>> reporter: it has been a pleasure talking with you and thank you for inviting us. >> you're welcome! >> time to hand it over and the special report white house in crisis starts right now. this is a cnn special report, white house in crisis. after a devastating week for the trump administration, tonight a new barrage of breaking news in the russia investigation unfolding within the last few hours. i'm jim sciutto. >> i'm pamela brown. as the president begins his first overseas trip, cnn is learning his legal team is starting to prepare for the possibility of impeachment. >> here's what we know. breaking just a short while ago, exclusive new cnn reporting on security adviser mike flynn and his russia connections. >> our sources say that officials bragged in the campaign that they cultivated such a strong relationship with flynn, they could use him to influence mr. trump and his team.

also breaking, james comey agreed to testify in an open public session of the senate intelligence committee after memorial day. it will be the first time we heard directly from comey since his ouster. this as the "new york times" reports told mr. trump told two officials in the oval office that comey was a real nut job and letting him go eased the pressure he faced because of the russia probe. with the gravity of the situation builds, the special counsel investigation begins, cnn learned that white house lawyers have informally started researching impeachment procedures. in case that becomes a reality. >> we are covering the late breaking stories with the team of correspondents and analysts. let's go to evan perez. our cnn justice correspondent. evan, you broke the story about preparations under way for possible impeachment. what have you learned? >> the white house lawyers have

begun researching impeachment procedures, an effort to prepare a distant and unlikely possibility that the president would have to fend off attempts to remove him from office. two people briefed said the research efforts are informal and being done out of caution. the white house officials believe the president has backing of republican allies in congress and impeachment is not in the cards according to people briefed on the discussions. we should note that even democrats have tried the calm impeachment talk that it is premature, but lawyers consulted them and began collecting information on how the proceedings would work. we reached out earlier and at first they said they wouldn't comment and now they said this report is not true. they said that the white house lawyers have not been researching impeachment. >> your reporting is that it has been reaching out to outside lawyers in the research. what about the president? does he need an outside lawyer?

>> that's happening in the white house. it's a broader effort to bolster the president's legal defense that is more complicated with the justice department's appointment of the special counsel to pursue the russian meddling in the election. closer advisers including two lawyers who serve as surrogates, michael cohen discussed his need to hire personal lawyers. >> thank you so much for that. it's clear from the exclusive reporting that evan has that the developments this week has clearly influenced the white house, the step it is taking to reach out about research. the democrats have not been that oupoken about the idea of impeachment? why so? >> why get in the way of a bad story for the white house when they can sit back and let the story take its course. we seem to have a new story every day and every hour. it they sit back, they can say look, this is not a partisan

investigation. these are not partisan issues. this is what the whole country should be thinking about. right now at least, the base is clamoring for more noise. i think the smart political move for them and they believe this, to sit back and let the story take its course. >> what are you hearing on capitol hill? >> it's interesting to hear the republican reaction. no one is saying impeachment, but when you ask them, i talked to a lot of republicans asking about concerns about obstruction of justice and what james comey wrote in his memo suggesting that president trump asked him to drop the investigation into michael flynn. they are concerned about that. i asked a number of members do you think the president may have interfered or obstructed justice? they said i don't know. possibly and yes i'm concerned. the republican general said i want to get to the bottom of it.

now that the special counsel has been named, an area that clearly this investigation is going to go. if it does reveal something that can suggest the president interfered, then you can see the tide shifting on capitol hill. >> with the special counsel and a lot of revelations, the first time i heard from republicans, a certain level of nervousness, but one early in the week and they described as a wide eyed reaction. if you are hearing a ratcheting up of that nervousness. >> absolutely. e russia collusion story for a lot of republicans, they are not convinced that it's there yet. they see the smoke and are not sure there is fire. now that the president is directly involved, it's potentially interfering with the investigation. it raises it to a new level. >> i was just talking to a source who said this week feels

different. there is a steady beat of trump, russia and this week feels different. >> that's right. i think one of the things that happens in this type of story, this is what we are going to see concerns that there perhaps might have been an effort at a cover up. pam handed one. for god's sake, it's spilling out into the newspapers. >> a reality check perhaps. enormous developments in the last two hours. we are not there yet, right? there is a lot of smoke here, but even investigators that pam and i speak with on the hill. they haven't established hard evidence of collusion. tell us where we are not at yet in terms of impeachment or danger for the administration. >> let me say someone who worked in the white house, we never experienced anything like this,

but washington and the media environment explodes on you and it's hard to know where you are and keep your feet on the ground and orient yourself. everything seems like the decisive event, what happens if mueller if everyone sees as a paragon of integrity says at the end of this process there were no crimes committed and closes the books on it or the crimes that were committed were not related to collusion. the president claims vindication and he moves on. i think it will be uncomfortable for him in the interim, but right now you look at the polling. he has taken a hit with independent voters, but his base is holding right now. probably will for sometime. i think it's easy to overreact to it. the big question is, what he does. the fact of the matter is many of the stories have been brought

on by the president's indiscretions and inability to control himself. what is he going to do for example, when jim comey testifies? is he going to stay silent or start tweeting or do an interview or is he going to speak to an ally and drop some thoughts on this that becomes a story? he has been his worst enemy in this matter. he has exponentially increased exposure and raises the saliency of the story. does he have it within himself to just shut up? >> we haven't seen that. >> it will be a remarkable moment when you have comey there, as we expect him to, publicly contradicting the president.

i want to go to you on this key question of obstruction of justice. looking at it now is there evidence based on what you have seen and heard? >> the pendulum shifted in the direction of obstruction of justice. this is a speaking-based crime primarily. the things that you are saying define your conduct and demonstrate whether you are trying to intimidate or say anything to undermine the ability of the investigation to go forward. what you are seeing is a pattern of speech by the president that gives the contextual clues that makes prosecutors salivate. the reasons that it's rare that you will have the low hanging fruit, a smoking gun in terms of evidence, you have smoking tweets here and smoking statements that happen every hour on the hour either defiantly or for it to defend himself in an interview. either way, you have the possibilities coming together saying listen, we didn't have low hanging fruit before. we didn't have the direct evidence.

now we have statements being made that show it's not about double-talk whether you fired comey because of the political motivation or impede the rest or for a benign reason. but the pendulum keeps shifting back towards that very high bar of obstruction of justice when you have more indications of actual intent to do precisely what was done. >> it may have come from the public's own statements and tweets. at home, i'm sure you are having trouble keeping up. i want to give you more details on another breaking news story tonight. multiple sources telling us that russian officials bragged in conversations during the presidential campaign that they cultivated a strong relationship with former trump adviser michael flynn that they believed they could use him to influence donald trump and his team. the conversations deeply concerning u.s. intelligence and impacted what intelligence the incoming administration was

privy tow because obama officials acted to limit how much sensitive information they shared with flynn himself. you have been following this story and we are learning new details about the conversations that flynn had with the russians. specifically the russian ambassador. >> what you recall is one major concern, the subject of the conversations between flynn and russian ambassador that took place after president obama slapped new sanctions on russia for meddling in the election. flynn id that e trump administration would look favorably on the decision by russia to hold off on retaliating with their own sanctions. the next day putin said he wouldn't retaliate and sources say flynn told him that the incoming trump administration would revisit sanctions on russia once in office. all of this adding to concern when the transition was under way. as we know, trump denied any collusion with russia this week.

he denounced the newest investigation in the hands of robert mueller as a witch hunt. gloria borger joins us and reaction of the obama administration officials when the conversations were picked up. >> you can imagine the sirens went off. former officials said the way the russians were talking about flynn was regarded as 5-alarm fire. they regarded flynn as their friend, sources told us. officials cautioned us that the russians might have been exaggerating their sway with trump's team during the conversations. >> we reach out at the white house and general flynn. what have been the reactions in the reporting? >> general flynn's attorney declined to comment. the white house said there is no collusion, but to point out, we are not saying there was collusion, only that there were these conversations and that did catch the attention of people within the u.s. intel community.

>> one thing that has been remarkable is president trump remained loyal to him, but he did fire him. after a lot of very hard warning signals and we are hearing that even maintained loyalty to him. >> we were told at the time that donald trump was the last person on board with the firing. we know from the comey memo that we learned about that the president apparently although he dees this, that comey memorialized in his notes that the president wanted him to shut down the flynn investigation. yes, he remains very loyal to michael flynn. >> david, we have the advantage to have you and the particular advantage that you served multiple administrations and served the clinton administration before the

impeachment challenge. place this in context for us. the current state of this white house, a special counsel and leaks from inside the building. legal challenges. how does this rate comparing it to the experience of the clinton and nixon administration. are we at that level? >> we are well beyond what the clinton administration was. no one thought that bill clinton would leave office, even though there was impeachment proceedings. he was not going to proceed in the senate. a lot of people thought it was overreached to go after him that way. there are similarities to the nixon experience that i think only get more obvious as time goes on. that is the deepening crisis in the white house itself. senator corker, the senator from tennessee said this week that the administration was in a downward spiral. that got a lot steeper today. we haven't seen this since the nixon administration. the white house itself lost control of the narrative. they are no longer able to tell

their story because it's so drowned out by the cascade of leaks and things the president has said or done that he shouldn't have done. he would have been wiser not to have done. look at today while they were in the air going to saudi arabia, that long flight, they are landing in the midst of more chaos and more uncertainty in a story that overwhelms what they are doing in saudi arabia. that is not od spot for a president to be. it's a dangerous place to be as a growing member of people in the country wonder whether trump himself is a danger to the country. >> the irony here, some of the most debilitating leaks is not coming from the intelligence community, but inside donald trump's own white house. >> this speaks to the dysfunctionality that we have seen. it is filled with factions and people uncertain about their

future in the white house. people without long histories of association with donald trump and don't feel that loyalty to him. the result has been an unprecedented array of leaks and the kind of things from white house sources. it's quite phenomenal. if i'm a trump, i'm feeling isolated and alone in my own white house as a result of all of that. it adds to the sense of crisis and besiegement. one point i want to make about the flynn matter is that the report you guys did tonight helped explain the story that came out about the fact that president obama felt he should warn donald trump not to appoint michael flynn as national security adviser and that first meeting at the white house.

it was an admonition that president-elect trump dismissed. i don't think that was an idle warning on the part of president obama. he was privy to the intelligence and it feels like to me was trying to give trump an honest recommendation that this would only be trouble for him and it turned out to be. >> that was followed by sally yates' warning that went to the white house counsel later after the inauguration. >> exactly. just ahead, new information about jim comey's mindset and intents to cope with what he saw was interference by trump. life.

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[vo] the grille is distinctive. but it's usually seen from the rear. the all-new audi q5 is here. we are back with the special report. white house in crisis. we are following a lot of breaking news including new word that fired fbi director james comey has agreed to testify in an open hearing in the senate intelligence committee. a big question as we go through the breaking news, what is the mind set of james comey as he prepares to talk public low for the first time since we learned he had memos and his alleged attempts to pressure him. gloria borger is here from your sources about comey's mind set. >> as are you. when comey started hearing from the president and met with him, he memorialized everything. i think what we are learning is

that at that point james comey thought he was dealing with the president and administration who just didn't understand the protocols of how to deal with these legal issues. they could teach them. they could perhaps learn about doling with the investigation. however, i was also told, as were you, pamela, that after comey was fired, t question of the president's intent became more problematic. >> the president was trying to influence him. >> exactly. >> it makes you wonder, gloria, i know in retrospect, why didn't he flag this to congress? what have people been telling you? >> first of all, he was not sure what it was. number one.

this is what i was told. number two, i was also told what is he go to do when he is not sure what you can deal with. go to congress, manu, you can talk about this, go to the people on the hill and they will leak about it. comey is familiar with leaks, as you well know. >> the only answer is i didn't smell obstruction at this point. if he said he did, he puts a lie to andy mccabe who testified he didn't see obstruction and it also raises the question of why he is sharing these thoughts with people outside his friends who are now leaking to the press about his thoughts and his memos. why is he saying all of this stuff to people outside and not to members of congress? >> why did he tell his team? he was uncomfortable with what he was hearing. >> it's one thing to hear the people describe them in public.

that was a big story. to see the former fbi director in a public hearing directly contradict the president will be a remarkable moment. >> and under oath. everything from whether or not there was a loyalty asked by the president and whether or not the president asked him to drop the flynn investigation which the president publicly denied. >> the president said. three times he said he was not under investigation. james comey will be under oath and rebut him. >> the question is how much does bob muller want him to say and not want to say? i'm sure they will have discussions. >> senator chuck grassley, he tweeted this tonight. perhaps the special counsel will not let him speak. >> there will be a lotf negotiations going on. >> there are. the congressional investigation is trying to get at the truth for the american public. the prosecutor looks for criminal culpability. they have very different roles

as they did during the iran-contra hearing. and it's difficult to reconcile them and that is now a problem. >> keep in mind, critics of the president may not like to hear this, but there is a legal opinion of the justice department that says you cannot charge a sitting president. the only solution for this, if bob mueller finds culpability and he committed any crimes, he has to go to rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general and he has to refer that to congress which then decides whether or not you impeach. that's a long way away, but they are important questions. >> as all this news is breaking, president trump is flying to saudi arabia for his first overseas trip since taking office. due to land soon. no escaping the crisis here at home. we will go straight to jim acosta in the saudi capital. that has been a busy day to say the least.

the damaging new developments. starting with the "new york times" report. what are you hearing from the white house? >> reporter: the white house is not saying a lot more about all of this. besides that statement they put out in response to that bombshell story in the "new york times" that the president was talking about with the russians how he fired the fbi director jim comey, to take pressure off him during this russia investigation. the viewers of the comments the president made and he talked to white house officials, they are not disputing what is reported in terms of what the president said. i just fired the head of the fbi. he was crazy. a real nut job. i faced pressure because of russia and that's taken off. i am not under investigation. when asked to respond to all of this, is press secretary, sean spicer, did issue a statement. it accuses comey of grandstanding and politicizing this investigation. by grandstanding and politicizing this investigation

into russia's actions, james comey created unnecessary pressure to engage and negotiate with russia. that would have continued and the termination would not have ended it. the real stories have been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations. once again, this white house appears to be concerned about the leaks coming out of the white house and out of the administration and not so much what is being said about the president's actions and what he has said throughout all of this. >> jim, tell us what you are hearing about former trump campaign staffers. we are learning something new. >> one of the things whether or not their staffers at the white house is receiving legal guidance if they are contacted by federal authorities. i contacted an official in the last hour who said we are not commenting, but we know they are

obtaining legal representation to deal with these questions. i talked to a former campaign staffer who worked basically for free. he said he was never paid for his services and said donald trump the president should be setting up legal fund to help staffers and some of the things he said to me over the phone, in many ways the trump associates are the real victims here and the world is going after them and trump is leaving them, abandon on the battlefield and many lives will be ruined in the process. people living their lives to this president during the campaign trying to get him elected are feeling left behind and not protected as they are being brought into the investigation and questioned by federal investigators. thanks very much to jim acosta. the first reaction from leon

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joining us to share his perspective is leon panetta who served as secretary, cia director and white house chief of staff. thank you very much for coming on the show. >> nice to be with you. >> first question. what is your response to the breaking news that the white house has reached out to legal help to prepare for possible impeachment proceedings. >> well, it doesn't surprise me. were witnessing, again, this is probably the third time in my lifetime, a scandal, a huge scandal in washington that is impacting on the president of the united states. it is going to be that our institutions and our leadership in this country and our whole

system will be tested to determine whether or not we can with stand the impact of this scandal. it's going to create a lot of consternation and going to put the president in a position where he is going to have to seek outside counsel. >> when you say scandal, what is most concerning to you? what do you mean? >> i think we have a situation where there is a number of issues that broke out not only this week, but the past few weeks that are going to be the subject of an investigation now by a special counsel that will look at each of these issues to determine what happened and there there were violations of law. when you look at each of those issues, obviously it raises

concerns about whether or not the president stepped over a line. the issue with mike flynn and threatening to cutoff an investigation of mike flynn. the issue of the russian investigation and firing of director comey that appear to be related. and it raises implications on that. there are a series of issues that are going to have to be looked at by the special counsel and the committees in the congress that will consume the attention of the american people for a period here. >> do you think that the president has overstepped a line? >> i'm going to leave that to the special counsel to look at the facts involved here. to determine whether or not there is evidence to establish

that kind of charge. i think part of the problem is to say that in many ways the president through his reckless comments that he made in these areas, establishing the potential for a case against him in each area. what they have to do is determine where the truth is. i always felt that no president can stand in the way of finding the truth. i think that will be the case with this situation as well. >> you mentioned the president's comments that former fbi director james comey was nuts. that aside, what is your reaction to the fact that these conversations in the oval office are leaking?

>> it's chaotic. the white house is in total chaos right now. i'm sure leaks are coming out left and right and at the same time the president created a lot of these problems by virtue of what he said and what he tweeted. there is a sense that things are spiraling out of control. that's not good for the country. all of this frankly takes our attention away from the challenges that we face not only here in this country, but in the world. >> you say things are seemingly spiraling out of control, do you think that is because the

president is his own worst enemy in this? >> well, there is no question that his kind of erratic impulsive behavior in making the comments and in many ways not even adhering to the talking points that the staff and the white house were trying to put out on many of these situations. his comments have added to the concern about what exactly was he trying to accomplish and trying to do in terms of these investigations in terms of the russian issue which has, i think with every comment he has made, the russian interference issue and the potential of collusion has become that much more serious. >> secretary panetta, cnn is saying that russian officials bragged in the presidential campaign that they cultivated a strong happy with retired general michael flynn and

believed they could use them to influence donald trump and his team. the conversations are deeply concerned. some acted to limit how much information they shared in the transition. your reaction? >> well, i can tell you as director of the cia, we focused a great deal to on the russians to destabilize our country. they are a foreign adversary. their whole goal is to try to destabilize the united states. every effort we make is to try to anticipate what they were up to that could hurt our country. to now have them in a situation where they are trying to not only influence and interfere with our elections, but raise the implication they might be

working with the people at the highest levels of government to pursuit their own objectives creates a huge concern. not only among the intelligence community people that are working on this issue, but among law enforcement and those involved with national security. this is an issue that concerns the national security of the united states. it is for that reason we have to find out exactly what happened and whether or not anyone in the highest levels of government was involved. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> up next, more on the breaking news. white house lawyers begin researching impeachment. and our new reporting about how russian officials bragged about using michael flynn to influence donald trump. we will talk about that next. i use the color that protects as it colors. excellence haircolor by l'oréal.

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welcome back to the special report. we are covering multiple breaking stories. i want to go to our presidential historian. cnn reporting that white house lawyers beginning to research and consult lawyers about an impeachment process. you with the nixon library, how rare is that one and how much of

an alarm bell is that? >> that's a terrible sign for the white house. i don't care what era you are living i you are not expein research tt. i want to put it into context. richard nixon did not get himself a criminal lawyer after the saturday night massacre. >> that was several months in. >> well over a year after the third break-in. the prosecutor got the tapes and listened to them and said to the chief of staff the president is guilty. he needs a criminal lawyer. he gets a lawyer in 1974 and things are happening so much faster in this story. for them to talk about impeachment now is astounding. no doubt that is not doing anything for morale at the white house. people are looking for their own lawyers. >> we are hearing that. jim acosta is reporting you have trump staffers who are concerned and feeling left out. they have to hire lawyers and incur debts here and at the same

time we are hearing a lot of leaks from inside the white house that are not complimentary of the president himself. >> of the white houses i covered, i have never seen that leaks as much as this one does. either they are leaking official leaks or unofficial and coming out. there is no sense of real discipline right now in this white house. in part that's because they are having a hard time segmenting the world of governing from the world of dealing with this crisis of the moment. past presidencies we have seen starting to back the clinton administration which came back to washington after being a foreign correspondent, they were pretty good at that and had one part that said ignore monica and all those issues and do your program. these staff have to be able to do that and they have a

president who seems to be incapable of separating the two as you see from the reports. >> all roads lead to moscow, in effect. the russia story and flynn contacts, i wonder if you can explain how important the idea that russia was. they thought they had a russia influence. inside the white house. >> not just inside the white house, but overseeing the national security apparatus and access to the oval office. i will admit it is overwhelming to the viewers and people who follow this have been overwhelming. instead of thinking about each piece, there is proof of collusion. that likely did not happen. each of these stories begin to build a case. that's what's happening at the fbi and we don't know what it's a case for. it might be collusion. it might be the financial

dealings we are hearing about. it might be nothing. the fact that we don't have a smoking gun seems irrelevant. the 17 stories since mday are building a case. we are moving far away from this and much closer to something that doesn't look good for the white house. i don't know who and what, but you cannot rationally look at this data and say it's a coincidence. >> is this something that moscow does to try to get what they perceive to be an agent of influence in the white house?

>> this is one of the differences between the way a lot of services work and the way the russians work. they collect and get the information to consumers. the russians view it much more as a weapon and operationally. how can we use this as an intelligence service. everyone wants a spy in the kremlin, but to have somebody who can take tasking from moscow and try to get that influence executed and it's not just the white house. it's the whole national security apparatus. the russians would be more interested than just having a source. you can argue that they don't need that because the president is saying what's going on in the white house. they would be very interested in having that agent of influence. michael flynn i held would be the number one target. >> pam brown is reporting they were so concerned by what

seeing, they were not sharing classified information. coming up next, how is this crisis playing out in the white house? we will have that riafter this break hi..and i know that we have phonaccident forgiveness.gent, so the incredibly minor accident that i had tonight- four weeks without the car. okay, yup. good night. with accident forgiveness your rates won't go up just because of an accident. switching to allstate is worth it.

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the king of saudi arabia will be greeting the u.s. president, as he will step off his plane. he steps off air force one. the u.s. flags, the saudi flags, flying side-by-side, will be seeing the u.s. president and the saudi king shaking hands. we're covering this line on cnn. we have nic robertson. we have jeremy dimon covering this. stay with us for that. and, jeremy, let me turn back to you. the question i was asking you, whether the white house -- how you thought the white house might be following u.s. political developments even as they were on the plane. >> that's right. this president and his staff have been opening for a reset, of sorts, as they embarked on this several thousand mile-long journey to saudi arabia. all of that was undercut, once

again, while they were on this plane. a series of storying breaking. some of them from cnn. includg the revolution that the russians believe, according to intercepted communications, that michael flynn could be used as a tool to influence u.s. policy. and that sparked concerns from obama administration officials, who were told were limiting what kind of intelligence information was being shared with for michael flynn, as he planned to step in as national security adviser. and this is more bubbling up the controversy, something that is looking like scandal here, that the president has not been able to escape his campaign's potential dealings with the russians and the fbi's federal investigation into those potential contacts. we know that a special counsel was named just days ago, to look into this inquiry and oversee

this investigation from an independent perspective. and that was expected to take the heat off of a white house and a president that's been accused of interfering in that investigation. but of course, we know that the return of this and these latest allegations are once again putting president trump and his associates at the center of this growing controversy. we know that the president huddled with some of his attorneys and the white house counsel's office has also talked to attorneys. they're looking at what potential impeachment proceedings could look like. that's not to say that impeachment proceedings are going to begin right away. but certainly, it's something that's becoming an increasing possibility. something that democrats on capitol hill have begun to talk about. some republicans, quietly, also discussing some at least. the white house the preparing for what could be a messy legal battle. as democrats grow incensed about

the ongoing allegations, what is a drip, drip, drip of sorts in this russia investigation. >> jeremy diamond. we're looking at the live footage. the carpet was rolled out. and theed preside president of states is expected to make his way to the tarmac shortly. looking at the capital of saudi arabia, riyadh. it is 2:57 a.m. in the u.s. 9:57 a.m. saudi time. we also have james davis with us, following this from berlin. does us the pleasure of being with us. james, i was asking you earlier what you thought a successful trip would be like for donald trump, on this, his first overseas trip as president. >> if the president is able to

come back to the united states and demonstrate he can hold his own on the red carpet of international diplomacy. if he's able to come back to the united states and say, we've successfully reassured the sunni-arab allies of the united states. if he comes back after a trip to israel and says, i see some movement on the peace process, maybe gets a commitment of the arabs and the israelis to reengage in a more substantial way than they have been in the last few years, that would be seen as a success. also, the question is whether that's going to be enough to change the dynamics of this presidency. i'm struck by the presidents go abroad to escape the log jams of washington, in the last years of administrations, when they're lame ducks. this president is going abroad in the first six months to gain some leverage that he can bring back to washington and

re-establish the control over the dynamics of a very chaotic white house. >> james, stay with us. we're keeping an eye on the live footage of air force one, which is wheels down in riyadh, saudi arabia. a little nugget of information coming from the white house chief of staff, speaking to reporters on air force one, saying that president trump got, quote, very little sleep on his 14-hour fght from washington. apparently, he was working hard with staff. he was reading newspapers on the journey, we're told. and also, and perhaps more importantly, working on his speech to muslim leaders, which he's due to deliver on sunday. let's go the nic robertson in riyadh. nick, what nic, what do we expect in that speech? >> we can expect something respectful. that's what general briefed us on.

the speech is going to have a nuanced mess ablg. hoping that president trump had negative things to say during his campaign. the saudis have put that to one side. the speech here, needs to be you wansed when he delivers a message that says, the leers of the arab and muslim cubs here, need to put forth a more peaceful and tolerant image of islam. certainly, the leaders believe they are. trump's visit here will break a record, in his visit to saudi arabia will be the longest of any president. president bush in 200 w8 was he. president trump will exceed his visit by a couple of hours. and also, when president obama came here a year ago and the contrast for the rollout