and good evening. thanks for joining us. tonight according to the president of the united states the top senior official has committed a crime. cnn political nanalist maggy haberman was one of the reporters who sat down with the president. she joins us now by phone. >> reporter: thanks for having me to talk about this. in the interview we had previously planned to talk about the infrastructure plan, i asked him a question about judge

gorsuch and possibly to be supreme court justice judge gorsuch the president than began to talk about susan rice. this is going to be the biggest story he intimated without any evidence that other people were involved in this, adamant she had done something wrong and improper. and then went onto say when we asked, you know, do you think she may have committed a crime, he said do i i think, yes, i think. and left it there. as you know this is a president who has a habit like in the past when he feels attacked or also he has previously made claims he will provide additional

information for but has not. >> he didn't offer any evidence to spert the accusation? >> he did not. he suggested there were other people involved. we asked him how high up this might go, he wouldn't say. he said he would talk about it at the right time. >> just days after declaring april sexual assault and prevention month, president trump also came to bill o'reilly about his sexual harassment. >> reporter: he had mentioned bill o'reilly because i knehe has wiped bill o'reilly in the past. he felt that o'reilly -- i think bill didn't do anything wrong, i believe was the exact quote. he thought bill shouldn't have

settled. and i said why not, he said because i believe you should go all the way in defending yourself. he said bill o'reilly was a quote, unquote, good person. >> and we should point out bill o'reilly is somebody who he does repeated interviews with. >> reporter: correct. >> by the way, when the president was saying this, were there aides and stuff around him and i'm wondering did they have any reaction or were they just listening? >> reporter: there were at least six at one point including the vice president-elect who walked in. and there was no flinch. there was no noticeable reaction. but i'm pretty confident that's not what they want to be talking about tonight. >> i know he also spoke about

russia and syria. what did he say today? >> he was very disturbed by it, it was horrible to see these images of these children, which i think is a pretty much universal thought seeing them. we also asked how he thought about the alliance between russia and syria. and all he would say was it was a sad day for russia. we asked if this was something he would discuss with vladimir putin, and he said he wouldn't get into it. >> we appreciate that reporting. why now why the president and other republicans have found it so important to focus suspicion on susan rice. tom foreman tonight explains. >> thank you for being with us. >> reporter: the newest target of the trump administration, susan rice, president obama's

former national security advisor. she tried to learn the names of trump operatives incidentally caught on tape. she said she just wanted context for those conversation. >> the allegation is that somehow obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. that's absolutely false. >> reporter: the white house not buying tweeting lying leaking susan rice stammered through her softball interview. republican's skepticism of rice dates back to 2012. rice was then the american representative to the united nations and she initially said the violence grew spontaneously from a protest. >> and then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual extremist who came with heavier

weapons. >> reporter: but when it was found the attack was premeditated, then in 2014 the white house had just swapped five guantanamo bay -- rice's assessment? >> he's back. he's going to be safely reunited with his family. he served the united states with honor and distinction. >> reporter: and gop suspicion has never faded. >> every time something went wrong, she seemed to turn up in the middle of it. >> reporter: in this latest episode there is no proof rice did anything wrong or broke any laws despite what president trump has suggested. but she is right in the middle of things. and once again republicans want her under oath and answering questions. anderson. tom, thanks very much.

now, before returning to the panel i want to bring a portion of quotes he said. he said, quote, i think it's going to be such an important story for the world, and it's one of our big stories for our time. he was talking about susan rice. now, whatever you think the former national security advisor has done wrong, if in fact she's done anything wrong at all, it's hard to imagine when the community and the president himself are coming to terms with a gas attack in syria. we do use the term -- in fact he uses a number of souperalives hin his rarkz. >> one of the biggest events. it was the biggest leck toral college win since ronald reagan. one of the big things on the

internet was trump was 100% right about brussels. the biggest increase in 45 years. this is the biggest political scandal since watergate. we're getting the biggest crowds, the greatest people. and we have by far the biggest rallies people have seen. >> if so many things are described as the biggest or the best or the most, how to tell what's really important to the president. gnaw to panel, not the biggest we've ever had but certainly the bestest. keirsten, it is interesting that the president always uses these nurmzch and after a while they start to lose the value. >> he does build things up a lot. but at the same time i do think the things he find to be the

biggest, i think he in a way does care about the susan rice story than about what's happening in syria because it does impact him directly. so he tends to place a much higher and bigger emphasis on things that he thinks affect him. >> kelly, is it appropriate for the president of the united states to say he thinks susan rice has committed a crime when he has no evidence? >> if he has evidence, it's not wrong for him to say it. if he doesn't haveeds, then it's wrong for him to say it. we do know two week ago susan rice said to tbs i know-nothing about that. two week alater, yesterday she says oh, wait i did know something that. that wouldn't amount to a crime, of course, the there was a reason for the unmasking.

so, look, there are real questions here. manu raju reported on mar 21st, that some of his congressional sources told him some of the communications was about trump's family. he has a legitimate question to say why were the conversation of the trump's family unmasked? >> president trump didn't say if he had personally reviewed british intelligence to bolster his claim. >> sure. i mean i think this is pretty straightforward. this is shock and jive. we have an accusation by the president, a hooz accused president obama incorrectly as the fbi told us, that an american citizen has committed a crime with no evidence. meanwhile we have the senate and had house investigating members of the trump team for posaenl colluding to an election.

so we don't talk about the case that appears to be evidence, but we talk about an accusation against an american citizen. i've been there, anderson, when senior officials request names to be unmasked. it happens all the time. i can explain to you why it happens, but i can tell you if the president thinks the federal national security advisor unmasking names is inappropriate, he better look at what he's doing because they're doing the same thing. >> i will say that if susan rice unmasked names and unleaked them, it is the biggest sfory -- it becomes a huge, huge watergate'est scandal. it becomes a national security advisor spying on a campaign and illegally leaking that information for a political purpose. >> it would be the government

has picked this stuff up. >> the leaking of it i believe would be a big story. look, susan rice is a serial provaricator. we do know that. she has a history of going on tv and lying about stuff pretty much repeatedly. there's no evidence that she did as of yet. i don't think we should dismiss this story. sometimes what donald trump says is he thinks stuff is going to come out and things come out. i do not think we need to convict her yet. >> yet. >> there's no evidence. i don't think we should dismiss this story. >> we're at the phase of talking about a conviction when there's evidence of nothing so far except a national security advise, the most important person who advices on the

president on national security matters going about the normal business between the interactions wean herself and t t the nsa. she was asked about disclosures. that was the last word out of judy's mouth. unmasking to the national security advisor is not disclosure. >> well, i know that. leaking would be the problem. but she did go on tv and say that bill bur served with honor and distinction. she did go on tv that the video spontaneously caused the ben gauzy attack. that's entirely bogus. >> let's agree she was the worst national security advisor in world history, i'm just saying even if you think that, why is she being smeared with no evidence? >> normally if the president of the united states, any president

of the united states said they believed somebody comitted a crime, they would actually have something to back it up. >> but he might have it. >> there's literally nothing we have learned. devin nunes, the one person who has looked at these documents carefully has said one, they were not about russia, and two, they were not illegal. >> we have spent weeks talking about, speckilating about the possibility that donald trump her his campaign might have been coordinating with russia. is there evidence about that? >> we know the fbi is investigating that. >> well, maybe they should investigate this. >> i want to tell you something that the former dni president said today. >> on its face what i know about the susan rice unmasking story, what has gone on here is unlawful, inappropriate, pretty

routine, not exceptional. keep in mind, that report doesn't get to her desk unless somebody already thinks it has significant foreign intelligence. and now she's making a request to better understand what we've already established is important for foreign intelligence. >> what he's saying is the unmasking is routine, appropriate and unlawful. obviously he would know. if she's someone who leaked that information, that's a separate issue. >> anderson, look, this is really very simple. if there are six people in a sealed room and one of them is murdered, the other five become suspects. four of those five may have lujt reasons to be in the room, but they are all suspects until they get down to the evidence. the sealed room in this case, someone unmasked to the press

and committed a federal crime. >> but you're talking about michael flynn, that's not what -- the nunes stuff has nothing to do with russia we're told. >> well, it doesn't matter whether it has to do with russia or not. was someone leaking classified information? >> but was what released to the press? you don't know what the subject of the unmasking was because it has nothing to do with russia. >> well, that's why they should call all of these people. and the big pay off here in this political sense, this becomes a huge story, in fact susan rice had this information and was sharing it with president obama. that becomes a mammoth story. >> wait a second -- >> really, if we could sit around and saytled be a big story if we found ivanka trump shoplifting, yes, that would be

a huge story but there's no evidence that's happening. >> that's why you need an investigation. >> do we investigate ivanka trump shoplifting? but what we know is someone was unmasked. you guys have moved this into leaking. >> i think you're very confused about what unmasking is. >> we know a felony was committed to jeff's point with a criminal penalty of up to ten years. >> there's one thing we know about these documents. the only thing we know about these documents, two things. >> devin nunes says this has nothing to do with russia. >> it has to do with intendal surveillance under the obama administration. >> it has nothing to do with russia. we got to take a break. up next we're going to talk more about the president's defense of bill o'reilly, and the context to it. pain used to shut me down during pick-up games.

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we have been talking about maggie haberman's interview with president trump. it covers a lot of ground including the president's defense of bill o'reilly. in exchange for agreeing not to

pursue litigation or talk about their accusations against him, they have received settlements. today, remember, this is national sexual assault awareness month, the president had this to say about his old friend. quote, i think he shouldn't have settled, personally i think he shouldn't have settled, because he should have taken it all the way, i don't think bill did anything wrong. back to the panel, does it surprise you that the president of the united states is commenting in this kind of detail? >> i wish i could say that it surprises me but it doesn't. and it's not appropriate. and the content of his comments was very much how he defended roger ailes when roger ailes was accused of sexual harassment. and i have interviewed about defending ails and he said some of the same attitude. he said that roger is a good man, i know him, he wouldn't do it. that's not really how sexual harassment works. and he also talked a lot about how roger had done so many good things for people. he just clearly doesn't understand it. and i said how would you like it if ivanka was treated this way?

he said i hope she would find another job or career. this is somebody who is -- i mean ant waitedwise be a very fice way to say it. it's a very much throw back way of thinking about sexual harassment is that your buddies can do whatever they want and you believe them at face value. i don't know what happened, i also know that he doesn't know that it didn't happen. it's just not appropriate for him to be declaring that these women are not telling the truth. >> it's interesting, traditionally a president of the united states would not kind of wade into this sort of a case. >> right. you know, i have no problem with him being a character witness for bill o'reilly, saying i have known him for a very long time, he's a very good man. i have met bill o'reilly a few times and he has treated me with nothing but respect. so i can make that claim. but let me finish my point. as far as what happened in that room, none of us where there. we can't say he did do it or he

didn't do it. i think weighing in on the specifics of the voracity of the claim wasn't the best. if he wants to be a character witness, i don't have a problem with that. >> but something happened on the phone and it seems like there was reporting on it because there were very specific transcripts that were released. >> but it presumes that somebody if i they're nice to you that they wouldn't do something bad and that's just not correct. and in fact he said to me oh, roger ails has always been a gentleman to me. you're a man. because someone didn't sexually harass you, kaley, doesn't mean that the man doesn't sexually harass. it doesn't mean it didn't happen with somebody else. it doesn't mean that it did happen. >> sure, sure. i think if you know someone well, you can many times vouch for their character. >> how would he know what bill o'reilly or roger ailes would do in private with a woman? how could he possibly know that? >> someone who you work closely with you can vouch for their

incharacter and integrity. why can't he make that point? >> he's not making the point that he's just a man of integrity and character, he's making the point that it didn't happen and that these women lied. >> and that's the part i said he shouldn't have gone to that length. >> i think you also don't understand that when you step up and say i'm vouching for this person, you are suggesting that the women are lying. >> why would you say that the. >> because if you want to vouch for someone's character, you have the right to do that. sojust like you can vouch for the character of your faunfauns somebody else. >> i didn't even want to bring up comments that, you know, donald trump made in the past. we all know the access hollywood

tape. does he really has a place for vouching? >> i think so. president trump is somebody who's empowered women in the construction industry. >> he did talk about grabbing women's genitals. >> of course, and he apologized for that. >> do you think somebody who empowers women -- this is actually his story for robert ails. do you believe that? >> i think donald trump is someone who does have credibility. i think he's been vilified falsy as we being misaogynistic. >> i asked you can a man help a woman in her career and also sex

harass her? > >> of course. >> but you're saying he's empowering women and -- >> that's not what i said. i said the way donald trump has treated me and the way i interact with him and the people on his staff -- >> wait a minute. people on his staff have sued him and he has settlements for large sums of money. >> well, when you settle doesn't mean there's merit to the claim. just like bill o'reilly said he settled the case because just the allegations out there can be damaging. >> you think he gave up half his income for a year because he was afraid of some allegations against him? >> i'm saying he wouldn't want accusations like this floating around him. i think he would pay money to

not have his character maligned if he did this. all i'm saying we can't falsely accuse someone who says they didn't do it. none of us where in the room. >> it does seem like there's a culture at fox that certainly allowed this to happen. >> look, i can't speak for those interactions. maybe it happened. roger ailes had pay outs. i'm just saying we can't vilify someone from this. i was at fox. i was never mistreated in any way. i just think we shouldn't lump him into other areas. >> if i had settled -- if i.

but you just called bill o'reilly a scandal. so do you think he -- >> he's not caught up in that, like there's a scandal around him right now which is what i was sort of talking about. but the thing i was coming back to is it didn't happen to me in the way you're saying it. it sounds like you're saying it didn't happen to me, and therefore that is meaningful in some way, and it's just not. it's not meaningful that bill o'reilly didn't proposition me. but it doesn't have any bearing on whether other people were

proposition said. >> when you're putting together a case in court, you gather fact. >> i'm talking about you repeatedly. >> not one person put into a call to the anonymous phone line. also roger ails is doing what he was accused of doing for which he actually left the company.

>> i've met him once or twice. >> i am not passing judgment on that. what i am passing judgment is on is the president of the united states passing in and weighing on it. if he wants to say this is what i've done, i'm a good person. that to me is there. we have a gas attack. president trump delivers his strongest response yet. details ahead. do you play? ♪ ♪ use the chase mobile app to send money in just a tap, to friends at more banks then ever before.

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more breaking news tonight, president trump with a very different response on the syrian chemical attack yesterday at dawn. the crisis is arguably the trump administration's first major foreign policy test, it's unfolding as president trump meets this week with three world

leaders. a live press conference quickly turned to talk of syria. lawmakers from both parties are demanding action against bashar al assad. with the u.n. calling an emergency meeting, president trump toughened his tone. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. >> reporter: president trump strongly condemning the deadly chemical attacks in syria, and the regime of bushar al assad. >> the attack in syria yesterday had a big impact on me, big impact. that was a horrible, horrible thing. >> reporter: he said how he would respond to the foreign policy challenges in the white house. >> my attitude toward syria and assad has changed very much. >> reporter: facing threats from north korea and a war torn middle east, the trump doctrine

is still very much unclear. and for that the president didn't apologize. >> i'm not saying i'm doing anything one way or the other,

test test.

>> early on this was a peaceful demonstrations by people in adarra. assad over time opened up the prisons allowing extremists out to kind of have a self-fulfilling process saying we're battling tearests. >> assad's strategy has been to tell the world it's me or isis. and by presenting that stark contrast, he's achieving what he wants. the danger here is trump is sorting of suggesting he's going to change here. and he's going to get tougher. haeb he's no longer going to support assad. but what does that mean? that's actually a consgejs thing for the president of the united states to say. i think trump is used to trying out some words, flexing his muscle, maybe trying to see if there's leverage.

but in this situation the whole world is watching. is he now saying that the government of the united states is going to take on assad? if it's going to take on assad, it needs to win. it needs to be able to defeat assad. if it does, then what does it mean? you can't leave the world wondering. because it's not just us. every country in the outer world is trying to understand what is the country going to do and what do we need to do and it's one thing to not telegraph your military moves, but if you don't telegraph your actual strategy, everybody thinks you don't have one. >> the national security council as you know is so important in determining what our strategy is going to be. bannon was on this council as a principle, and he's a political guy. and he was taken off that today. and my sources tell me this is cleary a demotion for steve

bannon and that this general mcmaster who said i don't want him there. and i'm told mcmaster went to trump about this, and donald trump did not push back on it, that he and mcmaster clash very often i'm told, but they didn't clash over this. and i think that you now see the national security council taking a more security counsel taking a more normal role here. and by putting the cia director back on it, et cetera, et cetera, it's going to be like a security council used to be in former administrations and removing the politics from it for good reason. >> and if i could, anderson, what we have, too, is hr mcmasters working unbelievably. he's about three months behind where the national security council should be right now.

they should have come into office with some strategy, the some national security policy. h.r. is building up some flight, and it's going to be stutter stepping for a while until he gets the principles in, until the state department gets their underlgs in. >> right. difficult times. just ahead new reports tonight about for the trump transition and how it may be shaping the presidency.

the trump administration is halfway through its 11th week with a good chunk of its first 100 days behind it. the washington post has an interesting piece how the trump campaign led to a messy presidency. nu, the upshot of the post article is the the trump administration is anything but a finally tuned machine. the white house, we will say, does not see it that way. more now from washington post

chief correspondent, ryan and jeffrey are also back. he points to what he argues is a first productive week for donald trump. a lot of it at its core seemed be about donald trump's management style. >> i think that's right, anderson. i mean the interesting thing is there was a transition process that was operating pretty normally. and according to outsiders, pretty effectively until the week of the election. but the curiosity is that donald trump as he put it bad karma reasons did not want to engage at all with the transition team prior to the election. he just thought it was, you know -- he thought it would jink him. so he didn't have any involvement though members of his family and senior staff certainly did. >> and jeffrey, i'm sure you

read dan's speech but it seems that the white house is setup in many ways like the transition was and in many ways like the trump organization itself was. and it worked certainly during the campaign. donald trump had a very small core group just as he did in the trump organization when he was in business, but does it work for the white house? do their need to be more experienced hands and clear lines on responsibility? >> this is the donald trump pruz daens, and he's going to run it in a fashion he became accustomed to in the private sector. he does have a tendency, which historically reminds me of franklin roosevelt of having competing odds with each other. ronald reagan did this, too, because i think he feels it brings out the best in people. so he must assured is going to do this no fashion.

>> bought to ron's point, it was sort of how the trump organization was run. but that's not really like many other large companies are run. i mean the trump administration for all the various businesses they had and however many people they made employed, the actual organization itself and trump tower was pretty small. and it does seem like it was a very top-down coming from the personality of donald trump. >> one of the thing's that dan's piece points out that i think is really unique about the trump white house is he's ditched the model that presidents have used really since carter, which is a very strong chief of staff and nobody sort of on the same -- or very few people on the same level of that chief of staff and not a really top-heavy house. trump has a very top-heavy white house. he has about six people close to the authority as the chief of staff. and that creates the factions

because each one of those people has a little bit of a power center. you know, back in the 70s ford tried this model. carter tried this model. it even had a name. it was called spokes of the wheel. so each person was a spoke going into the president. everyone since then has abandoned it because it just created a factionalized white house that was a little like the lord of the flies. >> i've talked to republicans and damnics from recent administrations who all said everybody needs to know what their lanes are, what their portfolios are, and you can't have various people who happen to have the president's ear. everybody kinds of needs to stay in their lane. >> certainly there are management techniques of having conflicting groups around you so that you are getting different kinds of advice so that everything isn't homogenized, and there is some value in that.

but i think that one of the things that some of the people who were preparing the transition saw that donald trump as a candidate and as a businessman has a particular style. and un of the things we know about that is that he has a relatively short attention span and can easily get distracted with things. and i think one of the reasons they felt there was a need for a very strong chief of staff and pretty clear lines of authority was to help brig some discipline. >> jeff, when you look at the number of positions which have not been filled. according to washington post you have 500 key positions. only 21 nominees have actually been confirmed. you know, republicans control the senate. it's pretty stunning at this point. >>, you know, i'm sure i actually heard the president say he was holding back on appointing some of these positions because he

instinctively feels it was too top-heavy. the other thing i think is important to note, this was a great piece by dan. but it is, i would say, however, a washington story. out here people are not paying attention to this kind of thing. and what will happen is at the end of the trump presidency, whenever that may be, history will judge him on hisplacements as they do with every other president. not necessarily and really at all on how he got there. >> to say people aren't paying attention to him, it doesn't mean it doesn't play a role in what ends up being the accomplishment. >> i understand. and history will judge that. >> thank you very much. really fascinating article from the washington post. >> thank you. throughout his early days of the administration he also has

been trying to reform his immigration policy. this is raising fears and even for the workers who voted for president trump. van jones has the messy truth. >> california farmers call this place flyover country. it's only a few hours from san francisco, but you will likely never see it. you just have to travel above it on your way to the coast. but while you may never look down on these fields, make no mistake you probably eat what's produced here every single day. chances are the food you're putting on your table tonight, chances are they came from right here in the central valley in california. >> up you go. >> come here, spend a little time, and this is what you see. day in and dayute, undocumented

immigrants working these fields. farmers call them the backbone of their business, the same farmers who say that donald trump was the guy they wanted to see in the white house. we're here to find out what trump's policies are going to do to make farming better or worse. so how could farmers like paul bettencourt who lives in a blue state to keep their businesses running the your entire business requires immigrant labor. donald trump says get them out of here, and you vote for donald trump. why vote for donald trump? >> this is the first time i've ever confsed publicly i've ever voted for him. i've dodged the question for a few months. the alternative was unthinkable. continued presser from the federal government was squeezing us out. the big issue was water.

we got no help from washington during the drought. so continuation of what we had was unthinkable. >> reporter: but trump if he takes regulation away, he's also going to take your workers away. how do you agree with that the. >> well, this is where i disagree with him. so we need a solution for the whole country where we can bring people out of the shadows so we don't have this problem. >> well, now you sound like a democrat. you're confusing me. >> well, this is messy. and the farmers aren't in lock step. you get five farmers together, you get five different opinions. so i have no problem voting for the president and disagreeing with him on trade immigration, because i think he's wrong on these issues. >> reporter: he says if the work force goes, so will the farms. >>. >> we like to say your food that's going to be on your table

tonight is reprobably going to be picked by immigrant hands. the real question is is it going to be picked by immigrant hands here in the united states or in another country? >> you can create a big problem because the whole economy can collapse. >> reporter: yeah. >> you need the workers here. >> reporter: farm worker advocate says the nation's food supply relies on undocumented labor and deporting them is not only bad for business but also threatens to break up families. a lot of people we saw today, the good people, the hardworking people, you said they're afraid. >> what are they afraid of? >> well, they're afraid to go to the store, to restaurants. they're afraid to go out because they might get deported and who's going to take care of their kids? >> reporter: so what's the

answer? farmers may be freel of some regulations, but will he listen to them when it comes to the work force? >> he's the deal maker and the negotiator, and i'm hoping we can get past the rhetoric and past the tweets and he can bring people around the table . president trump combative and candid following the chemical attack in syria. why he says he's changing his view on issues. that with the backdrop of the most important global relationship that become president xi jinping and president trump. another chapter today when they meet. i'm dave briggs. >> i'm christine romans, thursday april 6th,