for a standard here to be held that is unusually -- >> democrats went nuclear a few years ago to ram through everything but supreme court justices. do you really have the moral high ground? >> i think if you look at the history of the democratic party

as it relates to filibuster et cetera, we were in a very dramatic time. we had in the first four years of the obama administration, the republicans filibustered about 79 nominees. let's put that in perspective, from george washington to george bush, 58 filibusters, so we were responding to the overuse of a procedure that was really putting things into park and not allowing things to move forward. >> are there any other options for republicans other than changing the rules of the senate? >> not if democrats aren't going to give them the votes. i think everyone should be concerned about the senate losing the 60-vote threshold, whether it comes to nominees, whether it comes to legislation, whether it comes to judges. but i do worry about this rhetoric that comes from the democratic party that this was a stolen seat. it wasn't stolen at all. the senate was well within their rights not to consider marek gar land and i think it was -- beneficial to make the supreme court a ballot issue. donald trump was very clear about what kind of person he would nominate. he gave a list, which was unprecedented for a presidential candidate to do. hillary clinton didn't do nearly a good job for making a case for why she should be picking the

next supreme court justice. and let's remember, no one thought donald trump would win, so the republicans were taking a very big risk in making this election issue, and they won. everyone knew it was coming. >> what i don't understand is what's so great about a filibuster? the senate is an undemocratic institution already. wyoming has the same number of senators as california. it's already undemocratic. so why should 40 senators be able to stop anything? what's wrong with having a majority rule? >> don't you want a consensus so the senate is different than the house? doesn't that help people bier into the process? i want to see gorsuch confirmed, but i don't want do go down the road where the senates loses 60 votes for legislation, which will happen at some point in time. we are getting closer to that. look at how quickly the senate's changed in the last five years, into something that's openly talked about among many staff members. >> i understand this belief that the senate is this wonderful deliberative body, i think it is an undemocratic body. i think there is nothing wrong

with operating with 51 votes. >> what you're talking about is a problem and making it worse. >> wyoming residents can direct their e-mails to jeffrey toobin. gloria, a final thought in you. >> i want to disagree with jeffrey on this, because honestly, i don't think you want the senate to be the same as the house. is the house such a great role model for legislating in this country? i'm not saying that the senate is, but i'm also saying that there is some utility about having people having to reach across the aisle once in a while and try and bring people around to pass major pieces of legislation on bipartisan basis so that both sides have a buy-in. i think it helps the country run. i'm not saying the senate has been brilliant. but i don't think you throw that -- i don't think you throw that away. >> i don't think you convinced jeffrey toobin. up next, the legal battle to president trump. did candidate trump incite

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president trump faces a new legal battle tonight for something he said on the campaign trail last year in the middle of a stump speech.

the accusation, his words incited a rierate. he was protected by free speech. a judge is letting the lawsuit proceed. the moment in question was caught on video. gary tuchman has details. >> reporter: this is the incident that led a judge to declare it's plausible donald trump incited violence. >> get out. get out. you know, in the old days, which isn't so long ago, when we were less politically correct, that kind of stuff wouldn't have happened. today we have to be so nice, so nice. we always have to be so nice. >> reporter: the woman getting pushed and two other anti-trump protesters accused supporters of assault and battery and accused donald trump of incitement to riot. the judge in louisville,

kentucky ruling there is enough evidence against the president to allow the case to go forward. during the campaign, then candidate trump clearly enjoyed being a tough guy. >> get out of here. get out of here. out, out! get him out of here! >> shame on you. shame on you. >> reporter: the lawsuit identified other rallies where the president allegedly incited violence. such as this one in las vegas in february 2016. >> bye-bye. see, he's smiling. see, he's having a good time. i love the old days. you know what they used to do to guys like this when they were in a place like this? they would be carried out on a stretcher, folks. >> reporter: a few weeks earlier, mr. trump told the crowd he had been warned protesters might have tomatoes. >> if you see somebody getting

ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? seriously. okay? just knock -- i promise you, i will pay for the legal fees. i promise. i promise. >> reporter: the president's verbal attacks, a reliable way to stir up the audience. although, on this october 2016 day in green bay, he didn't know he was insulting a supporter. >> get him out. get him out. >> reporter: a supporter who had fallen ill. the commotion coming from people shouting for a doctor. starting a chant of medical. >> medical. medical. medical. >> reporter: mr. trump didn't realize what was going on and kept on with the lines that normally got him cheers. >> there's always one. >> reporter: typically, that kind of talk was red meat for his supporters during the campaign. on that day in creeder rapids

when he said he would pay the legal fees, he also added -- >> there won't be so much. the courts agree with us. >> reporter: that certainly remains to be seen. gary tuckman, cnn, atlanta. the latest allegation on trump's tweeting and allegations. also what the leaders of the house intelligence committee are doing now to try to get the probe back on track. ♪ can i get some help. watch his head. ♪ i'm so happy. ♪ whatever they went through, they went through together. welcome guys. life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you.

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