good evening. we have new details on the book that shakes the trump administration, rattling the president. the title is fear, trump, and the white house. the picture that bob wood ward paints is terrifying. he reportedly compares him to a fifth or 6th grader. the president, his chief of staff calls an idiot and unhinged. john kelly quoted as saying it's pointless to try to convince him of anything. he's gone off the rails. we are in crazytown. telling staffers i don't know why any of us are here. this is the worst job i have ever had. that's the current chief of staff who denies calling the president an idiot. he is seen as so dangerous by one cabinet member, he swiped a document off the president's desk to protect the country he

mocked hr mcmaster behind his back saying he dressed in cheap suits like a beer salesman. he calls jeff sessions mentally retarded and said he talks like a dumb southerner. the president referred to him as a little rat. he just scurries around. for priebus's part, talking about the president's twitter habit, he refer to the presidential bedroom as the dev devil's work shots and calls sunday night the witching hour. the people who told him all this all on tape directly witnessed or took part in the events they described. we have details on the white is you premtivity march in charlottesville saying there were good people on both sides. there is new reporting on that and we join them with breaking news. what you have learned? .

>> there are stunning details about charlottesville and how after that first speech the white house staff convinced him to go and make the second speech. rob porter was the star secretary sits down with him and wood ward report this is dramatic scene where they are in the white house residence and porter is urging him along and trump is reluctant. he said things like i don't know about this. it doesn't feel right to me. they get the speech done and then he does it and it looks like a hostage video when you watch it. he goes back up to the residence and he turns on the tv to fox. and a reporter said the president has made a course correction. and trump explodes over it. we have his exact words. wood ward reports that president trump says that was the biggest

f'ing mistake i've made. you never make concessions. you never apologize. i never do anything wrong in the first place. why look weak. i can't believe i got forced to do that. that's the worst speech i have ever given. i'm never going to do anything like that again. >> it was the next day that the president then went forward and doubled down on what he said. >> this is the famous trump tower speech. wood ward reports details we have never seen before about the staff doesn't know he is going to do it. they asked for paperwork of what they said. he said i'm not going to. he surprises them and says that. they are shocked about it. it really is wood ward reports, a turning point for the white house. he quotes that chief of staff

john kelly said we could lose a third of the cabinet that we're on the knife's edge. >> gary cohn goes in. >> with his resignation in hand and trump berates him and said you are a traitor. this is your wife and your park avenue friends. this is all according to wood ward's reporting. he said to cohn, you have to stay for the tax bill. he convinces cohn to stay and he leaves, but it's a horrible, horrible scene and chief of staff john kelly is quoted as saying to cohn afterwards that if it was me having been be rate bide trump, i would have taken the resignation letter and shoved it up his -- six different times. >> i spoke with somebody familiar with what went on

during that situation. there were a group of senior officials waiting for cohn to resign. if he had resigned, i was told there would have been an exodus behind him. since he didn't, people stayed. >> we will have more in a moment and more on reaction to the book. saying the idea i called the president an idiot is not true. he did not deny the other things wood ward said like crazytown and the president is off the rails. news outlets said he privately disparaged president trump and the president weighed in. let's go to that at the white house. what did he have to say? >> he wants to get into a war of credibility over this book. i'm not sure it's a war he is going to wane, but it's a war he is waging. this tweet was put out in the last hour challenging his credibility. the book has been refute and

discredited by the secretary of defense. chief of staff johnicle. the president goods goes to to say they were made up frauds and bob wood ward who has been in this town going back to the watergate days of richard nixon and helped break the story is a dem operative and notice timing. suggesting that he was trying to time this to influence the mid-term elections. the president earlier reached to a conservative outlet, the daily caller to go after this book, saying that one point it's just another bad book and challenging bob wood ward's credibility saying he has credibility problems, but we talked about so many times, the president with his problems with telling the truth has his own problems and i'm not sure he wants to fight this fight. >> the president is on tape

telling bob wood ward that he has always been fair to him. we will play that tape coming up. it's not just the president. a number of administration officials have come out against the book in different ways. >> that's true. one thing we should point out is this did not all come out like that. this took tyke. the white house was caught flatfooted by all this. sarah huckabee sanders said this book is nothing more than fabricated stories and many by former disgruntled stories to make the president look bad. many people quoted in the book are still in the administration including john kelly who is pushing back on some comments, but not all of them. james mattis said the portions attributed to him as with rudy giuliani is described as a baby

in a dimer and saying that did not happen. >> again, it's somewhat strange to say the president saying what he's saying about bob wood ward that he had a lot of credibility problems. when he called him last month to say he regretted not talking to him for the book, he had this to say. >> it's really too bad because nobody told me about it and i would love to have spoken to you. you have always been fair. >> who are you going to believe? president trump or president trump? the president in that actual recording when he said nobody told me about it, meaning the book, in that very same recording later on, wood ward points out that lindsey told the president about the book and he admitted he had been told by senator graham. what he said not being told about the book, then he said he had. obama adviser bernstein and wood

ward. david gergen who served numerous presidents dating back to the nixon administration and our chief analyst, gloria borger. david gergen, i'm not sure where to begin on this. what stands out to you? >> i think we ought to talk about the credibility issue. we go way back and it's true on a number of his books there have been questions and people refuted and said i never said that and so forth, but the look at the series of books, he has enormous credibility coming out of these. every book he has written to the best of my recollection has been proven in his essence. there were details he may have gotten wrong or mistold to him. his credibility is extremely high stretching back to watergate. far be it from an operative, asked bill clinton what he

thought. i think i can hear carl laughing. he went after clinton and exploded about the stuff in there. a lot of people thought in his book about george w was sympathetic. i think the whole thing is we should not be questioning his credibility. we should be questioning what's in the book. what's in the book is a portrait of a guy who once again in a serious way we vives questions about his fitness for office. >> when are i started hearing about what was being said with the quotes, these quotes, the first word that came out of my mouth, this is unbelievable. this is actually making perfect sense. it's extensions and amplification of things that the president said before. the details are extraordinary, but none of it is out of the realm of possibility. >> it's not out of the realm of

possibility. yes there is reporting on this, a good deal of it. now we have a coherent, indisputable narrative that is chilling in the following way. the people closest to the president of the united states in his white house and in his administration are saying they see their job as protecting the united states from the president of the united states. that he is a danger to the republic. that is the text of this book. every meeting that bob writes about, that is the subtext. it's not just a sentence here or somebody calling somebody an idiot there. it is detail piled upon detail about the substance of all of those meetings, about the subjects of those meetings. about trade. about the special prosecutor. about all of the issues, about charlottesville. this is deadly serious. nobody should take any kind of comfort from this book or joy pat what bob reports.

yes, all of us who have been covering trump had been doing pieces of this. now we have trump naked in a whole coherent narrative about his presidency and recklessness and about his dishonesty and his lack of ability. it is a frightening, damning portrait. one question and it seems to be about general kelly, at some point the congress of the united states, general kelly, i would think, ought to resign for the sake of the country. it's derelict to continue in that job knowing what he does. somebody on capitol hill, republicans particularly have got to have the guts to call kelly up there to an executive session here and say general kelly, tell us what you think. what you really know about this president and the threats that are described in this book to the republic. >> i understand that wood ward made comments now about the

response? >> he put out a statement saying he stands by his reporting and just from what carl said, let's also remember this wasn't in watergate where there was one deep throat. these are dozens of deep throats. he had dozens of sources. he had hundreds of hours of taped interviews. almost every interview was taped as you said at the beginning. people may be denying things for their own reason, maybe they are denying to consider themselves the thin blue line. they feel it's more important they be in the job. there are tapes. >> david axelrod, just the portrait painted of the white house. crazytown is the phrase that general kelly used. i know you have been on the receiving end of the wood ward book. a, do you believe he has credibility issues as the president is claiming and b, just the portrait of this white

house, i'm wondering how it compares and how much it alarms you, smb someone who actually worked in the obama white house. >> let me deal with the credibility issue. it is preposterous to assume that all of these stories and all of these sources are concocted by bob wood ward to present a negative portrait of this president and has been pointed out, many of the anecdotes square up with things reported elsewhere although not this detailed. i don't think there is any question. no book of 479 pages is are inially impeccable. you may have some nits to pick here and there, but the portrait is stark and i think thoroughly credible. what it paints is the picture of a white house which is like nothing we have ever heard of. carl can speak to the end of the

nixon presidency in which nixon was in a state and there were people around him trying to prevent him from doing anything destructive. but this has been the practice almost from the beginning apparently in the white house. you have an entire staff or many members conspireing as carl said to keep the president from doing harm to the country. what i wonder about is how does one function in that white house? how does the president -- tomorrow morning, he knows what's in this book, what does he say when he sees general kelly if he sees him? what does he say when he meets with general mattis saying he has a fifth or a 6th grade understanding of the world? it's mind-boggling. i don't know how one operates in a white house like that. you have to believe this will

blow a much larger riff between the president and those around him. it appears as though the president is hurdling towards some sort of wall that i fear that we are going to wake up in the not too distant future and you will see mass firings and mass pardons because he seems to be increasingly unhinged. i don't think this book is going to help. >> people and members of his cabinet, members of the people around him, advisers are removing documents from his desk so he doesn't sign them and depending on the idea that he will just forget about them, gambling on the idea that he will forget about them, we will talk to carl and gloria after the break. negotiations between team trump and robert mueller over a presidenti presidential q&a. the hearings for brett kavanaugh begin with fireworks and

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given that one piece of reporting in the new book with the legal team's a.m. bif lens, the next piece of breaking news fits into the conversation. they learn the prosecutors responded to the trump team's latest proposal regarding a possible interview. a source told us the discussions involving the possibility of written questions for the president, the "new york times" goes further reporting that mr. mueller told the legal team he will accept written answers about solution with russia. back with their own team on this. the "new york times" report was the who reported that mueller is going to accept written questions as part of their investigation for russian interference. not written questions about obstruction of justice. >> from what we know, he didn't say anything. that's a question out there. while the president's lawyers do

not want the president to testify in any way, shape, or form. that's goods news. if they get a take home test, even in it's on collusion, that's fine. they would rather they answer on collusion. >> does this mean there will not be an interview? >> we don't know. the obstruction issue, the question with the president's lawyers say there is executive privilege. this took 3.5 weeks to respond to the president's lawyers. it doesn't seem that anybody is in a rush. >> woodward describes john dowd as putting the president through mock interviews and according to woodward, the president did

poorly, stumbling and contrad t contradicting himself and lying and saying at some point that it was a god damn hoax. >> from the book, when the president broke down, it didn't work and he got angry and had to call it off. the mock interview. his own lawyers went to mueller and reenacted for mueller what happened with trump to convince him that if he called him in, he would not get straight answers. the president of the united states might perjury himself. high has to close that door. i think it's much easier to get written answers from mueller's point of view. the president knew in advance about the meeting or not. that's a fact. where as on obstruction, it's a question of motive. why were you doing this? you need the president himself to do that.

>> woodward writes that dowd saw the full nightmare of a potential mueller interview. the president didn't see it, asking dowd you think i was struggling. what is the president's lack of self awareness, assuming this is what happened, what does it indicate about how it plays out? >> i think his lack of self awareness characterizes his whole presidency. we don't know how this is going to play out and there is a poker game going on between the white house, the president, and mueller's inquiry. i think it's very possible that the special prosecutor does not want to take this issue to the supreme court, spend months and months having it adjudicated. he wants his investigation to come to a conclusion, that he has an awful lot of evidence of many things. we don't know what it is, but we have seen hints of it in court. that he wants to produce a

report, a vast narrative that will show both how the cover up by donald trump of the obstruction of justice and trying to investigate things about russia and the interference in the campaign. he will show that obstruction and he is going to address the question of collusion. we don't know what he has. we do know he wants to present an integrated report that presents both of those issues. we have seen rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer, say out loud what many of us have been saying and told for weeks and weeks that the president wants to suppress the special prosecutor's report. they are looking for ways to claim executive privilege. if he gets a new attorney general, he can order the new attorney general to say don't turn the report over to congress. the obstruction question goes to

the collusion question. why is the president of the united states unwilling to answer openly these questions about "collusion." why the cover up? >> the goal being argued to mueller that the president was not capable of telling the truth and could not testify. dowd denied this happened, but if it's true, what does it say that the lawyer dos not think he is capable of telling the truth. why he ultimately left. >> nothing good. >> think of it for a second that the lawyers go to the special counsel because they can't trust their own client. it doesn't bode well for the entire process. that's why my strong feeling is that we may end up in a

situation where the president tries to cut this short. he waming a campaign against jeff sessions that is picking up every day. one way to try to get ahold of this investigation is to remove sessions from that position. but, you know, i think carl is right. there is a level of delusion around the president that is evident in some of the comments he makes publicly. it's evidence in his tweets, and it's supported by what you see in that book. it's disturbing from the standpoint of his defense, but it's more disturbing for the stand point of the fact that the guy is president of the united states. we are having this conversation. >> but anderson, here's the odd thing. all of his lawyers do not want him to testify. the reason that john dowd quit was because after this mock interview, he said to the president you can't -- i can't

as your lawyer let you sit before the special counsel. the president himself still believes that if he went mano a mano with bob mueller that he would be able to come out of it just fine. that's the way he views the world. it's me against him. >> just one final point. what the lawyers learned and told mueller is the president of the united states is not fit to come up here and testify to you personally. he will get muddle and we shouldn't do that. if the president of the united states is not fit to have a two-hour conversation about the past under oath, what does that say about his fitness for the office of the presidency? >> we will leave it on that. coming up, the other big story in washington, the confirmation for the supreme court pick, brett kavanaugh got off to a rough start with shouting matches not confined to the protesters dragged out of the room. details ahead. sign to quit cable, waiting a then here's some signs.

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the hearing for the president's pick for the supreme court got off to all the drama for someone who can change the direction of american justice for years to come. hours before the hearing, accusations of information being hidden and screaming protesters in the public gallery and the confirmation hearing was off to the races. in a moment, i will speak with a senator who was there, but look at the fireworks in the early

moments of the hearing. >> the committee received less than 15 hours ago, 42,000 pages of documents that we have not had an opportunity to review or read or analyze. >> we're have been denied real access to the documents we need to advise -- >> mr. chairman, regular order. >> that turn this is into a charade and a mockery. >> we're are rushing through this process in a way that is unare in. i appeal for the motion to at least be voted on. i appeal to your sense of fairness and decency and commitments you made to transparency. >> joining me is democrat of rhode island there for all of that. senate republicans accused democrats of mob rule. i wonder what your reaction was? >> that seems a little bit exaggerated we followed proper regular order throughout the committee process.

i don't think you could go in a simple private contract case in i district court in any community in this country and dump 42,000 pages of documents on a litigant the evening before the trial and not expect that the judge would give you a continuance. that's just basic fairness. for us to ask for that, no to the mention all the other documents hidden or obscured or not allowed to be seen or kept secret. i think it was important to assert our rights. this was not a proper normal process. this was bizarre and we shouldn't be ruled by it and shouldn't have gone quietly. >> how much of this was preplanned and coordinated in advance between the senators. democratic senators? >> not much. i think there was one conference call with most if not all of the

judiciary members. that's pretty much standard stuff. i think we were all eager to say our peace and to try to bring to light the fact that this is the most bizarre hearing process for a supreme court nominee that the country has ever seen and that we have at this point maybe 10% of the documents that relate to this guy's tenure in government. and 10%, by the way, selected by his friends to be the most bland and unchallenging 10%. it's not a statistical sample. just the 10% they wanted to give us. >> during his opening statement, judge kavanaugh vowed to be a neutral and impartial arbitor and every case confirmed to the supreme court. do you doubt him? >> absolutely. that is what i call confirmation etiquet etiquette. all of the judges come in and

say that stuff and then they get on the court and what happens is they pack up into a republican gang of five and by my count they rendered 73 different decisions with just the five republicans that have given substantial benefits to big republican funders and interests. in that pursuit, they have run over all sorts of supposed 3 conservative judicial principals with respect for precedent at the top of the list. you have to look at their behavior and not just what they say. >> sorry that only a republican trait? democrats and liberals on the court that vote as a group as well. >> we have never seen anything like this. not that i have ever seen. when the five republicans go off and change the law for the benefit of big republican interest, that does leave four dismayed democratic appointees saying what the heck just happened around here. to blame it on the four

appointees getting rolled into not changing the law i don't think correctly tells that story. >> what are is your end goal? democrats likely don't have the votes to block his nomination. >> is to raise concerns about the way in which this was done and try to get more americans interested in the fact that we're being so badly and unprecedently rolled on this nominee and the second is to lead into the question why? why is it the republicans are are so desperate to break so many rules and conventions to jam this particular individual on the court? that turns into this larger question of the supreme court, 5-4, all republican decisions that have given huge, huge benefits to big republican interests. >> appreciate your time. >> good to be on, anderson. >> jeffrey toobin and michael

caputo. everyone on this panel is smarter than i am. contentious from the start. what stood out to you? >> the democrats woke up and showed up and fought back. the key issue here is they don't have the votes. they can make noise and they had some very good arguments that it's absurd to suggest you can turn over 42,000 documents the night before and expect anyone to read them and this staff secretary which brett kavanaugh was was a very important job in the bush administration, but what will it add up to? i don't know. >> is it that unusual to have the documents releasid like they were? >> it is. the democrats had a good point that this is a considerable amount of do you means, but they have a problem with their own record. they will be complaining that he doesn't answer questions, but the ginsburg rule was actually

forged under a democratic chairman and has been used by the democrats and it's going to sound like complaining about the weather. this is the way confirmation has gone. the best point? i think it was that these documents should have been produced earlier and there is a lot that still should be produced. >> the ginsburg rule is a myth. ruth bader ginsburg could not have been clearner saying that the right to abortion is a fundamental right for americans and watch brett kavanaugh say absolutely nothing in response to every single question about abortion. >> kavanaugh is going to mimic what kagan said which was nothing about roe v. wade. if starting with ginsburg, they have cited that hearing to say nothing. i have been a critic of it because yoei don't understand t purpose of the hearings. >> what are is the purpose?

>> the idea behind this is this is a time appointment. he is 53 years old and will sit on the court for the next 30 years and impact all of our lives in ways we cannot even imagine yet. there should be a full and thorough airing of what his views are and how he will see the law. i do understand and this is true of both democrats and republicans. nobody wants to answer specific questions of how they will rule on hip thetical or existing facts, but there has to be more of a conversation on people's values and legal views than we have seen. >> no one wants that conversation until they are in the minority. >> do you see this document dump as insfloept. >> well, i don't know if it's inappropriate, but calling out about the documents is a smoke screen. they have 300 continues to refer to. they are in the minority and if you want to pick judges, you want to win elections.

i want to see more and more of these protests during the hearing. i want to see more of that and wear pink hats and -- >> do you think it has -- >> the opposite effect. normal americans see that as ridiculous. just chicanery and trying to manipulate the process. most of the people i know, i live in fly over country find it hilarious. they don't support it at all and want them to do more of it. i think it will help us in the mid-terms. >> congressman? >> i saw several democratic senators auditioning for president of the united states and this is a sorry spectacle. i'm of the opinion that if the nominee is fit and qualified and experienced and well read in the law, that's where you support. i saw my senator support justice sotomayor because he thought that she was fit. he took from his base, but it

seems you hear people calling kavanaugh an idea log. that's what we are watching and this is a sad thing for the american people. >> 'is it sad to know whether a nominee is going to vote to end roe v. wade like the president promised during the campaign? why should that be a mystery and why shouldn't we know? >> why is it sad to know to have the time to go through the documents that give people the answers that we don't have answers on. people feel it's being pushed through and jammed through without the proper time to evaluate for a time appointment for a guy who was young. >> sandra day o'connor said she would overturn it. i think a lot of the justices when they get on the court are careful not to want to revoke rights that have been established whether it's on

major equality or even abortion rights. >> you have written extensively on the court, but is there something that changes? >> there is this mythology of the surprise president. the idea that presidents don't get what they bargain for. look at the justices on the court. they are all exactly as advertised. you could argue that anthony kennedy was -- >> wasn't sooter? >> george herbert walker bush had. he got more liberal as he -- later in his tenure. look at all nine justices now. they are all as advertised. remember this process. donald trump didn't pick these justices. the federalist society picked these justices. neal gorsuch is with clarence thomas, beyond chief justice roberts in the most conservative members of the court.

i have every reason to believe. donald trump won the election and we should know what we are getting. >> here won and he gets to appoint the people he wants to appoint. >> thank goodness democrats woke up and many democrats were happy to see them with more pep in their step at the hearing. i disagree with you. i think seeing them active and seeing protesters is going to get a lot of people out and excited about the elections in november. >> on our side, absolutely. >> we will see in november. we can place a wager on it. elections have consequences and that's a point they are making. look, they know every democrat who spoke today knows they don't have the votes. they still want to have a legitimate concern based on the document dump and they wanted people to know about it and wake people up. it's hard to breakthrough in this environment. >> i love lindsey graham's statement where he was talking about yousome expect a

conservative president is going to choose ahillary clinton, but donald trump can't? it's the minority speaking up. >> lindsey graham was so insistent that a president gets to pick just like barack obama got to pick merrick garland and he got a vote, didn't he? >> the answer is no, obviously. more on this is breaking news in robert mueller. also the passion of tropical storm gordon on a collision course with the gulf ghost. where it is now and what to expect. when you're particular, you want things done right. that's why we test all of our paints and stains for months. or even years. we dedicate 175,000 square feet to getting it wrong...

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there's plenty to talk about tonight with the panel. the kavanaugh hearings, which sounds like the title of a robert ludlum book. and the breaking news "the new york times" reporting that robert mueller has agreed to the president asking certain russia probe questions in writing. luckily we have some lawyers here who we can talk to about this. we've talked so much about whether the president was going to sit down or not. i wonder what you make of this latest reporting, the idea that mueller's kind of going with the

idea of written questions at least on russian collusion questions. z >> so i think it's important to break this into two parts. one is the part of the collusion question and what if any role donald trump played. and that is what they're going on written questions for. and i see that as mueller's effort to move this along. he more than anyone will be aware of the fact he wants to get this done, there's a time frame he's aiming for, and those are questions i think i don't like written questions, period, but i think those are questions that are easier to see -- >> does that give a window into mueller's -- that there's no there there? >> no. it's that trump is a witness. he's a witness and i think he's an important witness particularly on the airplane with donald trump jr. so i do think that there are important questions they will want to ask the question about what role did you have in crafting the statement about the meeting. the meeting at trump tower. the second part, though, the obstruction, i think they will still try to sit with the president. i think they're just splitting it into two to get one piece done. >> jeff, do you see it the same way?

>> i basically agree. these negotiations have gone on longer than the reunification of germany. i mean, this is just absurd, how many months they've been talking about this. mueller -- they both want to get this over with i think. mueller knows that if he subpoenas it's likely to be a supreme court case that ends in june and then who knows what happens. the president doesn't want to be subpoenaed. so there is some interest in reaching some sort of settlement. the problem, as the bob woodward book illustrates, is the president's lawyers thinks their client is a liar, and putting him under oath or even an office interview when they think he's going to lie is problematic and i still think they are going to do everything they can to avoid that. >> professor turley, i'm wondering what you make of woodward's reporting on this about jeff's point about what the president's attorneys think of their client. >> i couldn't help think what it was like for kavanaugh. he's being questioned on deferring to the president. and you know, he must feel like that scene in "the graduate"

where dustin hoffman's banging on the window on the outside. every report coming into that hearing room today was the president running around the capitol with his hair on fire. that's not exactly the environment you want to talk about deferring to a president. i think what comes out of this book if it's true is quite alarming. there's no question about that. some of it i just find hard to believe. i can't believe that any two sane lawyers would essentially perform in front of mueller like they're doing improv at the park, to say look how bad our client-s that's why we won't do this. if that's true, then obviously they're not very good lawyers and things have gone way over the line in terms of the control of this litigation. but what's coming out of this book is obviously alarming. it's not going to help the president. but more importantly it puts a spook into the republican ranks. he's about to go into the most difficult period of any modern president in history if the house flips.

i was the lead counsel in the last impeachment trial. and i've got to tell you, at the end of the day when that vote is called you need those republicans to really be unified and not be having doubts. books like this tend to put a spook into those ranks. >> michael, as a supporter of the president, what do you think of the book? >> i think there's probably some truth to it. i think there's probably a lot of fabrication there. i'm going to read it and figure out what i believe. i don't believe the lawyers were pantomiming for mueller. i don't believe the conversation between bannon and ivanka trump went down the way the book says it does. there's a lot of things to doubt. >> in the book bannon is yelling at her that she's a staffer. >> would never happen. that conversation would never happen. i know both of them. it would never happen. but i can tell you this. i believe the reporting out of "the new york times" today heartened a lot of us around the president. i believe -- >> heartened because? >> because it looks like the mueller team is negotiating in good faith, and it appears to be that they're open to, you know,

having questions and answers in writing. i think it's an indication that they're willing to compromise. up until now, i've been doubtful about that. >> we've got to end it there. i want to thank everybody on the panel. check in with chris cuomo to see what he's working on for "cuomo prime time" at the top of the hour. chris? >> what we're going to do is bring on friends, confidants, and people who have been inside the white house with donald trump to get their reaction to the book. what do they think is fact? what do they think is fiction? because, anderson, they're in a tough place. they cannot write this off like omarosa's book even though they're using the same defense play on it. this is bob woodward, all right? two pulitzer prizes. we all know his legacy. and he's got hundreds of hours of interviews and documents and things to back this up. i can't believe they want to have a fact fight with this man. so we'll see how they defend it, and we will get into what happened today with kavanaugh and what it tees us up for tomorrow. >> all right. a lot to talk about. that's about seven minutes from now. see you then. tropical storm gordon taking aim at the gulf coast tonight.

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tropical storm gordon is nearing hurricane strength and is expected to hit the gulf coast tonight. maximum sustained winds of 70 miles an hour. the storm is about 70 miles south of mobile, alabama right now. our nick valencia is not far from there. he's on the dauphin islands and joins us with the latest. what's the scene there? >> reporter: anderson, we were -- >> obviously we're having some connection problems. that is a problem when reporting on hurricanes with the weather. we're going to try to get nick back. let's see if we do have