continue. as a result, we will also continue to report the story, focussing on the facts. i'm pamela brown, thanks for joining us. good evening. more now on the news that broke just minutes ago and the controversy almost sure to be erupting even as we speak over the russia investigation and two competing memos about key parts of it from the house intelligence committee. the republican version is out there already, as you know, president trump releasing it over objections from the fbi and others. now after several days considering the democratic rebuttal, the president has decided not, not to make it public. the latest now from cnn's jim acosta standing by at the white house. so, jim, explain this. >> well, i think a lot of people want some explaining when when it comes to this decision, anderson. all week long, there was the expectation that the president in the issue of transparency,

remember officials were saying we're going to put this memo through the same rigorous vetting process that we put the nunes memo through, and the suggestion all along is that in the issue of transparency that they would go ahead and release this moment, but, of course president trump is the final decider on this. he made this decision and sounds late today to go ahead and make this decision not to declassify this memo from the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee, adam schiff. ener is a letter that is attached to the statement that came from the white house press office about this. we can put it up on screen. it's from the white house counsel. if we don't have that graphic available, i can just read this key paragraph to you. it essentially says, although the president is inclined to declassify the memorandum because it contains numerously classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time. to goes on to say, anderson, however, given the public interest of transparency in

these circumstances. i'll continue to paraphrase here, the justice department to work with the house intelligence committee to come up with a version that is going to satisfy officials over here. we should point out earlier today the president met with the fbi director, top justice department official, the white house counsel's office about all of this. apparently that is where this decision was made. there is another letter here attached to all of this, anderson from the white house council counsel, don mcgahn. we've been talking about rod rosenstein quite a bit and the fbi director chris wray. it is directing the justice department to go and work with the house intelligence committee democrats to come up with a more suitable alternative and it mentions in this letter enclosed in this you'll find a version of the document that identifies in highlighted text some of the information that they consider to be too sensitive to release this evening. now, anderson, you know, i can't just report all of that and be, hey, that's it, end of story, because obviously you're going to have some political considerations here. one is the republican memo, the

devin nunes memo, was essentially released almost un-redacted with very few accommodations we're told to the intelligence community. and that memo alleged all of these abuses on the part of the fbi, on the part of the federal investigators investigating trump campaign contacts with the russians during the 2016 campaign. the schiff memo as we've been reporting all along was supposed to be a rebuttal and was going to go through ten pages point by point, outlining and explaining why there are flaws in this nunes memo. you're going to have democrats, andson, i'm sure we're crashing the phones to get them on tv, who are going to say it's not the classified sensitive material that concerns the white house, it's the rebuttal and that they did not want this issue out there at this time. but, anderson, you know, this obviously came on a day when there was no briefing. there was only one opportunity to talk to the president today. he was asked about the rob porter saga over here. in this memo, he came up very briefly at the end and said

we're going to be issuing a letter. that was the first inkling we had this decision was coming down. obviously this is pretty explosive stuff and you're going to have republicans and democrats fighting over this for the next several days, perhaps weeks, while this process is going on up on capitol hill. >> jim, the president, what, had five days to make this decision. is this is the end of that five days? did this decision, did it have to be tonight that they made this announcement? >> this is essentially the end of the five-day period. it could have gone into saturday, i think, but this is really the end of that five-day period, and, you know, what they were telling us all week long was that we were going to subject this process for vetting that the schiff memo, the same way that we vetted and processed the nunes memo. of course, anderson, we would be remised if we didn't point out the president said at the state of the union speech 100% we're going to release this memo. that was before he read the nunes memo. that was before the vetting

process was undertaken with respect to vetting and processing that nunes memo. so the writing was really on the wall all along. conversely, anderson, all this week i think the writing was on the wall that the president was not going to release this memo. white house officials saying, well, unless there are big problems with it, we're probably going to put this out there. knowing this president and having covered him for a long time, i can't imagine this president declassifying and releasing something of this nature that was going to essentially call into question a memo he was heralding, remember, he was heralding it a week ago as vindication that the russia investigation is a witch hunt and a hoax because he felt of of the the release of the nunes memo. to go ahead and think he would undo all of that seemed out of character for him. >> jim acosta, appreciate the reporting. our legal and political team is here. ann, what's your official take on this? are you surprised?

>> so i'm not surprised. i mean, i think all of us had a sense that this might be coming, that the president might refuse to declassify the memo. keep in mind also that the first memo was 3 1/2 pages, virtually no facts. >> the fbi said that essentially they omitted all these facts that changed the actual timeline and meaning. >> exactly. so i think, you know, there was a challenge with the idea of the intelligence committee de -- having any declassified and going out that could reveal sources or methods that the intelligence community uses, but beyond that there really wasn't anything in there that raised concerns. the thing we do know about the democratic memo, it's far more lengthy and from public statements it's pretty easy to surmise it's going to have a lot more facts and be a lot more detailed. now the real question is what we don't have when you look at this letter that has been sent essentially from rod rosenstein and chris wray, the head of the fbi, to the house committee. what we don't have is it says,

you know, the areas with the red blocks are the ones we're worried about. >> right. >> you and i and jeff are not seeing that. there is a real question, are there three red blocks or 300. >> right. jeff? >> this letter is a letter, but it's really more of a hand gesture to the democrats. the one that is inappropriate to make on television. i mean, it is -- it is basically i have the power to sensor your argument and that's what i'm going to do. -- we wear ourselves out talking about donald trump and the departures from the norms of behavior. this is a dispute between two sides about the propriety of the fbi's behavior. we've heard one side. any fair system you allow people to hear both sides. so instead of allowing people to hear both side, they have essentially sort of kicked this thing down the road to a point when, you know, they know the news cycle the way we know the news cycle.

by the time this gets released in some form or another, the circus will have moved on. basically what this is doing is making sure that the only substantive argument in front of the public about the fbi's behavior in this circumstance is the one from the republicans. and it's shocking. >> i've got to say was the exact argument the democrats made when the republicans voted unanimously to release the republican memo but not to let the democrats release theirs at the same time. >> correct. and, you know, fortunately for the democrats, the nunes memo was so pathetically bad that it almost refuted itself, but, you know, we still believe in a system where both sides get a voice, and this says we're not even going to let you talk, much less listen to what you have to say. >> josh campbell, you just resigned from the fbi. the white house has released a letter signed by fbi director wray and deputy attorney general rosenstein, which the white house counsel says supports the

president's decision not to release the memo. does that give this decision more credibility? >> well, so i think we have to look to what our colleague jim acosta was reporting as far as the political considerations. obviously great analysis there from jeff on the political side. let me talk about the national security implications. i have not been a fan of either memo being released for this reason. this is not the type of issue that you want to litigate in public. i've worked on fisas. i no there is very sensitive information that goes into them. i understand the implications of releasing this type of information. what i'm a -- chairman mike rogers, the proper venue for these discussions and this debate is the fisa court in a classified proceeding. where the harmed party the fisa court it's being alleged that the fbi did something wrong, that's the proper venue for having such discussions, not to be going tit for tat with various memos. >> once you've gone down the road of releasing one memo, which the fbi asked the white

house not to do, the white house went ahead anyway and the fbi made the rare public statement saying, you know, i don't want to misquote chris wray, but essentially saying there were material omissions of fact. >> no, you're right. again, i was not a fan of the gop memo. in fact, i think it was atrocious you would release this type of information, selectively cherry picking information, but still as a national security practitioner, i don't think that gives us the grown light to go ahead and say, well, here is some additional information we're going to provide. again, i understand the political considerations, but i just think the proper venue is in a classified setting. >> right. evan, what's the latest you're hearing about how the decision is received and what's next? >> look, i think, anderson, part of the problem with this -- with this entire fight is that it's kind of exposing the fact that, you know, for our legislators, members of congress who are responsible for writing the laws, governing, you know, fisa and how the fbi, you know, uses the law, it's shown that they

really don't understand how the fbi does this. so these are the guys that just recently reauthorized a section of the fisa law, 702, and it's clear from their complaints about how the fbi handled the carter page surveillance that they really have no idea how the law works, how the fbi -- the power that the fbi has. so that's where a lot of the misunderstanding is coming. so, look, i do think that josh is right, inside the fbi, they didn't want either memo released and they certainly don't want a ten-page memo if they didn't want the three-page version being released so i think this is a genuine concern from rod rosenstein, from chris wray. i think we should not ignore that. even there there ough there is politics flying around, the truth is there was grave harm being done by the release of the republican memo, even though it was a dud. there was information that never gets released and we identified a source for the fbi. we identified that someone was a target. i mean, this is stuff that is not supposed to get released and

it was. so i get -- i get the politics, but more harm would have probably been done, according to the fbi, if this ten-page version were released. >> i want to bring into the conversation van jones, also scott jennings. van, in this letter from rosenstein, it essentially says, look, the democrats can rewrite this with help from the fbi, once people talk about, you know, once the kind of fbi and the national security system weighs in. what's wrong with that? >> first of all, a short lie sometimes requires a long rebuttal. the problem you have is the first memo should have never come out in the first place. it had all kinds of innuendo. it created a sense of real unease and suspicion over the fbi. it was a couple of pages. you can do a lot of damage in a couple of pages. the idea that now you want to be able to respond and you can't, you're moving in the direction of a one-party state.

that's the problem. is that we have right now one-party rule in washington, d.c. the republicans control everything. but we've always had the idea that even so the minority had certain rights, the minority had certain privileges because tomorrow you might be in the minority. the sense of this back and forth. that has now been flushed down the toilet and what's left now hanging out there are some of the worst allegations against the fbi, that they're corrupt at the top, and stuff was put out there over the objections of our national security community. this is a very dangerous moment. i'm not one of these people who runs around with my hair on fire every day about every tweet, every little thing and whatever, i try to give these guys a lot of room. honestly, i don't have the emotional fortitude to be upset every day. >> by the way, your hair burned off a long time ago. >> my hair is long since burned off. but tonight i'm upset because this is a clear abuse.

and, yes, they said if you come back, you know, we can help you rewrite it and make it better. how long is that going to take? sure, you're trying to protect sources and methods but you weren't concerned about sources and methods last week. not only are you cherry picking data and the facts, you're cherry picking your concerns about national security. this is a very bad -- very, very bad day for america. >> scott, do you share van's concerns. >> i thought from the beginning if you're going to release one, you should release both. >> you said that. >> now here we are with the second memo not being released tonight but with the president clearly saying he's inclined to to release it and send it back and ensure what you just said, if they're not jeopardizing any sources and methods or anything that would hurt our security people and intelligence people. that's the responsible thing to do. it's clearly a longer document than the first memo. my suspicion is they're going to send it back, try to take care of some of that information. >> isn't that something they could have done over the last five day? >> yohan. none of us have seen the memo.

we don't know how technical the information is. >> i think it's better to measure twice and cut once on something like this. sending it back to the committee and letting the fbi take a look at it seems to be prudent. particularly when you're saying the fbi wants to release it, just make sure it's right. >> jen psaki, i understand what scott's saying, talking about being prudent, though, it would have been prudent for them to have heeded the fbi warning on the first memo, which they did not. >> that's right. i think we should stop pretending this is on the level. the department of justice expressed serious concerns about the content and the accuracy of the first memo. they have not done that about the democratic memo. so this is simply a case of president trump wanting to punt it, not wanting it to put it out. i don't think there is any reality based fact here that he wants to actually or he is open to putting this out. otherwise he would have just released it because doj has not expressed any concerns and it's not about that. it's about politics.

>> van? >> you know, the other thing that i think is very ironic here tonight, of all the nights for us to be talking, this president is so concerned about national security making sure that no bad information gets out there, but we just learned that there are 30 people or mauer working in the white house tonight who have access to all this stuff who have not been cleared by the fbi. so you literally have a white house full of people who really shouldn't even be allowed to come in as visitors with their kids on the weekend who can see all this stuff and the american people can't, even though the ranking member of the democratic party is trying to put it oh out there. listen, i would love to give the benefit of the doubt on this one and i have night after night and liberals hate me for it. tonight, you can't honestly in good faith give this guy the benefit of the doubt. not tonight. >> josh campbell, someone who was with the fbi for 11, 12 years, how long does the process of looking at this for sources and methods, i mean, they say

that the democrats they can go back and work with the democrats on purging whatever is for national security reasons shouldn't be in this. how long does that take? and was the last five days not long enough for that? >> i think we're in a whole new world here, because this is not what we do, we don't release information like this selectively. i don't know if we can compare it to any type of standard because i don't think there is a standard. what i do think is that this does a disservice to the american people. i think you only need to compare what former director mueller is doing and what the house intelligence committee is doing. as the house intelligence committee slowly released information, i don't care what side you're on, it does the public a disservice because they don't see the full picture. what director mueller is doing, no leaks. locked up. an all-star team and they're going to wait until they reach a conclusion to release a fulsome picture for the american people. i think that's what the house intelligence committee should be doing right now. >> evan, can the house intelligence committee override

the president on this if the republicans were on board? >> yeah, exactly, but, again, if the republicans were on board. you know, we're told -- my colleagues manu raju and jeremy herb who are covering this on the hill say republicans aren't exactly eager to override the president on this. they have redactions, according to the letter that rod rosenstein and chris wray have sent, they have identified specific parts of the memo that are problematic, so perhaps they can work through that, but at this point, i mean, i don't see devin nunes leading the charge to override president trump. after all, you know, devin nunes has been kind of playing almost like quarterback for president trump on the hill there. >> yeah. everyone stick around. after a quick break, we're going to hear from a democratic member of the intelligence committee. later, the president's defense of fired white house staff secretary rob porter and his complete nonmention of the women who made serious abuse allegations against porter. we're keeping him honest.

you won't see these folks they have businesses to run. they have passions to pursue.

how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on your computer. get a 4 week trial, plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale. go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. new details of the cover-up by the white house that the rob porter abuse allegation scandal and late tonight, word of another top white house departure over spousal abuse allegations. we'll have more on that. the rebuttal to the republican version already out there will not see the light of day, at least not in its present form. joining us now congressman eric swalwell of california. congressman, i sense you do believe this is obstruction of

justice. >> good evening, anderson. i'm in phoenix, arizona, with congressman ruben gallego, we're doing a millennial town hall but i wanted to address this. i do believe -- i'm skeptical. the president has been consistent in this investigation only in this objective behavior. so i have two questions about this. one, did he put any pressure on the department of justice in the redactions that they are seeking? and two, how do these redactions affect the broader context that is needed in the poisoning of the investigation that has occurred from the republican memo? now, i trust the department. i don't trust the president. so i'd like to hear from the doj on tuesday before our committee and i'm going to leave it to our ranking member who has led us i think very, very well through this investigation to make those calls. >> your critics in the republican party have accused democrats on the intelligence committee of purposefully putting classified information or sources and methods into the memo that he knew the fbi and doj would object to. is that what's happening?

>> well, anderson, we asked to something that the republicans were not willing to do, which was for the doj to review it before it went to the public. so, again, if the doj has legitimate concerns, we're not going to be a part of putting out to the public anything that would jeopardize sources and methods that the republicans have not already jeopardized from their distorted memo. but if this is pressure from the president, we want to know that, so i think it's only appropriate to bring the doj in, as was apparently alluded to in the letter that was sent over to us that they would be available to answer these questions. >> what options do you really have from here on out? >> well, anderson, if these are political edits then it's really incumbent upon devin nunes to follow the lead that he set last week when he asked his colleagues to unanimously support releasing this memo to the public but now to do it to the broader house of representatives. the full house of representatives. so if he is consistent that he

wanted this out to the public and these edits are only political in nature, he should come to the floor on tuesday night and tell his colleagues that the public should see this for the sake of consistency and transparency. >> congressman swalwell, i appreciate your time. back now with jeffrey toobin, milgram, scott jennings, scott campbell, even perez as well. in terms of the options that the democrats have, it's pretty limited. they basically have to if they want this memo out, they have to work with the department of justice and the fbi now. >> it's not their candy store. the republicans run the white house. the republicans run the house of representatives. and this is a subject to majority rule. but i think it is just worth pointing out that what the administration did when the nunes memo came out, they said fbi, we don't care what you think, we're releasing this. today, when the democrats have a memo that they want to come out, they say, well, the fbi thinks this is very -- this is very

important so we can't release it. i mean, you know, how stupid do we have to be to believe this nonsense? i mean, it's just -- >> scott, does it not seem hypocritical to you? >> no, a, you don't know what's in the memo. to make the allegations -- you know that. >> what about the nunes memo? >> the other memo was pretty short and it didn't appear to be anything in there that was terribly damaging or giving up sources and methods. this was a much longer memo. you don't know what's in there. none of us do. isn't it prudent to let the fbi, i mean, you're upset on the one hand about the fbi being disregarded, now they're regarded, you can't have it both ways. >> no, you're the one who can't have it both ways. you either trust the fbi to handle what's classified or you don't. this is classified. it can't be released. they said that about the nunes memo. >> they said the president is inclined to release it when they make a few ed its. that's it. that's all that is required.

when this comes out a week from today after they make the edits, is that satisfactory? >> i'm of the view that the memo has to come out. >> i agree. >> i understand what josh is saying about the fbi and the homeland security concerns, but, you know, having run law enforcement agencies, this is just -- this is just fundamental fairness at this point. think the question is what it looks like when it comes out. i expect if it is heavily redacted, the conversation will not end. so i personally think it would be incredibly foolish and would extend this a great deal if it is released in a way that they've taken everything out. that's the next fight. it goes on and on. to me, if the president is serious about being willing to let the american public see both sides and, remember, that first memo was not a consensus document. it was a really one-sided concluesery piece of information. so van is right. it's going to take a lot more time and space to rebut those arguments. >> josh, was it you who said something -- you wanted to get in? >> i would just say, anderson, you know, in this situation, we

see the national security establishment with their interests aligned, with the political party with for whatever motive they have, maybe we'll find out later on is selectively releasing information and deciding not to release other information. it's a weird place to be in. as a national security professional, if you're aligned with that political operation, but i don't think that changes the fact that the information is sensitive and that there is a proper venue for its release. >> i would like to say a word for transparency here. i know people didn't want any memos to come out. at the end of the day, i think there are a lot of americans who believe we can handle information and we should be able to see under the hood of the investigatory agencies so we can decide for ourselves what's going on here. i think transparency ultimately is not going to be judged to be a bad idea -- >> right. but timing is so important in all of these things. there was a story that just came out i think it was yesterday about the incompetence of fema in puerto rico with all of these contracts that they gave to

some, you know, companies that could not deliver food at all. nobody pays attention to that because it's been months since people have moved on from that story. if the democratic memo had come out at the same time as the. >> rob: me-- republican memo. if this comes out tweaks from now, who knows what fresh outrage there is going to be that we're all paying attention to. >> we are so far from where we should be. first of all, this shouldn't be taking place in the public eye at all in this way. we've never done this before. the idea that you would have a partisan memo come out basically trying to be kind of -- >> this is not real oversight. >> this is not real oversight where you say, look, we think there is something wrong. here is the way to do it, if nunes or any of these people thought something serious was going on, you don't need some bizarre three-page press release thrown out into the public. you need hearings and serious,

serious work to be done to find out if we have a corrupt fbi. >> if the republicans had been really concerned about the national security implications of, you know, when chris wray said he wanted fbi people to come and actually brief the committee, the republicans said, no, we don't want that. if they were really concerned about national security implications, that would be one way to do it. coming up next, more breaking news. the president praising the top aide who departed in a storm of spousal abuse allegations. yet another staff departure over spousal abuse allegations.

well, very big night in news. on top of the intel committee memo news, there is a department

of justice official who would have overseen the russia investigation if rod rosenstein is fired and cnn has just learned about the departure of david sorenson, a member of the trump administration's speech writing team. he stepped down after being accused of domestic abuse. there is that. reports that white house chief of staff john kelly is willing to step down. keeping them honest on what may turn out to be the precipitating factor behind his departure. over the last 13 months, three separate women have reveal what they saw was abuse by rob porter. until two days ago was a top white house aide. during the 13 months starting in january of 2014 when two -- people knew about the allegations, including top white house officials. they knew and it seems they did nothing. porter didn't only remain in his job, his star actually rose. he was promoted. he became chief of staff john kelly's right-hand man, even handling highly classified

material. each when this became public, the first move by these powerful public servants was to defend rob porter. they circled the wagons around rob porter and began singing his praises. the white house began to change their tune but they refused to go into detail of who knew what and when. they dodged and weaved and tried to cover it up. that was bad enough. but today it got worse. today, the president of the united states weighed in. he said nothing about the women. nothing about spousal abuse. he didn't mention the women at all. no, what he did is he chose to praise rob porter. >> let's say obviously tough time for him. he did a very good job when he was in the white house. and we hope he has a wonderful career. hopefully he will have a great career ahead of him, but it was very sad when we heard about it. certainly he's also very sad. now, he also, as you probably

know, he says he's innocent. i think you have to remember that. he said very strongly yesterday that he's innocent. so you'll have to talk to him about that, but we absolutely wish him well. >> we absolutely wish him well. now, just to be clear, the president is saying that about a man accused of doing this to his first wife colbie holderness. and emotionally abusing his second wife jennie willoughby and doing it to such a menacing degree she had to get an order of protection. >> after he did ultimately leave and i closed the door and locked it behind him, he returned a moment later and punched in the glass on the front door. and because i did know that his anger was unpredictable, i didn't know what he would do next, and i -- >> you were frightened? >> yeah, i was scared. >> it was after that that the police officer recommended she get a temporary order of protection. now, the president did not mention her today, nor did he

mention rob porter's more recent ex-girlfriend also alleging abuse. nor did john kelly's memo to staffers last night or his public statement acknowledge any of rob porter's accusers. what really stands out is the president's almost reflexive defense of an alleged abuser or even simple acknowledgement of the accusers and their allegations. as stunning as that was to hear today, maybe it really shouldn't have been stunning because this president has a history of doing for others what he did today for rob porter. this is what the president said lamenting the departure from fox news of alleged serial abuser roger ailes. >> i think it's so sad. he's such a great guy. roger is, i mean, what he's done on television, he's -- in the history of the television, he's got to be placed within the top three or four or five, and that includes the founding of the major networks. so it's too bad. >> he's talking about the

history of television. nothing about the women. he has similarly defended bill o'reilly and mike tyson. nothing about the women. high praise, though, for the alleged predators. according to reporting by "the new york times" maggie haberman. he's tried to let himself off the hook for something he's caught on tape with, his boasting about being able to sexual assault women and get away with it because he's famous. telling friends that might not be his voice on the "access hollywood" tape. the president it turns out is a remarkably understanding and forgiving guy when it comes to alleged abusers. there are exceptions and you can draw your own conclusions against them. calling for a return of the death penalty specifically for the five young black and hispanic men accused of brutally sexually assaulting a jogger in central park, the central park five. even after they were exonerated after they spent years of their lives in prison, and exonerated i shut point out by someone else's confession and actual dna

evidence, mr. trump has refused to change his belief in their guilt. there is also this tweet talking about one of the more famously abusive celebrity relationship at the time, quote, if rihanna is dating chris brown again then she has a death wish. a beater is always a beater. just watch. there is that. by and large, if you're a man accused of mistreating a woman, at least a white man, the president of the united states is quick to point out their claims of innocence. >> let me just tell you, roy moore denies it. that's all i can say. he denies it. and, by the way, he totally denies it. >> that's roy moore, alleged child molester and general malcreeper. listen to what he said in the very next breath and try to reconcile his two statements. >> mr. president, what is your message to women? this is a pivotal moment in our nation's history. >> women are very special. i think it's a very special time because a lot of things are coming out and i think that's good for our society and i think

it's very, very good for women. i'm very happy a lot of these things are coming out and i'm very happy -- i'm very happy it's being exposed. >> well, tonight he's not so happy rob porter's alleged abuses are being exposed. he's said to be furious at hope hicks and john kelly and raj shah, even he believes have failed to defend him. let's bring in former trump campaign adviser steve cortez, jen psaki and tara setmayer. jen, typically the communications director would be the person who reminds the president for say something, in this case maybe anything about victims in general of domestic violence on a day like today. but the communications director hope hicks has been in a relationship with the alleged abuser. were you surprised that the president on this day of all days would actually have the press ushered in and make that statement? >> yes. but no. because this is president trump. i think what he did today was he solidified his legacy as a

defender of abusers, especially white abusers, as you just noted in your statements there, anderson. and it shouldn't come as a surprise. it's sickening. it's not surprising. because he has defended abuser after abuser after abuser over the course of time. this is really -- it's about donald trump because he leads the white house, but this is the reflection of a morally corrupt white house. and a culture that accepts abuse, accepts sexism, accept -- of what they are and who they high-five in the hallway. i think the larger problem beyond the politics and how this impacts donald trump politically is that they're sending a message to the public that you can excuse abuse if you have a good -- if you have a good resume. if you went to a good school. if you are a good looking white man. and that's something that is troubling, a troubling message to abusers and to those who were abused who are afraid of

speaking out. >> steve, is there any way to interpret the president's comments with at best intensetivity for the alleged victims of his staff secretary? >> anderson, i have to take issue with your comments and the comments just made. i say this, by the way, as a brown man, who the president has not only treated me incredibly well, but that's really beside the point, has treated my community incredibly well. hispanic unemployment all-time lows. this is a man who cares about the prosperity and security of hispanic americans, black americans. this idea, this continual notion that is out there in the media that we are going to paint the president as a racist because we would rather not talk about policy. >> i didn't say he's a racist. >> we'd rather talk about innuendo and supposition. implicitly you did. >> he does defend white abusers. he does. >> we're talking about the -- we're not talking about his legacy on latino unemployment. >> well, but, okay, does unemployment not matter to latinos? does our prosperity as a

community not matter? >> call them rapists and murderers matter? do you really want to go down this road to try to defend trump on this? go ahead, steve. >> that's incredibly unfair, by the way. >> i want you to be able to finish -- >> he said some -- some are rapist and murderers. are some people who cross the border illegally rapists and murders? of course they are. >> were you pleased today with his comments in the oval office defending rob porter and praising rob porter and saying nothing about these women or either domestic abuse in general. >> he should have been more explicit about the victims of domestic abuse and how domestic violence is never okay in any circumstances. please put yourself in his shoes for a moment. he doesn't know rob porter in that way. general kelly didn't know rob porter in that way. they knew him in a professional setting where apparently he was exceptional. all of us have known people in their living who can do, be in a

professional setting wonderful smart and gre garrigus and wonderful and go home and be a very different person. >> do you need to go out of your way to then praise them for their action in a professional setting. first of all, he was praising roger ailes for his actions in a professional setting, which were anything but professional. and bill o'reilly as well. so it does seem -- and roy moore as well. because he was actually at the time of the allegations, he was a professional. i think he was, what, the district attorney or assistant district attorney. he does seem to go out of his way -- >> i'm assuming, anderson, here's the thing, i give the president the benefit of the doubt because i trust him. i think he meant it was sad for everyone. >> right -- no, what he said -- i've gone over his statements. what he said was it's sad for people at the white house and he knows that rob porter is really

sad as well. that was it. >> that's right. he showed no empathy whatsoever for the victims. >> i believe he meant it was sad for everyone. >> let's pay plai it again. let's just play it again right here. >> i'd say obviously tough time for him. he did a very good job when he was ins white house. and we hope he has a wonderful career. hopefully rewi hopefully he will have a great career ahead of him. it was very sad when we heard about it, but he's also very sad now. now, he also, as you probably know, he says he's innocent and i think you have to remember that. he said very strongly yesterday that he's innocent. so you'll have to talk to him about that. but we absolutely wish him well. >> so, tara, it was sad when we heard about it and he's uls obviously very sad. >> there were a whole lot of hims in there. i didn't hear anything about victims or she. this is a -- you know, it's

amazing to me how donald trump is always the victim. in every circumstance, he somehow becomes the victim here. and this is what we're -- he didn't know or it's sad now. this is nonsense. what he should have said was that, yeah, it's sad that women have to face domestic abuse like this, and if it's true that rob porter was this dr. jekyll and mr. hyde that this would have been a teachable moment for the president of the united states to say, here is a perfect example to demonstrate where domestic abusers know no boundaries. it could be a professional in the white house, it could be your next door neighbor. he could have used this as an opportunity to do that but he's incapable of rising to the occasion. you know what he's sad about? he's sad about the fact it was embarrassing to him that someone he thought played the part so well because of his resume, he went to harvard, he was a rohde scholar, all of these things. and now this makes him look bad

because of how poorly the white house managed the situation. >> that's so unfair. >> from don mcgahn to general kelly. it sends a message to women that if you have the resume and conportray yourself as an upstanding citizen and no one knows about it, then it's okay until you get caught with photographs. >> this is not a -- this is not a partisan issue. there is no "d" or "r" on domestic violence. >> of course not. >> and sexual harassment. there is not. whether we're talking about harvey weinstein or bill clinton or steve winn or rob porter, two "d"s, two "r"s. there is no -- i would say all four of the people i just named are reprehensible and terribly abused women and used their positions of four do so. that's a terrible thing. >> was roy moore reprehensible? is roy moore reprehensible? >> yes. yes -- well -- before i just -- >> the truth just came out but donald trump defended him. >> how do you not know the facts -- you know the facts on

harvey weinstein but you don't know the facts on roy moore? >> well -- fine, i'll concede that. i haven't looked into that enough. my point is -- >> you didn't look into roy moore and the allegations against roy moore? >> there are republican and democrat men who have been abusive of their position of power clearly to women and it's reprehensible in every single case. that's not a partisan issue. >> steve, i think that -- i think that the fact that it's not a partisan issue is exactly why it's confusing why you're defending donald trump. >> that's right. >> because part of what you just said earlier is that he did his job well, that rob porter did his job well. that he was well-liked. that's the whole point here -- >> exactly. >> that abusers look like they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're people in the media, they're people in politics, and when the president of the united states stands out there and tries to justify, as does the chief of staff, that this is somebody they look the other way because of that, that's not okay -- >> we've got to -- we've got

to -- we've got to take a break. i'm sorry. just tight on time. appreciate the discussion. coming up, more on the cauldron inside the white house. john kelly was brought into the white house to calm things down. we'll take a look at how that is turning out. smile honey this thing is like... first kid ready here we go by their second kid, every parent is an expert and... ...more likely to choose luvs, than first time parents. live, learn and get luvs these are the specialists we're proud to call our own. experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com

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question, chief of staff john kelly who came to the white house, of course, after the president's first chief of staff reince priebus resigned the after only a few months on the job. kelly's marching orders were to turn chaos into a sense of normalcy. how is that turning out? david axelrod, former senior council to president obama knows the job he was hired to do. >> and that he secured porter's resignation, i mean, that counting of events doesn't square with what's already on the record. does it surprise you a guy like kelly would sort of try to create this alternate history? >> yeah, well, i think creating it in this fish bowl is particularly alarming. but this whole thing has been mishandled from start to finish. the fact that he had been exposed to this information in the fall, did nothing about it, gave more responsibility to porter. the way it has been handled this

week, the lavish praise, relying on hope hicks who is dating porter to provide the talking points that he released lavishly praising porter and then the changing stories over the next 24 hours. this has been a fiasco. and the -- and what is interesting to me, anderson, is that the story leaked out of -- >> that's what's so incredible. within hours. >> yeah. which tells me that kelly has a real problem with the white house staff. you know, one of the things that he has done successfully to a large degree is root out a lot of the leaking that we had seen before. clearly there are still leaks relative to what trump is telling people, but in terms of the staff-on-staff leaking, it has been reduced significantly since he was chief of staff. the fact that people are now leaking on him tells me that he's lost the faith of the staff there. you have to wonder whether all

of this is a prelude to him leaving the job altogether. >> you know, i didn't understand how the white house yesterday kept saying, well, you know, there is this ongoing security investigation and it's not resolved and therefore we're not going to comment and we don't want to go into the details. i mean, how should this have been handled? if information like this became known to the chief of staff and clearly others in the white house, you would think at the very least they would have done -- they would have looked into it as closely as possible and acted on it. >> yeah. look, i can only tell you how the white house i worked in one have dealt with it and i suspect every other white house before this white house, and you would have certainly removed, at least on a temporary basis, mr. porter from that job, handling the most sensitive documents that the u.s. government has, and you would have looked more deeply into these charges. there is such -- there is -- there is ample evidence here

that the story that jennie willoughby told so compellingly last night on your program is true, and it was backed up by another of his wives and a girlfriend and yet all of this, you know, there were orders of protection filed. all of this was available and you have to willfully ignore it not to act on it. >> also for the white house then to allow the president to go out and speak apparently what he actually believes seems -- >> yes. >> doubly insane to me. if you know the president has said this kind of thing in the past, you would think kelly or somebody else would say to the president, how about saying this this time? >> and we don't know that they -- that they did. that was my first thought. i mean, i watched with my mouth agape. they called the white house press corps in for the express purpose of addressing this issue

and the president delivered a full-throated defense of porter and not one word of solicitude for the victims. in fact, he appears to be doing what he's done in many other instances and appeared to be blaming the alleged victims here. so the -- someone -- if no one said to him whether it was kelly or anyone else, if no one said to him going into this scrum, mr. president, if you don't do anything else, you have to express some solicitude for these women. you have to speak to their experience. if no one said that, he's got deeper problems here because that would be malpractice on a major scale. >> yeah. david axelrod, thanks very much. just ahead tonight, we have actually more breaking news. cnn has learned that up to 40 trump administration officials are still without full security clearances, just like the now fired white house aide rob porter. we'll have the latest on that

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continuing with our breaking news tonight, the now fired

white house staff secretary rob porter had only an interim security clearance despite having been on the job for only a year. turns out he was not the only one. joining me now is chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. >> anderson, myself and my colleagues sara murray and gloria borger, we are told that some 30 to 40 white house officials and other administration political appointees still 13 months into this administration have an interim security clearance, something that is meant really to be very temporary. it's not meant to be a permanent situation. now, you've heard from the white house really an explanation saying this is the product of a bureaucrat security approval process, but in fact we're told by multiple current and former intelligence official who's have worked for both republican and democratic administrations that this is one highly unusual, but also, two, not an accident, not purely a result of the

bureaucrat process, but a result of the fact that at least some of these people still on interim security clears clearances are not getting permanent clearances because of continuing questions from their fbi background checks. rob porter, of course an example of that. his being spousal abuse. but, you know, there are clearly substantive reasons behind this as well. now, to be fair, we've talked to lawyers who have represented people in the security clearance process, which can be -- i've been through it myself. and this does not mean that everyone who was still on an interim security clearance has an issue. there are a lot of folks in the trump administration who did not have a government past, which you will have often in other previous administrations, which makes it a bit easier, but it's not just that. clearly you have a number here and we have a number of officials telling us here where they have continuing, lingering questions that lead to them not getting a permanent security clearance. let's be fair, this is 13 months in. that's not normal, we're told by

multiple officials, and it's a potential problem. >> just in terms of a timeline here. i know the white house wasn't clear when they expect this to be resolved. has that changed and. >> it's not clear. and, really, it's not entirely in the white house's control. i mean, the way this works is the fbi does not issue the clearances, they do the background checks but they supply this information to the white house and then the white house has to move forward and make the decision, but if the fbi presents information to the white house that is disqualifying for those, then the white house can't move forward and grant that long-term security clearance, which is a very difficult and valuable thing. there are reasons why you go through this process. one, of course, is a character question. that's important at these levels of government when the you're handling sensitive information, but it's also a security risk question because things like the fact that you might have abused your spouse could be, if that's not public information, something that puts you at risk of blackmail. there is a national security reason why you have this process, why it's a very rigorous process, and the fact

that you have so many people, 30 to 40 in the trump administration who cannot get through that process, is both unusual and it raises serious questions as to what is holding up those clearances. why is the fbi not recommending they go forward. >> more to learn on this. coming up, more on the latest white house scandal and a timeline of what abuse allegations came to light and the white house's changing story.