one that keeps you connected to what matters most. good evening. thank you for joining us. there's breaking news tonight in the russia investigation. new reporting on how interested the fbi seems to be in carter page. the story, just out in "the washington post" detailing how many times page has been questioned already, what he's been asked about and what he's told investigators. page himself, according to "the post" calling the encounters extensive. in a moment, the correspondent who broke the story. we begin with the senate obamacare replacement bill and yet another big number. 22 million. 22 million fewer people with insurance by 2026. that, according to the congressional brujt office. also, big deficit reduction. however, it's that 22 million estimate that could be politically toxic to some

republican moderates, one of whom weighed in late tonight. there's a lot to get to, starting with phil mattingly at the capital. so, what else is in the cbo report? >> reporter: we8, you stall, yo with that top line number, and that's important to moderates. they said their vote may be contingent on that. 22 million is the top line number, fewer americans that would have insurance over the course of a ten-year period. why that matters is this. the senate bill takes a different approach than the house bill to try and address the house bill's coverage problems. the house bill had 23 million. well, the senate has a more robust tax credit. they phase out the medicaid expansion over a slower period of time. and still, not a dramatic change in the number. and you look at the reductions in medicaid. based on what are really dramatic reforms. the types of reforms conservatives have looked for for a long time. $772 billion fewer will be spent over the course of a ten-year

period. now, you noted the deficit reduction. $321 billion in deficit reduction in this bill. why does that matter? the house bill has a baseline of $133 billion. that means the senate at least has to match that. so, they've obviously matched that, and they have about $200 billion to work with. that matters, because when you look at moderates who are concerned about how deeply this bill cuts back spending on things like medicaid, mitch mcconnell has a pot of money to work with to win some of those moderate senators over. as is always the case here, there's a push and a pull. if you spend some of that deficit reduction money on opioid recovery grants or kind of faedzing out the medicaid expansion slower, you have conservatives who are very concerned about the medicaid phaseout as is, they might revolt against this. i will note one other quick item and this is important, conservatives have been very keen on one specific issue. lowering premiums. that's their be all end all here. if you look at the cbo report, there is some good news on that front. by 2020, premiums on average for individual plans would drop by

about 30%. by 2026, about 20%. but the rationale for that is, changing the types of coverage that these plans would allow. which, again, on the regulatory side is what conservatives want to do, but the cbo making clear, some individuals, lower income individuals, would possibly lose coverage or be priced out all together. there are a lot of problems with this report, anderson. throws a bill that senate leaders still want to try to finish by the end of this week in major flux. >> what's the reaction been on capitol hill? >> reporter: not great. you mentioned susan collins. i want to read a series of tweets she put out. she says, i want to work with my gop and dem colleagues to fix the flaws in the aca. cbo analysis shows the senate bill won't do it. ly vote no on mtp. that means motion to proceed. cbo says 2 million peop s 22 m. access to health care in rural areas threatened.

senate bill doesn't fix aca problems for rural maine. on the top line, her insistence she will vote no on the motion to proceed, the ability to move forward on this senate bill, a vote we were expecting tomorrow or wednesday, it's severely prop will matic. she's the third republican senator to say they won't even vet to get to the votes on the bill itself. so, that throws kind of a wrinkle into the process. bull if you think about what senator dean heller of nevada said on friday, what rand paul on the opposite side of the idaho logical spectrum said. they are taking apart piece by piece by piece very central components of this bill and saying they are not good enough. they need major changes. do they have the time to make the major changes, to try to get the senators back in the fold by the time this week is out? that is an open question right now, anderson. they want to get a vote by tend of the week, but there is a lot to work to do and the cbo report

didn't help. >> phil mattingly, thank you. the white house tonight put out a statement, sharply critical of the cbo. it reads in part, the cbo has consistently proven it cannot accurately predict how health care legislation will impact shus insurance coverage. i want to bring in our panel. gloria, the big headline, the 22 million being left uninsured by 2026. is that too much for some republicans to swallow? >> well, look. you haven't heard republicans come out and say, gee, this cbo report is so great. i think i'm going to throw my support behind the bill. it obviously makes them nervous, and it also shows that in ten years, you're going have 15 million fewer medicaid enrollees. you saw the tweet from susan collins where she's worried about that in the state of maine. this effects older people. it effects lower income people. and i think that what you see here are republicans getting more and more nervous about voting for this bill and, you know, the -- i spoke with one

senator today who said, look, why are we in such a rush to do this? and we know that mitch mcconnell wants to get this done before the recess, so, we don't go home to angry constituents, but this senator said to me, you know what? i actually think i need to hear from my constituents. >> maggie, what is the rush? >> i mean, i think gloria is exactly right, in terms of the position that senators are finding themselves in. the rush comes from the fact that as time drags on, as we know, with this type of legislation, if you look at where things are, and how hard it is to get one vote that we're talking about from those three moderate senators, or those three possibly movable senators, the longer things go, the harder it becomes. and so, this is why you see senate majority leadership trying to shove this through. and it's what the white house would like to see right now. the white house made the calculation that republicans have campaigned for several cycles on repealing obamacare. they now have control of both houses of congress. they have legislation with which to do it. but you know, make no mistake,

it is very difficult to take away an entitlement program. that is what you are seeing here. i'm using the word entitlement in quotes, but it is very difficult to take something away from someone and explain it to them as anything other than that. that's what the senators are facing during the recess. >> scott, there are six senators who are no votes right now. lund say graham said, if you are on the fence, the score is not going to push you towards the bill. a lot of republicans are saying, the cbo is not reliable. is he right, though? does this score keep anyone on the fence to voting for this bill? >> well, the score peay may lay some places where negotiation may happen from this week. i'm looking at this from a conservative republican platform that ran on repealing and replacing onbamacare. we said we wanted to cut premiums. we said i want to cut the deficit. we say we want to cut taxes. so, actually think there's some things in here you could hang your hat on and, as was pointed

out in the report, there's room to negotiate now, if you are worried about medicaid. mcconnell has some room to run this week in terms of negotiating with the individual senators. so, i think that it was -- it was not unexpected that the cbo score would set off a round of hand wringing, but there's room to negotiate. and i really hope republicans what we ran on, which is cut taxes, cut the deficit, cut premiums and the bill right now, under the current framework, does that. >> van, what about that? to the point, this is what the republicans ran on. the president said he's not going to cut medicaid, but you know, is this what republicans ran on? >> ah, i don't think it's what donald trump ran on. part of the thing i think goes wrong is, we talk about this in a partisan prism. a republican thing, a democratic thing. this is not going to be a republican policy. it's not going to be a democratic palsy. it's going to be the american policy when it comes to health care. and what we're going to be saying is, if you are poor and

you get sick, we just don't care that much about you. that is a fundamental message from this bill. and it's basically says, we're going to give huge tax breaks to rich people and the savings are going to come from taking doctors away from poor babies. now, i don't understand why a president trump, who ran on such a populist agenda, who said he wasn't going to do anything bad to medicaid, he was going to look out for everybody, is letting this sort of stuff go through under his name. but donald trump is betraying his base and his promises with this bill. >> scott, the president said, the house bill was, quote, mean, and that bill left, according to the cbo, 23 million people uninsured. you can say the cbo is not accurate, but if the president believed that version was mean, how is this not? >> well, it's one thing to say the cbo is not accurate and it may or may not be here.

they do have a history of inaccuracy. let's pretend for a minute they're 100% right there's some percentage of this 22 million people that would have never gotten coverage in the first place, had the government not forced them to do it under penalty of law, and that includes people that bought private plans that wouldn't have otherwise bought them and some people that signed up for medicaid that might not have otherwise signed up, if it was not forced upon them by the government. that is absolutely a fact we have to deal with here. there are some people in this country that wouldn't want to buy health insurance, and so you can call it mean, and if that's what the president said, and i know that's what he said he said, but again, there's a group of people in this country that it's not being mean to because they wouldn't have bought it in the first place. >> but anderson, those same people, if they then -- were the moocher caucus, we're moochers, we're not going to buy this stuff. if they got in trouble, they go to the emergency room and we all pay for those people. so, one of the great things about obamacare was, you just can't be a moocher in the system. you have to pay in if you want

to pull out. and so, now, the republicans have become the pro-moocher party. they love the fact that you got a bunch of people that want to be free riders in the system. i don't understand -- the republican party has literally flipped upside down under trump. makes no sense at all. >> under van's argument, anderson, he is assuming that every single person that signed up actually paid their premiums. it is absolutely true, people signed up and never paid in. so, you can pretend like there's no, what you call moochers on the system right now, but a whole bunch of people that signed up and count in the numbers today, but they never paid their premiums after they signed up. >> go ahead, gloria. >> no i just want to add to maggie's good point earlier, what you are doing here, whether people paid their premium or didn't pay their premium, they believe they had health insurance. and whether they, medicaid expansion gave them health insurance or not, and what you are asking members of congress to do is to take something away.

and that's very difficult. once people have it, they don't want to get rid of it, which is why we call these things entitlement programs. on top of that, you add in the fact that the major stakeholders, the american medical association, the hospital association, the aarp, they are all opposed to this. and they can go out and campaign against it. and i think it makes it very difficult for a republican senator, no matter how conservative, or if you are susan collins in the state of maine, to go to your older voters and your more low income voters and say, we're taking away health care. >> an additional point i would make to what gloria is saying, you have a president who has been, as he off is, he treatms t everything like it is an open negotiation. it is my bill, it's not my bill, he didn't call it mean, he did call it mean, you're asking members of congress to go out and now essentially campaign on

and risk, you know, campaigning for 2018 on votes over these bills where there's going to be audio of the president saying on fox news, yes, 0 bobama stole m term, this is mean. that's going to be used against people that vote for this. >> to that point, scott, i want to play what van mentioned about then-candidate's trump on the campaign trail about medicaid. let's play that. >> every republican wants to do a big number on social security, they want to do it on medicare, they want to do it on medicaid. and we can't do that. save medicare, medicaid and social security without cuts. i'm not going to cut medicare or medicaid. going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price. >> so, scott, is he breaking that promise? >> well, the bill says we're going to spend $500 billion on medicaid by 2027. today, i think we spent $389

billion, so, there's more spending on medicaid. one thing that we're viewing this bill through the prism of is, we're cutting, we're taking away. but maybe we ought to be viewing this through the prism of, we overextended ourselves, we promised something that we can't afford and now we're having to do reforms to bring it in alignment with what we can actually deliver. another issue we're not talking about inside of medicaid is this. under the current medicaid system, you get more reimbursement for covering able-bodied people than you do for disabled people. one thing is true right now, under the way medicaid works, it is disadvantaging people who have disabilities in favor of people who are able-bodied. some reform is necessary to save medicaid for the people who actually need it the most. >> yeah, but -- he did say there would be no cuts and we're talking about $700 million of cuts. van, go ahead. >> well, i agree -- look, i agree that there are all kinds of ways we can improve our system, but to play this fuzzy

math game where you say, we're spending money, so everything's good -- i think we're spending too much money on the health care system because i think we have too many big private insurance companies that are ripping us off. there are other solutions, like single payer, there are other countries that do a better job. i'm all for reform. what i'm not for is giving massive tax breaks, massive giveaways to rich people and then throwing poor people under the bus. and you guys are going have to deal with the fact that a lot of people right now, they voted for trump, because they said he's going to protect them and he was going to bring the premiums down. the premiums that are coming down are coming down because you're going to be paying less for way crappier coverage. that's not what people wanted. and so, listen. we are now in a situation where the reformers, who have good ideas, are being drowned out by the people who are just hard core against programs to help poor people and it's going to come back to bite you guys. >> we have to take a break here. a lot more breaking news to talk about in the yaugs probe, involving carter page. according to "the washington

post," the fbi has questioned him extensively. the question, of course, is why. i'll talk to the reporter who broke the story. manait's a series of is nsmart choices. and when you replace one meal or snack a day with glucerna made with carbsteady to help minimize blood sugar spikes you can really feel it. glucerna. everyday progress. if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. if other treatments haven't worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio works by focusing right in the gi-tract to help control damaging inflammation and is clinically proven to begin helping many patients achieve both symptom relief as well as remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious.

while not reported with entyvio, pml, a rare, serious brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections, or have flu-like symptoms, or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio. if your uc or crohn's medication isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach. only t-mobile gives you 4 lines of unlimited data for forty dollars. taxes and fees already included. that'll save you hundreds. plus, right now get a free samsung galaxy s8 when you buy one. hurry in to t-mobile today. is to always keep track of your employees.r micromanage them. make sure they're producing. woo! employee of the month! you really shouldn't leave their side. vita coco coconut water, hydration comes naturally. with the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your every move and automatically adjusts on both sides. right now save on sleep number 360 smart beds.

plus, it's the lowest prices of the season with savings of $500 on our most popular p5 bed. be the you who doesn't cover your moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. be the you who shows up in that dress. who hugs a friend. who is done with treatments that don't give you clearer skin. be the you who controls your psoriasis with stelara® just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. before starting stelara® tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have symptoms such as: fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. always tell your doctor if you have any signs of infection, have had cancer, if you develop any new skin growths or if anyone in your house needs or has recently received a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. some serious allergic reactions can occur. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to stelara® or any of its ingredients. most people using stelara® saw 75% clearer skin

and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. be the you who talks to your dermatologist about stelara®. more breaking news tonight. as we said at the notch ttop of broadcast, it involves carter page. we've had him on the program. page, as you know, was on candidate trump's national security advisory team, but seems to have very little actual contact with him. seems like he may have never met president trump. however, "the washington post" is reporting he's had plenty of contact now with the fbi. joining us now is devlin barrett. you just reported that carter page, the one-time foreign policy adviser to the trump campaign, has been interviewed several times by the fbi. do we know what they were talking to him about and how detailed it got? >> well, it got very detailed, as has been described to us, and it lasted for a sum total of ten hours. that's spread out over five separate meetings.

that's pretty extensive questioning. a lot of lawyers would certainly be surprised to hear that the questioning went on that long. and we know -- we know they talked about, for example, some of the allegations in the dossier that everyone has been a bit obsessed with over the last, you know, six months. page's position is pretty straightforward. he denies the accusations that are made against him in the dossier and more generally, he denies that he was any kind of conduit between the trump campaign and the russian government. >> and page confirmed to you that the interviews had, in, taken place. what else he did say? >> that's right. he did these interviews with the fbi without a lawyer. and, you know, a lot of lawyers would sort of shudder at that, frankly, because it is a crime to lie to the fbi. and i asked him about that, and he basically said, look, i'm telling the truth, i've been telling the truth this whole time. so, i'm not, frankly, his words, obviously, he just expressed that he wasn't concerned about

any sort of legal jeopardy for him, because in his mind, the facts will bear out his version of events. >> if you could, stay with us, i want to bring back in gloria and maggie, both have done extensive reporting on the russia investigation. maggie, what do you make of this? >> i would trust devlin's reporting always and i assume that he was questioned extensively, but i don't know exactly what carter page knows and what he can provide them. i watched his interview with u you, you know, several weeks back and it was mystifying, in terms of what he was actually trying to communicate. he did a couple of other tv interviews around that time, you know, the trump campaign did name him, did identify him as somebody working with them during the campaign and when the investigation kicked off, they distanced themselves. i have no indication that he had any interaction whatsoever with president trump, but he is certainly become somebody that authorities are interested in questioning. and i think it adds to the drip, drip nature of what we're seeing

with this probe. >> gloria, i interviewed carter page back in march about his role with the role, or lack of role, and if he actually advised president trump. i want to play some of what he said. did you ever brief donald trump as a candidate or as a president-elect? >> president trump said it absolutely, 110% accurate. i never briefed him, and in reality -- >> did you ever meet him? >> i never shook his hand. i've been in, you know, many rallies with him, from arizona to north dakota to many in new york -- >> rallies. >> rallies. which is meetings, you know. >> so, hundreds of thousands of people who have been to rallies -- >> no hundreds. i've been in smaller -- >> no, no -- i'm saying, the hundreds of tens of thousands of people who have been to donald trump rallies, can they say they've been in meetings with donald trump? >> been in smaller ones, as well. >> i mean, it's very possible, gloria, that, you know, carter

page maybe was just kind of -- he was named, at one point, when donald trump needed to name some foreign policy people, but it doesn't seem like he really had much of a role, i think he attended one dinner or something, not that the president was even there, for other people sort of associated with the campaign. and maybe he sort of talked up his credentials in moscow, when he was there in front of reporters by saying he'd been in meetings with the president. but his definition of meetings are rallies that thousands attended. >> well, you know, it's very clear from your interview and from watching carter page in other interviews and listening to him that he wasn't a confidant of donald trump. he didn't advise him, ever, one-on-one on foreign policy. and, so, it's interesting that the fbi, as devlin reports, is spending so much time talking to him. so, i bet what they're looking at is what his relationship with the russians was and whether the russians thought that he would be more of a conduit than he

actually was. and, you know, maybe they, you know, maybe they took a look at him, said, oh, he's on this list and we've known him over the years, and we've -- have a relationship with him and maybe he could be helpful to us with donald trump at some point in the future. i mean, i don't know, devlin, whether that's what you think the fbi might be interested in, but it seems to me that his relationship with the russians would be a lot of interest. >> and devlin, in your article, i mean, to carter page, seemed happy with the end result of these interviews. i mean, he said to you, i believe, that he, you know, restored his fifth in some of the people in the fbi. >> right. right. and i think that's -- you know, that's how he approaches this whole issue. he feels that he's being smeared publicly and he feels like he can explain himself perfectly adequately. so, in his mind, there's nothing to worry about. and just to gloria's point, i

think that's exactly right. you have to remember that carter page is sort of one of the first investigative issues in this whole russia question, going back to the summer. so, he's one of the people that the fbi is interested in first and he is also one -- we've reported previously that there was a fisa warrant, intelligent surveillance warrant out on his communications, because of this concern that he may, essentially, be in regular contact with russian officials who are maybe steering him in some way, or manipulating him in some way. all of which he deny, by the way, but that was the concern, and i think, frankly, the questioning in march shows it was still a concern then. >> interesting. thanks to everybody. coming up, the white house saying another "washington post" article makes it clear there was no collusion between russia and the president and his society yates and that the 0 bam maobam administration knew there was no collusion. fwou put it bluntly, that's not what the article sails at all. and another strange press brief egg. next. when you have something you love,

you want to protect it. at legalzoom, our network of attorneys can help you every step of the way. with an estate plan including wills or a living trust that grows along with you and your family. legalzoom. legal help is here. now you drive 300to be fmiles to watch this. yes, nice pop toss! flag dancing? we've been there. and with free hot breakfast and a warm welcome, we'll be there for you. hampton by hilton.

are made with smarttrack®igners material to precisely move your teeth to your best smile. see how invisalign® treatment can shape your smile up to 50% faster today at invisalign.com

the future isn't silver suits anit's right now.s, think about it. we can push buttons and make cars appear out of thin air. find love anywhere. he's cute. and buy things from, well, everywhere. how?

because our phones have evolved. so isn't it time our networks did too? introducing america's largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. it's a new kind of network. xfinity mobile. well, another day, another mystery surrounding the white house press briefing. once again, for reasons that are not at all clear, today's briefing was offcamera. there is audio of it, audio which includes jim acosta trying to ask why the cameras were turned off. there was one remarkable thing about the briefing. the other was sean spicer attempting to answer questions about the president's latest tweet storm. jim is with us with that. >> reporter: anderson, we got our nonanswers from white house press secretary sean spicer offcamera today. that was another restriction placed on us by the white house, and unfortunately, we all went along with it. here's one example of one

exchange where i tried to ask sean spicer to turn the cameras back on or allow us to turn the cameras back on and here's what happened. sean, can you answer if the president still believes -- >> there's no camera on, jim. >> maybe we should turn the cameras on. why don't we turn the cameras on? >> i'm sorry you have to deal -- >> why not turn the cameras on? they're in the room. the lights are on. there was another exchange later on in the press briefing where we tried again, and as a matter of fact, during that exchange, sean spicer ignored my question about why the cameras were off, but a reporter with a conservative outlet, oann, went ahead and asked sean spicer the same question and sean spicer said, we're going to have days where we have the cameras on and where we don't have the cameras on. if you go back and look at the last several gaggles and briefings here at the white house, they've neverly all been offcamera. and so the question becomes, is this part of a new normal here

at the white house, where essentially oushgs press freedoms are being taken away, to have these taxpayer funded spokespeople for the president of the united states answer our questions in front of the cameras? >> the president took to twitter to criticize former president obama for his response to the alleged russian interference in the 2016 election. i want to read some of those. quote, the reason that president obama did nothing about russia after being notified by the cia of meddling is that he expected clinton would win and did not want to rock the boat. he didn't choke, he colluded or obstructed and it did the dems and crooked hillary no good. the real story is that president obama did nothing after being informed in august about russian meddling, with four months looking at russia. there is no collusion, and no obstruction. i should be given apology. end quote. what did the white house have to say about all that? >> reporter: well, the white house was asked about some of this today, and there was one interesting exchange that occurred during the briefing where spicer was reminded that

it was during the campaign where then candidate trump invited the russians to hack into hillary clinton's e-mail server and find the so-called missing clinton e-mails. spicer said, that was a joke. and that's exactly what we were told by the campaign at the time, during the election last july, i believe it was. but one thing we should point out about these tweets from the president, anderson, one is, the president is alleging that former president obama was somehow colluding with the russians because he did, quote, nothing after finding out about the russian meddling in the election. that's simply not the case. president obama confronted russian president putin at a g-20 summit in september of last year. so, to say he did nothing is inaccurate. even though there are some democrats like the house intelligence committee chair who say, the president -- former president obama should have done more. it's just factually inaccurate to say that obama did nothing. and this is another attempt by the president, by this white house, to shift the story on the russian investigation to say

it's somehow president obama's fault is just another example of this white house trying to escape accountability on a very important question. anderson? >> jim acosta keeping them honest. thank you. we're keeping them honest on one other point that spicer made today. he said this about an article in "the washington post." spicer said, if you believe the story that is written, talking about "the washington post" story, that means from august to november 8th, two things. one, if you believe that then they did know about this, and there are some serious questions about what they did or did not do in terms of acting, and the second is then pretty clear, they knew all along, talking about the obama white house there that there was no collusion and that is helpful to the president. we read the article and did not get that at all from the article in question. we thought we would go to the guy who wrote the article. adam entis joins me. what's your reaction to the story, that there was no

collusion and the obama administration got that? >> i'm not sure where he's drawing that conclusion from. that's something we did not address in the story. and in fact, what really was going on was this compartmentalization took place within the u.s. government, when the fbi launched its counter intelligence investigation, looking at possible coordination between the russians and members of the trump campaign, that was started in july, before the intelligence arrives at the white house in either late july or the first few days of august, from the cia, which pointed to putin's direct involvement in ordering this operation. so, there's no -- there's no intelligence that's being received at that point by anyone in the administration about these contacts. >> yeah, because, i mean, i reread your story from friday, and to me, i just could not find anything that was talking about collusion. i mean, there is a part in the story where you mention almost in passing the fbi investigation into contacts between russians and trump associates, but that's

not what the story is about. and that fbi investigation is obviously still ongoing, so, is idea that somehow the white house uses your white house to draw a conclusion just doesn't make sense. >> we didn't put this in the story, but in the first few lines of the piece, we talked about a meeting that takes place at the white house in early august and comey is in attendance of this meet, along with the president, but according to the people we spoke to in that meet, comey did not mention that there was an fbi investigation that had just been launched, looking into possible coordination between the trump campaign officials and the russians. so, comey actually was withholding that information from the obama administration at that point. we learned that later on, around december, some information began to filter out, in part because obama asked the intelligence community to go through their reports that had not been

distributed, that were picked up by the national security agency. and so, some of those, when they started to relook back through some of their previous intercepts, they began to see some information that was about some of these contacts. and so, that's information that they only begin to learn about in december, which is around the same time, frankly, that we at "the washington post" and at cnn were beginning to hear about the same things. >> there is an irony in sean spicer citing your article, because obviously the president and sean spice er and his allie they slam "the washington post," cnn and others about stories they don't like. here they are, pointing to your story as some kind of vand ca vindication for the president, inaccurately. >> right. and trump said in some tweets that obama was basically sitting on this and didn't respond and he should have responded more aggressively. the irony of that is, one of the

reasons that obama decided not to respond more aggressively is concern that anything he did would be used by trump when he was, at that point, a candidate, to basically make the case that this election was rigged. that was part of the reason that obama decided not to respond. >> adam, appreciate you being here. thanks. >> pleasure. >> well, coming up, with the current president out trying to blame the former president for not doing anything about russian meddling, the web gets even more tangled. also ahead, the security lets parts of the president's travel ban go into effect. they're going to hear the full case in a few months. we'll talk a look at what exactly it means for people trying to come to the united states. then i found aleve pm. the only one to combine a safe sleep aid plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. and now. i'm back! aleve pm for a better am. with the new sleep number 360 smart bed.

it senses your every move and automatically adjusts on both sides. right now save on sleep number 360 smart beds. plus, it's the lowest prices of the season with savings of $500 on our most popular p5 bed. a trip back to the dthe doctor's office, mean just for a shot. but why go back there, when you can stay home... ...with neulasta onpro? strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection, which could lead to hospitalizations. in a key study, neulasta reduced the risk of infection from 17% to 1%... ...a 94% decrease. applied the day of chemo, neulasta onpro is designed to deliver neulasta the next day, so you can stay home. neulasta is for certain cancer patients receiving strong chemotherapy. do not take neulasta if you're allergic to neulasta or neupogen (filgrastim). ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems, allergic reactions, kidney injuries, and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. in patients with sickle cell disorders,

serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. the most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. so why go back there? if you'd rather be home, ask your doctor about neulasta onpro. at whole foods market, we believe in food that's naturally beautiful and fresh. delicious and powerful, and full of nutrients. so there are no artificial colors... no artificial flavors... no artificial preservatives...

and no artificial sweeteners... ...in any of the food we sell. we believe that the food we eat connects us to the natural world and to each other. we believe in real food™. whole foods market.

one of the simplest questions that president trump and the white house have giving a straight answer to, does the president believe russia interfered in the election? here's what sean spicer said today. >> he believes that russia probably was involved, potentially, you know, other countries, as well, could have been equally involved or could

have been involved, not equally. >> the president finally seemed to inch closer to what multiple agencies have confirmed, but as we reported, that came in a series of tweets that the president is trying to blame the obama administration for doing nothing about it. from whom he wants the apology, that's not clear. joining me now to talk about what the obama administration did is tony blinken and david gergen. so, tony, "the washington post" article we talked about in the previous segment quoted a former senior obama administration official that said it was, quote, the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend and, quote, i feel like we sort of choked. how does the administration about solve themselves? >> well, they didn't wait, anderson. couple of things that are important. when this information first came to light, late in the summer, we thought that the primary

objective that russia was p pursuing was to hack into the elections and create a lot of doubt within the american public about the legitimacy of the elections. and so, the first thing we did was make sure the election systems themselves were properly defended and secured. we made a massive effort to do that. we had to take into consideration what the russians were trying to do and think, how do we present this publicly? we didn't want to play into russia's hands by creating more of the perception of a problem than really existed. that would have actually doing russia's work for it. at the same time, president obama directly confronted president putin at the g-20 summit in september. warned him, starkly, to knock it off. and of course, there was that statement by the director of homeland security in early october, the very same day that the access hollywood tapes came out and drowned out the warnings they issued. so, there was a lot of action taken. and of course, at the very same time we were doing that, mr. trump was calling on the russians to hack more and to

release more. so, you got to wonder exactly where his criticism is coming from now. >> tony, in that article which, you know, interviewed, i think, two dozen or so, or maybe, like, 22, i think they said, former officials and folks, if my memory serves me correct, anyway, it seemed pretty well sourced that they seemed to intimate that the white house at that point also believed that it was likely hillary clinton was going to get elected and they could deal with it more after hillary clinton was elected. and that they didn't sort of want to upset or play into the notions that candidate trump was saying about this being a rigged election. >> well, look, we certainly didn't want to politicize things. there was concerned about being perceived by putting our thumbs on the scale. we went to the republican leadership. we thought if we could speak with one voice about this concern, that would depoliticize it. we needed corporation from

elections officials throughout the states to make sure the systems themselves were secured. one of the things that was really shocking and very, very dismaying and disappointing is that when we went to the republican leadership on the hill, john brennan and others, the director of the cia, they believed, or, at least, said they believed that we were actually politicizing things, that there wasn't a threat, and that they weren't going to join us in issuing a sort of joint statement. so, that was very, very disappointing. i think it might have made a difference, had we all been able to get on the same page early on. >> david, president trump is going after the obama administration, saying that the real story is that president obama did nothing after being informed in august, with four months, looking at russia, did not want to rock the boat, he didn't joke, he colluded or obstructed. how -- i mean, just from a political standpoint, how unprecedented is this as far as finger pointing towards a former president? >> well, it's been continuous,

going all the way back to how obama bugged him and we found that wasn't true. donald trump said that. listen, anderson, i think it's important to separate out there are two different stories here. one about president obama and the other is about president trump. i think it's a legitimate question if president obama acted properly. there are some democrats that have gone public, say, he was too soft on the russians. tony makes a strong argument the other way. that's very different from the question of what donald trump is doing and what the fbi is investigating. they are investigating, was there mededlinmeddling, but als there collusion. there's nothing in the story that suggests there was absence of collusion, it's just not conclusive on that point. but more importantly, what donald trump is doing is what we've seen him do before. and that is, he discredits and diverts. it's a clear strategy. he's discrediting the whole special council investigation and everything that's gone on on this issue and he is trying to

divert attention away from the central questions and that is whether his own team colluded and we don't know that yet. we need to be cautious yet. but i think that president trump is entirely misleading us, once again, about the nature of reality. i mean, he for months said there was no meddling. and today, he goes crazy, and says, look at all this meddling and obama is responsible. >> yeah, david, tony, thank you. more happening tonight. the security allowing part of president trump's travel ban. in the meantime, there is some conclusion of who is allowed in the united states and who will be turned away. we'll sort out the details ahead.

be the you who doesn't cover your moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. be the you who shows up in that dress. who hugs a friend. who is done with treatments that don't give you clearer skin. be the you who controls your psoriasis with stelara® just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization.

before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. before starting stelara® tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have symptoms such as: fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. always tell your doctor if you have any signs of infection, have had cancer, if you develop any new skin growths or if anyone in your house needs or has recently received a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. some serious allergic reactions can occur. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to stelara® or any of its ingredients. most people using stelara® saw 75% clearer skin and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. be the you who talks to your dermatologist about stelara®. does it look like i'm done?yet? shouldn't you be at work? [ mockingly ] "shouldn't you be at work?" todd. hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game: fist pump! your real bike's all fixed. man, you guys are good! well, we are the number-one motorcycle insurer in the country. -wait. you have a real motorcycle? and real insurance, with 24-hour customer support. arcade game: wipeout! oh! well... i retire as champion.

game hog! champion.

megan's smile is getting a lot because she uses act® mouthwash. act® strengthens enamel, protects teeth from harmful acids, and helps prevent cavities. go beyond brushing with act®. a partial victory for president trump. the supreme court today. the supreme court is allowing parts of the president's travel ban to go into effect. and we'll hear oral arguments on the case this fall. the ban aimed at six minority muslim nations. exactly who will be let in and who will be kept out. cnn's jessica schneider joins us with more. jessica? >> parts of the travel ban that will go into effect includes the four nationals from the six muslim majority countries. so if those foreign nationals

cannot prove that they have a bona fide connection to any person or any entity in this country, they can in fact still be banned. however, foreign nationals who can prove a family connection here, who can prove that they have been admitted to a university or have a job offer here, those people will be let in. so really, the question amounts to what exactly is a bona fide connection. who will determine that, and will this in fact create somewhat of an onerous burden for immigration officials? that's something that justice clarence thomas actually alluded to in his dissent saying the full travel ban should have gone into effect because it creates too many difficult scenarios for immigration officials to figure out. so the question now becomes when does this go into effect? the trump administration has said that 72 hours from the court's decision, it will in fact take effect. we're not exactly clear as to when exactly the clock began running. however, anderson the department of homeland security says they will be giving clear and adequate notice to all travelers when this does in fact go into effect, the portion allowed by the supreme court.

anderson? >> and this case, though, continues to the supreme court in the fall? >> right, it does. so the supreme court said that yes, it can go into effect in part. however, the arguments on the merits of this case as to the constitutionality, as to whether or not it complies with immigration law, those arguments will be next term. so the supreme court will hear this. but some watchers, some supreme court watchers are wondering will this case even have any effect, considering that the executive order says that imgrands would be banned for 90 days. refugees banned for 120 days. so the question is that time will essentially have run by the time the supreme court will hear this case in the fall. so what exactly will the supreme court do, anderson? that remains to be seen as we approach often. >> all right, jessica schneider, thanks for the update. a lot to discuss with jeffrey toobin, former acting solicitor general of the united states neal katyal. he represented hawaii, one of the states challenging the president's travel ban. neal, what is your reaction to the supreme court not only agreeing to hear the case in

full, but also ruling that foreign nationals, some foreign nationals covered by the executive order can in fact be prevented from entering the u.s.? >> yeah, i was really surprised to hear president trump declare a unanimous victory today. because in reality, he lost 6-3. the supreme court let stand the district court's injunction blocking major sections of both his travel ban and his refugee ban. and to be sure, you know, some of the technical stuff about non-connected u.s. persons, the grava min, the heart of the case has remained intact by the supreme court today. we're very much looking forward to oral arguments in october. >> jeff, is that how you see it? >> not really. you know, this has been an un-ending series of defeats for the president in the lower courts. he did get all nine justices, liberals and conservatives alike, to let some of the travel ban, this executive order go into effect.

neal is right that a lot of the individuals who brought these cases, the people who wanted their in-laws to be allowed in, the students, the business people with job offers, they are not covered by it. but this was a heck of a lot better than donald trump has been doing. and he has three justices who wanted to uphold the whole executive order. and who look like certain votes once the case comes to be argued in the fall. so i can understand, you know, why neal says what he says. but i also think the president was right, that he did have a unanimous ruling on part of it in his favor. >> neal? >> well, jeff is certainly right that there was a kind of -- that the president won something today, unlike all of his times in the lower courts. that's such a low bar. i think the most important thing to understand is that, you know, i don't know of any president in u.s. history in the first 150 days has had this number of federal court injunctions upheld

by the u.s. supreme court. you can look over the 200-plus years of american history, you won't find that. yes, jeff's absolutely right. he got three justices. three. it takes five to get a majority. he didn't get that. i think that's a pretty telling sign that what president trump has done here is really aberrational. >> jeff, to your point, the court said the travel ban could not be imposed on anybody who quote had a credible claim with a bona fide connection to someone here in the united states, a job offer or relatives here. how is that actually going to be worked out? i mean, is it -- it seems like a difficult thing to kind of figure out for those who already have visas coming here. >> it might be difficult at the margins. but remember, immigration officials do this kind of thing for a living. they make value judgments about people's fitness to be in the united states. and it is not all that

complicated to see if someone has been admitted to a university, who has a job offer, who has a close relative. i am sure there will be cases that wind up in court. but it is also true, i think, that the court gave reasonably clear instructions to the lower courts in how to determine who should get in and who shouldn't. >> neal, the fact the court allowed some parts of the ban to move forward, does that give you any indication when the supreme court hears it in october? >> i don't think it gives much of an indication with respect to that. what they left in and allow the president to do is a very, very narrow slice. they rejected the trump administration's request to limit the injunctions only to the individual plaintiffs. instead, they said if there's someone like the individual plaintiffs, that's fine. most notably, on the refugee part, they said you don't have to be a close relative or anything like that, as long as you have a connection to an entity in the united states, that's enough. all the refugees in the pipeline

right now do have that. remember, this order is only supposed to last 120 days. all the folks, the refugees swept up by that order do have the u.s. connection. so, you know, at the margins, jeff is right, there will be a few people like tourists from somalia and yemen who have no connection to the united states. the order goes into effect with respect to them. i'm not sure if that's a class of zero or one, something like that. but it's certainly not something that the president is billing as oh, it's going to change the national security apparatus and keep the country safe and all of that. >> jeff, neal, thanks very much. >> thank you. coming up next, more republican voices weigh in against the gop senate obamacare replacement bill. which moderates and conservatives are raise anything objections, and which are promising to act on them.

problem is, you'reith neterrible with names. okay, this is the boss. you got this. anna!...yes! new clients? we've been there. and with breakfast on the run, we'll be there for you. book direct for a guaranteed discount. hampton by hilton.