ever leveled against a sitting president. sources tell cnn president trump revealed highly classified information to russian diplomats during an already controversial oval office meeting. >> the white house is calling this story false, reveal sources or methods with the russians. our reporting says otherwise. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are expressing shock and concern about the president's oval office disclosure. this comes days before he heads overseas on his first major trip. he's also got key meetings with foreign leaders at the white house today. let's go to the white house. joe johns is there with more. good morning. >> poppy, serious information question here at the white house. the president accused of coughing up highly classified information to the foreign power at the center of a federal investigation into interference in the last election. there's another huge question

because this president harped throughout the campaign on the sanctity of classified information. the white house reeling from another russia crisis, an unforced error at the hands of president trump. >> the story that came out tonight as reported is false. at no time -- at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. and the president did no disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. >> reporter: national security adviser h.r. mcmaster in a carefully worded statement refuting claims that were not in the story first reported by "the washington post." while falling short of denying the president revealed classified information to russian diplomats. >> the bhous is playing word games to the effect trying to blunt the story. >> reporter: white house tells cnn the president did reveal information that could expose intelligence sources

jeopardizing access to intelligence on isis as the terror group hopes to use laptop computers as bombs on planes. the white house insists the president only discussed common threats with the russian leaders. the shocking revelation opening up the president and the republican party to accusations of a double standard. after repeated criticism of hillary clinton's handling of classified e-mails. >> we can't hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies. i don't think it's safe to have hillary clinton be briefed on national security because the word will get out. >> the report setting off a firestorm on capitol hill. >> if it's true, obviously, it's disturbing. i think we've got to find out more before we can comment. >> republican senator bob corker, a trump supporter, telling journalists the white house is a downward spiral. chaos by the lack of displip creates a worrisome environment.

democrats calling for a bipartisan investigation into the latest russia firestorm. >> i hope we'll be able to proceed in a very nonpartisan way. this is as serious as it gets. >> this kind of serious and grave threat really requires a national response, putting country above politics. >> this report comes as the white house fends off tough questions about the firing of the firing of fbi director james comey which occurred just one day before trump's meeting with the russians. white house press secretary sean spicer repeatedly dodging questions about whether tapes exist of their conversations. >> i think i made it clear last week the president has nothing further on that. i was very clear. i made it clear what the president's position was. i think the president's position is clear. the president made it clear what his position is. he says he has nothing further to add. i've answered the question over and over again in the same way. >> the tempo never seems to wane here at the white house. another day, another controversy. today the president is expected

to host a critical meeting toward the interest of the united states in the middle east. turkish president erdogan is expected to show up here around midday. back to you. >> joe, appreciate it. let's bring in senior writer for "new york times" eric schmidt, co-author of the paper on sharing classified intelligence with russian officials. thank you for joining us this morning. so let's answer the basic question for folks at home. why do they care about this? what is troubling? >> so what's troubling about this is president trump in this meeting with the russian officials in the oval office disclosed highly classified information about an islamic state plot. now, this information came from a key middle eastern ally who provided the information to the united states on the condition it not be provided widely not with the government but other countries as well. apparently the president, it's

unclear whether he did this wittingly or unwittingly in discussing this threat imminent for a city in syria and isis-controlled territory and inadvertently tipped off the russians who the source was and what other details might be played out since russians are in syria now. >> just as important as the disclosure winds up being the explanation. general mcmaster comes out. strong pedigree, respected man of integrity says the tore is false, but then seems to compare apples to oranges. he seems to say the president did not expose any sources or methods or any operations that weren't radar in the public, but that's not what "the washington post" reporting was. what did you make of the denial? >> exactly. that's not our reporting either. no one is saying that the president did these things, but saying he gave some basic information, some very important and classified information about a threat emanating from syria,

apparently, an islamic state plot. from that, the russians may well be able to reverse engineer that information, may only have come from a very selective source to be able to identify that and perhaps disrupt that source of intelligence, which is very important for the united states and it's allies in combating isis in the middle east. >> all right, schmitt. you're getting your shot at the title. the president is tweeting about this. we know he often watches the show. this is an important morning to be watching. i want to share with russia openly scheduled white house meeting which i have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining -- obviously he's going to tweet more. when he does, i'll share you with it. let's start with that. the president saying i can do this. that's true, even though there are some protocols and procedures that normally go with declassifying information, it is well-known the president has

almost unfettered discretion to declassify whatever he wants, whenever he wants, arguably however he wants. so this is not a legal issue. but does this he said the analysis of error? >> no, not at all. in fact, you characterized it accurately. the problem here is you've taken sensitive information key allies provided united states with strings attached. the president has apparently given away that information to the russians, an adversary without consulting with the ally first to get permission to do so. that's the normal protocol with this kind of thing. >> it does seem nothing else the president would rather defend than be open to suggestions about what he did wrong. there seems to be no acknowledgement of that forthcoming. eric, thank you for explaining the reporting to us this morning. you're always welcome here on "new day." >> as we wait for part two of the president's tweet to finish that thought, let's bring in our panel, cnn analyst and politics editor-at-large chris cillizza

and cnn military analyst lew eternal general mark hurtling. let me begin with you, some reporting by earthquake and his team lays out a little more detail in terms of who this ally was and why it was so important to the united states in terms of this information sharing dpreem. they say it's a middle eastern ally. this ally warned united states apparently upon giving this information and this intelligence don't tell anyone, don't even share widely among u.s. intelligence, the u.s. intelligence community. and if you disclose this to too many people, if you share too widely, we will stop helping you. okay. so what does this do now, the fact this has been disclosed to our national security? >> all of those things, poppy, are part of the reason it was a code word secret document or secret information, rather. special access packages, saps, which code words are a part of, tell you, hey, a very limited number of people know about

this. if it gets out, it can give information that we don't want to get out because it will either destroy the program, harm people, or give our adversaries an advantage. that's what a sap is. i was thinking last night about this, as i watched this unfold. i can think of probably a dozen or more countries that have told they were a part of intelligence collection on a terrorist group and then it was told to the russians, the russians could very easily counter it and cause a great degree of harm to not om our allies but to our enemies. this whole thing is interesting because what you have with a s.a.p. program is the requirements to not share information. especially when it's not your own information you're sharing. we're sharing information an ally provided us. it is not only doing to destroy trust with that particular ally, and i can think of one or two that it probably is, but the rest of the world is now going

to say we're never going to share information with any intelligence community members of the united states because they are doing to give it to the president and he's doing to share it with our potential adversari adversaries. >> in this bizarre reality the one player that doesn't seem upset about this at all is russia. they couldn't come out defend, mocking it, minimizing it, reminds lavrov laughing at the measure media when questions asked about comey. so the president says you guys are huffing and puffing but there's no house to proceed down, phil mudd. he says it was an openly scheduled white house meeting. he had an absolute right to do what he did, and he's going to continue with this line of thought. is this satisfying to you? >> no, let's be clear. he can do whatever he wants. he fired the fbi director. that's not the question. he's skirting the question. it's whether he should do this. we have a responsibility when we take classified information from

an ally to do as they request. we told them, i'm sure we confirmed with them we would not share this with anyone. now we not only owe them an apology but as suggested, how do you share future information. repeatedly we have a president whether he's talking about wiretapping his office, unmasking, whether firing fbi director for an appropriate national security investigation or speaking inappropriately to the russians in the oval office who doesn't have the temperament and judgment to deal with national security issues. this isn't about sergey lavrov and foreign minister in the oval office, it's about the president's temperament. one more comment, quickly. this is about checks and balances. when is paul ryan going to get a spine. i'm tired of republicans saying we have our lane in the road. i don't have anything to say about what the president did. in our country checks and balances mean media, congress, judiciary, white house, they all check and balance each other. i'm waiting for the speaker to

speak because so far no spine. >> there is deafening silence from the leadership, om a statement out of paul ryan's office, two sentences that was it. >> the first part wasn't even accurate. >> first part says we have no way of knowing what happened. that is absolutely not the case. "the washington post" is reporting about transcripts from inside the oval office. hey, chris cillizza, the way alan dershowitz, esteemed professor emeritus at harvard puts it is this. >> this the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president. let's not minimize it. comey is in the waste basket of history. everything else is off the table. this is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president of the united states. let's not underestimate it. >> cillizza, your column, trump's intelligence slip up may be the straw that breaks the

camel's back. make the case. >> i talked to a bunch of republican house members as well as republican operatives last night. obviously this was fresh information at that point. a lot of them says, look, we're okay with the strategic and tactical -- his unorthodoxy there, but when he does stuff like this, really bad self-inflicted wounds, it makes our members very, very nervous. now, i will tell you in that same reporting, lots of people told me you will not see republicans abandon donald trump wholesale until you start seeing either special election losses in places like georgia 6 district, montana open seat which are coming up in the next month or so, or you see his whole numbers in states where there's senate races start to tank. one republican said to me we did a poll in alabama, 89% of republicans approve of him. there's obviously going to be a senate race there. you're not going to see this

wholesale break. i know -- i'm not looking but i know phil mudd is rolling his eyes because it is frustrating. the politics is standing in front of the policy of it, which is there are only two good options here. i'm sorry. two options, neither good, for donald trump. either he unwittingly gave this classified information because he didn't sort of know all the different circumstances. that's bad. far worse is if he did it knowing the circumstances. there's only two good outcomes. unfortunately we live in a polarized political washington. most politicians on the republican side will make their calculations not on what they believe is right but what they believe is politically advantageous or more accurately disadvantageous at the moment. >> we now have more to go on because the president has continued his tweet. just a quick note, cillizza, mudd doesn't roll his eyes. he was blinking very rapidly

which could be a sign of stress or intense aggression. the finishing of the tweet is that the president had the absolute right to do what he did. facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, humanitarian reasons, plus i want russia to greatly step up their fight against isis and terrorism. does this make it okay, phil mudd? >> hell, no, all you have to do to go into that meeting is have national security apparatus say it's appropriate to talk to the russians who lost a plane to isis in 2015. it's appropriate to they will them about airline security. i agree with the president, we should tell them. when you take the information to someone you pledge secrecy you owe them the courtesy to tell them. by the way, this isn't the biggest news out of the meeting. why isn't everyone talking about the fact he's more courteous to the russians than american people. first meeting secretary of state, can't say, shouldn't be meddling in our elections but

fire the fbi director for investigating that. you've got to be kidding me. >> when i read the white house readout of that meeting last week, in it it doesn't talk about election meddling at all. >> doesn't mention kislyak was there. >> also doesn't lay out this. he also doesn't say in that white house readout they were talking about these -- it does say humanitarian issues, it does not say terrorism. so what gives, general? >> i'm concerned about the -- >> sorry, general first. >> i'm concerned about the fact the president feels like he has to give something to russia first when there have been repeated instances of russia being sanctioned in ukraine, committing war crimes in syria and conducting operations that are contrary to what we like to believe are freedom of operations and sovereignties of different nations. why are we so intent -- why is the president so intent on giving russia the advantage when as the great dealmaker he hasn't

done that with any other country he's been working with so far. this just confuses me to no end. anybody that's worked with the russians as i have knows that you can't just continue to give them things and expect them to give things in return. >> cillizza, is it fair for people to be asking about the president's competency to do the job in light of this? is that too hard? >> yes, you can ask about it. the issue for me is that he does have the right to do this. that doesn't mean he should do it. no, almost certainly not. but he does have the right to do it. the same way he has the right to fire james comey. the problem here to me, i think to many people, is that it often seems with this president that it's action and then searching for an explanation. that's what the comey thing felt like. it bore out that way.

we had five different explanations before the president went and contradicted the explanation with an explanation that was the one we thought it was. here it seems like he's saying, this is my way of bringing russians into the fold. i can't prove that's not what he was up to, but i will say if past is prologue, this is a president who tends to act and then make tup the strategic reason. speak, say something, and then go back and reengineer why he did it. that certainly is a pattern with him. could this be different? sure it could be different. so i'm not in his brain, probably luckily, so i can't tell you what exactly he's thinking in those moments. i will say look how he's acted in the past. it doesn't necessarily indicate that there's a broad 3d chess game always going on as he likes to present. >> i'm having the image of you

in the president's brain. >> taunting. >> guys, thank you all very much. we appreciate it following all this breaking news and the president's tweets on it this morning. now to a cnn exclusive former acting attorney general sally yates giving her first television interview to anderson cooper, warning she gave white house directly about national security adviser michael flynn and possible collusion with russia. here is a look. >> the underlying conduct itself was potentially a fireable offense. >> i can't speak to a fireable offense. it was up to the president to make that decision about what he was doing to do but we certainly felt like they needed to ask. >> asked you at that first meeting whether or not you thought the national security adviser should be fired. what did you say? >> i told him it wasn't our call. >> was the underlying conduct illegal? was illegality involved? >> there's certainly a criminal statute that was implicated by his conduct. >> you wanted the white house to

act. >> absolutely yes. >> to do something. >> we expected the white house to act. >> do you expect them to act quickly? >> yes. >> there was urgency to the information. >> yes. >> i'm just wondering on a personal level, i don't know if you can answer this or not, but, you know, you were in government one week. you get fired. now you're out and watching day after day after day go by and nothing seems to have happened to the national security adviser that you have informed the white house about. just as a private citizen at that point, did it concern you? >> well, sure i was concerned about it. i didn't know if perhaps something else had been done that maybe i just wasn't aware of. >> maybe they were keeping him away from certain classified information while they were investigating. something like that. >> maybe. i just didn't have any way of knowing what was doing on at that point. >> were you aware he sat in -- media reports he sat in on a phone call with russia's

president? >> did you find that surprising? >> sure. absolutely that was surprising. >> sean spicer said on the day after michael flynn resigned that it was a trust issue that led to his resignation, not a legal issue. do you agree there was no legal issue with flynn's underlying behavior? >> i don't know how the white house reached the conclusion that there was no legal issue. it certainly wasn't from my discussion with them. >> do you think michael flynn should have been fired? >> i think this was a serious compromise situation, that the russians had real leverage. he also lied to the vice president of the united states. you know, whether he's fired or not is a decision for the president of the united states to make. but it doesn't seem like that's a person who should be sitting in the national security adviser position. >> mike flynn was let go after "washington post" reported a story. some republicans have accused you of leaking it. did you leak to the "washington

post"? >> absolutely not. >> did you authorize somebody to leak to the "washington post"? >> absolutely not. i did not and would not leak classified information, no. >> the president seems to suggest that you were behind this "washington post" article. the morning before you testified he tweeted ask sally yates under oath if she knows how classified information got spoke newspapers soon after she explained it to white house counsel. >> uh-huh. >> it does sound like he doesn't -- he seems to believe that you're the leaker. does that -- when you heard that, what did you think? >> there have been a number of tweets that have given me pause. >> do you want to elaborate on it? >> no. >> you're going to want to watch anderson's full interview with sally yates. it is only right here tonight 8:00 p.m. eastern. anderson will join us in the next hour on "new day" to talk about that interview and his reaction. >> the reason it's important isn't just the timing but

intentionality. the white house has such a different narrative than what sally yates testified to and apparently says in this interview. >> you learn more from her about the urgency with which she went to the white house. >> what was called a heads up by the white house. president trump is fighting back. in the face of allegations he abused classified information, he is saying, no, everything he did was fine. well, why are so many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle troubled by what happened? we have a member of the house intel committee next. boost. it's about moving forward, not back. it's looking up, not down. it's being in motion. boost® high protein it's intelligent nutrition with 15 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. boost® the number one high protein complete nutritional drink. oh no, looks like somebody needs a new network. when i got this unlimited plan they told me they were all the same. they're not. verizon has the largest, most-reliable 4g lte network in america. it's basically made for places like this.

honey, what if it was just us out here? right. so, i ordered you a car. thank you. you don't want to be out here at night 'cause of the, uh, coyotes. ok, thanks, bud. bye. be nice to have your car for some shelter. bye. when it really, really matters, you need the best network and the best unlimited. just $45 per line for four lines. tech: when your windshield trust safelite autoglass.. our exclusive trueseal technology means a strong, reliable bond. at safelite, we stand behind our work... because the ones you love, sit behind it.

(parents whisper jingle) safelite repair, safelite replace.

people were expecting an apology from the president, they will be disappointed. he's defending his decision to disclose highly classified information to russian officials. he's been tweeting this morning. as president, i wanted to share with russia at an openly scheduled white house meeting. remember, u.s. media was not allowed to it and only learned about photos from it from russian media who were allowed at the meeting. he said he had an absolute right to do what he did. facts pertaining to airline

safety. humanitarian reasons. plus i want russia to greatly step up their fight against isis and terrorism. does this make it okay? joining us now is democratic congressman jim himes, serves on house intel committee. the president legally can declassify information when he deigns. can't be illegal. do you believe the explanation he gave is satisfying. >> it may not be illegal. if the "washington post" story is to be believed, what happened is the president gave a lot more information than typically would be given. just imagine the story said it was location. let's just work with that. let's imagine the president is describing a building or neighborhood. these are places that have limited numbers of people, right. let's imagine it's a room four or five people have access to. now all of a sudden four or five people are turning up dead. quite possibly the source for whatever this piece of intelligence was.

so that's the sort of close in issue. much larger, of course, the fact that we rely on cooperation and tips from intelligence services and sources all over the wormed. what has now happened is that all over the world, whether it's in china or hong kong or australia or africa, people are saying to themselves, you know what, i might give a tip that the next day is being discussed on cnn "new day" because the president talked about it with somebody who, in this case russia, doesn't necessarily have an interest keeping it secret. >> we have another situation as we did with comey firing, an initial story going out and now the president, in an effort to clarify, seems to be revealing something that may be closer to the truth. with comey was the ag gave this report so we did it. the president came out and said i was going to do it anyway. i thought about the russia situation is false, i got rid of comey. last night h.r. mcmaster came out, respected general, national

security adviser to the united states says the story is false. he didn't give up any sources or methods, which isn't the reporting. some could say he's parsing his words too carefully. the president this morning isn't saying that. he said, yeah, i did it. it's okay that i did it because i want to help russia get more involved with isis and it was the right thing to do. he's saying something different apparently. yes, it's just a tweet but this is the way the president likes to communicate most often. eagles saying i know, himes, i'm concerned about it, you're not. my communication is more important. >> there's all this haze out there, hotline r. mcmaster as you point out enormously respected on capitol hill and elsewhere, he came out and said the president did not disclose methods. that may be correct. in there were locations described, you may in the knead to say, hey, chris in damascus gave me this information. our foes can figure this out. this gets to something larger and much more concerning because

it's the same deal as the comey firing. this stuff happens. the president appears to go off script, to do something that can have profound implications and the white house spends the next couple of days trying to get the story straight. what that tells you is whether it's the promised tax reform plan people at treasury looking to say oh, my god, what did the president just promise or firing of james comey for which we have different explanations or the story that broke yesterday. this president is sitting in the oval office and making snap decisions not paved on the advice of his people that we see the produces trying to work out in the days that follow. that may not be a huge proper if you're got to go through a legislative process, the president decides he wants to repeal dodd/frank but the man has untrammelled authority in places like north korea, iran. this is not the way you want to run national security policy. >> so we know the president watches a lot of television, pays a lot of attention to the

media. we know he watches the show often. if he's watching this morning, you know what he's not seeing? republicans telling him he did the wrong thing and saying that they are going to speak out and they are going to exercise their checks and balances on him. i'm not talking about anything exaggerated like impeachment. i'm talking about censure, healthy robust debate about what we're going to do. paul ryan gave a statement, throwaway statement, first line wasn't accurate. we have no way of knowing what happened in the meeting. we know from reporting the white house wanted to take certain information out of those reckonings of the meeting, the transcripts because it's sensitive information. they don't want to get it out there twice. that's what they are getting from speaker of the house. gop isn't coming forward. you need to have both parties for there to be any meaningful reproach here. seems like it's not going to

happen. >> as a democrat i'm thinking about a year ago when president obama is pounding the table for trade promotion authority for the trans-pacific partnership and the vast bulk of his own party in congress told him to go pound sand. not just say no but raised all kinds of hell against the president. here you have an issue that's not so much about policy like the trade deal, this is historical. my republican friends need to think about to moments like joseph mccarthy and who stood with him and who showed courage and said this is not us. or back to the nixon administration when that administration was coming apart. a few republicans remembered to this day for their courage, for their standing for the republic instead of their narrow interest are celebrated today. there's an awful lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that i hope this morning are asking themselves, do i want to go down as the guy who went along with something ominous in american history or do i want to be known as somebody who stood up and said i'm putting my country ahead of

my party. >> once again something so unorthodox and self-serving where russia is involved once again casting light on the need of that investigation. thanks for being on the show. appreciate it. poppy, back to you. another self-inflicted firestorm is enveloping the white house this morning and it's raising a very serious and important question. is donald trump competent to be president. we'll debate that next. ence ther 471-horsepower lexus lc 500 or the multistage hybrid lc 500h. experience amazing.

on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $509 on auto insurance. call

for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

president trump said he had an absolute right to disclose classified information to russia. a stunning "new york times" op-ed by david brooks this morning is titled, "when the world is led by a child." for all we know trump didn't do it because he's a russian agent or any malevolent intent. he did it because he's sloppy, lacks impulse control and above all because he's a seven-year-old boy desperate for approval of those he admires. this raises an important question this morning, is donald trump competent to be president. let's discuss. cnn political commentator and former white house

communications director under president obama, rick santorum cnn political commentator and republican senator. senator, let me begin with you. as chris and i have been saying all morning, the silence from leading republicans, house side and senate side is deafening. we've heard nothing from mitch mcconnell. paul ryan's office puts out a two sentence statement that does not back up this president. all we know from cnn's reporting, "washington post" reporting, how concerned are you about this? is the president competent to do the job? >> first off about the silence, several republicans have spoken up. you've quoted several on air. john mccain, corker and others have commented on the story. for starters. secondly this story is less than a day old. i understand this is a 24 hour news cycle and demand that everybody immediately respond to whatever the news media wants them to respond to but there is a responsibility for the members. if i was a member, to get it

right. get a better understanding of what's doing on. i think that's what's probably happening right now is members are trying to get information, trying to get a better understanding before they do comment on something. i think people have commented and i think people have hesitated to comment before they get the information so i don't think that's much of a story. >> since we have you here commenting, you've been a defender on the president on a lot of things. other things like wiretapping. can you defend? he said look, i have the absolute to do this, discuss terrorism and humanitarian issues with the russians. the issue is when you look at the readout from the white house on this meeting with the russians, it didn't mention that at all. it just said they talked about syria and ukraine. >> here is what we know. we know obviously from the president that he did discuss that information. we know from general mcmaster that he says no sources an methods were compromised.

so that's the information i have. i obviously have leaks from the media saying there was information that could lead to people being detected by just sort of going through the process of figuring out the information released and how you could then determine who released it, but, again, that's the information that if i was a member, i would be trying to see, okay, what specifically was talked about and trying to get an understanding. if the president did what "washington post" suggested, i would make the argument that he overstepped his bounds and probably shouldn't have done that. is this a cataclysmic event? no. i don't believe it is. this is something, depending on who the source is, we have a fairly idea of the limited number of who they might be, have you a conversation with them, talk about the context and everything said, you try to remediate whatever problems there are and move on. >> you don't think it is

problematic to u.s. allies that the "new york times" is reporting middle eastern ally that warned united states don't share this widely or you won't get critical information from us. you've got an op-ed on cnn.com you write at best trump channeling inner high school outcast trying to gain approval and cool points from the more charming bully sergei lavrov and by extension his boss vladimir putin. what's the democrat's play in all this. what should democrats do? >> this is much larger than politics, poppy. i have to say it is not acceptable to share information provided by a partner, overseas partner with an adversary and that is exactly what reportedly happened here. what should be concerning to not just democrats but also republicans is the fact this is information that could put lives at risk, including american lives. it could put at risk our intelligence sharing relationships. so i hope that democrats talk about this not in an overly politicized way but in the way

that it should be in that this is a national security concern, that we should get to the bottom of this. this is something that could really put our own relationships overseas that we've spent years building at risk. >> senator, is this reckless when you add this on top of unfounded wiretapping claim, when you add it to the tapes tweet from president with no evidence of tapes from the comey conversations and now this. are we at a point of this president acting reckless? >> you know, look, the american public voted for someone who is an outsider, someone who was very mistrustful of institutions here in washington, d.c., and in some respect had contempt for these institutions. i think that's being born out. you have a president who is not a conformist by any stretch of the imagination. certainly when it comes to national security. i was listening to general hayden earlier. i think there's some truth behind that and there's some obviously problems that can come up as a result of that type of

attitude. it's not that i disagree with what jen says. am i concerned about our allies and the implication of this information going out there? of course i'm concerned about it, but i think it is manageable. >> we have to leave it there. but jen, i'm sure you're reminded of all of the times that the president talked about hillary clinton and how she handled classified information. we will have you both back. we're out of time. thank you very much. >> thank you, poppy. coming up in our next hour republican senator ben sasse weighs in on all of the latest from this firestorm. tonight john kasich and senator bernie sanders square off in live cnn debate moderated by our own dana bash. >> we have new digital clues about who may be behind that massive cyber attack we've been telling you about. 150 countries affected. see that picture on the screen that just flashed by?

big clue. what investigators have discovered next. there's nothing more important to me than my vacation. so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. and with their price match, i know i'm getting the best price every time. now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins. your memorial day weekend is very important. that's why booking.com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. find great deals now at booking.com. booking.yeah!

tech: when your windshield trust safelite autoglass.. our exclusive trueseal technology means a strong, reliable bond. at safelite, we stand behind our work... because the ones you love, sit behind it. (parents whisper jingle) safelite repair, safelite replace.

but we've got the get tdigital tools to help. now with xfinity's my account, you can figure things out easily, so you won't even have to call us. change your wifi password to something you can actually remember, instantly. add that premium channel, and watch the show everyone's talking about, tonight. and the bill you need to pay? do it in seconds. because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. go to xfinity.com/myaccount we're learning more about the massive cyber attack crippling computer systems all over the world. "new york times" reporting digital clues bear striking similarities to attacks by north korean hackers. cnn's will ripley live in tokyo

with the latest. what do we know? >> reporter: these are early days, chris. this could be a link to north korea, it could not. what we know about the attack, it was massive. 300,000 devices, 150 countries affected here. what they are doing now, investigating the code used to put this ransom wear on computers forcing people to pay ransoms to put up and running again. hospitals, critical infrastructure shut down because of this, only $60,000 in ransom collected so far because governments encouraging people not to pay. when you look at these codes, there are similarities to codes north korean hackers used back in 2014 for sony pictures hack and 2016 last year a major attack on global banking system. sometimes hackers try to make code look like other "people" code. again, early days, weeks or month before they know for sure. what we do know north korea both missile threat and cyber threat topping agenda when south korea's new president moon jae-in travels to washington in june. that meeting announced this

morning. he'll be meeting in washington with trump. he'll be talking about the cyber threat. chris and poppy, this is the real deal talking about north korea tap into government systems, steal cyber weapons and use those weapons against the u.s. >> exactly. it's critical. will ripley, thank you for the reporting. keep us posted as you get more. ahead for us, will president trump's decision to share that classified information with the russians damage the u.s. relationship, reputation with other intelligence allies. former defense secretary and cia director leon panetta will join us next. handling the unexpected ... ...doesn't happen by accident. listen up, heart disease.) you too, unnecessary er visits. and hey, unmanaged depression, don't get too comfortable.

we're talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. and fragmented care- stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. every single one of you is on our list. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done.

i count on my dell small for tech advice. with one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. ♪ ♪

president trump on twitter this morning saying i did nothing wrong, offering reasoning for why he disclosed highly classified information to russian diplomats in a controversial oval office meeting last week. presidents usually meet with heads of state, but for him to meet with a foreign minister and an ambassador who wasn't mentioned in the white house read-out on what happened in this meeting. the only picture we knew was because this picture was offered up by soviet media. these tweets about what happened, do they shed light or create for of a problem? joining us now has serve as cia

director, chief of staff under president clinton. couldn't have a better day to have you on the show, sir. thank you for being here. >> nice to be here. >> the president -- i know you are a big twitter person. but just in case you didn't see his thread here, stop huffing and puffing. there is nothing to blow down here. this is an open meeting. i had humanitarian interests. that's why i did this. move on. acceptable? >> you know, i watch this president rationalize these kinds of things. and the problem that really bothers me is that it undermines the credibility of the office of the presidency. he is president of the united states. he is not a reality tv star. he is not just another personality. he is president of the united states. there are serious

responsibilities that relate to a president of the united states in terms of intelligence and security for this country. and he cannot just, you know, go ahead and reveal classified information without creating some huge problems within the intelligence community in terms of gathering that kind of information. so what bothers me here is that the president of the united states, an office that i respect throughout my life, i just think this president has to understand that he cannot just say whatever the hell he wants and expect that it doesn't carry consequences. >> do you think this is an issue of competency? do you think this is about whether or not this president is up to the job or whether he needs to change how he does the job, or is this just a question of choice and this is how he wants to conduct himself? >> i really think that president

trump has to deep down understand that he is president of the united states, that this isn't about the last election. this isn't about democrats, republicans. this is about being president of the united states and carrying huge responsibilities in terms of our country and our security. that's what he has to understand. and there have to be people around him that make very clear that's the way he's got to behave. he cannot go ahead and tweet and say whatever he wants. he's got to have some responsibility to the office and to the american people and to our national security. that's what the bottom line is here. now, can he grow in this office? can he understand these issues? can he get better at it? god, we all pray that's the case. but if he continues to operate this way, there are serious questions about the credibility of the office and the trust the american people can have in this

presidency. >> so when you look at why does it hurt the credibility, why does it hurt the intel sources, you have two different stories of what happened. and thankfully the president once again as he did last week with james comey, seemed to move everybody with his tweets closer to the reporting, as opposed to what came out of the white house. general mcmaster, a respect member of the military comes out and says, retired now, says didn't happen. the story is false. the president did not betray any secrets that were not made public. that is not what the allegations were in the washington post report. they want to the types of intelligence that was classified that he revealed with an agreement with the source of it that that wouldn't be done. now the president says, no, no, forget about it. i did say these types of things, but here is why i said them. why is that damaging to the

intel community? he has unfettered discretion to unclassify whatever he wants. >> chris, i think the american people need to understand that you don't just get intelligence out of thin air. you get intelligence because we deploy spies, because we deploy people who are willing to put their lives on the line and because we work with other intelligence agencies around the world that help provide that kind of information. but it is done on the basis of competence and trust. the information that was provided here was provided by a middle eastern country that was very sensitive about the information involved here and that made very clear that they did not want this intelligence shared. so, you know, the president then decides he's going to go ahead and reveal classified information. the problem -- sure, obviously presidents can do whatever they want. but what is the damage from

that? the damage is that this country may cutoff any kind of intelligence provided to the united states on very sensitive issues that relate to the national security of this country. that's the damage that can be done here. and the president needs to understand that. this is not just a joke. this is very serious business that relates to the security of this country. >> so how do you see positive change happening here? he's not getting pressure from his own party that we know about. speaker ryan, senate majority leader mcconnell, they the end to say, listen, we can't control what he does. let's stick with our own agenda. but you are saying national security is all of our agenda. what needs to happen? >> this president needs to have some grown ups around him that make very clear what the lines are here. >> mcmaster is supposed to be that. he tease nation he's the national security guy. >> the national security team i think is a very good team and he

obviously listens to that team. but they have got to make very clear to the president what he can and cannot do. this president is a loose can n cannon. we've seen that happen. he e he's got to have some lines here. the president of the united states cannot just do or say or speak whatever the hell he wants. that's just irresponsible. so you need to have some people that sit down with the president before he goes into a meeting and say these are the lines you cannot cross because it relates to the security of our country. if this president is going to be successful, he has got to be disciplined. >> the comey situation, i'm sure you have your thoughts on them. happy to hear them. the idea that the president said threat or not, matter of fact or not, you better hope there is no tapes, do you think there is a chance that there is the