president trump wants you to believe he is the victim of a crooked scre crooked scheme, his words. there is no evidence of any wrong doing. in fact if anything, the nsa asking for identities wasforeig. the white house blasting the press for not reporting on another fake scandal being pedalled by right wing media. that is day 75 of the trump presidency, and we do have it covered. let's begin with cnn's jim sciutto live in washington. busy night foru my friend. >> we're at a space where intelligence is routinely politicized. but even the terms of intelligence are deliberately distorted. i've spoken to the most senior intelligence officials from republican and democratic administrations. they say definitively unmasking is not leaking.

it is routine. it is something that senior national security officials do on a regular basis to get a better understanding of the intelligence reports we see every day. it's legal. there are protocols put in place since 9/11 to allow this to happen. it cannot be done alone, requires the approval of the intelligence community. that information is not widely disseminated. it's between the briefer and that senior national official whoever it is including secretary rice. i've spoken to people close to secretary rice. it is their position that she -- reports that she unproperly unmasked i hdentities is false. attempts to back justify the unfounded claim president obama surveiled him. susan rice at the center of president trump's latest attempt to renew his unproven wiretap claim and divert attention away from his team's contacts with

russia. president trump seizing on conservative media reports that claim ambassador rice unmasked the names of trump transition officials caught up in routine surveillance. >> at its core, this was surveillance for apparently political reasons tweeting that he was spied on before the nomination and calling it a crooked scheme. source close to rice telling cnn that allegations that she did anything unusual or improper false. the white house blasting the media for ignoring this ginned up scandal. >> from a media standpoint somewhat intrigued by the lack of interest we've seen in some of these public revelations and reporting that has gone in that direction we've seen and some other directions we've seen. >> officials stress unmasking names in intelligence reports is a routine procedure, something different from leaking this information to the press. >> if somebody feels

intelligence value there's procedures you go through and lawyers look over your shoulder, so there's nothing unusual about unmasking. >> the administration's latest justification a far cry from president trump's initial claim one month ago, president obama wiretapped trump tower, an accusation that mr. trump that attempted to redefine. >> that covers surveillance and many other things. >> and justify even after his own fbi director refuted the claim. >> i think you're going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks. >> last week the trump administration tried to distort comments made by a former obama defense official, evelyn farkas. >> dr. farkas admissions alone are devastating. >> this to support president obama spied on him. she said her comments widely misinterpreted. the week before that house chairman nunes got wrapped up in

the white house diversion. >> the president needs to know these intelligence reports are out there. >> briefing the commander in chief and media before his own committee about classified information about incidental collection on the president's associates. >> i very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found. >> trump calling nunes announcement vindication. days later it turns out officials inside the white house were the original source of the documents shown to nunes. >> we believe this is nothing more than a record to roll more into an investigation that was making progress. >> now, there are legitimate questions about unmasking. how easy does the law unmask names of americans caught up in the surveillance of foreigners. those are legitimate questions. but based on what we know now, there is nothing unusual or certainly illegal about the unmasking done by former obama officials. chris and alisyn. >> that's part of the problem.

first of all, thanks for laying it out with us. stay with us because it's an important conversation. there's this conflation of legitimate issues and applying it to a situation where they don't bear any relevance. let's discuss now. we have associate editor and economist for real clear politics a.b. stoddard and former counter-terrorism official phillip mudd. it's good to have you all here this morning. phil, the word unmasking used in a very nefarious way now. almost like you should say it in a whisper. they were unmasking. what is unmasking and when is it right and when is it not? >> let me take you through the situation. you know a lot of stories swirling in washington about russian interference in the election. the president asks his national security adviser susan rice to look into how the government should responsibility. on the 2rd announces sanctions against russians and expels

russian diplomats. i've got to judge based on what we've seen in the last 24, 48 hours that susan rice is getting intelligence not only how the russians are responding to those sanctions but communications between trump and trump officials. let's cut to the chase. what is she supposed to do? she's responsible for implementing sanctions policy of president obama and she sees intelligence that says person number one, person number one is talking to russian officials about the issue. she says i have the responsibility to know who is talking to the president about the policy or i'm going to go forward and unmaersk the names. not only appropriate but it's her responsibility to know this. this is a smoke screen. sean spicer knows about intelligence what i know about ballet. she has to know what they are doing, trying to empead the s--

impede the white house. >> that's quite different how the white house is depicting this situation and how right wing media is depicting the situation. let's listen to bill o'reilly who addressed the angle of the white house. >> this story trying to darwarf the russian thing. there's no evidence. even the house intel committee said there's no russian thing we've seen. >> he didn't quite say that but he came close. this means dual track investigation in both houses. the whole question of unmasking american names is going to be a significant part of it. >> it's now broken out.

>> there's no way to turn back now. >> funny way to turn back, keeping the facts straight how you have general issues versus specific ones of concern here, a.b. stoddard how it's done. do you see that reported legitimately and others in the conservative issue. >> i do think leaking is an issue. leaking is a problem no matter who the administration is, there's a code of conduct and they aren't supposed to be leaking stuff. wide dissemination of leaks is really the problem here. but what people are doing we've been talking about, confusing and conflating these issues. people at home interested in the truth really need to learn the difference between incidental collection and wiretapping. they are not the same thing. unmasking is not wiretapping. unmasking is not leaking. so it allows trump supporters

and allies to build this narrative there was this wild surveillance of trump and his associates. there were conversations between fisa targets and other people foreigners or trump associates themselves during which names of trump campaign officials, et cetera, family members, were caught up in this. it's the wide dissemination that is a problem, potentially a crime. susan rice has a credibility problem. devin nunes has a credibility problem. so this is very muddied waters here at this point. but it's important for people to know that what jim points out in his reporting, this is not only legal, like it or not, it's not even unusual, is really that's the fundamental headline here and the bottom line. >> so then jim, take it one step further for us, what a.b. just raised, do we know how widely susan rice disseminated the name she asked to be unmasked or revealed to her? >> we don't know that.

this is the thing described to me by various officials. when unmasking happens it's not like you put out an entire memorial okay to the white house staff. that unmasking happens between the briefer and senior national security official. is it possible the senior national security official goes down the corridor and tells someone else in the building or calls a reporter, it's certainly possible. we don't know that at this stage. the other point i would make, unmasking -- one person cannot order unmasking. it requires intelligence community, nsa, to agree that request is material and grant that request. the other point that was made to me, these things are meticulously logged. one senior intelligence official said to me, chris, you'll appreciate this, they are logged like irish baptismal records. so you can't do it in the dark. that's one reason why devin nunes was able to go to the white house and look at the request susan rice made.

they are meticulously logged. >> we are seeing intentional deception, phil mudd. you want to take a general issue, which people have about surveillance. what are you collecting there in the spy world and when is my name up for your own offer within your agency or outside and what was done specifically here. to jim's point, if rice wanted to leak this, if they wanted to do something sneaky, why would she have gone through the normal challenge of having it unmasked and created a paper trail of her own deception. >> sure. if you look at this case, let me pick up on what was said. i've been in the room when the fbi director requests unmasking of a name. believe it not the fbi can't determine the name in that intercepted communication. the director of fbi has to go through that formal process jim just identified. as soon as susan rice asks for

that name, she knows she's going to be entered in a registry that indicates she made that request. one other appoint. theres a suggestion this is intel community leak. i'm going to wager to you, i bet you a beer, some of these leaks are coming within the white house. that is white house officials seeing these records and saying i want to throw susan rice under the bus because that diverts this investigation from russia. i don't think this is all intel guys. we know that because one of the connections between the white house and outside, white house inappropriately calling the congress. >> look, me buying you things to eat and drink is nothing new, i don't know if it counts as a wager. all you have to do is look at devin nunes, i got this independently to having a direct connection to the white house what he put out. there's something. >> it's a web, thank you for sorting this out this morning. we have other news this morning. turning to supreme court battle.

democrats now have votes to block president trump's nominee neil gorsuch. republicans are poised to overi'd them by changing senate rules to confirm him when they vote on friday. that would be unprecedented at this level. live on capitol hill with more on this showdown, what is next? >> democrats have now locked in enough support to be able to successfully filibuster neil gorsuch which essentially dares the republicans to do what they have been threatening to do all along, invoke this so-called nuclear option changing long-standing senate rules, getting gorsuch through this week with a simple majority vote. so far republicans are not backing down from that threat. >> judge gorsuch will be confirmed by the end of the week by the united states senate. >> senate republicans to invoke nuclear option for supreme court nominees to confirm neil gorsuch. >> i'm going to change the

rules, not part of the senate where democrats get their judges and republicans can never get theirs. >> after democrats secured enough votes to filibuster his nomination. >> this nomination is not the usual nomination. >> senate majority leader vowing to change the rules so gorsuch and future supreme court nominees will only need a simple majority to secure confirmation, needing 51 votes rather than 60. >> i think that's unworthy of the senate. i don't think it's the right thing to do. >> the judges 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, change the judiciary, and so unnecessary. >> but democrats have been emboldened after republicans refuse to hold a hearing last year for president obama's supreme court justice pick merrick garland. >> if seven months of preventing judge merrick garland from getting a hearing and a vote is anything, it is the longest,

most successful partisan filibuster in history. >> the supreme court showdown playing out on capitol hill as the white house tries to revive the health care battle. vice president mike pence meeting with freedom caucus last night trying to win them over with two new offers. first allowing states to opt out of providing essential health benefits provided under obamacare. also on the table, a waiver for insurers to opt out of requirements that ban them from charging higher premiums based on gender, age, or prior illness. >> we're encouraged by at least the idea, intrigued by the idea, but certainly need a whole lot more information but we can take any action. >> meantime back on the gorsuch battle, the wheels in motion will start turning on all of this today. at some point senate majority leader mitch mcconnell will move to end the vote. that will set up key procedural vote on thursday. we suspect as we've been

reporting that filibuster will not be defeated. it is then when the potential nuclear option could be invoked, which, chris, sets up final confirmation vote for neil gorsuch friday. >> politically sticky situation but logically simple. traditionally you need 60 votes to get a supreme court justice through. now they are changing the rules to make it a simple majority. that would be something. we've never seen it before. we'll tell you more on what's doing on with this battle over gorsuch. will we have a new supreme court justice by the end of the week? we'll tell you what needs to happen for that to be so. featuring ego's patented, 56 the #1 rated,volt,power+ mower. arc lithium battery technology, it delivers the cutting-torque of gas. the ego mower's durable construction makes mowing in difficult conditions easy.

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leaders in washington are speaking out about changing the rules ahead of supreme court ne. they have enough to keep him off the bench of republicans have a last ditch way to push it through. let's bring back a.b. stoddard

and patrick healey and senior analyst and former prosecutor jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, let's start with you. we call this the nuclear option. it would be unprecedented at the supreme court level. what does it mean for what's going to happen this week? >> it means neil gorsuch will get confirmed. there's 53 solid votes for him. that's a majority. the rules will change so there's no longer a need for 60 votes to close off debate so instead it's a majority. >> forevermore what happens this week will change the rules. >> until they change it again. it's a procedural rule. depends who wants what. >> it seems to only work this way. i have to say i find this less outrageous, less crazy than most people. the senate is an undemocratic institution to start with. you have very small states with the same number of votes as very large states. and 40 senators can stop

legislation, stop a nomination, why is that such a good thing? why should democracy rule? >> it was always seen as empowering minority. you're going to be in power at some point. there is something that needs to be made play. that's a good point, jeffrey. democrats have enough votes to stop it. no, they don't. they don't have enough votes to stop gorsuch. you only need 51 votes. this is a filibuster move. this is a move to stop voting from happening. this is in itself is a minority play. >> you need 60. >> you never needed 60. if the democrats don't want a vote to happen, they do something called a filibuster, which either party can do. they keep talking. sixty votes to stop a filibuster. >> i think he's trying to prove the point, make it clear. big words. >> to jeffrey's point, it's

about can the genie ever be put back in the bottle. once they uncork this, once everything is about 50 plus one, the history of the senate has been about slowing things down, not looking necessarily for a straight line majority but trying to build up some sort of consensus, get some kind of bipartisan support. that is a thing really of the past. right now it's all about partisan politics, what president's party is in office, which all the members -- >> a.b., let's be clear. republicans say, harry reid started it. >> harry reid in 2013 got rid of the filibuster for lower court nominations and what will happen by doing this for supreme court nominations many fear to it leading to legislation going away as well. i understand jeffrey toobin doesn't have a problem with

that, legislation pass with 351 votes. in an atmosphere that's so polarized, i don't think we need less bipartisanship. i also think it's going to be really a corrosive move on both bodies, both branches, not only on the senate and therefore the congress but on the supreme court where you're going to see more polarizing partisan figures. because if everyone is confirmable, no one is held to the standards with which these justices have always been confirmed, which is that they are uniquely qualified and come with sterling credentials to the job that neither party in the past has objected to, even when there's a disagreement over ideology. i think that's why so many of us are lamenting that this is doing to happen because it's going to affect not only congress but the supreme court. >> president-elect is so important. the man there so long it shouldn't be who you like in a moment of advantage.

what do you make of that argument? >> i don't buy it. first of all, i think presidents have taken these nominations very seriously for a long time. neil gorsuch whatever you think of him is very qualified on paper. he's very conservative. but this is what donald trump promised. donald trump promised i'll appoint a pro-life justice to the supreme court. that apparently is what he has done. i think he's going to continue to do that, whether it's 50 or 60 that are required for confirmation. i think hillary clinton would have done the same thing if she were president. >> remember scalia confirmed 98-0. these are different times now. the idea of saying we're going to sort of hold onto these old rules to try to take us back to some better day, neither party wants that. the democrats did this to george w. bush, republicans fought barack obama on this, it's not where we are now in politics. >> also interest and affect so many americans, that's health

care. a.b., the house caucus is back at it. the white house says they are back at it. democrats have their own ideas. where are we with health care plan right now? >> well, the president went from threatening to support primary challenges against the members of the freedom caucus who brought the bill down march 24th, by monday he was talking to them, which is an interesting thing. although he talked about working with democrats, threatened democrats in the friday tweet, it doesn't seem he's going to get any takers. he realized he has to deal with hard line conservatives who were the toughest votes to get last time. they are back to debating on the very same things, title one regulations under obamacare that make it so popular. it will be hard, actually, to find something that the freedom caucus can support that lowers premiums for healthy people and will likely raise premiums for sick people that the moderate republicans will agree to. there are still skeptics at the

leadership table about this, though everyone wishes something would drop from the sky. >> have you heard anything about drug pricing being middle ground, a small step. >> it's not something they can do by friday. they wan to take a recess and do a government funding bill by april 28th. that's a whole new frontier in health care reform that would require democrats. so many believe letting free market dictate that kind of thing. you don't start messing with drug companies and the pricing. that's something trump would have to spend a lot of time on. >> a.b., jeffrey, patrick, thank you all very much for your time. >> so we have new details on that terror attack in russia. authorities identified a man police say carried out yesterday's attack on a metro train in russia. who is he? what was the motive? is there any other part to the plot? next. (de♪p breath) (phone ringing)

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>> breaking news out of russia. authorities identifying the man they say detonated that bomb on a metro train in st. petersburg. the death toll rises to 14 people.

cnn live at the scene with breaking details. >> >> reporter: holding a press conference, preliminary indication this was a suicide bombing. suicide bombing. there was speculation of that point yesterday. this the first official confirmation that is the derrek of the investigation. it was kyrgyzstan security authorities that identified the suspect. akbarzhon dzhalilov born in 1995, makes him 21 or 22 years old. he was boarding but was a russian citizen. that is the man responsible for the deadly bombing that killed 14. that might answer who but doesn't answer the motive, the how or why and doesn't say he was acting alone. remember, there was one more bomb found along a metro station same line. that was diffused. was there somebody else, a bigger group. all of that as russia has declared three state days of mourning after this attack. that's exactly what you can see

behind me, this crowd gathered at the memorial. hundreds if not thousands of flowers as well as dozens of candles here as a way of remembering lives lost as the investigation continues. chris. >> hard to appreciate that reporting, let us know what else has learned. we also have breaking news in syria. reports of a gas attack there just days after president trump said the u.s. would not topple the country's leader. who was behind this attack, how many killed. the target may have been a hospital. next. your insurance company

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news. reports of a gas or some kind of chemical attack in syria killing dozens. right now the numbers are early. we're hearing as many as 10 kids may be involved. a french news agency said a rocket slammed into a hospital where doctors were treating the victims, killing dozens more. this attack comes days after the trump administration said it's not going to try to overthrow syrian leader bashar al assad. let's discuss this we have two perfect guests, cleave of

"times" an arwa damon, cnn international correspondent. not easy to say but good to have you both. let's talk about the urgency on the ground. this is what assad does to his own people. we need to know who is responsible for the attacks. what is the concern? >> the concern is he has chemical weapons still despite concerns to get rid of all of them. the risk is he's using them. now that you have president of the united states saying we're not interested in changeing that regime he may feel a sense of impunity. he has russia, iran backing him, the united states says he doesn't care if he's in power or not. this is basically doing whatever he wants. >> arwa, you've done so much reporting in that region, you've seen the atrocities up close. so it sounds like the trump administration is sort of changing the doctrine. their feeling is whatever you do in your country is your business.

we're focused on the united states. we're not going to try to foist democracy on other far flung places where we haven't had a great history of that. >> compounded by that is actually happening at two levels. you have under the obama administration, for example, the chemical attack that happened in 2013 and everyone thought would galvanize the united states, galvanize the international community to do something to bring about an end to the violence. that didn't happen. there has been no accountability whatsoever when it comes to syria. now with president trump seemingly taking more hands off approach saying you know what, you want to gas your people, do whatever it is, imprison people, silence voices of accident, torture, we're not going to get involved. that's sending a frightening message to the middle east at this stage which can hardly afford a united states that doesn't have a clear policy. >> brignks us back to the red

line and president obama seemingly escaping into the sand. there was nothing syria could do. syria will say this isn't us. from your experience on the ground how many entities have this capability to attack from both and gas related ordnance. >> not many. that's why most will say it's syria, obviously have air assets as the united states and other coalition partners. it just wouldn't make sense for them to carry out this kind of attack. this is very much the pattern of what we've seen coming from the assad regime and russians as well. they will bomb civilian areas, they will bomb hospitals and they will continue to do it because no one is willing to stop them. whatever it's going to cost, whatever bargaining chicps to pt on the table, killing innocent civilians, no one willing to put the chips on the table. >> backing off, secretary of state tillerson as well as

ambassador haley saying the plan is no longer to try to remove assad and we have al sisi from egypt meeting here from the u.s. human rights violations do not seem to be at the top of the u.s. priority list anymore. >> no. i think donald trump's point of view is it hasn't worked in the past, we're going to try something new. in the field of diplomacy that's not necessarily a good idea. there's a reason why things move a certain way, slow, unpredictability is not necessarily a good thing. >> they also feel upsetting apple cart in iraq and libya has back fired. >> that train left the station. the apple cart is upset. damage control needs to be done. allowing, sending word out we don't care about human rates especially when the other major players in the region, russia and iran, the most prominently plainly don't care about human rights means that discussion off the table. that's not a good idea.

that's sending a bad message to people. it's sending a message to every bad guy out there who might be inspired to say, no, i can pull this stunt on my own people. if not the united states, then who? >> you have the experience of watching what happened before, during and after the arab spring, manifestation, inject democracy, decide for themselves. what works in that part of the world in terms of stabilizing humanity. >> that's the question. we don't know what works because the region has been so unstable for so long. one thing that doesn't work and historically hasn't work is u.s. meddling. america has not been able to figure out how to play dynamics of middle east to push the middle east to being a more stable region nor quite frankly other countries deliberately wanting to inject instability. look at the arab spring, all of the movements and all of the

respective countries started out with a basic simple desire. we want democracy, we want freedom. then all the outside actors came in and began using these movements as their own proxy battlefield now we have this contractible mess we're in right now. arwa, bobby, thanks for sharing your expertise and being in the studio with us. we have to tell you about wild weather back home. it has struck the south. where will these deadly storms go next? we'll let you know. did you apply? oh, i'll do it later today. your credit score must be amazing. my credit score? credit karma. it's free. that's great! um hm. just whip bam boom, it's done. that apartment is mine! credit karma. give yourself some credit.

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what was next? >> well, all of this rain is actually headed up to the northeast. we're not going to see that severe threat like we did in the south, but these were dangerous storms, deadly as you said. 157 wind reports, 15 tornado reports yesterday. by the way, this weather report brought to you by purina, your pet, our passion. let's look at what's going on now. all of that rain is pushing to the noeft. actually some of it is going to turn into snow, believe it or not. that's what we all want beginning of april. winter storm warnings in place, winter weather advisories as well. but the big picture showing all of that rain. it is going to be a wet, wet day across much of the northeast. we could see travel delays as well. most of the snow, though, is going to stay north of portland. that's what we'll be watching as we go throughout the day today. in fact, we could see as much as 6 to 8 inches of snow in some of those areas. alisyn. >> oh, my gosh, must be spring. jennifer, thank you very much.

so the north carolina tar heels winning their sixth national championship. some call it sweet redemption. more in this morning's bleacher report. hi, coy. >> hi, alisyn. 2017 has been the year of redemption. clemson avention football championship loss in january, patriots getting their own redemption a month later now north carolina basketball getting their own redemption, too. this is the moment tar heel nation knew they would claim it. >> two-hand stuff. carolina seconds away from erasing a year's worth of pain. >> impressive just for these guys to make it back to the championship game. i got to catch up with one of the heroes moments after the game. >> i saw you go over and talk to your mom and give her a big hug. what kind of a moment did you

share? >> i just said we did it. we were both crying. we've been through a lot. >> i was in tears just because we had worked so hard to get back to this point. all we had on our mind was redemption from last year. when that confetti fell and it was on our side, it was the greatest feeling in the world. >> chris, a long, tough road to make it back to the title game. all kinds of pitfalls along the way but they made it and now carolina tar heels are champs. >> congrats to you, my brother. when we come back, how do we treat women in the workplace. what is allowed. context, more trouble at fox news. new claims of sexual harassment. advertisers jumping ship. is that what it takes to change a culture. how is the network's biggest star responding? next. hey allergy muddlers

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lawsuit that accuses roger ailes of harassment. "the new york times" reports network and o'reilly have paid out $13 million to five women. now, two companies have pulled advertisements from his show as

of last night. now, o'reilly did not address the allegations on his show last night but said in a statement that he's vulnerable to lawsuits because of his status. one new not file a lawsuit, not seeking money, spoke last night about o'reilly. >> i was asked to be on his show as a regular guest. three weeks spoke it, i got kind of an exciting e-mail from secretary saying mr. o'reilly is coming out to los angeles and he'd like to have dinner with you. i said absolutely because i wanted to talk to him about my career prospects. he brought it up at the beginning of the dinner basically said roger ailes is a good friend of his and plan on making me a contributor. at the end of the dinner he said let's get out of here. there was this awkward moment where we couldn't find each other and then he said, come back to my suite. i said i can't do that. he said, what, do you think i'm

going to attack you? then he spent time weaning me off the show. >> one of the reporters behind that investigation, along with contributing editor of "vanity fair" and author of "war at the "wall street journal"" sarah ellis. good to have both of you here. how confidence are you? what do you think you're dealing with in terms of scale and scope and terms of what we know about fox news culture. >> we're very confident in the reporting, which is why we were able to go for it with the story and put it on the front page of the "new york times." what we found is there were five settlements with women who had made allegations that bill o'reilly had sexually harassed them or otherwise treated them inappropriately. one of the interesting things, two of those deals, settlements struck in the month since roger ailes this left the network and the other one fox did not know about until 2016, a secret deal bill o'reilly had struck in

2011. >> jump in because you guys know so much more about this than i do. when i learned that about the timing it suggested more of a window into culture. there is a tendency to put it on ailes because he's no longer there. >> that's the story line fox wanted everyone to come out with, they had launched this, gotten to the bottom of it, ailes, it was stunning he left the company he founded. they said we want a transparent, open, safe culture for women. everything is fine. everyone is moving on. we obviously see this is kind of a problem in a workplace that is much harder to eradicate. while they were seeing all these things and putting out those statements and making those sorts of grand pronouncements about the future, they knew that these settlements were there

with bill o'reilly and they weren't announcing them. this is a business. they have a business to run and they don't want to sacrifice their biggest star who pulls in half a billion dollars a year over two years. so he's valuable to the company. it makes you look at the investigation a little differently. was that an effort to whitewash the problems or an effort to have a great public relations moment or were they really serious about getting to the bottom of the problem. >> what we know, too, it's not just roger ailes or bill o'reilly who have had accusations made against them. theres a woman where fox news struck a settlement of $2.5 million with. she had made allegations a man sexually assaulted hera fox news executive. >> now, one of the things that you have to deal with in reporting this, and frankly dealing with it legally, is what is real and what is on

opportunistic. where once you know an organization is vulnerable, by any estimation you have to say fox news is vulnerable on this issue. now a female can come forward and say this happened and they are going to settle because they are worried about the exposure. do you believe there's any risk of that or that is a factor at all in what we're seeing there. >> that's certainly what bill o'reilly said, that he is a target because of his prominence. the other thing that you hear is that sometimes they settle their allegations not necessarily because there is merit, they don't want bad headlines, don't want the cost of going to trial. >> i think there are two things. one is that the ailes scenario was one where we heard very similar stories from lots of different women. her suit really looked quite similar to other women. that's something i'm pretty confident the claims in that suit have back-up evidence for

what those are. ailes and o'reilly have denied these claims very vehemently. there can be some on opportunism but with the number of women coming forward -- this is not a fun thing women do. i don't think women that come forward come out with a badge of honor or are particularly more employable than they were before they made the claim. >> look at women that made these claims that are high profile and see what happens after. >> five women who received settlements after making allegations against bill o'reilly haven't worked on tv since then. >> what do you think in a situation like fox news will make a difference? >> i think it takes a long time, in fact. bill o'reilly is still there. >> he just redid his contract. >> just renewed his contract. roger ailes founded