who deserves a medal in this? the flight attend ants i thought. watch her get in the middle like a referee, who refuseds to flee. jeanne moos, cnn. good evening, we begin tonight with the latest in the russia white house watch. new information tonight about strong warnings giving by the then acting attorney general sally yates to the trump white house by the national security advisor mike flynn. sally yates is set to testify next week as part of the ongoing investigations into russia's meddling in the presidential election, but tonight we're learning what she will say. jim sciuto has more. >> reporter: former acting attorney general sally yates is prepared to testify before a

senate panel next week that she gave a forceful warning to the white house regarding then national security advisor michael flynn. this nearly three weeks before he was fired, contradicting the administration's version of events. sources familiar with her account tell cnn, on february 14, the day after flynn's firing, white house spokesman sean spicer described the meetings in far les serious ter terms. >> wanted to give us a heads up. >> reporter: but yates will explain that in a private meeting january 26, she told white house counsel john mcgahn that he had discussed both public and private conversations with russia's ambassador to the u.s. sure bay kislayak, his comments made him potentially vulnerable to being compromised by russia. flynn was fired 18 days later,

only after news reports that flynn had lied to vice president mike pence. this week will start a week's worth of appearances starting with the senate judiciary committee on wednesday. the committee will press comey on how the fbi worked with christopher steele, that included allegations there was an ongoing exchange between the trump administration and the russian government. the >> more than anything, i want to hear that the fbi isn't being blocked or impeded in their investigation and i want to know that we're going to get to the bottom of this in a balanced and bipartisan way. >> reporter: the committee will also speak answers about why comey spoke publicly about it's probe into hillary clinton's email server, and not with the

trump team's ties with russia. he insists that the dossier was worthy enough to be shared with intelligence officials. in the new legal filing obtained by cnn, lawyers for the british spy argue that his investigation into possible collusion between the trump campaign and russia, funded by political opponents of trump served a vital national security interest. >> and jim sciuto joins us now, is there anything we're going to be able to find out from these testimonies? from what i understand, a lot of this is going to be classified. >> reporter: you have the public hearings and then you have the private classified sessions where the yates of the world can be more forth coming. but we are told that she's not going to bean to into a lot of detail, for instance what gave her the judgment that flynn might be compromised by russia,

except in general terms, describing how just simply by lying that made him open to compromise, but she won't be able to go further than that, then other officials, james clapper, comey tomorrow, they have also indicated to us they don't expect to drop any big bombshells, for instance, about possible evidence of contacts or new evidence of contacts between russians and members of the trump campaign, and that's one of the issues with this, what we can hear in public, is very different than what those legislators, or those senators can hear in private. >> joining me is retired admiral kirby, what is your opinion about what sally yates is going to be able to testify about. >> it raises some interesting questions and the three that come to my mind is what's the difference between the forceful

warning and sean spicer -- >> it was like just a general heads up, but a forceful warning obviously seems to be in a different category. >> so it will be interesting to see how talks about exactly the tone and tenor of what she had to say. and two, what did the white house counsel do with the information, once she gave him this information, how high did it go? and number three, those 18 days, if they took it seriously, why did it take 18 days to finally make a decision about general flynn? and if they didn't take it seriously, that explains it, but it seems more linked to this "washington post" story that was about to come out. >> i mean he could have been blackma blackmailed, does that mean, do you think, that, could she have shared the information about exactly why he was compromised with the white house counsel? would he have been cleared to get that information? >> i think there's a reason she

should have, the white house counsel has a responsibility to check, not only law, but ethics. is someone committing a violation on the ethics side that would mean that they should not be in a conversation in the oval office about russia. but let's be clear, there's two different things we have to understand here. whether general flynn committed an ethical violation and whether he committed a legal violation, whether he was susceptible to blackmail and whether he lied. i don't think he's vulnerable to blackmail. they have a national security advisor, and a secretary of state who received a medal from vladimir putin. why didn't she just walk in and say you should be concerned about your national security advisor. >> and we don't know the information that sally yates had learned, if it was blackmail based on that he lied to the

vice president and others about what he had talked got with the russians? >> i think the key phrase here, anderson, is compromise. so that can mean a lot of different things in the human operations context. you know, phil's right, if the operation was a success and they the russians felt like they had flynn on their side of things, why blackmail if they had their man. but if the situation is that flip had some contact with the russians, or just vis-a-vis his conversations with kiss lee yack, all of that we don't know because the investigation is ongoing, what we do know is that whatever yates saw, concern her enough that she felt the need to immediately let her supervisors know, and when you have this counter intelligence espionage type situation, politics doesn't

get into it. you need to let people know about it. and that's sounds like what she did. >> the fact that 18 days passed from the time of that conversation salliaty yates had with white house counsel, if time is of the essence and there's a security concern, that seems like a long time. michael hayden said it seemed like flynn was fired not because of what he had done, but because it was going to be written about in the "washington post." that seems to make it worse, that it could have gone on longer than 18 days if "the washington post" didn't break the story. >> i agree with general hayden, that's certainly the appearance, and that's why we need more information in the white house on this. ms. yates isn't going to be able to answer that in testimony. but the white house has got to answer what happened in that 18

days. did they take the information seriously? then why did it take 18 days. and general flynn resigned on the day that "the washington post" story popped. they were driven by news and the potential for embarrassing stories, rather than trying to do the right thing and trying to discern what exactly happened here. >> when you see it on the calendar, that's a long time. hillary clinton getting candid about the final days of the cam pain and what she believes cost her the presidency. >> i was on the way to winning until the combination of jim comey's letter on october 28 and russian wikileaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off. umbrellas!!

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tied today hillary clinton spoke candidly about why she lost. she says she's, quote, back to being an activist citizen and part of the resistance, end quote. she's also writing a book about the 2016 race. and here's what she had to say about president vladimir putin. >> what do you make of a journalist who basically said in fact president putin hated you

so much that it was personal, that he was determined to thwart your ambitions, do you buy that? >> well, he certainly interfered in our election, and it was clear he interfered to hurt me and to help my opponent. and if you chart my opponent and his campaign's statements, they quite coordinated with the goals that that leader who shall remain nameless had. and some sa and. >> and some say, could it have been different? could the campaign have been different. he had one message, make america great again and where was your message? do you take any personal responsibility? >> absolutely, i take absolute personal responsibility. i was the candidate, he was the person who was on the ballot.

and i am very aware of, you know, the challenges, the problems, the, you know, short falls that we had. again, i will write all this out for you. but i will say this, i have been in a lot of campaigns and i'm very proud of the campaign we ran, and the people that were out there day after day. and there isn't a perfect campaign, there is no such thing. i was on the way to winning, until the combination of comey's letter on october 28 and russian wikileaks raised doubts in the minds of people that were inclined to vote for me a and got scared off. ask yourself this, within an hour or two of the hollywood access tape being made public,

the russian theft of john podesta's emails hit wikileaks, what a coincidence, you just can't make this stuff up. did we make mistakes? of course we did. did i make mistakes, oh, my gosh, yes, you'll read my confession and my request for absolution. but the reason why i believe we lost were the intervening events in the last ten days and i think you can see, i was leading in the early vote, i had a very strong, and not just our polling and data analysis, but a very strong assessment going on across the country about where i was in terms of, you know, the necessary, well, votes and electoral votes. and remember i did win more than 3 million votes than my opponent. so, it's like, really?

>> i see a tweet coming. >> better than tweeting about foreign affairs, i would be happy to be the diversion, because we got lots of other things to worry about. and he should worry less about the election and my winning the popular vote and doing some other things that would be important for the country. >> hillary clinton also said that if the election had been held on october 27, she would have won. david, let me start with you, on the one hand, secretary clinton says she takes full and personal responsibility for the loss, but then she really is basically blaming the comey letter and russia and wikileaks. >> exactly. those two things can co-exist, i guess, but it is clear if you listen to that last bit you

played, she does blame jim comey and wikileaks for why she lost the election, she didn't talk about her email server or other mistakes on the campaign trail, maybe she's going to wait for her book, but whatever else -- we're going to take a quick break, we'll have more from both of those men. hillary clinton had a lot more to say during her interview with kriss christiane. why is the white house calling it a win on the spending bill? we'll look at that. yeah, 103. well, let me ask you guys. how long did it take you two to save that? a long time. then it's a fortune. well, i'm sure you talk to people all the time who think $100k is just pocket change.

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. as we said earlier, hillary clinton spoke at length about why she thought she lost the election. at one point christiane asked her about sexism and what if my role she thinks it played in the election. >> you just talked about the

misogyny and inequity around the world, but do you think it still exists here? and do you think you were a victim of misogyny, the security moms, the kinds of women that want to be protected from what you're talking about right now. >> the book's coming out in the fall, just to give you a tiny little preview, yes, i think it did play a role, every day that goes by, we learn more about some of the unprecedented interference, from a foreign power, whose leader is not a member of my fan club. >> you obviously were intimately involved in the campaign, the spokesperson, but secretary clinton is saying, look, i take

full responsibility, but yet it was really just about the last 10 days and russia and wikileaks, clearly she's saving it for the book, it's going to be her confession and her absolution, but can she say she takes responsibility if she blames others? >> the two things can be true, i think our polling was off in a bunch of states and we would have deployed resources differently if we had known the state of the race in those key battleground states, i think we could have spent more on how to resonate more with her economic platform. so, yeah, we constantly are thinking about what we could have zodone to break through better on that, and all that contributed to the closeness of the race. and i think i agree with her, during the last ten days, we were posed to prevail and the

comey letter was difference making, and nate silver has gone and looked at the early vote totals in those closing weeks compared to the final ten days. so the two thing are true. >> if the polling was wrong, as you acknowledged, how do you know the polling was right when clinton was clearly ahead. >> we had -- now that the secretaries of state from many of the key battlegrounds, you can see going into election day in florida, we were up by a quarter million votes, but then donald trump won by 13 points, a remarkable swing on election day. all of that ploroofs that there was a huge swing in the late deciders, the people that made up their mind in the last week. this was five minutes in a 35-minute exchange. i think hillary clinton is not going to be a shrinking violent for the rest of her life. mccain went back to the senate

and if trump had lost, we would be hearing from him every single day. but i don't think she or anybody else that was involved in the campaign are inclined to dwell on what ifs. >> she's writing a book, so i assume she's going to be covering some what ifs. but do you buy that up until october 27 they were going to win and it was only in the final stretch that she lost it? >> no, not at all. but i do have to take my hat of. this is something that political candidates do after every presidential election, part of their grieving process is to go through this and blame other people. but i do think what's remarkable there is the lack of self-awareness that we're seeing from hillary clinton, nobody else told her to avoid campaigning in states like

wisconsin. nobody told her to support unpopular issues like tpp, the reality here is that donald j. donald trump was the perfect candidate for this election, he was probably the biggest outsider we have seen in united states politics, trump ran a very good campaign, he was the right man for the right time. when we talk about the final homestretch here, let's be real about this, donald j. trump is a closer, he finished out very strong. >> it's clear there was involvement from a foreign power in this rate. >> but anderson, this even goes back to what brian was discussing a moment ago, even in that time when different things were popping up, the polling showed that secretary clinton was not able to put this race away, she was consistently comes in at 42, 43. >> brian, i want you to be able to respond to that. brian? >> i think that the reality has

been backed up by all the independent analysis that has happened. you can't dispute the huging swing that you saw in the final ten days of the race. there was a fickle segment of this race that toggled between secretary clinton and donald trump all through the general election and at various points where one candidate would get negative news coverage, you would see that elector are sway back and forth. and based on jim comey's letter, that ended up bearing no playoff of those emails that he was talking about. >> clearly there's a lot of democrats that want new blood, the democratic party needs new leadership to move it forward. now you're going to have president obama out there, obviously very young and with a lot of years ahead of him to be in public life and secretary clinton as will. >> the democratic party is going to go through a intra -- what is

clear to me today, anderson, is that hillary clinton is going to very much want to be a part of that conversation. she is not at all wanting to cede the stage, she clearly wants to put her imprint on the day's political environment and she's clearly not going to shy away from doing that. >> thank you. coming up, remember trump's promise to build a wall and have mexico pay for it. mexico has no intention of paying for it, and the american people won't have to pay for it anyway. the white house is spinning it as a big win, how you may ask? we're keeping them honest, next. with taxes and fees included. that'll save you hundreds. get two lines of unlimited data for a hundred dollars. that's right. two lines. a hundred bucks. all in. and now, the brand new samsung galaxy s8 is here.

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well, the white house is trying to spin the compromise spending bill into a win when it comes to president trump's promise to build a wall along the southern border. the budget has no money for trump's border wall. what it does have is money for border security in general, money that can be used to enhance existing fencing. but what's really remarkable is

that mulvane any stood -- loose definition of building a wall will mean, you also have to forget the very clear, very simple promise that candidate trump made on the campaign trail over and over and over. >> we are going to build a great, border wall. >> we will build a great, great wall. >> we're going to build a wall, don't worry about it. i promise, we will build the wall. it's not going to be a little wall, it's going to be a big beautiful wall. it's going to be a very tall wall, very strong wall, very powerful wall. it's going to be such a beautiful wall. it's going to be so big, it's going to be so power liful, it' going to be as beautiful as a wall can be. i got to make it beautiful because maybe someday they'll

name is wall, the trump wall, who the hell knows? and who's going to pay for the wall? >> mexico! >> it bears repeating, we're talking about a u.s. spending bill, not a mexican one, mexico says they're not going to be building a wall. and talk of the wall has morphed into a political issue. >> reporter: even though president trump is crowing that a new government spending bill represents a win for the white house -- >> after years of partisan biggbig bigger bickering and gridlock, this bill is a bill for the american people. >> reporter: it's clear that he did not get all he wanted, for example money he wanted for the wall and he's threatening to shut down the government to get what he wants, the president is warning he won't take no for an answer in the fall. he said east ever elect more republican senators in 2018 or

change the rules now to 51%. as families prepare for summer vacations in our national parks, democrats threatened to close them and shut down the government. terrible. >> the good thing will be something that fixes washington permane permanently. >> nick mulvany tried to sprain. >> isn't that what the people want? how can a shut down be good? >> that's exactly what i think they want, and that's exactly what we have given to them with this agreement. my response to you to a couple of different questions, is that the president wants to see washington get better, get fixed, change the way it douoes business. which is why it's so frustrating to have the democrats go out and say they won and we lost.

>> reporter: mulvany said some of the money was going to a quote, new wall, but it's really just to build up existing fencing. >> the president's priority was to secure the southern border. >> reporter: democrats were quick to pounce on the shutdown talk. >> we don't like government shut downs and we avoid them at all cost. >> reporter: this budget isn't sitting well with republicans who think they gave up too much to make a deal. >> there are things in this bill that i just don't understand. this was not winning from the republican point of view. >> jim acosta joins us now. is the white house going to try to get funding for the wall in the next budget bill? >> reporter: that's the plan, and keep in mind that this wall is going to cost $12 billion to $15 billion. they're going to try to fight

this out in september when they're going to try to hammer out a budget for fiscal 2018. there's no plan whatsoever that's been hatched to make mexico pay for the wall. take a look at this picture that was tweeted earlier today. it was tweeted by a conservative rabbi, it says on the wall, build a border wall and eventually make mexico pay for it, not any time soon, anderson, but eventually, and no timetable on what eventually means. >> if memory serves me, that rabbi was michael jackson's spiritual advisor. i might be wrong about that. >> he was visiting steve bannon today. >> jim acosta thank you. a lot to talk about with the panel. so is there any evidence to

support the white house's argument that this is a win? >> the president did promise there was going to be a lot of winning, he hasn't had a lot of winning, so he has no choice except to go out and present it that way. it doesn't cut funding for planned parenthood, it doesn't cut funding for sanctuary cities, it doesn't cut funding for obama care cities. i think it's hard to cast that as a win, focusing on the border security stuff, the only way you can say that it's a win is if you said that democrats don't support border security. they do support border security. they just don't support the wall. >> i've got to be candid, i've been talking to conservative talk radio all day, people calling in. they're most unhappy, not with him, but with republican members of congress, they really feel these people did not have their act together and what is the point of electing them.

they said so went the line today from many people, they said give us the house, then they said we need the senate, then they said you need the white house. you got it, they have it all. what are you doing? and there is a lot of resentment. and i would say, republican members of congress are going to have to be very careful here, they need to produce or there will be a problem. >> looking again to the fall, you have the president out tweeting, either elect more roan senators in 2018, or change the rules to 51%. the government needs a budget to fix the mess. he was threatening a government shutdown the week before. >> i actually heard from the freedom caucus, for cutting this bill, this bipartisan omnibus beale. ronald reagan won the cold war

but because not able to rein in spending, remember all the hand wringing about how it was going to slash the epa, it doesn't do that. and people wonder why do republicans win elections when spending just keeps going up. the democrats last time they were in power, they took a huge political risk to pass health care because they believed it was a norm imperative to give more people access to health care. republicans, the last time i checked when president obama was president said that reining in the debt and the deficit was a moral imperative. when are they going to show some political courage to get that done. >> it is hard for mulvany to stand up there and say that fencing, a steel wall replacing fencing, it's hard to talk about the president's border wall when this is existing fencing that's being updated.

>> i think it's ridiculous for him to point to one thing in the budget that wasn't there. each side spins the victories that are actually in there. the greats are crowing about the things they got that are actually in the bill. if donald trump wanted to crow about something, he could do what republicans on the hill are doing, saying we got this massive increase in defense spending, discretionary spending had to go up by the same amount. they broke that in this bill. that's something paul ryan is crowing about. it's strange that president trump is saying this is deal is a win. all these conservatives who are upset about this, i don't think they have ever had to pass a women through congress. there are two fundamental facts on these spending bills. the freedom caucus won't vote for a spending bill. and in the senate they have a fill filibuster. >> there's a structural problem

that republicans will always get blamed for a government shutdown. >> it duoes have in their mind that they can talk about immigration, border crossings are down like 60% in the last three months. that would be something i would think the donald trump administration would want to have out there for them. >> i think the problem is donald trump brought this about himself talking about the border wall and talking about defunding planned parenthood as kind of a definition of a win. >> and obamacare as well. >> and obamacare as well. so when you're the president of the united states, and you're putting things out there for the public to then grade you on, at the end of the day, if he doesn't get any of that, of course it's going to look like a huge loss for them. i think republicans are spiking the football because they really

believe it's a win for the american people. planned parenthood givers health care to millions of people who wouldn't have it if not for planned parenthood. >> i just don't know how the white house plans to spin it as a win. >> i want to. >> rescue the new been to -- ♪ if you've got the time welcome to the high life. ♪ we've got the beer ♪ miller beer

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the white house and gop leadership are on the verge of losing their latest effort to reper repeal obamacare. where do things stand? >> it's hanging by a thread up here. it's not looking good for house republican leaders trying to get this through. the numbers are not on their side. according to cnn's latest whip count, 22 house republicans have come out and said that they are against this bill, which is important. that means if one more -- just one more house republican stands up and says they are against this bill, that would kill its chances of moving forward in its

current form. there is some stark reality in this. a republican house leadership aide saying, like a broken record, quote, when we have the votes we will have a vote. we know there's no vote scheduled at this point. we know from the math and of course the floor schedule that they just don't have the vote s at this time. >> it's like a haiku. are changes being made to get more members on board? >> there's buzz in the hallways on capitol hill that changes need to be made. many members want the changes to be made. the way the house leadership is selling this bill right now to the members is this is the best option at this particular moment to get this through. republican leadership admitting that they understand changes want to be made but telling us, we have not made any at this point and we don't flknow we wi. if we will is a big question as well. i have to point out that on thursday, they are facing this deadline where the house is

scheduled to take a week long recess that evening. so all week, going into this week, republican leadership thought this was their best opportunity, this four-day stretch this week to hold tight on some small momentum that they had picked up. i have to say going into wednesday, looking at the math, this number, all the grumbling up here on capitol hill, they are facing a much narrower window of time to get this done. >> lhow many weeks did they tak off? it seems like they always have a recess coming up. that's another story. back now with the panel. it's interesting that they voted how many times to repeal and replace obamacare. unanimous votes from republicans most times. now they can't pass it. >> i think that's part of the big incompetence problem that's facing the republican congress. people did see them huffing and puffing while obama was in power for them trying to repeal it knowing it wouldn't go anywhere.

so they would pass it. more than 60 times. this is a process that took president obama over a year to do. for them to now come in with no plan after seven years and wanting to do something in a matter of weeks makes them look even more incompetent, makes them look petty. but more importantly, makes them look disinterested in the real life and death implications of such a monumental legislation. >> i keep thinking -- people on the panel have said it for months. if the white house just focused on infrastructure to start off with and formed a commission to figure out how to repeal and replace obamacare and then a year from now done it, wouldn't they have saved themselves a lot of trouble? >> i think in fairness to them that they felt there was so much on the table they promised -- >> they had to do it? >> the pressure was there. if they had done that, what you are suggesting and they had been successful, the steam would run out for obamacare. they really felt committed to it. that said, they should have --

the house and senate republicans should have had this ready to go the moment donald trump was sworn in. >> you are breaking ranks with the republicans twice in a row. you will have your card taken away. >> when you consider that for the last six years they have insisted over and over that they had a plan. right? it didn't need to be done in a couple weeks. it should have been something that if you were making this a central argument for your party that this is what you were going to do, then you should theoretically have a plan do that. mark sanford said, well, it was always a pipe dream from the very beginning. the idea of a full repeal. what does that mean? >> john boehner said something similar. >> this is the central argument of why you should be electing republicans. >> one more no vote and it's not going to pass. if it's brought up. >> yeah. it's on the bubble right now. it seems like the momentum is against this happening. i think if you had to bet, you would bet that this doesn't

happen. it's pretty amazing that they can't get this done. you know, again, even if this happened, then it goes to senate, it would change dramatically if it could -- they can't even do this. i think that paul ryan, smart guy obviously, policy walk, you know -- donald trump gets a lot of blame. how much blame though do republicans in congress deserve? >> how much blame are they going to get next time around, the elections? >> some of the moderates you don't want to vote for this might think they dodged a bullet by not voting for something that takes away regulations on pre-existing conditions. i think matt is right. even if it passes the house, this thing -- the senate has no appetite for the bill that might pass the house. it would get rewritten in the senate. they go to a conference committee. back in the house with the same buzz saw of the freedom caucus saying, no way, we're not going to vote for this thing that came out of the senate and conference committee. even if it passes the house, it

seems very unlikely that it could go back to the house and pass. what's the lesson trump takes from this? is the lesson he takes from this that the freedom caucus is a dead end, that he can't let them write this legislation because it can't get through the system? or does he double down? if he actually thinks the freedom caucus is a dead end, you could come up with a bipartisan plan on the model of the spending bill we were talking about where you get democrats on board and you realize that a lot of republicans -- >> to fix, not repeal. >> have come to terms with major pieces of obamacare and -- >> ted cruz was right when he said -- >> what's that? >> there will be a problem right there. >> i think if they try to make that happen, i think there will be hell to pay. as we have -- >> for the white house? for republicans? >> for moderate republicans and republicans in general. this is what we talked about what i call the margaret

thatch thatcher. the idea of republicans now is just come in and sit on it and tinker at the edges and manage it better. >> what's the -- >> they are finding it very difficult -- the reality is that obamacare is very popular right now. they're finding it very difficult to repeal legislation that is twice as popular as the president and three times more popular than members of congress. >> once you give somebody entitlement, it's very difficult to take away. ted cruz is right about that. the 2012 election i think was actually the last shot republicans had to actually repeal and replace. once it was enacted, people now have this assumption that it's the government's responsibility to provide them with health care. >> pre-existing conditions should -- >> trump can do this in a second. the entire primary he reinvented republican -- protect medicare and that was trumpism. if he tomorrow said, my plan is

we're going to accept the medicaid expansion, tinker around regulation, stabilize the insurance exchange. this plan is now called trumpcare. he could sell that to his base. >> a lot more to get to, including new reporting on our russia white house watch. former acting attorney general sally yates will testify on capitol hill that she gave a forceful warning to the white house that michael flynn, the then national security adviser, russia contacts may have left him compromised. that contradicts what the administration said sally yates said or the way they characterized her warning. details on that in a minute. all finished.

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welcome back. we begin with the russia white house watch. investigations into russia's meddling in the election. next week, sally yates will testify in an open hearing before the senate judiciary committee. we are learning what she will say is opposed to what the trump administration will say about michael flynn. jim sciutto has details. >> reporter: former acting attorney general sally yates is prepared to testify before a senate panel next week that she gave a forceful warning to the white house regarding then national security adviser michael flynn. this nearly three weeks before he was fired. contradicting the