wolf blitzer in washington, we want to welcome our viewers here from around the world. we begin with breaking news. senator al franken is set to address the washington news media for the first time since returning to capitol hill as women come forward accusing him of sexual harassment and groping. we will bring you senator franken's news conference live. we expect him to make a statement that answer questions. he clearly said he is embarrassed and ashamed by the allegations, but also said he is not considering resigning from the u.s. senate.

what more can we expect to hear from the media yesterday? >> he spoke out in his home state, but this is the first time returning to capitol hill since the allegations plagued him for the last 10 days. he will gather and address all the allegations. he intends to remain in the senate as he faces pressure up here to resign. senator marco rubio believes he should think about resigning, calling the allegations horrific. senator franken denied the allegations, but said he apologizes for them and said he is sorry for what his conduct and how his conduct made these women feel, but has not outright

specifically addressed each of the allegations. and he is facing many questions on his political future. >> he will tick around and answer reporter's questions, right? >> that's right. we expect him to come out of these doors at any moment. in the hart senate office building. he has not been seen so far and largely behind closed doors since the allegations first broke. they were off for the thanksgiving holiday and has been holed up in his daughter's house in washington. we have not heard much and the important comments coming up at any moment we will carry for you live. >> we will get back to you and

we'll have the senators's opening statement and the q&a live. chief political analyst with an excellent panelist. set the scene here. this is an important moment. breaking his silence at least here in washington. >> it is and he did it over the weekend to his local press. and if they remembered it that way, he was going to apologize. he intended to keep his seat and i don't know whether he decided to carry a different message about what he is making the same

statement from washington that he made at home in minnesota. are he was putting on paper statements a& i assume they wil be specific about what he intends to do. we understand what they are trying to do is answer questions in a controlled environment. this came out when the senate was not in session because of the thanksgiving holiday. he has not been walking the halls of the capitol as he should be. today he is going to be. never mind somebody that they have not been able to ask

important questions of. it's smart for his office and press office in particular to try to do this in a controlled environment. having said all that, he is on his tour. to the latest stop. it took a while and he did a lot of statements. the fact that he didn't come out for nine days. that allowed it to take on its own oxygen and he is trying to fill that with his statements. >> he is under enormous pressure. >> if he doesn't want to be forced out, he needs to come out and answer questions among the reporter who is cover him all the time. they are under a lot of

pressure. if they're going to take a hard stand against roy moore in alabama for the allegations against him, they need to show if you are a democrat and accused of sexual harassment, that is also taken seriously. >> he said he welcomes the investigation. >> for would be hypocritical if he asked to be exonerated, but i'm a proud min soed an. this issue in capital hill in hollywood and beyond, this one has to be addressed on a national scale and the ethics investigation committee is part of that. >> the context is so important. you mentioned conyers who after

prodding said he would give up his ranking title. >> this is the ranking democrat until this weekend. they said he is an icon and i'm sure he will do the right thing. it was clear she was pushing him to get out and advocate that job. the democrats have conyers. they have franken and have all called for roy moore to leave the race, etc. you have donald trump and all of this and that moment was used in the campaign repeatedly.

maybe you want to take one for the team. >> his leaving would be taking one for the team. >> that's true. he is not leaving and could not fall any more. he is getting up and jumping on it again. doesn't make what he admitted to doing right at all. just the opposite. the end of the day, he clearly understands the things he advocated for in terms of policy and behavior from other people. even about harvey weinstein. it's so clear that that flies in the face and is hypocritical to his actions. >> in the court of public opinion that, is going to be everything. what make makes him more similar is that he argues prior to his tenure as a senator is going to rule the day. i wasn't yet a senator. this did not take place.

roy moore is making a similar and much more stretched argument about the same poppic about what he is doing prior to running for the senate. this similarity has to be addressed. to address what we had before. >> hook how careful they are being when responding to al franken. they are not sure how it will unfold. they are graced for more disclosures with more members of congress. al franken and john conyers and others are providing a template for what you can do. how do you survive? we can't talk about that. it's a top out and the ethics committee provides that cover for all of them.

why aren't they being named? >> the members of congress? >> right. >> the and why can't they serve as a cover for everyone being investigated. the process needs to be opened up to protect the victims, but not the members of congress who are out there being hypocrites. >> neither confirmed that either is what they were alluding to two weeks ago. >> there are plenty of other activities in this particular line. >> republicans and democrats. >> it's a controversy first broke thursday before the

senators left town for the holiday. when it first emerged, most democrats did not want to address this at all. many were on their phones. it wasn't until al franken said he would agree to be interviewed by the senate ethics committee. others said yes, i do support an investigation. they had to do with the members's concerns. members are coming back to the recess today. they go to the most extreme and rare move. that's why he will try to answer as many questions today even

though he was quiet for more than a week. the comments are designed to alleviate the members of the senate who will decide his fate. >> we are waiting for senator franken to make a statement to answer questions. let me play an exchange he had with our affiliate yesterday. the minnesota affiliate. listen to this. >> have you ever placed a hand on a woman's butt? >> i can't say that hasn't happened. >> i take thousands and thousands of pictures. we are sometimes in crowd and chaotic situations. i can't say i haven't done that. >> very apologetic and acknowledging he may have done that. >> that's the right thing to do. if that is the truth, then tell the truth. if you think that yes, you did

it, then say you did it and you behaved badly even if you don't remember behaving badly. admit you may have behaved badly. i think franken is falling on every sword he can possibly find. he is stopping short of saying i ought to leave the congress as a result. >> a democrat said give me a break. if this were a republican we would be streaming from the roof tops about how the republican needs to go. as a democrat, this person said we need to have moral high ground and that means being consistent. >> having him take one forever the team and leave? >> yes. here's the issue and is that every crime is not the same. what franken did with the

pictures and the allegations is really, really bad. the question is, let's say franken gets up and says i'm resigning. what kind of precedent does that set? maybe it's good. maybe every person who has engaged in any conduct should say i'm out of here. it's not that black and white. >> take a quick break. waiting for the 7 tsenator to m a statement. our coverage will continue after this. but the real gift isn't what's inside the box. it's what's inside the person who opens it. ♪ give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions- and open up a world of possibilities. save 40% at ancestrydna.com.

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years. i don't know. i held it inside. my circle of friends and my husband have known how i felt about it for so long. >> he's going to make a statement now. >> i know that i have let a lot of people down. people of minnesota and my colleagues, my staff, my supporters, and everyone who has counted on me to be a champion for women. to all of you, i just want to again say i am sorry. i know there are no magic words that i can say to regain your trust and i know that's going to take time. i'm ready to start that process and it starts with going back to work today. so now i'm going to take a few

questions. sam. >> [inaudible]. . >> i wanted to ask, what about your recollection is different or what are you deny something. >> well, there are different, you know, different allegations. the leanne tweeden. leanne and i were on the uso tour together. on the kiss at the rehearsal, we were rehearsing for a sketch. i said that i recall that differently from leanne. but i feel that you have to respect women's experience. i apologize to her and i meant it. i was very grateful that she

accepted. as far as i i i take a lot of pictures in minnesota. thousands of pictures. tens of thousands of people. those are instances that i don't remember. it has from these stories t has been clear that there are some women and one is too many who feel that i have done something disrespectful or that hurt them. for that i am tremendously sorry. i know that i am going to have to be much more conscious when in these circumstances much more careful and much more sensitive.

that this will not happen again going forward. again, it's going to take a long time for me to regain people's trust, but i hope that starting work today that i can start to do that. casey. >> you made it clear you are not going to resign your senate seat. there have been a lot of accusations against a lot of people in the conversation lately. in your view, what's the bar for someone like you to have to resign. what behavior demands resignation? >> i'm not going to get into that or speculate on that. i'm certainly not going to talk to anybody else. this is what i have been trying to do. i have been trying to take responsibility by apologizing and by apologizing to the people i let down. i'm going to work to regain their trust. i am going to be accountable.

we are going to cooperate completely with the ethics investigation. >> [inaudible]. >> i will be open to that. that's going to be of course -- i have not worked with the ethics committee before and i don't know how it works, but i'm certainly open to that. also i'm going to try to learn from my mistakes. in doing so, i have been doing a lot of reflecting. i want to be someone who adds something to this conversation. i hope i can do that.

>> you are unable to answer the question about whether more women would be coming out. is that a question that only you can answer. what is the reason that you can't definitively say more women would not come out? >> sure. if you had asked me two weeks ago, would any woman come forward with an allegation like this, i would have said no. so i cannot speculate. this has been a shock and it has been extremely humbling. i am embarrassed. i feel ashamed. what i'm going to do is i'm going to start my job and go back to work. i am going to work as hard as i can for the people of minnesota

and start that right now. thank you all. thank you. >> there he goes. senator al franken from minnesota said he knows he let a lot of people down and he is embarrassed and ashamed and tremendously sorry and wants to get back to work and making it clear he wants to cooperate with the senate ethics committee and will have that be transparent depending on what the committee wants and clearly not resigning at all. let's get analysis from gloria borger. >> he said he was shocked by all of this. that shows you the level to which he was unaware, perhaps, of his own behavior. and that he said he is clearly going to learn from this and talk to people about this and cooperating with the ethics committee and said he doesn't know whether it should be public or not. you have somebody here who it's

clear to me thinks what he did was wrong and was an indiscretion more than a crime. we are all grappling with the differences and the different levels as dana was talking about. i think the question that everyone has is, as a member of congress should you be held to a higher standard because you are an elected official. if you were to be fired at work, should you be fired from congress. this is what we asked of donald trump running for president and we will ask the questions again. he is clearly saying i'm going to fight to keep my job. >> forget about a higher standard. at least based on what we know now about the settlements, they are not held even close to the standard that people are held in business. and that's terrible.

obviously that hopefully will change. the one is too many, what he said over the weekend as well, that is kind of a line that he clearly is hoping will penetrate and get through on the idea that he is embarrassed. he said it's a mistake. also that he sort of indicated that he wants to be the poster boy for this. he said i want to work -- >> that may be a little strong. he may recognize that he is the poster boy and he's going to use it. >> great point. he already is the poster boy and he's going to make as much lemonade as he can out of the lemons. >> i heard the script for crisis management. you admit you did something wrong and apologize and you promise it won't happen again and then you say you are going back to work. he has one thing going in his advantage. the women who worked for him

have gotten together and come forward to testify for his treatment of them. the women who work with him on "saturday night live" who said he was a respectful colleague. that combination of things gives him a strong plaid form. >> his apology before was not good enough for you? >> saying these were inadvertent and talking about being at the state fair. that was less persuasive. the allegations made by women are not that your hand inadvertently brushed my rear. i thought that was not persuasi persuasive, but the statements he made in following i'm so sorry, i promise it won't happen again. >> he did say he is going to learn from my mistakes and i know it's going to take a long time to regain trust. >> again that follows a

playbook. you had a statement of contrition and hedging. the reason for that, you have seen over the past several weeks let alone month and a half of additional allegations for additional people. he was shell shocked it came out and the e ppiphany he had was t say really? that's odd that you found it to be an epiphany now. the lawyers said listen, do not put yourself in a position where you said without any sort of hedging or without any sort of leeway confirmed this has never happened before or never happened again. he is hedging to protect himself in the future and will need more allegations from himself or colleagues, etc. >> you know what he can't do and probably really wants to do it. he can't say are you kidding me? you are putting me in the same

box as roy moore here? i'm in the same stories. i'm written just a paragraph down from roy moore and what i did is not what roy moore is accused of having done. yet they are all together. even not what conjures is accused of having done. women or a woman was receiving a settlement as a result of that although he did not admit any guilt. i think that his head is probably exploding here. because what he probably believes was more of an indiscretion and not a crime was put in a same situation. >> everybody stand by. there is a lot more going on and other scandal. republicans finding themselves between a rock and a hard place with roy moore, the controversial alabama senate

candidate and one accuser said she was just 14 years old and president trump standing by moore by attacking his opponent, doug jones. the president said the last thing we need in alabama and the u.s. senate is a schumer-pelosi puppet. jones would be i disaster he said in his tweets. he reminded voters that he backed moore's republican primary opponent, luther strange. here's how lindsey graham summed it up on the state of the union. >> from a republican point of view, i don't see what winning -- i don't know what winning looks like with roy moore. if he wins, we get the baggage of him winning and it becomes a story every day about whether or not you believe the women or roy moore, should he stay in the senate? if you lose you get the seat to a democrat at a time when we need all the votes you can get. the moral of the story is don't nominate somebody like roy moore who can lose the seat.

any other republican could win and from a party perspective, we have to look long-term and not short-term. if you think wing will be easy for the republican party, you are mistaken. >> here with us right now, oklahoma republican james langeford. thanks so much for joining us. >> glad to be with you. >> i want to talk about roy moore and the republicans. what we heard from senator al franken. >> the greatest benefit is that we have something that should be talked about frankly. this ongoing conversation that we have 20 or 25 years ago that your behavior doesn't matter. it is relevant. i believe the congressional leaders and individuals should be role models in hollywood or sports or the media. you should act like you are a role model and be held to a higher account. holding people to that standard

is important. it is the challenge of the people here. they have a difficult decision to make. something that doesn't represent their moral or political value. everyone should be held to that high account. >> do you think franken should remain or resign? >> i think he should go through the ethics process and get everything out there and try to resign it through a normal process. >> two weeks ago, you called on roy moore to step aside as the candidate if the allegations were true. right now do you believe moore should step aside? do you believe roy moore or his alleged victims? >> i'm in the same spot as jeff sessions. he came out publicly and said i don't have any reason to doubt any of these women's statements. i'm not in alabama and not in that setting, but there is no reason to doubt these ladies as

they have gone through the statements. i have no reason to doubt them as well. the easiest thing is to be able to have someone else running in that spot. roy moore even in elected, this will continue to dog him the entire time he is in the senate. it never goes away and never gets better. >> even at this late moment, the election is december 12th. you would like to see him step aside and have a write in republican candidate on the ballot? >> i couldn't tell you how that works in alabama politics to see if they are able to apound someone. i don't know that part. it would be much easier for the people in alabama and their votes as well as how this senate will function as if we have someone able to get the seat. >> let's get to other important issues. you are a key member of the intelligence committee. talk about the former national security adviser general michael flynn working for the president for about a month in office. he served in the transition.

his attorneys are no longer sharing information with the trump legal team. do you know if he is working with the special prosecutor robert mueller? >> i don't know what that status is. he is not doing a joint defense with the white house. they separated out and they are not communicating more. that's reasonable, but i don't know what the charges are and what the discussion is with the special counsel. >> based on what you know and you know a lot more than most of us, do you know if flynn should be worried about what the investigators have found? >> the challenge from flynn will not be something that is electi election-relate and how he handled his business practices and all of those things. when the special counsel is out there, he has the ability to look much broader than just the work on the election time period. he is able to look at everything else. paul manafort was not anything related to the campaign. >> you think the same thing with michael flynn and the business

he dealt with turkey and he dealt with russia before the campaign? >> i will allow the special counsel to discover what he wants to follow-through on. that's most likely what it would be lelted to. things outside the campaign. >> let's talk about the tax reform bill and the cuts before the u.s. senate expecting a vote later this week. you are a strong supporter of the legislation. let me get your reaction to the new report from the congressional budget office saying the bill will hurt people making less than $30,000 a year. what's your reaction to that? >> i saw that and i was astounded because those pay federal income tax to figure out where they are coming up with the math. if they say the individuals would have the subsidies to have the affordable care act if they chose not to take the affordable care act, not as much would be paid to offset them.

for whatever strange reason they see that as a tax increase for them. if they removed that issue about money paid to the insurance companies, if you remove that, those individuals would have a decrease in their actual taxes. either not paying anything at all if you are $24,000 and below or for all the brackets below that, they would pay less. they have strange scores and takes the money that would have gone to insurance companies and counts against them. that's not their actual income at all. >> the cbo report said if you eliminate the mandate you remove the subsidies. the individuals who make $30,000 a year, they would have less subsyd tow purchase insurance and cost more money out of their pocket. especially for you, you are worried about the nation's debt.

over the next 10 year, the nations's debt would increase by $1.4 trillion. that's a serious problem, isn't it? >> that's a very serious problem. i want to make one more comment to close that out. the issue about the subsidies, they are still in place. this is not removing the subsidies. they are available to get them. it's removing the mandates. that's the only thing that changes. the debt deficit issue has been a big deal for me for a long time. we have to be able to get good math and get best economists and we should have a back stop to say what if the economists were wrong and how do we protect the future taxpayers as well as the current taxpayers in the system. something that can't be worked out. we have a reasonable back stop in the tax policy and that's a major part of the conversation still today. >> if the democrats came out with a tax plan over the next 10

years that would increase the nation's debt by 1$1.4 trillion you would be opposed to that. this is classic washington math. the first part everyone agrees is not real. that's a math issue. the other trillion is if you decrease taxes and people are table to keep more money and businesses pay less, can they buy more machinery and pay more people? can they hire more people and can individuals that make more and pay less taxes, will they save or spend more? all those things are yes. if more people make more money, people that are unemployed now and able to get a job because companies are able to hire more, that helps the economy. more income back to the federal revenue. the hard part is guessing what that amount is. you can't cut taxes so much that you can't make it up. you have to get a real economic health. we had a decade of 2% of growth.

we haven't had that since the great depression. we have to find a way to bump this economy is get the health back up. >> the joint committee on taxation, both yawn partisan and they come up with the same scoring. $1.5 trillion increase in debt. let me get to the annual report which i have gone through. you say this now. the federal fumbles. that's what you call it. the money wasted and you are concerned about the deficit. you go through this report and eliminate the programs. you can save nearly $500 million. are you comfortable with the senate tax plan that increases the nation's debt even as you are making strong recommendations of waste where the government can save money? >> i am and here's the reason why. the joint tax that you

mentioned, both of those are basing in their scoring what is called a static scoring and if you cut taxes, nothing happens to the economy and no one believes that. it's a clean simple straight forward way to do it. if you cut taxes then nothing happens. everyone is trying to figure out what ek am nomically does happen. they have a well educated guess and our estimates are a .4% increase in the gdp. it's a conservative estimate. my statement is if that doesn't happen and you don't get a .4%, how do we create a back stop to create it? you are correct. that is a very big issue for me. when i put out the fumbles, i am trying to push my colleagues and the agencies and you can't say there is nowhere else that can be done. you can identify almost a half

trillion in the wasteful spending or inefficiencies. one of those are irs. i'm not enforcing current law and that's an enormous part of the problem. >> you have to run and what's the biggest federal fumble? the one you just mentioned or something else that is a waste of taxpayer money? >> some are a total waste. the national science foundation to study in iceland over how they were handling refugees. i'm not sure why we were using taxpayer dollars for icelandic refugees. that's not relevant to us. on the other end is the irs where it's over $400 billion in a lack of compliance. they will be doing their own study and not even implementing the results. they need to implement what is part of the problem. 15,000 areas that the inspectors

general have identified as the problem areas where they made recommendations that have not been implemented. over 3,000 from the accountability office that have not been implemented. we will push the agencies and get them implemented. woo we can find savings and we should. >> thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you. are who is in charge of the watch dog agency. the consumers with lawsuits and lots of blood leaving the president in an awkward situation. the president launching an assault on the free press including cnn and this time using a experience theory website to do it. and a royal surprise. prince harry announcing his engagement to an american actress and they gave their first interview together. you will hear what they had to say, coming up. cannot live without it.

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yes, indeed. amazing speed, coverage and control. all with an xfi gateway. find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. a royal wedding is in the works. prips harry announcing his engagement to meghan markell. and the newly engaged couple sat down for their first interview and shared a little bit about how they met and the proposal. >> a cozy night. we are roasting chicken and it just was an amazing surprise. it was so sweet and natural and very romantic. he got on one knee. >> of course. >> it was an instant yes.

i could barely let you finish proposing. >> she didn't even let me finish. it was can i give you the ring. she was like oh, yes, the ring! >> and this is how long after you first met? >> it would be a year and a half? a little more than that? >> for most people would be quite a whirl wind. is that how it felt? >> i don't think i would call it a whirl wind in terms of our relationship. there have been layers attached to how public it has become. after we had a good five or six months with just privacy which was amazing, but i think we were able to really have so much time just to connect and we never went longer than two weeks without seeing each other even though we were doing a long distance relationship. we made it work.

>> how did you first meet? >> yes, we first met through a mutual friend. >> we shall protect her privacy. >> but it was literally through her and then we met once or twice back to back, two dates in london. last july. and then it was i think about three or four weeks later that i persuaded her to join me in botswana and we camped out under the stars and enjoyed five days like that which was fantastic and we were really by ourselves. to make sure we had a chance to get to know each other. >> cnn royal commentator kate williams is outside buckingham palace. what's the reaction there to this engagement?

>> well, wolf, london has been really excited. we have been waiting for this so the newspapers were saying come on, harry, get on with it. we are all waiting. there is a lot of media attention and speculation. the booking and the shops here suspended this. it's absolutely a really exciting announcement and a thrilling day. the queen said she is delighted. the duke and duchess said they are excited. there has been a real avalanche of congratulations on twitter from the prime minister and this reflects how delighted people are and how much the idea of a royal wedding in spring will start as >> congratulations to the newly engaged couple. kate williams, thanks very much. kate williams thanking us from buckingham palace. coming up, he admitted saying the words and even apologized for saying the word, plus the new report suggests the

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where disaster hits, where war erupt, we're there. where dictators fall, where citizens rise, we're there. where fists are raised, blood is shed and where heroes are made, we are there because the relentless pursuit of the truth and the outright rejection of any attack against it is something we still hold sacred. always will. so no matter how many insults or blatant assaults on the press and its freedom, this pursuit is something for which we will never bend nor break, and even the loudest critics can't silence the facts. >> i'm less than a kilometer away. this is a constant day in and day out. >> wait! wait! wait! ♪ ♪ >> there is fire all around us. >> we've never been this far inside north korea. >> we have to wrap it up right now.

our escorts are understandably quite anxious about spending too much time on the scene. >> a panicked family now trapped in their room smashed a window and screamed for help. we managed to get the mother across to safety using measures and it immediately became clear the cause of the pain. their daughter was severely disabled. >> they and we are caught in the open. ♪ ♪ >> there's something in the distance. the fighting has opened up and there was big return fire. >> minutes into our flight now sabina stops breathing. this young woman is going into cardiac arrest. it is aggressive, but i just delivered a cardiac thump, a quick, strong hit to the chest, whether it worked or not, i can't say for sure, but she came back.

>> this is basically what is left of rebel-held aleppo, the streets are largely deserted. the buildings have been destroyed and the people who once lived here have been pushed out. >> we do know there is a taliban strong hold about a kilometer from here at the base of these mountains. >> across the world, people watching this broadcast are celebrating. how do you feel? [ cheering ] >> the insurgents have finally amassed there are attacks inside. >> fire! >> come on, hustle up! grab it and get ready! ooh! >> these are locals here who are handing out whatever they have and you can see the children of families running to collect international aid organizations are trying to take a more

organized approach. ♪ ♪ >> it's really want a matter of if, but probably when when it comes to north korea. >> we have little aziza. she's not happy because she says her father got left behind. [ shots fired ] >> they're opening fire on targets below. they're protecting the helicopter, but it's terrifyingly intense. they are traumatized after a week trapped on the mountain. the problem is we're flying over isis front lines. this is the only protection we have right now, the aircraft and its precious cargo. >> all of a sudden this area filled with smoke. there is concern there may be another bomb or another attack bombing. they've asked the lights to be turned off. they don't want to be a target

themselves. >> they're not welcome onshore. the coast guard -- >> how many hours have you been on the boat? >> since early in the morning? >> do you know how to swim? >> no one does. we've been waiting the last few hours just to receive word as to whether the auction has started. i'm speechless. i don't know how to put this into words. there were human beings auctioning off other human beings. >> trapped, vehicle, wreckage everywhere. ♪ ♪ >> even to think of having set foot in some parts of puerto rico, this woman doesn't know who the first person is she's seen since hurricane maria hit

the island. >> cnn and cnn international are not sponsored by any state nor any autocrat nor any political organization and despite the constant criticism from the president, we are unwavering in our mission. free and independenta the press should be. let's bring in our cnn diplomatic analyst. what do you hear the criticism leveled by the president of the united states. >> it angers me. i stood at podium in the pentagon and i was in the navy for 30 years. i can tell you is not only is cnn's reporting and cnni's reporting is incredibly courageous and accurate and brings to life issues as we saw in that compilation and that coverage helps to drive, as it should, policy decisions. for instance, when cnn was reporting on the kobani fighting

in september 2014 your cameras were right up close and you can see the shots being fired back and forth. that helped the military make different decisions about how to defend there. they helped drive policy decisions and helped prid more impetus to the negotiations we were engaged in with secretary kerry and foreign minister lavrov. it has an impact on policy as it should. >> when the president of the united states brands the american news media, cnn and other tv networks as fake news, what's the impact of that around the world especially in countries where there is no press. >> look at the tweet out of egypt and they parroted the language of cnn and fake news. when autocrats like erdogan and al sisi, it just makes it that much easier for them to crack down on international free press reporting in their own country.

he's encouraging this and he's, in my view, putting these reporters' lives literally in danger by doing it. >> yeah. it's a serious, serious problem. john kirby, thanks for what you have done and continuing to do for our viewers. appreciate it very much. that's it for me. thanks for watching and i'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." "newsroom" with kate bolduan starts now. this is cnn breaking news. all right. here we go. breaking news on this monday afternoon. i'm brooke bolduan. you're watching cnn. thank you so much for being with me. first just a head's up, we are waiting for the first white house press briefing in a week on capitol hill with a critical time crunch. the president promised historic tax reform by christmas, but first, the democratic senator from minnesota al franken stepping behind a couple of microphones and publicly apologizing moments ago after several women have now