so advice to them is go home and make it local. the president i think not looking in the mirror. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." see you here tomorrow. wolf starts right now. hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 12:00 noon in austin, texas, 1:00 p.m. here in washington, 5:00 p.m. in london. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. he was warned. don't congratulate vladimir putin, but president trump doing it anyway. now he's said to be furious the warning was leaked as he faces backlash from all sides. a porn star, a play mate, and a reality tv contestant upping the legal pressure on the president, involving accusations of sex, silence, and harassment. and the serial bomber in austin, texas, dead, but the danger may not be over. what the feds are fighting inside the killer's home. all that coming up. but first, a warning to the

president leaked to the president. the warning, do not congratulate vladimir putin on his re-election. the president is said to be furious. he's already under fire for congratulating the russian leader. it's not clear if he didn't see or just disregarded the warning from his national security team. now the white house says whoever's behind the leak could be fired or worse. the incident has revived the president's belief that individuals within the administration are trying to undermine him. he took to twitter once again today to slam the russia investigation. as if all that wasn't enough, the president is also facing serious legal challenges from a trio of women. the lawsuits all stem from allegations of sexual affairs or harassment. let's go to our chief white house correspondent jeff zeleny. update us on the fallout over the leaked warning against congratulating putin. >> wolf, there's no question the president is said to be furious about this, as are many of his top advisers, including white

house chief of staff john kelly. i'm told he's looking for the person who may have leaked this. now, the president, of course, made that phone call yesterday about this time. he said that he had congratulated vladimir putin. that set off a fire storm across washington with the republicans on capitol hill and beyond admonishing the president for doing that. well, it turns out his own national security advisers urged him that he should not congratulate him. of course, that leaked out last evening in "the washington post." now the white house trying to get a handle on who did that exactly. essentially, wolf, everything is closed here at the white house today as federal offices across washington indeed are as well. but there is a look internally for a leak. so certainly raising questions about what the president said yesterday. so we've heard him talk a lot about witch hunts, wolf. it sounds like there is one under way to find out who leaked that information. >> i'm sure there is. the president also unleashed

another twitter attack on the russia investigation today. tell our viewers what he said this time. >> reporter: wolf, he did. and this is yet another example of the president clearly watching media accounts. he was obviously reading an op-ed piece by the lawyer who said that the special counsel should never have been appointed. the president was reading that, and he essentially summed it up in a series of tweets this morning. he said this, the special counsel is told to find crimes, whether a crime exists or not. i was opposed to the selection of mueller to be special counsel. i am still opposed to it. i think president trump was right when he said there never should have been a special counsel appointed, because there was no probable cause for believing there was any crime, collusion, or obstruction of justice. so stated by harvard law professor alan dershowitz. that's an op-ed in the hill newspaper. he says he does stand by all of that. still, the president arguing about the very existence of the special counsel, coming on the

heels of the white house saying yesterday he does not plan to shut it down or to essentially remove people at the department of justice, the attorney general and others, to shut it down. but he clearly is not pleased with the direction of it. >> certainly not. all right, jeff. thanks very much. meanwhile, there's another storm that's brewing here in washington, d.c., and this one isn't going away any time soon. stormy daniels has been on a twitter tear for the last 24 hours, tweeting about the president and her upcoming interview with "60 minutes." the tweet storm comes as we learn that daniels took a polygraph test back in 2011 and concluded she was telling the truth about having sex with president trump. daniels is now suing president trump for the right to talk about her alleged affair, and she's not alone. two other women, a former playmate and a former "apprentice" contestant also have lawsuits involving the president. let's start with stormy daniels.

how significant, first of all, is that polygraph she took in 2011 in which she alleges there was a sexual affair with the president? >> as a legal matter, it's actually not particularly significant. i mean, it makes for good head lines and it certainly suggests she's telling the truth. certain courts do admit polygraphs in evidence. here the issue is whether there was any damage actually caused by any disclosure regarding this affair. notwithstanding the million-dollar violation clause in the nda. the standard is reasonable harm. and here, this president doesn't seem to be shy about his sexual predilections. we know from the "access hollywood" tape. his base doesn't seem to care. i think this lawsuit is much to do about nothing. >> another lawsuit involving karen mcdougal, a former playboy model. she's alleging she has a right

to talk about what's going on. she's suing him for the comments he made, accusing her basically of being a liar. >> yeah, so the genie is a bit out of the bottle when it comes to these various ndas. the president as a private citizen entered into them. the stormy daniels one is probably enforceable with some limitations, like i mentioned. but it looks like, you know, this stuff is coming out because he's president and it should come out because he's president. we're just going to see this more and more. you know, the president sued buzzfeed for libel. there could be access to this information in other ways, by serving a subpoena for these kinds of documents or deposition, or it could be gotten through friends of these women who contemporaneously heard about this information. at the end of the day, if there's no damages to the president's reputation, these women are probably legally going to be allowed to speak freely without a whole lot of problem. >> stormy daniels received $130,000 in that hush agreement. karen mcdougal received

$150,000, part of an agreement she had with the owners of the national enquirer that she wouldn't speak out. >> sure. so it comes down to a contract. this is not some outside law, constitutional question. it's the agreement of the parties, and the court would enforce what's reasonable here. she got $130,000, stormy daniels. she was silent for a particular amount of time. now, the president could sue, assuming that he's a party to the agreement, which i think any court is probably going to find. he could argument that, listen, these disclosures harm me, a million dollars per my don't think that's going to fly. >> the third woman, summer zervos, saying the president libelled her. >> yeah, so that is an interesting twist here because the president's fried to dismiss that case on the grounds that he is the president. so he can't be sued, but we saw this with bill clinton. didn't work with bill clinton. the supreme court came out and said a sitting president can be

civilly liable. i think that's the right decision. i actually think it has implications for whether the president can be indicted as a constitutional matter. >> legal battles under way right now. kim, thanks for joining us. let's bring in democratic congressman jerry nadler of new york. a lot to discuss, but let's start with those lawsuits by these three women against president trump. a judge says "the apprentice" con tes isn't contestant can go forward with her defamation case. do you agree with letting a case proceed against a sitting president of the united states? >> yes, i do agree a civil case can proceed against the president. i think that was established in the paula jones case under president clinton. i think it's settled law. it means that the president is not above the law. i am more concerned at this point, however, about the threat the president is posing to the investigation, to the mueller

investigation on the collusion with the russians and interfering in our election campaign last year. i'm very much afraid that in the next two weeks when congress is out of session, we may see, given the heightening storm of tweets and other warnings from the president, we might see the president attempt to further obstruction of justice by interfering with the investigation issue. and here people haven't really focused on this. if we were to fire sessions, not mueller, and bring in somebody else who would do what he wants, sessions is recused from the investigation. a new person wouldn't be. this new person, following instructions from the president, could shut down the investigation, or without the public being aware of it, throttle the investigation by cutting its budget by telling the special prosecutor don't look at, this don't look at that. and in effect, he could control the investigation if sessions

were removed. that is a great danger we have to be aware of in addition to the danger of mueller being removed. >> the republican senator jeff flake of arizona is raising the specter of possible impeachment in a tweet warning the president not to fire robert mueller, the special counsel. he tweeted this. we are begging the president not to fire the special counsel. don't create a constitutional crisis. congress cannot pre-empt such a firing. our only constitutional remedy is after the fact through impeachment. no one wants that outcome. mr. president, please don't go there. as you know, congressman, the white house says there's no discussion about firing mueller at all. do you believe that? >> i never believe anything this white house says because they've repeatedly lied. a few weeks ago, there was no discussion of firing tillerson, and suddenly tillerson was fired so who kneows. yes, senator flake is right. this would be a terrible obstruction of justice and a terrible red line crossed if

mueller were to be fired. i would say the same thing about sessions. perhaps the greatest danger is he fired sessions s brings in some lackey who will do what the president tells him to do, and that person could either fire mueller or could control the investigation, shut it down for all practical purposes, without the public even knowing about it, by cutting the budget, by telling him don't look at this, don't look at that, and cutting the resources. that is a danger equally or perhaps greater than firing mueller. >> let's talk about the fury at the white house right now over the warning cautioning president trump not to congratulate vladimir putin on his re-election. sources describe the president right now as furious that warning, which he ignored or never received, was leaked to the news media. here's what florida senator marco rubio said today about the call and the leak. listen to this. >> no, i don't like he did it, but you know what i like even less, that there's something close to him leaking this stuff out. if you don't like the guy, quit.

to be this duplicitous and leak things out, it's dangerous. i don't like what he did, but i hate that there's someone in his inner circle willing to leak this stuff. if you don't like working for the president, resign your job. >> so congressman, does this lend credibility to the president's claim that there are people inside the government within his own administration who are actively trying to undermine him? >> no, there may or may not be someone he appointed who is trying to undermine him, and there may be somebody who really thinks it's in the public interest that the public knows that he was warned against kowtowing to putin. this is just another instance of a great question which has been hanging around since before he was inaugurated. why is this president apparently so beholden to putin? he's nasty to other foreign leaders and other people. but putin, who's a foreign dictator, just apparently committed murder in great

britain, and he insists on congratulating him for a sham election. this is a great question. what does putin have over him? >> well, what do you suspect the answer is? >> i don't know what putin has over him. i certainly think that's one of the things i hope the investigation will find out. what, if anything, i don't know. i suspect there's something over him. but what, if anything, does putin have over him. why is he so subservient to putin and no one else. that's a great question. i certainly hope the investigation going on now will give us answers. >> the cphone call was criticizd by. . john mccain said, an american president does not lead the free world by congratulating dicta r dictators on winning sham elections. what's your reaction? >> i think senator mccain said it exactly right. you don't -- a leader of the

free world, a leader of the united states should not congratulate a dictator for a sham election, especially a dictator who tried to interfere and subvert our election, especially a dictator who apparently just -- who's credibly accused by the british government of committing murder on british soil. you should not be congratulating such people. you should be condemning them. >> the president's supporters point out that president obama back in 2012 congratulated putin on his election then. what was different then as opposed to now? >> well, i don't know. and i don't recall what obama said at the time, but the what's really important is that this is a president, meaning putin, who just apparently ordered a murder on british soil, who has committed aggression in the crimea and ukraine that we're opposing supposedly through sanctions. and who just attempted to subvert the american election.

certainly he hadn't done that in 2012. >> congressman, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> the suspect in the series of bombings that's terrorized austin, texas, is uh now dead, investigators are still scrambling. did he act alone? are there more bombs remains? plus, more republicans are coming out criticizing the president over his call with vladimir putin. we have new details on the gop backlash. stay with us. try cool mint zantac. it releases a cooling sensation in your mouth and throat. zantac works in as little as 30 minutes. nexium can take 24 hours. try cool mint zantac. no pill relieves heartburn faster. ♪ the fastest samsung ever demands t-mobile, the fastest network ever. right now get the new samsung galaxy s9 for half off. ♪

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the suspect acted alone during the 19-day spree that killed two people, injured several others, and left an entire city in fear. cnn's ed lavandera is on the scene in austin. what more are we learning about the suspect in those final moment when is police had him surrounded? >> reporter: well, you know, right now investigators are beginning that process of really digging into what was the motive behind all of this these attacks over the course of the last three weeks. but investigators tell us that the big key break in this case was that surveillance camera footage from the fedex drop-off point in south austin. based on that video, it really helped investigators begin to track the movements and backtrack on the movements of the suspected bomber. that really helped pinpoint his location, his whereabouts, and give them a strong lead as to who he might be. all of that culminated in the overnight hours as a team of

investigators were able to descend on a parking lot just across the interstate in a hotel where they identified the suspect. he was in his car. that team was waiting for a group of tactical officers to arrive so they can have more officers there in force to try to arrest 23-year-old mark anthony -- the 23-year-old suspect. all of that ended on the interstate behind me where the suspect drove into a ditch, and as s.w.a.t. team members approached him, we're told by investigators he blew himself up inside of his car. now, we've also had a chance and begun the process of trying to reach out to family, relatives, and his grandmother. the suspect's grandmother, who lives in colorado, tells us she described him as a loving person, as someone who described this whole incident as a horrible situation and someone who didn't show any scienigns o history of violence. at least from the grandmother

we've spoken to, very perplexed by what has happened. we do know investigators are inside the suspect's home, which isn't too far away from where we are, as well as the parents' home as well, as they begin that process of gathering up and trying to look into his digital footprint, any kind of writings he might have left behind to get a better clue as to what the motive behind all of this was. >> certainly looking to see if any bombs were left behind as well. ed lavandera, thanks very much for that. other news we're following, a porn star, a playmate, and a reality star all amping up the pressure on president trump right now. details on the mounting lawsuits. plus, from silicon valley to washington, d.c., new questions are brewing over facebook's role in the use of personal data and the ongoing silence from ceo mark zuckerberg.

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reality tv stars. these are the three women with lawsuits now involving the president of the united states. you know stormy daniels. she's the former adult film star fighting to have her nondisclosure agreement ruled invalid so she can talk openly about her alleged affair with the president. there's also former playboy playmate karen mcdougal. she's also suing for the right to speak about the alleged affair she had with the president. now there's former "apprentice" contestant summer zervos. during the campaign, she accused the president of making unwanted sexual advances. a judge has ruled her defamation lawsuit against presidnt trump can move forward. joining us now, david gregory and our chief political correspondent dana bash. dana, the president is over at the white house today, but presumably all three of these cases weighing heavy i will on his mind. >> you would think. i talked to two sources who speak with him just before coming on who insist that it's not, that he considers it noise,

that this kind of thing, he feels like he put a stake in it in october of 2016 when the "access hollywood" tape came out. obviously three separate events that are going on, very different from that, but that the president when he gets agitated, it is still about the russia probe. so the question is whether these two are going to converge. it seems as though, at least with the stormy daniels situation, they could be if mueller really is looking into questions about that. but for right now, i had a source say to me, you know what, he's still a new york real estate guy who has been in the tabloids for a long time, and maybe he's just going to be the berlusconi of america, meaning the italian leader. >> this is the least surprising part of the trump presidency to me, honestly. i'm not at all surprised he's not overly concerned about it.

and again, we've seen this movie before in the impeachment scandal of president clinton where you can have an investigation into land deals in arkansas turn into something having to do with his personal life. that is, i think, the legal exposure for the president. if he starts doing depositions, it somehow becomes part of the mueller probe. aside from that, it's unseemly, it's embarrassing. but again, i think this is much more about his marriage and not so much about his public standing. i think more with him than even bill clinton, people have made a judgment about this, and it's not part of the politics. >> first there was stormy, then karen, now summer. you think more women are going to come forward with lawsuits? >> i think that's possible. he's threatened to sue women and hasn't backed that up who have made accusations against him. this is different. it's not just -- i mean, stormy daniels sounds like it was just an affair. there are others, that she's alleged intimidation, that make

it a lot more serious than just that. and unwanted sexual advances in this environment. but again, you're talking about donald trump. i don't know that there's a political impact. i think the thing, if it's a constant story, there's certainly people who would find it unseemly. if it gets into the realm of the legal jeopardy, that becomes something else. >> that's really the key. even the woman who won in a court, the ability to pursue a case against the president, we'd heard her name before. she made the allegations during the campaign. the question now if she does proceed with the legal case, how does that bring the president into a very unwanted web and questioning in various cases and various scenarios under oath potentially. >> it's a serious problem. all right. everybody stick around. a white house in rage. the president and his chief of staff are fuming, we're told, after a leak over his call with president putin.

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right now the president infuriated. white house chief of staff livid over a leek ak to "the washingt post." the newspaper reporting the president's national security advisers warned him in all capital letters, do not congratulate russian president vladimir putin on his election victory." the president did it anyway. cnn national security analyst is joining us right now, a former

senior adviser under the obama administration. sam, you've prepared these kinds of briefs. what is your take? >> well, wolf, my take is under any scenario, this was a presidential process foul. either the president didn't understand his brief or chose to ignore it, and either way, that's advantage russia. let's look at how this process works. the nsc at the front end of any call likes to sit down and identify goals so that the united states gets something out of it and the other side isn't calling all the shots. the national security council team then drafts talking points, and typically you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen on this one, working on various parts of the briefing memo like arms control or syria or north korea. that's all put together and put into a package that goes together with a leader profile from the intelligence community that talks about where, for example, vladimir putin is coming from on this kind of call. that's physically put together

by something called the executive secretary and given to the staff secretary, rob porter used to have this job, to physically deliver to the president. and it's worth noting, wolf, not all talking points are created equal. at the top of any briefing memo, you often have the points you want the president to proactively raise. because of the importance of how to acknowledge vladimir putin's re-election, i would bet that specific language on the election would have been front and center, this do not congratulate talking point. under that, you often have raised points. these are talking points for items that putin may raise that you don't want the president to be caught off guard on. you never want the president to feel like he has to ad lib. so you give him more material in case putin springs something on him. finally, if time permits, you include other topics that may be worth mentioning. there's a final gut check before every call, and that's a prebrief. normally this includes the chief of staff, john kelly, the

national security adviser, h.r. mcmaster, and the senior staffer covering country you're speaking with. in this case, it would be the senior director for russia. now, presidents digest materials in all different ways, so it's possible that president trump doesn't like to read and prefers oral briefings. a prebrief would have been thereby been an opportunity to walk through the briefing memo verbally and make sure the president understood the strategy and agreed with it. it looks like that didn't happen. so if the president did not agree with his team or had questions, he should have raised that at least during the prebrief so that it didn't come out during the call with president putin. >> yeah, he's clearly upset right now that there was this leak. only minutes after we learned about this phone call. thanks very much for that analysis. the president's congratulatory call with russia's leader isn't sitting well with many members of the president's own party, including the chairman of the judiciary committee, senato chuck grassley. >> i think putin's a criminal.

what he did in georgia, what he did in ukraine, what he's done in the baltics, what he's done in london, poisoning people with that nerve gas, that's criminal activity. i wouldn't have a conversation with a criminal. >> wow. let's discuss this and more. our political analyst david gregory still with us, and our chief political correspondent dana bash. he's very tough, senator grassley, but you don't hear him blasting the president personally. >> no, but i think the message was pretty clear. it wasn't just from chuck grassley. it was even a rare distancing, even in his way, a hand slapping from the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell. >> john mccain was very tough. >> john mccain was very direct, particularly on this issue because of putin's encroachment in georgia and ukraine, places that have been trying to get up and running with their own

democracies, has been a big issue with him for a long time. the fact he's home sick in arizona, saw that statement, and blasted him immediately tells you a lot. having said that, and david was talking about this, knows more about this than i do, it's not the first time a president, u.s. president, has praised vladimir putin for winning an election. >> yeah, and all of us have covered the white house so we all know there are leak. we all know there are advisers who disagree with the president on certain issues and are not reluctant to go ahead and brief you or you or me or whatever on that. but this time it happened so quickly. >> right. so the leaking piece, if i were the president, i'd be very mad about that. it could have come from the nsc staff, people clearly upset this happened. it could be the state department, and of course beyond that, the department of defense. these kinds of things happen where you have competing views about how the president's approaching an issue as difficult, as delicate, and as serious as russia. i think the president's mind, let's look across the board

here. the process is not something he cares about. maybe he didn't even read the brief. maybe he doesn't. maybe he likes to freelance a little bit. he's clearly trying to feel out his way with relationships with foreign leaders, and that includes putin. he certainly doesn't want to give into all the screwny utiny him that he's going to be tough on putin. if anything, he's so mad about that he'll keep him a little closer just to get people in fits even though the administration has levied sanctions. he hasn't spoken out about the apparent murder of a former spy by putin. the president doesn't think about this in terms of the presidency, in terms of u.s. goals and morals. in that way, he's not -- he's giving much too much room and warmth to a guy who is clearly a tyrant. >> attempted murder. the former spy still alive. >> other people have died at putin's hands in the past. >> no doubt about that. >> i want you to listen to

republican congressman louie gohmert of texas. he was very precise in saying what needs to be done as far as the overall russia probe is concerned. >> i think mueller should be fired. he should be. he should never have been -- he should never have been appointed, and he should never have accepted. he should be fired. and the only reason that i think he should not be in actuality fired is because we have some establishment republicans in the house and senate that say, oh, gee, if he were to fire mueller, we might need to impeach the president. even one senator saying that may be an impeachable offense. no, it's not. but because we have so many people that have not bothered to do their homework on who robert mueller is and the damage he's done, especially to the fbi as

director, the years of experience he ran off. but he's done enough damage. he needs -- >> what do you think? >> i think if the -- i'm just going to try to say this as respectfully as i can. if the republican leadership listened to louie gohmert ever, it would be a problem. but frankly, they think of him as somebody who's fringe in many ways, not that he doesn't represent a core constituency in his home state of texas and a base that agrees with that, all over the country in many congressional districts, but that's louie gohmert's opinion. i can tell you with a lot of confidence it's not shared by the republican leadership and even many and most in the republican rank and file. >> and it follows the

president's tweet this morning with louie gohmert. the president was quoting harvard law professor alan dershowitz, now retired. i was opposed to the selection of mueller to be special counsel. i am still opposed to it. the president was quoting alan dershowitz, but he's making it clear he probably supports alan dershowitz, what he's saying. >> well, professor dershowitz was not involved in the decision to hire the special counsel, and rod rosenstein was, who the president had enough confidence in to rely on him to give a legal basis to fire the fbi director because he didn't like the investigation that he was conducting. i think the danger in all of this is not just that it's patently stupid for the president to get whipped up about firing the special prosecutor is that he's really going overboard and suggesting that elements of our government were involved in some kind of conspiracy. that's going to do lasting damage f damage. for the rest of it, he should be keeping his head down and not

making his problems worse. >> you're absolutely right, but he's doing it on purpose. >> sure. >> nobody around him thinks at this point that he's actually going to fire robert mueller. could change tomorrow, but what he's intentionally trying to do is whip up the people who like louie gohmer and who believe louie gohmert and keep churning and muddying the waters. >> i think it goes beyond the core base. i think there's plenty of people who look and say, there's been nothing to any of this, can't we just move on. he could lead the way in moving on, on some other issues. he hasn't. >> as soon as i saw that tweet this morning from the president quoting alan dershowitz, i said to myself, i wonder if the president is going to invite alan dershowitz to join his legal team. >> it's kind of amazing he hasn't already. >> maybe he has. maybe alan dershowitz declined. we'll ask him. >> dershowitz comes in at the end of some big high-profile situations. >> knowing alan dershowitz, knowing the president of the united states, i suspect he may be joining the legal team at some point.

we'll see. guys, thanks very much. there's more news. facebook in crisis over the alleged misuse of users' private data. investors are suing, lawmakers are demanding answers, as ceo mark zuckerberg remains silent. there's new cnn reporting when we come back. ♪ the fastest samsung ever demands t-mobile, the fastest network ever. right now get the new samsung galaxy s9 for half off. ♪

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heart of the facebook scandal claims he's being used as a scapegoat. he says he thought everything

was legal and that he had no idea that information would be used to help donald trump's 2016 campaign. investors are suing facebook in the wake of the scandal, sending the company's stock plunging almost $50 billion this week alone. let's bring in cnn sarah murray. how important was this data? the firm, cambridge analytica, to the trump campaign? >> conflicting accounts to this. we've obviously seen all of these undercover videos where you see the cambridge ceo, alexander nicks taking credit for that from channel 4 in the uk. saying we never bought a notion into this psychographic method. instead we would use them for polling, to create models to help us decide where to send president trump for rallies. these were not the key data players in our campaign. that was the republican national committee. >> facebook is facing a lot of questions on how they protect users' privacy. what are they saying about that?

>> not a lot. they said they would look into this, they suspended this researcher from their platform. that's part of the reason he feels he's being scapegoat ed. we've not heard from mark zuckerberg about this. you can understand why facebook investors may want to hear from the ceo. people are willing to give their information if it's being used for academic purposes. if it's so easy for people to snap up tens of millions of people's information and pass that on for commercial use or potentially for something like influencing the way americans might vote in a presidential election that, of course, is cause for concern. >> they need to do some explaining and zuckerberg personally needs to do t i suspect at some point he will. >> i suspect. following events in israel. the nation now admits to bombing a syrian nuclear facility. we will go live to jerusalem with details.

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for the first time ever israel has admitted to bombing a syrian nuclear facility in 2007. the circumstances surrounding it were secret. more than a decade later, israeli security sensors have released never-before-seen footage of the strike. joining us now from jerusalem, orrin lieberman. why has israel decided to release this footage and publicly acknowledge its role in destroying that nuclear facility? >> translator: middle east today is different than it was back then. it doesn't seem to be a message for syria, a fractured, war-torn country. many people knew it was an israeli strike, the air force here that carried out that strike.

given that, it is who is the target audience. that, it seems clear, is iran. that was the early speculation, it was intended as a message to iran, israel is willing to carry out a strike if it feels an enemy is weaponizing. then the censorship wasl lifted and that became very clear. netanyahu said this say message for any enemy to try to develop a nuclear weapon. some other politicians have been much clearer saying this is directly a message to iran. if there's a second country this is intended for, that would probably be russia, strategic presence in the region, russia has strategic coordination over seara. this could very much be a message for vladimir putin that if israel feels the need to act, it will act. >> it follows, what, a week after prime minister netanyahu met with the president at the white house and a month before president trump has to decide to

rip up the u.s. support for the iran nuclear deal. is there any sense you're getting in jerusalem that the release of this information by the israelis is connected to that? >> reporter: certainly the expectation is here indirectly if not directly, pushed for trump to fix or nix, in his words, the nuclear deal. this could very well be part of it. israel will carry out the strike if no one else is willing to. that 2007 strike, though the u.s. knew about it, wasn't done with u.s. permission. this may be another way for netanyahu and israel to say if we feel iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon, we will carry out our own strike, even if that's far more difficult logistically because of the distances covered, than that strike in syria over ten years ago. >> israelis have confirmed that the north koreans were involved in helping the syrians develop that nuclear facility.

they wanted the bush administration to bomb it, and he decide not to, at which point the israeli government said they had no choice. that's it for me. i'm wolf blitzer reporting. the news continues right now. wolf, thank you so much. good to be with you on this wednesday. i'm brooke baldwin. we begin this hour with one major leak and three potentially major legal battles embroiling the president of the united states. a source says trump is furious that word got out that he either missed or simply disregarded all these warnings from his national security advisers that specifically said in all caps on this note card, do not congratulate vladimir putin on his re-election win. the president, in fact, did just that on his tuesday phone call with the russian president. a