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lordy, there's a lot of breaking news tonight, most stemming from james comey's testimony. there's the request for any white house tapes of the conversation. there's the commitment he made, the president, to testify about it under oath. there are the implications of that and all the doors it opens legally and politically. we will talk about that and much more in the hour ahead. first though, the president's pretty remarkable day and jim acosta. >> reporter: speaking as he tweets in short bursts, president trump tried to have it both ways, clinging to the testimony of former fbi director james comey as his salvation while slamming the man he fired in the same breath. >> no collusion. no obstruction. he is a leaker. >> reporter: during a news conference with the romanian

president, he denied he tried to shut down the russia probe, specifically when it comes to michael flynn. >> i didn't say that. i will tell you, i didn't say that. >> reporter: the president rejected the notion he asked comey for a pledge of loyalty as the former fbi director said in sworn testimony. >> i hardly know the man. i'm not going to say i want you to pledge allegiance. who would ask a man to pledge allegiance under oath. i hardly know the man. it doesn't make sense. i didn't say that. >> reporter: mr. trump's response when asked whether he would speak under oath on the matter. >> 100%. >> reporter: the president dug in his heels on the question of whether he has recordings of his conversations with comey and others at the white house. >> i will tell about you that maybe sometime in the near future. >> when is that? >> do you have a question? >> when will you tell us? >> a fairly short period of time. >> tomorrow? >> are there tapes, sir? >> you will be very disappointed

when you hear the answer. don't worry. >> reporter: in their response, democrats are eager for the president to tell all he knows, under oath, with special prosecutor robert mueller. >> i would expect at some point, not right away, at some point that mr. mueller would feel he has to depose the president. >> reporter: the president was not asked about jeff sessions. the white house dances around whether the president has confidence in the attorney general. some republicans say it's time to know more about session's interactions with the russians during the campaign. >> we on the intelligence committee want to know the answers to those questions. and we have begun to request information from the attorney general to allow us to get to the bottom of that. >> reporter: the president was asked by a romanian reporter whether he is committed to nato's article 5, which would mandate that the u.s. come to the defense of the alliance's more vulnerable nations on russia's border. >> i'm committing the united states and have committed, but i'm committing the united states

to article 5. and certainly we are there to protect. and that's one of the reasons that i want people to make sure we have a very, very strong force by paying the kind of money necessary to have that force. yes, absolutely i would be committed to article 5. >> reporter: jim acosta, cnn, the white house. you saw the president there be a little coy or maybe a lot when asked whether tapes of his conversations with james comey even exist. he offered a vague time line for releasing them if there's anything to release. in this case he said, very shortly. if that all sounds familiar, there's good reason, whether as a citizen or candidate or now as president, donald trump, the president, likes to talk time lines, whether or not he sticks to them. more on that from athena jones who joins us not far from bedminister, new jersey, where the president is spending the weekend. the president won't confirm that tapes of his conversations exist. what are you learning tonight?

>> reporter: that's right. he is keeping the mystery alive here. when it comes to the tapes or audio recordings, perhaps a cell phone recording. we're not getting a clear answer from the president or his aides. now another congressional committee is demanding those tapes. the house intelligence committee giving the white house until june 23, that's two fridays from now, to produce these tapes, if they exist or any sort of audio recording or recordi irecords t president has. the house intelligence committee is joining the judiciary committee which asked a month ago. still no answer to either of those committees. >> there's late word about the comey memos possibly being turned over to the senate. what's the latest on that? >> reporter: the key word there is possibly. the senate judiciary committee asked daniel richman, the

columbia university law school professor that the former director cited yesterday saying that's the friend he gave -- that he asked to talk about the memo to the press. one of the memos to the press so the judiciary committee asked richman to deliver the memos. we learned late today from a source, my colleague spoke with, that richman has been in touch with the senate judiciary committee through the office of the special counsel, bob mueller, and says the matter will be resolved on monday. it's not clear what that means. it's not clear if he is going to hand over the memos or not. certainly, one would expect he would not be handing over any memos if they are not -- if mueller does not believe they should be handed over. we will wait and see what happens. >> developments on monday. stay tuned. athena jones, thanks so much. plenty to talk about, whether it's a president giving sworn testimony, the meaning of obstruction of justice, the quality of the legal advice he is getting and more. we retained our own counsel to

make sense of it all. laura, we just learned that diane feinstein has asked to launch an investigation in that committee specifically on the issue of obstruction of justice. she wants to know if there was any obstruction of justice independent of the russia investigation. she specifically says she also wants to look into the director of national intelligence dan coats and whether he was asked to intervene in the investigation into michael flynn. if there's a congressional committee that ultimately looks into this as well as a special counsel, does that increase the jeopardy here? >> it does. remember, the congressional probe has a very different goal than the criminal objective. the criminal objective is to actually see if criminal charges should be brought and if prosecution is appropriate. if the congressional committee is looking into it, their focus is different. they're trying to figure out -- there's a legislative agenda or

initiative that has to take place to correct issues like this from happening or set parameters to ensure it doesn't happen again. the probe focus is different. the questioning may be the same but the ultimate objective is very, very different. >> professor, i know you are skeptical to say the least that obstruction of justice was committed here. when you hear senator feinstein say she wants to also focus on dni coats who -- the president asked dan coats to stop the investigation or asked them to stop investigating michael flynn on certain matters. if you have that requested, dan coats in addition to the conversation that james comey reported yesterday, does that indicate some sort of pattern? >> no. i don't see why it would change the calculus legally at all. you can add conspiracy, i suppose, to your obstruction allegation. my basic objection to any use of

obstruction under the facts as we know them today is that all the obstruction statutes either address obstruction of investigations or obstruction of pending proceedings. you look at this scenario and say this is an investigation. there's a stoatute that deals with obstruction of criminal investigations. it's 1510. it requires very specific elements. it requires an act of bribery that prevents a communication about a crime to a criminal investigator. there's no indication of such bribery here. if you want to use the more broad obstruction statute, pending proceedings, while they are broader in their language and don't have that bribery element, you still have the problem that there's not a pending proceeding. a pending proceeding means a judicial proceeding. an fbi investigation has been held by every court to look at

that language, not to be a pending proceeding. >> paige, you don't see it like that? >> i don't. it's true the statutes are well defined and there are key elements you have to meet. some courts have held that a federal investigation can qualify, a dea investigation, one court found was sufficient. i think we're focusing on the wrong thing. it's not the legal definition under the statute that matters. it's what congress thinks obstruction is that matters. if they are pursuing their own independent probe, if they're going to consider impeachment at the end of the day the only definition that matters is what congress thinks the president did. was it an impeachment offense? did he attempt to obstruction the investigation? >> professor, you have a different take on this, which is to suggest the president can influence investigations if he wants to. it's within his rights to weigh in on investigations. from a legal perspective. what about page's point that from a political perspective,

which is when congress -- if congress decides to get involved, they may be judging along different lines. >> you know, we don't know what the law of impeachment is. nobody knows. there has never been an attempt to do that. if i were a lawyer for an impeached president, i would bring the case to the supreme court and i would expect that those who believe in applying the words of the constitution would say, you really have to see whether there is bribery, treason, high crime and mi misdemeanor. i want to focus on the big picture rather than the technical words of the statute. there are two basic questions. did the president have the constitutional authority to fire comey and try to prevent the investigation of flynn? the best evidence that he does have that authority is comey testified to that yesterday. he said unequivocally, that the president would have had the

authority to tell him directly, do not investigate flynn. of course, che could have pardoned flynn. he testified over and over the president had the authority to fire him. if that's the case, then the fundamental question that people have not really been focusing on is, can the president commit a crime, any crime, by simply exercising his constitutional power? of course, if he briebes and destroys evidence, lies to an fbi official, of course, those are crimes. by simply exercising his constitutional authority to fire and to direct the director not to investigate flynn, can that be a crime? i think the answer to that is obviously no. you cannot commit a crime, no matter your motive or intent, if you don't have the act of criminality. it can't be constitutionally protected implementation of a president's authority. it seems that's a relatively simple analysis. >> will be interesting to see if

bob mueller shares your view and whether the congressional committees share your view of that. we will have more with the panel after a break. jeff sessions due in front of a senate panel. we will preview the questioning he is likely to get on this and more as 360 continues. ♪ ♪ award winning interface. award winning design. award winning engine. the volvo xc90.

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as where comey's testimony leaves him. professor back with us. today the president said he would be willing to testify under oath. if you were his attorney, would you advise him do this? >> absolutely not. that's what got bill clinton into trouble. you never, ever advise a client to testify under oath. you don't want to get into he said he said contest with comey. comey has a long track record of being very credible. president trump unfortunately does not have a long track record. i think that to expose your client to the jeopardy of a possible perjury prosecution or perjury impeachment -- remember, bill clinton got disbarred for perjury, would be a very, very serious mistake. he doesn't have do it. >> to follow up, professor, to be clear here, you don't think the president did anything wrong? you are saying even though you

don't think he did anything wrong here, that it would be foolish to agree to testify under oath? >> i think the president did a lot of things wrong. i don't think he did anything criminal. he did a lot of things wrong. he never should have had the conversation with comey. he never should have fired comey. he never should have done many of the things he did. they're wrong. a lot of his critics conflate doing wrong with doing criminal. the only thing i focused on as a criminal expert and constitut n constitutional expert is has he committed obstruction of justice or any other crime? i am clear the answer to that is no. i'm less clear about impeachable offen offenses. as far as whether he did wrong, i think he did wrong. >> it's interesting, elizabeth. you know, president trump has testified under oath as a private citizen before. he has part of many civil dispositions. in 2007, "the washington post" reports they counted 30 lies in a deposition right there.

what evidence can you point to that indicates that president trump should feel safe or comfortable testifying under oath? >> there's no evidence i can point to that should make him feel safe. i agree with allen on this one. this is a snake pit. it can only go wrong. i would never advise a sitting president to sit for a deposition. he should fight it tooth and nail. by the way, allen is 100% correct when he says as long as the president is acting within his constitutional wheelhouse, there's absolutely no way he could be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. beyond the statute simply inapplicable here -- the constitution trumps any statutes. >> yes. absolutely. except that the check on that is -- i'm using the i word here. the check is impeachment. that's the only thing he is not above. it's congress acting -- congress

gets to decide when and how to apply that. laura, on the issue of testifying under oath, the president volunteered. he said he would be willing to do it. if he decides maybe that's not a great idea, can he be compelled? >> now that he volunteered to do so and if the memos have been forwarded to mueller as he suggested in his testimony, suggests he is now perhaps the subject of whether or not there should be an allegation or investigation into obstruction, he could certainly be compelled to do so. he is compelled politically as well. by volunteering, he wrote a check that he didn't have the capital to withdraw at this point the funds from. you have that issue. to suggest as the professors have been talking about that the president is somehow immunized if he is exercising his constitutional duty from an investigation that has yet to conclude whether or not there has been full obstruction or any other would be erroneous.

if you concede the testimony did not amount to obstruction, certainly if the motivation to fire director comey was based on an attempt to obstruct justice or impede justice, then that's the relevant point in time to fixate on. by not doing so, you undermine your own arguments. >> i want to move on to the tapes, if i can. the alleged tapes, the perhaps tapes, maybe not tapes. the president was coy, which is a nice way of saying he wouldn't answer the questions today after the white house hasn't been able to answer the questions for the last month or so. if tapes exist of the conversations of the -- between the president and james comey here, if there are tapes, can the president be forced to turn them over? >> that's the ultimate question that i think the white house is going to have to answer. the first issue i think they have to deal with is, were there tapes at all? i think they do have to acknowledge whether or not the conversations were taped. if they were taped, they have to

preserve those tapes as a record of presidential communication. they can fight the production of those tapes if congress tries to get them, if congress subpoenas them, if a court later attempts to get them. we have been through this before with president nixon. we know that they have the ability to fight the production. they gotta keep the tapes if they have them. >> professor, do they have a legal right not to answer the question? they have dodged this question, dodged from the president down to the staff, is there a legal right to not answer it? >> they have to be asked under compulsion. any citizen has a right to -- not to answer any question. you can ask me a question. i don't have to answer it. if i'm in front of a grand jury or congressional committee, then i have to answer. unless i can claim executive privilege. i think in the end, the courts would -- if there were probable cause to believe there were tapes that may contain information that could lead toward some kind of evidence of criminality, they will lose.

nixon lost. they will lose. do not destroy any tapes. do not create an 18 minute gap. do not do anything that constitutes any kind of a coverup. that's the one thing every prosecutor looks for. >> based on the fact the president has been re-tweeting you, i get the sense he will answer to your advice. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. james comey's testimony is over. there's a lot on deck in the russia investigation on capitol hill. we will tell who you is appearing next week and what we know about what jared kushner and michael flynn will testify. [vo] what made secretariat the greatest racehorse

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the comey testimony was big. but there's a lot to come in the multiple ongoing investigations into russian meddling in the election and ties -- alleged ties to the trump campaign. house and senate committees have subpoenaed former national security adviser michael flynn. jeff sessions is in the hot seat this coming tuesday. the president's son-in-law jared kushner is expected to be interviewed soon. the next big moment seems to be

what jeff sessions will say when he testified before the senate next week. what can we expect? >> we can expect a grilling. i will be watching it during your hours on cnn. this is going to be an intense hearing. it was scheduled to discuss the justice department's budget. i think it's fair to say that is not what they're going to talk about. you will recall sessions, before the senate judiciary committee, did not disclose and certainly did not disclose as he was heading into the administration, that he had two meetings with the russian ambassador and now cnn has been reporting that there's been an investigation, as jim comey said yesterday, into a possible third encounter, maybe not a meeting, maybe an encounter. these are the questions he will be asked and how forthcoming he is on the answers is really fascinating. we don't know how forthcoming he is going to be in an open session. >> indeed. he has run into trouble for past testimony. any better sense on how crucial the back and forth between the president and comey could be in terms of the special counsel's

investigation? >> some people are looking to the past. they look at ken star and bill clinton and the impeachment of bill clinton. they point out -- i heard this from ron brownstein. ken star pushed forward and congress used in impeachment. legal minds don't think that unless there are tapes that can corroborate what comey said, can show that president trump has not been honest, they don't think that he would really push forward in the same way. >> as for jared kushner being interviewed by senate staff, do we know when that will be and whether it would be under onlat? >> we know the imprecise time. it could be the middle of this month. could be the beginning of next month. he is going to be talking behind closed doors.

we're not going to see it. then there's a question of whether it's under oath. we do know there will be mutually agreed upon terms between the committee and jared kushner's lawyers. we don't know exactly what those are going to be. this is something that, of course, will be fascinating. a number of issues, kushner having contacts with a putin associate, the head of the state-owned bank, russian bank. most importantly i would say, this issue of him trying to establish communication during the transition with russia in an attempt it appears to conceal that communication from the then current administration, the obama administration. >> a lot going on. lots to talk about. matt, first to you. you are new on the panel here. i want to start with you. i want to start with the tapes. you cover the white house. what do you make of the president's comments today playing coy with the idea, maybe

i will let you know if i have tapes pretty soon? >> the reality tv president. we know he loves to build suspension. that's what he has been doing with the tapes. it seems to us observers like there are no tapes. if there are, you would imagine we would have found out by now. the white house refused to take questions on that. today trump had -- i will tell you guys in a little while. i don't flow know if we're goin get an answer. comey will not get his wish. it does not appear there will be tapes. >> jeff sessions testifying before the senate appropriations committee. it's not about appropriations. they have questions for him. he is in an interesting spot. the senate is skeptical of him because he had a run-in during his confirmation hearing when he testified and had to correct it later on. the president took 48 hours to even suggest whether or not he had confidence in him this week. jeff sessions is going to have an interesting time.

>> i think it's just always a problem when you forget to tell about meetings or contacts that you have with the russians, which seems to be a recurring theme with people who are associated with trump. i think that's why a lot of people have a lot of suspicions is because it just seems like when something was so central to the election that you would remember these things. i do think that, yes, we will probably have more interest in those kinds of relationships than any other regular business. >> there has been reporting about whether there was a third meeting between sessions and the ambassad ambassador. he will be asked whether that happened. >> yeah. again, we go back -- when you have all of the problems that he had when he had forgotten the other meeting, then you think how could there be a third meeting that you wouldn't remember? it's puzzling that there are so many connections to russia and then also that they are forgotten. >> scott, now there's diane

feinstein saying, we need a separate investigation into obstruction of justice. is there any chance under the moon and sun that chuck grassly will agree to that? >> no. she had actually said some rather reasonable things until this. she's probably getting a lot of angry phone calls from her constituents about it who tend to be more liberal than the rest of the country. she has to respond to them. that's why you have this special counsel investigation. isn't that what they are supposed to look into it? look, on this russian stuff, i don't think anyone is disputing, these people are bad people. they intervene all over the world. qatar we saw them miss around out there. doesn't mean they have to collude with someone to do it. it's all questionings going on, investigations need to happen, let's see where it takes br s u. >> james comey testified the president never talked to him or never seemed curious at all

about russian meddling in the u.s. election or around the world. he might be an exception to the rule. there is a special counsel investigating right now. the senate intelligence committee, which feinstein sits on, just held hearings yesterday. why do you need this separate investigation? >> members of congress, in the house and senate, that is part of their role. they have various oversight roles. we talked about this a little bit earlier. the fact that diane feinstein is asking for this indicates both the level of frustration with the trump white house and republicans but mostly the trump white house which hasn't seemed to understand the enormity of what russia has done. i wish they would agree with you, scott. clearly, the president does not. he has never said a bad word about russia or about vladimir putin. i also think it indicates that we are in a different space now.

after the james comey testimony, as much as trump and his supporters want to claim vim to victory, it was the opposite. like i said before, this dark cloud has become a funnel cloud. they are in a tough spot. >> i heard jeffrey lord laughing. we will get to you in a second. phillip, there's ais a significant development. this friend of james comey that got the memo and released it to the media is now communicating with the senate judiciary committee through the special counsel's office. that's an interesting little twist there. what does it tell you? >> it tells me, first if i were out there looking for information in this investigation and i'm in the congress, i would not go to a friend of james comey. the fbi has all the memos. the former director by releasing one of them in my judgment -- i'm not a lawyer. in my judge ment ment has prett given a free ticket to the

congress to say, hey, if you are giving this stuff out to the public via one of your friends, how can the fbi or special counsel come to us and say we can't see it? i think it's right for those conversations to be going through the special counsel. i think the special counsel investigation, which we never hear about, is far more significant than the congressional investigations. there has to be a focal point process to make these judgements. i think robert mueller is in a tough place. how do you say to the congress no when the media has it? >> more to talk about coming up. a time line of events from the president's vague threat about taped conversations with james comey to his firing and beyond. what comey said about what he did when and why next. dearthere's no other way to say this.

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notes of meetings with the president only after the final straw, the president tweeting, james comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations. >> my judgment was i needed to get that out into the public square. i asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. >> reporter: that's not the whole story. the president's tweet came a day after "the new york times" had already cited key allegations that match verbatim part of comey's notes. three days after comey had been fired. >> he is a showboat. he is a grandstander. the fbi has been in turmoil. you know that. >> reporter: complicating it further, comey says all the way back in january, around the inauguration, he suspected he had a problem when president trump allegedly told him he expected loyalty, which the president disputes. >> i then said, you will always have honesty from me. he said, honest, loyalty and i

exceeded as a way to end the awkwardness. >> reporter: then another meeting according to comey in which the president said he hopes comey can let go of the investigation of michael flynn. >> that's how i understood it. >> reporter: over the next two months, comey says the president presses him to get out word that he the president was not under investigation, to remove the cloud of suspicion hampering his new administration. some of it is so troubling, comey said, he took notes. >> i knew there might come a day when i would need a record of what had happened. >> reporter: the president denies almost all of it. >> i didn't say that. >> he lied about that? >> i didn't say that. i will tell you, didn't say that. >> reporter: monday may 8, it comes to a head. the president calls the russia investigation a hoax, a taxpayer funned charade. comey is fired on tuesday. thursday, "the new york times" publishes the first article alluding to details contained in comey's now infamous private

notes. the president tweets about possible tapes on friday. yet trump's lawyer points out, comey said he did not leak his notes until the next monday. 3 1/2 months after he said he was first alarmed over the president's behavior. so the president and the former fbi director have now called each other liars. in this twisted time line, it's hard to sort out who is telling the truth. but this seems clear, they can't both be. john? >> tom foreman, thanks so much. back with the panel. carl, i want to go to you. you think it's important we focus on the big picture in general. how important is it in your mind this focus on the chain of events for james comey, the fact that the memo he handed to his friend"the new york times" story came out but there was a story of loyalty before that. is that important? >> yes. but it fits into the big picture. the big picture is what the

president did to shut down this investigation and also the underlying contacts with russians, the contacts of his businesses with russians, with neighboring countries to russia that were in the former soviet union. that's all this big picture that the investigators, including mueller, who has hired the former assistant attorney general in charge of the fraud division to start looking at the finances of the trump organization and the finances of people involved in the trump campaign. this is a sprawling inquiry. part of it, a big part of it is the firing of jim comey because of the questions it does raise about obstruction of justice. it's important in terms of trying to impeach comey's testimony if indeed it's impeachab impeachable. keep our eye on the big picture. the most important aspect of the big picture is that since he

took office, and even before, the president has tried to impede, obstruct, shut down, demean, all investigations of things russian. that's the big picture here. >> jeffrey lord, your chance to talk about james comey and his line of events. >> well, look, with all due respect to my friend carl, i think he is focusing on the small picture. if we're go going in for pictures, i want the big, big, big and biggest picture. i want everything. i want what went on in the obama administration, the washington establishment to shut down donald trump. i want to know about trump derangement syndrome and how that's affected the washington establishment. i want to know about all of this. let's get it all out. let's take everything carl has said and multiply it by 1,000. let's get it out there. let's do it. let's rumble as it were. that's a good thing. >> what is "it"? you want it out there. what is it you want out there?

>> let's find out what was going wouldn't clinton foundation and the russians. let's find out what was going on with hillary clinton and the russians. let's find out with president obama and whether or not he obstructed justice in that fox clip or was trying to send a message. let's find out. let's go to it. let's get loretta lynch up there. let's get susan rice. come on, carl, let's go. let's rumble. >> carl, your response? >> my response is that we have an incumbent president of the united states who is under investigation as part of -- we need to find out what happened with the russians and the campaign and whether or not there is collusion is part of that question. if any crimes occurred in the clinton administration, there is a justice department that is in place and has every ability to inquire, prosecute those crimes. >> let's investigate. >> matt, i want to bring --

>> i believe there's an assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division. thus far, i have seen no inclination of that assistant attorney general to prosecute those crimes, if they exist. >> hang on. i want to bring matt into this. >> this is a really silly discussion. >> that's why i want to bring -- hang on. i want to bring matt into this. jeffrey over the course of the show has questioned whether bob mueller had run an oefficient investigation. you cover the white house right now. are you getting the sense from people close to the administration, or surrogates like jeffrey here, that there is an effort to draw focus away from the matter at hand here, a specific focus? >> not to that extent of let's go look at the clinton foundation and the russians and hillary clinton and the russians. hitting hillary clinton and hitting barack obama is always going to be fun for republicans

and it's always going to be a winner with some of their base. this is so much bigger than that. that's normal talking points aren't going to work. hillary clinton is not running for anything right now. obama is out of office. while those talking points are good standbys. they are more focused on painting comey as a disgruntled ex-employee rather than going after hillary clinton. >> carl, i'm -- we did run out of time. >> that's okay. >> i'm so sorry. >> carl, i really appreciate it. thanks so much, everyone. this is the best segue ever. they chat about bourdain's travels to oman, that defied expectations for bourdain when 360 continues. what. she washed this like a month ago!

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so anthony bourdain goes warm in this sunday's episode of "parts unknown," travels to the arab station of anderson recent sat down in a restaurant here in new york to take a look. >> this upcoming episode is sat in, you go to oman. what's that like? >> yes. >> i know only one person that's been there. >> it's funny, we talk about laos and vietnam and about, you know, major conflicts.

maybe the most important not well known conflict in my lifetime was the british/omani effort against an uprising in oman. >> what is this? >> this is a banana split. truly you know what fa gra is. >> the fattened liver of the goose or duck. incredible. it's an ice cream -- >> oh, it's an ice cream. oh. >> ice cream form. not loving that? liver-flavored ice cream? i guess not. >> you know, when you think it's going to taste like coffee, i thought -- >> right. >> i knew what -- >> that was your mistake. >> i thought it was going it be coffee, like coffee ice cream, but then it's really liver. >> i tell you this, you haven't been to oman. >> no. >> it's one of the most extraordinary countries i've

ever -- >> really? >> -- been in 16, 17 years of traveling. absolutely expectation defying. >> much of it is desert, right? >> this is the thing, the empty quarter is there, the world's largest san desert, in and of itself a thing of extraordinary beauty. mountains. incredibly beautiful mountains with traditional mountain communities. beaches. it is a monarchy that is a sultinante but it is remarkably tolerant, incredibly welcoming and they've maintained their traditional architecture and the look and the beauty of the country without, you know, they don't have, like, dubai or abu dhabi type modern architecture. they -- they've seemed to have struck a delicate balance. >> it sounds like a country you would go -- i mean, you would go back to. it sounds like kind of a cool -- >> food's great. people are lovely, welcoming,

proud. even the people who disagree with the sultan, would like to see a more democratic society respect, admire, are grateful to him. then just, again, it is unspeakingly beautiful. you know, i never do top travel destinations. >> right. >> i would say that that's -- oman has got to be one of the top travel destinations of the future. >> don't miss "anthony bourdain parts unknown" in oman 9:00 p.m. sunday here on cnn. we'll be right back.

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