own. face. jeanne moos, cnn -- >> fake news, folks, a lot of fake. >> reporter: new york. >> i don't think that any comment needs to be added. you can watch "outfront" on cnn. anderson is next. good evening. thanks for joining us. tonight in a controversial figure in donald trump's orbit, as well as the russia investigation, roger stone wants to testify before congress. details on that shortly. first on health care. remember this? >> real change begins immediately with the repealing and replacing of the disaster known as obamacare. repeal it and replace it. repeal and replace. repeal and replace. obamacare, we're going to repeal it, replace it and get something good. [ applause ] repeal it, replace it, get something great. we're going the kill it.

let it die, and we're going to come up with something much, much better. you're going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction oh of the cost, and it's going to be so easy. >> well, it hasn't been that easy. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell's plan to pass replacement legislation before the july fourth recess hasn't happened either. tonight, the senate bill is now on hold. the white house is in damage control mode. the president's negotiating strategy has been coming under fire, and republicans head home for the recess to face voters, any of whom might become the estimated 22 million fewer americans with coverage if this becomes law, that according to the cbo which republicans pushed back on. there is controversy over attack adds by conservatives slamming other republicans. in short, a lot of moving parts that are still moving. let's start with jeff zeleny at the white house where a load of senators sat down with the president late today. what can you tell us about that

meeting? >> reporter: the president summoned all 52 republican senators over here after it became obvious this was not going anywhere. so he brought them all into one room. this was important, republicans believe, because there's so many different factions inside these senate republicans. there are some conservatives, a few moderates. but all had different sets of disagreements here. but the president sat them down, and it was more of a venting session, i'm told, a listening session, i'm told. but this is what he said at the beginning. >> we're getting very close. but for the country, we have to have health care. and it can't be obamacare, which is melting down. the other side is saying all sorts of things before they knew what the bill was. this will be great, if we get it done. and if we don't get it done, it's going to be something that we're not going to like, and that's okay, and i understand that very well. >> reporter: so interesting right there, he said if we don't get this done, that's okay, i

understand that. of course, they know, though, anderson, that failing here is not an option. senator mcconnell walked out after that meeting, which is about an hour and 15 minutes, talked to a few reporters and said look, doing nothing here is not possible. we must have action. status quo is not acceptable. the reality is, as much as the president wants to talk about obamacare melting down, the republicans now own this. they realize that. and they have to try and find a way to fix it. >> and the president has been working the phones on this, calling up senators. >> reporter: he has been working the phones, and he spoke to about five or six senators over the weekend, yesterday, again this morning. he had rand paul in for a one on one meeting. but it became clear there were enough senators who were resisting this, who were saying look, we're not even going to do the procedural vote to get to the actual vote, so that's when they realized they had to put the brakes on all of this, because they did not want to have a defeat.

now, the question here is, going home into a recess, into a legislative break here, will this lose momentum or will it be a time for resetting and regrouping? senator mcconnell hopes it's the latter. still, all the outside groups, all the medical and conservative groups still oppose this plan. until they get some of those on board, it's hard to imagine how they get themselves united around one plan. anderson? >> jeff zeleny, appreciate the update from the white house. there were two changes today. yesterday was sean spicer and no cameras. today, it was camera, no spicer. sarah huckabee sanders fielded questions. one focused on the congressional budget office scoring of the health bill. watch if she did the cherry picking you normally need a cherry tree for. >> in terms of the cbo score, as we said yesterday, the cbo is a budget office, and while it does

very well at times predicting things on budget, whether it's revenue or spending, i don't think it does a great job, and i think the administration has been clear and consistent that we don't always agree that it does a great job predicting coverage. >> well, clearly not a man of the cbo's work. but the criticism does seem selective. the cbo did overestimate the number of people who get their care through the obamacare exchanges, however, if she is suggesting that the cbo did a bad job overall on obamacare, other facts don't support her. the cbo estimated the loss impact on the total percentage of people with and without insurance as well as total number of people lacking insurance, and they were very close in those. in any case, after attacking the most politically toxic part of the cbo report, she did embrace others. >> and the cbo score that they pointed out was that it would cut deficits by $300 billion and taxes by $700 billion.

i think those are good things and when they focus on the budget side, that's probably a good thing. >> cherry picking? you decide yourself. more now what led up to the gop decision to punt for the time being on replacing obamacare. phil mattingly joins us now. do you have any sense how far away they are from getting the votes they need? >> reporter: very far, to put it plainly. within an hour of senator mcconnell telling his conference that they would be waiting until after july fourth to vote on this bill, three new republican senators came out and opposed the discussion draft. that brings it to nine total. the interesting element here, i've had several gop aides tell me over the course of the last 24 hours, it's even worse than that if it would have gotten to the senate floor. if you want to know the scope of the problems that some senators have, take a listen to what senator susan collins of maine had to say. >> i have so many fundamental problems with the bill that have

been confirmed by the cbo report, that it's difficult for me to see how any tinkering is going to satisfy my fundamental and deep concerns about the impact of the bill. >> reporter: anderson, that's not having a couple of problems or quibbling with a few minor issues. that is a fundamental disagreement with the shape and scope of the current bill, a current bill that despite what they're going to do in the days ahead trying to hammer out a compromise, the fundamentals aren't going to change. susan colins is a moderate senator and she's always been considered a tough get for republican leadership. but rand paul on the opposite side of the idealogical spectrum, there are 52 republican senators, they can afford to lose two. they have zero margin of error

to work with. >> you've been told they want to reach compromise by the end of this week. >> reporter: they're not going to wait until after next week's congressional recess to hammer out this agreement. of the next 72 hours, they will be working behind closed doors, shifting proposals back and forth, trying to see if they can get there. the reality is, mcconnell knows where his members are, all 52 of the members. he knows what the medicaid expansion senators want and need. they have submitted proposals to help them get on board. but how do you thread that needle and say, use some of the deficit savings to give more money to opioid rehabilitation, drug addiction to bring the moderates on board, while also not alienating conservatives who want very conservative policy when it comes to regulations. that is a needle they haven't been able to thread. it's very clear that they are very far short on the votes. the big question now is, what's

going to change? the idealogical differences in the conference? those aren't changing. the demands? those aren't changing. so what's going to bridge that very real divide right now? that's the open question they'll try to answer by the end of this week. will they fwabl be able to do i that's an open question. >> jeff zeleny, thank you. kirsten, i think back to when the house was going over their version and there was the same talk of look, what appeals to the moderate republicans is going to make more conservative republicans back off. they were able finally to get to an agreement. it seems like the republicans have to get to an agreement. they've been running on this for so long. >> right. i think that we're seeing the exact same thing play out in the senate. i think on the house side, they always operate under the assumption the moderates will cave. i don't think that's going to be the case here. and i think you're absolutely right. they made this promise, this is

something they've been running on for the last seven years basically. unfortunately, you have a political position that is pushing a policy change, and it's fairly significant policy change that they're doing in a week or two basically, which is one of the complaints of a lot of the senators, to really reform a major part of our economy and a very personal issue of health care for people. so i think that this is really tough, and they have a lot of idealogical division within their group and i think they're going to have a hard time make thing work. >> jeffrey, do you think they can get the votes? ted cruz said he thinks it's possible. >> i think it's possible. this is why i'm glad this president is in office. this is "the art of the deal." when you do these kinds of things, you have to get people from all sides in a room together and keep shepherding them and shepherding them until you get it done.

i've seen this at work myself as a stacker on capitol hill. i've seen it at work in platform committees at the republican national convention. it's always the same process. it's sausage making. it's not very glamorous. there's always people that say i don't like this or that. this is how it gets done, and this is where the president's background is going to be very helpful. >> bakari, i just assume as a democrat you feel a little emboldened tonight. >> a little? >> i don't feel emboldened at ault. i feel as if we have to keep the pressure and resistance going. if there's one person in american politics that you can't underestimate, it's senator mitch mcconnell. one thing you can't overestimate is the courage of republican senators, because we've seen them cave time and time again. so i think as democrats, what we're hopeful for is someone like senator heller, senator

collins remain steadfast in saying we're not going to allow 24 million americans to lose their coverage. and then you get one more. but i do know that democrats across the country, and americans, anderson, let me be quite, quite frank with you. this is boiled down to not a republican or democrat issue, but this is truly an american issue that affects 1/6th of our economy. there are people in arkansas, in ohio, pennsylvania, michigan, that voted for donald trump who rely on obamacare. kentucky. so i think you're seeing people with good hearts and common minds come together and say wait, slow down. this is not right for our country. so i'm prayerful that we fix obamacare, not repeal and replace with something that's pretty bad. >> bakari, this is what donald trump and many other republicans have run on and voters voted on in many of those stated you talked about. >> it's one thing for donald trump to say we're going to repeal and replace. but i've listened with you on

many nights, donald trump really doesn't know what's going on when it comes to health care. he doesn't have one singular idea or one vision. the irony is that the policy minds and the policy wonks of people like paul ryan and mitch mcconnell have had seven years to come up with an idea and they still haven't. and we've seen three iterations of this bill. it went from 24 million to losing coverage to 23 million to 22 million losing coverage. all that means for jeffrey and the rest of his colleagues, with 22 more iterations, they may get to a bill that is a little less mean in the words of donald trump. >> kirsten, it's going to be see what, if anything, changes over the july fourth recess. some of these senators, what kind of feedback they're going to get from their constituents when they go back home. not all of them are having town halls, but that may have an impact. >> i think so. the problem has always been with the republicans that they ultimately don't -- democrats believe that health care is a

right and republicans believe it's a privilege. and left to their own devices, they wouldn't come up with a health care plan, we know that because they never did. so now suddenly they're on the hook for it, because they made this promise to repeal something, which is what they're good at and what mcconnell is good at is blocking things, but not necessarily coming up with reform, which is what this is. this is reforming obamacare, supposedly. and so i think that they don't have a very good plan. and sort of the irony is even if they get this through, it's not a very good plan, and it's not a good plan for a lot of trump voters who will see their out of pocket costs or their premiums or both go up so much that it would be prohibitive, that they wouldn't be able to get health insurance. so they're deciding maybe in the short run they want to get the political win, but in the long run, there's going to be a price to pay. >> jeffrey, is there a price to pay to get it through? >> hopefully not. anderson, here's the thing.

you have to be a leader. in 1964, after ronald reagan went on television and gave an impassioned speech for the principles of conservatism, and california was lost to lyndon johnson by about a million votes. two years litter, reagan was elected to california on those same principles by a million votes. my point is, you have to go out and sell what your principles are in relation to a particular program. obamacare was sold as one thing. i was just looked -- admittedly, this is a white house video -- of people who suffered under obamacare. i have talked to these people -- some of them, not the people on that camera shot, but some people like that myself. i have heard these complaints from regular folks. there's great unhappiness with obamacare. so this is the attempt to do something about it, and that's what this is about, and republicans are going to have to suck it up and get out there and sell their principles. >> all right.

we'll talk more -- go ahead. >> i was just going to say, jeffrey's right, there are a lot of problems with obamacare. i think if they were fixing those problems, that would be a good thing and it would help them politically and it would be good for the country. it just doesn't look like this does that. coming up next, some hardball tactics by republicans against other republicans and fallout from an ad produced by a pro trump pact targeting a republican senator. breaking news and reaction to the white house meeting. and breaking news on roger stone's decision to testify in the russia probe, and his feud with one of the victims of russian hacking. and in this simple everyday act, we see. when we give, we receive. ♪

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more details emerging from today's republican health care sitdown with the white house. a source saying that a number of senators raised concerns with the president about an attack ad aimed at nevada's senator dean heller who said he would not support the bill, saying that credit forgiving -- credit for bringing held tore the negotiating table. first, cnn's tom foreman. >> obamacare is rapidly racing towards collapse. >> reporter: even by d.c. standards, it was a vicious attack. a political pact founded by

campaign officials of the republican president savaging one of his own party senators with an online commercial and a small tv ad by in the lawmaker's own state. >> now with strong leadership and a real chance to repeal and replace obamacare with patient centered care that protects american families, senator dean helder is saying no. >> reporter: in a tweet, the american first policies pact tied the nevada lawmaker to liberal democrat nancy pelosi saying they'll have $1 million worth of follow up, ads, social media, and more to push heller into supporting the health care reform bill backed by the president. >> this bill, this bill that's currently in front of the united states senate is not the answer. it's simply not the answer. >> reporter: the problem -- with his home state going for hillary clinton last fall, heller was already considered vulnerable in his bid for re-election next year. if he loses, the two-vote

advantage for republicans in the senate would be down to one. so his colleagues quickly bristled at the strong arm tactics from the white house and allies. that was not the right thing to do one source told cnn. you cannot do that to a senator. "the new york times" reports othering mitch mcconnell called the white house saying the attacks were beyond stupid, because they upset the delicate talks which might have eased the measure to approval. and some are speaking out publicly. >> he's an excellent senator. he's taken a principled stand, and i want him back in the senate. so i was amazed and appalled to learn that any republican group would be running negative ads against dean. >> reporter: it's true that flipping heller to the yes column would have made it one

vote easier for the president. but no instead, it looks like it may have made a tough vote even tougher. anderson? >> tom toreman, tha mforeman, t. katrina, you heard senator collins this expressing dismay about your group going after a fellow republican. how do you respond? >> well, anderson, we're not really concerned what she thinks. in fact, our main concern is pushing forward policies that support america first, particularly those republicans have been campaigning on for seven years. if i could give you context, because there were other senators who did not support the bill in its current form. however, they stayed at the table, they offered their own ideas. whereas senator heller held a press conference on friday, said absolutely not, and walked away from the table. so i'm happy to see he's back. >> so that's why you're saying

you didn't go after a ted cruz or a rand paul, you're saying that they were willing to offer ideas? >> oh, absolutely. any time that you talk to either senator paul or senator cruz, they would express their opinion, whether they support it or not, but they've always said this is how we can get there. this is what i need and want to see. but senator heller, he just says no, i can't support this and he walked away from the table. and you had mentioned that the ads were pulled today. but i will say, we are prepared to resume. >> anna, what about that? what's so bad if a republican group wants to run ads against a fellow republican because they think he's with nancy pelosi or going to vote against someone all republicans have run on for years now? >> they can do whatever they want. but i think for a lot of us, this is political cannibalism. this is eating of your own. it's political bullying. it is also disrespecting the will of that senator's voters.

remember, senator heller stood there with governor sandoval. both of them are republican. a senator who says no to something is not because they want to be a thorn in the side of leadership or the president of their own party. it's because they think it is destructive to their voters, to their constituents, the people they are closest to. the right thing to do is figure out how to make the policy better. there are six or more republican governors who don't want this bill, who have expressed concerns or share opposition to it. and you know, every single republican senator should have refused to go to the white house while these adds have been playing. because today, it is dean heller. tomorrow it could be any of them. people can die from friendly fire too. and they are taking on a vulnerable senator in a swing state, and they are doing what to him? they prefer a democrat? you think a democrat is going to be more in agreement with president trump or the republican leadership than a

republican senator? hell, no! and the other thing is, i think these senators who are being attacked by their own party, who are being cannibalized by other republicans, they are -- they can't cave. because you see, if you cave now, you might as well just hand in your spine and a couple of other choice body parts to trump and his cronies. >> you know what, anderson, i'm not sure what caving means considering how this was a part of his campaign and every republican that was elected. they wanted to repeal and replace obamacare. obamacare is dead. we have an opportunity to do something about it. and as for cannibalism, i'm a conservative. i've been attacked by more republicans than democrats. so let's just set that aside for a second. we have a responsibility now, being republicans in charge, where all of the republicans said if you give us the house, we'll stop it. if you give us the senate, we'll stop it. now we need the presidency, and guess what? you got it.

now is not the time to play games with medicaid expansion or catering to a particular group or electorate. this is about getting this horrible bill that has raised premiums, priced people out of their own health care insurance, increased huge taxes on the middle class, another group we're not talking about, and -- >> let me just -- >> which is something republicans said they were going to do. >> let me tell you what caving is. caving is trying to force an elected official, who was elected by his people, to vote against his conscience, to vote against his principles and what thinks are the interest of his people that voted for him and do it by force instead of bringing him to the table and figuring out the solutions. it's not just heller. there's a lot of republican senators who don't want to vote for this for one reason or another. and mainly because it's not good for the people of their state. so that is caving. handing in your principles -- >> but he voted on --

[ overlapping speakers ] >> let katrina answer. >> these are the things he ran on. he ran on repeal and replace. he talks about the impact of obamacare and how it kills jobs and raises taxes. these are the things why he was elected, which is why we want to hold those accountable. we are talking about bringing him to the table, which i hear he is today. but he walked away, anna, that's the difference. that's why the ad ran against him to begin with. >> there's not one republican i know who is not in favor of repeal and replace, but the devil is in the details. >> it will me just ask a question. katrina, to anna's earlier point, just playing the long game in terms of keeping the house and the senate, isn't it more important long-term, heller as a republican, that heller gets re-elected instead of a democrat? >> i think you're just thinking of one seat in that case. i will tell you in the case of

republicans, anderson, i was there on the lawn at the capitol, when obamacare was passed. several of us across this country fought against it before it passed and said, premiums are going to go up. you will not be able to keep your dock tore, and we were right. so we're talking about -- >> but the question is -- >> so we're talking about far more seat it is they don't address it now, and that's the problem. >> we have to leave it there. >> when you have a two-seat majority, one seat matters. >> appreciate it. coming up, the house intelligence committee meets with the chairman of hillary clinton's campaign trying to get to the bottom of russia's interference in the election. i'll speak with a member of the committee that was in that meeting, next. plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. and now. i'm back! aleve pm for a better am. i wanti did my ancestrydna and where i came from. and i couldn't wait to get my pie chart.

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more breaking news tonight. the former head of hillary clinton's campaign late this afternoon emerged from a question and answer session over russia's interference in the election. john podesta's e-mails were hacked and spoke with reporters after today's meeting. here's what he said if he was asked if the obama administration was aggressive enough going after russia's meddling, which the current president has criticized on twitter. >> the president and the entire administration were dealing with an unprecedented incidents of the weaponization of the fruits of russian cyber activity and trying to make the best judgments they could on behalf of the american people. >> congressman, today, you saw john podesta testifying about russian interference. i know it was a closed door

session and you can't publicly talk about what he said. can you say if his testimony shed light on the hack of the dnc? did you learn anything new? >> yeah, anderson, we're working pretty hard to keep what happens behind the closed doors of this investigation behind closed doors. but he was a victim in this situation. his e-mail was hacked. his private e-mails were put out there. and so, you know, at the time he wasn't privy to classified information. so as you might imagine, he obviously had his own perspective of what happened to him. but beyond that, things are under way. we have a lot of witnesses coming before us, and we want to assure those witnesses that what they say behind closed doors will stay there. so good progress. i'm happy to report that on the house side any way, things are going well. i was in a meeting yesterday with mike conway and adam schiff, and they're working terrifically well together. good agreement on what we take on the next steps and we're

doing interviews rapidly that i think will shed light on all that happened. >> leaving aside what john podesta said, which you're not going to talk about obviously, do you feel the dnc took this hacking seriously enough early enough? because obviously president trump has been critical of that, even "the new york times" reporting from months ago, the initial calls from the fbi, it seems like the person who answered the phone at the dnc wasn't sure they were talking to a real fbi agent. did the dnc drop the ball here? >> you see a lot of mistakes that in retrospect look so silly. even in the john podesta case. one person said this is not a legitimate e-mail, but somehow it got transcribed this is not illegitimate. . the dnc took far too long for experts, both the fbi and the -- i don't know if i have the name right, but the private sector

organization that came in and did analysis. it took too long, given the gravity of the situation, for that to get resolved. so i think in retrospect, yeah, the movement that phone call came in, the dnc -- the leadership at the dnc should have been alerted and they should have had people crawling all over that place figuring out what happened and how to plug the leaks. >> you mentioned adam schiff, the ranking democrat on your committee. he's said that the obama administration should have done more to counter russian interference. do you agree with that, should they? >> i absolutely agree with that. look, what the president said that there was some sort of collusion or that president obama did nothing is absolute nonsense. president obama mobilized the intelligence community to put together a unanimous intelligence assessment. he called putin, there were sanctions. a lot was done, but not enough was done. look, vladamir putin is like your schoolyard bully. he's not going to -- he's not going to change his behavior until he gets knocked down.

so i do think he didn't pay nearly the cost he needed to pay. therefore, i fear that the lesson he took away from this is he can do this with impunity. i do worry that he's plotting antics for 2018. >> tonight, we're learning that roger stone agreed to testify in front of your committee. he's told cnn that he wanted the hearing to be open, but that it was the committee which said it was going to be a closed door hearing. is that the case? and can you say what you want to ask roger stone? >> well, i don't know if that's the case. it doesn't surprise me. roger stone is an unpredictable g guy. the big questions are those that can be asked in open session. he bragged about the attack on john podesta was about to be released and bragged about coordinating with wikileaks and bragged about his friendship

with julian assange. called him his hero. for an investigation that is looking at the possibility of linkages between the trump campaign and the russians, the fact that a guy who, until august of 2015 was employed by that campaign, seems to know in advance what wikileaks is going to do, those questions can probably be asked in open session. but boy, are we ever interested in the answers to those questions. >> stone has told cnn, i quote, i am confident that podesta most likely repeated his lie that i knew in advance about the hacking of his e-mail, and i'm anxious to rebut this falsehood. i'm still unhappy that my testimony will not be in public. you can't say, i guess, whether or not john podesta claimed that stone had knowledge of the talking of his e-mail. i think stone talked about an october surprise. but that's clearly going to be an area that you're going to be talking about. >> i can say this, and by the

way, roger stone can say whatever he wants in public. but he calls john podesta a liar. roger stone posted a tweet well in advance of the release of the information out of john podesta's e-mail, well in advance saying pretty soon it's going to be john podesta's time in the barrel #lockherup. this is not a question of truth or lies. several days before the exposure of john podesta's e-mails, roger stone seemed to know about that. we're going to want to understand why that is. >> congressman, thank you very much. coming up, the white house says syria may be planning another syria attack and they warned the assad regime it will "pay a heavy price." we'll hear from two military experts, next. just like the marines did. the process through usaa is so effortless,

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the white house says syria may be getting ready for another chemical weapons attack. this came in a statement from the white house last night, which also read "as we had previously stated, the united states is in syria to eliminate isis in syria and iraq. if bashar al assad conducts another chemical attack, he and

his military will pay a heavy price." this new statement seems to be at odds with the president's policy of not telegraphing future military actions, a policy he's off repeated. >> i don't want to tell the enemy how i am thinking. does that make sense? surprise, do you remember they used to call it the element of surprise. i keep saying, whatever happened to the element of surprise? you know, i've been saying, the element of surprise. we're too predictable. we need to be unpredictable. we have to be unpredictable. we want to be unpredictable, folks. >> white house official today said last night's statement was not in odds with that strategy, it's the equivalence of putting someone on notice. today, sarah huckabee sanders was asked if syria was getting ready for another attack, does that mean the strikes in april did not work? here's how she responded? >> look, i think our goal every day is to do what we can to

protect life in all forms, and to take steps to move the ball forward in defeating isis, defeating all efforts of terrorism. and i think the signal yesterday helped to do that. >> joining me now is retired colonel rick francona, and retired rear admiral john kirby. colonel, the president talks about never telegraphing his next military move. what do you make of the reasons behind this statement? >> i think he's trying to deter an attack. deterrence is always better than having to resort to military action. so if you can make a statement and put the other people on notice and say if you do this, there will be consequences, you they not have to do the consequences. deterrence, if it works, is great. i think that's different than if you're already engaged in

military action, telegraphing your intentions. >> admiral kirby, the last attack was supposed to deter another attack. if there is another attack being planned, does that mean the first attack was ineffective? >> well, look, if in fact that's what assad was doing, one could make the case he wasn't deterred enough. but rick is right, this is to prevent that from happening. so far, it looks like it's had the desired effect. >> who do you think the message is to? it can't just be the assad regime. it seems like it's also to russia. >> yeah, i think this was primarily aimed at the russians, and to some extent the iranians. the'reia the syrians are the russian clients. the russians are calling the shots in syria. i think the president wanted that public putting on notice, but if you tell the russians, you have to tell bashar al assad

not to do this. because it will require us, we can't let this happen again. so you tell him not to do this. >> admiral, the u.n. ambassador nikki haley talked about that this morning. i want to play that. >> sure. >> the goal is at this point not just to send assad a message, but to send russia and iran a message, that if this happens again, we are putting you on notice. and my hope is that the president's warning will certainly get russia and iran to take a second look. >> i mean, one of the concerns obviously about military strikes in syria is given russia's close relationship in syria, and just close proximity is in striking an assad complex, you also end up striking russian forces or russian aircraft. >> right, yeah, sure. so that would be why this is important for the communication channel to stay open in russia and the united states. and i suspect it's also why they

put this statement out publicly last night to make sure that russia got that message, as well. look, it's in nobody's interest, not in the russians, and not in ours, for there to be an escalation of tensions between our two countries or to have this in some way result in open conflict between us. and i think, again, that's one of the reasons why they did this. the other thing i would say, let's not overestimate the influence russia has on assad. assad went out and visited a russian air force base today to pump that up a little bit. but the russians have been frustrated from a foreign ministry and defense ministry perspective, with assad and some of his actions. very frustrated as a matter of fact. and they have admitted that they don't necessarily have 100% control over this guy. so it is important to send them a message. i completely agree with that, but i don't think we should overestimate the kind of influence they might have. >> all right. appreciate it, thanks. coming up, john podesta was

on capitol hill today testifying on the russian investigation. tonight, "the russian connection, inside the attack on democracy." jim sciutto is the host. i'll speak with him coming up next. hate it. or take notes... hate it. or even multitask. multi-hate yeah. you can do all the things you hate. great. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations

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as we reported earlier, former clinton campaign chairman john podesta met with the house intelligence committee. roger stone has agreed to do the same next mop month all behind closed doors. during the campaign, podesta's private e-mails were hacked and published on wikileaks. how that happened, though, is incredibly fascinating story part of a cnn special report coming up at 10:00 p.m. eastern. jim sciutto hosts. here's part of jim's report. >> in addition to the organizations that were targeted, multiple individuals were targeted with phishing e-mails that resembled google warnings. >> director at the cyber security firm, fire eye. >> they clicked on those thinking they were security warnings and basically transported them to a place where the adversary could collect their credentials and reuse them to gain access to their accounts.

it was a reasonably realistic e-mail. it looked fairly legitimate. >> reporter: a prime target was the chairman of hillary clinton's campaign. john podesta. >> there was a google alert that there was some compromise in the system and change the password. >> reporter: this seemingly benign message was actually a spearphishing e-mail. it warned someone just used your password and prompted podesta to change his password immediately by clicking on a link. it was signed innocuously, best, the g-mail team. >> it actually got managed by my assistant who checked with our cyber security guy, through a comedy of errors, i guess, he instructed her to go ahead and click on it and she did. >> reporter: the fatal error, podesta's i.t. person wrote back calling the e-mail legitimate when, in fact -- >> he meant to say the opposite, right?

>> he meant to say it was illegitimate. he said it was legitimate. the rest is history. >> jim sciutto joins us now. i mean, it's unbelievable that that one key error by an i.t. person, who should have known better, began this whole thing. >> really, just a typo. i think we've all done it in text messages and e-mails. auto correct. that's part of this story. part of his story, but really part of the broader story that at the end of the day, a lot of russia's cyber hacking tools were pretty blunt instruments. spearphishing e-mails have been around a long time. in this case, john podesta's team. that opened the door to some 50,000 e-mails and those e-mails were in effect weaponized and released after a big tranche, released pretty much every day leading up to the election and they had, i mean, really i don't think you can argue they had an enormous effect at least on how the election was covered going into the actual voting. >> do you look at the dnc

response to this? because, again, everything i've read on it, it just seems like early on they just didn't take it seriously. >> there is a lot of blame to go around here and not just john podesta's cyber security person, but the dnc. they got their first warning in the summer of 2015. a good year and a half before the election, and kind of sat on it for a few months but the fact is, that warning came from the fbi, and went in effect to their computer help desk. right? it didn't go to the chairman of the dnc, didn't go to senior leaders, it went and stayed at that level and the fbi kept coming back to that computer help desk number for a number of months before elevating it to a higher level. so you have the dnc not really seeing those warning signs for what they were, the fbi. even we talked to the director of national intelligence, james clapper, he said while he was aware of that breach early on, it wasn't even clear to him how big a deal this was going to become. and i think that's why when you

lock at this, a lot of folks missed this early on. >> it's certainly fair to raise questions as the president has about what the obama administration was doing, did they take it seriously enough? it's also fair to raise questions about what the trump administration is doing to prevent this from happening again. >> absolutely. i'll tell you, this is one thing, and i speak to folks on the hill all the time of both parties, one thing that there's bipartisan agreement on is that really no one is treating this today with the seriousness with which it needs to be treated. you know, we end this documentary with this warning from everybody i spoke to, these attacks, these cyber intrusions, continue from russia. party organizations, individuals, probing attacks, even voting systems, voter registration systems. probing attacks and both parties. and really the only question is, what will russia do with those attacks? and this is the most serious concern, anderson, i'll end with this, the concern that the next time around, 2018, 2020, they

might actually attempt to mess with voter tallies and just imagine the effects of that. >> all right. jim sciutto, i appreciate it. look forward to that. again, the russian connection inside the attack on democracy airs tonight at 10:00 p.m. on cnn. coming e ining up on 360, sp leaders announced a health care vote delay. we'll have the latest on what donald trump told those senators in a political meeting, next. it's your daily retreat. the es and es hybrid. lease the 2017 es 350 for $329 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

there's breaking news tonight in the russia probe and replacing obamacare. the fallout after senator republicans punted on their health care bill and met with the president to plan their next move. dana bash has been hearing from lawmakers and sources ever since. she joins us now. so, you were on capitol hill all day. what are you hearing from people about whether or not this delay will actually bear fruit? >> it's to be determined. i was talking to a source who's very involved in this process wh