we're ending this week on a cliffhanger. will the president try to block james comey's testimony next week by invoking executive privilege? there's breaking news on what director comey was thinking when the president was pushing him to end the investigation into michael flynn. phil mattingly has more on both. joins us now. will the president try to block comey's testimony? >> reporter: the bigger question is, even if he wanted to, could he? if you look at what it takes to invoke executive privilege, james comey no longer a government employee.

the president himself has talked about the conversations publicly on twitter and in a letter that he and james comey had. basically, as it stands, there's a lot of question whether he could or not. the white house is reviewing this issue. house democrats on the judiciary committee just released a letter saying two things primarily. first and foremost they don't believe on the merits should the president try and invoke executive privilege it would work. if he did, they point out the political ramifications. that it would look like he was trying to obstruct the testimony. these are two key consideration the white house will have to pay attention to as they look forward. as you noted, we don't have an answer yet. >> the day before comey appears, the deputy attorney general will also testify. >> reporter: that's right. separate hearing, separate focus. the big question is, what can members get out of both deputy attorney general rod

rosenstein but everybody else on the panel? the acting fbi director, the cia director and the director of the nsa. all of these individuals have played some role one way or another in this russia investigation. the reality is, what we have seen over the last couple weeks is all questions will be deferred to the special counsel, bob mueller. that's the posture everybody is taking at this point. what will be more interesting to watch, how the senators conduct themselves. this will be laying the groundwork for the hearing, the bigger hearing, the main event that follows. members on both sides of the ale, republicans and democrats, how they set themselves up for the big hearing 24 hours later will be very interesting to see. probably a very good indicator of things to come. >> there's new reporting about why director comey may not have reported the alleged pressure, the pressure the president put on him to ease off the investigation. >> reporter: this is really important. this is something you are going to hear from republicans on thursday almost certainly. if you had such problems with the president's actions, why didn't you report them? why didn't you resign? here is what we are hearing from a source familiar with james

comey's thinking. he thought the actions in isolation, the idea of telling jim comey to back off the investigation into michael flynn, things of that nature, were kind of the actions of a ham handed individual that didn't understand the separation process between the law enforcement. comey viewed this as a training process. getting the president comfortable with how the relationship was supposed to work. he didn't believe they raised to the level of something that needed to be reported. all put together, and most notably concluding with the firing of james comey, that raises a question as to whether obstruction was actually taking place. something we will almost certainly hear james comey questioned about at that hearing. >> thanks very much. that's how a source describes james comey's thinking in the early weeks of the trump administration. hold that as we review the events and interactions that comey will testify about on thursday. randi kaye has more. >> reporter: in january, this

year, a dinner at the white house. now under scrutiny. dining together, donald trump and james comey. mr. trump had been sworn in seven days earlier. on that night, the president asked comey to pledge his loyalty to him. comey instead offering to give the president his honesty. the president had a very different account of that dinner meeting when he spoke to nbc last month. >> i think he asked for the dinner. he wanted to stay on as the fbi head. i said, i will consider it. we will see what happens. >> reporter: the white house pushed back on the loyalty question. >> in the dinner the president had with james comey earlier in january, did the president implore him to pledge his loyalty to the president? is that true? >> no. >> reporter: the president says comey also told him at dinner that he was not under investigation and that comey repeated it again twice later. >> that time he told me, you are

not under investigation. during the phone call he said it. then during another phone call he said it. he said it once at dinner and then he said it twice during phone calls. >> did you ask, am i under investigation? >> i actually asked him, yes. i said, if it's possible, will you let me know, am i under investigation? he said, you are not under investigation. >> why was the president so consumed by this that he would ask that question on three separate occasions? >> i think because the narrative continued to be perpetuated. he wanted clarity. >> reporter: on february 14, another key moment between president trump and director comey, this time in the oval office. sources say comey documented the meeting in a memo which was described to cnn. comey says the president ushered others out of the room, including the vice-president, then that trump allegedly asked comey to drop the investigation into general michael flynn's contacts with russia. flynn was fired as trump's national security adviser after admitting to inappropriate

contacts with russia. a source told cnn comey was so surprised by the president's request he documented everything he could remember for senior fbi officials. in his memo, comey said the president told him, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. he is a good guy. i hope you can let this go. a source told cnn, comey was concerned that the president was trying to stop the investigation. >> did you at any time urge former fbi director james comey in any way, shape or form to close or back down the investigation into michael flynn? also, as you -- >> no. no. next question. >> reporter: despite that, just days after firing comey in may, president trump dropped this bombshell. suggesting he let comey go because of the russia investigation. >> when i decided to just do it i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up

story. >> reporter: of course, that only raised more questions about the possibility of obstruction of justice. given comey's testimony before congress -- >> we're conducting an investigation to understand whether there was any coordination between the russian efforts and anybody associated with the trump campaign. >> reporter: benjamin wit s, a friend of james comey spoke to anderson cooper about how comey thought personal contact with the president was inappropriate. >> this is a guy with a story to tell. i think if i were donald trump, that would scare me a lot. he did feel like there were these numerous incidents where the president was kind of probing the edges of his defenses. and all in the service of making him a -- seeing whether you could make a loyalist out of him. >> reporter: it wasn't just james comey the president may have been trying to influence. in march, just days after comey revealed the fbi probe into

possible trump campaign connections to russia, the president asked two of the government's top intelligence chiefs to publically deny evidence of collusion between his team and the russian government. sources tell cnn both the director of national intelligence dan coats and national security agency director admiral michael rogers were uncomfortable with the nature of the president's request and refused to comply. the white house declined to comment and so did director coats when asked by the senate armed services committee. >> i don't feel it's appropriate to characterize discussions and conversations with the president. >> congress needs to find out whether there was an active effort to interfere with the investigation or to draw in the intelligence agencies or their leadership in a way that would politicize the agencies. >> reporter: the effort to uncover the truth continues. randi kaye, cnn, new york.

>> a lot of to discuss. looking ahead to next week, do we know about what comey is going to say? >> we know he has been trying to figure out what the restrictions are on what he is allowed to talk about. our expectation is he will talk about how he felt about the approaches that president trump made to him with relation to the russian investigation, with relation to michael flynn, the ousted national security adviser. he is going, i think, be very careful to stay within the parameters of what he is allowed to do without tripping up any legal investigations -- >> not talking about the actual fbi investigation? >> correct. in the same way we saw him in these congressional committees testifying -- he was very careful to say that it's something i can't talk about, you should not take my answer as a yes or no but i can't speak of it.

you will hear a fair amount of that. i think that you will hear him speaking in his own words, not through friends, speaking on background, not through aides or used to work with him about how he felt about his interactions with the president. it has the chance to be explosive. >> as far as this notion that director comey may not have thought of any individual action taken alone as constituting obstruction of justice, does that explanation make sense to you? >> yes. i think each action taken alone or by itself may not trigger the law, so to speak. but i do think it's more important that director comey may be disturbed by the pattern and the pattern, if you look at the -- from early on whether allegedly the president asked him for his loyalty and then he asked him to drop the case. when he wouldn't drop the case with flynn, the president fired him. if you look at the in between conversations, that pattern is more damning than any one of those elements would be. it may explain why he didn't tell anybody or he kept his

contemporaneous notes but didn't tell anybody about what was in them, didn't report it to others. >> do we know, will the notes be read? can he use those notes? >> i'm not certain how detailed he can get into that. my assumption is that he can rely on them. i'm not certain he is able to sit there and go through what he said. he will have to do some real time memory essentially. i think he is familiar with -- >> at this point, we don't know if the white house is going to try for executive privilege. >> we don't, but i was just talking to a white house advisor who was suggesting it's unlikely. again, we are living in a donald trump world. they are looking at all of their options. there's a recognition by some in the white house, if not everybody, that exerting that privilege would be very, very problematic on its own in terms of the optics, in terms of how it would be received by people who have been defending the president. i think frankly -- this was a point made to me by somebody a little bit ago. the president is probably looking forward to watching this

testimony on some level. i think that he enjoys the show of it for lack of a better way. >> he actually enjoys it, you think? >> i don't think it fully set in the severity potentially of what is going on right now for a lot of people around the white house. i'm not sure it has for the president either just based on what he is saying and he continues tweeting despite the fact that lawyers and white house counsel and his aides have all said, please be careful, because you are creating a chain of evidence here. >> what is better for the president, letting comey testify publically about their conversation or blocking him, which to maggie's point could make it seem like some administration is trying to hide something. >> it would be a terrible mistake politically to invoke executive privilege here, and it would be challenged legally. i think it does send a signal what is he trying to hide? further more, we all know that comey is ultimately going to be talking under oath to the fbi investigators.

his story will eventually come out one way or the other. to get into this now and try to hide him, recognizing that one day the story is going to come out in full, i don't know what you are accomplishing. better off for the white house tomorrow, not wait, not review, not spend time on it, clear the deck, say we're going to allow him to testify. >> it's fascinating thursday. thanks. there's more breaking news. putin is speaking out about the election hacking and what he thinks about the entire controversy. how the president can drop american participation at the paris accord on global warming without saying a single word about global warming itself. the question now is why doesn't the white house say what he thinks about it?

at a business round table today, vladimir putin reset his compass and did another 180.

he is once again flat out denying russia had anything to do with the hacking of the u.s. election. he ridiculed the reaction to president trump's decision to pull out of the paris accord and didn't stop there. >> reporter: it was trademark vladimir putin, appearing on stage in an interview forum today, the leader surprised the audience in english. >> don't worry, be happy. >> reporter: invoking the '80s singer sarcastically describing the anger around president trump's decision to pull out of the paris climate change agreement. in his native spy, he was far less sunny. continuing to deny russian interference in the u.s. presidential election. while attacking former candidate hillary clinton saying her campaign just can't admit its own mistakes caused her loss. >> translator: they decided to say it's not our fault, it's the russian's fault. it's like anti-semitism, to blame the jews for everything. we know what this can lead to. nothing good. >> reporter: at the same time,

putin spoke admiringly of donald trump's successful campaign. >> translator: the trump team was more effective during the election campaign. he found an approach to the electorate that worked for him. >> reporter: he wasn't done there. on the heels of his comment thursday that russian patriots, not the government, might have hack the election, putin gave another denial. >> translator: i read these reports. there is nothing specific in these reports. just assumptions and conclusions. >> reporter: he denied any discussions about sanctions between his government and the incoming trump administration. tonight, analysts say putin is looking for deniability, trying to prevent them tracing anything to him. it appears he is loving the attention and the strife inside the u.s. political system. >> he has a president who wants to have better relations with russia. he has a scandal that has weakened the u.s. president and he has a u.s. president who is

busy lecturing his best allies about climate and about nato. there's lots of things that putin is enjoying about the current crisis. >> reporter: vladimir putin came to the defense of the man who works for him here in washington, russian ambassador sergey kislyak who is at the center of the investigation into trump's aides' contacts with the russians. putin said our ambassador met with someone. that's what the ambassador must do. he said reports of secret deals before the inauguration are, quote, hysteria and said, quote, how should we stop that, take a pill or something. we also reached out to hillary clinton's representatives for response to vladimir putin's comments about her campaign. they declined to comment. >> brian todd, thanks very much. a look inside the white house decision making process on the paris pullout. new insight into the argument that moved the president, whether he considered all the facts or what facts he considered before making up his mind. w...that not only made a a big first impression... ...but was designed to withstand

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the white house defended the president's decision to pull out of the paris accord on global warming. that much of course was expected. what was not expected but maybe should have been was how the evasion continues to be on the

central question, namely, what does the president now believe about global warming. cnn's jim acosta tonight has details. >> thank you very much, everybody. >> reporter: the climate was warming at the white house as officials from the president to the administrator of the epa -- >> does the president believe today that climate change is a hoax? >> reporter: dodged the question. >> does the president believe climate change is real and a threat to the united states? >> it's interesting, all the discussions we had for the last several weeks have been focused on one singular issue. is paris good or not for this country? >> reporter: pruitt echoed president trump's decision to pull out as a choice in favor of american workers. >> they don't put america first. i do. and i always will. >> reporter: the head of the epa took jabs at what he described as climate exaggerators, the language used by global warming

skeptics. >> you were up there throwing out information that says, maybe this is being exaggerated. you talk about climate exaggerators. it just seems to a lot of people around the world that you and the president are denying the reality. the reality is that climate change is happening and it's a significant threat to the planet. >> let me say this. i've said it in the confirmation process and i said it yesterday. there is -- we have done a tremendous amount as a country to achieve reductions in co2. we have done that through technology and innovation. we will continue to do that. we will continue to stay engaged. >> you are putting your head in the sand. >> there's no evidence of that. >> reporter: sean spicer told reporters that he would check on whether the president still believed climate change is a hoax. as he stated in the past. did spicer have a chance to clear that up with the president? >> i have not had an opportunity to have that discussion.

>> reporter: spicer and pruitt joined a growing list of administration officials dancing around the climate question. >> does president trump believe climate change is a hoax? >> president trump believes is he was elected to grow the u.s. economy and provide great job opportunities. >> does the president still believe global warming is a hoax? >> the president believes in a clean environment, clean air, clean water. >> reporter: there are other pressing questions such as whether the president will invoke executive privilege to block james comey from testifying on capitol hill next week. spicer said that's up in the air. >> it's got to be reviewed. >> reporter: he insisted the president is standing by his son-in-law jared kushner amid questions about the white house advisor's dealings with the russians. >> the president said he is open to negotiating a new climate deal. did the white house follow up on that at all today? the paris accord took years and years and years. it's unlikely that there's going

to be a new deal. >> reporter: that's right. the epa administrator told reporters that the president is open to starting negotiations on a new paris climate deal. we have heard over the last 24 hours in response to the president's announcement, world leaders, including key u.s. allies who say simply, that's not happening. anderson. >> jim acosta, thanks. more now with a little known organization that had a big influence on the president's climate decision. drew griffin has the low down on who they are. he tried to find out who is financing them. take a look. >> reporter: located in a non-discript office in wauds, the competitive enterprise institute and the director of energy, may have helped change the political and environmental direction of a nation. >> it has been a big win for you, correct? this is kind of a coup for your group. >> it's a small organization. we have been very persistent. we haven't given up. i think we have to a large extent finally prevailed through

the actions of president trump and his administration. >> reporter: he has the administration's ear. he ran president trump's epa transition team. he supported the president's pick of a climate change skeptic, scott pruitt. being chosen as epa director. he confirmed the rescinding of six executive orders aimed at curbing climate change from his executive plan. from the moment the paris accord was signed by the united states, he has worked to persuade the u.s. to get out of it. just weeks ago when the white house inner circle was battling over what to do about paris, cei put out this ad reminding the president what he had promised to do. >> we're going to cancel the paris climate agreement. and stop all payments of the united states tax dollars to u.n. global warming programs. >> mr. president, don't listen to the swamp.

keep your promise. withdraw the u.s. from the paris climate treaty. >> that was pressure. were you deliberately trying to remind not the people, not the public but the president what he said? >> yes. there's a large wing of people who proudly identify as part of the basket of deplorables in the trump administration. there are a bunch of people who are much more comfortable identifying as part of the swamp. there was a debate, a real debate in the white house and in the cabinet. we just wanted to remind the president which side he is on. >> reporter: yesterday, the pressure paid off. myron bell and several colleagues at the competitive enterprise institute were at the rose garden when president trump said this. >> it is time to exit the paris accord. >> reporter: he claims to have never met president trump before yesterday. yet his influence over the

administration seems undeniable, which scares environmentalists. >> the access that they have -- and others who not only don't like the idea of implementing policy to protect us from climate change, but seem to have a scorn for mainstream science, was and still is extremely disturbing. >> reporter: he calls much of the scientific data on global warming questionable. the institute has been accused of misinterpreting scientific studies and has, according to scientists, created a fog of misinformation to confuse voters. who is paying for all this? that's a good question. >> does the energy industry support you? does the coal industry support you? >> if you want to know, you will have to talk to them. under irs non-profit law for 501-c3 which we have a non-profit public policy

institute, we don't disclose our donors. >> drew, who does pay? do we know? >> like he said, they don't have to say. and they don't say. i will tell you this, it's large donations from private people. $250,000, up to $1 million in some cases by individuals who are going to remain secret. we can also tell you that they do have this fund-raising dinner. according to "the washington post" in the past, yes, coal, energy, car companies like ford, also google and facebook have been involved. most of the fund-raising for this group comes from private people who are remaining private. >> drew griffin, thanks. given the president just went against virtually every our country on the climate accord, it's an important question. does the president think climate change is real or does he think it's a hoax as he tweeted? he won't talk about it. as we should -- as we showed you moments ago, neither would the white house. the president has said plenty in the past. we will show you that ahead.

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the president is clear on what he dislikes about the paris climate accord.

on the other hand, he's totally avoiding questions on the underlying issue, climate change itself. it's odd because as a candidate, donald trump was anything but shy on the subject. gary tuchman has more. >> reporter: president trump hasn't made it clear where he stands on climate change. but as candidate trump and citizen trump he certainly did. in december 2015, he had this to say. >> while the world is in turmoil and falling apart in so many different ways, especially with isis, our president is worried about global warming. what a ridiculous situation. >> reporter: then there was this in september 2015. >> do you believe that the temperature of the earth is increasing? what would you do if do you believe that? >> well, first of all, i'm not a believer in global warming. i'm not a believer in man made global warming. >> he said global warming is our biggest problem. we have problems. we have some big problems. we may have a global warming problem but it will be of the

nuclear variety if we don't have smart people in office and soon. >> reporter: then this moment during the campaign. >> donald thinks climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the chinese. i think it's real. >> i did not say that. >> reporter: look at president trump's twitter feed to see that he did say that in 2012. the concept of global warming was created by and for the chinese in order to make u.s. manufacturing non-competitive. in fact, his twitter feed gives a clear window into where he stands on the issue. there's this in january 2015. it is record cold all over the country and world. we need global warming. this in february 2014. it's not climate change. it's global warming. don't let the dollar sucking wise guys change names because the first name didn't work. in november 2012, let's continue to destroy the competitiveness of our factories and manufacturing so we can fight mythical global warming.

china is so happy. interestingly back in 2009, donald trump did sign a letter along with dozens of other business leaders calling for meaningful and effective measures to control climate change. there have been occasions where he sounded a bit like he was on fence. >> i'm still open minded. nobody really knows. look, i'm somebody that gets it. nobody really knows. it's not something that is so hard and fast. >> reporter: overall his blizzard of tweets and almost all of his televised comments on the topic have revealed a sentiment. >> i am not a believer in climate change. >> reporter: he has never been shy about expressing that until now. gary tuchman, cnn, atlanta. more on that. he talked about it with jim acosta who spent part of the briefing today trying to get a straight answer. so has phillip brucker. the fact the white house cannot

and will not say whether or not the president believes climate change is real -- i guess they can. they just won't. is that a viable strategy, not answering what seems to be a pretty vital and obvious question? >> i think it guarantees that this question is going to be asked over and over again, probably come up at the next press conference the president has. if he has another one in the near future. he was asked about it during a press availability today. he simply ignored the question. it reminds me of when reporters would pepper him with the question about whether he still believes barack obama was not born in the united states. it took months and months and years and years of pulling teeth to get the president to admit that the president was born in the united states. i get the sense that there's a similar situation here. white house officials are not going to say the president doesn't believe climate change is a hoax anymore unless they hear it from him.

at this point, my guess is that they're just not getting that answer from the president at this point. >> phil, you were reporting how president trump came to his decision, the big influence steve bannon had on decision. what can you tell us? >> getting out of the paris accord was something president trump has wanted to do dating back to when he was a candidate. he had a long process here to get to the final decision. he was really influenced by bannon as well as scott pruitt, the head of the epa. they presented him facts and figures and numbers and charts and graphics to impress upon him their argument that the economy would suffer under the emission standards required in the paris agreement for the united states. trump ultimately sided with them, even though his daughter ivanka had been pushing him to stay in the paris accord. she had summoned all of the ceos to call him, to pressure him, to lobby him to write letters and op-eds in the newspapers, and it just wasn't enough to pry him away from his nationalist

instincts that bannon fed. >> does this raise questions about the power of ivanka trump in the white house? >> it does. certainly, she has a lot of influence with the president. she's family. she's blood. she has access to him whenever she chooses. she can make her views known to him. at the end of the day, she's someone who wants a more -- who has a more moderate ideology dealing with the republican conservative president and a republican conservative administration. there's only so much influence she can have on these policies to pull him in the right direction and climate change is not the only case where she's lost out in the battle. there have been other policy matters where the president has gone further to the right than she would like. >> jim, this is not the only thing the white house won't answer questions about. they refuse to answer questions about the president's wiretapping claims. now they're deferring anything to do with the rush aand the special counsel. just a few months ago sean spicer was claiming president trump's transparency has exceeded that of any modern

president. >> that's right. i think the danger for sean spicer at this point is that he just loses all credibility in the briefing room. we saw that on the first full day of the administration when he lashed out at the news media for not saying that the president's inauguration crowd was bigger than obama's. sean spicer has had moments where he has damaged his credibility time and again. i can't imagine him going into the briefing room and saying, i haven't had a chance to talk to the president about whether he still believes climate change is a hoax. we asked sean spicer this question earlier this week. he said he would come back with a question. today when he was asked, did you go back and ask him that question, he said, he hasn't had the opportunity to do that. that just really doesn't sound like anything that adds up when you consider the fact they were going into this rose garden speech to make a major decision on climate change and yet nobody inside the white house had the backbone to go to the president and say, what about this one question and this thing you keep calling it a hoax, what do you want to say about that? it's astounding, stunning to me that they did not resolve that issue and they're still putting

this position where it's embarrassing they can't answer that. >> phil rucker, jim acosta, thank you guys. >> thank you. coming up, anthony bourdain goes to antarctica. what he found and how he managed to get the there in the first place. what if there was a paint... ...where each drop was formulated to be smarter... ...even smarter than that... ...so if a color didn't go on evenly, it would balance itself out to reveal its truest, richest state. if a paint could realize the fullest potential of any color... ...you have to wonder... is it still paint? aura interior from benjamin moo®e . only available at independently owned paint and hardware stores.

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breakthrough allergies with allegra®. anything interesting in the mail today, anything say, that's only sent to people of a certain age perhaps? >> you are jerks. you promised me nothing would happen. >> i didn't make any such promise. look on the bright side. senior citizens, they get a lot of discounts. what did you get in the mail? tell us. >> i got my aarp card. >> keep in mind, you get discounts. >> let me tell you what happens. you wake up in the morning and you get your mail and there's an envelope. it doesn't identify what it is. it just says happy birthday, anderson. i was like, open it up -- aarp card. it was like a dagger in my heart. >> look on the bright side. you'll get all these bargains at the early bird special.

people are going to be giving you their seat on the subway. to be honest, i thought -- i think of, a lot of us did think that you were already 50. i could have sworn that we celebrated your 50th birthday last year. >> that was my 49th. >> are you sure you are not 51? >> that was my 49th. you pretended it was my 50th to twist the knife deeper. >> i don't remember that. let's not drag this out. i don't want to drag it out. we got comments in to cnn that i think are particularly relevant to how your future might look from a source who calls herself sally o'malley. take a look. >> i'm proud to say i'm 50 years old and not one of those gals who is afraid to hide her age, unlike in other gals. i like to kick, stretch and kick! i'm 50! 50 years old. 50 years old. >> she's one of my favorite characters on the old snl. >> if you weren't attached to a mic, i would ask you to get up

and kick. >> i actually have been repeating that in my head. i like to kick and stretch -- yeah. >> i would like to see it. listen, it's not just me who wants to wish you a happy birthday, a happy 50th birthday. now that you are an elder statesman, yes, you are, some of your contemporaries, people in your age bracket, wanted to send you their best, too. >> okay. >> happy birthday, anderson cooper. watch you every night. by the way, you did a very wise thing. turning gray earlier than you should have makes you look younger than you are. you don't look 50. you look 49. you look 49. good luck. that's your phone ringing. answer it. >> anderson, it's phil. hey, man, i just want to tell you that -- what? donahue, phil donahue. is the caller there? hey man, i just want to say that

was the greatest movie of all-time. do not forsake me -- >> honey. that's gary cooper. this is anderson cooper. >> oh. anderson cooper wasn't in "high noon"? >> no. happy birthday, anderson. don't sweat the 50th. it only gets worse. you got a long way to go. happy birthday, anderson. >> hi, anderson. i'm dr. ruth westheimer, guess what, i wrote a book for you, for your birthday. you are going to be 50. look what i have for you, "sex after 50." don't worry, i promise you, that you can still have a wonderful sex life even after 50 years of age. >> thank you. >> anderson. hey, you look pretty good for your old age.

not as good as me of course, happy birthday, buddy. happy birthday. >> hello anderson cooper, this is barbara he'd ampbarbaraedena friend of mine, and she wants to tell you it's just a number, don't worry about it, after all, she is 2,050 years old. of course, she is a genie, happy birthday, anderson and many, many more. hey, anderson, here's a thought, suppose as you move in to 50s, wouldn't it be interesting if your hair started to dark en. >> i didn't know what to give you for your birthday.

i decided to give you my house. have a great day and i will have a tequila on you, enjoy, 50 is not that old. >> anderson cooper, 50? i'm 90, good luck. happy birthday to you. ♪ >> wow. that's amazing. >> 90 years young there, amazing. >> wow. thank you to all those wonderful wishes from those amazing people. wow. thank you very much. i appreciate it. you are all fired. we will be right back.

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it's a new kind of network. xfinity mobile. so the new episode of "parts unknown" lives up to its name. i talked to anthony here in new york city. the up coming show, you are in antarctica, i thought i had been there. >> you would remember. maybe the most difficult show we have done. >> just getting there? >> it's tough. we went as guests on of the national science foundation. there's a international protocol for how you behave on the ice. meaning there's not a single cigarette butt on the ground, you don't touch the animals or pick up rocks and take them with you. no et -- no pets because pets

could bring something that transfers to the penguins. >> what do you see? >> a landscape untouched by time. if you were hypothetically speaking to put some glacier ice in your scotch at a remote scientific research base -- >> hypothetically. >> it's bright blue and the person putting it in your drink may tell you, this ice is 10s of thousands of years older than the concept of scotch. it's a -- there are parts of antarctica that are stripped dry, the glaciers recede and leave something like mars. went to the south pole. imagine you are standing on the south pole. everywhere you go, every direction you go is north. >> but there's no native inhabitants, are there? >> no, it's in the summer at the south pole, it's a -- it was

about somewhere between 20 and 50 below zero. that's summer. but the point is, it takes a special breed of people and there's nearly thousand of them living and working 12 hour shifts at the principal american base down there, and it is a really unique fascinating sub culture of people from every walk of life and background. people who are incrementally exploring in a very remote and difficult location, questions like you know, can we predict the behavior of the sun? where did life come from? what was in the atmosphere thousands of years ago? asking questions about things that they know they will never know in their life or career, but they are looking to i think of coursally move these things forward. it's a place where if you go down there. no kids allowed and no pets and nothing green.

but if you were to sneak a puppy down there, you could probably charge $100 for five minutes to everyone on the base. they would pay you five $00 for a few moments stroking a puppy. you do not want to stroke a penguin. >> really? >> we had went to see a guy who was observing a penguin colony. all these fresh faces were like, oh, we will get help tag the penguins. you know what you don't want all of your clothes? penguin poop. >> really? >> they were disspirited covered with liquid penguin poop. >> i look forward to it. >> you can watch anthony b on oo -- anthony on sunday.

we are a better program for her, she has brought passion and precision, precision in her words to make sure that we, that i got it right. that's what journalists do, that is what kate is. thank you, kate and we will miss you. "cnn with don lemon" starts now. not a good week to be president. this is cnn tonight, this is don lemon. all quiet at the white house at the end of what can only be described as another week of cha chaos. the president under fire for quitting the climbed accord, meanwhile, there's vladimir putin's suggestion that patriotic russians may have hacked our election. and you ain't seen nothing yet. next week the james comey's senate testimony. a lot to discuss tonight and here to help us, dan rather, the host of