hello, i'm wolf blitzer. ai it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. wherever you're watching, thank you for watching us.

after the release of a disputed memo attacking the fbi, now lawmakers from his own party are pushing back against him and that claim. al also as the president praises the memo, he's targeting the top democrat of the house intelligence committee, accusing him of lies and leaks. as the clock ticks to another government shutdown, the president with a new rejection and a new ultimatum over the fate of dreamers. all that coming up, but right now republican lawmakers refuting trump's claim that he's been vindicated in the russian probe. several gop lawmakers are are pushing back on the president's assertion that a partisan memo vindicates him. some prominent republicans say the memo does nothing to undermine the special counsel robert mueller's investigation. >> the dossier has nothing to do

with the meeting at trump tower. the dossier has nothing to do with an e-mail sent by cambridge analytica. the dossier has nothing to do with george papadopoulos' meeting in great britain. it also doesn't have anything to do with object stlustruction of. so there will be a russia probe even without the dossier. >> bob mueller should be able to turn over every rock, pursue every lead so we can have trust in knowing exactly what the russians did or did not do. >> it would be a mistake for anyone to suggest the special counsel shouldn't complete his work. i support his work. i want him to finish it. >> i support the mueller investigation. i hope he does it fairly and honestly. we would all expect that. >> so jim acosta, how is the trump administration taking the fallout of this very serious pushback of republicans who totally disagree with him on the

overall mueller investigation? >> reporter: well, wolf, you're seeing the president once again touting this memo that was released by devin nunes, and he's not backing off of any of that. he hasn't done that. in the last 48, 72 hours he was talking on twitter saying that the memo vindicated him. you saw the sunday talk shows, almost a cavalcade of lawmakers saying, no, there needs to be a release of the new memo. last week was the nunes memo, this week is the schiff memo, because adam schiff wants to see his version released and declassified by the president. the white house saying they'll take a look at that, but the president has been attacking adam schiff on twitter this morning, so it's unclear whether that will take place. just to give you a sense of where the president's head is right now, take a look at what he tweeted this morning about

devin nunes. it's pretty obvious where the president stands on the chairman of the house committee. he said, devin nunes, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a great american hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure. with the democratic memo, the president is making pretty clear what his feelings are about adam schiff. there is no surprise here there is a personal insult directed at adam schiff. little adam schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in washington, right up there with comey, warner, brennan and clapper. adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. must be stopped. and in the president's twitter feed this morning, he has gone after the justice system of this country and going after comey, he's gone after jim clapper and brennan from the cia. that obviously represents the intelligence community.

he's also going after members of congress, of course, adam schiff, and he was also going after the news media praising fox & friends saying its competition were untruthful. so about every corner of life that is subjecting this administration to scrutiny is on the receiving end of the president's broad sides this morning. and wolf, one other thing we should point out, there are republicans really eager to hear the president talk about his state of the union speech. that was completely overshadowed last week. and here's the president in ohio this afternoon. he's supposed to be talking about his tax cuts, something the white house criticizes us for not covering enough, yet the president is stepping on his own economic message and going after these various institutions here in washington that have been subjecting his white house and his administration to scrutiny through this russia investigation. >> it was interesting, adam schiff, the top democrat in the house intelligence committee, he responded right away to the president's insult.

he said, mr. president, i see you've had a busy morning of, quote, executive time. instead of tall smears, the american people would appreciate it if you turned off the tv and helped fund the crisis, fund the dreamers or practically anything else. thank you very much. the other side of the story has been silence so far. democrats in the house intelligence committee wrote their own memo on the investigation. they wanted it released at the exact same time as the devin nunes republican memo was released, but the republicans blocked that last week. are we getting any closer to seeing that democratic minority memo emerge? >> reporter: yes, potentially, wolf. the house intelligence committee is meeting behind closed doors at 5:00 p.m. eastern time tonight where they will vote on and consider releasing that controversial memo. republicans hold a majority on

that committee, so important to note here that this memo will need republican support to get through it and to move towards potentially being publicly released. my colleagues manu raju and jeremy report that at least three members on that league will work toward releasing that tonight. that will be sent to the white house and then essentially the ball will be in president trump's court, whether he releases this or not, moves to declassify it, so we'll follow the same trail we saw last week with president trump deciding to release the devin nunes memo. he'll have five days to determine whether he will or not release this democratic memo. white house officials telling our team at the white house that it will be evaluated whether or not trump releases it. at this moment, it is very unclear what president trump will do.

thank you very much on capitol hill. the president is continuing to beat the drum over the memo. let's go to an attorney for the southern district of new york. president trump says he's been vindicated by that house intelligence committee memo. what do you think? >> no, he has not been. as you pointed out in the earlier reporting in the segment, there are a number of republicans, including people on the house intelligence committee, like trey gowdy, who also disagree with that assessment. it's a three and a half page memo, which doesn't say a whole heck of a lot about a lot of things, but one of the things it does say is that the investigation we're talking about here on tv all week was not the dossier, but the meeting that george papadopoulos had. so to say the dossier is appropriate or improper, it doesn't help turt the president

it doesn't vindicate him. >> after he watches a bit of fox tv, donald trump called the representative devin nunes, quote, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a great american hero. he also went after the top democrat in the house committee, little adam schiff is one of the biggest liars and leakers in washington. what do you think of the president's attack on adam schiff and his praise for devin nunes. it's something we've seen of the president over and over and over again. anyone who disagrees with him or criticizes him or subjects him to scrutiny ends up with an obnoxious or critical tweet, or anyone else, whether they stand up to him or not, they end up on

twitter. adam schiff strikes me as a person with some rig or, former u.s. attorney. devin nunes, on the other hand, say things in print that don't make much sense. he said, we don't know that the president of the united states and george papadopoulos have ever even met, even though there is a photograph that's been circulated showing them at a meeting at the same table. this is a person on the intelligence committee and as a republican. he doesn't know basic things about the case. he also had to talk about adam schiff, and i think carter page and others would disagree with that as well. there have been chairs on the republican and democratic side of the intelligence committee who i think have been known for rigor and integrity and good work product. mike rogers comes to mind, for

example, republican chair of that committee. and based on everything i've seen and based on the things i know about how the world works, devin nunes is not that person. >> there's been a long history of bipartisanship in the house intelligence committee. i want to point out, though, before those two tweets this morning, the president also said he was watching "fox & friends," saying, thank you, "fox & friends," for exposing the truth. perhaps that's why your ratings are so much better than the competition. he's saying he got so much of this information from fox & friends. other democrats have issued their response to the republican memo. do you think the president will block that democratic minority memo from being declassified and released? >> i have no idea.

it would seem to make no sense at all. if you're going to release one side of the issue, a document on one side of the issue, you should release a document on the other side of the issue as well. my prediction is, with a democratic memo, concerning how great they have been. i haven't seen it. it would be a shame if it wasn't released given the other memo was released. >> the democrats' memo sponsors about 10 pages, we're told. a bunch of republicans on the house intelligence committee, including trey gowdy among others, say they want it released. congressman peter king wants it released. there will be a majority of members of the house intelligence committee that say, release the democrat memo. wee see what the president and the white house decides to do. as far as the special counsel robert mueller is concerned, this is what the former chief of

staff over at the white house, reince priebus, says about reports that mueller was almost fir fired. listen to this. >> i never felt, of all the things we went through in the west wing, i never felt that the president was going to fire the special counsel. >> he left the white house the next month. what do you think about that comment? >> well, the president of the united states actually directed his white house counsel don mcgahn to go ahead and fire don mueller. from that clip and that interview, parts of which i've seen, bob mueller is saying that didn't happen. i didn't feel ultimately at the end of the day, to paraphrase, he was going to fire bob muel r mueller. it turns out he didn't. that tells us whether or not. has he said what he'll do

tomorrow or the week after or the week after? also, the speaker paul ryan facing some backlash after connecting the tax law with one secretary's pay raise of $1.50 a week. we'll discuss. and the dow jones plunging on more than 350 points, 375 points right now. continuing its biggest drop since early 2016. we're going to discuss what's behind this dramatic fall. it's down more than 700, 800 points over the last several days. we'll watch this very closely. we'll be right back. and throat. zantac works in as little as 30 minutes. nexium can take 24 hours. try cool mint zantac. no pill relieves heartburn faster.

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the president appears to be drawing a line in the sand once again over the fate of dreamers here in the united states, tweeting out just a little while ago, quote, any deal on daca that does not include strong

border security and the desperately needed wall is a total waste of time. the white house is also throwing cold water on a bipartisan plan, the latest plan released by senators john mccain and chris coons, a plan that hasn't formally been introduced yet. the white house calling their proposal worse than the plan put forward by senator lindsey graham and senator dick durbin. that was a bipartisan bill that was floated last month found limited support -- no support, actually, over at the white house. all of this comes with the clock ticking down only to the daca deadline. not only the daca deadline but the next possible government shutdown later this week, thursday, to be specific. joining us now our political panel, cnn congressional reporter lauren fox, kay kaya divergion and the

"washington post." the president saying he wants billions $1.2 billion for a border wall. there are registered daca recipien recipients, and early in march that deadline goes, and if there isn't an extension, they could be expelled starting in early march. >> we're kind of back to the future here, we're back to square one where we were before the last government shutdown. there have been proposals, as you point out, for ways to get around this. some of them calling for a pathway to citizenship, others more confined. but even republican john thune today said, look, i think we have to narrow the issues down here or we're never going to get anything done. he suggested, okay, let's narrow it down of the president's four points. let's narrow it down to the dreamers and some funding for the wall. if they could find their way around that, then perhaps they

can come up with some kind of a solution. i think what we're seeing right now is a little positioning of their rhetoric, and i think they're going to have to get down to business soon. >> carla, let me read to you the exact tweet of the president this morning at 9:06 a.m. any deal on daca that does not include strong border security and the desperately needed wall -- all in caps -- is a total waste of time. march 5th is rapidly approaching and the dems seem to not care about daca so make a deal. will there be a deal or will there not be a deal? >> that's the big question, right? if there isn't a deal, there could be a government shutdown. march 5 is the last day they have to deal with that because of these court stays and orders. they have to join up where they can and also satisfy the president. it has to be slightly more comprehensive than just daca and the wall probably to be able to get votes on board.

chris coons was saying today he thinks daca couldn't get 50 votes in the senate. how much broader they're willing to go, can anything that passes the senate actually pass the huse? we're in the same calculus that we were before, really. the sniping is not exactly helping the environment be more prime for consensus. right now, as you said, people are kind of staking their ground and trying to win, still. march 5 is close but exactly a month away. >> you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people brought here as little kids, children, brought here illegally by their parents, but they've grown up here in the united states and they are obviously very, very worried. let's get to another issue of the speaker of the house, paul ryan. he tweeted this over the weekend, and i'll put it up on the screen. a secretary at a public high school in lancaster, pennsylvania says she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week.

she said that will more than cover her costco membership for the year. there was a significant backlash to what he was tweeting, the speaker. i take it he's deleted that tweet. he's coming under a lot of criticism right now, the speaker of the house. >> right, and a lot of democrats were arguing this was just a tone-deaf tweet. over the weekend, you saw his democratic competitor tweeting this was tone-deaf, you saw nancy pelosi tweeting about it. this is the point the democrats have been making about the tax bill from the very beginning. this was a major watershed tax break for corporations, but when it came to individual americans, they would see not the large sort of growth in their paychecks that republicans were trying to sell for them. i think one of the things we have to remember is that nancy pelosi has been attacked for the last number of weeks for saying this tax bill was little more than crumbs, something republicans have been trying to repeat over and over again at their retreat as a corporation, announcing they were going to be offering bonuses to their

employees and they've been attacking her. this puts the onus back on paul ryan and the tax bill. he deleted his tweet, so we know he gets it. >> the dow plunged 1,000 points in two days. even though since the election it's gone up significantly, impressive impressively, people have made a lot of money, 401(k)s did well. now it's dropped a thousand points in two days alone, at least so far on this day, and there is a thunder of silence coming from someone over at the white house. >> the president has, for some reason, set the stock market as his yardstick about an improving economy. now, the reason the stock market could be going down is because wages are going up, as we were talking about before we went on

the air, and interest rates are going up. but the president, being somebody who is a new yorker who understands the stock market and is probably at some point heavily invested in the stock market, uses that. and if it starts to drop precipitously as we've seen the last couple days, that begs an explanation from the president. because you can't be on both sides of this issue. if you assume that a rising tide lifts all boats, if it's the stock market, then you have to explain what's going on now. >> he's going to be speaking later this afternoon in cincinnati, cara, and i wonder if he'll get into that. he always talks about, and understandably so, how great the stock market is doing, unemployment numbers are down, all the positive economic indicators. i wonder if he's going to mention a thousand-point drop in two days. >> it would be out of character, i guess, if he decided to highlight that sort of thing. it's like gloria was saying, he has chosen to make this the measure. there are a lot of economic

indicators you can choose to focus on that actually might hit people a little closer to where they live in their day-to-day feelings of healthy in the economic community. we've not seen the president focus on these things head on when it's something negative. there are other things he can choose to discuss like immigration, like the memo, and he already has been very active on twitter about those issues. >> 132 points down so far on this day. still a few hours left for people to trade. a 666-point drop on friday. we'll see what happens over the next few hours and we'll cover it. guys, thanks. there are new details involving a man at the center of the controversy. we're talking about carter page and his contacts within the russian government going back to 2013. also, is the vice president

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the fallout from the republican memo and the fbi is dividing washington and now we're learning about the man in the center of the report. we're talking about carter page, former trump campaign, foreign policy adviser. new reporting is raising questions about page's contacts with russians over the years. jessica schneider is working the story for us. jessica, what have you learned? >> "time" has obtained a letter from page in 2013. in that letter page calls himself an adviser to the kremlin. he wrote in that letter, over the past year i've had the

privilege to serve as a former adviser to the staff of the kremlin in preparation of the g-20 next month where energy issues will be a prominent point on the agenda. the fbi warned page that he was targeted for recruitment as a russian spy. in 2014, the fbi began surve surveilling page as an adviser warrant, and in 2016, page was named as a trump adviser in march 2016. of course, just months later in july, carter page traveled to moscow to give a lecture. around that same time, foreign british spy christopher steele, the author of the dossier, he shared with the fbi information about what he was learning doing opposition research for the firm that was hired by opponents of trump, and as part of that research, we now know steele believed page was participating in collusion with the russian government. carter page, though, denies that. now go to september 2016.

that's when carter page left the trump campaign amid the russia reports -- amid reports as well about his ties to russia. and then it was one month later in october 2016 that the fbi got a new warrant to monitor him on the basis of some information from the steele dossier plus other intelligence and evidence that was obtained by the fbi. so the fbi questioned page back in march of last year. that was in the midst of the russia probe, but that was before robert mueller was named as special counsel. so carter page is now at the center of this republican memo, part of a conservative effort to discredit the fbi and the russia investigation. however, it was a much different tune than the past year when trump aides and associates worked to minimize page's role. take a listen. >> carter page is an individual who the president-elect does not know. >> he's not part of our national security or foreign policy briefings that we do now at all. >> to the best of my

recollection, i do not know carter page. to the best of my knowledge, carter page never had a donald trump.com e-mail address, had no formal role in the campaign that i'm aware of. >> i don't think i've spoken to him. i don't think i've met him. >> carter page did lead the trump campaign in 2016. carter page issued a statement on friday saying the fisa warrant on him was an unprecedented abuse. page has testified before the house intelligence committee. that was in november. he said then that he alerted several campaign officials about his july 2016 trip to russia when he was working with the campaign. wolf? >> jessica, good report. this just in, republicans expected to approve the release of the memo that counters the republican one. so far the white house is refusing to say whether they will release this memo. they've got five days once they formally receive it. the dow plunging 434 points

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the dow jones is plunging once again for a second day now, trading down 472 points right now, this after a drop of more than 666 points on friday, more than 1100-point drop between friday and so far today. the white house so far not commenting, saying only this. we're always concerned when the market loses any value but we're also confident in the economy's fundamentals. let's go to cnn's allison kosik.

she's joining us from new york right now. why are investors so spooked? >> just going back to the number of points we've seen the market lose between friday and today, 1100 points. the last time we saw the dow lose 1100 points was back in 2015 when the market was concerned about an economic s w slowdown in china. so it's been a number of years since we've seen a selloff between friday and now. it's a concern that investors learned on friday, that wages grew at a faster pace since 2009. that's great news for the american worker, it's great news for main street, but the way wall street sees it is a big flashing red sign of inflation. inflation means the fed could likely step in and go ahead and aggressively raise interest rates after slowly raising them last year. wolf? >> the president and first lady have now arrived aboard air force i in cincinnati. the president will be delivering

an economic speech later, talking about the tax cuts that went through the congress that he signed into law. t the tax reform. the first lady has a separate assignment on opioid addiction. she'll be doing that separately in cincinnati before they both return to washington in a few hours. we'll have coverage of all of this, of course, coming up. allison, getting back to you right now, 1100-point drop so far in two days, friday and today. it's causing a lot of folks out there to be deeply concerned. they're wondering, is this a good time to start selling? >> i think the selling is happening as we speak, and you talk to traders, you talk to analysts, you can expect more selling to happen. i want to show you how far the market has actually come. some traders and analysts believe the market has come too far too fast. just last year the dow made 70 record highs. the dow gained 5,000 points just last year, and if you look at

what happened since the 2016 election, we saw the s&p 500 up 30%, the nasdaq, the dow up 40% since the election. if you look at a ten-year span, this is the longest and strongest bull market that we've seen without having any kind of major pullback. so any market watcher kind of has been thinking it was only a matter of time that a pullback like this could happen, because it's something that's healthy for the market. you don't want the market to get overheated. you want it to have these pullbacks so it can kind of have a timeout, a cooling-off period, so then it can kind of reset and start back up again. that's what many believe is happening here. they're not counting on a correction. keep in mind a correction would take us down another couple thousand points at least, even on the dow. we have some folks over at the airport. i wonder if we can hear what he's saying. let's listen in. unfortunately, we can't. but we can see a picture and clearly he's pleased. he'll be delivering his speech

on the economy and the tax plan that went through the house and the senate that he signed into law. once again the first lady a separate event on opioid addiction in cincinnati before they both return to washington. we'll have coverage of that coming up. meanwhile, a group of democratic senators writing to president trump warning him he has, quote, no legal authority to launch what's called a bloody nose strike with north korea. i'll speak to one of those senators. also the president calls the house intelligence committee member a liar and a leaker. this as he gets ready to declassify that democratic intelligence committee's counter-memo. try cool mint zantac. no pill relieves heartburn faster. alright, i brought in high protein to help get us moving. ...and help you feel more strength and energy in just two weeks!

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democratic senators are warning president trump not to launch what's called a bloody nose strike against north korea. 18 senators so far are sending a letter to the president telling him he lacks the authority to carry out such an attack. the senator of maryland is one of those senators. he joins us live. the senator is in capitol hill. senator, thank you for joining us. what's your argument against the preemptive bloody nose strike against north korea? >> we're now a year into this trump administration. the trump administration has not yet nominated an ambassador to south korea, even though that is the top hot spot for national security policy right now, and victor cha, who was under consideration to fill that spot, penned an op-ed recently indicating that he was -- he believed that he was overlooked or passed over because he was

objecting to this so-called bloody nose strategy. a bloody nose strategy would be a preemptive, preventativ e strike against north korea with huge clout against north korea, the president and others, and the president has no authority to launch that preventative war strike against them without congress. >> many have disagreed with that legal interpretation. they say the president, if he feels the u.s. is endangered, he has authority to launch a preemptive strike. your response? >> wolf, there are a whole range of different possibilities in scenarios here, from striking a terrorist target to essentially launching

i think in anybody's book an attack on north korea, a first attack, a preventative war attack constitutes an act of war which is contemplated under the congressional authorities within our constitution. we can argue about other cases, but this seems to be a very clearcut case. you have two state actors -- south korea and north korea. you would have a preventative strike on north korea. so we should be focused on trying to make sure we maximize our pressure, especially economic pressure, on north korea. i don't think this administration has exhausted the sanctions enforcement which is why senator tumey and i introduced legislation on the floor of the senate to ratchet on firms in china and elsewhere who are facilitating the north koreans. >> the vice president mike pence is leaving washington today to represent the united states at the winter olympics in south korea beginning later in the

week. north korean athletes are taking part in these games, but a white house official says the vice president will reject attempts at normalizing north korea in those games. what's your reaction to that? >> i think that's right. i don't think the vice president should use the occasion to meet directly with north koreans. it is a sign of the dysfunction in this administration's foreign policy generally and with respect to korea. the south koreans, president moon, began their overture to north korea without any communication with the united states. we were caught by surprise when south korea responded to north koreans' overtures with respect to the olympics. whether or not that turns out to be a good idea or a bad idea to have north korea participate more in the olympics, it's a sign that the south koreans don't trust us, that they didn't include us and coordinate the decisions with us.

>> as you know later today -- this is a different subject -- the house intelligence committee is expected to send to the white house, to the president the democratic response, the democratic memo responding to devon nunes's memo. the president has five days to declassify the ten-page memo. do you think the president will declassify it? we know several republican members of the house intelligence committee will vote in favor of sending it to the white house. >> well, the president should declassify this in the interest of full disclosure. but this whole episode should have been avoided. devon nunes really committed a gross abuse of power by using his position on the house intelligence committee to cherry pick and manipulate data according to our own fbi leading out really important parts and essentially releasing that with the vote of republicans and the okay of president trump. having done that it's important

that at least the other side of the story be told. this is no way, wolf, to operate the house intelligence committee, the house of representatives on these really important issues to national security. >> you served in the house of representatives before becoming a u.s. senator. you understand what's going on over there in the house intelligence committee. a marked difference from what's going on in the bipartisan cooperation in the senate intelligence committee. senator, thanks for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> christian van holland of maryland. meanwhile, families freezing to death trying to escape violence in syria. brutally frigid temperatures. a live report from the region next. ld together. a little to the left. 1, 2, 3, push! easy! easy! easy! (horn honking) alright! alright! we've all got places to go! we've all got places to go! washington crossing the delaware turnpike? surprising.

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we know life can be hectic. that's why, at xfinity, we've been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. now, with instant text and email updates, you'll always be up to date. you can easily add premium channels, so you don't miss your favorite show. and with just a single word, find all the answers you're looking for - because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. download the xfinity my account app or go online today. the fighting and air strikes are prompting syrians to risk their lives to brave freezing temperatures to try to cross the border into lebanon.

cnn's senior international correspondent ben weedeman went to get the story. warning, the story contains graphic images. >> reporter: nishan tries to distract his daughter who is recovering in hospital. she's all his he has left. the rest of his family froze to death along with 15 other syrians while crossing the mountains into lebanon in a snowstorm at night. he's been working in lebanon for two and a half years. they were dropped off by a car on the syrian side, he says, and were supposed to walk for half an hour to lebanon backhand and be picked up by another car. it was dark, snowing and the smugglers abandoned them. he shows me on his phone pictures he downloaded of his wife as she was found cradling their daughter, his mother and his brother's family all frozen

to death. he's just come out of an operation on her frostbitten face. she doesn't know her mother, sister and grandmother are dead. we went back to the mountainside where they died. they were just a few minutes from the nearest house. the snows have melted but this is the spot where the bodies were found. there are still rubber gloves here used by those who took the bodies away. this is a valley frequently used by syrians trying to sneak into lebanon. their deaths here underscore just how desperate they are to reach safe ground. it's safer in lebanon, but life for the nearly one million syrians who fled here is hard. ever harder in winter in these makeshift camps. fatima is ill. [ coughing ] sickness is but one of the perils of the leaky, cold shelter.

vermin, another. there's everything here says farhan, things i have never seen before. rats, mice, everything. mona crossed into lebanon with her son. her husband went missing five years ago. we were afraid, she recalls, we walked for four days over the mountains after paying $700 to smugglers. some have returned to syria, but others continue to come, says mike bruce of the norwegian refugee council. >> walking across the mountains and taking days to cross in winter are a testament to the fact that syria isn't safe. until syria is safe and until there is a lasting peace, people should not be going back to syria. >> reporter: in this cold, wet, bleak existence, the day when syria is safe again seems an eternity away. >> ben joins us now from beirut.

how has the lebanon government responded to this refugee crisis? >> reporter: the lebanese have been struggling with the crisis which began with a trickle of refugees in 2011 which turned into a flood. this is a country with a population of 6 million people. they are dealing with 1 million syrian refugees, hundreds of thousands of palestinian refugees and iraqis and yemenis and others. they are struggling. the lebanese have, for instance, begun afternoon shifts in the public schools for syrian students. but it's a huge drain on their resources. much like europe, to a certain extent the united states, refugees have become a political hot potato here.

it was the palestinian refugees that set off the lebanese civil war in 1975. the worry is that lebanon's delicate sectarian balance could be thrown out of whack by so many syrians in the country. wolf? >> awful situation indeed. ben, thank you for that report. that's it for me. i will be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in the situation room for our international viewers aymanpour is next. newsroom with anderson cooper starts right now. i'm anderson cooper. we begin with a test of transparency the president is expected to face in a few hours when the house intelligence committee will meet and democrats on it likely will push for a vote to release the rebuttal to the memo that went public on friday. it alleges the fbi abused surveillance authority to