any time, anywhere. go to cnn go, as always. see you back here tomorrow night. "ac 360" with anderson cooper begins right now. good evening. we begin tonight keeping them honest with something we have not seen very often with this president, an opportunity to watch him make a speech or sign a bill. this afternoon, president trump let the cameras stay for a bipartisan meeting at the white house on immigration. it was carely staged managed, no doubt about it. it was showing the president work and command on complicated issues and has potential and obvious pitfalls but it was done to counter the narrative that this is a president working and not a president cooped up in his residence and tweeting. at the same time, for nearly an hour, what must be said was pretty gripping television. viewers, as well as the lawmakers, also saw some of the

president's characteristics, his fogginess on policy details and his eagerness during face-to-face moments to be liked. we also got to watch someone who builds himself as a master deal maker do what he says he does best and it really matters on march 5th, a program called daca he c expires. the president has been trying to make funding for the border wall a condition of making daca, including 10,000 more i.c.e. acts and ending chain migration and a crackdown on sat sanctuara cities. >> my position is what the people in this room come up with. if they come to me i'm going to do it.

because i respect them. >> and tweeting that, quote, nothing michael wolff has hurt him as much as the daca lovefest. that depended on who he was talking to. for instance, at one moment in the meeting, the president seemed only willing to work with daca with no strings attached at all. >> what about a clean daca bill now and with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure like we did back when kennedy was here and it was really a major, major effort and it was a great disappointment that it went nowhere? >> i have no problem -- i think that's basically what dick is saying. we're going to come up with daca. we're going to do daca and then we can start immediately on phase two, which would be

comprehensive -- >> go ahead. >> i think a lot of people would like to see that. but i think we have to do daca first. >> all right. so there he's saying do daca first, the president agreeing, by the sound of it, to a bill that none of the other stuff the white house has been pushing for for mornnths and then agreeing comprehensive immigration form on top of that. but maybe not. listen to what happens when kevin mccarthy chimes in. >> mr. president, you need to be clear, though. i think what senator feinstein is asking here, when we talk about daca, you have to have security, as the secretary would tell you. >> so the president began agreeing with him as well. >> it's kind of like three pillars. daca, because we're all in the room want to do it, border security, so we're not back out here, and chain migration. it's just three items and then

everything else that is comprehensive has moved to the side. so i believe when -- >> and the lottery. >> if you can end merit basis. >> i don't know who is going to argue with merit based. >> so in the space of two minutes, he seemed to flip back. >> i think what we're all saying is we'll do daca and we can certainly start comprehensive immigration reform the following afternoon. we'll take an hour off and then we'll start. >> the president remembers some of the hard line measures and talking to democrat dianne feinstein, it's dreamers first and then what he calls comprehensive immigration reform. curiously absent from today's meeting, not a word about this. >> we are going to build a great border wall! and who's going to pay for the

wall? >> mexico! >> who's going to pay for the wall? >> mexico! >> who? >> mexico! >> it's going to be a great wall. mexico is going to pay for the wall. mexico is going to pay for the wall. mexico will pay for the wall. and mexico's going to pay for the wall and they understand that. mexico is going to pay for the wall, believe me, 100%. >> again, nothing at the meeting about mexico paying for the wall. however, on that note, the president did tweet about the wall. jim acosta joins us. any mention of who pays for it in that tweet? >> there's no mention of mexico paying for the wall in that tweet. of course, the president has not said since he's been in office, neither has his administration said anything about how they are going to force mexico to pay for a wall on the border. although the white house press secretary said he still believes that mexico will pay for the wall. putting that all aside, we should show this tweet. it offers some clarity, anderson, to what you were just talking about a few moments ago,

which is that the president was sort of all over the place at this meeting. the president tweeting in just the last several minutes, "as i made very clear today, our country needs the security of the wall on the southern border which must be part of daca. we asked that all day, get it off the table so we don't have 700, 800,000 kids brought to this country through no fault of their own and see them being deported on the evening news and deal with this wall discussion later. the president is now saying very clearly tonight in that tweet that that is not the case. he wants this wall. listen to this exchange i had with sarah sanders, the white house press secretary, earlier today as i was trying to drill down on that point. >> reporter: part of a deal in order for these dreamers to have protection? >> border security does have to be part of this process. >> i absolutely do because the

safety of the country are the president's number one responsibility and his number one priority of when it comes to anything that he does. so absolutely. >> i don't understand how the wall can be different than border security. it could be agents, more fencing. it doesn't necessarily mean a physical wall. >> and that's part of the negotiation that we expect congress to have. >> you're saying that democrats may not be in favor of this kind of deal? >> if democrats are in favor of protecting american citizens, then i think we've hit a sad day in american history but i don't believe that to be the case because as they sat around that table when several of you were in the room, they are committed to border security. they do want it and most of them have voted for it previously before this legislation hit the floor. so anything different is just -- >> if they say thanks but no thanks for a wall -- >> i'm not negotiating with you. i'm going to let congress take care of that. >> reporter: okay, anderson. you had that exchange and heard sar sarah sanders using border

security and why she did not want to say that the president must have a wall. that's why that tweet is so important. i did talk to a senior white house official a few moments ago who said that this wall has to be part of a daca deal. it has to be part of phase one of this immigration two step that they want to do over the next several months. these dreamers are running out of time. the deadline for them to have this protection expires or begins to expire on march 5th. after that point, they could be deported or they could start to be deported in waves. and i talked to a seen krer democratic aide earlier who said this detail matters a whole lot. they don't think the president wants a wall from sea to shining sea, but if he wants a physical wall like we've all heard about during the course of the campaign, quote, that is ridiculous and they're not going to go for that and i think at the end of the day it will come down to, will democrats vote for a wall on the border and i don't know if they're there yet, anderson. >> the president talked about

comprehensive immigration reform. i'm not clear he's using that phrase in the way that it is normally used because that's usually talking about a pathway to citizenship or trying to resolve what is going to happen to the 11 million people undocumented here. >> reporter: that's right. this has been a very complicated issue for the last 12 years and whether you allow the 11 to 12 million people and you can do daca first and border security first and deal with the other issues like a pathway to citizenship. but anderson, the breitbart is amnesty and runs completely counter. we had those rallies every night on your show. runs completely counter to the campaign that the president ran for a year and a half. >> jim acosta, thank you. fascinating. for more about how the president thinks and operates, we're joined by gloria borger, maggie

haberman. how do you look at why the white house allowed us to watch this t? >> i think the why the white house allowed us to watch it is it was aimed at quelling these questions about not the president's mental illness but whether he's intelligent. that's one of the themes that ran through the michael wolff's book. the president is very defensive about his intelligence as we've seen over the last three years or so. what you saw in terms of the four different answers that he gave at various points is what we saw throughout the came pain. he has vague, loose ideas. he can be per situated by who he last talked to and takes two different positions in conflict with each other in the same sentence. you don't normally see it play out like this in realtime. the white house has done a lot to shield people from seeing what we saw today over the

course of the last year. so it was really striking watching this happen. what ends up happening is that the president says these different things and sometimes people pick one and say, look, that's what he said. at the end of the day, to your point, he often says comprehensive immigration. he doesn't mean it the way we are used to people meaning that term. he means something else entirely. he doesn't totally understand the connotation. the hardliners in his administration have asked him to stop using it over and over again. he still uses it. i don't think you could say any more now than you could this morning about what exactly he wants. >> gloria, it was just fascinating, to dianne feinstein he says one thing and kevin mccarthy completely different and goes back to what he said to dianne feinstein. >> right. and you could see kevin mccarthy trying to set the record straight and help the president out. here's our three things, we want daca, border security, we want to get rid of chain migration

and on and on. the president is sitting there nodding. i think what we saw today was much more about pictures than words because they wanted to sourt of counter the narrative of the president's empty schedule, which was written about. they want to counter the michael wolff narrative and show him as somebody in charge. the president wanted to show himself as somebody in charge. and what we saw there was a president who wasn't the master negotiator who said, look, guys, whatever you give me, i'm willing to sign it. and it was quite different than somebody who said this has to be in the bill, this doesn't have to be in the bill. and i spoke with a senior white house adviser late this afternoon whose phone was blowing up by conservatives were who believing that the president had kind of sold them out on these key issues. >> maggie, that was the other fascinating moment that gloria alluded to. anything you come up with in

this room, i'll agree with because i'll respect you all. if he's the master negotiator, i don't know if it's a negotiating technique or -- it does just sound like throwing it up. >> it's outsourcing policy from his administration which they have resisted when we have all written it. what i found strange about this event and the fact of it is that a number of people who helped set this event up had to have known -- i understand they were placating him and making him feel better about -- to gloria's point, these were set pieces and this was about changing the narrative on television in large measures and pictures above the fold of him in the cabinet room. but it's very hard to spend a year telling people, no, he's not outsourcing policy, he's very interested in the details, he really doesn't understand this and then present this. as we have seen with trump over three years now, you constantly get this, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes and watch the tape. i would urge everybody to watch that entire meeting all the way

through. to your point, anderson, yes, at the end of the day, i think that was the most sincere point that he made and the one that will be the most troubling to his base, which is just do whatever and i'll put my name on it. >> anderson, it wasn't that long ago -- it was during the campaign -- that then candidate trump rode jeb bush for calling him immigration an act of love and then today at this meeting he called daca a bill of love and so -- >> great point. >> -- you could see republicans rolling their eyes all across the country saying, what is going on here? who is this man? again, it gets back to maggie's point and your point which i think is that this is a person who likes to tell people what they want to hear, which is why republicans go crazy when he's in a room with democrats. >> yeah. >> because he tells them what they want to hear and i think he wanted to tell the public, i'm in charge and i'm really a good guy. >> right, which is why he

tweeted out now, as i said very clearly -- which is not what he said. >> not so clearly. >> gloria, thank you so much. jorge ramos will join us soon. the president's claim that democrats are the ones who collaborated with russia. and later, high-level departures from the white house. touch is how we communicate with those we love, but when your psoriasis is bad, does it ever get in the way? embrace the chance of 100% clear skin with taltz. taltz is proven to help people with moderate to severe psoriasis achieve completely clear skin. with taltz, up to 90% of patients had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. in fact, 4 out of 10 even achieved completely clear skin. don't use if you're allergic to taltz.

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dianne feinstein in her position on the senate judiciary committee took action that angered some of her republican colleagues and the russia probe is breaking news. what she did was release against the wishes of community chairman chuck grassley the transcript of glenn simpson's testimony. he's co-founder of fusion gps which was hired to do opposition research on candidate trump. as part of that effort, simpson brought in christopher steel who compiled that dossier which is a bunch of memos on citizen trump and russia. now, we're not reporting on any of the more salacious aspects of that dossier. we've also reported on claims by the president and his supporters that the dossier was concocted by democrats and russia to damage candidate trump.

>> didn't she spend 12.4 million on a dossier that was a total phony? i think it's very sad what they've done with this fake dossier. it's a very sad commentary on politics in this country. >> when you look at that horrible dossier, which is a total phony, fake deal, when you take a look at that and the kind of money we're talking about, it is a disgrace. >> now, little of that made sense even before this came out, the notion that russia, which u.s. intelligence committee had concluded was working to defeat hillary clinton, was also helping her in the form of dirt on her opponent which the democrats persuaded fusion a. christopher steele, a highly regarded intelligence professional uncovered things that freaked him out. heather sawyer, democratic

counsel for the committee -- after steele found out what he put in these memos, he approached you about taking this information to specifically the fbi. simpson responded, that's my recollection. and sawyer said, that request or idea came from mr. steele and not anyone else? simpson said, that's right. if that testimony is to be believed, the claim that the clinton campaign prompted steele or fusion gps to go to the fbi doesn't necessarily stand up. we also should point out here that despite a lot of misinformation by republican lawmakers, the dossier did not solely spark the investigation at all. according to "the new york times," one key factor, among others, was a trump adviser getting drunk. as for steele's motivation, here's what simpson said the committee. chris was concerned whether this represented a national security threat and said he wanted to. he said he thought we were obligated to tell someone in the

government about this information. there was a security issue about whether a presidential candidate was being blackmailed. more on all of this by jim sciutto who joins us now. what are you learning about this concern that candidate trump -- concern by steele may have been blackmailed? >> anderson, as you laid out there, the trump line, the gop line on the dossier has been that this was a purely political document drummed up by democrats, pursued by democrats, two political ends with no credibility. if you look at simpson's testimony, which is sworn testimony, when you're testifying on the hill you hear a very different story of this. this christopher steele, a former member of mi-6, who gathered this information and was concerned himself enough to go of his own volition to the fbi in june 2016 because he believed there was a national security threat here, the possibility of a presidential

candidate being blackmailed. and in addition to that, when he met with the fbi in september 2016, he was told that, in fact, the fbi had other intelligence in a similar vain, which we now know, as you referenced, anderson, this meeting with george papadopoulos, who told the australian ambassador, that he knew that russia had dirt on hillary clinton. so now you have two individuals there. one, a british former spy and an australian diplomat who felt compelled to go to the fbi because they thought this information was dangerous, important enough and i might remind or point out that when donald trump jr. went to the trump tower meeting in june 2016, none of them went to the fbi. >> jim, i understand during simpson's testimony, one of his attorneys actually said a person had died as a result of the publication of this dossier. do you know what he meant? >> that's right. let me quote specifically. this is how simpson related the story. he says that simpson wants to be very careful to protect his sources. i should say simpson's lawyer.

somebody has already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier. no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work. now, we've learned that in that comment he was not referring to one particular person that he knew was killed because of the dossier. we have talked about this, anderson. nine or ten russian officials in positions have died in recent months since the publication of this dossier, since it was made public and there have been a lot of questions about why that was. some of them connected to this dossier. so he was referring to that, making a supposition that people might have died as a result of this, based on our own reporting it's not clear that he had any hard information that one tech person was killed as a result of this. >> jim sciutto, thanks. with all of that as a backdrop, we're joined by republican john kennedy of louisiana. senator, thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. some of your republican colleagues have said that the dossier was solely a creation of hillary clinton and the democrats. do you acknowledge, based on

this testimony by simpson, that fusion received its backing from a republican billionaire? >> well, let me say first, the substance of this, anderson, bothers me less than the process. >> how so? >> well, it doesn't bother me that the american people are presented the facts of the testimony. i had not seen the testimony before this. i'm not happy with the process. if i had been the senior senator from california, i would have asked to have the whole judiciary committee come together in an executive session and say here's why i want to release this document. what does everybody think? but having said that, i've not read the full transcript. >> do you think it should have been released? >> it doesn't bother me. >> it's not the standard protocol to release it which i

understand some senators. >> it doesn't bother me for the american people to hear the alleged facts. i don't think it's going to change the trajectory of western civil zags. i also don't know mr. simpson and i don't know mr. steele. they may be perfectly credible. they also may be a couple of whack jobs. i don't know. >> right. >> i'm going to depend on the fbi and the department of justice to sort all of this out. i think eventually they will and once they do, i hope they will make an exception to their normal procedure and actually report the facts that they have found to the american people. >> does it impress you at all -- and again, you said few people know steele directly or simpson directly. according to simpson's testimony, steele went to the fbi on his own volition out of concern that candidate trump may have been blackmailed. does that impress you about

steele at all and do you think it undercuts any of the narrative that steele's motivations were just political in nature? >> well, i don't know if it's true. i'm not saying it's not. mr. simpson may be telling the truth. he also may be trying to cover his own rearend. i just don't know. he has an opinion here. i don't know -- >> he's testifying under oath here. >> i understand. people have been known to lie under oath around here as well. as we both know. this is just -- >> so are you saying you don't believe him or you just don't know? >> i have no idea of knowing. he may be perfectly credible or he may be a whack job. i'm depending on the justice department and the fbi and mr. mueller to get to the bottom of this. and i think if we all let them do their job, they will eventually. i hope they do it -- i'd like to see them do it sooner rather than later. i don't want to have a big fight with my colleagues like a bunch

of kids in the back of a minivan over something that's already been done. the transcript is out there and i don't think -- i think the sun will come up tomorrow. >> let me ask you, senator coons, your democratic colleague, told our manu raju that the ree lease of the transcript shows that the investigation has become a bypass and the bipartisanship is over for that panel. do you agree with that assertion? that's a serious and kind of depressing assertion. >> no, i don't agree with that and i like my colleague and i don't know what the basis for him saying that is. most of this stuff has gone on between the chairman and ranking member, both of whom i have extraordinary respect for. they each have one vote. i have the same thing, one vote. i would have preferred if senator feinstein had called the committee together and said, hey, here's what i'm going to do. i want you to know about it. here's what's in the documents i'm releasing, what do you

think. i would have extended her that courtesy. she didn't. it's done. you know, it's not the end of the world. that's my attitude. >> senator, i appreciate your time. thank you very much. >> you bet, anderson. ahead, talk about steve bannon, remember him, president trump's key political adviser who is going to lead a revolution once he left the white house? that's next. ♪

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well, in the falls from grace, this is pretty near the top. steve bannon is now out at breitbart, the very conservative website he helped catapult to

fame. bannon fiercely battled mitch mcconnell and the republican establishment and the man who president trump had said, quote, lost his mind after being quoted liberally in michael wolff's book, "fire and fury." joshua green wrote "the devil's bargain" and he joins us now. josh, how much of this is as a direct result of the fallout from wolff's book? the spin from the bannon camp is because he wants to focus on politics. >> yeah, i think the wolff book was the straw that broke the camel's back. this has been in the works to split up for a long time and in the earliest weeks of the administration, when things started going off the rails after the travel bannon, bannon took a lot of blame for that and made him a lot of enemies in the white house. he talked to me at great length for my book and michael wolff

for his book. what really bothered the president was the public perception that bannon was the true architect of trumpism and of the campaign victory, which he was, incidentally, but not trump himself. i think trump finally got tired of it and then when you had the comments about treason, the meeting between don junior and the russians that bannon talked to wolff about, that pushed to it to a level that people realized collectively that bannon was doing more harm than good. >> you know, it's interesting. bannon people are saying he wants to focus on politics and that's why he's moving away from breitbart. that doesn't make much sense. without the platform of breitbart, how is bannon going to get his message out and behind you or underneath you is a huge advantage. >> anderson, i was doing some reporting right before we came on the air talking to people around bannon and breitbart and as recently as a couple of

hoursihours o ago, he thought he was going to be hosting his show on xirius and when he remove the platform of breitbart news and his national radio show, he no longer has any kind of an outlet to spread his message or exert an influence. bannon's plan over the next couple of days had been to issue this statement and trying to get back into trump's good graces but to go out and kind of build this movement, give public speeches. i know that as recently as two days ago he was meeting with donors. so somehow or other it came today and came swiftly. >> just in terms of his relationship with the president, the white house says that there's no way to get back into the president's good graces. do you believe that? is the relationship fully severed? >> well, you know, trump is famous for firing people and then circling around and still talking to them. he did it with core lewandowski,

his first campaign manager and then steve bannon when he left in august. however, none of those guys have been buried to the degree that bannon has been buried, not just by trump but by the merscer family. he's now been kicked out of breitbart news which he did probably more than anybody else to kind of lift up into the right-wing power that it became in the election. so he's pretty far down in a hole. it's really hard to see how he would maneuver his way back, you know, into trump's good graces unless trump were to run into some kind of a serious problem or he felt like the need to reconnect with the base that was necessary and bannon could help him there. but without these platforms, it's not clear that bannon himself is going to have anything like the influence that he once did. >> yeah, the turnaround boggles the mind. josh green, thank you. appreciate it. which key staffers in the white house could soon be

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more breaking news tonight. the possibility of white house departure, a source saying that aides have been told they will decide whether they intend to stay or go. . who may be potentially on the way out? >> anderson, there's a sense here that there's about to be a big, if not shakeup, certainly turnover before this second year

begins and two senior officials of all those mentioned here are two people potentially being mentioned as names, don mcgahn, the white house general counsel. he's at the center of the russia investigation, how the president has handled it and judicial nominations. we do not know if he's going to actually depart but he's certainly a name being mentioned here. he's been at odds with the president on some matters so he is being mentioned as a possible name. h.r. mcmaster, the national security adviser, someone else, we are told, who is being considered in discussions for potentially moving on. of course, he's a three-star army general. like most three stars, he'd like to end his career with a fourth star. so that is potentially something that could happen. beyond that, anderson, the rank and file, national security council members, a lot of senior officials that we talk about so much will decide in the coming

days if they'll take their leave or not. john kelly wants it answered by the end of the month or sooner. >> often in white houses you here in the first year people are switching. >> reporter: it's not uncommon but more than we've seen before. i remember the first year of the obama administration, the first year of the bush administration, i covered both of those white houses and it definitely is more turnover than that. anderson, even more than that, there's not a bench that is it waing outside of this white house, a republican bench to come in and fill those positions. several people don't want to endure the legal consequences potentially, the legal costs poe tngsly. so the turnover is somewhat common but more than we've seen in previous years but the big deal here is there's not a bench the president can turn to to hire at least talented people in some of these top spots. >> what about bannon's role? are they looking for a replacement? >> reporter: he was a chief strategist. that's a center player in the

midterm election campaign. i'm told the white house is looking for if not a bannon replacement, a strategist to pull together the policy and politics. that's something that the white house is looking for. we'll see who they can find to fill his shoes. >> jeff zeleny, thanks. for the next few weeks, my buddy chris cuomo is taking over at 9:00. >> we have former white house communications director anthony scaramucci. we just got lucky there. what a perfect guest to talk about steve bannon being out at breitbart in almost this spell breaking we saw. once bannon was out, you saw a totally different trump on an issue that was such a signature issue for him and bannon. so we have this special to take a look at where things stand now at the end of the year. you picked the perfect night to start, my friend. and i have to say, i'm usually getting ready to go to sleep right now. i watch your clips in the morning. your show is amazing live. it's even better live. >> all right, chris.

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well, back to our breaking news on immigration reform. president trump tweeting, "as i made very clear today, our country needs security on the southern border which must be part of any daca approval." he didn't say that today in the immigration debate today at the white house. jorge, based on what the president said today, are you clear on where he stands on daca right now? >> no, i don't. i don't know exactly what the president wants. at some point he said he wanted the dream act and then he saided he wanted comprehensive immigration reforms. that means legalizing the same 11 million people he wanted to deport during the campaign.

i don't know exactly what president trump wants. what i know for sure is that i cannot trust president trump when it comes to immigration. i cannot understand how come the same person who ended daca, hurting 800,000 dreamers, now says that he wants to legalize, the same person when the tps, a program that protects people from el salvador, haiti and nicaragua, the same person who did that now says he wants to legalize 11 million? i don't understand exactly what he wants. the only thing he's made clear is that he wants a wall which is completely useless. >> when he talks about the daca as a bill of law, you just don't buy that? >> i don't trust president trump. a little history lesson here. the president who established daca was barack obama in 2012. the president who ended daca in september 2017 is donald trump. that's what happened.

those are the facts. now, it is very hard for me to understand that the same person who ended daca now says he wants to help the dreamers. i don't buy that. i hope i'm surprised at the end, anderson, but at this point i don't trust president trump >> i simon this miscommunication doesn't surprise you at all? >> yeah because i heard from the meeting, which was remarkable. it was fact just to listen to what they were saying and discussing all these important issues. and they're important issues, daca is important. what they call chain immigration, those are words from president trump saying he doesn't want more immigrants from latina america and asia. i think those are important issues. president trump doesn't have i

credibility with immigration at this point. >> after the meeting the white house clarified what they say the first faces would include. the visa lottery and daca. is it realistic they will be able to come to an agreement in time for the march daca deadline? >> i don't think so. i think it's a myth when we say that the border is more insecure. that is not true. there's no invasion coming from mexico. undocumented population has remained stable for the last decade. mexico won't pay for the wall. look, republicans control the white house. they control congress. if they really, really want the d.r.e.a.m. act and approve daca, they can do it tomorrow. they have the votes to do it tomorrow, and they're not doing it. i don't think they have time to do that. if the president wants to wall for the d.r.e.a.m. act, well, they can negotiate that.

look, there's already 700 miles of wall between mexico and the united states. but it's a completely useless wall as we discussed in the past. thousands of immigrants come by plane or with a visa. if he says he's a genius and really intelligent and he wants to waste a billion dollars, let him waste that money, but let's just approve daca. >> congressmthis is obviously d than what he was saying on the campaign trail if that's true. >> and the fact that the wall won't stop immigrants most of the drugs comes from ports of entry and through tunnels. as long as you have about 25 million americans who use illegal drugs in the united states, they're going to keep on coming. a wall won't stop that. that's not a genius decision.

it's not something that is a smart person would say, but if he wants a wall, let him have the wall. it's not going to stop anything from coming to the united states. coming up, something to make you smile and inspiration if you've been dealing with bitter cold. the ridiculist is next. when heartburn hits... fight back fast with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue... and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum tum tum tum... smoothies... only from tums and my brother ray and i started searching for answers. (vo) when it's time to navigate in-home care, follow that bright star. because brightstar care earns the same accreditation as the best hospitals. and brightstar care means an rn will customize a plan that evolves with mom's changing needs. (woman) because dad made us promise trils trils rims rilts we'd keep mom at home. (vo) call 844-4-brightstar for your free home care planning guide.

it's been so cold in many part of the country, we want to talk about the south. take a look at south carolina. this is an alligator snout sticking out of the ice. they're perfectly fine, actually. >> i mean, these guys are die-hard, just amazing survivors. and this is just one more example of that. >> the alligators are broom mating, like hibernating but for reptiles in cold weather. it's not just the alligators that are adapting to the cold in ways that are cool and terrifying. in florida it has been range frozen iguanas. >> they'll end up in parking lots and a lot of areas where

they're cold stunned. >> it's the republican style keeper of the palm county zero. >> if it's just for a day or two, they will get to where they're completely frozen in time. they're still able to breathe and do bodily functions, just very slow. >> so once it gets above 50 degrees, the frozen ones begin to activity. there is a way for humans to help. >> put them over to the size if you feel comfortable to put them in the sun or off the road so you're not running them over. >> it's good advice. there's one advantage to a temporarily frozen iguana, namely, it can't climb into your toilet. >> it's freaking huge. >> that is a lizard, right? >> if you drop this thing --

>> we had to cut out some cursing to show that video. >> i don't want him anywhere near me. i don't like lifzards. >> much like thawed iguanas, this is a temporary situation. and there was a happy ending. >> as for the iguana, this is him. justin said he would keep him. >> his name is flushy. >> flushy, yeah. i think the point is there's always hope for the most cold blooded among us. >> this week looks much better, buddy. it will be in the 60s. you'll be out in the sun, suntanning, and enjoying life. >> as shelly asked, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?

see you later, goorlt, on the "ridicu-list." that's a for us. time to hand it over to andrew cuomo. andrew cuomo primetime starts now. >> i'm andrew cuomo. we have the perfect guest to talk about the big steve bannon news, anthony scaramucci is here. welcome to primeti"to primetime. >> thank you for joining us for this cnn special program. we're going to take the next few weeks at the start of the year to see where things stand on the important issues. and, boy, did we pick the right day to start. smu anthony scaramucci is here. we'll be one on one in a few minutes on a day where everything has changed. steve bannon out at breitbart, and with word of that, it was like a spell was broken. president trump called for comprehensive immigration reform and a bill of