like "find the thing you love and stick with it." only to find the post taken down or blocked, according to censorship watchdog china digital times. the censorship was just one more reason chinese supporters of democratization were left feeling like eeyore this week. on the agenda today, a white house in crisis and a white house press corps trying to make sense of the chaos. a president now described as unglued, unraveling, uncontrollable. where are reporters getting these quotes from? and at the white house with hope hicks leaving, is the relationship between the press corps and the president all but hopeless? later, fox hosts are in denial about the damning russia probe.

and using comedy to make a serious point about gun violence. let's begin with what many in the media are calling a wild week in the white house. i'd like to talk about what it's like for all of us as viewers, as consumers of the news. every hour it seemed of every day there were news bombshells, one after another, after another. >> what a week so far. >> what a day. a lot of breaking news tonight. >> it's entirely possible, of course, some other shocking news will break this hour. >> we're following multiple huge stories. >> it's a lot, so buckle up. >> buckle up, indeed. we wanted to look at what all these explosive headlines added up to and how we can all as consumers make sense of it. so we went ahead and looked at the cyrons on cnn this week.

it's going to take more than three minutes to go through all these. we'll slow it down in a minute. i want you to think about how fast they're going by, how much news is piling up on the screen. we're barely to the middle of the week at this point. it's wednesday now, and i'm exhausted. i'm overwhelmed just looking at the list. doesn't it feel like we're drowning in news? doesn't it feel like the number of scandals, the number of allegations of corruption, the number of new developments about the mueller probe, the number of stories about white house infighting, that it's all just too much to keep up with? if so, what should journalists do to help? what can viewers and news consumers do to keep up? i think that's the conversation that we need to have at a moment like this, where it really does feel like the white house is in a rolling, ongoing crisis. now, the banners are still going top we're going to come back to those in a minute. i wanted to show you a search we did through a service called news bank. we combined the words chaos and some other words to look at trump, obama, and bush's first

years in office. this is the first four years for obama and bush compared to the first 13 months for president trump. these are the number of mentions of the word chaos just in the first paragraph of coverage. here's turmoil. let's look again at other words we looked at. this is just a sense of how different it feels with this president. that slide really says it well. scandal. or here, dysfunction. you can see president trump winning, at least in those measurements. let's try to talk about this and make sense of it first with jeff greenfield, long-time political analyst who's been covering politics for decades. i want to know from you, jeff, if this does feel like a unique moment in time. let me just tell our viewers, we're going to put those banners back on screen. you can go through the entire week with us. did this feel unusual to you? >> yeah, well, in fact, you, chuck todd, and about 20 other people are chanting this is not normal, this is not normal out of almost like a horror movie. white house staffs are always covered. people are always interested in

fights. this is different. what concerns me is just what you touched on, which is in this avalanche, if that's the right word, of stories, what's being crowded out? i think there are two things. one are serious policy issues. this may seem wonky, but trump's refusal to back that rail tunnel between new york and new jersey, maybe not front page news to most of the country. that could have the most devastating impact on the economy of the northeast of the united states. far greater than a tax bill. it ought to be focused on heavily. >> that's a story that just broke the other day, that president trump's withholding support for funding of this gateway tunnel project. these tunnels desperately need to be rebuilt. it is a problem not just for new york but for the country. yet, he might be holding it up because he's mad at chuck schumer. >> which is an interesting -- as opposed to not letting schumer put a post office in the state. the other one is, i think this coverage, which sometimes sounds, both on this network and

others like -- you know, we're one step away from the feds coming to arrest the president for something. it's overlooking the fact that this administration and the republican congress in the first 13 months have from their point of view achieved more than any president. i mean, it puts reagan to shame. the federal bench being remade, the environmental policies being completely turned on its head, the whole social issues approach, and the fact the supreme court is almost certainly going to deal the most crippling blow to organized labor since the new deal by saying to public sector unions, you can't force people to pay dues. these are enormous achievements from the point of view of the right. i think trump's approval rating and the chaos story tends to overshadow, you know, this has been an enormously consequential 13 months. >> if there is chaos and there are 100 stories competing for

our attention, which there are, isn't that benefitting the president or benefitting the people that might be under investigation? you know, talking about these various agencies where there's been exorbitant spending, all these stories about embarrassing scandals in various departments. yet, if they don't stay on the banner for more than five minutes, don't those people benefit? >> i think it's the kind of case where every 15 seconds it seems the spotlight swings somewhere else. some of the most eyebrow raising stuff, the story that just broke about the united arab emirates' attempts to perhaps curry favor with the white house, with kushner. >> big "new york times" front page story this morning. >> some of these stories, i think, really require from a substantive point of view some sustained attention. yet, every 15 seconds it's like, not that i use this, it's almost like tinder. we're swiping right and swiping left for the next hot story.

>> that's what hii've heard abo tinder. jeff, stand by. let's bring in some other guests covering the white house every day. josh, first time on "reliable sources." so first to you. what story mattered most to you amid this flood of news this week? >> well, i think the president's comments on tariffs were certainly widely consequential. you have all sorts of reverberations around the world. you have foreign leaders calling. you have lots of schisms in his own party. and some unions and democrats who are supporting it. it was not done through a normal policy process. it's something he obviously wants to continue. he continued to say he wants, you know, more tariffs on cars, german cars. then you have also gun control. that got some attention this week. you had a president who was zigzagging all over the place. does he want to take guns from people? he's meeting with the nrr. everyone thinks he's on their

side. this is like one of the big political issues of our time. you have a president who seems whoever he's in the room with at a given time to be on their team. i think that issue deserves a lot of attention as well. >> yeah, one thing that's happening when he's in front of the cameras, then he has these off-camera meetings where he's saying something different. that causes a lot of confusion. olivia, how do you cope with this flood of news? and how do you parents, whyyour friends cope? >> i'm not coping well, but i am trying. you know, i think it is misguided to look at all of the different stories about infighting and scandals and say, well, this is a i did tractidism more serious news. if we want to understand this president's decision making process, i think it's very important to understand the way that he operates within the white house, the way his moan senior aides operate and what their agendas are. i want to point out a very serious story this week from

"the washington post" about jared kushner being possibly corrupted and targeted by foreign governments. that was the result, if you really look at it and go back, that was the result of initially a tabloid story in "the daily mail" about two white house staffers dating that then led to us finding out about all this information about security clearances that then led to fantastic investigative reporting from "the washington post" and other outlets. in this white house especially, the silly stuff turns out to be very serious, very often. >> there's sometimes a sense watching and reading all this coverage that the wheels are falling off of the trump administration. i think that causes some people to tune in because they want to know exactly how bad things are. but then it might cause other people just to tune out. not want to hear it, not want to try to make sense of it all. is that something you've seen in the past, jeff, or is this unique? >> i think there's always a tendency on the part of a president's loyalists to look at negative coverage and say

they're picking on him. but the difference is, first of all, you have a big counterpress. if you think back to watergate and wonder what would it have been like had there been a fox news, a breitbart, a hannity pounding away at the press for being biased and liberal and leftist, you wonder whether or not it would have developed quite the same way. >> would it have? >> you know, i write alternate history, but i don't to predictions. i think if the republicans had been in control of congress instead of the democrats, as the republicans are now, watergate might well have played out very differently. i think the drum beat of woodward and bernstein -- and remember how less there was of coverage. >> right, how much less. >> no cable news. you know, no social media. it might well have played out differently. >> yeah. jeff, great to see you. thanks for being here. josh and olivia, please stick around. i want to go into more detail about hope hicks' departure from

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with exclusive hilton offers. book yours, only at hilton.com welcome back. one of the few constants of the trump presidency has been hope hicks. she has been most recently the president's communications director, but she announced this week that she's resigning, perhaps leaving for a job in the private sector. i'm told she'll still be staying for a few more weeks, probably around april 1st, that'll be her

departure date. that's a serious blow to president trump. he has no one quite like hicks in his orbit. one of the other constants of his presidency is his consumption of cable news. we all know that very well, thanks to his twitter account. this week the coverage of the white house left him feeling isolated and angry. that's according to an article published in today's "washington post." the story says, quote, trump's friends are increasingly concerned about his well-being, worried that the president's obsession with cable commentary and perceived slights is taking a toll on the 71-year-old. quote, pure madness, lamented one exasperated ally. back with me now is one of the authors of that piece. josh, who are these sources who are telling reporters that the president is unwound, that he's unspooling, that he's unraveling? in whyyour story, they're questioning his well being. >> we speak to dozens of people

around the white house for our stories. sometimes when we're pursuing stories about issues in the white house, folks in the kwhwh house say to us, you know, it's not that bad, don't be overdramatic. in this story, my colleagues and i, none of us could find folks in the white house who were saying things were going well. several people said to us they thought it was as bad as july when, you know, you had reince priebus leave, sean spicer leave, the ten days of anthony scaramucci, and back in may when he fired fbi director james comey. this has been a remarkable stretch for the president not listening to people around him, really pursuing things just as he wants, whenever he wants, wherever he wants, and him being really frustrated and isolated. the departure of hope hicks, as you alluded to, is very consequential in this presidency. she stood outside the oval office. she was in for hours a day at times. he trusted her almost like a family member. he wasn't just a normal

communications director. it's a big deal. >> olivia, you profiled hope hicks in the past. you've been writing about her again this week for "new york" magazine. thinking about her departing a month from now, will relations between the press and the president change? will they deteriorate even further? >> well, i think it will have an effect, i believe, on his mood. perhaps it will deteriorate further. perhaps he will become even more unpredictable and volatile than he's been. i see these reports he's become unglued. if he's been glued until now, i think that's a pretty remarkable fact for us to consider. i think as josh just said, she's not just a typical communications director. i've seen some people, some beltway commentators try and say, oh, this is so typical of washington to blow this 29-year-old communications director departing into this enormous story and it's not

really that important. i disagree. she's the longest serving aide. she's one of the closest people to the president. she's literally the closest person to the president in that her office is five feet from the oval office. and he really does rely on her. i think that he kind of uses her to bounce ideas off of, bounce thoughts off of. she's sort of this familiar presence in a place where he's uncomfortable and unhappy and does not feel welcome in washington. >> for example, she was encouraging him to attend the gridiron dinner last night, helping him get ready for that dinner. i thought the jokes were genuinely funny. let's put one on screen, if we can. this is about fox and election night. here's something trump said at this off-camera dinner. he said, i've got to be up early tomorrow, 6:00, to listen to "fox & friends," they actually do a great job. he went on to say, this is one of the best times i've had with the media tonight. this might be the best time i've had since watching your faces on election night. i can't deliver that joke as

well as he could. i wish it were on camera. he did seem to have a good time at the gridiron dinner. he seemed to be in a good mood. makes he wonder if he'll go to the white house correspondents' dinner in a couple months and deliver some of those jokines there as well. you look at some of the president's comments at the dinner, he seems to be in good spirits. how do we jive that with all these reports about his anger and his frustration? >> right. he often is in good spirits. one of his closest confidants said he talked to him recently, the president was upbeat. he had dinner with steve schwarzman and rudy giuliani friday night. he was upbeat and remarkably funny. the president is mercurial. in the mornings, he'll watch hours of cable television. at night, he'll watch again. small things, minor slights, white house sources have told us, can really set him off. so you have a president who is a good entertainer, by all accounts. everyone who plays golf with him

says he's funny and cheerful and someone nice to be around, who often at his club is in his most relaxeded state and having a good time, laid back. then during the white house, we get account after account of the president watching television, calling his friends, getting very angry. >> josh, you're saying the news coverage causes him to be enraged, then he tweeted about it and there's more news coverage about his rage. isn't that a vicious cycle? >> in some ways it's a media and response strategy, as i had former white house strategist steve bannon has said. nothing really influences the president on a lot of issues like the news coverage. this week, the president loved the coverage of the gun control debate. you had everyone in the room, he was sitting at the head of the table. it was remarkable television by all account b -- accounts.

he really fixates on how he'ser is -- he's perceived. sometime it's more about what the perception will be. i think in politics, he sees that perception matters, just as it did as a real estate developer and a television host. >> when i read these stories and your story this morning is titled "dark days in the white house." when i read these stories, i get worried. i get worried about the country. i get worried about the president. do you get worried when you talk to your sources, olivia? >> no, that's not my concern. my concern is to figure out what is going on and why it is happening that way. that's the way i think about these things. >> you're able to remove yourself from the emotions of being a citizen? >> nobody is able to remove themselves completely from that, right, but my primary concern is figuring out, you know, what is happening and why it is happening that way. i don't typically -- i do think oftentimes how unusual it is.

this conversation is unusual. we're talking about how we can determine what the president of the united states' mood is. and we all have these different tricks and sources and ways that we figure this out. that is stunning to me. that is not something that was typical of previous presidents. and the fact that we need to do it in order to gain insight into what he's doing or what he might do is pretty remarkable. i think it's important to kind of take a step back when we have a conversation like this about, you know, the president being upset watching cable news in the morning and watching again at night and asking about the optics of a meeting with democrats. i think we need to take a step back and realize that this is highly unusual. >> that we're living through something that is not normal, maybe not right. josh, you have a quote, second paragraph of your story. it says, as one official put it, we have not bottomed out. it's going to get worse. do you ever get worried personally about how this is going to end? >> i share that same concern with olivia.

my job is just kind of to report and figure out what's happening and tell people the facts for them to make their opinions. peter king at the end of our story today said the president ran the worst, most chaotic campaign ever. at the end, he was smiling and grinning. he doesn't want to do it like others. he likes pitting people against each other. some of it almost seems like he wants a made-for-television story line and ratings. in some ways, the president's done it this way his whole life. there are certain decisions where allies are not consulted, policymakers are not included, lawyers are not vetting documents that certainly are concerning. i think some of his tendencies to, you know, go from one policy position to another in a matter of a few minutes leaves people's heads spinning. but a lot of people voted for him. i hate to go back to that, but a lot of people voted for him because they knew what they were getting and liked it. in some ways, you still continue to see that. i don't think it's my job to be

concerned or worried. my job is just to report what he's doing. >> thank you for being here. coming up later, the robert mueller x factor. first, a late-night median takes the gun debate really seriously. he joins me next. have moderatee plaque psoriasis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months, ... with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment.

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stoneman douglas high school in florida. the student survivors have somewhat successfully, maybe very successfully, kept the media spotlight on the school and on the issue of gun violence. my next guest says the reason they've been so successful is because the students took control of the media narrative and took it away from donald trump. quote, they were able to beat trump at his own game. joining me now is jordan klepper. normally you're a guy that plays like an alex jones style conspiracy theory character. >> real likable guy. >> it was pretty intimidating. i had to face-off with you. >> i can be a very intimidating guy. >> but here you are being serious about gun violence. why is it this issue you've brought to the forefront? >> i covered a lot of the gun debate at "the daily show." i went through the process of what it would take for a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. i quickly realized in america there is so much more common ground. it was really frustrating

because that wasn't the narrative that was getting out into the public. i did a special that was focusing on that, as somebody who comes from michigan, i have a lot of gun folks in my family and my surroundings. >> gun folks, meaning people that own guns and want to ensure there isn't more gun control. >> yeah. i think where guns mean something different than what they mean in new york. hunting is an issue. for me, i felt like i was so frustrated because i got to talk to people who had guns and people who didn't have guns and saw there was a different narrative here that wasn't being covered. >> what is the common ground that you find? >> i think the common ground, whether -- if you have a gun, you don't want somebody to have a gun who can do some harm with that gun. i think that's a very basic, basic thing. i think the nra takes this narrative and make it all about grabbing guns. they make it about all these hyperbolic elements. the majority of people agree on the same thing with gun issue. there's not enough attention paid to what the majority wants.

it's this very small minority. the gun lobby has a much louder voice than it needs to. >> is this for you like jimmy kimmel is with health care? do you view gun violence that way as a comedian, that maybe you can get through to people in a way that others can't? >> for me, it is something that i've been involved with, and it keeps happening. as somebody with a platform, we want to follow the conversation. right now i think it's really interesting, powerful conversation with these students from parkland. >> you had a couple on your show. >> we did, yes. again, finding comedy in this is difficult, but i think a spotlight on some of these heroes -- we had a couple students who came on. they talked about what they wanted to do with this movement. i think they were able to beat trump at his own game, as we talked about earlier. they're not cynical. they're passionate. they're able to reach out to other students who feel this way as well. they're able to own the media narrative in a way that i

haven't seen since donald trump's become president. for me, that was exciting to see people look at this debate through new glasses. >> there's also something about the word survivor, meaning that every student in that school was a survivor. but i'm not sure the columbine survivors were talked about that way almost 20 years ago. i'm not sure even if virginia tech, the students were talked about that way. being a survivor means that you have something that you've lived through that hopefully no one else ever will that gives you an opportunity to talk. there's something about the language that's been used in this coverage that's different. it's also different that students have been so available for interviews. >> they also now have this social media platform that they're so well versed in. they can get their voice out. they can see themselves as a survivor, but they also see themselves as activist, and they're not going to sit on the sidelines anymore. that's really remarkable to watch. >> which brings up this question we've started to see in the television coverage this week. is this time really different? is there actually going to be action as a result of another massacre? what's your guess? >> i really hope that it is.

i mean, we've seen -- we've gone through this before, but we haven't gone through it with these voices that are uncynical and who are really starting to hold these folks in positions of power, hold their feet to the fire. it felt like in the past, sadly, these narratives are gone by and four, five days later, they've passed away. now we have these students keeping the narrative there. it's something we're rallying around. i do have optimism this has a new face and a new energy. >> as for your other work on the opposition, you know, playing this bombastic conspiracy theory believer, do you think you give more attention to alex jones than he actually deserves? you know, alex jones, host of info wars, full of lies on his web videos show. this week he's in the news because of youtube. let's put on the screen the story about youtube. youtube is taking a closer look at his channel and thinking about making blocking his channel. this headline here says he's two strikes away from being banned. would it be a good thing for him

to be banned from youtube and have less talk about alex jones? >> if we can stop some of the bile he excretes out into our media landscape, i think that is a good thing. we see him with this shooting as well creating these ideas of crisis actors and putting that out. suddenly that was a narrative that took hold and people started pushing back against these survivors to try to delegitimize their experiences. i think that is vile and disgusting. for us, what we try to do, is we try to shine a light on what is affecting the narrative and try to poke holes in that. >> right, right. great to see you. than thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> one more know about the students, the school in florida. there's this crowd sources campaign to help the students at marjory stoneman douglas high school to document the aftermath of the tragedy for their paper and yearbook. both are self-funded. we have a story up on cnn.com about the crowd funding campaign. as of this morning, they've

surpassed the goal. they've upped the goal to $50,000. up next on "reliable sources", as robert mueller's investigation pix up its pace, trump's defenders, they're having to find new ways to protest. whoooo.

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robert mueller's probe seems to be broadening in various countries and at the same time tightening in on members of president trump's family. but the more mueller discovers, the more trump's tv boosters have to deny, deny, deny. the worse things look for trump's inner circle, the worst the deflections get. this new cnn poll finds 61% of americans believe the russia investigation is a serious matter. but if you're watching fox, you're hearing the opposite. >> we've been hearing about russia nonstop, literally nonstop, for more than a year. almost no information has come out to justify the obsession. none has come out to justify the

claim there was collusion. and most americans are no longer interested, if they ever were. >> do you see the banner he's using on screen there? tucker's banner says americans don't care about russian meddling. again, the cnn poll shows that's just not true. this is brand new poll data. it shows that 72% of americans are very or at least somewhat concerned about foreign interference in u.s. elections. 70% are concerned specifically about russian-backed disinformation campaigns. the kind of campaigns that are still going on today. but again, over at fox, they claim nobody cares. >> everybody wants this story to move on, except for the people who don't want it to move on. it's the election losers. but now this is their benghazi, right. this is their thing. it's paper thin, but they're clutching at it hard. >> i think that's fascinating. paper thin? only if you're not looking at the paper. the paper is piling up in the

form of indictments and subpoenas. this is just an incomplete list of what's happened so far. every day there's new stories about what mueller is finding, et cetera, et cetera. maybe that's why sean hannity has fallen back to this. >> remember, this whole witch hunt was supposed to only be about trump/russia collusion. that evidence does not exist. all of this time. >> someone, please, show sean the original letter from the attorney general appointing mueller as special counsel. it doesn't say the word collusion. it says mueller is charged with finding any links and/or coordination with the russian government and associated with president trump's campaign or any matters that arose or may arise from the investigation. this is an important story. these ongoing developments. mueller is certainly hard at work. there's a lot we don't know. but wh but just in the past few days, look at all these new headlines, all these stories about what

mueller is asking in these meetings of the various people he's interviewing, what he might be finding. there's a new story in the "new york times" this morning about these developments. these developments come on a daily basis. so let's talk about it with two experts in this subject matter. natasha bertrand works for "the atlantic," covering national security. and steve brills, the founder of court tv. natasha, first to you on the developments this week. i saw a lot of headlines about mueller asking various questions to various individuals. did we actually learn anything new about the probe? >> where do we even begin? we learned a lot this week about the scope of mueller's investigation and how it's actually expanding. even as many of trump's defenders say it's just a witch hunt and nothing has been found. so we learned that mueller is now investigating whether jared kushner's policies that he pushed in the white house were linked to any of his financial interests that he had before of

course he entered the administration. we also learned that mueller is examining whether or not trump himself knew about the hacked democratic e-mails or about whether or not they were going to be released before they were actually released to the public by wikileaks, whether or not that former campaign aide, george papadopoulos, ever told anyone in the trump campaign he had been told by someone linked to russia that they had dirt on hillary clinton in the form of thousands of e-mails. so now this actually goes back to the collusion question. everyone thought that perhaps mueller was just homing in on the obstruction of justice question because it was easier. but that, of course, was the public facing aspect of his investigation. now we know based on the reporting from last week that he actually still is pursuing very aggressively the question of whether or not the trump campaign knew about the dirt on hillary clinton and whether or not that famous line from donald trump during that press conference, russia, if you're listening, find those 30,000 missing e-mails, actually was tide back to his knowledge or not. >> so when you see someone

saying it's a paper thin case, how do you react? >> it's astonishing that they're still saying that, even after 19 people have been charged with crimes, after five of them have pleaded guilty. it's just -- it's very clear as of right now anyway that this is not just a witch hunt. actually, robert mueller made that clear a few weeks ago when he indicted 13 russian nationals for their role in interfering in the election. that made it clear to everyone around robert mueller, even his critics, that he was not just going after the president. he was actually actively investigating russia's election interference. >> where do the leaks come from? all those headlines i was showing, they're based on leaks. is it mueller's team? do you have any reason to believe his office is leaking? >> there's no reason to believe that it's mueller's office. if mueller's office was leaking, then we would not be completely surprised and shocked every time he dropped an indictment. we would have known beforehand, for example, he was going to charge michael flynn with pleading guilty, with lying to the fbi. we would have known that george papadopoulos, this virtually unknown campaign aide, had pleaded guilty to lying to the

fbi and was now cooperating witness. so the leaks are primarily coming from people who have already been interviewed by robert mueller and who are telling the press what questions were asked so that we can all get a better idea of what the scope of his investigation is. >> so i'm reminded again, steve, how little we actually know about mueller's probe. if we're only finding out what questions are being asked inside these meetings, we don't know the answers, and we don't know what mueller already knows. >> that's the problem that president trump's defenders in the media have, which is they can't -- it's not a two-sided debate because unlike the ken starr investigation of president clinton where he was holding press conferences, constantly leaking, you know, he literally held press conferences outside his office. >> we can show the video. i think once at his driveway. >> for months, reporters who were covering the mueller investigation literally didn't know where his office was, and many don't.

so the problem that the president's defenders have is they have nothing to argue against, and every time mueller does something, it comes as a complete surprise, which gives it much more drama -- >> more power. >> because nothing has been leaked. it's a total surprise. >> these are pictures of ken starr back in the day. let's show that famous cover of your old magazine. this is a cover of ken starr surrounded by reporters. the title there is "press gate." you had critiques of the press back then that ken starr was driving the coverage of the starr inquiry. sounds very different this time. >> yeah, the fact is that every reporter worth his salt, me included when i used to write about the teamsters union and organized crime, loves to get leaks, especially leaks of grand jury proceedings. it is illegal for prosecutors to leak that. so reporters love to try to get it. but you have to, with any prospective, admire a guy like

mueller, who you wouldn't dream of asking him or his staff to leak that stuff because they don't. ken starr, very different story. they leak like a sieve. >> interesting. steve, stick around. natasha, thank you for being here. quick break, and then on the other side, a new venture to take on fake news. what's the value of capital? what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there.

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did you get your news on the internet? and at this point we all do, you know, i know, we all know it's a mess. it's a mess out there. this week's twitter ceo jack dorsey kind of issued an apology for all the abuse, harassment that happens on twitter. meanwhile facebook had to apologize for one of its programs going awry and threatened to punish a site for a piece of satire. these companies are struggling to figure out when it comes to news, what exactly is a reliable source? and how to help people know what

to believe. these companies are struggling. so here with a potential solution is steve brill. steve you're announcing tomorrow this company calls newsguard. what are you trying to do? what are you trying to guard against? >> well, we're trying to look at the problem that all the platforms have. and that they've so far been not able to solve, you know, using algorithms. the best example you just cited, they almost took down a satire. and we're going to solve that problem using, guess what, human beings. >> that's so old-fashioned of you. you're going to employ journalists? >> we're going to hire dozens of journalists to read the 7500 sites that are responsible for 98% of the news and information consumed online by people in the united states. and they're going to do very simple ratings. most are going to get a green, you know, we're not going to decide is the boston globe a

little more reliable than the baltimore sun. you know, legitimate news operations, and think tanks and magazines, are going to get greens. some will get yellows if they don't disclose the sources of their financing, you know, if they're propaganda. if they're secret websites of a trade association. and the obvious fake ones will get red. basically what we're doing is no more, and no less than telling people the difference between the "denver post," which is a real newspaper. >> right >> and the denver guardian, which broke a bunch of, you know, completely fake stories. >> a hoax site. >> before the election. now, in some ways the people watching your program, and certainly you, don't need this protection the way the average reader online does. who's looking at, you know, the facebook feed that they get, and the only thing they see are headlines. they don't know if the head line is from the "denver post" or

from the "denver guardian." >> i have a hard time, i think, like everybody else, if it's my job and i'm supposed to know what is real -- >> if you do. >> then we're in trouble. but my understanding is you're trying to get google and facebook to license your feed. do you have any sign they're going to pay? >> yes, we do. and we're asking them to pay a fraction of what they pay their pr people, and they're lobbyists to talk about the problem. >> hmm. >> we're going to solve -- we're not going to solve all the problems of the world. but we are going to take a first cut, because the simple fact is that sometimes human intelligence is better than artificial intelligence. >> i like that you're trying to address people that are trying to get time right, versus sites that are the trying to make it up. that's the issue. >> yeah, we're not going to get -- >> they're trying to get it right >> we're not going to grade every article. because the way we achieve scale is looking at sites, not articles. and as you well know, you know, within every brand there are mistakes, there are articles that are wrong, we're not

solving the problem. we're solving the basic problem denver guardian, versus "denver post." a website called what is fracking, which is spoernsed by the american petroleum institute versus an article an trafrackin. >> more about cnn newsguard at cnn.com. thanks for tuning in. make sure you sign up for our nightly news letter. we'll see you right back here on television this time next week.

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the justice department just indicted 13 russians for sabotaging our elections. an electronic attack on america that the chief investigator called "warfare". so what did this president do? nothing. and is he doing anything to prevent a future attack? the head of the fbi says no. this president has failed his most important responsibility- protecting our country. the first question is: why? what is in his and his family's business dealings with russia that he is so determined to hide, that he'd betray our country? and the second question is: why is he still president? join us today. we have to do something. this is food made to sit down for. slow down for. put the phone away, and use a knife and fork for. and with panera catering, it's food worth sharing. panera. food as it should be.

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♪ trump's tariffs. a surprise announcement. >> we're going to be instituting tariffs, 25% for steel. it'll be 10% for aluminum. >> one that critics say could lead to a trade war. >> people have no idea how badly our country has been treated. >> but could americans end up paying more? we'll ask a man behind the president's trade plan peter navarro next. plus shifting stance? president trump calls for new gun legislation.