investigation has been lopped off and lies in new york, and i will continue to respect the absolute independence of that office, that is not something you can shut down so easily, no matter who you remove from that office. they're on their third u.s. attorney in 13 months. >> we'll see where it goes next. preet, thank you very much. that's it for me. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. ♪ ♪ this is cnn breaking news. >> good evening, i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, it's an extraordinary evening. developments unfolding as i speak. the fbi raiding the office of trump's personal lawyer, michael cohen, the agents armed with multiple search warrants and we understand there were up to a dozen of those agents, seizing e-mails, tax documents, business records, and other communications between trump and

cohen. and the president tonight, livid, speaking out about the raid and bob mueller. >> so i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys. good man. it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch-hunt, i've been saying it for a long time. i've wanted to keep it down. we've given, i believe, over a million pages of documents to the special counsel. and it's a real disgrace. it's an attack on our country in a true sense, it's an attack on what we all stand for. so when i saw this and when i heard it, i heard it like you did, i said, that is really now in a whole new level of unfairness. they found no collusion whatsoever with russia. the reason they found it is there was no collusion at all. no collusion.

this is the most biased group of people. these people have the biggest conflicts of interest i've ever seen. >> not sparing any words. and here's what we know about the raid. it stemmed partially from a referral from mueller's office. this is according to cohen's lawyer, steven ryan. now, trump was asked, then got a question, whether he would fire special counsel given what you heard him say about this being the most biased group of people. here's what he said. >> why don't i just fire mueller? >> yeah, just fire the guy. >> i think it's a disgrace what's going on. we'll see what happens. but i think it's really a sad situation when you look at what happened. many people have said, you should fire him. again, they found nothing. and in finding nothing, that's a big statement. so we'll see what happens. i think it's disgraceful and so does a lot of other people. this is a pure and simple witch-hunt. >> a white house official says

trump is watching news reports about the raid and that he did know about it before the story broke. it's impossible to overstate how significant in development is. keep in mind, michael cohen and donald trump go way back. they've been working together for about 12 years. cohen has been referred to as trump's bit pu-- pit bull. cohen has also come under scrutiny in the russia investigation, he's been called to congress to testify for his role in building a trump tower in moscow and questions about communication with the kremlin. and this could be very central to what happened today. he also paid $130,000 in hush money to stormy daniels, the adult film star who said she had an affair with trump. let's get to pamela brown with the breaking development at the white house. the president, livid tonight, not mincing words. going on there for over a minute. >> reporter: right, erin.

he's visibly angered by this. just to set the scene here, he was at the table surrounded by his top military brass. they were there to meet about syria in the wake of the apparent chemical weapons attack. but unprompted, the president laid into the fbi, the robert mueller, calling the entire probe a witch-hunt, saying it's a disgraceful situation. even going as far as to say this is an attack on our country. and he even left the door open to firing robert mueller. he said many people have said, i have fire robert mueller. we'll see what happens. he left that open more than we've seen before. he's called the probe a witch-hunt, but in this case, he's saying, look, we'll see what happens. for context, though, erin, robert mueller referred this to authorities in new york. what happened here, he found this information, whatever it w was, in the course of his

investigation, went to the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. rosenstein would have made the determination the jurisdiction was in new york. so this isn't even something robert mueller was controlling. so it's pretty extraordinary to see the president go after him and the fbi in this fashion. and this is, as we know, related to stormy daniels, what's surrounding that, according to gloria borger, that was the premise of the search warrant, a search warrant that would have had to be signed off by a judge, erin. the authorities would have had to go to the judge, show probably cause that a crime had been committed and that the evidence was here at the scene. but the president kept saying that the fbi broke into the offices of his attorney, which is simply not accurate, erin. >> thank you very much, pamela. not accurate because they had multiple search warrants to do so signed off by a judge. that is not a break-in. that is lawful. that is how it works. evan perez is "outfront" in washington, i know you had more

details about the fbi raid or raids, i suppose, as the word may be in multiple locations. >> right, we know of at least a couple locations. the law office that michael cohen has at 30 rockefeller center, and as well as a hotel there in midtown manhattan where he's been living. we also are told, according to "the wall street journal," that there was another search that was conducted at michael cohen's home. so at least, according to steven ryan, his attorney, there were multiple search warrants that were issued, that were conducted today as part of this investigation by the u.s. attorney's office in manhattan. according to sources who have talked to gloria borger, a lot of this has to do with stormy daniels. this had to do with payments that were made to stormy daniels, $130,000 that was done right before the election. it also -- they also were looking for communication specifically between michael cohen and the president, michael cohen and people involved in the campaign, all of this relating to election laws. and that's important because

this $130,000 payment was not just a fix by michael cohen, a long-time personal lawyer of the president. this was potentially a violation of federal election laws, because it constituted some payment for the benefit of the president. so there's been a lot of -- multiple explanations by michael cohen as to exactly why this money was paid, whether the president was aware of this or not. again, a lot of open questions, we know. the bank actually flagged this payment as a potential suspicious transaction. so a lot of reasons why this was done. let me just add one last thing. to pamela's point, this is a raid that was actually authorized by the u.s. attorney in manhattan, jeffrey berman, who is president trump's own pick for that office. he hasn't actually been officially nominated to fill that job, replacing preet bharara, as you know. so we'll see whether or not that nomination goes ahead, having signed off on a raid of the president's personal attorney.

>> pretty significant question you raise and significant point that you make. this is the president's own man, his appointee, going ahead and saying this should happen. someone who i believe michael zeldman will give us more details, but also worked with rudy guiliani, an ally of the president. i want to go to paul cowan and micha michael zelen. paul, since you're with me, let me start with you. we understand here, multiple warrants. you heard evan going through at least three different locations. and the warrants were about, quote, seizing the privileged communications between cohen and his client. how significant is this for the president? >> it's very significant. it's extraordinarily aggressive for the justice department and fbi to engage in such activity. the reason i say that is, normally when you have an attorney's office, you don't

hear of them getting raided because there's the attorney-client privilege that protects the documents in the office. and these documents may be documents relating to the president of the united states, who is cohen's primary client. there is, however, an exception to the attorney-client privilege rule, and it's called the crime-fraud exception. if an attorney engages in criminal or fraudulent conduct with his client, then their communications are not privileged and can be seized. so i'm just wondering what the federal judge was looking at when he authorized a raid on an attorney's office. it sounds to me like crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. >> michael, what do you say? crime-fraud exception? because the reality of this is, a judge did sign off. and to do so, they would have had to believe that there was probable evidence a crime had been committed. >> well, that's right. michael cohen is a complicated figure in relationship to the analysis of attorney-client

privately. that is to say, if cohen was operating as an in-house counsel for the trump organization, and it's hard to figure out what exactly he was. sometimes he's called personal attorney. sometimes he's on the trump letterhead. if he's an in-house counsel, and he's providing business advice, that's not privileged. if he's providing legal advice which is intended to be privileged, then that's privileged. so it might be that he's not actually being -- you know, the evidence being taken from him is not exactly client-attorney privilege communications. plus, a lot of this evidence will be segregated. it will be analyzed by what we call a clean team, people who are not associated with any part of mueller's investigation. they may create a privilege log and look at documents that can be reviewed by the court to determine whether they are attorney-client privilege protected in which case they wouldn't be used against cohen. so there's a lot to be sorted through at this early stage of

the investigation. >> it is pretty incredible that what we're talking about here is personal attorney. i've known michael cohen for a long time. the relationship was such that the president at that time, a businessman, would call him in his office and ask for something to be done, and michael would present a bullet sheet point of paper, because they never used e-mail and trump would do it or not. this was a one-on-one relationship. cohen knows a lot. we know there were at least a dozen fbi agents involved. what does that say to you, a dozen agents, and we know three locations searched. >> it's an extraordinary event. in my 25 years as a special agent, two as head of the criminal division of the fbi, i've only seen a handful of these types of warrants. if you read the u.s. attorney's manual, i consulted it briefly before we came on -- there are extraordinary authorities that you have to get to get a search

warrant for an attorney's office. there will be a team probably that will take custody of the evidence and make sure and go through and make sure there isn't legitimately privileged information in there. so this is highly extraordinary. there had to be a strong showing of probable cause that there was evidence there, evidence of a crime, and as was pointed out, possibly even evidence that the attorney was participating in the crime for the agents to go in there and do that p. >> and the significance of all of this, you're talking about the president trying to say witch-hunt and plenty of people agree with me and it's a disgrace and they're biased people. there's a certain number of people who will believe it when he says that. but the deputy attorney is the one who made the decision to refer to the southern district of new york. the president there in charge is president trump's appointee, that's the guy who signed off on doing this. >> that's right. >> trump 's own guy, not preet bharara, the guy he fired. >> and giuliani's former law

partner, so someone with strong ties to the republican party. >> which is extremely significant when you think of it that way. let me ask you, when you say you haven't seen anything like this, a couple times in your career opini. the last time we heard of anybody being raided by the fbi is paul manafort. and things are looking horrific for paul manafort. is that an appropriate parallel to draw? >> yeah, i think it is. most of the time these things are handled in a very genteel fashion. when you're dealing with attorneys, you ask for the evidence, turn it over, or you might use a grand jury subpoena. but in this case, to go at it multiple locations, unannounced. i heard something about a no-knock. that's even more extraordinary if that were the case. and note also, this is not the special counsel -- >> when you say a no-knock, they just barge in, because they're worried someone could flee or hide something? >> that's correct.

>> just to clarify. >> that's correct. this is not the special counsel's investigation apparently. he's punted it over to the southern district of new york, via the attorney general's office. so this is a separate investigation. you can see the president's anger was directed towards the special counsel. all he did was pass the information on that he came across during the course of his investigation, obviously. so there's a separate investigation up in new york, in the southern district. >> all right, thank you all very much. and more on the breaking news, the long history between cohen and the president. just who is michael cohen, the man called trump's pit bull. plus, more breaking news, trump just meeting with the senior military advisers, saying the united states will retaliate for the chemical weapons attack in syria. and trump, truly the king of debt, his top economic advisers are my guests.

what does it take to make digital transformation actually happen? do you just flip a switch... and presto your business is magically transformed? not quite. it takes a ground-breaking company like dell technologies. a family of seven technology leaders working behind the scenes to make the impossible... reality. for instance, we're helping to give cars the power to read your mind from anywhere. ♪ we're helping up to 40% of the nation's donated blood supply... to be redirected to the areas and people that need it most. and we're even developing technology to create a whole new

vision for the blind. so while you might not see what we're doing... what we're doing is changing the way we all see the world. magic can't make digital transformation happen... but we can. let's make it real. hey, i'm curious about your social security alerts. oh! we'll alert you if we find your social security number on any one of thousands of risky sites, so you'll be in the know. ewww! being in the know is very good. don't shake! ahhh! sign up online for free. discover social security alerts. you wouldn't accept from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances.

most pills only block one. flonase. you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo!

breaking news, president trump livid tonight, ripping into the fbi, criticizing the agency's raid on the office and hotel room and home of his personal lawyer michael cohen, calling it a witch-hunt and disgraceful. >> i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch-hunt. i've been saying it for a long time. it's frankly a real disgrace. it's an attack on our country in a true sense. it's an attack on what we all

stand for. so when i saw this and when i heard it, i heard it like you did, i said that is really now in a whole new level of unfairness. >> of course we should keep in mind that the attorney who requested this is president trump's own appointee. just to make that very loud and clear, replacing preet bharara, the man he fired. agents were seizing information related to stormy daniels, as well as private communications between cohen and his clients. the biggest, the most prominent of which is the president of the united states. according to a source. now cohen has stood by the president for 12 years. and during that time he became known as mr. fix-it. any sort of a problem, he was right there. jason carol is "outfront." jason, you know, having seen these two together over many years, to say they are tight, would be an understatement of the relationship that they had. >> absolutely. there's so much more to this man

than making that $130,000 to stormy daniels. he's as close as one might be able to get to donald trump and the trump family without being family. one friend described him this way. he said, he is the man if you ever are in trouble at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, and you need someone to help, this is the man to do it. he gained a reputation throughout working within the trump universe as being the pit bull, the man who could get things done. he's been getting things done with the trump business empire since 2006. prior to being trump's personal attorney, he was executive vice president of the trump organization and for a certain period of time, also worked in trump entertainment. the bottom line, erin, he knows the business side of the world. he also know nows the political side of the world as well. erin? >> and jason, you're standing outside, i believe, of the hotel, one of the locations that was searched, where he was believed to have been staying, as this happened, michael cohen, that is?

>> reporter: that is correct. apparently at his home, he was having some sort of plumbing issues. so he was staying here at the lowe's regency, where early this morning the fbi agents came in, about a dozen agents, here for several hours. unclear what material they took from this location, but this is the place where michael cohen has been staying at least for now. >> jason, thank you very much. and "outfront" now, joan walsh, rick santorum and april ryan are joining me now. senator, let me just start with you. i don't know if you heard the prior conversation, but the head of the fbi, criminal investigation unit for 25 years, said he's only seen this a couple of times in his entire career. something of this significance. what's your take-away about how important of a night this is? >> well, we don't know yet. the -- obviously the target of

all this is the president's lawyer. we assume that it has to do with the president, obviously probably does. the question is, what did the president know and was he involved in this? and if this man is as he is portrayed, as someone who fixes things, the president may not know anything about this. it would be probably normal for the president to not know of the sort of things that are problems in his life that he would like to have go away, you have people take care of them and don't bring them to your attention for a lot of different reasons. so this may be a situation where he fixed it, and he fixed it in a way that ran afoul -- potential afoul of campaign finance laws and there could be problems as a result of that. joan? >> senator what, d, what did het he didn't know about? i don't have anybody going around fixing things for me. >> you're not donald trump. >> the way you're defending him raises more questions than it

answers. we have a situation right now -- first of all, i was stunned and kind of saddened for the military people in that room when the president came out and used what should have been a statement about our national defense, to defend himself, to defend his lawyer, to attack roberts mueller and all of these law enforcement people -- i don't know how those men -- i think they were all men -- sat there and had to take that at a time when we're really supposed to be thinking about, how do we respond to syria. it was such a typical donald trump, self-serving, self-pity party move. and i just look at this and i think this is a big night and i will agree with the senator on one thing. we don't really know what they have, but i would say they have a lot. >> we don't know what they have. we do know that a judge would have found probably cause to think a crime may have been committed, whatever the crime may have been, that would be what allowed them to authorize

the raids. april, about this moment, surrounded by his national security team, we're talking about a crucial moment for this country and the world, in syria, and he's making a decision about whether to strike syria, imminently, and yet he decides to go off for well over a minute impugning the fbi, bob mueller, and everybody else with bias, including i guess his own appointee. jeff zeleny is reporting that nobody in that room had any warning, this was completely offscript, is that what you're hearing? >> yeah. you know, you don't even need reporting to know this. this president goes by knee-jerk reaction. whenever it's something that attacks him or makes him look in a bad light. and when he went off, he went off, number one, because the man closed to him, that he talked about, he did not know that he did this payment, one, common sense is, when you're dealing with this kind of investigation that's looking for the trail of money, you don't do a lot of

talking. i've talked to former pressure chris darden on the o.j. simpson trial, he said the president talked too much. you don't taunt the very people that are upholding your freedoms. and then chris darden also said a couple weeks ago, and this is poignant for this moment, it reminds you of the impeachment of bill clinton. they were looking at whitewater. and it wound up being an impeachment over a lie about monica lewinsky. >> a lie about sex, which is the possible parallel to this. >> exactly. but here's the thing with this russia investigation and this is what chris darden said to me. it's like a police officer going into raid a home for drugs. you go to get the drugs, but you see the wife being beaten, you don't leave the wyatt theche w. you bring it all in. they're following the trail of money and now michael cohen's

properties have been raided and they're seizing information. they've taunted the fbi and they've talked to much and it's happening now. >> senator, what happens here? is the president going to go ahead and fire mueller? he was asked about that today. after he went off on the tirade about the fbi and everybody else involved in this. let me just play it again for you. >> why don't i just fire mueller? >> fire the guy. >> i think it's a disgrace what's going on. we'll see what happens, but it's really a sad situation when you look at what happened. and many people have said, you should fire him. again, they found nothing. and in finding nothing, that's a big statement. if you know the person who is in charge of the investigation, you know all about that, deputy rosenstein, rod rosenstein, he wrote the letter very critical of comey. one of the things, i fired comey, well, i turned out to do the right thing. >> what do you make of this,

senator? rosenstein, who he's holding up there as someone who did the right thing, is the guy who referred this to the southern district of new york, where trump's appointee went ahead and went for this search warrant. what do you make of his response to the question? >> i think the question is frustrated that the attacks keep coming and that everything he's trying to do in running the country, like dealing with the issue of syria, keeps getting side tracked with more and more investigations. i understand -- frankly, i sympathize with the president's frustration with jeff sessions' recusing himself. i don't think there should have been a special counsel. i've said that on this network for over a year now, because they can be endless, as we saw with ken starr and a lot of others. >> but you got, what, 16 people charged? i mean, hard to say it wasn't worth doing. >> with all due respect, erin, none of them with respect to what the investigation was all about. collusion with the russians. >> issues with elections

violations and money to -- >> i'm talking about collusion with the trump campaign. that's what this investigation was supposed to be about. and so far, we have no evidence of any collusion, and certainly no charges with respect to any collusion. and that's the frustration this president has. >> what about with bill clinton, started out with whitewater and then it went to monica lewinsky. so you cannot say one over the other. >> that's why i don't like special counsels. >> i think listening to the president say they've found nothing, trash people, say he did the right thing in firing jim comey, just brings home how serious this is, and how he's defending the indefensible at this point, and trashing law enforcement people who all, by the way, happen to be republicans. this is not a partisan witch-hunt. >> we don't know the individual politics of those involved today, but it shouldn't matter if you're an fbi agent doing a raid. >> they've given money to

republicans, that's all we know. >> thank you very much. more on our breaking news, the president calling the michael cohen raid a witch-hunt, slamming the special counsel. a top democrat on the judiciary committee is "outfront" to respond. and trump promising the chemical attack in syria will be met forcefully. that's a crucial thing. my guest next, senator joni ernst. he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. dr. scholl's. born to move. booking a flight doesn't have to be expensive. just go to priceline. it's the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40%. just tap and go... for the best savings on flights, go to priceline. and lose weight with contrave. it's fda-approved to help adults who are overweight or struggle with obesity lose weight and keep it off. contrave is believed to work on two areas of the brain:

your hunger center... i'm so hungry. (avo) and your reward system... ice cream. french fries. (avo) to help control cravings. one ingredient in contrave may increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some children, teens, and young adults in the first few months. serious side effects are mood changes like depression and mania, seizures, increased blood pressure or heart rate, liver damage, glaucoma, allergic reactions, and hypoglycemia. not for patients with uncontrolled blood pressure, seizure history, anorexia, bulimia, drug or alcohol withdrawal, on bupropion, opioids, maois, allergy to the ingredients, or pregnant. may cause nausea, constipation, headache, and vomiting. reduce hunger, help control cravings with contrave. now you an talk to a doctor online and get free shipping at getcontravenow.com.

if you'd have told me three years ago... that we'd be downloading in seconds, what used to take... minutes. that guests would compliment our wifi. that we could video conference... and do it like that. (snaps) if you'd have told me that i could afford... a gig-speed. a gig-speed network.

it's like 20 times faster than what most people have. i'd of said... i'd of said you're dreaming. dreaming! definitely dreaming. then again, dreaming is how i got this far. now more businesses in more places can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. breaking news, president trump furious over the fbi raid on his long-time personal attorney michael cohen. trump focusing his anger on robert muler and h robert mueller and his team and his attorney jeff sessions. >> the attorney made a terrible mistake when he did this and when he recused himself. and we would have used a -- put a different attorney general in. so he made what i consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country. but you'll figure that out.

if you know the person who is in charge of the investigation, you know all about that, deputy rosenstein, rod rosenstein, he wrote the letter very critical of comey and he was right about that. he was absolutely right. >> "outfront" now, ted lieu who is on the judiciary committee, front and center when it comes to jeff sessions and rod rosenstein. the president called the fbi raid a disgraceful situation, a witch-hunt. he said the group of people involved are the most biased group. he refused to rule out firing bob mueller. your reaction? >> thank you, erin, for your question. the president's comments are unamerican and disgraceful. fundamental to american democracy is the rule of law. what the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york did today was a vindication of the principle that no one is above the law, not the president, not his attorney, no one. >> so the big question tonight

is what this raid was about. here's what we know. about a dozen agents were involved. at least three locations were involved. a lot of documents were taken from bank documents, to communications between trump and michael cohen. and a lot of this related to cohen's payment to stormy daniels. so the question i have for you, congressman, is, do you think mueller's investigation has expanded too far? that this is proof that it expanded beyond its limits and that's why this had to be referred to the southern district of new york and mueller himself couldn't do it? >> this say greis a great examp robert mueller knowing his limits. it wasn't in his jurisdiction, he sent to the southern district of new york. it's their decision to request the search warrants and a judge authorized them. congresswoman kathleen rice and i wrote a letter to the fbi asking them to investigate

michael cohen because the $130,000 payment looked like a massive violation of campaign finance laws. >> that's going to be the extent of it? >> certainly possible. the public reporting shows there may have been bank fraud dating back several years. but we know the judge thought mike cohen wasn't going to cooperate. one of the requirements they have to show, they could have t gotten this information no other way. >> they felt like they didn't have the cooperation at all. you heard what the president said there, the attorney general made a mistake when he recused himself. we would have put a different attorney general in. he made a big mistake for the country. trump talking about bias, witch-hunt disgrace referring to bob mueller's team. is bob mueller's job at risk now

or not? >> it's possible. i really don't understand why donald trump is acting the way he is because robert mueller is the only person that can clear his name. if donald trump did nothing wrong, he would want the investigation to proceed forward and to see if his name gets cleared. but the actions and statements of donald trump show consciousness of guilt because an innocent person would not be acting the way our president is. >> the president last week broke his silence on the stormy daniels issue, which was at the core of what they were seeking today, among other things. he was asked specifically did he know about that payment. here's how he answered the question on air force one? >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >>

. >> obviously he said that to reporters, he didn't say it under oath. do you think he told the truth? >> "the washington post" heaas documented that donald trump has lied over 2,000 times since he got inaugurated. so i don't know whether he told the truth or not. but i know this $130,000 payment to stormy daniels looked like a clear violation of campaign violation laws. >> thank you very much, congressman, i appreciate your time tonight. next, president trump calling the raid on his lawyer's office an attack on america. i'll get reaction from republican senator joni ernst. and the united states on a collision course with economic catastrophe, owing more money than we make. are trump's tax cuts and tariffs to blame?

he's playno, with us. he's trying to tell us something. let's see what forensics thinks. sorry i'm late. what did i miss? wanna get away? now you can with southwest fares as low as 49 dollars one-way. yes to low fares with nothing to hide. that's transfarency. ♪ come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away. ♪

alright, i brought in high protein to help get us moving. ...and help you feel more strength and energy in just two weeks! i'll take that. -yeeeeeah! ensure high protein. with 16 grams of protein and 4 grams of sugar.

ensure. always be you.

breaking news, president trump angry tonight over the raid on his personal attorney general's office. a source close to the president telling cnn, this seems to have struck a nerve unlike anything we have seen so far. tonight the president declaring the raid a, quote, witch-hunt. >> i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch-hunt.

it's an attack on our country in a true sense. it's an attack on what we all stand for. >> "outfront" tonight republican senator joni ernst, thanks so much for your time tonight. just to be clear, it wasn't a break-in. the fbi had had multiple search warrants for these locations and they had obtained these from a judge which felt there was probably cause for a possible crime. the president called the raid on michael cohen's office, in his words, an attack on our country. do you agree with that, senator? >> well, i can't speak for the president, but what i'd want to know is, what is the tie-in with the investigation? what are we talking about? is it russia? is it elections collusion? that's what i would want to know. so i want to know what the tie-in is with this addition to the investigation. i really want to know, was there collusion with the elections

proces process. that's what we need to correct before we see any more involvement of russia in our election cycle. that's at the heart of the matter. >> it is at the heart of the matter. just want to make sure i understand, if bob mueller uncovered something related to stormy daniels or bank fraud or something else -- we understand some severe the seizures were related to stormy daniels, and referred it to another jurisdiction because he felt it was outside his purview, would you be okay with them pursuing it if it was a crime and perhaps with the president's knowledge? >> if he had found actual evidence that there was something wrong, certainly that's fine. but going back to robert mueller, we want to get to the heart of russia and their investigation with our elections process. so anything other than that is kind of an aside and let that go where it may. but certainly from my perspective in congress, i want to know about russia and our election cycle. >> and the president, of course, senator, was asked whether he would fire bob mueller over

there. he side-stepped the question, didn't dismiss it, didn't answer in the affirmative, though. senate minority leader chuck schumer has put out a statement, warning the president not to do it. sayin saying this statement. obviously, senator, you speak as a republican. should mueller be off the table, or would you be okay if the president fired bob mueller now? >> well, the president has the ability to do that, but i don't see him doing that. i think we've come too far in the russia investigation and i think that needs to be investigated fully. and once robert mueller has come to the conclusion, wheth whethe

was or was not collusion, that needs to be presented to congress. >> and the president saying all of this in the midst of a meeting with his national security team about whether to strike syria with missiles. here's what he said about that. >> it will be met, and it will be met forcefully. we're going to make a decision tonight or very shortly thereafter and you'll be hearing the decision. but can't let atrocities like we all witnessed, and you can see that, and it's horrible. we can't let that happen in our world. we can't let that happen. >> senator, the president said that he's going to be making a decision tonight or very shortly thereafter. do you have any sense of how imminent this is? could a decision and a strike come tonight? >> i think a decision could come very soon. and i know that the president will take the advice of his military commanders very seriously. the images that we see coming

out of syria are heartbreaking. innocent men, women, and children have been killed, and thousands of others injured in this chemical attack. we need to take that seriously here in the united states. and i do believe that the president will act soon. >> you talk about those imagings. th -- imagings. th -- images. but it's important to watch, to understand these are human lives, people who have undergone horrific suffering in what appears to be a chemical attack. at least 49 people were killed. you've spent a long career doing so, you've spent time in the region. do you support another strike? >> i do. and i supported the president's strike last year about this same time as well. it is important that when these atrocities are committed, that we act swiftly, and i believe

the president will do that. as a veteran, as the chairwoman of the emerging threats and capability subcommittee of the armed services committee, it is important to understand what is going on in syria. and then also, what are the connections with iran and russia. those are also some of my concerns. they continue to prop up the bashar al assad regime. and we can't have them involved in this region. especially when we see that they are not following through with getting rid of chemical weapons in syria. we can't continue to see these types of deaths occur in an innocent civilian population. >> senator, thank you very much for your time tonight. >> thank you. next, trump has called himself, with great pride, the king of debt. is that how he's running america? my talk next with trump's top adviser larry kudlow. well, like most of you, i just bought a house.

-oh! -very nice. now i'm turning into my dad. i text in full sentences. i refer to every child as chief. this hat was free. what am i supposed to do, not wear it? next thing you know, i'm telling strangers defense wins championships. -well, it does. -right? why is the door open? are we trying to air condition the whole neighborhood? at least i bundled home and auto on an internet website, progressive.com. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto. i mean, why would i replace this? it's not broken. digital transformation actually what does ithappen?o make do you just flip a switch... and presto your business is magically transformed? not quite.

it takes a ground-breaking company like dell technologies. a family of seven technology leaders working behind the scenes to make the impossible... reality. for instance, we're helping to give cars the power to read your mind from anywhere. ♪ we're helping up to 40% of the nation's donated blood supply... to be redirected to the areas and people that need it most. and we're even developing technology to create a whole new vision for the blind. so while you might not see what we're doing... what we're doing is changing the way we all see the world. magic can't make digital transformation happen... but we can. let's make it real.

president trump proving he is the self-proclaimed king of

debt. now, this is according to the congressional budget office which tonight predicts that america's debt is surging to be 105% of gdp by 2028. we will owe more money than we create as a country. shocking since what president trump said about president obama. >> national debt doubled since obama became president. during his regime, we have doubled our national debt. >> we owe 20 trillion national debt. doubled under obama and we haven't done anything. >> "outfront" larry kudlow. the forecast more debt for economic output.

in anyone's personal life, that would be disaster. >> the cbo, i have not studied this report, but slightly be low 2% growth. we don't believe that. our view is lower tax rates particularly business. we are going to pick up productivity in wages. now, i am not saying the government is sufficiently limited. i don't think it is. i would like to see a more modest role for government. and that has always been my view. i would take a somewhat larger deficit in order to finance larger growth in the economy. >> in 2009, when the cbo said the debt would reach 68 gdp. and now it is saying 109%.

you weighed in on this and here is what you said joo. >> the doubling of the debt, the out-of-control spending. it is a fact. this is like a pinball machine on permanent tilt. this is like a completely out of align. the most unbalanced fiscal story coming out of washington and really in our history. >> what's changed? other than reich and moore switching sides. >> the trouble i had with the obama program is it was all spending. it was all spending. and most of it, was not spending for infrastructure, most of it was spending for welfare spending and social spending

that is not a growth. >> trump just signed a big spending bill. >> nothing like the obama stimulus package which was a trillion dollars in the begin can. i am not happy with the government as it is now. i think spending has got to come down. more limited government. i agree with all of that. with respect to the obama years, if he had a growth program, a, we would be more prosperous today and b, i wouldn't fret about the deficit. >> so, in the context of your concern that you have had in the past about humongous deficit, here is what he has said in the past. >> i am the king of debt. i am great with debt.

i have made a fortune by using debt. >> are you really on the same page with him when it comes to this? >> yes, of course. that is private sector stuff. i am not going to go there. look, it is spending that troubles me and i will just say this, erin, we are looking at very significant what i would call enhanced rescission actions which will lower spending by a significant amount. i can't give you details yet, it is under consideration. >> something not yet to be rolled out but that would curb the spending. >> it will help. it will help to, you know, that lousy spending deal, the president doesn't like the deal, as he said, he wished he hadn't signed it, but he did. >> you have to jump and there has been a challenge. we know part of the reasons for that is tariffs and a mixed message. the threats between u.s. and

china has a lot of farmers, they are really concerned. i have spoken to a few and here are two. >> well i grow more than 100,000 bu bushels a year. that's a big deal. >> how much will these tariffs cost you? >> well, $1 billion worth of products pork products to china, that equates about $7 per head marketed in the united states. so our farm markets, that equated to 35,000 for our farm. >> i don't know if you could hear him clearly, but he said 35,000 for his farm. the soybean farmer said $50,000 a year for his farm. that could be devastated. >> with all respect to that

gentleman, i don't know he arrives with that prediction. our secretary of the agriculture has said farmers are patriots. if it came down to that, but let me go back for a second. >> when he said that, what does he mean? great patriots so you are not going to -- >> there are no tariffs at the present time. we will see in a couple of months whether our tariff issues work out or not. we will see if china responds and so far they have unsatisfactorily. i hate to predict the future and hate to see that you and others make the case that the worst is going to happen. we don't know any of that yet. >> part of the reason i have asked you this is because you have been an honest person and a person of integrity.

when the president threatened, you tack a long pause, let me just play it so people can see it. >> when did the president first tell you that he was going to announced these hundred billion dollars in tariffs? >> last evening. >> you took the pause and answered the truth. do you have confidence that the president doesn't really want these theariffs that he is goin to listen to you and do the right thing. >> let me back up again. china has had unfair and illegal trading practices for two decades or longer and particularly in the technology area, unlawful transfers of intellectual power. and we can't let that. you can't steal our intellectual

authority. something has to be done. when you say tariffs, i don't know if it will be tariffs, but the president will be correct. he has a backbone. prior administrations would not do anything with china. and trump is out there saying if you negotiate with us, we may not need the tariffs but trump may use tariffs and i want to make that clear. he is in the right. china has broken all the laws in trading and with. wtos, and you know that too. you can't steal our technology. we have to do something about it. so i will tell you honestly, yes, i heard the announcement, it was late that evening. fine. it doesn't matter to me. in terms of the overall program, trump is on the right track. at the end of the rainbow, a lot more economic growth with more

free trading conditions. more growth not just for the u.s. but for the whole world including china. >> thank you very much. i appreciate your time. >> and thank you all for joining us. you can watch the show any time, go to cnn go. ac 360 begins right now. good evening. the fbi takes action against his personal attorney and president trump lashes out big time. the fbi and his own attorney general, his deputy attorney general his own investigation, and the man who is running. fbi raided michael cohen's hotel rooming and his job might be in jeopardy. >> why don't i