to say kensington? i don't know. but the point is i'm suddenly popular a.f.! and a lot of people are saying, man, i wish george w. bush was still our president right about now. so i just wanted to address my fellow americans tonight and remind you guys that i was really bad. ♪ tuesday night will be interesting because it will be the state of the union. i wonder who is going to show up? is it going to be the goldman sachs scripted trump or is it going to be the bloom and doom and carnage trump? >> everybody wants to solve the daca problem. they have been wanting to solve it for a long time. >> there is a path forward on this. we can do this in a bipartisan way. >> obviously, what happens in vegas is not staying in vegas. if the allegations are true,

then, yes, i think you would have to be -- contributions would have to be refunded. if the president were to fire robert mueller, that would set off a political firestorm the likes of which we haven't seen since watergate. ♪ >> it's 7:00 on a sunday. so grateful for your company. i'm christi paul. >> i'm martin savidge in for victor blackwell. two days now. two days before president trump is going to deliver his first state of the union address in what could be one of the biggest moments of his presidency at the end of the day. a lot of people wondering is going to play politics or try to bridge this divide in our country? >> at the fror front of his speech is immigration. the president is set to sell his controversial plan that has lawmakers on both sides of the aisle skeptical to say the least. trump foreshadowed what he could say in his speech blasting democrats on twitter overnight over daca and border security. >> the white house is still

silent this morning on a sex scandal surrounding a top republican party official. steve wynn has stepped now do you as the finance chair of the republican national committee amitt reports that he forced dozens of women to perform sex acts on him at his casino. >> we are learning new details about the bipartisan effort to stop the president from firing special counselor bob mueller in the midst of the russia investigation. let's start with president trump's anticipated state of the union address. cnn politics reporter dan merica joining us now. i know the president is calling out democrats ahead of this speech. walk us through what has been said thus far. >> the president, we are told, is really going to put on his salesman and chief hat on tuesday night and try to sell this unpopular immigration plan. the white house rolled it out last week. they managed to upset both democrats and republicans. you remember the plan would include a path waway for

citizenship for 1.8 million and include funding for the border wall and immigration laws across the board really. democrats say they will be giving up too much to protect the daca population. republicans are saying you're giving way too many people a pathway to citizenship. plenty of presidents in the past have used their state of the union to reach across the aisle to spoke, not just to their base, but a broader american population and president trump is going to try and do that. the tweets that he sent last night on immigration don't really seem to lend itself to that possibility. he said, i want to read to you. if that is his message on tuesday night, democrats are going to be left kind of confused as to how he expects

them to get on board with an immigration plan where he will need democratic support when he is going to slam them on twitter just days before. >> so i want to talk real quickly before we let you go about the finance chair for the republican national committee steve wynn. again, forced to step down in the wake of the reports he forced dozens of women -- himself on dozens of women, i guess i should say. a lot of people waiting to hear from the white house. any indication that they will address this publicly? >> reporter: the reality is they are going to have to. at some point, the white house has to come out and acknowledge the fact that a personal friend of president trump's is under these accusations and this is somebody who president trump was a long time rival of but then he hand-picked steve wynn to lead the finance operation at the rnc. the rnc chairwoman did release a statement basically saying i accepted his resignation. nothing more. president trump has not weighed in. we are told he was kept apprised of the developments in this

story but you are exactly right. a lot of people are waiting to hear what the white house has to say and they are going to have to, at some point, weigh in on this matter. >> i wonder if it will be before or after tuesday's speech. so good to see you, dan. thank you. >> great to see you. that sets up a pretty good discussion. joining me is sirag who is a writer for "the washington examiner." and sarah westwood. thank you both for being here. the president has been hard to pin down when it comes to where he stands on immigration but the white house says it plans to raef its immigration plan tomorrow, both hard line conservatives and liberals have balked at that plan, at least from what we know of it so far. so what does the president need to say to get both of these groups on board? >> right now, there is actually nothing that president can say, except that if he were to change the numbers of the number of undocumented immigrants that he would give a pathway to

citizenship to. right now 1.8 million undocumented immigrants are far too high for many of his base, as well as congressional republicans. you're looking at, obviously, a limitation to -- migration and that would end entirely. then $25 billion for the border wall is something that is actually probably a good thing for them. but if you're looking in this in terms of sports, donald trump winning the election is akin to going to the super bowl and with sarah westwood being from georgia, this is akin to the atlanta falcons basically giving up 25 points to the new england patriots and fumbling this opportunity, because immigration for them is a super bowl, stanley, world series, all wrapped into one. >> you really have played to a home crowd there. all right. sarah, you know, white officials when we talk about the state of the union which is coming up tuesday, i can think of no more traditional presidential event than a state of the union and,

yet, we are dealing with a president who prides itself at not being traditional. so should we expect that this speech that he will deliver, is it going to be significantly different from, say, his inaugural speech or do you think the inspiring uniting speech that many would like to hear? >> if you ask the white house, they say this is the kind of speech that president trump delivered in his joint address to congress last year where he earned bipartisan accolades and came at a time there was a lot of jitters about what kind of president trump would be and, at the time, he sort of assured people that he did have a second gear, that he could turn off the bluster and express the kind of speech that you might expect any other republican president to give. that is what we are likely to see on tuesday. president trump is not likely to attack democrats in the speech. he is not likely to go off script and make the kind of errant comments that sometimes get him into trouble at rallies. this is the kind of disciplined

trump that we saw last weekend in davos and the kind of trump we are likely to see on tuesday in the chamber. >> i think many people will tune in to see which trump shows up. often what we measure after a speech is approval ratings and if you look at the previous three presidents before and after their first inaugural addresses and we can do that for you, president obama, 2010 he saw no change in his approval rating and president bush in 2002 saw his approval rating drop by two points and president clinton in 1994 saw his approval rating tick up four points. does the state of the union speech, i should say, matter generally or in this new age of trump, does it really not make any difference? >> right now, we kind of get a state of the union address from president trump almost every day through his twitter feed. so the state of the union has sort of lost its luster the last few years even under president obama. these type of addresses, they really don't map out what the

policy agendas are for each president because we already know what president trump's agenda is. it's to really focus on immigration and also to focus on trade. those are the two main agendas that he is put in place this year. right now, when it comes to the state of the union, i would have to agree with sarah in terms of, you know, not really attacking democrats but really focus on staying on staying on mechs because it's really worked for him. in davos he was a rock star there and not many people seemed to think would actually happen that he would come away looking really good and that is coming from a lot of his dough tractors and he looked much better than people think concerning the world economic forum is for the top 0.1% and it's filled with globalists. >> no question at times president trump can deliver a speech and talk about something and come across in way that does surprise, especially his

detractors. the next day or two he comes out with something, like there he s he is back. i'm wondering. the president has historically low approval ratings and do you think, sarah, that he might be able to broaden his appeal perhaps with this speech and what he lays out? >> that entirely possible. that is the sort of results we saw from the bipartisan address to congress last year. president trump really has nowhere to go but up with a speech like this. a lot of times many americans view president trump through the lens of late night comedy shows and cable news coverage. this is his opportunity to speak to the american people would more than an hour without the filter of commentary that doesn't skew in his favor. for president trump this is an opportunity to show a different side of himself to people and lay out in a more clear way for lawmakers in washington who see him every day without that filter, what his priorities will be because even though we know

maybe what his positions are on any given issue, we don't necessarily know what specific policies the white house is going to champion over the next year. with they going to focus more on infrastructure, the opioid crisis? are they really going to encourage congress to bring back earmarks? this is the kind of the questions that a state of the union address can answer. >> siraj do you think the president will confront the russia investigation that looms over him? >> he said he is willing to testify or at least speak to robert mueller under oath. i know his legal team is probably setting their hair on fire considering the fact it is a horrible idea, knowing that president trump can say -- >> in the state of the union, do you expect him to address it? >> no, i don't think he'll address it in the state of the union. that will give legitimacy to the probe and i don't think he wants to do that at all. >> siraj and sarah, good to see you both and thank you. marco rube jo said he immediately fired his chief of

staff what he calls improper relations with a subordinate. the senator did not name anyone in his statement but the chief of staff is identified as clint reed. they say reed engaged with improper conduct and threatened to hold payments from the subord suborder --nate. there are now, we know some more details about a couple of the proposals that are floated out there that trump try to fire special counsel robert mueller. should we expect the administration to weigh in on steve wynn stepping down from the rnc finance chair. jay-z is getting political and personal too. why he says reaction to president trump's remarks about african countries is an expression of pain that has been

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you want to protect it. at legalzoom, our network of attorneys can help you every step of the way. with an estate plan including wills or a living trust that grows along with you and your family. legalzoom. where life meets legal. there are now two bipartisan bills in the senate that aim to protect special counsel robert mueller by reining in the president's power to fire him. let's talk about the one bill. the other would require the attorney general to first get approval from the three-judge panel before the special counsel could be fired. so let's talk about it with an opinion columnist at the hill. good to have you both here. jack, first of all, it sounds like either of these options would make it impossible for the president on his own to fire a special counsel. would you vote for something

like this? >> no. it's stupid. there is a constitutional remedy for this and it's called impeachment. these are political billsh. they are talking points and the democrats do not have an agenda and they have to stir up the russian thing and keep it alive with all of these threats. >> there are two republican senators. we have got -- yeah, tom tillis and lindsey graham. there are republicans beyond this. >> they will not see the light of day. i was there when we let the special prosecutor law lapse in 1999 about a ten-year law. the reason why is special prosecutors and special counsels are run-away trains and have unlimited budgets and don't quit until they have nailed somebody, case in point, would be the valerie plame prosecutor where they were supposed to find out who the leaker was and they found out who the leaker was but that is not who they prosecuted! they prosecuted, instead, dick

cheney's steve of staff and members in congress in both parties absolutely positively know this and don't talk it publicly because it sounds like a bad thing to do politically but they know these people are -- right now, what is mueller supposed to be investigating? collusion only! but now he is going to go after the money laundering. >> that happened in the clinton investigations. >> absolutely. >> you never know what else you might uncover. >> that is why the democrats agree. ken starr was supposed to go going after real estate transactions with whitewater and instead it leads to a 24-year sexual misconduct with a 24-year-old intern and both parties realized these people unaccountable with unlimited budgets and don't quit until they have got somebody's neck in a noose. >> i want to point one other thing out. both are proposals they want to tie that stopped gap spending measure and conspires february 8th. do you see a shutdown?

>> as a republican, i only hope they try to tie that in to -- >> i'm sorry. can i give that to brent, please? i want to get his take in here! i'm going to get back to you, jack. i wanted to get your take too, brent. >> i think it's unlikely that the shutdown showdown is where this issue was raised. i think it's going to be red hot starring tomorrow as members of the house and senate come back to washington having just heard that apparently trump tried to fire mueller and apparently his white house counsel threatened to resign as fbi director threatened to resign when he was under investigation about mccabe. your segment was right earlier when they had the person who said russia will be hovering over the state of the union address. the most interesting address on the state of the union will be the response given by congressman joe kennedy who has a brilliant future in american politics. i suspect he will mention this issue we are talking about right now.

i suspect he will be acclaimed across america as a great hope for what the democrats stand for and have some impact in the future campaigns. but fundamentally, republicans do not want to be accused of opposing this bill and aiding and abetting an obstruction of justice. in practical and moral terms, if not legal is what they will be doing if they vote no. they don't want to filibuster this, do they? >> no, they don't but they do need gop support. >> it will never go to the floor. >> jack, i want to ask you if we are going to hear -- dan merica said the white house has to come forward and say something about steve wynn. will do that before or after tuesday night? >> i think they have already said something about it. steve wynn is gone. >> they haven't released a formal statement. >> i don't know that they need to. this would be just me. the system has worked. you know?

mcdaniels was very, very of strong in her statement against harvey weinstein and his millions of dollars which he gave to hillary clinton and other democrats. not millions to hillary but democrats in general. and i think that that is a statement that really led to this as much as anything else that steve wynn -- >> do you think the white house should come out and at least address that? there were so many calls when weinstein was found out for becomes to give money back. >> i think if the white house was out there defending him and saying, keep him in there, that would be the stronger play to look for and since that did not happen, i think their silence shows basically that they are in agreement that he needed to resign and so i think most people understand that. if i was advising the president on it, i would say you don't need to say anything. the fact you haven't said anything and he is gone and it was dealt with in a very short period of time, that is a strong statement in itself. >> all righty. brent, i want to get to you quickly on something else that happened. we talked about what we are hearing from senator marco ru o

rubio's office. he complained what happened when his chief of staff was accused of improper conduct and this is part of the statement. what do you make of that swift action we are seeing from him? does it signify some sort of change? >> yeah. i give senator rubio credit for the swift reaction. i think that is good. the most important thing politically when you watch the steve wynn scandal unfold and the rubio issue and donald trump's problems with women, right now, there are women all over america who were given voice by the women's march. they want to register one million new voters. and that is huge, that women and blacks and hispanics who were spider of what has been happening have the capacity and power to change the world. every time there is another story like the steve wynn story,

every time women watch cnn and others, they are doubling and trim tripling their commitment to register a million new voters to change america, to move us into the 21st century, to end these abuses from both parties of people who have done the abuse. that is a powerful movement in history what the women are standing up for now, and they are going to prevail one way or another. 1 million could end up being 2 million voters and that will change the 2018 election and the presidential campaign beyond that. >> jack, your reaction to rubio? >> i would say marco rubio reacted promptly, swiftly and strong and i want to by out to my friend brent women will be out there voting because it's the highest level of female jobs and business ownership. it's the lowest unemployment level for african-americans since 1972.

i think the economy is going to be a strong ticket and the republican party will have the wind at their back because of it. >> we will see. brent and jack, always appreciate your perspective. thank you. >> thank you. coming up, a cnn exclusive. increasing number of state department employees are hiring lawyers claiming that they are victims of political retribution. we will have that story just ahead. n? when i needed to create a better visitor experience. improve our workflow. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah! now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. and made it liberating. yeah! now business is rolling in. we took safe and made it daring. we took intelligent, and made it utterly irresistible. we took the most advanced e-class ever and made the most exciting e-class ever. the 2018 e-class coupe and sedan.

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i use herpecin l.re, it penetrates deep to treat. it soothes, moisturizes, and creates an spf 30 barrier, to protect against flare-ups caused by the sun. herpecin l. 29 minutes past of the hour. good to have you this morning. i'm christi paul. >> i'm martin savidge in no victor blackwell. some democrat irs lawmakers are asking the state department watch dog why some people have been removed from their speaker t -- expertise to clerical work.

>> cnn's global affairs correspondent elise labott have the following report. >> reporter: state department employees have unusual practices of the department after a cnn report saying a growing number of employees believe they are being politically targeted and put in career purgatory for their work under the last administration. representatives elliott angle and elijah cummings, and committee on oversight and government reform sent a letter to the state department's inspector general on friday citing cnn's report on the issue. several officials tell cnn they have retained attorneys after repeatedly trying unsuccessfully to raise concerns about being assigned to freedom of information act requests. now that congressman letter cites, quote, credible allegations that the state

department has required high level career civil service with distinguished records serving administration's of both parties to move to performing tasks outside of their area of substantive expertise. at the very least, this is a waste of taxpayer dollars. at worst, it may constitute imper mirsibscible abuse and retaliation. rex tillerson has reassigned staff throughout the building to help. many of those assigned include senior employees who used to be detailed to other agencies or offices created by president obama as policy priorities which the trump administration does not support. now, the state department denies political retribution is involved. spokeswoman heather nauert says all hands on deck.

she said it may not ab glamorous job but an important one. people are asked to serve there because there is a need. it is without regard to politics and many of these employees are happy to help but want to give substantive work like handling classified information or dealing with former governments named in the documents. they want to know why they are being asked to do the most menial of tasks when a month ago they were negotiating with foreign governments and advising the national security adviser, even the president, on national security matters. now they are asked to do data entry and google searches alongside interns and civil service employees ten grades below them. they can say this is not entirely will politics. it could be ad hoc or simple magistrate but a widespread moral problem at the state department that the lawmakers are demanding be looked at. >> brent and jack are back with us now. jack, to you first.

how does secretary tillerson explain this? >> well, number one, i think the key words they were detailees for other agencies and i can tell you from personal experience people who are detailees from other agencies are nonessential employees because if they were so great you would not farm them out to the department of defense or capitol hill. is there a valuable role for detailees but generally those are junior type employees. these can't be key people or they would not have been detailees. the second part is i would say this. in materials of the politics of it, if thernted wholeheartedly implementing the commander in chief's philosophy and his task and hess agenda, if they are not doing what they should be doing, they should be squeezed out not just reassigned. >> brent? >> well, i think what the cnn story reported is absolutely true and important and even urgent. it is damaging and destructive

to the united states of america around the world for trump to turn the state department into another political agency with litmus tests and loyalty tests. i do think and hope that the inspector general of the state department will investigate. i've also called on the inspector general, by the way, to investigate the wholesale attacks against justice in america, the corruption of justice, what i believe is an obstruction of justice that is proven by fact of the justice department, the special prosecutor being attacked, the fbi being attacked, firing one person after another. i think it is disgraceful and impeachable and i think it is just damaging in the state department and as it is in the justice department. you cannot have the organizations that make the foreign policy of the united states and protect justice and law enforcement in the united states under unrelentless attacks by a president who doesn't respect the rule of law and doesn't help our place in the world at the state department. it is a disgrace and i think

they are going to pay a price for it politically and it is costing america today on law enforcement, justice, and diplomacy around the world. >> we will see if an investigation in this particular area does, indeed, follow. jack and brent, we appreciate you both. >> thank you. >> thank you. the best in the music business. they will share the stage with the me too movement at tonight's grammy awards. how musicians plan to show their solidarity on the red carpet. that is next. ♪

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vladimir putin. he said officers forced their way into his offices. eight of his staffers were reportedly detained at that time. moscow police tell in any they don't have any information off the raids. navalny said he called for the boycott not only because of was barred from running but what he calls is rampant corruption in the putin regime. he has been detained there once again. the government in afghanistan has declared sunday a national day of mourning after the horrific bombing in kabul. the attack happened a little more than 24 hours ago. authorities say a driver was able to get through a checkpoint and detonate explosives packed into an ambulance. at least 103 people were killed and 235 others were wounded. a spokesman for the taliban claims responsibility for that. u.s. president donald trump

calls the bombing despicable. he also says it has renewed the resolve of the u.s. and its afghan partners. one more about the crackdown in saudi arabia. a saudi prince was released from detention where he has been since he was arrested in early november. the prince is a billionaire. he and 16 others saudi royals and top officials were arrested as part of a new tougher anti-corruption policy in the kingdom. new information on the russia election hacking allegations as well. 50,000 russia linked twittered accounts did the following. >> that is ten times more than they retweeted hillary clinton and these numbers come from twitter. let's bring in samantha who is a cnn national security analyst and served on obama's security

council. these retweets were 3.24% of retweets of president trump's twitter account. we are seeing how this could have tremendous influence. did it? >> i think it definitely did. i also think this is probably a drop in the bucket. remember, a few months ago, we learned from facebook that 126 million people were exposed to russian-linked content. we have this story now russia retweeti ining donald trump and probably have more stories about the psychological operations campaign online. i think just going to continue a pace. i think it's really important to remember that this story isn't about donald trump, in fact. donald trump was a tool and may continue to still be a tool for russia's larger mission to sew divisions and create confusion and undermine u.s. democracy and leadership around the world. >> you say donald trump a tool. does this new information at all should it be considered -- would

it be considered evidence of collusion then? >> i think i'll leave that to bob mueller to answer. what i do think we already know from the intelligence community and the entire intelligence community agrees on this is that donald trump was russia's preferred candidate. now that is not because any kind of personal love for donald trump. that is because they viewed him and his election as being more preferable to advancing their policies and to advancing their mission again of undermining u.s. democracy by polarizing the american constituency and decreasing american leverage around the world and that is what vladimir putin wants. >> i think this information both terrifying and fascinating at the same time. this is where you can clearly show data that seems to indicate maybe proves russian meddling. why has it taken so furlong twitter to be forthcoming? they, obviously, could have looked at the analytics of this

much sooner. >> most definitely. i think that there are real questions about why we are doing postgame analysis of this stuff and why don't we have this information coming in in real-time in 2016 or even 2015 when this russian activity started? those are important questions that congress should ask. but i think we are stuck in this postgame analysis right now. we are spending a lot of time looking backward at data and finger pointing. the truth is we are out of time. russia's attack is ongoing and i think all we care about our national security, both the private sector and public sector, we need to sit down and say, okay what are we doing today? we were unprepared before. to confront russia's attack on digital platforms because the 2018 election is coming up very quickly, but also because americans, as consumers and information, need to know that what they are experiencing online is accurate. >> but, i mean, how do you legislate something like that?

demand a private inti they put no these kind of safeguards? >> i can tell you from discussions on the hill, congress is thinking about a legislative fix. i think technology companies are responded when asked but that there needs to be some kind of fix so that there is a requirement to, one, institute practices that detect this activity while it's happening and, two, report in real-time. i think at the very least, congress, at least on the democratic side, is thinking about how to have a more productive conversation with tech. and to say, okay, we want to understand what you're doing and, by the way, that should happen in a classified setting, that should not be public because we don't want to tip our hand and share any trade secrets with russia that could give them more advantage. i think in the first instance, start with that classified briefing and then i think there is an opportunity for congress to legislate the creation of some kind of entity that combines law enforcement, the intelligence community, and

members of the technology sector requires them to share information and best practices in real-time. >> yeah. i think no question something that to be done. >> indeed. >> samantha, thank you. >> thank you. all righty. still ahead, big night in music. shining a light, though, on sexual abuse in the entertainment industry too. how the me too movement is going to take center stage at this year's grammy awards.

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are you ready for the grammys tonight? >> joining us to discuss the pop music critic, that's chris richards. good morning to you.

>> good morning. >> how do you kind of share the moment of celebration with of course with what is a very important and somber topic? >> it should be interesting and we have to tune in to find out. the me too movement has not come to the music industry the same way it has come to hollywood yet. i don't want to say it's had a harder time finding its roots. people who want to speak out may not know how to begin, but i think we should be looking toward the pop singer kesha, and i think her performance tonight could give voice to this struggle. but it could be a huge night for the music industry to embrace this cause and amplify it. but we haven't seen it quite the way we've seen it in the music business. >> talk to me about jay z. >> this is i think a big course

correction for the recording academy who has neglected hip hop criminally. only one album has ever won -- >> did you say criminally? >> i do feel strong about this. >> i think rap is the dominant idiom in pop music of our time. the fact that only one album has gotten album of the year. so jay z boycotted the grammys in 1999 to 2002 or so. he thought the recording academy neglected hip hop music. i still argue that they still are. >> i want to talk about the song decemb despacito. >> the way that pop music is recognized to reflect the way

we're livering as a society and so see these voices elevated at the grammys, it's important and who gets nominated is one thing. who wins is the other thing so that's another reason to tune in tonight to see if voters really want to embrace diversity and all the things that are happening in pop music today. >> who is your best new artist pick and what are we going to get? >> a rapper from philadelphia, i've seen him perform live and he just has a larger than life presence and has a large influence. we know that this guy loves music. and it should be a high spirited show for sure. you know, if he gets to sort of drive the car, so to speak. >> very nice. very true. chris richards, always good to have you here. >> and still to come, the hip hop icon jay z opens up about

what he had to do to save his marriage to beyonce so we'll discuss that in a few minutes. ♪ upbeat music you wouldn't feel good not knowing the price here.

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so hip hop legend jay z getting critical. talked about everything from the me too movement to race in america and to his marriage. >> and here's what he had to say about savoring his marriage to beyonce. >> what is it about this marriage that's so special that you would fight this hard to save it? >> well, it's my soul mate. it's the person i love and you can be in love with someone.

you can love someone and you not -- and if you haven't experienced love and you don't have the tools to move forward, then you're going to have complications, period. and if you -- you can either address it or until it blows up at some point and for us, we chose to fight for our love, for our family, to give our kids a different outcome. you see, you flknow, to break tt cycle. to see a different outcome. it's not this celebrity. we were never a celebrity couple. we were a couple that happened to be celebrities. we're real people. >> i love that and i think that's so poignant because they're saying look, we're not out here to be a celebrity couple so everybody can see us together. >> he also said -- he uses the inclusive we, it does take two to safe a marriage. it has to be both of you.

>> good luck to them, definitely. >> and we are so grateful that you spend some time with us on the weekends. thanks for being here. >> inside politics starts right about now. >> make some good memories today. a moment of truth. we now know the president tried to fire the special counsel. so will he keep his promise to sit for an interview. plus an american first pitch to global elites. >> america is open for business and we are competitive once again. >> and the new white house immigration plan angers the right and the left. >> that plan is a campaign to make america white again. >> inside politics, the biggest stories, sourced by the best reporters now.