>> just a quick check of the president's twitter feed. nothing yet today. the question is what does he tweet about today? will he stick with amazon and will he go back on immigration? interesting thing he hasn't tweeted about the markets since march 26th. he's been the cheerleader of the markets all along. since march 26 close, they're down 2 plus percent on the s&p. he also has to answer questions from an actual reporter today. >> that's right. >> that will happen. yes, it will happen. >> thanks for joining us this morning. i'm renee marsh. >> i'm dave briggs, "new day" starts right now. we'll see you tomorrow. bob mueller understands and i understand the specific scope of the investigation. >> new evidence that the special counsel is investigating collusion allegations against the president's former campaign chairman. >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. democrats have really let

them down and now people are taking advantage of daca. >> president trump lashing out on twitter, criticizing u.s. immigration policy. >> this president is completely clueless when it comes to immigration laws period. epa chief scott pruitt under scrutiny amid ethics concerns. >> i don't know how you survive this one. >> it's hard to see how we have smooth management of the country when you have all these issues. >> announcer: this is "new day". >> we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "new day" tuesday april 3, 6:00 a.m. in the east. chris is off. back by popular demand, jim chute toe and chris avlon. great to have you. we have so much news to get to. a newly released classified memo provides new details on the scope of robert mueller's investigative mandate. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein explicitly authorized

bob mueller whether paul man forth colluded with russia. also, the white house is making a new legislative push aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration has president trump is fanning fears the u.s. policies weakened border security. now the justice department is looking to impose quotas on immigration judges. >> president trump once again slamming the justice department as the administration looks to speed up deportations. president also taking aim at democrats for blocking, he says, his nominations and ramping up his war on amazon, whose stock continues to plum met. meantime, the source close to the white house says the epa scott pruitt's job is now in jeopardy. coming as the white house looks as whether scott pruitt was renting a house from the family of an energy lobbyist.

let's begin our coverage with the top story. this new memo, what does it tell us? >> it certainly reveals to us for the first time what the scope of the special counsel investigation is. it really in plain sight here. we can see that the collusion investigation that is being conducted by this special counsel is still very much at play. it's still on going, specifically as it relates to paul manafort. now, the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who is overseeing this investigation, who oversees bob mueller, in this memo was basically written, this memo was written to basically laying out the scope by which mueller and his team could conduct their investigation. now, this memo authorized them to investigate, according to the memo, crimes committed by manafort collusion with the government russian officials.

it also then which authorizes bob mueller and his team to look at some of the ukrainian work that paul manafort has done including the fact that he had been charged with some of the money laundering, the government claiming that some of the money he received from the ukrainians that he was working for and hid it in offshore accounts, didn't pay taxes for it. this is a controversy here in terms of on the side of the manafort team. they've been claiming that mueller has overstepped his boundaries and that his scope in the investigation of manafort and his past money dealings and clearly this filing shows us that that investigation was authorized by the deputy attorney general. >> okay. good to show. thank you very much for setting all that up for us. joining us now to talk about we have cnn politics reporter chris cillizza and michael zel don who worked with robert mueller. michael, let me start with you. didn't we know already that bob

mueller was looking into paul manafort and his dealings with russia. why is this a revelation? >> well, it's not a revelation in the sense that this is straight in the middle of mueller's mandate. the public may 17th appointment of mueller and the mandate by rosenstein says he shall carry on the investigation that the fbi started back in march and that includes collusion and interference. the august 2nd memo that we were just speaking about further elaborates to mueller privately what the scope of that could include by naming named individuals and particular activities they undertook. mueller has clearly the opportunity to investigate manafort by virtue of this but most significantly he has the right to look at the predicate

potentially for the collusion which is manafort's ukrainian dealings several years before the trump campaign. so, the opportunity that mueller has to use the ukrainian information that was now part of the indictment as a predicate for his understanding or investigating the 2016 collusion investigation is much more plain for everyone to see and undermines significantly manafort's claim and his civil lawsuit that mueller was acting outside of his mandate. >> listen, it seems you'll hear from the president and hear from any of the president's supporters that manafort's charges, yeah he's been charged but it's all about business and corruption, et cetera, but chris cillizza, i suppose if it's not news here that the reaffirmation here is that, no, it's an opaline of inquiry as to whether there was collusion including paul manafort, the president's campaign chairman at the time. >> yeah, jim. i think it's important, too, to

mention donald trump here in only that donald trump has asserted over and over again the idea of that mueller's broad -- too broad sweeping witch hunt hoax and this makes quite clear that donald trump's justice department, at least, said that, yes, as it relates to paul manafort looking into russian collusion is part of the mandate, expressly said that. so i think that's important, number one. number two, i think the down playing of the manafort role in all of this by the trump world is slightly disingenuous only in that number one he wasn't a minor player for a short period of time. his title was campaign chairman. and number two, yes, what we know publicly as it relates to paul manafort is about his financial dealings primarily with ukraine, but that's not necessarily everything. i always remind people, on going

investigation, on going investigation. it's important to keep that frame in mind. >> chris, i think one of the interesting questions will be is whether the knowledge that the trump justice department specifically sanctified investigation into collusion by manafort with the russians, whether that increases the president's paranoia and peak at his own justice department. >> look. i think you're right, john. i think all these questions fundamentally get to how does the president react in some ways? because the big kahuna, the big thing we're waiting for is does donald trump sit down with bob mueller or not. that's sort of our big outstanding question. he trump, at least publicly indicated he wants to. i actually buy that only in that i think trump has total and complete self confidence and likes the idea of a mono iman know against bob mueller who he thinks he can outwhit and

outsmart. that's the key. anything else that plays into his psyche as it relates to that sit down i think is important to us. >> michael, there's also some new "wall street journal" reporting about this possible meeting between roger stone, okay, long-time trump associate and friend and wikileaks julian assange. i think we've gone over there because i interviewed sam noneberg about this. roger stone says he was joking with sam nunberg that he had dinner one night with julian assange saying he was trying to get out of a dinner with sam nunberg and sam nunberg took it seriously and he says, i think, reported that to bob mueller. bob mueller is looking into whether this is possible. is it possible that roger stone actually had dinner with julian assange who was holed up in an

embassy? >> most likely not, but i think it misses the broader point here, which is that mueller is looking at the counterintelligence investigation with two aspects. one is the social media one. we saw the indictment. the second is the hacking of the democratic national committee and podesta. and then as to each, whether there was collusion or coordination with respect to the first social media it's going to be cambridge analytica and the kushner analytics operation and with respect to the hacking it will be roger stone and don jr. and their conversations with wikileaks around the dnc podesta hacking. so whether or not roger stone had dinner, whether he was kidding with sam nunberg, whether nunberg misunderstood is beside the point of i think that mueller has in his sights the hacking from the counterintelligence standpoint

and the coordination through wikileaks and roger stone and don jr. i think are in his crosshairs for that. >> michael, it's important to clarify this report from the "wall street journal" that roger stone pushed back and said that he was in l.a. the night he allegedly said in an e-mail he had dinner with asan j but assange has had guests. roger stone saying in public and tweets in other ways that he had been in communication with wikileaks. podesta's time the barrel is coming. before the e-mails were released and that intersection of interests. >> it's not isolated. the famous tweet hillary clinton is done on x date. there's more than one back and forth between him and roger stone. thanks very much. go ahead. >> which is really why the dinner is beside the point. it's really the broader

communications between stone and wikileaks. >> right and the timing of those communications. thanks very much to all of you. president trump returning to a hardline immigration stance with a series of tweets sending a clear message to his base that he intends to crack down. cnn's abby phillips is live at the white house this morning with more. there's a lot of tweets yesterday on immigration. what are we expecting today? >> reporter: well, good morning, jim. president trump is pivoting hard to his base and to an immigration message that we saw a lot during the campaign. over the last several days he's tweeted nine times about u.s. immigration laws, and we are now learning that the white house is planning to renew an effort to pressure congress to crack down on immigration laws. president trump continuing to vent about u.s. immigration policies, calling current laws weak and an obama joke and urging congress to act. the white house beginning another push to pass a series of hardline measures that failed to gain steam last fall, including

removing protections that prevent the immediate deportation of undocumented children and allowing authorities to keep families in detention for longer periods awaiting deportation decisions, according to "the new york times." this effort coming after the president declared that any deal to protect dreamers is dead. >> the democrats have really let them down. it's a shame. and now people are taking advantage of daca. that's a shame. it should have never happened. >> didn't you kill, daca, sir? didn't you kill daca? >> reporter: president trump announced he intended to end the dreamer program last fall. and immigration negotiations collapsed earlier this year after the president signaled he was open to a bipartisan solution. >> this group and others from the senate, from the house comes back with an agreement, i'm signing it. i mean, i will be signing it. i'm not going to say, oh, gee, i want this or i want that. >> reporter: democrats offered $25 billion for the president's border wall in exchange for citizenship for dreamers. the white house was not

satisfied, saying there were too few measures to curb immigration overall. sources tell cnn that a number of president's allies warned him this weekend that his base thinks he's softening on immigration. the president is also ramping up his attacks on amazon, accusing the company of hurting the u.s. postal service and brick and mortar stores, arguments he made on the campaign trail. >> and believe me, if i become president oh do they have problems. >> reporter: the latest criticism causing amazon stock to drop 5%. president trump also renewing his rebuke on his own justice department, accusing the doj and the fbi of slow walking documents requested by congress for on going investigations. calling the institutions an embarrassment, this as sources tell cnn embattled epa chief scott pruitt's job may be in jeopardy. the president is reportedly angry with recent reports that pruitt rented a room from the family of an energy lobbyists

well under value. the epa signed off on a proposal from a canadian company linked to the lobbying firm last month the same time pruitt was renting the condo. the epa and the firm deny there's any connection. and a spokeswoman from the epa says that pruitt is focussed on advancing president trump's agenda amid all of this controversy. we will have an opportunity to question president trump today. he hosts the leaders of baltic states for a press conference this afternoon. >> thank you very much, abby. so what has changed about president trump's new immigration push and why? we discuss that next.

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president trump's immigration tweet storm signaling a shift back to a hardline strategy as senior white house official says to expect an aggressive push for a laundry list of rehashed immigration policies that were not successful on capitol hill last fall. let's bring back chris cillizza and a.b. stoddard with us as well. a.b., what's the driving force behind -- that was quite a tweet storm yesterday, clearly a new focus by the president. is this about the base or the president's disappointment he doesn't have the border wall yet? >> well, it's both jim. he is very upset by the reaction that he sees in conservative media and from his base to signing that spending bill a

couple weeks ago the omnibus and he is also upset that it didn't include wall funding, what he can really say is wall funding. there's 1.6 billion but it's sort of for fixing and existing fencing. it's not what he wants to deliver on in terms of his campaign promise. so he's very frustrated that he's taking this heat and he actually did make a push for a daca deal in the closing days, very last minute, very disorganized and it was rebuffed by congressional republicans. then you saw this blip where the white house said oh, no, no, no, he is not for a daca deal a one for one in protection for dreamers and wall funding. he is still fuming he doesn't have one on the table. and that's why also obviously this caravan news is fueling it. but that's really something that until and unless he has something he can call a wall, he's going to keep grumbling

this way because he wants to fulfill this promise. >> chris, you just heard a.b. say the people who killed the bargain were congressional republicans. democrats offered 25 billion for the wall by a.b.'s accounting, that's around 24 billion more than he got in the omnibus spending bill. why the anger at democrats and why the apparent lack of interest anymore in putting together another grand bargain? >> because i think he realizes number one it is very unlikely to happen on the terms he wants, john. and number two, because i think a.b. touched on it, never underestimate his sensitivity to how he is covered particularly by the conservative media. he's been bashed by people like ann colter, people who have long been laura ingram, people have long been his supporters believe you can't not do this. you must build the wall. it was the central premise of your campaign.

he is a -- politicians are reactive, many by nature, he more so than most. i think what you're seeing is simply reaction to that and understanding that the election is coming. need the republican base to be more energized than it has been and this is a way to do it. >> a.b., i want to fact check what we've been talking about for a couple of days after the president seized on it on we think a "fox&friends" weekend segment about the caravans of illegal immigrants heading our way from central america. so let's -- i mean, there are, i believe, some train cars of something like at last count 1,200 people who are seeking asylum. they are heading from mostly honduras, we think. and this is not the first time. so, they are fleeing violence, poverty and in the past when they've made their way through mexico they've been turned back or if they make it to the u.s. border i think by our latest stats three had been granted asylum in the past couple of

years. this is the process. i mean, if you're seeking asylum you try to make it at the u.s. border and at the u.s. border they decide if somebody is eligible for this, but the president has seized on it as look at what's happening. we have open borders. this is very scary. we need to crack down immediately. >> right. he is raising the alarms as if we're back in the summer of '14. president obama is in office and is mishandling the child migrant crisis and not being truthful about it. he is in charge of the government. we're in month 15 of the trump administration with a republican congress. if they want to change the criteria for asylum, it is on them. this is not daca. this is not deferred action for childhood arrivals. what the president is doing in his tweets and ranting with reporters is con florida stating these two things, saying, we can't have daca and the democrats killed it because then all these people are going to flow into the borders. daca you had to turn 16 and be

here by 2007. these are two totally separate issues. but again, this is his administration and he's accountable for what happens at the borders. he wants to change those laws, it has nothing to do with being a dreamer. >> i think that's an important reality check because the president has been hitting this note that people are coming to take advantage of daca. that's impossible given the structure of daca. you were born here before or not. >> you had to be here by 2007. >> right. >> i just wonder chris cillizza, does it work? are the politics of this in his favor at least with the base as we approach the midterm elections? >> yes. i mean, you know, thank you. i always like to -- i'm trying to be more concise. i think the reality is it will work for a segment of the republican base, john. there's no question. this is the issue if you remember back, this is the issue that animated, sort of brought

donald trump from that's a punch line to, wait a minute, this guy is serious in a republican primary. he channelled that frustration, that anger, that anxiety about this idea that people are coming to this country and they're going to make it something different than it is. that's what he's up to here again. i think he's presenting this group of people in sort of a mad max thunder dome way. they're riding these jeeps and they're coming to pillage. they have maces and they're coming to get us. obviously that's not really i think the reality here. again, as alison touched on, this is the fifth time a group like this has done this. it's not been this sort of broad asylum granted in the past. it's unlikely to be so again. but that mental imagine works. >> the barbarian image. >> i appreciate the mace image. >> i was trying to swing a mace

but the screen isn't big enough. just so you know i've not actually swung a mace which i'm sure will surprise everyone. >> disappointed. >> your persona is different. but back to policy, a.b., is this connected to what the president and the administration is staying about immigration judges and quotas and wanting them to speed up? >> is that connected? they think that's the solution to preventing greater flows across the border. he talks about catch and release all the time. that if you come here, it's an incentive to come here because while you'll wait a long time on the calendar before a hearing date you're allowed to be here and that will be a magnet for more people to come here show's trying to tighten the process of how long it takes you to have your hearing, which is perfectly fine. addressing the backlog on timing is one thing but to give quotas to judges to try to determine the outcome of the rulings is a

separate issue entirely and doesn't sound like it's lawful. i don't think that's going to work. but certainly if they can take more cases per day, maybe that can speed things up. >> thank you. >> thank you, guys. now this is really my favorite story of the day. villanova winning their second national championship in three years, details in the bleacher report next. it's going to be fun. can i get some help. watch his head. ♪ i'm so happy. ♪ whatever they went through, they went through together. welcome guys. life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you. is it possible to save from thousands of miles away?

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last night watching sports. >> does it show? >> no. you are fresh as a daisy after a march full of upsets a number one seed dominates in april, whatever all that means. the villanova wildcats are national champions again. andy scholes is live in san antonio with the highlights in the bleacher report. how was it, andy?

>> hey, good morning, guys. it's always a great game the championship one. villanova certainly does love the state of texas. they won in houston a couple years ago. now san antonio last night. they're just the fourth team in the past 40 years to win two titles in a three-year span. michigan was hanging tough in the first half. that was until red shirt sophomore donte came off the bench and had the game of his life. he normally averages 13 points a game. he had 18 in the first half alone. he finishes with 31, which was a record for a player off the bench in the championship game. he was your final four most outstanding player as villanova just rolled through the second half winning 79-62. and i caught up with divincenzo on the floor during the celebration. how amazing is this moment right here? >> undescribable, honestly. we've been through so much this team, a lot of ups and downs this year. we've competed every single day

in practice. we're going to share this for the rest of our life. >> is this a moment you dreamt of since you were a kid? >> since i was born honestly. yeah. and the biggest thing for me is sharing this with these guys. >> this was the scene in philadelphia. fans took to the streets to celebrate the championship a few fires were set, i understand. no matter how much they greased up those poles in downtown, philly fans seem to find a way. guys, it's like a challenge any time philadelphia fan sees a greased up pole. they have to find a way to get up there if one of their teams wins a championship. of course this is the second time they got to do that with the eagles winning the super bowl a few months ago. >> doing philadelphia proud. >> i'm not sure that's a dignified look. >> there's no dignity in philly, tired of so much winning, that promise has been true for the people of philadelphia. they've had a phenomenal sports. >> they have. >> andy, how did my bracket end up in sixth and your's was 29th,

huh? >> you know, sometimes you make bold moves in the bracket and they don't pan out, alisyn. >> i see. >> i'm rather impressed i had that bad of a bracket. >> i like it. all right, andy scholes, thank you very much. >> thank you. that kid who had 31 points they call him the michael jordan of delaware. incredible player. i got a family tie in this. my nephew coach of the team. there were tears in my eyes last night. coming up we'll talk with the star of the women's ncaa tournament notre dame's arike ogunbowale, incredible story. >> you'll help me with that when we get there. >> i will help you. will scott pruitt be the next cabinet member to go? we discuss what he's done wrong next. there's little rest for a single dad.

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epa chief scott pruitt days in the trump -- his days could be numbered is what i'm trying to say in the trump administration. a senior white house official tells cnn that president trump is angry over the ethical questions surrounding scott pruitt. cnn learned that the white house is looking into reports that pruitt is renting this room from a d.c. lobbyist way below market value. so that could be a problem. let's bring in our guests and dissect all of this, we have chris cillizza and a.b. stoddard. so scott pruitt is renting a room in d.c. for $50 a night. okay? from an energy lobbyist. that's perhaps the problem. but $50 a night ends up being 1,500 a month. that seems respectable, but then of course he's doing all sorts of other things with travel that i guess are running afoul of rules. how do you see it? >> well, what we're seeing is a

white house who -- which is not defending scott pruitt. so they're doing the twist in the wind strategy that they usually do before you get fired. they might be looking for a replacement. but scott pruitt is doing what donald trump hates, which is producing a lot of negative headlines. as you point out, it's not just the ayla cart deal with him and his daughter having rooms at this apartment where she sometimes has privileges to use the kitchen or the common room and they're connected as lobbyists to his business and their previous donors from before he was epa chief. and then you look at he has a 24-hour security detail which he's used for things that are not business related. so on the taxpayer dime he's gone to disneyland with security detail and use of a private jet he had to go back to coach, but he said he used first class

travel because he was in danger from people who -- voters on airplanes with him who were mad at him. so it's just too much for the white house to bare. it's everything that donald trump can't stand a torrent of headlines. >> it's something of a come down, talks of scott pruitt being a possible replacement of jeff sessions as attorney general. he certainly accomplished a lot of the president's agenda at the epa, quite a turn around for him. >> yeah. i think some of that, jim, was talk created by scott pruitt about scott pruitt being the next attorney general. but that doesn't mean it couldn't come true. i think i'll add to a.b.'s point that i think two things donald trump doesn't like. number one -- well, actually four. numbers one, two, and three bad headlines that he doesn't create. number four, what he views to be as overweaning ambition, people

who aren't doing -- not taking care of their business in one place and already trying to move on. i don't see -- i'm with chris christie, i don't know how scott pruitt survives this because again it's not one bad headline. a.b. just ripped through about six bad headlines. you know, i think what you're seeing here is probably a finding someone to take scott pruitt's job. it seems to me more of an if -- a when not if in terms of him going. >> john, speaking of headlines, "the washington post" calls scott pruitt a swamp monster today. >> yeah. and usually you have to wear a costume to accomplish that. no, look, chris's point is that the president's powers of projection are really profound. when you generate negative headlines and provide distractions, the old rules of politics apply. politics is perception. none of these scandals are good perception for pruitt or the

administration so they deploy the let 'em dangle strategy. that's kind of profound. a.b., why do you think this president likes to let his cabinet members dangle in the wind for weeks before he fires them by tweet? >> i think he enjoys -- i mean, people around him have said that he enjoys sort of punishing experience to have the press speculate and say it's a matter of when not if. and them sort of walking around dejected with their demoralized agencies continuing to, you know, get more negative press before they're out the door. but i think that chris is right. he's used this several times with shulkin recently at the v.a. and other people, but i think in this case it probably is they don't have a replacement yet. often trump comes up with a good friend or someone he's seen on television as a replacement and we hear those names floated immediately. but in this case, they're obviously looking for someone and it might take a while to fill the position. >> a.b., chris, thank you very much.

now, this, a congresswoman says she will not run for re-election after she mishandled a sexual allegation against a former top aide. all the details next. ♪ ♪ wait, i have something for you! every stay is a special stay at holiday inn. save up to 15% when you book early at hollidayinn.com

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♪ congresswoman elizabeth etsy says she will not run for re-election in november. the democrat under firing for her handling of sexual harassment claims involving hr then chief of staff. etsy kept tony baker on the payroll for months. >> winter just won't quit after monday's snowstorm slammed the northeast u.s., more severe weather is on tap from the gulf coast all the way to the ohio valley. cnn meteorologist allison chinchar has your forecast. so please tell me we don't have more snow coming this way. >> it is, but i will say this for the folks that got the snow yesterday, they're actually going to get rain today. a lot of the states ohio,

pennsylvania, new jersey that had snow yesterday, today it's rain. the main snow event is actually going to be for the midwest. and that forecast is brought to you by purina, your pet, our passion. let's look at the southern edge of this storm. we also have a severe threat to deal with this stretches from ohio all the way back through texas, damaging winds, large hail and acelated tornadoes will be the main threats. the target point cities, places like cincinnati, louisville, nashville even around memphis, tennessee. the timings it's mostly a rain event for the first half of the day with the exception of the midwest where we'll have mostly snow, but once we get into the late afternoon hours, john, especially the evening, that's when the severe threat really ramps up. make sure you have your safe place ready to go if you need to use it later in the day. >> thank you. well, sometimes it snows in april and we'll keep trucking on until spring comes. thank you. uproar over sinclair's media bashing promos read by local news anchors nationwide.

now the company is getting a big defender. the latest next. welcome to holiday inn! thank you! ♪ ♪ wait, i have something for you! every stay is a special stay at holiday inn. save up to 15% when you book early at hollidayinn.com

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♪ welcome back this tuesday morning. president trump defending sinclair broadcast group after critics raised concerns about the company's controversial new promos. the president tweeting just minutes ago the fake news networks, those that knowingly have a sick and biased agenda are worried about the competition and quality of sinclair broadcast, the fakers at cnn, nbc, abc and cbs have done so much dishonest reporting that they should only be allowed to get awards for fiction. sinclair senior vice president of news scott livingston blasted the negative coverage and defended the initiative as, quote, corporate news journalistic responsibility, promotional campaign. that's a mouthful. >> i'm glad they're done with the double speak. >> that clears things up. host of reliable sources brian

stelter and brian carter. most of those are cnn affiliates. really sticking to their guns here, right, sinclair saying i noted another comment they made to employees. listen, if you have a problem with it, you're welcome to work somewhere else. >> right that was the message delivered inside news rooms yesterday and meeting. there's a lot of concern inside these local news rooms about this initiative and more broadly about sinclairs promotion of conservative politics inside local newscasts. it's come to a head for these promos. it's worth recognizing as the president viciously attacks the media again today and promotes and defends sinclair, this story was not started by outsiders. it was started by these local journalists that said, whoa, this is inappropriate. i've had enough. i have to speak out. in fact, one resigned. one station refused to run it. others are speaking out on social media. this is about an internal revolt. >> it's blowing up on them.

i think sinclair is calling attention to itself in a way they probably didn't particularly want. they're trying to make this deal. they want to expand. and now i think what they really are and their purpose is becoming. clearer and i'm not sure that's what they wanted. >> except we'll see if there's any viewership erosion. people might like what they're putting out. >> some people will and some people won't. >> the people inside have noticed their story selections changing, the angles changing. they're becoming a conservative bent. what they said, what they forced the anchors to say was basically like we will never give you biased reporting. and actually if you look at it word for word, there was nothing particularly offensive. it's that they all had to parrot it around the country as though they were in a hostage video. that was the weird part. >> right. >> the more pernicious thing is way they're slanting the news. >> yeah. >> increasingly there's an alternative reality of a pro trump media in the country, fox news being the core of that

alternative reality shows from fox and friends promoting the talking points. the fact that sinclair is doing this, it increases it. when we get to key moments in the trump presidency, for example, new indictments in the robert mueller probe and fox and other pro-trump allies will discredit, deny it, deflect it. that's ultimately why this matters. >> there's a new poll out by monmouth. this figure struck me, it's worrisome, 77% of respondents to this poll believe traditional news report fake news. there's a real crisis of confidence, is there not? >> i think it's partly both sides looking at it and saying, what fox news is doing is slanted. what msnbc news is slanted and they think it's fake and interpret that as fake. but there is a lot of news that's being passed out that's just not true and trump is responsible for quite a bit of it. he says that, for example, amazon costs the post office billions of dollars and it's just the opposite. >> and so what you're saying,

though, is that trump has been largely successful in muddying the terms of the debate. >> he has. >> this 77% number could also reflect the fact that folks on the right and left have actually very different definitions of the sources of fake news and what that means. >> right. even definitions of what trusted media is. everybody has a different definition of what is media, what they trust, what sources they believe and conversely what is now fake news. the president was really effective at redefining, exploiting the term fake news trying to turn it around on real news networks, but this poll also shows more americans say they trust cnn than president trump. more americans say they trust msnbc than president trump. he has a very loyal base. it's what they talk about every morning. they're with him. but that's not the majority of the country. >> the other thing about fake news, right, the president using that term. again, there is actual fake news. it's weaponized by russia. you have this where they're

created. fake stories out of the blue used to influence people and their thoughts and create division, that's the real fake news. yet it's used by the president as a way to attack critical coverage. >> a specific example of that is really profound and worth remarking upon is in this debate between the fox news host now on vacation and the parkland student david hogg over the weekend, hamilton 68 found a dramatic increase in russian bots using the hashtag surrounding that debate. trying to elevate the debate on eng ram's side over when willwo. >> the russian bots seize on these things. when ever they sensed division in the country, they seize on it and gin it up. explain how the laura ingram advertiser boycott is different than what's happened with fox in the past glen beck when he has gotten in trouble and advertisers penalized him or bill o'reilly? >> i think the one big difference is fox is defending

ingram. saying we're not going to be intimidated by these efforts to tear us down, to intimidate the network. here is the statement saying we're not going to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts. >> it's very important that fox do this because their audience does not want to see them giving in to this subject. even though she may apologize, she won't go too far. >> why did think take this tact this time when they didn't with glen beck and bill o'reilly? there was a bigger ground swell? >> o'reilly, it was an entirely separate issue involved. glen beck said something perhaps more outrageous, but in this case i think they can't do it again. they're drawing a line. the advertisers don't like our people, we better back off. >> agenda-driven intimidation efforts. >> thank you very much both. >> cnn talk is next to our international viewers. for the u.s. viewers, "new day"

continues right now. a new court filing outlining the scope of the special counsel's probe into the president's former campaign chair. >> i know what he's doing. i'm appropriately exercising my oversight and responsibilities. there has been no collusion between the trump campaign and russians. believe me, if i become president, oh do they have problems. >> president trump renewing his attacks on amazon, sending the company's stock downward. >> we are in never, never land right now with this president not knowing from day to day just exactly what he is going to say. >> scott pruitt has made headlines that have been unflattering for the white house. >> he's in a place where he agrees with trump and the conservative policy view. >> this president does not like this kind of waste. pruitt is definitely on the list. >> announcer: this is "new day" with chris cuomo and alisyn camerota. >> good morning. chris is off.