he said evil had descended upon the area. >> we'll get through this, we'll get through this with faith and on the basis of the good and strong people of this community and of this great state. >> certainly words of great meaning for those there. the church service will go on this sunday at the first baptist church. anderson starts now. good evening we begin tonight with breaking news in the russian investigation. news that could determine how president trump's former top advisers cooperates with mueller or when he'll corporate at all. we talk about michael flynn and the concern he has about the leadership of his son. in a moment what this could mean as well as what it says about the essential counsel's tactics. jim schuitto with the breaking story. what are you learning about the

concern flynn has for his son? >> we were told flynn had expressed concern about the potential legal exposure of his son, michael flynn jr. like his father is under scrutiny. flynn's concern as you mentioned, potentially a factor to decisions coming forward about how to respond to mueller's ongoing investigation, also the business dealings of key trump campaign advisers. i'm told as well flynn's wife lauri shares the concern about their son's possible exposure. >> do you know what mueller's team is looking at when talking about legal exposure? >> i've spoke to two witnesses who have been interviewed by the special counsel, they tell us investigations regarding flynn and his and his son's business, including income from work overseas, you remember the

foreign registration act, that requires those who do business that act as agents for foreign countries or governments, they have to disclose those relationships as well as any financial compensation for work. flynn junior, to be clear was in his father's business. he served as chief of staff, top aid in their lobbying work at their firm known as the flynn intel group. and that includes joining his father on overseas trip like the one he made in moscow in 2015. where flynn dined with vladimir putin in a black tie gala hosted by rt, the television network. flynn also under scrutiny by legal team during the campaign on behalf of the turkish government and the alleged anticipation about the idea of forcibly removing a turkish cleric -- has denied that such

discussions took place. >> it's not clear though that either of the flynns will in fact face charges right? >> that's a very important point. flinn's business dealings have been the subject of investigation since november prior to mueller's -- this year. i should mention flynn's attorney, he did not respond to multiple request for me to comment on this story, flynn jr.'s lawyer declined to comment. anderson. >> jim stay with us. i want to bring in jeffrey toobin, michael selder. michael, we've talked about this over the last couple weeks. what do you make of this report? you said it's possible mike flynn could already be a cooperating witness. >> this may indicate he's not yet cooperating though, we don't

know that. it does reflect what we talked about last weekend which is there's enormous pressure on the father to cooperate to protect his son. the charges he could face are failure to register as a foreign agent. failure to report foreign income that he has in bank accounts. conspiracy to the united states. he has the additional charge of sf-86 decoration on his financial statement, maybe money laundering. there are enormous charges here. when we talk about maybe sits tight and gets a pardoned. if there are federal tax charges there are state tax charges. if there are federal money laundering charges there may be state charges. so all of those things taken together leads me to conclude that if he isn't cooperating

he's going to. >> that's an important point michael, even if the president close to pardoned mike flynn, if in fact he was charged with something, that will only ply to federal charges not state charges? >> that's correct. and the president has to make a decision about whether or not if he pardons people, does he do so at the risk of being viewed by the special counsel as abusing his office leading to or referral to the house of representatives for an article of impeachment for abuse of his authority. >> jeff, the prosecutor's exerting control or pressure on one family member to get to another that's common tactic isn't it? >> it's hardball. it's not something prosecutors do every day but it's something they do. it is something within normal limits the ethical rules. it's one example of how powerful prosecutors can be. prosecutors can just say, you go

free, you get prosecuted and they can do it within a family and everybody knows that parents want to protect their children. so, the fact that a father and son are both under investigation gives at least the potential for a lot ofr leverage as we've been pointing out here it play be that they committed no crime, so there's no reason for any plea bargain here. certainly that possibility of the use of that leverage exists. >> john, this along with the force it shows it's not just the main players here that the counselor is interested in. >> that's true. and as everybody is making the point this is hardball. when you're dealing with the potential of conspiracy, when you have a dual set like this as well. i can't think of any historical parallel to this where you've had a father/son combination under investigation by a special counsel. so it's unique in that regard also. >> steve, you've been saying

michael flynn has close ties to russia. how deep is that relationship? what does that mean for the trump campaign? those are questions i assume would be out in the front of mueller's mind. >> it's difficult to tell, but from the russian perspective, both of these individuals, flynn jr. and senior, would have presented excellent targets for the russians. you guys have really interesting access to information, you understand the united states so much better tan we do, and by the same token you understand russia better than anybody in the united states does, so is there some way we candom to some sort of agreement on this. both of them were very interested in money, so these guys could have been both good targets for the russians and i

think that's what mueller's looking into right now obviously. >> but certainly that's not hypothetical, and flynn having experienced intelligence, he wouldn't be naive about an approach like that. >> well you'd think so. you'd also think a guy with his extended background in military intelligence, also would have said, maybe it's not a good idea for me to go to moscow and accept money from the russians, from rt which he must have known was a propaganda for the russians. >> one of the arguments that criminal defense attorneys make in white alcohol lcollar cases all the time is no one could be so stupid as to do x. juror's reject that argument all the time because people are stupid, they make mistakes and make it out of agreed and political reasons. but, the idea that you're smart so you wouldn't commit a crime, that logic doesn't necessarily

follow. >> in fact, anderson you see the truth in n what jeff said, it had been told that flynn was told, don't do that speech and he went ahead and did it anyway. >> and anderson, one of payment in question is money that flynn senior received from that visit to moscow. the money was routed through a company in london, to intentionally obscure the money was coming to russia, so seemingly indicated let's take awareness. you may remember generally flynn denied the money came from russia. >> jim, the warehouse keep saying the mueller investigation is wrapping up. is there any evidence pointing

to that? if anything from the outside it would seem to be the opposite. >> particularly the events of the last week. manafort and gates, this is the beginning of the long, the trial date isn't until next year and that's going to be a weeks' long trial at least. you have the first person who seem to have flipped, george papadopoulos, whether he has valuable information to provide on the higher ups of the trump campaign, but folks i talk to done see this as the end of the tunnel. >> john, can you speak to personally what it is like to be the focus of an investigation like there? just the pressure that one is under. you already raised the idea that a father/son duo is a yew phoenix situation. but just for flynn senior, the financial pressure, all sorts of pressure. >> well i wasn't directly in that situation myself, because i

was cooperating very early. i was breaking rank and had a foot in the white house as well as a foot in the prosecute' office. but i did experience it through my friends and former colleagues and the pressure they felt. i also understand from listening to countless hours of nixon tapes that were later released long after water gate, and you could see the noose coming down and being squeezed on people. and how bad their decisions get the greater loss they seem to be suffering and confronted with. not that they get smart when gets if the heat but rather they get stupid and that happens repeatedly. apparently in lots of crimes, jeff probably can speak to that better than i. but we have such an internal record with water gate, that's where i noticed it. >> jeff, is that your experience as well?

>> well the experience of being under criminal investigation is so preoccupying. imagine -- michael flynn was someone who was involved -- he was head of defense intelligence agency, one of the most important jobs in the defense establishment. today he is the federal subject of an investigation. all he has to do all day long is to think about whether he is going to be charged with a crimism it is financially draining, psychologically imperilling. it's such a difficult state to be in. and he has his son involved as well, not just him. it's a terrible psychological burden to deal with. some people make some smart decisions and some don't under those circumstances. >> michael is that your idea, the more pressure you're under the worse your decision making get in some cases?

>> my experience on an investigation was not quite that. i found some people's attention was much more clearly focused when they realized they had criminal exposure and they sort of sat up straight in their chair and answered their questions more directly and they knew that what they had to do was cooperate because of course lack of cooperation means the possibility of further criminal exposure by lying. the thing that is -- to john's point, the thing that is most unbelievable to me is the tweet of michael flynn jr. saying that in the end when he doesn't go to jail, the suffering he's doing now will be well worth watching the pain and embarrassment on the face of the prosecutors. that speaks to john's point, some people get stupider and stupider. i can't understand that

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before the break michael selden decide to recite a tweet from flynn junior. the son of the president trump's national former security adviser which falsely tied hillary clinton to a fictitious child sex ring supposely operating out of a pizza rea. sources tell cnn that his dad is concerned about his legal fate. i asked mike about tonight's breaking news just before air time. >> senator warner the -- that general flynn is concerned about the legal fate of his son.

generally speaking, do you believe the flynn family is right to be concerned? >> well, remember, general flynn was fired as national security adviser for not, you know, being forthcoming on his contacts with russians. subsequent to that there have been plenty of reports about his failure to reveal work on behalf of turkish interests. against i'm not going to comment on specifics but general flynn and his son have had a lot of stories written about them in the press. >> the obvious question is whether the special counsel is trying to put pressure on general flynn to cooperate by investigating his son. if that is the tactic do you have a problem with that tactic? >> the prosecutors have a different standard. our committee is try to find out whether there was collusion and make career to the american

public how we prevent russia and any other nation from intervening on our campaigns going forward. >> looks like paul manafort, there's two general -- including his own conversations with the russian discovambassador and wh told if fbi about those. what incentive would he have not to cooperate? >> again, i don't want to comment on the specifics about what general flynn -- who he's talked to or not talked to. it's fairly unprecedented that you have a national security adviser have to get fired, i think 24 days into the job for failing to disclose his contacts with russians. as we've seen with mr. papadopoulos in the famous june meeting, there was a concerted

effort by the russians to reach out to officials affiliated with the russian campaign to give them dirt abohillary clinton th would be helpful to mr. trump. at the end of the day the americans deserve the truth. >> can you clarify what if any contact your committee has had with general flynn or his son? >> listen, we've had contacts with virtually all of the key individuals. we have a parallel path separate from special prosecutor mueller but it's been our policy not to update or where we stand with individual witnesses. >> do you have a sense of -- or i'm wondering what is your take on the speed with which mueller is moving? what's your sense of the speed of this investigation from special counsel?

>> i think special prosecutor mueller is a professional that's why he was closen. and i think that's why he has broad support. i think he realizes as longs as this cloud hangs over the trump administration it is a challenge for everyone's ability to fully function. so, i think he's doing this with all deliberate speed. i hope again that he will do this as fast as possible but at the same way make sure he's got all the facts. we've now has two indictments, we have one guilty plea and i believe there will be more to come. >> when the president says he's not under investigation do you think that's an accurate statement for him to make? >> again, i'm not going to comment on any of the particula particulars about the mueller investigation. mr. mueller's got his job to do. we got our job from the committee standpoint to get out all the facts and see if there

was any cooperation with either campaign and the russians. >> do you have a sense of a time line for your committee's work? >> listen, i'd like to get there done as soon as we can finish all the interviews we need. we still haven't seen for example, donald trump jr. we still need to bring back michael collin. i believe we need to bring back mr. kushner. we still got one additional person in terms of the famous june meeting where the russian lawyer came over and offered information about hillary clinton. we want to talk to all those individuals first before we talk to mr. trump junior. i want this to be done as quickly as possible but the most important thing is we get the truth out and we continue to do so if a bipartisan fashion. >> senator warner appreciate your tame. thank. >> thanks. sms when we come back we see

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more breaking news tonight, cnn polling shows decline in president's approval ratings. one year after he won the presidential election. 64% of americans say the confidence in president trump since he took officer has decreased. only 4% says he's doing a good job keeping his promises. the new report also asked how other companies view president trump, 24% respect him and 68% of more than do not trust most of what they hear from the white house. these poll results back up what we saw last night. we spoke earlier about it with vermont independent center with ex candidate bernie sanders. >> senator sanders i wonder what lessons you take away from that

and what lessons the parties should take away from it? >> the elections were a reparrandum on the disasterous trump administration, on his temporament, on his policies. it was a reparrandum on trump and trump's loss. the american people from coast to coast are tired of seeing the billionaire class get their way. i think it was a good flight for democrats. the other point i'd make, anderson, that would impress me, not just winning governors's races in new jersey and virginia, but the grass root activism we saw all over the country. the interesting as spect last night in virginia was the fact the democrats control the house of delegates, winning some 17 or 18 seats. those seats were won but young

people, people who were never involved if the political process and they got involved in every cases they wanted and you're seeing them all over the country. that was the important thing the democratic party can go. open the door, bring people in. when they come in with the ideals that they have, you're going to see voter -- go up and democrats win across the board. >> a lot of people point to the fact that governor northam is the senior right candidate, is that the kind of candidate democrats need? >> obviously in that case i certainly supported a person name tom in the -- our job now is to come together to defeat republicans and move this country in a very different way. >> you talk about this being a

reparrandum on the president, in virginia the white working class voted for runs. are democrats doing enough to reach out to those voters? >> i think we got to move forward on all fronts. in other words, this is not black versus quite versus latino. the african-american community, latino community have particular very legitimate needs that have to be addressed. but every working person in this country is concerned about the outsources of jobs to mexico and client. every worker is concerned about he or she is going to go forward. healthcare, they're concerned about how that you are going to afford to send their kids to college, which in my view we need to make public colleges and universities tuition free. we don't have to have 40 million people living in poverty. we don't have to see a

continuation of middle class decline. >> you made it clear you're not going to run as a democratic in 2018 but as an independent does it hurt the flademocratic party >> anderson, the answer to that is no. we need real reforms in the democratic party. one of the reforms should involve making primaries open, not just register democrats, in order to reach out to independence. right now, republican parties are at a very very low level. democrats are a bit higher than that in terms of public approval. and the largest grouping in america right now are independence. people are not happy with democrats or republicans. to say independence we don't want you your the majority factor in america but we want to close to door to you that's

politically insane. >> if you run for president in 2020 lue run to be the democratic party -- >> if i ran, i have not made any decision on there yet, but i would run within the democratic party process. >> the tax bill the republicans are trying to get through process, president trump called a meeting of moderate democrats settings told them he'd be a big loser if the passed as is. what do you say about that? >> it embarrasses me, i'm not happy to say this, he is the president of the united states but he lies all of the time. this is just one more lie among many other absurd proposals, divisions in the tax proposal is the repeal of the state taxi. that repeal would only benefit the top 0.2 of the american people. when trump tells you that this

proposal he is fighting for would not benefit him or his family that's not the truth. >> lastly, the reporting last week the agreement d flrks c had with clinton campaigns says the process was rigged. the source of the story says it wasn't rigged. number was it rigged? >> look, donna brazil showed an enormous amount of courage in describing the truth as she saw it when she came into the leadership of the dnc. i don't think there's any sane human being who doesn't believe that my campaign was taking on the entire establishment including the dnc. anderson, to be very honest with you, my job, our job is to go forward and do everything we can to defeat this white wing agenda

of the republican party of trump administration, not to look backwards. >> appreciate your time. when we come back the rest of page way in on the drops of trump's approval ratings. next. ♪ if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,... ...isn't it time to let the real you shine through? maybe it's time for otezla (apremilast). otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months,... ...with reduced redness,... ...thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has... ...no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased...

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breaking news, cnn polling show that president trump's approval ratings fallen across the board in over category. 64% of americans say they're confident in president trump since he took off has decreased. joining us the cnn political director david shine. vin jones and ed martin. vin, the democratic candidate for governor elect northam, the central democratic candidate, is there a message from that in the democrats moving forward? >> listen, i think had he won by two points, i think democrats would say listen, if you want to have a shot you've got to

moderate. when you win by nine points, the progresses start thinking maybe you could have won a time period, rather than winning by nine he win by two, so i don't think this settles a debate. it shows when the democratic party comes together we can win. the big thing that happened, the progressive who was beaten in that primary went out and worked as hard or maybe harder than the nominee to make sure the democratsd democratsdom come together. >> david was this sflademocratin last night or president trump loss or a combination thereof? >> i'll go with option c, anderson. i do they it was a combination. there was a surge of democratic voters who showed up at the polls. it's clear why they showed up, in response to president trump. this is what it looks like when the so-called resistance goes to

the ballot box. there was a little bit depression in the republican sense. while democrats were enhanced that creates a shape of electric rat that's going to work for the democrats. to think or the democrats suggest this has nothing to do with trump is to ignore what happened across the entire country last night. there is clearly in response to the one year mark of donald trump. >> so, ed, does the white house privately at least need to acknowledge that or do you think that's just not the case? >> two things, number one every single expert, not me but david and others who know political science will tell you when you're in office, you do experience a drag in general. that happened to obama, bill clinton, george w, so i think that's natural. we lost virginia, we tried with trump to get the base and

conservatives out. four years ago virginia was lost by 2.3, 3 points and now we've lost with more. the fact i'd say anderson, we haven't seen but will see in '18 is whether trump base turns out. in missouri trump won by 19, nobody's won missouri by 19 before, it wasn't even close, that's where i'm from. virginia's always an outlier but it's a blue state now. >> david, if you're a run and you're looking at who to run at future races, do you feel a candidate like gillespie or pro trump candidates? >> here's the top position, it's not unlike what some democrats faced in 2010 with barack obama

or what some republicans faced with george w. bush, you need to grab on and harness the president's energy he has with the base because it's so strong. and yet you need not turn off the non-trump voters. that's a battle that candidates are going to have to calculate back and forth and it is sort of between it all a rock and a hard place for these republicans. >> you talk about perhaps they would have done with a less center candidate given the margin victory. if you want to appeal to some people who are maybe disenchanted with president trump, wouldn't a more center candidate on the flademocratic e be sensible? >> you i'ved the debate that's going to play itself out. this is a challenge for us

because some people think it's the passion and authenticity of trump. so we need passionate and authentic people who feel people's pain and go that's more of the standard argument. other people will tell you, listen, trump is scaring people, and the real itch is to have someone who can calm things done and be a grown up. these thing don't have to compete with each other but they will. the left of our party wants compassion the center part want a more -- you're going to have a decent shot because you saw people coming out who sat out this last thing who were passionate and going to stay that way. i think donald trump is stirring up a hard net's nest in 2018. >> do you think if gillespie has embraced the president more or

had the campaign option or embraced him he would have done better? >> 100%. when you're out of power your fearful, the energy was when the democrats saying -- by the way the ad with the pickup truck was an incredible ad. there's a bunch of people who are afraid. i think ed gillespie should have embraced the president. what i'd point out to van and the republican side, the fight in our party are you going to stay on the trump vision on trade and integration or moderate to the old gillespie position? that gems up our populous edge. the question is whether it turns off others, we're going to see that play out. in 2018 there are so many agendas. >> at least you admit it's not because the ideas of the

democratic party about popular, it's because of gerrymandering -- >> oh no. >> let me finish you can tell me i'm wrong in a minute. we had more than a million more people in the united states voted for democrats than republicans for the congressional race last time. because of the gerrymandering you guys still got it. you got a one party rule, 3 million more voted for the president, 1 million more voted for him to be in the white house. >> right, but van you got sons, you ever kids, i have kids i coach the chess club. i wish i could tell the kids they can win by playing by the rules of checkers but it's chess. when it comes down to it you're going to win hand to hand district. right now republicans are winning more districts and i don't see that changing. >> just changed yesterday buddy. >> not in the congress. we'll leave it there.

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see how access to j.p. morgan investment expertise can help you. chase. make more of what's yours. the director of the cia mike pompeo was sent to a meeting two weeks ago, a meeting that the president wanted him to have with a conspiracy theorist claiming the dnc hack may have been an inside job. as you probably know by now the intelligence community has concluded it was russian hackers who leaked intoed the dnc system and leaked democratic party e-mails. president trump confirmed he sent his cia director to meet with this former nsa employee. joining me now is the former director of the cia and nsa. is it appropriate for the cia director to have this meeting? >> well, it's appropriate for the cia director to do what the president tells him. so i get that entirely. so i understand why at the end of the day director pompeo did

this, but, anderson, i've got to believe that mike pompeo, this was the last thing that he wanted to do because it put him in such a compromising position with his own workforce. i mean, i think the real actor in this isn't director pompeo, it's president trump, who directed him to go do this and the act of meeting gave some throwaway to this conspiracy theory that it really didn't deserve. and i know in my heart that director pompeo knew that his workforce would not look upon this in any happy way. >> i mean, a meeting like that -- when the president tells you to, if you are the director of the cia, that's something you have to do. >> yeah. no, exactly. but, again, let me return to the prime actor here. this was done for political purposes by the president. i think he was trying to create some sort of political top cover, and, frankly, anderson, the real story here is the president was indifferent with

regard to what this would mean for director pompeo's relationship with the workforce. just gave him an additional challenge that he did not need. and, frankly, the overall health of the american intelligence community being used in this, frankly, very political way. >> you think it really has a filter down effect into the morale of intelligence officers, analysts? >> look, these guys believe that their job in life is to tell the truth as they know it to be. this was a wackadoodle conspiracy theory. by the way, full disclosure here, mr. binney has accused me of some conspiracy theories as well, so your viewers need to understand that. even parts of mr. binney's own group didn't think this merited this kind of attention and yet the president pushes this in the direction of cia.

and, anderson, you know, the president hasn't been launching the star fleet out there to get to the bottom of this russian thing. this was a one-off, and the workforce is going to view it as a one-off, for, again, its own political top cover. >> just to argue the counterpoint, is there a -- couldn't you make the argument that if there is an alternative theory out there, members of the intelligence community should entertain it? >> yeah. but the fact is, anderson, they knew the alternative theory. mr. binney had published a paper that described one very thin thread of evidence that he said he could use then to prove that it wasn't an outside job but an inside job for the dnc hack. it wasn't that he had new stuff. it wasn't that director pompeo had to talk to him to learn the facts of the case. and i'd offer you one additional view, anderson, i think if director pompeo had the freedom of action, even if we were going to engage with mr. binney, it

would not have been done at his level. but, again, as you suggest, this was directed by the president. >> whether it's this or urging the doj to investigate hillary clinton, the democrats, do you think the president understands or necessarily cares about maintaining the impartiality, the independence of an agency like the cia or, you know, the fbi. >> you know, the cia, the bureau, the american intelligence community lives or dies based upon its impartiality. and just very quickly, anderson, when you accuse your predecessor of wiretapping trump tower, you're saying that the american intelligence community allowed itself to be used for political purposes by a political actor in the united states. now, that's untrue, but president trump appeared to be indifferent to the collateral damage to the intelligence community that that unfounded charge would create. >> and just lastly, i wonder what you make of the new reporting by cnn that the russia investigation has progressed to the point that general flynn is now worried about the legal fate

of his son. >> yeah, i saw your earlier piece here tonight. look, i know mike flynn, and we don't agree on a whole bunch of things but mike flynn's an american hero. he did wondrous things in the pursuit of al qaeda with stan mcchrystal in iraq and afghanistan and i look on this as a great sadness and i hope mike and his family can get beyond this as quickly as possible. >> appreciate your time. thank you. coming up, new reporting tonight in the rv investigation involving former national security adviser michael flynn. and his son. jim sciutto joins us with what general hayden was referring to with the latest after a quick break. when you have a cold stuff happens.

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the magic of iphone x. on america's best unlimited network. right now, get $300 off iphone x at t-mobile. multiple sources telling cnn that michael flynn, the president's former national security adviser, is worried about the legal fate of his son michael g. flynn. russia special counsel robert mueller is investigating both. the question tonight is he also squeezing the son to get the father's cooperation? our chief national security adviser jim sciutto broke the story. he joins us now. so, jim, explain the latest on the concerns that michael flynn has about his son. >> here's what we're learning. multiple sources familiar with the matter say flynn