of that. but they won't rule out rung future pieces from this person. >> oh really? >> if that's what they're trying to do. we'll keep talking. and all of it comes back to that same thing we've been talking about for a year and a half. is he fit for office? that's the question. >> same thing in the woodward book. same thing in this opinion piece tonight. let's see if there is more to come. gentlemen, thank you so much. i really appreciate your time. thaw all for joining us. tonight "ac 360" starts now. good evening from washington, d.c. a city that has seen almost everything but nothing in recent history at least like what we saw today. a current senior administration official admitting to being part of the resistance inside the trump administration. just think about that for a moment. a current senior official working in this white house, writing in secret to alert the american people what he or she is witnessing and attempting to prevent the president of the united states from doing. a current senior official working with others inside the administration to frustrate actions by the president that they believe would actually harm the country. the headline by this anonymous

person reads "i am part of the resistance inside the trump administration." the headline is not even the most stunning part of what this person has to say. the official writing in the "new york times," quote, we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. that is why many trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic stuginstitutions whi thwarting mr. president trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office. this is somebody working in the trump administration. this comes of course just one day after details emerge from bob woodward's book, details that sound very similar to what the senior official is saying. listen to what else the official says about the president. quote, the root of the problem is the president's amorality. anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

they've come to light not because of the president's leadership style which is impetuous, adversarial, petty. he engages in rants and in half-baked ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back. this is where an already remarkable document sails into even deeper water, quoing again, given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th amendment which would start a complex process for removing the president, but no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis, so we l do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until one way or another it's over. that line, "until one way or another it's over." let's just pause here. according to this official, people inside the administration, people in the cabinet were whispering about invoking the 25th amendment. it's staggering.

this is not by any means normal. 25th amendment of course provides for the removal of a president who is no longer fit to serve. now after the story broke, "the washington post" data reporter noticed that for a brief time today, google searches on the 25th amendment topped searches for kim kardashian who was at the white house today. later the president reacted during a gathering of local sheriffs at the white house. it guess on at some length, we've cut out a long die grecian on the economy, but it's important to hear the fullness of the president's reaction to get a better sense of the tone and perhaps his frame of mind. >> this is what we have to deal with, and, you know, the dishonest media, because you people deal with it as well as i do. but it's really a disgrace. i will say this. nobody has done what this administration's done in terms of getting things passed, in getting things through. nobody has ever done in less than a two-year period what we've done. so when you tell me about some

anonymous source within the administration, probably whose failing and probably here for all the wrong reasons, now, and "the new york times" is failing. if i weren't here, i believe "the new york times" probably wouldn't even exist. [ applause ] some day -- and some day when i'm not president, which hopefully will be in about six and a half years from now, "the new york times" and cnn and all of these phony media outlets will be out of business, folks. they'll be out of business. because there will be nothing to write and there will be nothing of interest. so nobody has done what this administration has done. and i agree. it's different from an agenda which is much different than ours, and it's certainly not your agenda. that i can tell you. >> thank you. >> it's about open borders. it's about letting people flee into our country. it's about a disaster in crime for our country.

so they don't like donald trump and i don't like them because they're very dishonest people. remember this also about "the new york times." when i've won, they were forced to apologize to their subscribers. they wrote a letter of apology. it was the first time anybody's ever done it, because they covered the election incorrectly. so if the failing "new york times" has an anonymous editorial, can you believe it, anonymous, meaning gutless, a gutless editorial, we're doing a great job. the poll numbers are through the roof. our poll numbers are great. and guess what? nobody is going to come close to beating me in 2020 because of what we've done. we've done more than anybody ever thought possible in it's not even two years. so thank you very much. appreciate it. >> those are current law enforcement personnel by the way. the president earlier this

evening. and after that, a one-word tweet, all caps, treason. that wasn't all. a few minutes ago he tweeted, quoting now, does is t so-called senior administration official really exist or it is just the failing "new york times" with another phony source? if the gutless anonymous person does indeed exist, the times, for national security purposes must turn him/her over to government at once. senator, presidential candidate and obviously a highly decorated vietnam vet, he writes about all of it in his new memoir, "every day is extra." i spoke to him just before air. secretary kerry, i want to get your reaction to this anonymous op-ed in "the new york times" from a senior white house official who has vowed to support our institutions while thwarting trump's until he is out of office. is there anything you can compare this to? >> no. it's absolutely extraordinary, and obviously it's going to

create an enormous fight over the credibility and the appropriate, et cetera. but when you separate it, when you really look at this memo, when you recognize what "the new york times" does know who it, and they have very carefully approached this, and you add this to what is in bob woodward's book, which everybody knows he tapes people that he talks to, he's probably the single most credible investigative reporter in the country, if not the world, and he knows his methodology, and his publisher knows the methodology. and lawyers who support both of those, him a and the publisher know the methodology. so the credibility level against a president who is now been found clearly to lie on a daily basis and has a serious problem with the truth, that's the balance here. and so we have a presidency

which is off the rails. we have a presidency in which the president is clearly now, according to this op-ed, which "the new york times" knows who the author is, we have a president who is not capable of doing the job, who clearly has these temper tantrums, doesn't know enough to be making many of the decisions he makes, and we see the evidence of people stealing a presidential document off his desk. we see a general, the secretary of defense, ordered to kill another leader of another country who turns to everybody after the phone is hung up and said i'm not going to do that. we're not going to do that. this is unbelievable. this is a presidency. this is a genuine constitutional crisis, and the crisis is heightened by the fact that my former colleagues in the united states senate on the republican side who have taken an oath of

office to defend the constitution and the institutions of our country as a whole, which are embraced in that oath are defending instead not the constitution, not the institution in the senate. they're defending party and the president who simply doesn't know what he is doing. >> this unnamed senior official talked about whisperers among the senior cabinet members and the 25th amendment, invoking that. is that something you think should be discussed openly? >> well, it's not up to me to decide, and i dent even have enough of the inside knowledge to be able to measure that against its standards. they do. that's the point i'm making. there are people walking around washington in the cabinet, in offices all across this administration, and particularly in the senate and the house. i mean this is exactly what paul ryan has talked about in certain ways and hinted at very directly. but when you add this up with the president's performance in

helsinki, where he stood with putin toe to toe but melted, never went toe to toe, never defended the interests of our country, never held president putin accountable for what he has been doing, but melted away, saying it was a wonderful idea to have an american ambassador actually traded off to go to russia and be subjected to interrogation there, who then after people got to him and said that's a terrible idea backed off. but his initial instincts again and again and again in a tweet yesterday, he steps over a line where he publicly chass sizes the attorney general of the united states for doing his job, for upholding rule of law and suggests he should in fact have been political and not upheld the law for political purposes. this is a serious moment for our country, and i hope that people in the united states senate and the house will recognize. leaders all across the world are

making judgments about our president and our country, and all kinds of risks as a result of what they're reading about this presidency and the united states. this is dangerous. >> i have spoken to general michael hayden on this program, what he calls the thin veneer of civilization. he talks about sarajevo being a multicultural society that fell apart very quickly. he talks a thin veneer that the institutions we have are strong on bedrock but things can fall apart very quickly. are you scared about that, the future of democracy in america? >> i believe that our institutions are strong, and internationi believe very deeply that is required now are not the institutions. we have the institutional structure. remember, anderson, many of us are veterans of the 1968 to 1973 period. i mean, we suffered the assassinations of -- >> you write about this in the book a lot. >> robert kennedy, correct. and i talk about this in the book. it's an amazing journey that our

country has taken over the last 70 plus years with the end of world war ii and the world we have built around a set of values since that period of time. but all of the sudden, that is all being thrown into a mixer. and the test now is for our institutions to stand up. and how do they do that? they do that through the leadership of individual men and women. the people that have been elected to uphold our constitution and to stand up to defend the united states of america and our institutions. so this is a moment where it's a crisis of conscience for people in the united states senate on the other side of the aisle where they have been willing to be more protective of their chairmanships, of their paper, of their president than they have of the constitution and the institutions themselves. >> in reading your book, you do. you talk about the lies that were told to the american people throughout the war in vietnam by politicians, by the military in

many cases, you know, the bombings, the assassinations, all the things, the enemies list that we as a country went through. is the time we're in now more dangerous than that time? because that -- >> it is more dangerous. >> that seemed like the country was being torn apart. >> yes, it is more dangerous. and the reason is -- there are several reasons there are a number of reasons it is more dangerous. for one thing, today we have a president who clearly is not equipped to do the job. i mean, i'm not going to go into all the details. but everybody in washington knows this. >> he is not fit for the job? >> i don't believe he is, given what we have seen, given the proclivity to tell lies, given the fact that he has still not accepted the truth of what the intelligence community has said about russia's hacking and involvement. i mean, he mouths the words sometimes but then goes out and reverses it. givenquixotic, impulsive

behavior he engages in, and given the lack of willingness to even make decisions for people that are based on scientific fact or other facts, this i believe is a momentum of enormous consequence to our country, and my hope and prayer is that people will stop hiding, that leaders who have been elected to lead will actually lead, and that they will step up to this moment which is serious because there are threats in the world, the lost opportunity to our country and the context of trade agreements and the context of nuclear agreements, of a world which is more dangerous today because of cyber and a president who isn't even tackling seib were the levels of respect necessary. now, i talk about a lot of these things in my book, even though my book is not a policy book. but it shows the journey we've taken over our history and how and why we are able as

individual citizens to make a difference and pull ourselves back from this brink. and that i think makes the book timely. >> senator kerry. the book is "every day is extra." i appreciate your time. >> thanks a lot. there is more. things are moving fast tonight. we're going to go to the white house for the president's reaction to the resistance he is facing inside his own white house. it's stunning to say the words. "360" live continues from washington. we'll be right back. before nexium 24hr mark could only imagine... a peaceful night sleep without frequent heartburn waking him up. now that dream is a reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

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president trump reacted angrily late today to word that one of his senior officials is working against him, along with others and admitting it on "the new york times" opinion pages. he said that hopefully by the time he is out of office in 6 1/2 years, he said "the tim " times," cnn and other phony media outlets would be out of

business. he tweeted one word, treason. and this comes on top of the news that the white house has launched a witch-hunt to find the source or sources who spoke to bob woodward for his book on the trump administration. quite a day. cnn's jeff zeleny joins us now from the white house. so, jeff, we heard what the president had to say a little earlier, what more do we know about the white house's reaction first of all to the op-ed? >> anderson, we're seeing in realtime the president really taking the reins of the strategy for how to respond to this extraordinary op-ed in "the new york times." earlier this evening, he was talking to a group of she was, and he was essentially going after the substance of the editorial, calling it gutless. but then just a few moments ago, as you were saying, he is now sort of pivoting somewhat and going after a favorite target of his, "the new york times." he is talking about the so-called source, talking about, you know, did they sort of make this up. but that is not at all what white house press secretary sarah sanders was saying in an earlier official statement from

the white house when she was going directly after this individual who wrote the op-ed. taki take a look at what she said a short time ago this evening. she said the individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive rather than support the dually elected president of the united states. he is not putting country first but putting himself and his ego of the will of the american people. this coward should do the right thing and resign. so that clearly aims squarely at this individual. and frankly, we don't know the gender of the individual, if it's a man or a woman. the "new york times" does know this. but the president making the pivot to blame all of this, anderson, on the "new york times." >> and as much as the president is trying to dismiss bob woodward's book, he does want to though who talked to woodward, right? i used the term "witch-hunt" earlier obviously kind of ironically. but understandably, he wants to know, and it's from his perspective it's absolutely fair that he would want the know who talked to woodward and what they said. >> no question.

we've heard the president throw out the term "witch-hunt" so much this year talking about the russia investigation. but the reality is i was talking to administration officials earlier today long before "the new york times" report came out. and they said in fact the president did want to know who talked to woodward and who didn't talk to woodward. he was keeping a list and keeping a careful eye on who was issuing denials, who was not. and, you know, several people were not issuing denials who were mentioned in this book. but there is no question, anderson, tonight this witch-hunt, an actual witch-hunt, despite the one he talks about all the time now extends to the person who wrote this "new york times" op-ed. it's game who have done it here in the west wing, no doubt about it. but also there is a full-on look by researchers and others, trying to look into language and other things if anything looks familiar. but anderson, i cannot imagine the president will let this lie. so this is something that will continue as he watches media coverage of this. of course, he is scheduled to be

campaigning tomorrow in montana, holding a big rally. he'll certainly have something to say about it there. anderson? >> jeff zeleny, thank you very much. perspective from gloria borger, paul begala, max boot. you can't blame the president from wanting to know who would have said these things. whether you agree with what they said or not, if you were the president, you would want to know what the people around you were thinking. and if people were taking stuff off your desk you would want to know who was doing it. >> he does. and we also know he is a micromanager. but we also know what is going on here is nothing less than what woodward calls in his book an administrative coup d'etat. taking papers off the president's desk. what is that all about? why didn't the president know things were missing from his desk is another option. but also in this op-ed that we're talking about, this notion that this author wrote that early on in the administration there were whispers among

cabinet officials about invoking the 25th amendment which would effectively, it's difficult to do, but which would effectively remove the president. so even paranoids have enemies. and so this president knows he's got a lot of enemies all around him. and i fully expect that probably after the midterm election, a lot of the people who are now working for the president will be gone either of their own accord or because they get fired. >> also, it's one thing to have bob woodward doing introduce on deep background. to have what "the new york times" says is a senior administration official writing this. have you ever heard of anything like this? >> no, i've got to tell you, this scares the living daylights of me. this is "the new york times" who we spoke earlier about this. who really talked a lot about and discussed and then published the pentagon papers. there is somebody working for the president of the united states at a very senior level who is trying to destroy him. of course, you might call it a witch-hunt.

i would call it something similar that rhymes with that. but this is really disturbing. you don't take the coin of the realm and then betray the trust of the president of the united states. and in addition, the workingmen and women of america, we know that the bravest and the brightest of this nation, they don't, you know, stab their boss in the back and complain about them anonymously. i'm furious about this. and i think that this anonymous op-ed writer must be found, must be fired, must be investigated. and if they've leaked classified information or something in the past, they must be prosecuted and jailed. >> paul, what's so stunning about it, first of all i'm not even sure it's a stab in the back. it seems like a stab in the front. >> not when it's anonymous. >> but the idea that this -- if you think, okay, the president called bob woodward a democratic operative yesterday, this is according to "the new york times," a senior administration

official saying these things. >> right. >> and somebody who claims to want the president's agenda to move forward and to work. but is saying the best parts of what the president has done have happened in spite of the president. >> it's stunning. we have never seen anything like this. and of course i don't support trump, so i loved every word of it except one, anonymous. michael is exactly right about that. sarah sanders is right. this person should have the guts to stand up. if he or she believes the president is a threat to the nation, he or she should stand up and say so-so we can act on it. the 25th amendment is there. it's shocking to me that -- i have never called for invoking that it's shocking to me that people very close to him who see him every day think that in fact he may be unable to serve. but that's i think the disservice. we should be talking about whether our president is fit to serve. you now have official former secretary of state, a former adviser to the national economic, the secretary of the treasury, all calling our president horrible things,

idiot, dumb, his lawyer called him dumbbell, allegedly, right? that's what we should be talking about, not the anonymity. it's not deep throat. it's deep state, i don't know. but i think that's a huge -- >> max, i think it was jamie gangel last night saying deep throat was one person. she was making the point that there are multiple deep throats in this administration. >> clearly the anonymous op-ed writer is speaking for an awful lot of people who see president trump up close. some of whom are also quoted in the bob woodward book. in some ways i think even before the muller report, anderson, we're in a worse position than we were in nixon's final das. because with nixon, you could certainly doubt his moral capacity to do the job, but nobody could doubt nixon's intellectual capacity. on the other hand, with trump, the people who work for him is saying not only is he amoral as this op-ed writer says, he is also too stupid. he doesn't understand the basics of the job so he can't carry out his duties. and i agree with what paul

begala is saying. we should be talking about invoking the 25th amendment. we should be talking about impeachment. if people in congress took their oaths of office seriously, that's what they would be doing. but unfortunately, republicans are putting party loyalty above patriotism. they are acting as protectors for donald trump because he still has the support of their base. and so they are allowing this travesty to continue. >> david axelrod, the idea that this is somebody who is still working in the white house, still in the inner circle, is the president, in your opinion, right to be talking about treason, right to be outraged by this? >> i don't think he's right to be talking about treason. he has a right to be outraged that people aren't showing loyalty to him. but i don't think he understands loyalty to the people around him. and more than that, what was striking about that "new york times" piece was the person who wrote it said that they felt first loyalty to the country.

and that's the oath, of course, that everyone takes. and so this needs to be viewed in that regard. i just want to pile on to a couple of other points here. you know, jeff said there is a whodunit going on in the white house. this is like murder on the orient express. there are so many hands on this bloody knife that there is no one person the president can turn to. he is surrounded, apparently, by people who believe that he is incompetent, who believes he is intemperate, who believes there are real questions about his ability to govern. on this issue, however, of the 25th amendment, you know, i sense the angst of the person who wrote that piece and perhaps others around the president because he's the dually elected president. can you imagine what the reaction in this country would be, at least among the people who supported donald trump if he were removed by a vote of the cabinet? that's a very, very serious step

for our democracy. and never been taken, really. >> yeah. >> and so i can understand why they're -- why they're hesitant and why they've adopted this strategy of trying to surround the president and protect the country from him rather than fomenting a crisis in our democracy. >> we're going to continue the conversation after a quick break. it's an important one. and as we mentioned, president trump responded to the op-ed on twitter. one tweet was a single word, punctuation mark, treason. we'll talk about that and more, next. if you have psoriasis, ...

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the breaking news tonight a person described as a senior

trump administration official dissecting the president's work habits, policies in the op-ed with the headline "i am part of the resistance inside the trump administration." president trump tweeting the word treason with question mark suggesting the author of the op-ed is a traitor. here is the legal definition. whoever owing legion to the united states levees war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the united states or elsewhere is guilty of treason and shall suffer death or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title. back to our panel. treason is also the word the president had brought up when gary cohn came in talking about resigning in the wake of charlottesville. >> right. >> whether he actually means it as being treasonous or incredibly disloyal. >> remember, john brennan, former cia director called the president treasonous. >> right. >> so it's a word people are throwing around a lot.

>> the words have lost their meaning. >> they have lost their meaning. but if you're donald trump right now and you're paranoid to begin with, and you say you value loyalty, although i would argue he never returns loyalty. he demands it from people but doesn't give it back. if you're the president right now, i think you're going a little berserk. >> what's interesting is when -- remember when joe kleine wrote that book and people didn't know it was joe kleine, people search and finally they did an algorithmic search and he admitted. >> but that was a parlor game. >> what's interesting, people will probably try to do that with this, but there are phrases that are probably intentionally used to throw people off. because they use the phrase "off the rails" which is a phrase according to woodward that general kelly had used. if general kelly had actually used that word, it's very unlikely he would use that in this letter if he was writing this letter. >> that's right.

>> yeah. >> i've seen this before too where people would sit in a meeting, listen to someone, write down words he used frequently and leak with those words so that the president thought that person was a leaker. pretty scummy. >> that's a pleasant atmosphere. >> well, believe me, welcome to washington. >> that usually happens. >> from my perspective, this is one of the most tightly written op eds i've seen. every word is used intentionally. that's why i think there are words in there in reference, john mccain tries to throw people off. i think it's a real good place to start to try and find this person. it's a little known fact in trump's washington, there has been a steady purge of trump campaign supporters from the trump administration. there are departments, cabinet departments that are completely devoid of anyone who supports donald trump. and from my perspective, the president should find out what departments have completely purged trump supporters and start there.

>> why would there be a purge of trump supporters from cabinets? >> the plotters behind this op-ed, the plotters behind destroying donald trump who are working for donald trump, every single one of them a coward, are purging these people because they want to surround themselves -- right now if you want to get into the trump administration, you can't have worked for the trump campaign. you must have worked for bush. >> they would argue what they're trying do is save the country and not destroy donald trump. >> so stand up and don't be a coward. >> david, what do crew make of that argument which is made in this op-ed that their loyalty is to the country and they're trying to protect the president from his own worst impulses and continue his agenda without him messing it up? >> yeah, well, look, i -- as i said earlier, you do take an oath, and the oath is not to the president. the oath is to the country. the president expects your loyalty. you of course expect his. that hasn't been the case in the

trump white house. but i think we can get wrapped around the axle about who the author of this particular piece was when the real question is what about the assistansubstanc piece. what about the substance of the woodward book? the fact is these are very, very serious charges about the president of the united states, and they are legion, they are serial, they have -- we have seen them in reporting from the beginning of this administration. the sources are widespread, and many of these quotes are laid to people who are close to him. i don't think the issue is who wrote this. it's interesting. i'd love to know. i'm sure we may find out some day. the real issue is what the president himself and what does this say about the country and about his particular future and how we're going to move going forward? >> max, do you -- go ahead. >> i was just going the say picking up on david axelrod's point, although it's kind of bizarre that you have a senior administration official who is criticizing the president behind

the cloak of anonymity, i think you have to understand this is an incredibly unusual and indeed unique situation, something we have never faced, a president who is so completely unfitted for office that those around him believe that their duty to the united states is not to serve the president's agenda but to protect the united states from the president. and i think they are actually being patriots in doing that. and you can argue about what is the best method of doing that. should they resign en masse, should they call for impeachment, should they advocate a democratic vote in november? there is also an argument for doing what mattis is doing, which are quietly working behind scenes to prevent the president from carrying out his worst impulses. you know, the writer of the op-ed is somewhere in the middle between that. he or she sounds like they're working behind the scenes, but they also are coming out for the first time. so that's kind of a bizarre combination. but i think we should applaud these people who are in fact performing an important function in trying to rein in the president. they're usually not successful, but imagine how much worse it would be if they were not there. >> but, you know, it's interesting, gloria.

today the president was saying they've had very strong statements from mattis. they've had strong statements from kelly refuting the woodward stuff. >> sure. >> frankly, the statements haven't been that strong. kelly said he didn't use the word idiot. he didn't talk about off the rails, worst job he's ever had. >> a lot of them -- a lot of them were vague. there were people we didn't hear from, rob porter, for example. did we hear from rob porter? so there were people we didn't hear from. the president wants everyone to say that the book is false, fake news, never happened. woodward is a bad reporter. that's absolutely ridiculous, and we know that. and i think the person who wrote this was trying to do a patriotic thing here and -- look, and i agree with you, should not have been anonymous. should not have been anonymous. but this person is effectively saying that the president of the united states is a national security risk. period. >> but this is a plot against the president. i believe this op-ed is coordinated with the book, and i believe this is about the mid

terms. i believe this is about setting the president up for impeachment. and by trying to keep his base home we lose more republican seats. the republicans lose the house, and the president gets impeached. that's what this is about. >> it's getting a little far ahead. >> not far ahead for me. >> we really ought to be talking about, the president ought to be talking about, his senior aides in the cabinet are is he in fact unfit? is he a narcissist? is he amoral? is he in the words of the secretary of the treasury an idiot? a f-ing moron, a dope reportedly and in published accounts. general kelly reportedly denies it, but he apparently called him an idiot. jay sekulow is reported calling him a pathological liar. these are big things. we ought to be talking about the anonymity of this person i think gives trump a huge cudgel to stir up all this deep state nonsense. there is a coup going on. >> there is a coup going on. >> the bigger question, is the

president fit to lead the greatest country on god's earth? and i believe the answer is no. >> i agree with esquire and atlantic, this is a coup. i never thought i would agree with the atlantic or esquire, but this is a coup. that's what this is. it's an administrative coup. it's a soft coup. it's a kooky coup, whatever you want to think it is. coo coo kachoo. these betrayers should stand up and be counted and get lost. >> donald trump could go out there now and say my enemies want to get me. >> right. >> go out there and vote for me in the midterm elections. >> right. >> and this could help him if he turns it around. so i don't believe that's the motive. i believe the motive is more pure than you believe. >> that's not the kind of help me need. >> let's thank everybody. the senate judiciary committee is working into the evening tonight as it hears from supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh on day two of hearings. how the day went, next.

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as you know, the senate judiciary committee is still at work tonight. senators questioning supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. each senator has been given half an hour for questions. the day's been long. it's not quite over yet.

at one point south carolina's lindsey graham asked kavanaugh about roe v. wade and a woman's right to an abortion. >> can you sit down with five -- you and four other jungs and overrule roe v. wade just because you want to? >> senator, roe v. wade's an important precedent in the supreme court that we affirmed. >> don't you have to have a case? >> yeah. >> what are you doing for lunch? let's overrule roe v. wade. it doesn't work that way, right? >> i see what you're asking, senator. right. there's -- there's -- the way cases come up to us in that context or another context. this is a precedent that has been reaffirmed many times over 45 years, including in planned parenthood versus casey where they specifically considered whether to overrule and reaffirm and apply to all the stare decisis factors that became important many this context. but you look at -- there are

factors that you look at when you're considering any process. >> so there is a process in place that the court has followed for a very long time? >> that is correct, senator. >> joining us jeffrey toobin, anne milgram. >> carrie cordero and former congressman charlie dent. jeff, you said abortion would be legal in main states. >> i think i'm right. that statement is true that roe v. wade has been reaffirmed for many years, but donald trump promised during the campaign that if the he has the chance to appoint two justices to the supreme court, there are already four votes to overturn it. anthony kennedy was a vote to you hold roe v. wade. i think this is a done deal. there will be states very soon in the next couple of months that will pass laws not limiting abortion, outlawing abortion,

mississippi, alabama. >> elections have consequences. donald trump promised this. he will deliver it. >> it's interesting because lindsey graham was saying, well, it's not just like you do this over lunch. you have to have a case. >> jeff's right. even if they don't already overrule the exact precedent of roe v. wade, they i believe will allow a huge number of restrictions and regulations on it. i agree with jeff. i think it's likely they will overrule roe, but even if they don't they will be able to significantly cut back on the protections it's offered. and state after state will come forward that are interested in doing that. >> kavanaugh assert head understood the significance obviously of the issue and he said he would respect the supreme court's precedent on precedent saying i don't live in a bubble. i understand. i live in the real world. what does that mean to you? >> every justice of the supreme court knows that some precedents get overruled, and there is principles you follow to determine when to do that, and he understands what those are. but at the end of the day, what

we saw here is a judge who takes the cases as they come to him and tries to analyze the fact and the law in each particular case. so he is not rejudging the cases. i think he is going to take the case and decide, you know, the cases that come. i think it's very premature to predict that i think chief justice roberts is really the swing vote here on that issue. people have been speculating since kennedy and o'conner and souter were confirmed that they would be the next vote. that's all speculation. what we see is 12 years in the courts applying the law faithfully. i think that's what we continue to see from kavanaugh today. >> the only people who don't think roe v. wade is going to be overturned are people like carrie who have been fighting for years to get roe v. wade overturned. this is the great cause of the conservative movement. they got their justices. this is what they're going to deliver. i mean, all of the sudden -- >> they said that in the '80s. they said that about justice o'connor, they said that about justice kennedy and souter. they're the ones who wrote the

case upholding it. i'm just saying you're making a speculation. >> congressman dent, how do you see it? >> i actually voted to support abortion rights as a member of congress. and i'm not so convinced that this justice or that the court will overturn roe v. wade. legislatures and congress are always attempting to pass laws that restrict -- further restrict the woman's right to choose. the 20-week abortion bill, for example. that ban and others. my own view, think it's just too hard to predict what they're going to do. who thought that john roberts was going to be the vote to uphold obamacare? i didn't -- we all got it wrong. >> one of the things that came out today, though, and i thought senator whitehouse actually did a very good job of showing how often judge kavanaugh has voted with conservative amicus that have been provided to the d.c. circuit, and it's 90%. so i don't think anyone should -- we knew this before. we didn't really learn anything

new today. but there's no question that he is going to be a far right conservative and that his opinions and his votes are going to be consistent with that. and i don't think that that's a surprise, but i thought it was effective that senator whitehouse went through it today. >> i would say if you look at his record on the court, though, the numbers were presented in a way that -- there's all sorts of ways to lie with statistics. if you look at his track record on the d.c. circuit, it's almost identical the number of times he was in agreement with republican-appointed colleagues versus democrat-appointed colleagues. but you know, it's not -- >> and there's certainly not amicus in every case as well. so i understand that. >> there's amicus on both sides in all these cases. sought the idea of presenting this as a conspiracy theory, that's tin foil -- >> let's hold this. we're going to continue this conversation in a moment. i just want to quickly check in with chris, see what he's working on for "cuomo prime time" at the top of the hour. chris? >> it was just getting good. >> i know. but i've got to do the promo. you don't want to dot promo and -- some i' >> i'll weigh in and you can go back. a general point i find as a statement of frustration and disgust is i don't see anywhere in the canon of judicial

independence where the judge can't tell you anything about how they feel about any of the questions that you ask them in specific. everybody relies on that as a pro prophylactic, you allow all the judges to do it and they all get on the bench forever and they all of a sudden have a bent. also, i didn't like that we didn't hear from kavanaugh about mr. guttenberg specifically. he talked about people with that kind of loss generally. he kind of fumbled with an answer about understanding those problems because he grew up in one of the murder capitals of america, which he didn't. he didn't grow up in washington, d.c. he grew up in bethesda. and i thought he should have handled that better. those were my two takeaways. >> all right, chris, we'll see you in a few minutes. eight minutes from now on your show. just ahead more on the brett kavanaugh hearing. what he said about prosecuting a sitting president. more with the panel. >> and the first question -- keep those shrimp comin'! endless shrimp is back at red lobster. with all the shrimp you want, any way you want them. try delicious creations like new crunchy fiesta shrimp tortilla chip crusted then topped with a creamy blend of three cheeses and finished with pico de gallo. and there's new sesame-ginger shrimp.

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the senate judiciary committee's working into the night on day two of the hearings into brett kavanaugh's nomination to the supreme court. earlier democratic senator richard blumenthal asked the nominee whether he'd recuse himself from cases involving the president who picked him. >> i would like your commitment that you will recuse yourself if there is an issue involving his

criminal or civil liability coming before the united states supreme court. >> to be consistent with the principle of independence of the judiciary, i should not and may not make a commitment about how i would handle a particular case. >> back now with our folks. congressman, should he recuse himself? >> no. unless -- he's been a judge for the past 12 years. unless he's perhaps deciding on a case that he ruled on previously. then maybe he should recuse himself. or had he worked in the administration or worked for this president directly, then i could understand there would be reason for recusal. but i can't imagine why he should recuse himself in this manner. i'm surprised senator blumenthal would ask that as a former -- >> i think that's right. i mean, every judge -- >> gets appointed -- >> -- is nominated by some president. that is just the nature of the system. and that alone is not -- elena kagan recused herself because

she was solicitor general. she prepared some of the case that's were going when she worked for obama and then obama nominated her. with kavanaugh he's just a judge, appointed, nominated. if he's confirmed i don't see any reason for him to recuse himself. >> carrie, earlier today kavanaugh said nobody as boff the law. he wouldn't say, though, that if president trump pardoned himself whether that would be -- >> i think that clearly falls into this whole range which every president, whatever chris cuomo would think, every sitting justice knows that you can't rule on a case or you can't say how you'd rule on a case that's likely to come before the court. we have kavanaugh's record and that's how we'd judge him. after being appointed by president bush he was on the bench for 2 1/2 years. in that short period of time he ruled against the bush administration eight times, against bush's agencies 15 times, including really important major issues like the hondan case which had to do for the tribunals for enemy combatants. so he's not afraid to stand up to the president who appointed

him. we've seen that already. and that should give everything, i think. i think a lot of reassurance that he's someone who's independent. >> carrie, should he be able to answer a hypothetical case about whether the president can pardon himself? >> i find it stunning that we listened to hours and hours of testimony today and learned virtually nothing. i mean, it is really -- it's almost to the point of if i asked jeff would you like a cup of coffee he would say to me that's a hypothetical question, i'll figure it out in ten minutes. every single thing was this is a hypothetical. so i find it incredibly frustrating. i think the american public deserves to know more from both sides of the aisle when they go before -- >> so what's the point of these hearings? >> well, chuck schumer wrote an article several years ago saying that they don't have a purpose, that you foknow, nominees have learned how to stonewall. i think you learn a little bit. you get a sense of how they approach cases. but it's their prior record and who chose them and why is the key here. the testimony is not terribly

illuminating zplip want to thank everyone. don't miss full circle our daily interactive newscast on facebook. you pick some of the stories we cover. join us each weekday night 6:25 p.m. eastern at facebook.com/anderson cooper full circle, all one word. news continues right now. i want to hand it over to chris. "cuomo prime time" starts now. chris? >> all right. thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo, and welcome to "prime time." if you work in the white house and have been talking about the president, you may be watching me right now from a closet or under a desk. and yes, i can report it is true. trump is looking for you. why? one day after excerpts from bob woodward's stunning book on the chaos inside the white house, that came out, now an unnamed senior official working inside the trump administration right now claims he or she is part of an internal resistance movement meant to thwart the president's misguided impulses. so the reaction is what i'm talking about. the president has reportedly sounded the alarm. he wants