a missile out of its launch canister. this could be depending on the weather. >> thanks very much. that's it for me. thanks for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. erin burnett "outfront" starts right now. >> breaking news, trump's ban on trance gender people serving in the military. cnn learning top military chiefs were caught totally off guard. did the president make a rash decision? >> plus, you're fired. why trump cannot seem to say his favorite two words when he's not on "the apprentice". >> and a key witness to the russia investigation is my guest tonight. let's go outfront. >> good evening. the breaking news caught off guard. we are learning at this hour the chiefs of military branches for caught off guard by president trump's announcement today banning all trance gender people from serving in the military.

the president tweeting, i want to read them to you, after consultation with my generals, please be advised that the united states government will not accept or allow trance gender individuals to serve in any capacity in the u.s. military. the question is, after consultation with whom, because it appears the decision was made without consultation or thinking through the details. listen to the white house press secretary, sarah huckabee sanders today, struggling to answer basic questions about the ban. >> what happens to trance gender service members now? are they immediately thrown out of the military? >> that's something that the department of defense and the white house will have to work together as implementation takes place and is done so lawfully. >> something you might have throughout through before you said they were completely banned. trump's tweet also, and this is crucial, it is a complete turn around from what he said just a year ago repeatedly while he was running for president of the

united states. >> the lbgt community is just what's happened to them is just so sad and to be thinking about where their policies are currently with this administration is a disgrace to that community. >> the lgbt community, the gay community, the lesbian community, they are so much in favor of what i have been saying over the last three or four days. >> well, today's announcement also sparked a new round of outrage. john mccain coming out, obviously a vietnam vet issuing a statement blasting the decision saying the president's tweet this morning is yet another example of why major policy announcements should not be made via twitter. jim, you are breaking this news this hour, that even the chiefs of four of the military branches were completely taken surprise by this announcement. that's incredible. >> it is. i spoke to a military official

that said that the chiefs of the branches, army, navy, air force, marine caught off guard. keep in mind, they have been looking into this issue for some months and i was told that they had found that the branches were able to accommodate trance gender members of the military. this official described them to me as our brothers and sisters. they had given that message back, asked the question could you handle them and they said yes, we can accommodate them and consider them valued members of those services. i should note now there is great concern. you saw the answer from the white house about what happens now. what is the time line and how do they handle current members? are they immediately discharged? these are very basic questions, but unsettling ones. >> it is pretty stunning. not only were they surprised. people might say, were they surprised by the method by which he chose to release this, ie, twitter.

you're saying maybe. but they were also surprised by the decision itself because it didn't fit with the research they had been doing, which is a stunning part of the news you are breaking as well. as you know, the reason the president cited for his -- to reverse, to not allow trancegender individuals to be in the military was tremendous medical costs and disruption. that's his reason. is that true, tremendous cost? >> let's look at the facts. the rand corporation did a study commissioned by the pentagon in 2016, and they ran the numbers and concluded in their words there would be minimal impact from accommodating members of the trance gender community in the military. there are 1.3 million active members of the military force estimated members, 1,300 to 6,600 that, to be clear, is well less than 1% of the entire force there. so what are the costs? they ran these numbers as well.

they estimated hormone treatments per year, 30 to 140. this again in the population of the military, 1.3 million. gender transition related surgeries, 25 to 130. we're talking about fractions of a percent here for the whole force. total cost estimated between $2 million and $8 million. as a matter of comparison, erin, one predator drone costs about $12 million. in this enormous military budget, millions of dollars, that's not an inconsequential figure. but it is, by comparison, a very tiny figure. not tremendous as the president described in his tweet. >> if you are looking to cut costs, there is a lot of places with a lot of waste, even within health care perhaps in the military. why he would pick this, i think stunning many. thank you very much, jim sciutto. i want to go to a member of the armed services committees and thank you for being with me. the president says he made this

decision after consultation with his generals and military experts. i don't know if you just heard jim sciutto reporting, the heads for the military branches were caught off guard. they felt the military could handle trance gender individuals. you're on the armed services committee. did you or anyone else on the committee know that this was coming? >> we had no idea that this announcement was coming, and by the way, as far as i know, neither our chairman, john mccain nor our ranking member, both very strongly and expolicely denounced these tweets. you read a little earlier john mccain's statement. and the action was bipartisan opposition on both sides of the aisle. we oppose this twitter policy. it isn't a well considered or consulted policy because it violates the principal that

servicemen and women should be based on their ability to fight, deploy, train. many trance gender americans are serving right now with distinction and courage. >> yes, thousands of them, in fact, are at this very moment. all of whom now have no idea what their status will be. the white house says the defense secretary, jim mattis, was made aware of the decision immediately. all right? that's what sarah huckabee sanders said, that he was made aware of it immediately. so far secretary mattis has not clarified whether he agreed with the decision. although, again, to emphasize jim sciutto's reporting, he's reporting for the chiefs of division. they're saying they didn't agree. do you think, though, senator, that the president would have gone ahead with this decision if secretary mattis was opposed to it? >> i can't speculate about what donald trump would or wouldn't do. that's a pretty hazardous enterprise. but i can tell you this, the military was engaged in a very methodical and thorough come pro

hen sieve six-month study authorized by general mattis, secretary of defense himself. >> yes. >> and he believes in the military as a unifying institution. and certainly he believed in meeting the policy decision that was made under the previous secretary of defense that there should be admission of american trance gender. >> so let me ask you this, senator, because i played a clip in our introduction about times during the campaign. the president said how great it was going to be for the lgbt community. i only played a few of them because there were many for of them. he slammed hillary clinton for taking foundation money from saudi arabia because saudi arabia has no lgbt rights. here is some more of what the president said when he was running for office. >> ask yourself who is really the friend of women and the lb -- and lbgt community.

donald trump with actions or hillary clinton with her words? >> and i will tell you, i am far better for women. i am far better for gays. >> lgbt is starting to like donald trump very much. >> senator, why? the big question is why. why do you think he did this right now? >> the obvious potential explanation is pressure from the socially conservative groups that actually greeted this announcement with great addlation and praise. but that clip raised an important issue, which is larger than these three rash and very arbitrary tweets, which is it opens the door to additional discrimination. it raises the spector of a really abhorrent approach to our military and to official policies in general that

discriminate against people based on all of the factors that we have come to reject as a basis for discrimination. men and women entering the military, trance gender americans or anybody else ought to be judged on their ability to deploy, fight and train, not on discrimination. >> now, there are some who disagree with your overall point of view. republican congressman came on cnn today supports the president and here is some of the reason why. >> right now we have people who cannot serve in the military with asthma or with flat feet. so why would we allow individuals to come in, although they are very patriotic and we appreciate their desire to serve, but who have these medical issues that could be very, very costly. we shouldn't make an exception in this case. >> what is your response to her? >> i think you just demolish the explanation based on medical costs. it is a pinprick, not even a

rounding error of expense. >> that is true. >> but the main point here is that people, americans, whether they are trance gender americans or anyone else, should be judged on their ability when they are accepted, when they are assigned, when they are in any way given deployments or not, those decisions have to be made on their ability to fight and deploy as well as to train. and there are all kinds of physical qualifications that have to be met by people entering the military. but trance gender americans who meet that qualification should be accepted and in fact welcome. here is the other point i find abhorrent. anybody that serves in the uniform of the united states of america deserves our thanks. i have two sons who have served. there aren't a lot of my colleagues who have sons or daughters who have served. but i think the president of the united states should be thanking these men and women, not barring

them. >> before we go, senator, you're a member of the judiciary committee, of course, investigating trump connections to russia. also the committee with oversight jurisdiction at the justice department. you are also a former state attorney general. president trump has been slamming his attorney general or days. my question for you is, you have served in the role of an attorney general. does sessions have the ability or the credibility left at this point to remain in his job and execute it faithfully? >> he will have the credibility if he comes before the judiciary committee and explains his apparent contradictions or even untruths about these secret meetings with the russians. as for his recusal, he did the right thing. he had no choice under the ethical rules to recuse himself. but here is a message to donald trump. this investigation by robert mueller, the special council, will go on because his tormenting and threatening jeff

sessions just as he has threatened and intimidated or tried to do so with special council will not stop this investigation from going forward. and obviously his agenda in either firing or forcing to resign jeff sessions is to appoint someone else who could fire the special counsel. but i believe very strongly that there would be a firestorm of reaction on both sides of the aisle that we will insist that this special counsel investigation go forward and that's a message to donald trump that if he feels he can stop this investigation by firing any department of justice official, he is very sadly mistake sgln thank you very much, senator. i appreciate your time this evening. >> thank you. >> and next the right turning on trump over sessions. why didn't he see this backlash coming? >> plus torture, fraud and

vladimir putin. how all of that cob nennects to donald trump's meeting with a russian lawyer. >>

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>> the president is demonstrating weakness by his handling of sessions? >> absolutely. >> i don't fully understand why the president has, you know, said what he said. but i think jeff deserves, you know, better treatment. >> i know of no professional reason for jeff to step down. i know of no professional. i've heard no one complain of how he's conducting himself in the office. >> i wish it would stop. >> outfront now, mark preston, nia-malika henderson and david druker. mark, let me start with you. does it seem like the president was caught flat footed by the massive republican backlash to these attacks on sessions and backlash on capitol hill. >> no doubt about that. but there is a reason for it. he does these tweets, these

thoughts without much thought being put into them. he sends out these tweets. there is no strategic plan behind it. and in this case what he doesn't understand is washington and he certainly doesn't understand the loyalty in the bonds forged in the united states senate. when you serve there, you will often see them take care of each other, cover for each other because they have a bond that a lot of people don't have. >> david, it is not just them, right? it is not just politicians on capitol hill. there is sort of what trump would call, oh, hey, the mainstream kbrgop and his base. his base has been critical too. breitbart has been very critical of these decisions, the way he's been handling sessions. were the president's tweets today about trance gender troops in the military maybe an attempt to try to aswag his base and

distract them? >> especially the way he put out the statement today on trance gender people serving in the military as a public service announcement without informing the pentagon struck me as trying to recover with the base. they don't always know if they can depend on donald trump idealogically because he's so malleable and flexible, but with people surrounding him, they feel like they could depend on him to follow through. the other thing that's important about why they're concerned about the fact he might consider firing sessions, they don't want him to make a move towards robert mueller. if you remove sessions, that's where the questions are going to go. if the president went that far, they would be forced to confront him. this is the last thing they want to be involved in, having the special counsel fired and dealing with the firestorm that would create. >> taking all this into account, we know sessions not only does

he have friends on capitol hill and this bond he has, deep ties to some white house staffers, steve bannon. steve miller used to work for him. who might be encouraging the president to keep doing this? or are they all too afraid of him? >> the people i talk to, sources said there are very few people in the white house who are encouraging this. this seems to be a trump one-man band acting on impulse in those early morning tweets going after sessions. someone we knew he had beef with before because of this recusal. but it seemed to recede into the background. but if you look at what happened, the headlines out of the russia investigation all have been, you know, bombshells essentially. the headlines about donald trump jr., the fact he is looking into business transactions and finances.

so this sense that this investigation again is something that donald trump can't control and, so, he's looking to sessions now as part of blaming for that. you know, but it's not only in the white house people, right? donald trump also has got people he talks to outside of the white house. the only person who you can really find who is really going after jeff sessions in the way that donald trump is going after him is roger stone. of course, he's been a long-time ally. but inside the white house, i think most people you mention bannon. there is also rick dearborn. >> it's pretty interesting and shows how all these people have no sway over the president. he's not listening to any of them, which is its own significant statement to make. let me ask you because this comes in the context of the president's desperate need more a major legislative accomplishment. he's got to get one. health care has been what is on the table first.

you do that, then tax reform. here we are, senate's marathon debate now on day two. two cig gnat proposals have been shot down. doesn't have the votes. and with things like sessions not making friends with people who need to cast those votes, is this sessions issue going to cost him health care? >> well, let's -- looking at health care, perhaps. but let's look long-term, too. he has three more years left in office. not only did he attack jeff sessions today, he attacked a republican senator from alaska. he still got the win and yet he still went after her. what he doesn't understand is that in washington right now, you need allies. you need friends. and when you're out attacking all the time, not only are you going to alienate those folks you are attacking, but also their allies. and i do think his idea of trying to go out there and cause

chaos and confusion, that might have worked in his real estate empire, but that only works for so long here in washington before people just start to, you know, cut their losses and start to really distance themselves from the president. >> david, could this cost him health care, or is health care, as the president is clearly betting, has been too many years of a promise by too many republicans for them to let whatever ire they may have at him to get in the way. >> i do think it could cost over parts of his agenda down the line. right now senate republicans have to figure out how to get a bill out of their chamber. so there are bigger things at play here. but if he continues to jawbone sessions, if he moved to fire sessions, he would have a world of hurt. i talked to chuck rasly today. he said i don't want to have to deal with any more nominations. i want to deal with items on trump's agenda. they don't want this and it would cause a big problem. >> what is the big line on

health care? >> still to be determined. i don't think anybody moves. they will move to the skinny bill and see what happens with that. but it is really anybody's guess how they could get those 50 votes and maybe it will be with the skinny repeal. but, you know, this is really unchartered territory. in some ways it hasn't been good for republicans, right, because all of these bills have gone down to defeat. and so now this kind of last-ditch effort to get this repeal bill. but then they basically have to start over with that repeal bill. so it's, you know, we'll see what happens. >> when they say skinny, i'm going to leave out medicaid. that isn't dealing with it at all. that's a joke. mark, you know, this also comes as we got a new pole from gallop. now, gallop obviously has put out that record low 39% approval rating for trump across the country. and a senior white house source told me, look, we look at 14 states. we don't see this. this isn't happening.

but now in a gallup poll, 31 states underwater for trump, including 11 that voted for him in november. those are the 11 states i would imagine the white house is looking at closely tonight. trump is now going back to the basics. he just announced that foxconn, that manufacturer that makes electronics for apple in ash sha will bing 13,000 new jobs to wisconsin. we'll see if that really happens. but if he could get back on script, jobs, jobs, jobs, will that be everything else? >> yes. because isn't it all about personally how people are feeling in their own pocketbooks? win today on the foxconn thing. but he seems to revel in it too much. he should use that as a building block to try to go further. as you say, jobs, jobs, jobs. but the question is can he use it as a spring board to create a greater jobs agenda? that's really up in the air right now. >> you're not going to get tax reform.

you're not going to get health care reform, then you're not going to get jobs. these things are all related. he's got to get a legislative agenda through. thank you all. next a question witness is my guest. what he's about to tell senate investigators about that donald trump jr. meeting with a russian lawyer. >> and a man who worked for donald trump for years says trump never said you're fired. he just does a sort of passive aggressive thing and freezes people out. >> well, i think at his core, he's a bully. mail and packages. and it's also a story about people and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you

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warning from a top fbi official speaking at today's senate hearing on russian meddling. warning americans way of life is right now being actively threatened by russia. let's say that again. americans way of life. that's not a small thing to say as the senate is about to hear from one of its star witnesses, a man at the center of the russian investigation. i will speak in a moment with him. but first here is how he found himself in russia's cross hairs. >> at the heart of donald trump jr.'s controversial meeting with a grown up of russian and russian aligned business associates is a russian attorney who was arrested and died in prison in 2009 while working for american born financier, he dig covered a $230 million tax fraud and corruption scheme involving the russian government and oligarchs. >> he was a 37-year-old lawyer who was working for me. he was my responsibility and he

was taken hostage because of me. and then he was slowly tortured to death in the most horrific way as a hostage and then he died. >> the bill is passed. >> his death inspiring the magnitsky act to punish russians involved in human rights violations, many of whom are close to putin and responsible for magnitsky's death. >> these people are not good people and they're doing bad things. everyone needs to understand that. >> this led putin to retaliate by suspending american adoptions of russian children. it was this that trump jr. claims was the focus of his june 2016 meeting with the russian lawyer and american lobbyist. >> when they mentioned this was about adoption, it had nothing to do with adoption. there were two effectively agents of the russian government who went to donald trump jr. and

said can you help us withdraw this act if your father gets elected president. >> cnn has not confirmed his claim. president trump said his previously undisclosed hour long conversation with vladimir putin earlier this month was also about russian adoptions. >> for putin, this is his single largest priority, to get rid of these sanctions. >> he is set to appear before the senate judiciary committee thursday. today they heard from the fbi's top counter intelligence official about the extent foreign adversaries are spying on the u.s. and attempting to meddle in elections. >> our country is under relentless assault by hostile state actors and their proxies. they use people from across their governments and from all walks of life in pursuit of their desire to gain strategic advantage over the united states in whatever ways they can. >> the hearing was noteworthy

for who did not attend as well. donald trump jr. and former trump campaign chairman paul manafort struck agreements with the republican-led committee to avoid a public hearing. tomorrow the committee is sure to have a lot of questions, especially given his extensive knowledge about key people at that meeting. >> thank you very much. outfront now, a man at the center of the investigation into donald trump jr.'s meeting with a russian lawyer. we're talking about william browder, who has been declared a threat to russian's security. i appreciate your time, bill. good to talk to you again. you will be testifying before the senate judiciary committee tomorrow and you are very central in their discussions. you plan on speaking about two key people, two of the key people in that room with donald trump jr. that is the russian lawyer and a russian american lobbyist who served in what was the soviet military.

both deny working for the russian government. what do you know about their role? >> well, what i know for sure is that that the lawyer who represents the family of a senior member of the putin regime. she was paid for, funded and acted on behalf of this person in the united states in relation to withdrawing the magnitsky sanctions and trying to cover up for a -- or to get them released from an investigation by the justice department money laundering from the crime that magnitsky exposed. renad has paid for by her. >> that's the lobbyist. >> that's the lobbyist. that's the other guy. basically, the money from flowing from a senior putin official to the lawyer to renad and a number of other people i will be talking about tomorrow in my testimony. >> senior putin regime official that she represents. i just want to make it clear. what you're saying here is that

she is an agent of the russian government as far as you see it? or is there a way for her to be that person's lawyer and not an agent of the russian government? >> let's put it this way. vladimir putin wants to have the magnitsky act repealed as one of his top foreign policy priorities. and these people were working to repeal that. now, the russian government doesn't give out business cards saying i work for the russian government in these types of activities. it is not a formalistic thing. and, so, based on what i know, she was working on behalf of the russian government. >> all right. so working on behalf of the russian government. now let's just get now to this level of it. donald trump jr. was asked just the other day or a week or so ago if he or anyone in the campaign knew who this russian lawyer was before the meeting. here's what he told fox news. >> we didn't know who she was before the meeting. you know, apparently she was a prosecutor in moscow who hasn't done that since 2002. 14 years ago she was a

prosecutor. and it was such a nothing. i literally wouldn't have remembered the meeting. >> so, bill, you are talking about donald j. trump jr. who tried to do a lot of business in moscow. he was the trump child who was dealing the most with russia. you have jared kushner. and then you have paul manafort who of course has extensive ties and links professionally with russia. do you think it's possible that these individuals you are talking about really were completely unknown to any of them? >> well, her name is not a famous name. but if anyone had bothered to go into google and type her name, they would have discovered she was the representative of the family in a major in a money laundering case where they were defendants in the united states. that would have been the first thing they would have seen on google. either nobody did their due diligence or they decided to have the meeting in spite of

that. i can't claim to know what they knew or didn't know when they set up that meeting, but she's no mystery. >> when you look at the e-mails, right, who of course set this meeting up and said it was, you know, sensitive information from the russian government, part of the russian government's support for trump, what are the odds that donald trump jr. could have been used as an unwitting agent for putin? >> well, the way i view this is that the putin regime wanted this magnitsky act repealed. they sent her to america to do a lot of different things, not just this trump jr. meeting. they were also all over the halls of congress. they somehow got into this trump jr. meeting. they had a specific ask, which was getting rid of the magnitsky sanctions and probably came up with a specific offer for that meeting. we don't know what the offer was, but we know what the ask was. >> but you're saying there would have been an offer.

so let me ask you this because you were instrumental in getting the magnitsky act passed. it is something vladimir putin is obsessed by, right? he brought up his own retaliation to it, the ban on russian adoptions to the united states with the president at the g-20. in your prepared remarks, you write you have received death threats from russia. the most notable may be from the russian prime minister who said that according to you, quote, it is too bad that magnitsky is dead and bill browder is still alive and free. do you really think that the russian government wants you dead? >> i know the russian government wants me dead, and i can say there is a number of other people connected to this case who are dead. boris nemsoff, a russian opposition politician who had been lobbying for the magnitsky act was shot in front of the kremlin in 2015. his protoe shea was poisoned

within an inch of his life. he went into coma and organ failure. the mother was thrown off a fourth floor apartment building. he survived, thank god. and of course i have been receiving all these different types of threats from russia. this is a regime that kills and maims when you're standing in their way and standing in the way of them stealing money. >> all right. bill, i appreciate your time. sobering conversation and obviously you will be testifying tomorrow and that important testimony we'll be talking to you then. >> after the president tweets we worship god in america, a leading conservative firing back. in america, the president doesn't tell us who or what or whether to worship. plus, one of trump's favorite refrants. >> are you going to get the votes? otherwise, i'll say tom, you're

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join energy upgrade california and do your thing. new tonight, cnn just learning the president's former campaign chairman paul manafort may testify before senate investigators in public afterward. manafort who was also at the meeting with the russian lawyer had agreed to testify in

private. now senator chuck grassley telling our manu raju that jeff sessions will also appear before the senate committee. these are obviously significant developments. trey gowdy of south carolina, chairman of the house oversight committee. i appreciate your time. i want to ask you about these new developments. how important is it for your committees to hear from sessions and manafort and is donald trump jr. also on that must testify list? >> two of the three, donald trump jr. and paul manafort would be central witnesses. we're looking at four things, erin. what did russia do, with whom did they do it, the unmasking the leaks and the u.s. government response. i don't know that jeff sessions would be a relevant witnesses, but we're always happy to hear from him. >> i mean, i also want to ask you about, you know, when we talk about those two gentlemen in our meeting, about our last guest, bill browder going to be

testifying tomorrow. he says the russian lawyer who met with them was acts on behalf of the russian government. he laid out exactly why he believes that. from what you know, from what you understand, chairman, do you have any evidence that suggests otherwise? >> no, ma'am. and your previous guest sounded like an expert, which no one would describe me as one. but what i think is less important than what donald trump jr. thought or knew and the only way to discern that is to interview him. what did he know prior to the meeting? why did he accept the meeting and what was the content of the conversation in the meeting? for me to speculate on that would not be fair to your viewers or frankly to the investigation. >> are you confident that you are going to get all those answers from him. obviously this week it was going to be public testimony from him along with paul manafort. that obviously hasn't happened. deals have been cut. are we going to get everything that you need from donald trump jr.? >> well, i'm always reluctant to

use the world everything. i don't know that i ever got every salient fact in a courtroom, but we're going to have as much time with him as the committee feels like it needs to explore or jurisdiction. we certainly deal with jared kushner and i expect us too with donald trump jr. >> you did have a chance to question jared kushner. that was just yesterday. i want to ask you, according to bloomberg, your colleague adam schiff was critical of you in this report. he said trey gowdy took the role as a second attorney for mr. kushner. but what is your response? >> not much of any -- i was in there for three hours. mr. kushner has a very good lawyer. i was a very mediocre lawyer. although, i did it for 16 years. he can do much better than me. what i was tired of, erin, was the democrats asking nonrelevant questions. jared kushner answered all of

their questions. he stayed an hour longer than he was supposed to. in fact, he stayed an hour longer than dan coats. the democrats ran out of good questions, but they didn't run out of questions. so i think that's adam's frustration that jared kushner did not tell him what he wanted to hear from a political ambition standpoint. this investigation has been very good for the adam schiff for senate campaign. but yesterday was not good for him. >> so today the president also of course tweeted a comment he made at his rally last night. i wanted to play for you, chairman, what he said. >> you have heard me say it before on the campaign trail, and i'll say it again tonight. in america, we don't worship government. we worship god. [ applause ] >> now, conservative bill crystal, you know him, he's been critical of the president before.

but on this he tweeted in america the president doesn't tell us who or what or whether to worship. who do you agree with? >> how about choice c, our funding fathers, who gave us a first amendment, which is a free exercise right, but also a freedom to have no religion if that's what we want. there is no established religion in this country. that's why we have an establishment clause. the president is welcome to share his faith. it's been done by other presidents. if president trump wants to share his faith, more power to him. but our country recognizes all religions, including no religion. >> thank you very much, chairman. i appreciate your time. >> yes, ma'am, thank you. >> why president trump has a hard time actually saying you're fired in the real world. and how the new white house communications director is making sure he gets the president's message just right.

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tonight, the white house confirms president trump has not met with jeff sessions since his twitter attack on his attorney general. this despite the fact that sessions has been at the white house at least twice this week. for a man famous for the phrase "you're fired," he actually doesn't like to use it very much when it's real. tom foreman is outfront. >> you're fired. you're fired. >> reporter: for all the president's pummeling, name calling, and humiliation of his

attorney general, jeff sessions, he has yet to utter his famous tv catch phrase. >> johnny, you're fired. >> reporter: surprising? to those who know him, maybe not. >> i think president trump does t like to fire people, period. >> reporter: despite his tough guy image and dismissal of nine high level players since he took office, the president has showed little appetite for showing folks the door, off pushing that off to others. >> he's a show boat, a grandstander. the fbi has been in turmoil. >> reporter: he did not handle james comey's firing in person. instead, he sent an aide, a former bodyguard with a letter to the fbi director's office while comey was on the other side of the country. when corey lewandowski, jr. was on happy, donald trump, jr. was on hand. in atlantic city, decades ago, jack o'donnell worked for trump and says he saw the same behavior. >> i think at his core he's a

bully. >> reporter: so when sean spicer, a devout catholic, was denied a chance to meet the pope with the president, it appeared the president was sending a message that his press secretary was out of favor. never a good thing. >> i think that is part of what he considers his edge, by keeping people guessing, by keeping them wondering if he is going to fire them today or tomorrow. i think it's absolutely the way he operates. >> reporter: just this week, the president leaned on his health and human services secretary, tom price, to get enough congressional votes to pass a new health care plan. >> he better get them. he better get them. otherwise, i'll say tom, you're fired. >> reporter: and he's told u.s. ambassador to the united nations nikki haley, she had better do a good job. >> otherwise she could easily be replaced, right? we won't do that, i promise, we won't do that. she's doing a fantastic job.

>> reporter: sometimes the president says he's just joking, but who can tell when that is? in any event, that's cold comfort to jeff sessions who, at this moment, doesn't know when or how the beatings will stop. erin? >> thank you very much, tom foreman. next, jeanne moos on all the love from the new guy in the white house. >> i love the president. >> i love the guy. i love the president. ♪ keep your hair strong against styling damage... ...with pantene 3 minute miracle daily conditioner. a super concentrated pro-v formula makes hair stronger*... ...in just 3 minutes. so it's smoother every day. because strong is beautiful.

tonight's number five, anthony scaramucci has been on the job for just five days, and

well, it's uncountable the number of times he's professed his love for the president. he loves trump so much, he's starting to steal his best lines. here's jeanne moos. >> reporter: anthony scaramucci won't have to scrounge for a nickname. >> the mooch. >> the mooch. >> reporter: steffen colbert said it 13 times. >> the mooch. the mooch. >> reporter: in a nine-minute segment about the new white house communications director. >> the mooch is ready to smooch. >> reporter: smooch the president's behind. >> i love the president. i love the president. i love the guy. i love the president. >> reporter: let us count the ways. >> the way i know him and the way i love him. >> reporter: but scaramucci isn't saving all his love for the president. he's got love left over. for sean spicer. >> and i love the guy. >> reporter: for other white house staffers -- >> i love the hair and makeup person we had. >> reporter: tweeted one critic, is there anyone, anywhere, or anything you do not love?

next thing you know, he'll say he loves the fandangle. actually, skaramoosh is a character. scaramucci may not be a h bohemian, but he rap sidizes lie the president. >> we're going to get tired of winning. we're going to win so much. >> you're going to get sick and tired of winning. >> reporter: and they don't just talk the same. the mooch himself retweeted this bit from "the daily show." even when he merely likes someone, his feelings grow as he speaks. >> i like the team. let he rephrase that, i love the team. >> reporter: anthony scaramucci is the very light of the white house.

right down to blowing the press a kiss. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> and thanks for joining us. anderson is next. good evening. thanks for joining us. an effort to repeal obamacare failed in the senate today and the president continued his attacks on his attorney general. we begin with the president's pro-noens munlt nouncement on a decision -- >> three tweets out of the blue. no official public announcement. no explanation of what will happen to the thousands