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film actress stormy daniels. what the president knew about it even what the white house claims he said about it. today press secretary sarah sanders said the president has already addressed the issue. she was not being forthright. he has not addressed theish other you. cnn's jeff zeleny learned when he tried to pin her down, he joins us now from the white house. explain what happened today. >> reporter: anderson, for more than a year, about a year and a half or so, you know, president trump then donald trump trying to stay out of this, the white house has been trying to say this is an old story, these questions have been asked and answered by voters. but of course they have not been with all these new revelations really day by day. and things that are still going on behind the scenes, you know, on behalf of the president. so, we asked sarah sanders today if the president knew about that payment in october of 2016. did the president approve of the payment that was made in october of 2016 by his long-time lawyer and advisor michael cohen? >> look, the president has addressed these directly and

made very well clear none of these allegations are true. this case has already been won in arbitration and anything beyond that i would refer you to the president's outside counsel. >> when did the president address specifically the cash payment that was made in october of 2016 -- >> the president has denied the allegations against him and, again, this case has already been won in arbitration. anything beyond that i would refer you to outside counsel. >> did he know about that payment at the time, though? >> i have addressed this as far as i can go. >> the payment, did he know about the payment at the time? >> not that i'm aware of. >> so, sarah sanders is saying there she's not aware of the president being made aware of that payment at the time. and clearly sarah sanders was done with our questions on that matter. but the briefing went on, anderson, and people were pressing her, other reporters were pressing her about the arbitration. so, the white house has essentially now injected itself, put itself in the middle of this story here, talking about arbitration. of course, we learned later from

stormy daniels' lawyer they were not aware of this, a party to this, and we have also learned the president's lawyer is trying to block her from speaking, anderson. so, by trying to close this down, so many more questions tonight. >> jeff, this is the first time the white house has actually acknowledged that the president is a party to anything having to do with stormy daniels legally or otherwise >> reporter: it was the first time. this is a reflection of the fact that these conversations are happening behind closed doors here in the west wing. sarah sanders was asked directly if she had asked the president directly about this. she said, yes, she had. so, the reality is the white house has now acknowledged this. the role in the middle of this. now, the questions are is the president still directing michael cohen what to do here, many ethical concerns. never mind the political questions here. but until the president answers these questions or is asked these questions himself, anderson, i think they will continue. >> all right. jeff zeleny, thanks.

i spoke with stormy daniels' attorney just before air time. he told me there is more to the story beyond what's in the lawsuit. take a look. >> we are not going to disclose at this point all of the facts in evidence that we have substantiating the allegations in the complaint nor would we have set that all forward in the complaint. i mean that just wouldn't be smart. but we certainly have more facts in evidence to support the allegation or allegations, i should say, than what has already been disclosed. >> want to bring back our panel, dana bash, julie her shall feld dame is. money without the hush, bogus arbitration, presidential alias. who has the strongest case, stormy daniels, president trump or michael cohen? >> it's not a close call. stormy daniels does. first of all, in california, generally as a general rule, the arbitrator does not have the ability to issue what's called injunctive relief. so, this idea that somehow they ran into a.d.r., that they got

some kind of an order is ludicrous on its face, number one. number two, you can't tell somebody that they can't talk. that's called prior restraint. you're only kind of remedy for that is to sue for damages later on. so, this is a long way from over and, you know, notwithstanding all of the ethical issues, the fact that they are claiming to have won an arbitration is almost laughable. >> dana, just politically how big a problem is this for the president or is it? does anyone care? >> well, there are two questions, right. there is a legal problem and there is a political problem, which they are separate questions i think at this point. the legal problems i'm going to leave it up to the lawyers to answer that question. certainly seems that there are potential issues, particularly with what you were talking about earlier, anderson, which is did he sign this, did he sign it under an alias, did he even know about it, all of those questions. the political question is, is something we don't really know.

if you kind of apply the test of the access hollywood tape, the answer is no. it's really not. it's baked in that president trump is not a saint, that nobody thinks that he behaves in a way that would suggest that he's a saint. having said that, he's not on the ballot this year. republicans sort of across the country are, and particularly in the house, in states like your home state of pennsylvania, there are some in suburbs where they really rely on the female vote. and there are some, even though certainly when it came to donald trump, i personally talked to so many of them during the 2016 election where they said they didn't care about donald trump. it may be a little bit difficert with their overall view of the republican party and that will reflect on who they vote for in november. >> senator sanders, do you think the conservative wing of the republican party is concerned about something like this? senator san or um. i'm sorry. >> that's okay.

>> there's a first time for everything. happens to me all the time. >> same politics. >> same politics, same book. i would say that what the white house is doing is i think purely political, which is they don't want to talk about this. they want to downplay it. let the networks that want to focus on this, which most of their base voters don't watch, talk about it. and then hopefully the rest of the conservative media ignores the story because the president isn't going to talk about it. because the president talks about it then they have to cover it. so, i think the strategy is let the legal battle weigh in. there will be claims, counter claims. it will all get lost in the wash, and we won't talk about it. we'll dismiss it and hopefully it will move on. >> you know, i think it's right that voters probably don't care that much about this. i actually think that's a good thing in the sense of i think

the consensual relationships that happen with presidents is their business and their family's business. but that's not what this is really about, right? it's not about the fact that he cheated on his wife. as dana said, we know he's not a saint. the issue is did he pay somebody off to stay quiet. and it was interesting that stormy daniels' lawyer said earlier that it looked like a kind of cut and paste job, which would suggest that maybe there are other agreements like this and so you have somebody who is vulnerable to being blackmailed. >> mark geragos, when you looked at the agreement, did it look like a cut and paste job, like sort of a -- jeff tubin said it looked like a form that had been used before. i don't know how a lawyer would figure that out. did it read like that to you? >> without disclosing who the clients are, i've dealt with keith davidson on numerous occasions. i've seen this iteration countless times. so, yes, this is a cut and paste. this is generally -- there is also a declaration under penalty

of perjury that accompanies these things. and there is generally what i think michael was referring to is generally what you do is you turn overall of the texts, photos, things of that nature, and then sign a declaration that you don't have anything else in your possession. that's the one component that we haven't seen here and i suspect that's what michael is referring to when he says that he hasn't turned over everything else. because this is really standard operating procedure in hollywood and amongst high-profile people. and remember, he was, during this time he was a tv star. this is something that, you know, in a post tmz world is up for grabs almost all the time. >> michael, did the american people have a right to know if the president was involved in paying somebody off for their silence? >> oh, i'm not sure. this is a personal issue that happened over a decade ago. let's not forget this is a woman who gets paid for sex, wanting more money. i don't think she's got a

credibility issue. she's already been paid. she's probably run out of it. i think as a matter of fact, the timing of this is not coincidental to her strip club tour across united states. she's appearing in fort lauderdale on a make america horny again. she's auctioning off a dress she says that she wore when she was dating donald trump. this isn't serious. i don't see any of this really settling in with american people. >> bakari? >> i'm actually going to agree with a little bit of everybody at the table here tonight because i think that even bernie sanders earlier, of course we have the 50,000 foot view is we have greater issues to talk about as a country. when you go down, one of the things mark geragos at any time mention but i'm sure he knows as an attorney as i am, is that you don't just have settlement agreements or settlement negotiations without having those discussions with your client. that gets you an ethical trouble. you do not sign $130,000 agreements without your client even knowing. so, it's ludicrous to believe

that the client doesn't know. and i think that sarah huckabee sanders for as good as she's been the past 6, 7, 8 months actually made a grave error today by injecting herself in that. but the larger theory is what michael says, what kiersten said and what rick said, dana to a point, trump voters don't care about this. i mean, the make america horny tour started in god's country known as greenville, south carolina where rick knows. rick won greenville, south carolina. i mean, it is the christian moral compass of the state and of the country. and they don't care about this. you know, the most amazing thing about this is the headline tonight is that porn star sleeps with the president of the united states. but the republican party, the only republican who has spoken out forcefully, the irony of this situation, is somebody i voted against in the general assembly to impeach him and that's mark sanford. that is where the republican party is. they no longer have the high ground on any issues that come

along with moral fortitude, with believing in a moral compass. the republican party doesn't have that any more. >> julie, i want to hear -- >> i think that is an important point because if you remember with the access hollywood tape, the tipping point was really when republicans, both publicly and privately, were really uncomfortable with that and were sort of wringing their hands and thinking this was going to cost them the presidential election and the pressure mounted on donald trump to say something about it and in fact he did. in this case we don't see that materializing now. maybe as we learn more about this case as the agreements expire and people reveal more about what stormy daniels has to say if that does happen, we'll see more of a drum beat of -- >> she's not alleging abuse. that's different. >> mark geragos, this is a consensual relationship. her attorney said that very clearly. >> very different from the tape. >> yeah, but you know the irony for me, at least having lived

through white water, the same voters who apparently don't care about about it when it comes to donald trump, they sure cared a whole lot about it when it was bill clinton. i lived through that in arkansas 20 years ago, almost exactly to the day. and the irony of it is if you're going to be -- if you're going to be so anti-bill clinton because many of the allegations including gennifer flowers were consensual relationships, and yet those people were the ones who were talking about the lack of moral clarity and the lack of a moral compass and blah, blah, blah. and here we are today, they don't care. and i was laughing as bakari, and bewere talking about it, they don't care about the dress. we remember the dress with monica. they don't care about whether he's lying about it, i didn't have sex with that woman. it's deja vu all over again as yogi berra says. >> we're going to take a break and pickup that thought when we

come back. special counsel mueller is learning about what president trump asked when he discussed with investigators. there are two types of people in the world. those who fear the future... and those who embrace it. the future is for the unafraid. ♪ ♪ the future is for the unafraid. fvo: he's encouraged other people to look around and notice one another and take the time for each other. that's his gift. ♪ i'll stand by you. mvo: anybody can make a difference. it's easy to give back. it's just a little bit of time. ♪ ♪ i'll stand by you.

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i'm an outdoorsman. so i've asked chase sapphire reserve cardmembers to find my next vacation. chile, what's going on? i'm at the el tatio geysers. geezer. geyser. geezer. geyser. enough. geezer. whoaa, wooooo. dude, be careful. i think you should come camping. why would i camp in the atacama desert? oh... 3x points on travel and restaurants on every continent. sapphire reserve, from chase. make more of what's yours. so, what did president denison know and when did he know it? like it or not, president denison is a thing online part of a nondisclosure agreement, the lawsuit of the nondisclosure agreement. here is more of my conversation we touched on before the break before the attorney of stephanie clifford, stormy daniels, a.k.a. peggy peterson. our chief legal analyst jeffrey tubin said the contract

reads to him like kind of a form that maybe has been used before. does it seem that way to you? i mean, are you aware of any other women who signed similar contracts with president trump? >> we're not aware of any other women, but let me just say this. in my experience, the way that this was handled and the documentation, quite honestly, this was amateur hour, anderson. this is very, very sloppy. it's very, very messy. it is shocking, quite honestly, that something of this magnitude was handled in this way in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election. i have a lot -- >> what's sloppy about it? >> i have a lot of respect for mr. cohen. i think he's a good attorney in a lot of ways. i don't know the exact circumstances of what happened here, but this is not how something of this importance should have been handled in my opinion. >> back now with the panel. senator santorum, i want to go back to something you said earlier. if president obama, if it had

been revealed that he had paid off somebody for $130,000 before becoming president on the final days of the campaign, wouldn't that be a huge deal on the right? >> yeah. i'm not suggesting that it shouldn't be a huge deal and i'm not suggesting to counter what mark geragos just said, that somehow there is a moral equivalency what donald trump did ten years before he was president and what bill clinton did in the white house with an intern. i think there is a fundamental difference there. and lying to the fbi was another fundamental difference. so, please don't equate things that are fundamentally different and say, oh, we're all just, you know, we're all just rogues. >> you know republicans were criticizing him long before monica. there was gennifer flowers. >> by the way -- by the way -- >> saying he lacked character and that you need to have character for a president in the white house. that's just a fact. >> and what i'm going to say to you is i agree. and lots of republicans,

including myself, had serious problems with it and expressed those problems. many republicans to the point where they wouldn't vote for him. there is that whole group of never trumpers. never trumpers wasn't about his policies on tariffs. it was about the moral character of the man. so, i didn't see that on the other side with the democrats. democrats were in lockstep. that was not the case with the republicans. i agree with you. most republicans have gone along. but i think most are uncomfortable with it. >> mark, i wanted you to respond. >> i was just going to say, look, i'm not saying that if it's ten years before. remember, we're talking weeks before the election. that's when this money was transferred. that's when the acts took place. that's when the lawyer supposedly -- to echo what bakari said, i mean, you start paying off things without consulting your client, you walk smack-dab into the state bar of whatever jurisdiction you're licensed in. you can't do that. i can't settle something for a client without talking to that

client. that's one of the biggest no-nos as a lawyer ethically you can get. when you want to talk about moral equivalency, the moral equivalency here is that the same people who seem to be nonplussed about this are the same people who were constructing all kinds of crazy theories about bill clinton and seizing the moral high ground on bill clinton. now, look, i will agree on some things. i'll tell you the same complaints i had about ken starr 20 years ago are the same complaints that i would have about mueller now. but, you know, people don't -- people tend to look at this thing through their partisan glasses or lenses as opposed to just trying to examine it rationally. >> but this is -- i was 5 or 6 when we were having a discussion that originates about bill clinton, right? 49% of the electorate -- >> i hate when you do that. >> i was going to say, yeah, rub it in, bakari.

>> i know, but my only point is -- a lot of americans are sitting back saying, okay, i get that. we dealt with the clinton era. but now let's deal with the trump era and where are all these republicans today? i mean, these are the same republicans who tout family and faith. i'll go to jeff duncan who has the freedom and faith values barbecue where all the presidential candidates come and everybody stands up and says that this is our moral compass. this is our platform. this is who we are. but it's crickets now. nobody is even raising a voice. and it's not just stormy daniels will be my point to you, rick. my point to you would be that this is a pattern of behavior. this is not an isolated incident. if this was just an isolated incident, then we can say oh, my god, the liberal media is doing this. but we're adding up a plus b. hell, we're already at m, n, o -- this is how far we are when we talk about the incidents. show me a republican congressman -- >> out there defending the

president on this. >> show me someone other than mark sanford saying anything. martin luther king said it's not a test of who you are in times of silence. like when are you going to speak up and say something? the audacity of cohn to resign over tavz but didnriffs. didn't say anything about xenophobe i can't. you know melania still lives there. it still is adultery. it still is cheating on your wife when she just had a child she gave birth to. the $130,000, we don't know where that money came from. >> bakari, the only thing i would say to you is you know this politically. because it is as you describe, a pattern, it's not a news flash. not as if he presented himself -- i'm not defending it. >> we're all making the same point. >> that is my point. >> this is a woman who gets paid for sex, wanting more money.

she once said that this didn't happen. she's changed her position which i guess she does five or six times every video she's ever done. >> i think you missed the whole me too movement that just happened. >> he didn't. he was here. >> seriously. because a woman is an adult film actress does not mean that she is an inherently bad person who can't tell the truth. you're just talking about her life because of what she does. by the way -- >> she got paid $130,000 and wants more money. she said it didn't happen, now she said it did. i'm talking about her credibility -- >> why was the president that you supported hanging out with her and taking pictures with her -- >> as a lawyer, let me ask this question to you. okay, let's take who it is out of the equation. let's take that. i think this stormy daniels deserves to be heard just like mona lisa or whomever else deserves to be heard. but that's not my point. let's ask this question. where was the $130,000 from?

if you want -- >> cohen. >> if you want to talk -- first of all, lawyers don't pay settlements for clients. >> you don't know michael cohen. there is no one more loyal to the president than michael cohen. >> loyalty can get you locked up. ask john edwards. >> this is about michael cohen. >> i'm not throwing him under the bus. michael cohen knew exactly what he was doing. he's going to have to discuss this. >> this is the problem with what sarah sanders said at the white house. she acknowledged this is not just michael cohen. she said the arbitration was settled favorably to the president. she made it clear that there is a connection here between the president that if it was michael cohen, fine, it was michael cohen. but he was acting at president trump's behest. regardless whether you think stormy daniels has credibility issues or she has some sort of agenda, the fact is that she is alleging conduct. the white house cannot rule out that conduct. she said not to my knowledge. not just with the fact that he may or may not have had an affair with her, but about the cover up and the fact that he is

alleged to have and still to this day as recently as a week ago, been acting -- he's a sitting president who is using legal machineations to try to shut up a witness. that is making allegations l >> michael cohen wouldn't do something like this without donald trump, you don't know michael cohen. >> it would be unethical. >> understood, i get that. i'm not a lawyer. i do know that he's extremely loyal to -- >> that is actually fraud. >> we're going to have more with the panel and breaking news in the investigation reporting in "the new york times" the president hasn't been able to resist talking to witnesses about their testimony and we'll get the panel's take on whether it's more than just inappropriate. what's going on here? i'm babysitting. that'll be $50 bucks. you said $30 dollars. it was $30 before the pizza-ordering fee and the dog-sitting fee. are those my heels? with t-mobile taxes and fees are already included, so you get four unlimited lines for just $35 bucks each.

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there is breaking news in the russia investigation. "the new york times" reporting tonight the special counsel robert mueller has learned of at least two times in recent months president trump asked witnesses about what they discussed with investigators. and one incidents the president reportedly asked reince priebus how it went and whether they were nice. white house counsel don mcgahn, i spoke with maggie haberman who broke the story. >> in the mcgahn incident which happened a couple of weeks ago after mike schmidt and i reported that the president had sought to fire robert mueller last year, president wanted don mcgahn to put out a statement saying our story was false, which mcgahn did not do. the president did that through

an aide. he then spoke directly to mcgahn after that and asked him to put out the statement. mcgahn said he would not. and mcgahn had to remind the president that he had indeed told him to fire mcgahn. the president said, well, you didn't threaten to me you would quit if i did this. mcgahn said that's true, but i told other senior advisors at the time and our story never said he told the president at the time, but that he did suggest that he would have to quit if this went through in terms of firing mueller. >> back now with the panel. don mcgahn, julie there basically confirming "the new york times" earlier reporting. >> right. it's basically -- it's clear the president was unhappy with the story, that he wanted him to essentially take it back. and it seems that he raised it with don mcgahn saying, i never did this, you should say i never did this. mcgahn actually had to remind him yes, you instructed me to call rosenstein and say that bob mueller had too many conflicts to, in fact, serve as special counsel in a fair way.

and so i'm not going to issue the statement. now, the aide who maggie was alluding to was robert porter, the departed staff secretary who basically made it clear to mcgahn when he first came to him on this issue that the president, he was afraid the president or he thought the president might get rid of him if he didn't issue the statement. now you have the president basically trying to get his own white house counsel to take back something that not only maggie and mike reported in "the new york times," but what was also reported mueller had been told about the incident. the president was essentially trying to get his white house counsel to take back testimony that he had already given to the special counsel. so, what you have here is a clear sense that the president is trying to get people who are key witnesses in this investigation to either tell him what they've been asked and what they've said in response, or somehow change -- >> and a clear sense the white house counsel is incredibly uncomfortable. the fact that not once, but twice your newspaper has reported about conversations that he has had with his client,

the president of the united states, that he has been trying to get out there that he is not happy with. you know, it's no secret that don mcgahn, not unlike other top white house officials, are, you know, kind of in and out with mcgahn. i'm sure you are told and maybe you even know this, tends to be more out than in with regard to the good graces of the president and other senior staffers. but i think, again, this is one of those examples where we're all sort of desensitized to stories about russia and the inner workings of the white house. take a step back. can you imagine president obama or president bush's white house counsel having these private conversations that he has had with the president of the united states in the newspaper more than one time? >> we would have never heard of them. there would have been no leak about them. and also, i never question maggie haberman's reporting.

i know her too long and i know she's on top of things. within her story she also says neither of these incidents appeared to rise to the level of falsification or concealment. when the president was told, in fact, that he had asked him to do this, he didn't ask him to lie. that would be falsification and therefore obstruction. and also, by the way, the fact that he told reince priebus, you know, how are you doing, that doesn't rise to falsification and concealment either. this is palace intrigue. it's interesting, but if that's all they've got, this thing is winding down. >> the reince priebus one certainly didn't seem all that -- >> let me just say this. it's hard to obstruct justice after the fact. like asking people what their testimony was at the grand jury after they've already testified does not rise to anybody's level -- >> maggie made it clear -- >> obstruction of justice. i get that. i think what this does show, though, is a heightened sense of paranoia in the white house. i think that if you take this not in isolation, but if you take this as a collection of behavior by the president, he is

definitely concerned about this. but these two incidents on their face, for me, and this may be contrary to any democratic talking points i'm sure to get in about an hour, don't rise to anything about there being collusion. but that doesn't -- this is just a piece of the puzzle. this isn't -- this isn't something to say this is the end all be all. but these two incidents on their face to me just don't arise -- it's really, really hard. and it's also really hard to say that -- and i'm interested to see how this line is drawn. better lawyers than i for sure can tell you this. but how you actually draw a line from obstruction of justice, per se, to trying to play impeachment politics. and those are what -- we see the white house engage in a lot of impeachment politics, which would mean trying to manipulate the immediate dwra one way or another way when a story comes out. i'm interested to see how anyone would tie that to obstruction of justice. i'm just not sure that's necessarily how you get there. >> gee, i wonder why the president is concerned about a special counsel who has been hired basically to go after him.

i can't imagine why he'd be concerned and want to know what's going on there. and i can't imagine he'd be concerned about impeachment politics when there is an ad running on your television station every few hours saying we need to impeach the president. so, it's perfectly normal for any president, for anyone to be concerned about that and to ask those kinds of questions. and this will shock you. i agree with bakari sellers this in fact doesn't rise to any kind of collusion or trying to influence the special counsel prosecution because it was after the fact. >> but it also doesn't mean it wasn't there. i mean, this is maybe where we difficult verg diverg. this is a great story about a piece of the puzzle. it does not itself rise to any crime. i think the stories when we hear about donald trump, last night when we hear about the new person who, i believe it was the times who reported the new person who was working along with the special counsel. when you're hearing about these stories, then your antenna is raised. donald trump sometimes, he kind of bumbles his way into bad

press and he bumbles his way into the gray area of legality. >> and right back out again. >> this is one of those cases, that he didn't actually understand necessarily that he was -- when he asked mcgahn that question, that would be construed as i'm trying to fire the special counsel. >> we have to take a quick break. coming up, the attorney general jeff sessions announces the justice department is suing the state of california over its immigration policies saying officials who support sanctuary policies are extremist, promoting open borders. we'll hear what california's attorney general has to say about that next. don't we need that cable box to watch tv? nope. don't we need to run? nope. it just explodes in a high pitched 'yeahhh.' yeahhh! try directv now for $10 a month for 3 months.

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the justice department is suing the state of california over its sanctuary policies and immigration. today in sacramento attorney general jeff sessions accused some of the elected officials in the state of being, quote, radical extremists who endanger the lives of law enforcement to promote an open borders agenda. joining us is the attorney general javier becerra. your reaction first to the department of justice and attorney general sessions saying the state of california is preventing this em from doing their job. >> they need to come to california to see it is exactly the opposite. we are doing everything we can to continue to provide public safety and we are continuing to work with our immigration enforcement partners. but we are not going to have them coerce us into doing things they want us to do simply because they don't want to do

them themselves. >> but you're saying you're working with your immigration partners. one of the laws at issue prohibits local law enforcement from hoe hibberting law enforcement from detaining them. couldn't that allow dangerous immigrants escape? why not inform them of being released? >> that is available to the public. they can have that information if they want it. >> why not make it easeier for them it >> our folks are busy making sure they are doing public safety around the state. we don't have to do the i am gralgs work for the official. if if they want to give us resource s to take up the jobs they're not willing to do, that would be a different thing perhaps, but we decided what we want to do is focus on doing public safety. not immigration enforcement. >> wait a minute, you're saying it's a manpower issue? the idea, i can't imagine how many people you need sitting around in a room monitoring who

is getting released on a given day and just picking up the phone. >> no, i.c.e. can come in and they would have access, they would know who is being released. they could come in and -- if they have a reason to detain those individuals, they could. and in many cases they do. it's just that they have been asking in the past for us to detain people beyond the time that we have the jurisdiction and the authority to detain them. there were court cases that proved in fact there were defendants that were being detained beyond the time the constitution would allow and so we're not interested in trying to violate people's constitutional rights. and i.c.e. has the information it needs to pick some of these folks up. >> the supreme court, though, has weighed in on this issue. when the state of arizona passed laws, the federal immigration law took priority after finding many of those laws undermined federal immigration law. how is this any different? are these laws meant to serve as a work around to federal immigration laws it seems like

it, no? >> anderson, don't confuse what arizona did with what california does. arizona actually tried to enact immigration statutes that would require law enforcement authorities locally to do immigration work. and the federal government stepped in and said, wait a minute, that's for the federal government to decide how it should be done. in california, we're deciding how to do public safety, whether it's on the streets or in our jails. we're not trying to do immigration work. and so therefore there is a big difference between what arizona tried to do, which the court said was really a federal responsibility and what california is trying to do, which is a state responsibility under the 10th amendment. >> do you see this as something that is going to end up in the supreme court? >> i don't see why. there is no reason why the federal department of justice homeland security could not be sitting down with us right now to discuss how they'd like to work some of these things out. we're simply saying we're not interested in having people who are shopping at a grocery store or dropping their child off at

school be the subject of immigration detention and certainly we don't want to be part of that. but if someone is dangerous, if someone is a criminal, is a felon, we're doing everything we can to keep them off our streets. if they're here without status, we have no problem if the i.c.e. goes in there and tries to detain them and ults imately remove them. >> you're saying you're doing everything you can. why not take the extra step if you're doing everything and alert immigration authorities if someone, you know, if their time is coming up? >> because i think, anderson, as you've heard, many of the actions that i.c.e. has taken aren't going after those dangerous seriously dangerous criminals. they're going after mothers who are doing nothing more than coming home from work or fathers who are doing nothing more than coming home from work and we're not interested in participating in that. >> right. i'm talking about people who are getting out of prison committing crimes. >> i.c.e. now has full authority to pick those folks up. >> and you don't want to help them? >> we're not hurting them.

we're making that information available to them and anyone else. we're not stopping i.c.e. from picking them up. i.c.e. had been in the past saying -- >> you're not helping them. >> we're not -- we don't have a constitutional right to detain someone beyond the time that we can hold them. just as if you had been arrested, anderson, and we found the grounds to for your arrest were no longer justified, we have to release you. we can't say we're going to hold you -- >> holding people longer than they should be dee taped, i don't quite get the lack of coordination with i.c.e. i know you say it's public knowledge, i.c.e. knows they should do a better job of, you know, following who is getting released. it just seems like if you really wanted to do everything you could, you know, pickup the phone and call and say, a week from now -- if they don't show up and do their jobs, then they get released. but anyway -- >> if the information is made public to them, if they have that information in hand, explain to me why we have to try to shepherd and mother these

things for them? they have that information. >> i guess the response would be to keep criminals off the streets. but i get your position -- >> we are keeping criminals off the street. if they're talking about picking up someone who also has an immigration status issue, they have every right to come in and pick those folks up. but we're not letting criminals out on our street. we're making sure criminals stay in jail or we detain them where we can. >> all right. attorney general javier becerra, appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. >> coming up we're going to look at the white house. is there chaos at the white house, nearly three dozen advisors have left the administration. white house officials say it is all perfectly normal. we'll discuss that next. ♪ ♪ there are two types of people in the world. those who fear the future... and those who embrace it. the future is for the unafraid. ♪ ♪

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>> if this is not the definition of chaotic, how would you describe what's happening in these recent weeks? >> if it was, then i don't think we would be able to accomplish everything that we've done. >> back now with the panel. dana, sarah sanders says this is totally normal. >> i mean -- >> the turnover rate is far higher than -- >> it's far higher. it's far higher. that's just a fact. democratic-republican administrations, it's almost twice as much in the same period of time, there's no question. look i mean, sarah sanders, what is she going to do? stand there and say, this place, it sucks. it's so hard to work here. there's no way she can do that. the truth of the matter is, we have done reporting, extensive reporting. it's not even hard to do this reporting at this point about how bad morale is, about how difficult it is inside the white house, and much more importantly, when it comes to kind of the function of the

government is the very difficult -- the difficulties, rather, that this white house has in getting good talent and bringing people in despite what the president said yesterday, that everybody is banging down the door to come in, it's just not the case. and that is a really, really big problem. >> the president talks openly about the fact that he likes conflict and he likes chaos. i had a boss like that. i don't know if anybody else ever has. it's exhausting. and it's very dysfunctional, and it's very difficult to work in that kind of environment. so i think that it's not surprising that people would be wanting to leave. it's just not -- he's advertising exactly what it's like, and it's a miserable way to work. >> but it's not lost on me that this chaos in the white house story came out in seven different media outlets in the same day. it's not lost on me. >> because it's the economic adviser quit.

>> you want to see chaos in the administration? go to the veterans affairs where the secretary is traveling around with his wife on the taxpayer dime and he's saying his e-mail was hacked and trump appointees are trying to run him out of office. that's chaos. there needs to be change at veteran affairs, but this whole idea of chaos in the white house, it's different. >> can i come in? with that being the baseline where there's also chaos at hud because carson doesn't know if he wants a $31,000 china set or a $10,000 china set, there's also chaos at the epa because he hasn't seen a china set he doesn't like. we have people in government working for all of us. the question is, what is this relative to? this is how donald trump operates. this is how he operated his business, this is how he operated at "the apprentice," he's operating the white house like this. this may not be comparable to any other white house we've seen be but this is who donald trump is. he's the same person throughout

his life that he is today. do not expect a 70-year-old man to all of a sudden change. my problem is that there is not a high level of competence at the highest level of government, and that's what's scary to many people in the american public. >> they just don't have the bench that they need right now to fill these positions. this was a problem from the get-go. donald trump did not want anyone working for him who had ever said a bad word about donald trump, of which there are many. as senator santorum said earlier. so that ruled out a whole bunch of people. and then as these crisis moments have arisen, he just named a few, that makes people less and less willing to take the plunge and go to work in this white house. and while it is difficult to get to a good place policy-wise, that is not what this president is doing. he likes conflict for sport. he likes to pit people against each other -- >> i don't think that's true. the bottom line is donald trump has pulled in people who are

practitioners, folks who have done a lot of things in their life. barack obama pulled academics and bureaucrats. so it's a fundamentally different group. i would say, yeah, you're going to get more conflict, more rowdiness out of the trump group, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad. >> we have to take a break. i want to thank everybody on the panel. there's more breaking news next on guns in florida. we'll be right back. plaque psoriasis can be relentless. your plaques are always there at the worst times. constantly interrupting you with itching, burning and stinging. being this uncomfortable is unacceptable. i'm ready. tremfya® works differently for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. with tremfya®, you can get clearer and stay clearer. in fact, most patients who saw 90% clearer skin at 28 weeks...

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ask your dermatologist about humira & go. there's more breaking news. the florida house of representatives has joined florida senate in passing new gun control in the wake of parkland. they imposed a three day waiting period to buy weapons, and teachers don't want to carry weapons. i hand it over to don lemon on "cnn tonight." >> i'm don lemon and this is "cnn tonight." another scandal for the president from a porn star. first russia, and this is big. president trump has reportedly had not one but two conversations in which he asked key witnesses what they discussed with robert mueller's investigators. the president asked former chief of staff reince priebus if investigators had been, in his word, nice.