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there was no collusion during the campaign with russia. his defenders say at worse this is about the minor league misdeeds, the unrelated misdeeds of his campaign chairman paul manafort and rick gates. in short, they say it's much ado about nothing. tonight for the first time, cnn is learning a key figure in the investigation, a figure who is a cooperating witness is helping mueller make the collusion case. i want to underscore those two words. he is helping. that witness is rick gates. tonight for the first time, we know how he's helping. for a time, it was believed mueller was manly using gates for information about manafort, his former close associate. now cnn is learning mueller is not primarily interested in what gates has to know about manafort. instead, cnn is learning that mueller is seeking information from gates about the central question, did members of the trump campaign work with a hostile foreign policy to win the election. evan perez is one of the teams

of professionals that broke the story. he joins us now. explain what you are learned. >> this is fascinating. this is all in discussions happening last year, months before rick gates decided to plead guilty. in those discussions with the prosecutors from robert mueller's office, gates was told they didn't need him to flip on paul manafort to provide information against paul manafort. instead, what they said they needed him for was their core mission, which is looking into possible illegal coordination between trump campaign and russians, what people called collusion. and so this is a big deal, simply because despite what you hear from the president, despite what you hear from the white house, it appears robert mueller has not given up on the question of collusion, the question of collusion is very much what he wants rick gates to perhaps help his prosecutors come up with a case on. so, again, what we hear from the president, what we are hearing now from people who were close to these discussions with rick gates, appears to show a

different picture that very much paints a picture that robert mueller is not done with the question of collusion. >> and are there indications now of how this is playing out exactly with gates? >> we are beginning to see a little bit of. that earlier this week, there was a filing in a separate case involving a lawyer who had done, whose law firm had done some work for the manafort company and in that filing, the government just dropped a line that said that rick gates was in frequent contact with someone that they assess to be a russian intelligence agent. they didn't name the person, but we know that person to be konstantin kilimnik, who worked with the manafort company in ukraine and in russia. and again the government doesn't, hasn't made that allegation directly in the manafort case. but it's the first time we've seen them making a direct connection between manafort, the trump campaign, and alleged russian spies. that's a big deal. >> so this person who is working for manafort in ukraine, my

understanding is has a residence in ukraine as well as in moscow, and was formerly with what, the gru or the russian intelligence service? >> right. he had some training according to his bio, he has some training from one of the russian intelligent services the gru. now, he has told "the washington post" that he doesn't have any association with russian intelligence or any intelligent service. the question here now though is obviously, they told one thing, the prosecutors told one thing to rick gates during these negotiations, but we'll see whether, when this trial against paul manafort, he is facing criminal charges and could go on trial this summer, whether rick gates is needed in that trial. >> i guess the other question is, what kind of information might rick gates have had access to that robert mueller might be interesting in. >> reporter: right, exactly. there is a lot we don't know about. we know gates worked very closely with paul manafort. even after paul manafort was

ousted from the trump campaign, rick gates continued to work with the campaign. he even stayed on, into the inauguration for donald trump. so there is a lot that he was there. he wasn't exactly close inside the inner circle of donald trump, but according to people we've talked to, he very much liked to keep tabs on the comings and goings, he was definitely still associated with the campaign at the time of that trump tower meeting. the meeting where paul manafort was meeting with russians, allegedly, to get dirt on hillary clinton. so there is a lot he could have for the mueller team. >> evan perez, fascinating. we want to bring in jeffrey toob toobin, elizabeth holtzman and paul collin. it's interesting. this whole time people were assuming rick gates role, essentially he made a plea deal in order to in return to bet the person above him, who was paul manafort, but this is a whole

other aspect. >> right and i'm certain he will be an important witness against paul manafort. >> he can still be called -- >> of course. if you read the indictment of manafort, it's virtually every paragraph says manafort and gates did this, manafort and gates did that, he will be an important witness in that case. but obviously mueller has his eye on the ball, which is not the manafort case. it's the trump campaign, and did they work with russian interests to win the election. gates was involved with the trump campaign and he was as evan reported in contact with someone who is a russian intelligence agent. what they said, what the exchanges were, was there a quid pro quo, we don't know that, it is a significant development. >> congressman, it also fights back against what people at the white house have been saying, the president's supporters have been saying,

pundits on tv have been saying. all of that alleged that what manafort and gates were being accused of by mueller had happened a long time before the campaign, before any involvement with donald trump, according to this latest reporting. rick gates is being asked about conversations he may have had with this alleged russian operative, even during the campaign. >> well, republicans sadly have been trying simply to obscure what's going on and try to divert public attention from what's really -- what the real issues are. the question is, as you both have been saying, did the trump campaign, did donald trump collude with the russian government to undermine the u.s. election? and gates has a lot to say about that. gates might even know, well, gates might even know what happened at this infamous meeting with donald trump, jr. in which the russians came, he held the meeting in order to get dirt on hillary clinton. everyone said, nothing happened at that meeting. manafort was at that meeting. likely he told gates what happened at that meeting. so there is a lot of information gates could have.

one about these contacts with the russian intelligence agent and about manafort and other actions in the campaign. >> in order for gates to have gotten a plea deal, can you just explain how that sort of works? there is a proffer session, isn't there, where essentially he's asked to say everything that he would potentially say, it's kind of a free pass for that day? >> it's a free pass for the day. as a matter of fact, they used to call i queen for a day. for that day, anything you say will not be used against you in a criminal case, except for one thing. if you lie to the prosecutors or the fbi during that session, you can be prosecuted for that. so a proffer session obviously occurred and my bet is that in that proffer session, gates revealed, russian connections. because the manafort indictment indicates that the road to russia leads through the ukraine, where manafort had a lot of connections.

when those connections started to close down, they were russian connections, because it was a russian government in the ukraine at that time. >> pro-russian government. >> and those connections led back to russia. and, you know, i think that mueller saw that right away. i mean, he wasn't sent out to indict manafort for money laundering. he targeted manafort because he knew manafort had information about the russian connection and it's now finally developing i think through gates and this proffer session that you asked about. >> jeff, what do you make of the fact gates made this plea deal. paul manafort is still fighting this in court? >> paul manafort is in desperate, desperate trouble. he's filed motions saying that mueller doesn't have the authority to bring these cases. it's outside of his jurisdiction. but i think he is in an almost indefensible position. i don't know how he's going to defend this case at trial. i think a guilty plea from manafort is far from out of the question at this point. i think, you know, he -- the trial is months away, but i -- i

have a lot of doubt that that case will ever go to trial. >> unless he thinks he can get a pardon from the president. >> he can get a pardon after pleading guilty, too. so that's, you know, it's not necessarily an either/or. but you're right, if he doesn't want to cooperate, he doesn't want to talk, a pardon is certainly his best option. >> it's preceding the guilty plea, they'd be looking for information about trump. if word gets back to trump about that, maybe trump doesn't give him a pardon. so that might be a reason for him to wait until the trial is over. >> there's another interesting nugget here. which is the russian intelligence agency that this person allegedly worked for was a gru, which is the military intelligence. fast forward to roger stone. he had -- he admitted conversations before the election with someone called guccifer. >> guccifer 2.0. >> right. and he is allegedly part of the

gru, too. so this may suggest some kind of deep connections that we don't really know but that mueller is probing and may know the answer to. >> i'm wondering, do you see similarities -- you were involved in the entire watergate investigation. do you see similarities between the trump and nixon inner circles or differences? >> well, it's hard to know. because, well, what i would say is what strikes me and struck me from the beginning was the thing we discovered in watergate, when we listened to the tapes, was that richard nixon was orchestrating the coverup from the get-go. it wasn't his aides. he was giving the direction. you go to the cia, tell him to stop the fbi investigation. that was nixon talking. we see hints here that donald trump, himself, is taking a lead on some cover-up aspects. for example, writing the press

release, involving the sons meeting in the trump towers. we see -- >> firing james comey. >> firing james comey. so we see an intimate involvement with donald trump. he's not remote, removed, he's deeply involved in people very close to him are deeply involved with various aspects of this. >> thank you, all. that won't be the only russia-related item for the president to ponder or stew over the other centers on a decision from his least favorite cabinet member and punching bag attorney jeff sessions. the president and right wing talk show hosts have been pushing for sessions to name a special counsel to look into what they call the real election scandal misconduct they say by the fbi. they did not get their wish. the attorney general did not differ what they and the president wanted. so talk about this decision from the attorney general, jeff sessions. >> well, anderson, attorney

general jeff sessions is trying to offer something of a delicate compromise here stopping well short of the appointment of a special counsel that his party as you said has demanded for months, but tapping a career federal prosecutor with essentially all of the same powers to investigate a range of republican claims that the fbi engaged in misconduct when it came to investigating hillary clinton and wrongfully they say obtained a surveillance warrant on trump campaign aide carter page. the man now at the center of the partisan struggle is john huber a federal prosecutor who received bipartisan support in the past, serving under president trump and obama as the utah attorney. he's been a mystery man for months. sessions said he had someone outside of washington looking into all these allegations, today sessions confirmed he will rely on huber to tell him if he needs to appoint a special counsel down the line, anderson. >> do we know why sessions made this decision and made at this it the way he did, not through a special counsel but do it this

other way? >> well, republicans have repeatedly said a special counsel was needed, because the justice department's internal watchdog, the inspector general couldn't bring formal criminal charges. and there was a real need for someone independent to investigate allegations of bias at the fbi. in a certain respect, you can say sessions appears to have answered that call with a solution that uses someone outside of washington but stopped short of a mueller-like appointment used twice in history and was supposed to be reserved for extraordinary sessions. it's interesting, anderson, so far no major public blowback from republican lawmakers. the real question of course, how will president trump react to all of this? >> one other quick legal note, today a judge ruled against stormy daniels, putting a temporary stop to her attorney's effort to depose the president and his attorney, michael cohen. the judge called it premature, no doubt, there will be more action on that in the days and weeks ahead.

coming up, va secretary david shulkin is now calling it a toxic and subversive. he is speaking out about his departure. i'll ask him about the non-partisan inspector general's investigation that put a cloud over his tenure. he joins me coming up. later the president's claim about the border wall, even though the facts actually say something completely differently. how about that? keeping them honest next on 360. [ doorbell rings ]

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like those from buddy. because stuffed animals are clearly no substitute for real ones. feel the clarity and live claritin clear. the president left washington before tonight's russia news broke. whatever he makes of it this weekend at mar-a-lago, he will be doing it without communications director hope hicks nearby. today was her last day. she leaves with the president's warm wishes. our next guest does not, david shulkin was fired as veterans affairs secretary. the last obama appointee in the administration. they will discuss the controversy and the probe by the

inspector general. quickly a word about his replacement, dr. ronny jackson. he is perhaps best known for his effusive praise of his parent's good health. >> i think he will make it for duty for the remainder of this term and the remainder of another term if he's elected. >> how does a guy that eats mcdonald's and all those diet cokes and never exercises is in as good a shape as you say he's in? >> it's called genetics, i don't know. to answer your question, he has good genes, that's the way god made him. >> the president was impressed with his performance and how he handled himself on camera factored into getting on the job, which is managing 370,000 employees, provide ing health care to millions of veterans, something the outgoing secretary david shulkin grappled with for better or worse. i spoke to him before air time. mr. shulkin you said you accomplished a lot in your time at the va and you think you got

let go because of your opposition to privateizing the va. why do you say that? >> i think since i have been secretary we have gotten a lot done in a bipartisan way. i believe strongly, anderson, when it comes to va and national security, we can't make this a political issue. and i have been running this department trying to work with both sides of the aisle. but there were some political appointees in my administration that didn't see it that way and really wanted us to take a much harder stance. i didn't agree with that, and i wasn't willing to do that. i stood up against them. >> you think it was trump appointees in the va? >> yes, i do. >> the inspector general investigated found among other teams the wimbledon tickets you accepted, found that was an improper gift. a large portion were for personal reasons, your wife's travel shouldn't be paid for by the va.

how big a part has that been in your dismissal? >> i have been clear, this has been a trip of the five allies, we have been doing 43 years. every va secretary attends. my wife was invited. she's a physician. every other va secretary has brought their wives when they're invited to conferences. it was all preapproved by the ethics department. there was no surprises here. it was a single coach airfare. when the inspector general had concerns six months later, i wrote a check to the government. so i think this was an issue that clearly had been dealt with and it was used in a political way to try to limit my effectiveness. >> do you think it was -- the investigation was political? it's the va's inspector general, which is a political office their responsibility is to provide fair oversight, obviously for the va. do you think it was politics on their decision? >> no, i'm not making any type of statement like that about the inspector general. as you said, it has as its

mission to investigate. i think that's totally appropriate. they had certain findings. i think the way the findings were used were used in a political way. not by the inspector general or the appointees. >> cnn reported you received warnings not to go on that trip. i'm wondering, who from the white house warned you and why then did you go on the trip? >> well, it's simply not true. it did not happen. everybody knew about this trip. we had notified all the national security agencies the white house, everybody in my organization knew about it. this was not a surprise trip. it had been on the books for close to two years, in fact, that's how often these five allies meet together. there was never anybody that raised a single concern about this. as i said, everything was pre-approved. >> you said it was appointees behind this, can you name them? who, in particular, are you talking about? i read you had problems with the communications department there. you didn't feel that they were representing you well. >> well, look, you know,

fortunately i'm not in office. i don't need to play this politics. i have no axe to grind here. but all of the political appointees involved in this they all -- their names have been in the newspapers. their memos, where they plotted to get rid of me as secretary, my chief of staff, my deputy secretary, that's all in the public domain. this isn't anybody making this up. there is all documentation about this. look, my focus and where i hope the department of veteran affairs goes, is to get back to its business it needs to be focused on, which is fixing this system. our veterans need it. >> you know dr. ronny jackson, the man that president trump tapped to replace you. i want to read you something that john brennan tweeted. i personally know and respect ronny jackson as a navy officer, however, he has neither the experience and credentials to

run the complex va, it is a terribly misguided nomination that will hurt both a good man and our veterans. is he right? >> well, i also know dr. jackson. i have considerable respect for him. he's a great public servant. i will do everything i can to help dr. jackson succeed in this position. this is a tough position. there's no doubt about it. this is one of the most complex organizations anywhere to run. >> this is a huge management role here. we're talking hundreds of thousands of employees. hundreds of thousands of customers. >> we're talking about -- yeah, 375,000 employees, a budget of close to $200 billion next year and a very complex organization. and so it is going to be a challenge for anybody to take. fortunately, we have a process that we go through where senate confirmation is required and all these questions will be brought out. look, i have confidence that dr. jackson is a person who is honorable and cares about our veterans. >> can somebody without management experience, whether it's dr. jackson or

somebody else, somebody without managing a large organization, as you say, hundreds of thousands of employees, can they do this job? >> this is a tough job for anybody to do. what the successful secretary needs to do, needs to build a team around them. because this is bigger than any one person. to work very collaboratively with veteran service organizations and congress. >> secretary shulkin, i appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. just ahead, we're going to take you to that part of the border wall that president trump says is well on its way to being built. only it isn't. keeping them honest ahead. who governed thousands... commanded armies... yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 5 times more detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com

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on his way to florida for the easter weekend, president trump stopped in ohio to give, what his aides said was, a speech on infrastructure. he also spent a fair amount of time on other topics, including his plans to build that border wall. here's part of what he told the crowd. >> we started building our wall. i'm so proud of it. we started. we have $1.6 billion. we have already started. you saw the pictures yesterday. i said what a thing of beauty and on september 28th, we go further, we are getting that sucker built. >> he referred to pictures there. this is what he meant a tweet he sent out saying quote, great briefing this afternoon on the start of our southern border wall. the tweet was accompanied by these photos which were trying to prove his point. the problem is they don't show the start of a new border wall

at all. keeping them honest, this is the second we know of the administration is trying to claim new construction of the president's border wall is going on when, in fact, it's not. last year you might remember budget director mick mulvaney showed photographs of construction at two locations, as he said, to prove that stuff was going up because president obama wasn't fulfilling his promise to build a wall. we sent gary tuckman to check this out, here is a part of that report. >> reporter: construction workers tell us this is the exact portion of fence where the pick was taken. the opening in the fence is close with a gate. interestingly the picture was taken from the other side of the fence on the mexican side the mountains that you see in the background are the mountains here in new mexico. the budget director declared, quote this stuff is going up now because the president wants to make this country safe. but keeping them honest, this stuff has nothing to do with president trump. daphne griffin works at a restaurant right near the

boarder. >> this particular wall came from the bush administration. >> reporter: is that common knowledge in this area? >> yes, absolutely. >> so mulvaney's claim was wrong the fence he claimed was part of a promise to build a new border was was actually a repair to a wall built during the george w. mush administration. you can imagine to our skepticism when the president tweeted these pictures. so we sent gary tuckman to check it out. he did. here's what he found. >> reporter: when the mayor read the president's tweet claiming a fence in her community was the start of a southern border wall. she wasn't happy about it. >> we all as a community want to make sure the people out there in this country know california is not the beginning of a wall project for the trump administration. it is completely different. >> reporter: the director of international affairs for the neighboring city of mexicali wasn't as diplomatic. >> we knew it was a lie. >> reporter: the picture were taken here, we are standing in imperial county, california, in the city of calexico, on the

other side of this fence, mexicali, mexico. the fence here is new. but it's a long awaited replacement fence. you can't get very close to the construction on the security conscious american side. but on the mexican side, you can get right next to it. close enough to talk to the american workers. i wanted to ask you a quick question. have you been told this is the start of the southern border wall? >> i don't know. >> reporter: you don't know if it is. how long is the project? the construction worker said he was not permitted to answer questions. just feet away the mexican police officers monitoring the construction did talk to us. all saying the same thing. there's always been a fence here, this is nothing new. do you remember a time when there was nothing here? >> no. >> we've always had fence or a barrier of some kind, as long as i can remember. >> reporter: this portion of old fence being replaced was put up two decades ago, during the

clinton administration. but as far back as the 1920s, there was a chain link fence separating the two countries. the replacement fence is being paid for by a white house that has no congressional permission to build any of the border wall the president has expected. in addition to this not being the start of a southern border wall the president with his tweets highlighted a relatively skimpy project. the border is shy of 2,000 miles long this replacement fence will be about 2 miles long. about 2 miles long and nowhere close to a real start of a new border wall. >> so, gary, has the white house responded to what you found, basically the president was wrong in his tweets? >> reporter: yeah we reached out to the white house this morning, anderson. with we asked them why he said this was the beginning or implied it is, we haven't heard any response from the white house. i do want to tell you, this has long been a popular place for people to illegally cross,

and frankly, that's why there's been some type of barrier here for more than 90 years. there is a lot of terrifying news that happens here. just this morn ing we saw two miles in that direction to the west on this dirt road, we saw the border patrol looking inside this canal, they found the body of a man who could not survive trying to get into this country. as we speak that man is in the morgue, anderson. >> appreciate it. one of the teenagers that survived a shooting massacre at his high school, david hogg did not get into colleges he applied to. you may ask why are we bringing this up. a fox news personality decided to mock him for it. the story and how fox is responding after advertisers started running away when we continue. ♪

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another fox news personality is facing fleeing advertisers. this time it's laura ingraham. more on why in a moment. but it is the latest con trover si for fox. a staffer sued the network and others pushing conspiracy theories about a death that police say it might have been a botched robbery, it doesn't stop hannity from claims. it started night after night until he started losing advertisers. now laura ingraham is feeling the wrath of advertisers. randi kaye reports. >> reporter: laura ingraham took aim then fired off this tweet. david hogg rejected by four colleges two which he applied and whines about it.

her tweet linked to a story from a conservative news site which described hogg, a survivor of the parkland shooting, as a gun rights provocateur. that was wednesday morning, by thursday afternoon, another tweet and wildly different tone from the fox news host apologizing in the spirit of holy week to the brave victims of parkland. why the about-face? because hogg who has a 4.2 gpa had been tweeting, too, calling for advertisers to boycott, laura ingraham's fox news show. at least three brands now promising to cut ties with laura ingraham. after ingraham apologized, hogg said he would only accept her apology if she would denounce how her network treated parkland survivors. hogg took heat from breitbart and info wars after his speech at the march for our lives. >> and we will change the world. >> that image led hogg's

krit critics on the right to false si suggest it was a nazi salute. info wars actually edited it in hitler's voice over hogg, but hogg wasn't the only student targeted by conspiracy they a theorists. parkland survivor emma gonzalez took heat from the right about the cuban flag patch sewn on to her jacket at the march for our lives. it represented her cuban heritage. congressman steve king, a republican from iowa, posting on facebook, your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens, hence their right to self-defense. gonzalez was also accused of ripping apart the constitution, it turns out the fake image was made from a pick of her in teen

vogue, in which she ripped up a paper for target practice. it was promoted on the alt right alternative to twitter and the hits keep coming the conservative blog red state questioned openly whether or not david hogg had been at school the day of the shooting. even though this video of him hiding inside a closet during the shooting had been wildly available. later the writer admitted the story was incorrect. an aide to a republican florida legislature suggested hogg and others weren't actually students but crisis actors. >> i'm not a crisis actor. i'm somebody that had to witness this and live through this. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> joining me now is brian steltzer, host of cnn's ""reliable sources". when you actually meet them, they are teenagers.

>> still just teenagers. >> 16, 17-years-old. >> i was reminded of this yesterday spending time with the parkland students, reminding they are high schoolers. they are trying to figure out how to speak out and use the platform that they've tragically been given in order to do good and make change. yet they are still high schoolers. i think today remind us of that. yesterday, david hogg started promoting an advertiser boycott against laura ingraham's show. seven advertisers say they don't want to be associated with their show. that's notable within 24 hours to see that impact. it's another reminder how politically powerful these students are. some of the attacks reminds us how politically powerful they are. >> on the one hand, they've entered the adult fray. you can agree or disagree. they have the adult arena of politics and yet at the same time they're still going to school. >> they're thinking of prom and looking forward to spring break. >> he didn't get into some colleges that he wanted to get into. >> exactly. they're on spring break, the

students are off on college tours, they're thinking about their futures. they're going to make some missteps along the way. we should be candid about that. some of these students in their rhetoric, i would argue they go too far, there are times they do a disservice, at the same time some on the right are going too far by attacking these students and in some cases promoting conspiracy theories. >> this happened to hannity when he was peddling false conspiracy theories about seth ridge and the connection to dnc and why he was murdered and they say it was a botched robbery, it was unsolved at this point. do advertisers come back? do they come back to hannity? whether they come back to ingraham? >> hannity is the one program on fox i have been told has trouble holding on to advertisers, despite having high ratings. it's unique on that sense on the fox schedule, we'll see if that has an impact on ingraham after

today and tomorrow, but i thought the speed of her apology tells you all you need to know, that she was taking perhaps the advertiser messages seriously and the conspiracy minded thinking, it's a live book on the right and the left, semi-lon the right. it's a sustain. it's a kind of form of pollution that all of us in a kind of a society, it's almost a society need to work against. that's why it's so interesting to see it play out in the courts right now. >> we've seen it against the parents in new town, it's not just against kids, who said the parents were crisis actors grieveing. >> now to see three lawsuits, involving conspiracy theories going after fox and others. it's interesting to see people trying to seek justice in the courts. >> seth's parents also said that rich's brother recently filed a lawsuit. coming up, grief and outrage in sacramento, stephon clark is laid to rest after being killed by police. more coming up. ...down-alternative pillows... ...and of course, price. tripadvisor helps you book a... ...hotel without breaking a sweat.

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there are more protests tonight in sacramento, and the attorney representing the family of stephon clark is calling for them to be peaceful. today was the funeral for 22-year-old stephon clark. he was killed by police who fired at him 20 times in his grandmother's yard. the killing captured on police body cameras. >> come here, drop your gun!

shots fired. suspect down. >> police say they thought mr. clark had a gun. no gun was found, only a cell phone. the reverend al sharpton spoke at his funeral. he represented something sarah sanders had to say when asked if the president had anything to say about the police killing after-american men. they say it was a local matter. >> the president's press secretary, says this is a local matter. no, this is not a local matter. they have been killing young black men all over the country and we are here to say that we are going to stand with stephon clark and the leaders of his family. we are putting aside our differences. it's time for preachers to come out of the pulpit. it's time for politicians to come out of their office. it's time for us to go down and

stop this madness. >> joining me now is dr. cornell west of princeton and harvard. i know you're from >> well, it's heartbreaking, man. i'm straight out of glen elder in south sacramento. as you know this has been going on for so long. i come from a people been terrorized and traumatized for hundreds of years. we have to be strong and we have to acknowledge that we got a white house that really doesn't give a damn about black people, especially young people. that's true for most muslims, gays, lesbians and trans. you have genuine freedom fighters. you have brother kevin carter.

then you have major, brother stienberg and i'm convinced he's a decent brother and will have a openness with how you come to terms making sure police are accountable. >> and the chief of police. >> at the same time we need decency and elected office. >> the police turned off the microphones it's not an illegal thing to do. what did they want to say to

each other what did they feel should not be recorded. >> they did something wrong. they made a mistake in judgment. too many policemen. >> there's the sense of them not being accountable. they can get away with anything. i don't care what color the policeman is. this is the human thing. we just have to make sure that people understand that black lives are precious. those who take away the lives go to jail. >> sanders said yesterday. >> the idea this is a local matter. this is a president obviously who certainly has not shied away from commenting on so called local issues. in any variety of things. what do you make of him choosing not to comment on it and the white house not commenting? >> we should have no

expectations of donald trump when it comes to issues of justice. poor people or anything. we should to expectation. he's cold. he's indifferent. we shouldn't get hyped up about it. we have to proceed where we are. if we black people have been hyped up about how wonderful or the potential of slave holders or jim crow heads or jane crow heads and zero in on what we can do, come together, bring together people of all races about justice concerned about these young black men and women getting killed. that's the crucial thing. as i said before i think sacramento can actually teach the nation something because major steinberg and police chief can come together with black lives matter say we're taking this in a zone we never have

before. we're going to take stand, the most vulnerable of our citizens. keep in mind, brother anderson, this is weekend of martin luther king jr. he was shot 50 years ago. i was 14 and my brother had just won the mile. 50 years later, here we are with the legacy of martin king. he was assassinate. jesus, christians like myself. crucified. jesus bounces back on sunday. martin luther king's legacy, will it bounce back strong with substance? that's up to us, brother. that's up to us. >> it's been three and a half years since michael brown in ferguson. do you think with all the attention that has been paid to this issue and one can argue is it enough, has it been too much.

some people would probably argue that. do you see progress being made when it comes to relationship between the african-american community and police forces in communities around the country or do you think we're still in the same place that we were? >> there's always isolated pockets where you have courageous and passionate and decent people coming together. i think overall we're making very little progress. as malcolm reminds us even when we make the progress, we don't stab folks in the back and celebrate your progress. we have a long way to go in terms of coming to terms with white supremacy in terms of how it relates to black girls and black boys and men and women. even under our dear brother barack obama who was so much better in donald trump but at the same time he didn't come through the way he should have. eric holder didn't come through the way he should have. that's why the police remain unaccountable.

with trump now. we have to turn our heartbreak and heart ache. into something powerful. full of love and justice that ought to be flowing out of our soles. being on the legacy. and martin luther king jr. let us never forget the rich legacy. the black freedom. >> dr. cornell west. appreciate your time. coming up, new information on one strategy the special counsel has been using to invest gait the russian campaign. what we're learning, next. feel the clarity of

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the question is cooperation. tonight we're learning how robert mueller is getting information that could lead to the answer. new reporting on cooperating witness rick gates and the extent of his cooperation with mueller. also the wall. for a second time the president said construction is under way. for the second time his claims face a wall of doubt. >> trump