middle of the electorate while keep trump supporters on his side. >> thanks so much. you can see gillum and did he tansies in a cnn debate live sunday night, 8:00. we'll see you there. that's moderated by jake tapper. thanks so much for joining us. "ac 360" starts now. good evening. we're following two fast moving stores tonight. saudi arabia admitting that journalist jamal khashoggi was killed at the saudi consulate in istanbul, giving their account finally of how it happened, which may raise yet more questions of a coverup. i'll talk to clarissa ward in turkey about that. also a crisis unfolding on mexico's southern border and its impacts on the american midterms. thousands of migrants fleeiin s cases violence in honduras, in some cases to settle in mexico and in other cases trying to make it to the border of the

united states. today, a stampede, tear gas, and president trump was out on the campaign trail making the migrants part of the gop's closing argument for the midterms. we begin with something else the president is saying on the stump. like many things the president says, despite the blowback, he has no regrets. this is what he talked about last night when he campaigned for greg gianfante, who last year attacked a reporter. >> never wristestle with this g. any guy who can do a body slam, he's my guy. there's nothing to be embarrassed about. so i was in rome with a lot of the leaders from other countries

talking about all sorts of things. and i heard about it. and we endorsed greg very early. but i had heard that he body slammed a reporter. >> so that's what he said last night and the crowd ate it up. just to remind you, here is audio of the assault that they were cheering and that the president was admiring. >> the cbo score, because you were wait to go make your decision about the health bill. >> we'll talk to you about that later. >> yeah, but that's -- >> i'm tired of you guys, the last time you came here you did the same thing. get the hell out of here. get the hell out of here. >> you just broke my glasses. >> you did the same damn thing. >> you just body slammed me and broke my glasses. >> get the hell out of here. >> congressman gianforte and his

spokesman initially gave misleading accounts of the incident but in the end gianforte expressed some degree of regret for what he did, whether he felt it or not is impossible to get into his head, but he expressed it. president trump on the other hand had no regrets when asked late today for using the physical assault on another human being as a stump speech applause line. >> not at all. that was a different league, a different world. he's just a great guy. he's -- you know greg very well, right? that was a tremendous success last night in montana and greg is a tremendous person. and he's a tough cookie. and i'll stay with that. you're talking about a different world. >> it's not exactly clear what the president of the united states meant by "a different world" or "a different league." on the other hand, he was perfectly clear about having no

regrets. keeping him honest, though, even as the president was endorsing an act of violence by a member of congress, he was also saying this. >> the democrats have truly turned into an angry mob bent on destroying anything or anyone in their path. >> that kind of sounds like the president believes that violence on the campaign trail or the threat of it is a bad thing. and at least one staunch conservative seemed to notice. former tea party republican joe walsh tweeting, quote, the president encourages and applauds physical violence against a journalist. hey, republicans, don't ever complain again about violence coming from the left. so there's that. there's also the sad and simple fact that the president of the united states is yucking it up about an assault on one reporter, while he's embroiled in a crisis about the killing and dismemberment of a journalist. it's not like it could have

slipped his mind. just a few hours before, he had admitted that jamal khashoggi is probably dead. clearly whatever it turns out to be, it is a world away in every sense from what appears to have been an act of spontaneous violence by a hot-headed candidate and clearly the president's love of tough cookies, as he calls them, is matched only by his antipathy for the press. the question is, why didn't any of that seem to factor into the president's thinking or speaking last night and why when this president is ramping up the rhetoric against democrats for what he says is mob-like behavior is he applauding violence by the man he's campaigning for? joining us, ben jacobs, the

reporter involved in the incident with gianforte. what went through your mind when you heard the comments from president trump last night? >> it was shock and dismay. i always knew that was a possibility but then there is the process of how you deal with it and then how you actually call up and tell your family that the president is mocking when you've been a victim of a crime. >> today the president said he had no regrets about what he said. i guess that doesn't surprise you. >> no, it doesn't. as someone who actually covered this president on the campaign trail for 18 months, i'm very familiar with his m.o. i've interviewed him a couple of times. that didn't surprise me. i wish -- i wish he had surprised me. but it was what it was. >> for all the president's talk about gjeanngianforte being a t

guy, he was such a tough guy that he was misleading initially about what he did with you. >> he lied until there were eyewitnesses, that it was not the actions of a tough cookie. a tough cookie doesn't attack someone out of nowhere with no provocation for asking a question about health care. the police asked me afterwards was there anything about the congressional budget office that set him off that would have caused him to lie about it. >> i find it amazing that the president is praising him as a tough cookie when this is a guy who assaulted you out of nowhere and then lies about it. it's just incredible to me. your publication, "the guardian," said in a statement that the president should apologize for these comments. do you want an apology? >> i mean, it would be great if there was one. i'm not holding my breath. my concern is not about my situation as much as it is with

jamal khashoggi and everything going on in the world, that the signal this sends about how the united states and how the president of the united states views journalists when 44 journalists have been killed this year is what's really concerning. what i'm going through, it's not fun, i'll get over it, but there are people reporting all across the world right now who are actually, you know, in fear of their lives. and what this does is, you know, a blank check for governments who want to crack down on a free press in places that don't have the first amendment. >> it's entirely possible, not out of the realm of possibility that the president might say, wow, mbs is a strong reaction to jamal khashoggi, it was a really powerful reaction. you have no idea -- there's no telling what this president actually thinks about what happened to jamal khashoggi. steve scalia, republican congressman, said the president

was clearly joking. is that clear to you? because it's certainly not clear to me. >> steve scalise has been through a lot and my heart goes out to him. maybe he has a better sense of humor to me because i didn't hear a punch line there. i didn't hear a joke there. >> he's also pointing to reporters in the back when talking about who to body slam. i don't know. i just keep going back to the fact that you were just doing your job, you were asking a question, you know, you asked it more than once, because you knew you were not going to get an answer and you knew he was going to blow you off, and you got body slammed, and the president of the united states celebrated that last night, celebrated a guy convicted of assaulting you. >> it's mind-boggling, still a little tough to wrap my head around. but this is the world we live in

today. having been through, you know, been through this for the past year and a half and how it's sort of -- the initial shock and then this, it's -- it's unfortunately what may be hopefully only in the short term. >> i appreciate your time, thank you, ben. i want to get perspective from kirstin powers, also former touch campaign adviser steve cortes. steve, is it appropriate under any circumstance for the president of the united states to praise anyone, much less a congressman, for assaulting a reporter and who also lied about it? >> right, anderson, no, listen, i don't like it, it's not what i would have done. i also do think it's important, there's an important distinction here which is that he said i like the kind of guy who can do that. he didn't say specifically -- and i think this is important, again, i don't like it, i wish he hadn't gone there, but he said i like the kind of guy who fights back. those of us in the trump movement, if there's one trait that marks the 2016 election,

it's fighting back, against the crony political class, against the media elites. agreed, i wish he hadn't gone there in terms of somebody who actually pled guilty to actually assaulting a reporter. >> actually what he said is "any guy who can do a body slam is my kind of guy." first of all, i don't know if the president is capable on doing a body slam on somebody physically, i'm not sure he could. but the idea that he's praising somebody who not only could do a body slam but did assault a reporter. i understand he likes to punch back or punch down, but this is literally punching. >> right. well, anderson, as i just said, it's not something -- it's not where i would go. and i think it was unfortunate that he went there. but again, i do think it's also a distinction, he didn't say, i'm glad he assaulted a reporter, i like that. what he said is, i like the kind of guy who can fight back. when he's at rallies, i think

it's important to take the president seriously but not literally always. look, donald trump in many ways broke the mold in politics, in many, many weighs. one of them is he doesn't speak in a scripted and lawyerly and overly careful manner. at times it gets him into trouble. i think it got him in a tiny bit of trouble in montana. the flip side of that is, the authenticity is really refreshing and it's the reason that he's the president of the united states today, is because he spoke with an authenticity that the people really appreciated and which they rallied toward. >> kirstin, these comments come obviously at a time when the world is watching and waiting to see how the u.s. is going to respond to the dismemberment and murder of a "washington post" journalist in an embassy, in a consulate of a u.s. ally, saudi arabia. i don't know if the timing could be any worse. >> yeah, i think the timing is particularly bad. and i just -- i don't understand this idea, steve, that you're

putting forward, that this is something that's aauthentic, tht this somehow makes him authentic. it's really unusual behavior for any person to be clapping for somebody who has assaulted anybody, let alone a reporter. this is not -- it's not in dispute what happened. and so he was making it very clear that he supported what happened to this reporter, when in fact he should be condemning it, let's start there, he should have condemned it. but rather than condemning it, he is -- i guess you're making he's making jokes about it, ha ha, it's so funny. i don't get it, what's funny about this? >> does it encourage the idea, yeah, it's great to body slam a reporter, reporters can be annoying, asking you pesky questions so body slam them? >> i'm against any form of political violence. any form of unneeded violence,

period. but we're talking politics here. political violence is always wrong. whether it comes from the right, whether it's neo-nazis in charlottesville or whether it's antifa in portland. political violence is always wrong. in america we should solve our political differences through words, that's tantamount. but if we're going to go down the road of taking the president this seriously even if he's being funny and clever, are we then supposed to say, for example, people on the left call the president a racist and his supporters, by the way. >> what people? >> every single day -- >> no, no. you have to -- no, no, but you have to make it a person. you can't just say "people." we're actually talking about the president of the united states. so is it -- >> fine, let's personalize it. i watched jake tapper's show today.

jen psaki said -- >> you put that on the same level as talking about assaulting somebody? >> but when you say that, you create -- you demonize the president and his supporters and you create the conditions by which people feel it's then okay to be violent or at the least to be incredibly intimidating toward them, run them out of restaurants, say they're not welcome in public life. that's my point. again, i'm not defending the president going there in montana, i think that was a mistake. >> steve, i would just -- >> we better be just as harsh on the left. >> i agree with you, steve, it's abhorrent that any protester would scream at some politician and their family when they're trying to eat in a restaurant in their off hours because they're so filled with self righteous indignation that they feel that's appropriate. i think that's the beginnings of a mob. i think it's completely inappropriate. if the president of the united states or a politician on the left was saying, you know what, i think it's great that these people are going into

restaurants and screaming at kirstjen nielsen, i would say, why is this politician promoting this kind of behavior, and that's the question we're asking about the president right now, about somebody who didn't just yell at somebody in a restaurant, who actually did body slam a reporter. >> right. listen, i think the president should stick to metaphor, i do. we do need to fight back with our words, with persuasion, with motivation. and again, the reason he's the president is because he's an amazing counterpuncher. but that should never be literal, that should always be figurative. he should be clear about that and i think he will be. >> the irony is he's never actually punched somebody, it seems, in his life, he just likes to talk about it and pretend that he has. >> he went to military school, he was probably fairly physical there, i would guess. >> we'll see. i don't know. kristen powers, thanks very much. steve cortes, thanks. i wouldn't hold my breathe on

that. it's a busy friday night. a huge crowd of migrants is gathered on a bridge between guatemala and mexico. it's been chaotic there all day. later, more on tonight's other breaking news. the saudi account of jamal khashoggi's killing, a shake-up back in the kingdom, drawing questions about whether it's just another piece of a royal coverup.

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right now a whole lot of people are caught literally between countries many believe they cannot go back to and a country that says it does not want them. they're on a bridge. this is new video on the border between guatemala and mexico, trying to make their way into mexico or, for some, the united states. president trump has made keeping them out a mission of his. he's also made them rhetorically at least into a threat to this country and, he believes, a

powerful campaign issue. what did y whatever you think of this so-called caravan, one thing is clear tonight, they're in a standoff right now with an army of mexican federales. more from our bill weir who is at the border. >> reporter: high noon. the bridge was empty. then for some reason guatemalan police threw open the gates. [ sound of gunfire ] >> closed. it's closed. >> reporter: the first tried to form an orderly line but that lasted only seconds as thousands surged behind them, with a mixture of exuberance and frustration, and determination. after a fraught half an hour, the crowd calmed itself the, even turning on the few

troublemakers. some couldn't take the heat, though, and jumped into the river. >> our message is we're not criminals. we're coming here because we want to work. we need a job. we need better -- you know, a better life. that's why we're here. >> reporter: do you understand that president trump is going to use the pictures of thousands of people surging to the gates against you? he's going to point to people and say, this is scary. >> this is politics. he's the president. he's the president of the united states. and with all due respect, you know. >> reporter: donald trump is an anti-christ, this man says, we're not criminals, we're workers and fighters. eventually mexico opens to the caravan but only a trickle are let through. women and children first, including marta torres, who tells me her husband was murdered by honduran drug gangs and her three other kids are

still across the river. do you want to go to the united states? have you heard that president trump doesn't want more people coming and he's even separated families who try to come? "what should we do now, then," she says? "i don't want to have the lives of my children further destroyed." >> bill weir joins us now from the mexican side of the border. what's going to happen to these people, what's the situation right now? >> reporter: that's a good question, anderson. they did, as i said, open up a trickle there. they were moving them three busloads at a time to a refugee camp. at the rate we're seeing, it will take days to get everybody off of that bridge. as you saw that, like marta, she's seeking asylum, a better place. others are trying to find a better life for themselves and their kids. but all of them, i've never seen

anything like it, like people running from a burning people. what you missed there was there was tear gas, they had literally forced the gates open at one point but the federales forced them back, four officers according to secretary of state mike pompeo were injured. in a surreal sense, the crowd completely calmed down and realized this is just one step on this journey. they walked across guatemala from honduras. they're prepared to walk across mexico. this seems like one more bump in the road. the new president of mexico ran on a policy of being more humane towards central americans. they've asked for help from the united nations, that's a first step, to help with a process to determine who deserves to move north. a lot of them say they want to work in mexico, not all of them are coming to the united states. but just a taste of why this is such a relentless political knot for the united states, how to make this stop. >> bill weir, i appreciate you

being there, bill, thanks very much, be careful. two views now, the domestic politics of this. joining us is van jones, host of "the van jones show" here on cnn. also a former republican candidate for congress. thanks to both of you. van, president trump is saying this caravan of migrants is somehow being organized by democrats to impact or tilt the midterms. >> i don't think that makes a lot of sense. first of all, democrats are having a hard enough time organizing inside the united states to do an election. this problem if anything hurts, because it raises this whole question, this whole specter of do we need a wall and are immigrants bad. i do want to say that these images are an ink blot test. some people like myself look at those images and see people first of all who are scared, who are desperate, and who need some help and assistance, whether they get it inside the u.s.

border or outside the u.s. border. my heart breaks, to imagine being stuck on a bridge for hour with my kid. other people look at that and say, we're scared of those people, we don't want them here. we are trying to sort out as a country, are we welcoming, are we empathetic, do we care about people, or are we going to say we're closed for business as america and we're scared of folks. i don't know how this is going to play in the midterms. >> paul, do you believe the democrats have somehow engineered this caravan of thousands, that it somehow plays well for democrats? >> clearly i think this is real, that there's serious issues with gang violence and drug lords, cartels, all kinds of issues down in central america. i just want to keep this in perspective. there's 45 million people in central america. what is the limit? van, you bring up a good point. is america open or closed? clearly open america is open.

clearly when you look globally, we take 1 million legal immigrants each and every year. so what's the capacity, what's the limit? is it these 4,000 migrants who are trying to rush the graduate medic -- rush the guatemala border into mexico to come into the united states? clearly our refugee laws are being exploited, never have we had this amount of individuals claiming asylum. we have lawyers from different groups in the u.s. being sent down to mexico and other places throughout this past year to coach these individuals exactly what to say to exploit our laws. so the point i make is, this is real. how do we help these individuals? i submit that we help them there in their country so they can stay there. we already have a third of all salvadorians here in the united states of their total population. do we just empty their whole countries? >> i don't think anybody is saying that.

actually some of those el salvadorians are doing the best work and raising great families and doing well in our country. that said, you know, i got a little bit confused by what you were saying. on the one hand you said it's real, on the other hand this whole myth of lawyers going down there and coaching people, and that's really what's happening. i see it somewhat differently. we are not doing enough on either side of the border when it comes to the amount of violence, the fear, of crime, of hunger. and as a result, when you don't deal well with your neighbors, sometimes your neighbors' problems spill over. i would love to see what you said happen. if we had a real commitment to help the countries down there do better and to figure out what's going on and really were engaging, i think you're right, i think you would have less of these problems. here's reality. i don't think the people who are supporting donald trump want us to help them at all. i don't think they think those folks are worthy of help there or here.

i think they see them as some kind of other. >> i disagree. >> that's my fear. i'm not saying that's correct. but my fear is they're being portrayed as a scary other that deserve no help, and that scarce -- and that scares me in america. >> in respect, where is the limit to our generosity? we're the most generous. what about our own people? what about putting americans first? if you look at just chicago, many cities across america, in one weekend, 80 people that are shot, a dozen plus that are killed in black neighborhoods. where do they seek asylum? what are we doing to prioritize the needs of homeless, the veterans, our senior citizens? and we're talking about literally borrowing because we're in such debt, borrowing hundreds you of millioof millio while we already have 22 million illegals here in the united states. there has to be a limit to our generosity. >> i agree with you that we can't do everything for everybody and there has to be

certain limits. here is what i would take exception to. you know, the idea that we should throw up a chicago or throw up homeless people or throw up veterans, often when i hear people doing that, they don't actually then turn around and go to chicago. they don't turn around and then go to those funerals in chicago, help those -- it becomes almost like a talking point or something where you're pointing to other people's pain and other people's funerals but not being involved in helping. ultimately it becomes more of a talking point to otherwise, for lack of a better term -- >> that's not me. i'm talking about real problems in the united states and our country. i'm submitting that we put americans and our citizens and our country and our concerns first above hondurans. >> just give me one second here. that sounds great. but what i hear is, whenever something happens with the immigrant community, we say, hey, we're not going to help you, we should help people in

chicago. but then we don't help the people in chicago either. it begins to seem like this is just a talking point for conservatives and not something we're going to be actionable about. i think we can do better in chicago, better at the border, better beyond the border. i don't think we're doing any of that. >> we're taking 1 million legal immigrants every year. what's the capacity of our generosity? >> listen, we are a country of 320 million people and for our own population, we are not reproducing at a replacement rate. so we're going to continue to have to bring people in. and it's going to make our country better. now, should it be 1 million, half a million, 2 million, i'm not good at that stuff, you might be better than i am. but what i will say, it's a false choice to either help chicago or help people at the border. >> we have to wererap it up. you're saying do it legally, paul. >> do it legally, follow the

process. we have people waiting five, ten years to become citizens, spending all this money. now we're rewarding hundreds of thousands of people who are literally breaking into the country, taking advantage of all these benefits. i'm saying there's 22 million illegal immigrants that are here in the united states today. they cut the line in front of everybody and undermine the rule of law in america. >> i have to leave it here. we should also point out they have changed the rules on asylum seeking to make it much more difficult for things like domestic violence or escaping gang violence. paul babeu, thank you. van jones, as well. this weekend van talks to veterans about why they are answering the call to service again. also former obama adviser valerie jarrett joins him, "the van jones show," tomorrow night at 7:00 eastern here on cnn. up next, saudi arabia officially breaking its silence on the disappearance of journalist jamal khashoggi. they now say, oh, yeah, he is

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more breaking news, the kingdom of saudi arabia tonight broke its long silence about what happened to journalist jamal khashoggi. a statement read on saudi state television acknowledged khashoggi did die in the saudi arabian consulate in turkey. clarissa ward joins us. what have you learned, clarissa? >> reporter: anderson, there are three components to this news bulletin on saudi state television. the first one, they gave us a better sense of what they say happened to jamal khashoggi. essentially they're sticking with the narrative that we've been expecting, that this was an interrogation gone wrong. they say khashoggi arrived at the consulate, he was taken for interrogation, there was some kind of an argument that turned into a physical altercation and he was killed. one source very close to the palace saying that they are going to issue a clarification saying that he was somehow killed in a chokehold or was strangled somehow.

that's the first component. the second component is that the saudis announced that they have detained 18 saudi nationals in conjunction with khashoggi's murder. more interestingly, anderson, they have also dismissed two senior saudi officials. they have been relieved of their duties. one of them, general ahmed al assiri, believed to have been the spearhead or the one overseeing this mission. we've been reporting on him for days. we haven't been giving his name. he's former military, high up in intelligence services. the second, though, is the really interesting one, a man completely close to mohammed bin salman, the crown prince, one of his top three most senior closest add vivisers. one source, very well-placed, telling us he actually called jamal khashoggi over a year ago

to threaten him and warn him about being so outspoken. the third and final component, anderson, an announcement essentially that they will do a revamp or investigation into what went wrong with intelligence services and kind of looking at reforming the intelligence services. what's interesting about that, guess who's in charge of leading this inquest into the intelligence services, none other than the crown prince, mohammed bin salman, himself. this giving you a very strong sense, anderson, that the buck does not stop with mohammed bin salman, that the saudis have not intention of fingering him as being the sort of mastermind of this operation or really having any responsibility for it whatsoever, anderson. >> the idea that a fight just happened to break out and there was a guy with a bone saw there just seems somewhat odd, a guy with a bone saw who had flown in especially for this alleged interrogation. clarissa ward, appreciate the update. meantime, there's been a low

rumble among conservative media and in one case a candidate for senate about jamal khashoggi's background. one of those theories, "the washington post" reports, casts him as suspicious because of his former membership in the muslim brotherhood when he was young. back then the muslim brotherhood was a political group in egypt. they've also tried to link him with osama bin laden. back then he was a saudi reporter following bin laden as he fought the soviets in afghanistan. many of these mujahadin, by the way, supported by the united states. that senate candidate is corey stewart, a republican in georgia who is challenging tim kaine. stewart said that khashoggi was not a good guy himself. i spoke with him yesterday. when you say khashoggi was not a good guy himself, what does that mean exactly, not a good guy himself? >> anderson, there's a lot of

stuff out there, sources that say that he's good, some sources that say that he's redeemed himself and he was a good guy. he's kind of a mystery man. i think the bigger question though is, does the united states jeopardize the relationship with saudi arabia over this one single human rights violation. i think that would be a tremendous mistake to the united states. >> is he really that much of a mystery man? he seemed to be a member of the muslim brotherhood back in his 20s, and -- about the idea that he's still sympathetic in any way to that, he did -- he worked as a reporter in afghanistan, covering osama bin laden. i know some people have sort of alleged that he was aligned with terrorists but there's really no evidence of that. >> well, i've heard all those things too. and it's possible. you know, the thing is is that he's kind of a mystery guy. i think the big question is this. we've got these regimes, not just the saudis, but every

regime in the middle east with the exception of israel is committing human rights violations on a regular basis. and i just think that this overemphasis on this incident by saudi arabia, i think this is very, very dangerous. it is one of america's closest allies. they have a lot of human rights abuses. but i think it would be a tremendous mistake to undermine or to rattle the saudi regime when it is one of the few absolutely pro american regimes in the middle east. >> you say it's one of the few absolutely pro american regimes in the middle east. the hijackers on 9/11 did come from saudi arabia. saudi arabia has funded extremist schools all throughout pakistan and elsewhere. and funded terrorism in many different places. so i guess i still don't quite understand, when you say that he's a mystery man, you know, he's written an awful lot in

"the washington post," he's been very critical, jamal khashoggi has been very critical of conservative clerics in saudi arabia who have preached 9/11 conspiracy theories. i mean, his writings are out there. he's not really much of a mystery, is he? >> well, i mean, look, if you wanted somebody who is an expert on who he was, i'm not the right guy. what i can tell you, though -- >> but you said he was a bad guy, so i'm just wondering. >> well, look. there's a lot of stuff out there about him. he's a mystery guy. he's a mystery figure. there's a lot of things that say he was a bad guy, there's a lot of things like you just mentioned, that he redeemed himself later in life. that's all possible. >> so if khashoggi was an american citizen and writing for "the washington post" and he was lured into the embassy, the saudi consulate, tortured, dismembered with a bone saw, would your opinion be different if he was an american citizen?

>> yes, it would be. but he -- you know, he wasn't. and it's a terrible thing. nobody is going to deny that. the saudis have a long history of a lot of human rights abuses. this is not the first one. this is one of the more grotesque. there's no question about that. >> just finally, this notion that he's a mystery man, again, i just want to come back to it. can you point to one thing that he's a mystery about? because his writings are extensive, as an adult. his history is pretty well-known. what makes him a mystery man to you? >> well, i mean, you know, there's a lot of reports out there that he was connected to the muslim brotherhood, reports that he was connected to osama bin laden and others. i don't know if they're true. but, you know, at the end of the day, what matters is, this is -- you know, this is a regime, it's got human rights abuses, we shouldn't start with this fake morality, all of a sudden we're

going to get upset with the saudis because of this incident when in fact we know this has been going on for a long time, they've been torturing and mutilating their citizens, as have others in the middle east including the turks. >> thank you for joining us. >> thanks a lot. coming up, "the new york timings"' maggie haberman. hey if you're feeling a little power hungry- check out the engine lineup ford is cooking up for the ford f-150. you want the most torque? you got it. you want the best towing. all yours. or maybe you want best-in-class fuel economy. no problem. or how about brand spankn' new diesel? sure. you want fries with that? crazy. it's like a power smorgasbord. this is the ford f-150. it doesn't just raise the bar, pal. it is the bar. it doesn't just raise the bar, pal. so why not bundle them with esurance and save up to 10%? which you can spend on things you really want to buy, like...

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white house correspondent for "the new york times" maggie h haberman has written a piece. a president who believes he's entitled to his own facts. maggie writes we've seen it many, many times during this presidency. we saw it when the president believed the saudi king when he told him the royal family had no ties to the disappearance of jamal khashoggi. and last weekend on "60 minutes," the president repeated his claim that climate change is a matter of political opinion but offered no evidence. maggie haberman joins us with more on this. you lay out example after example of the president just inventing his own facts, and it never seems like there's any repercussion for it. >> no. he's led a consequence-free life, right? you know, given what happened in the 2016 campaign at various points, everything that was declared as going to be the end for him, it never was. what we saw this week that was really striking was in addition to sort of painting a narrative

that he finds convenient in any given moment. for this moment it was convenient to accept at face value or at least give the benefit of the doubt to the saudi government as to what had happened with mr. khashoggi. we have -- he won't take denials that are fact-based such as dna evidence in the central park five case. >> he's never apologized for that. >> in fact, he's said they are guilty despite the dna evidence saying otherwise. barack obama's birthplace. he insisted long after president obama released his birth certificate that there may be something there and he carried that out until it was not sustainable for him politically anymore. so we have seen him time and time again suggest essentially that facts are something to be disputed. that there is no shared data, shared facts, something that everybody agrees upon. that's the scary moment we're in. >> i remember during the campaign all these reporters and others saying, look, it's one thing when you're a real estate person and you are exaggerating

how many square footage or how tall your building is. but when you get called out as president of the united states, it's a whole different thing. it hasn't really turned out that way. it redefined what's acceptable. >> he is expert at moving the goal post, right? one of the things we saw this week was elizabeth warren and releasing this dna test related to whether she had native american heritage. i think the expectation from some of her advisers and supporters was the president would be embarrassed or shamed or so you're right. i was wrong. he's never going to do that unless he's forced to and we haven't seen him forced to, even when the "access hollywood" tape came out, he found some way to suggest, if i offended anyone. it's always the last resort. there have been no repercussions. what's scary now, to your point, he's now president. he is saying these things as the official representative of the united states, the top man in government, and there are people who say, look, this is coming from the government. so, therefore, it must be true and he's done a lot to discredit

the media in that respect. to be clear, the media has done a lot to discredit itself. it's not without his help over many decades. but this is something entirely different what he does. >> even he's out on the campaign trail saying the democrats are behind this caravan. >> it's not true. no evidence for it. if it is true, in his mind, he should offer the proof. he never does. he just says these things and lays the marker here and leaves everyone fighting over it. in the meantime, he's won because he's gotten his statement out there. >> maggie haberman, thanks very much. fascinating. want to check in with chris and see what he's working on for cuomo primetime at the top of the hour. >> the device i like is when he says, hey, look, who knows. maybe the democrats are behind this. are they behind it? they could be behind it. i think they're behind it. a lot of people say they're behind it. everybody says they're behind it. it's a device that only works with a specific person. somebody who is super motivated to believe him. the more you move towards the

skeptical, the more people move away from many of the rationales the president offers up. that's part of the calculus as well. we're going to apply that same type of analysis tonight to what's coming out of saudi arabia. in the middle of the night, mbs, the crown prince, puts out this statement. but here our eyes are wide open, right? not just by time but also inclination. flooding the zone with names of people they're going after to cover the name that isn't there, the crown prince. why? and we'll be looking into the caravan and what's going on. and tonight we're doing our debate differently. i think the president's folks have so much to answer for, i'm giving them both chairs. the debaters will both be trump defenders and they'll be facing off with little ole me. >> you're taking them on, two against one? >> i'm channeling my inner coop. >> i don't even know what that means. >> a daunting proposition. when i said coop, it popped the

ifb out of my ear just from the extra brain power i was getting. >> that's about five minutes from now. a russian national has been indicted for her role in what federal prosecutors say was russian interference in this year's midterm election. the details on that and who authorities say she was working for accident next. (music throughout)

there's a new indictment to tell you about. a 44-year-old russian woman is accused of attempting to meddle in this year's midterm election. the justice department said she managed the financing of a russian internet research agency that was charged earlier this year with interfering with the 2016 election. the indictment says the woman aided russian efforts to inflame passions online related to immigration, gun control, as well as the second amendment. on the campaign trail in arizona today, president trump said the indictment had nothing to do with his campaign and said any

hackers again, quoting here, probably like hillary clinton, better than me. don't miss full circle. on facebook you get to pick some of the stories we cover. see it every weekday night, 6:25 p.m. eastern only on facebook.com/andersoncooper full circle. i want to hand it over to chris. "cuomo primetime" starts now. a good weekend to you. i'm chris cuomo. welcome to primetime. saudi arabia finally admits the obvious. journalist jamal khashoggi, they say, is dead. 18 suspects suddenly rounded up. people under arrest, including high-ranking officials. the saudis releasing all this information in the middle of the night there, but here, our eyes are wide open. and we have two people who know the deal in saudi arabia. their story right now, this was about a fist fight gone crazy. so a 59-year-old guy versus more than a dozen operatives. why the