without any dial-ins or pins. (phone) there are currently 3 members in this conference. i like that. i like that too. i would use that in a heartbeat. get started with innovative voice solutions for a low price when you get fast, reliable internet. comcast business. beyond fast. a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! good evening, we begin tonight with breaking news. the senior national security official who found herself at odds with the first lady has been fired and as striking as that lead sentence may sound, it's no more so than the statement yesterday from first lady melania trump's spokesperson that catapulted this story into the public eye. "it is the position of the office of the first lady that she no longer deserves the honor

of serving in this white house." she is deputy national security adviser mira ricardel. she's out. her forced departure coming as the president said to be in a foul mood upset over the midterms, sulking about his reception in europe. one white house official telling cnn, these are not my words, "yes, he's pissed at damn near everyone." tonight, it seems it came. more from our jeff zeleny who joins us now from the white house. so what are you learning, jeff? >> reporter: anderson, it has been a mystery really for the last 24 hours or so surrounding all the drama here with the deputy national security adviser who's not well known outside. inside the white house, she is very well known. she's been on the job seven months. she's john bolton the national security adviser's top deputy, but after melania trump and the first lady's office fired that shot across the bow of the white house, it was unclear what her future was. even though the president was saying he was going to remove her.

well, that finally happened this evening and we got this press secretary -- or this statement from a press secretary sarah sanders. she explained it briefly like this. she said, "mira ricardel will continue to support the president as she departs the white house to transition to a new role within the administration. the president is grateful for her continued service to the american people and steadfast pursuit of national security priorities." anderson, you don't see the word resigned or fired in there. she clearly was removed from her job. it was not her own choosing or doings in fact, she was trying to convince allies to persuade the president to change his mind on this. i'm told that he knew it was a deal breaker after the first lady weighed in. the questions, though, why did this become so public in the first place? and that is still being discussed here and sorted out. >> well, i mean, is there any clarity what was the reason that the first lady not only chose to weigh in publicly, but what the problem was in the first place between the first lady's office or the first lady and ricardel?

>> reporter: we talked to a variety of people here, and this is the story as we've been able to piece it together. we are told that the first lady and her office felt that they were disrespected by her office. they said the national security adviser and their team was not taking seriously the -- the work of the first lady's office, particularly when she was traveling to africa to be at the beginning of october. they said that she did not treat the staff with respect. and they also said that she was trying to get the white house counsel's office to investigate members of the first lady's office, which they declined to do over some inappropriate activities. so at the end of the day, though, it was not just the first lady. the defense secretary james mattis, others complained about her abrasive behavior. it took apparently the first lady to make this public to make this actually happen. we're told she's been arguing behind the scenes, the first lady has, talking to the white house chief of staff john kelly

for a long time to try and get this to happen, but john bolton, national security adviser, was arguing to keep her in her position. this public grenade, if you will, essentially moved the ball forward, anderson. >> is there any indication the president actually did this firing, himself? because obviously in past firings, jeff sessions, comey comes to mind, it's not something he actually did personally. >> reporter: no, there's no indication that he walked into her office today where she was working today and said, you're fired. that did not happen. we do believe it was by staff. the white house chief of staff or someone in his office. it was made clear that he is not going to serve at the white house, but she is going to still stay somewhere in the administration, but anderson, again, why this all became so public, that i think shows the dysfunction that's very much alive tonight here at the white house. anderson? >> all right. jeff zeleny, jeff, thanks. more on the president's mood. citing multiple administration sources, the "los angeles

times'" eli stokels writing "trump cocooned into bitterness and resentment." maggie haberman reporting extensively on this joins us now. what have you been hearing? >> cocoon isn't the analogy i heard. you had a lot of factors going on in the past week. the midterms were what they were. he knows the loss of the house is potentially very damaging for his administration in terms of subpoenas the democrats will drop on them after january. he did not want to go to paris for a variety of reasons. one of which is that he knew he wouldn't get a good reception. he doesn't like travel. he doesn't like sleeping in beds that are not his own or hotels that aren't his. he knew he was coming back to hours upon hours behind closed doors with his lawyers, his personal lawyers, preparing to give answers to the special counsel robert mueller. i think that loomed very heavy in his mind. you add all this up, and you get a pretty torrential bad mood. >> you know, lots of first

ladies have had huge influences in the white house. usually it's behind closed doors. i mean, nancy reagan, of course, comes to mind. she got rid of several people. >> hillary clinton. >> right. so what is going on with the first lady making, actually her office making this public statement? it's -- i mean, again, i haven't heard of it happening before. i may be wrong. >> no, it's extraordinary i think, jeff captured it correctly. this is actually a first lady who has not sought to have a heavy hand within the west wing. she's tended to be more stepped back. she's advised her husband personally but tended to only get involved directly with her husband's staff as necessary. and this speaks to a level of dysfunction that she had been complaining to john kelly, that john kelly had been complaining to john bolton, that others had complained to john bolton and the president and nothing happened. so you had the first lady's staff take this extraordinary step of going public. we've heard from multiple people the president was not happy about it, but clearly the first lady won. >> so essentially it's trying to box the first lady's office or

the first lady trying to box the president in to pulling the trigger on this. >> or at least box in john bolton, right? one of the things we know about this president is he is incredibly uncomfortable with interpersonal conflict. he doesn't actually like firing people despite the tag line of his show. almost always as you noted outsourced. he enjoys watching some level of drama, so, yes, i think it was about boxing both of them in and just making it impossible for this to just sort of drag on longer. there were legitimate reasons many people offered up as to why miss ricardel was a problem. >> just on a personal, i mean, from a personal family dynamic, it's just an interesting thing, if the first lady has been saying privately to the president, this person's got to go, saying it to john kelly, to then put out a public statement, it's like a game of chess. >> the inside part is always said out loud with this white house. it's unusual to see it from the first lady with this kind of a

situation where she felt like she and her staff had been being abused, essentially, by this national security deputy, and that nobody was listening to her, she had to go public with it essentially as a whistle-blower is shocking. >> i want to bring in the rest of our team. jen psaki is here. served as white house communications director for president obama. also ken cuccinelli who was at the white house today. and cnn's abby phillip. abby, i guess this was a win for the first lady. i don't know if that's way she or her team would see it. it's certainly a sign of the impact she can have. >> it does seem, though, like a double-edged sword for her. in the first place, the fact she has to be public about this, this is a sign that she hasn't been able to influence her husband and, therefore, even his staff to get what she needed done behind the scenes and not go nuclear as she had to do this week. yeah, she did force the president's hand. she did in some ways kind of publicly humiliated him by doing it without letting him know it was going to be happening. he was blind sided by it

according to our sources. so both of these things are kind of both pluses and minuses for her. i think ricardel is gone but she's not fired from the administration. she's just being moved somewhere else. at least as far as we know. i think it leads to a lot of questions about what more might be behind this? it does seem that an interpersonal dispute between the first lady's staff and deputy national security adviser would not necessarily rise to the occasion of doing something so public and so extraordinary, and also where does this go from here? is this something that we're going to see more of? are there more people, as melania trump has implied in the past, who she'd like to get rid of because she thinks for whatever reason they don't belong working in her husband's -- >> jen, i'm thinking if, you know, michelle obama had done this how that would be interpreted. is this weird to you? >> extremely. and i think a couple of things stuck out to me. one, this is a woman the deputy national security adviser who nobody had ever really heard of before a couple days ago and this role in any white house is

really the person running the process. they're overseeing the meetings and the situation room. they're really kind of a senior staffer moving paper around. so the fact that this is the hill melania trump decided to fight on is strange. i would also say that on the double-edged sword front which i think is a good point, the drawbacks for melania are that the way she's allowing herself to be defined are on a strange choice of a jacket that she wore on a trip. that was in poor taste. a strange outfit in egypt or some people liked it. an anti-bullying campaign that people see as ironic and not in a good way. and now she's kind of publicly calling for the firing and successfully, i guess, of an official who was really a senior paper pusher. so it's strange. most first ladies, michelle obama, for example, hillary clinton, first lady, you know, laura bush, they define their role on their own terms and she's really allowing this to be defined in a way that's not advantageous to her. >> ken, i'm wondering how you see it and also should the first

lady be weighing in on a national security adviser even if she is a paper pusher? >> a couple points. one on jen's point about definition. because melania trump is more reserved than many of her predecessors, everything she does in the public has more weight in defining whatever you may view as her, you know, brand, you if you will. here, i suspect that the public aspect of this was partly, i don't want to say to compensate, but because this was borne out of problems at a staff level, three different people, the chief of staff, general mattis, the first lady, herself, had all had problems with this same person, and their staffs had had problems. realize, i've been a principal, you're loyal to your people. and i think that there may have been, while i wouldn't have done it this way, may have been some

element of trying to provide some vindication to the staffs of each of these people. and she did. whether you like it or not, she did. and so do i expect to see a lot of this? no. but i also think that melania trump isn't going to have these kinds of process problems that they experienced in october. >> maggie, in terms of changes in the administration, we've already seen nine senior administration officials leaving in the course of the administration. there's more to be expected, traditionally after midterms, that often happens. but more, i mean, there's more to come. >> we assume there's more to come. certainly everybody in the white house, not everybody, but almost everybody right now feels as if they're in a bit of limbo. they know that the president has talked openly about making changes. they know that there are cabinet officials who he is targeting

and they know there's the ever-present rumor now going on over a year that john kelly is going to be leaving. that one seems truer than it has in the past. or likelier than it could have been. but the president actually just kind of lets these things marinate for ever and ever and ever until sudden he he makes a decision. i think most people think this is going to go past thanksgiving then we'll start to see some changes. again, to your point, it is not unusual after a midterm, after losses he he to make changes. people are expected to go the campaign. that should not be a surprise. i think you're going to see him making changes at agencies, making changes to senior staff. one thing we have talked about as a staff exodus from the west wing, there are not a ton of people left. they have been having trouble for two years attracting with exception to the white house counsel a lot of top talent and i think that's going to continue. >> thanks, everybody. appreciate it. more to come. the judge in cnn's trial against the president says he'll make a ruling tomorrow afternoon of jim acosta's press pass being

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all seen the clip of the white house press conference where in the judge's words, acosta, quote, wouldn't give up his microphone, a point the trump administration made in its briefs. brought up a fund-raising e-mail the trump campaign sent touting the decision to take away acosta's press pass and attacking cnn's, quote, liberal bias. the judge asked cnn's lawyer about the company's position on the original white house accusation that acosta placed his hands on the white house intern who tried to grab the microphone. with me, cnn chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin. jeff, the fact the judge pushed any ruling until tomorrow, is there a significance in that in itself? >> i don't think it's a lot of significance, but it is certainly a small victory for the white house since cnn's lawyers have said every moment that jim acosta is lacking his press pass is a violation of the 1st amendment, so the fact he put it off a day suggests that they don't -- the judge doesn't see the same immediacy as cnn's lawyers do. >> according to cnn's reporters in the courtroom -- including the revocation of acosta's pass is, quote, content-based discrimination as cnn is

alleging. that's a crucial phrase. isn't it? >> that is absolutely the heart of this case. and i wish i thought as a cnn employee, and 1st amendment supporter that this case was as easy as some people think it is, but, you know, if the judge feels that this was disruption and the white house was reasonable in judging it as a disruption, not an expression of views that are protected by the 1st amendment, he could say, look, i don't run the white house, i'm not going to tell them how to run the white house. if they think it's a disruption, that seems reasonable to me. they can take the pass away. now, of course, our lawyers have a very different view of that, that jim acosta is being a journalist. asking hard questions in sometimes impertinent ways is the heart of what journalism is about. so that -- that's the counterargument, but, you know, you just don't know -- i mean,

just to answer your question, i'm sorry, but you said about content, you know, it's permissible to punish a -- someone who doesn't follow the rules, but it is impermissible to punish someone for speech that you object to. that you find too liberal, too conservative. that you object to the content. so weather jim acosta's behavior was was speech or simply behavior that can be punished, that's the heart of this case. >> the fact that the white house, specifically sarah sanders initially claimed jim acosta was physical toward a white house intern trying to take back a microphone, the white house put out altered video footage of it. they're not even using that in their argument anymore and the judge understandably wanted to know why. >> that's right because sarah sanders and the white house made a big deal about the fact that jim acosta behaved, essentially assaulted this white house employee who was holding the

microphone. as the video came out. that was just utterly untrue. they have changed their argument to, from violence by jim acosta, to disruption by jim acosta. and that, you know, i think it shows that they realize the violence argument was a total loser and simply not true, but disruption is not necessarily an argument that will lose in front of this judge. >> right. jeff, stay with us because i want to bring in abc news veteran sam donaldson. sam, thanks for being with us. you came up in court today, i know you submitted a declaration in support of cnn. can you explain why you think this case is important, especially given your own experience covering past presidents? >> sure, anderson. it was wrong. and it's unprecedented. i don't know of a president who's ever threatened, let alone actually pulled a white house pass from a reporter. sure, presidents don't like uncomfortable questions. would you? would i?

why did you say that, why did you do that? you saw the testy exchange the other night. jim wants to know why do you call it a caravan, why do you call it an invasion? are you trying to demonize immigrants in front of the elections? the president can't say, yeah, i'm trying to gin up my base. of course not. he's got to have something to say and he tried and it was a testy exchange. if people want to say i think jim went too far, i think he was a little too tough, he didn't have to do that. that's a fair debate. i thought it was okay, of course, i'd been there, not in a position like that. let me tell you something, anderson, what happened next was just outrageous. the president turned away and then came back and launched a very strong personal attack on this reporter. and what did he say? you can read the transcript for yourself. then he came back again. he wouldn't let it up. he was angry and he pulled the pass. why?

because he's angry at acosta for asking questions that he doesn't want to answer. >> when you famously covered president reagan, you would often, you know, you doggedly asked questions and follow-ups during very fraught times in american history, sometimes you would yell as reagan was walking to the helicopter trying to be heard over the sound of the helicopter which is not a coincidence that the reagan white house had set it up that way. did they ever threaten to revoke your press pass or were you ever worried about that? >> no, i wasn't worried about it. i know on one or two occasions, someone, not the president, would call my boss in new york and say he shouldn't do that, i think that was terrible what he said or did or what have you. my boss had seen it and thought i did okay. i never had any repercussions about it. i didn't have to deal with someone like mr. trump. i mean, with jimmy carter, with ronald reagan, with bill clinton, and with every president i went down there,

john kennedy, i never asked him a question. i didn't have the courage to. but i never had to deal -- other reporters haven't had to deal with them. i don't know quite what you do. you try to get truthful and full answers to questions. that's all you're asking for. and almost all the time, the president's cover gave some answer that was okay, whether it was the answer the public wanted to hear was another thing. so i didn't have to deal with it. i asked, yes, follow-up questions, but they were put in a way that the president accepted them and responded. >> jeff toobin, are there -- i mean, there are actually two constitutional claims, i guess, that cnn is making here. obviously, the 1st amendment claim. the other is a 5th amendment claim. can you explain to people who aren't attorneys what that entails? >> well, the gist of it is the 1st amendment is simply punishing jim acosta for exercising his 1st amendment rights. i think everybody understands that. that's the claim. the other claim is they took the

pass away without due process of law, they didn't really allow jim accosta to make his case. that's a weaker claim. i'm not sure they need to have a full due process hearing. if i could follow-up on one thing sam said because i think it's so important, if cnn and jim acosta lose this case and he loses his press pass, every journalist who asks a question of the white house is going to have in the back of his or her mind am i being too aggressive, am i going to lose my press pass, should i ask a follow-up question? that's really what this fight is about is that jim wanted to ask a follow-up question. and, you know, i don't really object to the president saying nasty things to jim acosta and to cnn. i mean, think it's terrible some of the things he says, but he certainly has a right to say it. but taking jim's pass away is a completely different level of harassment because that's stopping him from doing his job, and i think, you know, this is one reason why so many news organizations, everyone from "the new york times" to fox news, has weighed in on this case on cnn's side because they're worried who's next and

what are their reporters going to have to worry about when they ask questions? >> yeah. jeff toobin, sam donaldson, really appreciate you being with us, sam. it's great to see you. thank you so much. coming up next, the president revives a favorite claim about election fraud and all the people who he says voted illegally. the question is, does he have any evidence this time? we're keeping them honest. ♪ we hide hotel names, so you can find four star hotels at two star prices. h-o-t-w-i-r-e (e-e-e-e)

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we began the broadcast with the white house firing and new reporting on what is said to be the president's foul mood over a number of things including the midterms. here's, perhaps, another sign of it. he is, once again, leveling a favorite unsubstantiated allegation about the election. speaking to the "daily caller" he said, "the republicans don't win and that's because of potentially illegal votes. when people get in line that have absolutely to right to vote and go around in circles. sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again." he went on to say "if you buy a box of cereal, you have a voter i.d." now the last part is easy because i'm not a big foodie, but there is one food item i do shop for a lot and it's cereal. i basically live on cereal. that's why i look so healthy. i can assure you except for frosted lucky charms which as you all know are magically delicious, no i.d. is necessary to purchase any cereal, thank goodness, or any other breakfast

food. as for the fraud allegations, the cars and disguises and so on, i'm told we may have video of that. let's take a look. ♪ all right. obviously that is from the ringling bros. and barnum & bailey circus. maybe that's where mr. trump got the idea of people going into their cars and changing disguises because the president offered no evidence to back up his claim. keeping them honest, that's probably because there isn't any we know about. don't take our word for it. listen to the authorities who are actually in florida who say there's no evidence of voter fraud. ballot disputes, yes, signature issues, yes, outdated voting machines, yes, but not the kind of voter fraud the president is alleging, not in arizona, either. not anywhere during this election or according to state attorneys general, and secretaries of state, in any recent election. no evidence of people doing what the president says they did and did, he claims, in large numbers, large enough to flip the house. not only is the president saying

it now, he was saying it during the campaign. >> you know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. you need i.d. you go out and you want to buy anything, you need i.d. and you need your picture. in this country, the only time you don't need it in many cases is when you want to vote for a president, when you want to vote for a senator, when you want to vote for a governor or a congressman. it's crazy. >> that was late july at a rally in tampa, florida. the president sowing the seeds of distrust in the electoral process, raising an obvious question the very next day. >> does the president still believe that millions of people are voting illegally in this country? is that the basis for this push for requiring voter i.d.s? >> even if there are ten people that are voting illegally, it shouldn't happen. the president wants to see the integrity of our elections systems upheld. and that's the purpose of his comments. >> sarah sanders could offer no

evidence of widespread illegal voting but these kind of allegations date further back for the president. here he is tweeting about it after taking office. "in addition to winning the electoral college in the landslide, i won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." there's no evidence of that. back then like now he offered no evidence. the voter commission he set up a short time later in part to validate his groundless claim was disbanded after a year without finding evidence of the voter fraud the president was alleging back then and still is today despite the advice he got nearly two years ago from a leading republican. >> so i would urge the president to knock this off. this is the greatest democracy on earth. you're the leader of the free world. and people are going to start doubting you as a person if you keep making accusations against our electoral system without justification. >> that was the january 2017 version of lindsey graham. back now, jen psaki, ken cuccinelli, abby phillip, and

maggie haberman. maggie, do we know if the president actually believes this or just thinks this is effective? actually i was thinking exactly about that when you were talking about this. it's hard to tell whether he actually believes it. he certainly says things privately to people that makes clear he knows how cynical this is. other times he delivers this very convincingly and seems to believe it. i don't think it matters one way or the other. he's the president of the united states and he's out there saying who are you going to believe, me or your lying officials who are telling you that what i'm saying is not true? it is a huge problem. there is already for avisitor of reasons people are losing faith in constitutions in this country and constitutions of democracy and if people don't believe elections are fair and being conducted well, that's a very, very dangerous slope to go down and he is just pouring grease on it.

>> jen psaki, when you were in the obama white house, how seriously did the administration take what the president was saying on the campaign trail? >> well, anderson, this was the issue we were most focused on, before we knew, of course, the impact of the russia hacking. this was in the months leading up to the election and this was an issue we met about frequently to talk about how he could bring together a bipartisan group of members. there was actually a letter that was put out, that was put out the same day that the tapes came out of president trump using some poor taste language about women, but, you know, this was our focus. we wanted to bring together, as maggie said, there was great concern about -- about this, and we brought democrats and republicans together to try to make the point that these are legitimate, we do have a process for monitoring, we do have a process for helping states and governors. that was really where our efforts were focused on. and it's, you know, president trump has been running for re-election, i think, for quite some time. as maggie and abby can attest. he just lost the midterms as we've been talking about and it's clear he's feeling the heat here and wants to begin to sow the seeds of doubt about legitimacy of elections leading up to his own re-election in two

years. whether he believes it or not, that has to be in the back of his mind. >> probably the thing that debunks this whole idea the most is the fact if there was such massive voter fraud in 2016 and it always favored the democrats as president trump seems to suggest, why would he have then been elected? it just doesn't make any sense. there's no way that anyone would concoct a scheme to allow president trump to win the electoral college vote, but not the popular vote if the intent was to have the democrats win. not to mention the fact that president trump put together a commission on this. and they had to disband themselves because they couldn't, "a," find any voter fraud and "b," they couldn't get the cooperation even of republican states. so this is so outlandish, and it also surprises me that no one has yet apparently told the president that you don't need an i.d. to buy cereal. it also highlights how kind of out of touch he is about how this all works. about what is required for people to go about their

day-to-day lives. i don't think the president has gone grocery shopping in probably many, many years. >> ken, i mean -- >> unless you're -- >> should the president be doing this? >> i mean, which some people do. which is -- >> but i think that the -- one of you commented about the -- i think it was maggie about the loss of confidence in institutions and let's face it, when you look at florida, you can also see why there's some loss in confidence of institutions. the same place has been making the same kind of mistakes for so long now it's unbelievable. now the elected official there says, you know, maybe i won't run for re-election this time. i think she said this before. the whole debate currently starts with the 83,000 votes that were there, weren't there. and when you don't follow your own rules, you invite the lack of confidence in the institution. does the president push that and use hyperbole?

yes, he does. >> right, why not stick to that, though, rather than, i mean, this idea of people going in and out of cars wearing disguises in numbers so massive that it affects, you know, the popular vote is ludicrous. >> when -- when i was running conventions for cruz in the primary, we were winning the state conventions while the president was winning more primaries. it wasn't that -- obviously senator cruz won some of them as well, but we were coming away with delegates far out of proportion to the primary results, and they couldn't catch up to us. and their strategic response was a messaging response. it was when you have this two-level election, that's not a fair system, that's a rigged system, and, look, that messaging worked. it worked.

>> that's the lesson he's taking away, that this works. >> it worked. and i understand even put fairly why that message worked because it isn't what people are used to, but it was the rules in place at the time. so when you -- when you start to get outside people's expectations, you invite exactly that kind of attack and it worked for him there and in florida it definitely adds to the doubt, but i have very little sympathy for broward county in having that all dumped on them. this is repeated, continuous. i have serious questions about the legitimacy of -- >> two things can be true at once, right? >> yes. >> it can be true there are huge problems in florida, this continues over and over again. the margin appears to be so big that this is a mandated -- state-mandated recount. that is why this is being done. >> yes, came within numerical boundary. >> number one. number two, it can be true people can have concerns about

that and still not consider it responsible to claim that voters are sneaking into their cars and wearing wigs. >> absolutely. >> or a case of voter fraud. i think if you look at broward county, andrew gillum and senator nelson probably would love to have had the ballots be more clear there. and i think any democrat or republican is probably looking at this thinking, are you kidding, why isn't that fix? why isn't there a clear ballot that everybody can vote on? >> yes. >> so there's agreement on that, but that's not voter fraud. and i think that's the point many of us are making. >> right. i hear that. >> ways to have a messaging argument when the odds of this process overturning the results on election day are pretty slim. i mean, this could just go as everyone wants it to go in terms of the process playing out without all of these conspiracy theories being muddled up into it. >> well, the kicker here, though, in terms of impact, is when new votes come into the count that weren't there originally.i,ppreciate it, jen psaki, abby phillip, maggie haberman.

yet more breaking news, michael avenatti under arrest on violence. cnn's m.j. lee joins us. >> michael avenatti has been arrested for domestic violence. according to the lapd, he has been booked on felony domestic violence charges. we're told the domestic violence report was taken yesterday in west los angeles. and that the arrest was made today. now, we did just get a statement from michael avenatti responding to this. let me read that for you. he says "i wish to thank the hardworking men and women of the lapd for their professionalism. they were only doing their jobs in light of the completely bogus allegations against me. i have never been physically abusive in my life nor was i last night. any accusations to the contrary are fabricated and meant to harm my reputation. i look forward to being fully exonerated." so obviously this is a very vehement denial that we're getting from michael avenatti, and knowing him, this sounds like someone who's going to deny this and fight this. anderson?

>> the original report, which i believe was from tmz, claimed that it was his -- what they say was his estranged wife who i believe he's going through a divorce proceeding with. his wife, though, to you, directly, has denied 100% that this happened with her, saying she hasn't even seen him for months. is that correct? >> that's right. the tmz report did create some confusion initially because it did say that this incident involved his estranged wife who he is currently in the process of getting divorced from. that story was actually then changed to just say a woman rather than estranged wife. i did speak with her on the phone earlier tonight and she said that she hasn't seen avenatti in months. she was not at his apartment this week. she also said he is not somebody who would ever hit anyone. this also -- >> m.j., sorry, michael avenatti's making a statement. let's listen. >> very succinct. first of all, i want to thank the hardworking men and women of the lapd for their professionalism and their work today.

they had no option in light of the allegations. secondly, i have never struck a woman. i never will strike a woman. i have been an advocate for women's rights my entire career and i'm going to continue to be an advocate. i am not going to be intimidated from stopping what i am doing. i am a father to two beautiful, smart, daughters. i would never disrespect them by touching a woman inappropriately or striking a woman. i am looking forward to a full investigation at which point i am confident that i will be fully exonerated. i also want to thank everyone for their support that has reached out. you know my character. you know me as a man and i appreciate it. thank you.

>> that's michael avenatti who's just, m.j., been released from custody. we're, of course, going to continue to follow the story tonight. there's even more breaking news this time in the russia investigation. potentially big development as we wait for new moves from special counsel mueller. that is next. after walking six miles at an amusement park,

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lot of late developments tonight. here's another. it could play into all the news lately surrounding trump associate roger stone. wikileaks and potential charges in the russia investigation. now, at the center of the story, text messages that stone has just made public. sara murray joins us now with the breaking news. so what's in these text messages? >> these are text messages between roger stone and randy credico, back channel to wikileaks in october 2016. the very beginning. in them, randy says big news wednesday. he goes on to say "hillary's campaign will die this week." that was the week julian assange was supposed to hold this big press conference and deliver a bunch of dirt. he didn't do that. a couple days later that's when wikileaks started rolling out all these disclosures of john podesta's hacked e-mails, the

clinton campaign chairman. roger stone is putting these messages out trying to show, you know, in fact, randy credico was his back channel. >> why release them now? he's had them all this time. >> i think stone and his attorneys are frustrated that he's been out there insisting he was not a back channel, and they feel like people don't believe roger stone. remember, roger stone was out there in 2016 saying he was in touch with assange. seeming to predict that stuff was going to be coming. now he's putting forth these text messages to try show, look, i was telling the truth, i did have a back channel, i was getting some kind of information from randy, where, how he was getting it, who knows. >> interesting. sara murray, thanks very much. appreciate it. fascinating stuff. i want to check in can chris. see what he's -- actually we'll check in with chris -- actually, you know, i'm told he's ready now. chris, what are you working on? >> i'm here. just had to get my makeup done. i want to look good for you anderson. i don't like coming in half done up. so we're going -- we're going to

be talking tonight with the man who believes that he has with the man who believes he can help nancy pelosi be speaker. we're going to talk about his feelings who should lead the party, what's the strategy. i also want to talk to him about what the democrats plan to do about matthew whitaker. there is a lot of talk, but what are they actually going to do? we're going to talk to him. then the story hit, we saw michael avenatti put out a strong defense about these allegations. what does it mean for him going forward? got to look at the white house. we always say it's chaotic. they say it's never true, but it's never been more true than it is right now. what happened with the first lady? why did she have to go public, and what is going to be the fallout? we're going to take it all on. >> yeah, it's kind of unprecedented for a first lady to make a statement like that about a national security figure. we'll come to you 9 minutes from now. coming up on 360, weeks and weeks the president warning over and over at his rallies about this impending invasion as he

called it. he rushed active military to the border. you notice the president doesn't seem to be talking about did any more? now that the election is over. if it's such a dangerous invasion, how come? we're keeping him honest next. thank you. how many kids? my two. his three. along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. that is quite the family. quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. a lot of colleges. you get any financial advice? yeah, but i'm pretty sure it's the same plan they sold me before. well your situation's totally changed now. right, right. how 'bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here? that would be great. that would be great. that okay with you, jake? get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from td ameritrade investment management.

i'm thomas carrasco with the department of defense. you were employed at the homecoming center? years ago. what is this about? what were your duties there? i don't know. a staff member reported that your son was being held there against his will. i need to go. everybody i speak to obstructs or deflects... what did you do to these men? ♪ you don't need to go anywhere dad, this is your home. the best home to be in is your own. home instead offers personalized in-home services for your loved ones. home instead senior care. to us, it's personal.

tonight keeping him honest, thousands of troops sent to the border for a mission that looks more than ever like a political ploy, an effort by the president of the united states to rally his base before the midterm elections. an effort that may cost tax pairs somewhere between 42 and $100 million according to center for strategic and budgetary assessments. we have to rely on that estimate, because despite our asking repeatedly, the pentagon will not tell us the actual cost. when all this hysteria was being whipped up, you can make your case about immigration reform, but it should be made on the facts. there's no doubt it's a controversial and complicated issue. but the facts were largely abandoned by this white house, and now so, too, has the story. for weeks and weeks the president before the election, his allies and the immediate i don't spoke about an impending invasion they said was headed for the u.s. border. over and over again, the president talked about this invasion and announced he would send thousands of american troops to the border, even as the caravan of migrants was hundreds of miles away.

>> at this very moment, large, well organized caravans of migrants are marching toward our southern border. some people call it an invasion. it's like an invasion. >> but that's an invasion. i don't care what they say. >> because you look at what's marching up, that's an invasion. that's an invasion. >> that's an invasion of our country. >> when you looked at that bridge loaded up with people, that's called an invasion of our country. >> went from some people called it an invasion to it's an invasion: i call it an invasion. it was really apparent on twitter that the president was very concerned about this so-called invasion from october 16 to november 6, also known as election day. the president sent 45 tweets mentioning the border. nine tweets about this caravan between october 16 th and halloween. he warned of criminals, unknown middle easterners, bad people supposedly mixed into the group. without evidence.

now, that same group of migrants is closer with weeks having gone by, but suddenly there is relative silence from the president on this supposed invasion. since the election, there's been just one tweet and it was on friday. it was a link to a quote president proclamation addressing mass migration through the southern border of the united states. nothing about invasion or gangs or murderers or middle easterners. all that talk it seems that's gone away. but those thousands of american troops, well, they, of course, still have to do their job and they are as they always do. the job the defense secretary james mattis tried to explain today on his way to visit troops in texas, mattis said the defense department missions do not involve military personnel directly participating in any law enforcement or even come ing into direct contact with migrants. the question is what is this mission about? >> i think many of you are aware president wilson 100 years ago, a little over 100 years ago, deployed the u.s. army to the southwest border. that's over a century ago.

the threat then was poncho villa's troops raiding across the border into the united states, new mexico in 1916. and there's a more recent history of d.o.d. support on the border. it spans four administrations in both political parties. >> well, keeping him honest, the defense secretary was trying to justify the president wanting troops at the border by comparing a group of migrants, many with young children fleeing violence at home and economic issues, to poncho villa's troops attacking new mexico in 1916. you can decide for yourself whether that is an appropriate comparison. he is correct that more recently other administrations have also had d.o.d. support in support roles along the border. when secretary mattis got in front of the deployed troops at the base camp, he had a simple message. put up razor wire and don't watch the news. >> there's all sorts of stuff in the news and that sort of thing. you just concentrate on what your company commander, your

battalion commander tells you. if you read all that stuff, you'll go nuts, you know what i mean? >> well, on that point, we can probably all agree. if you were a member of the military, your son or daughter was deployed on a pretense that was said to be of vital importance, national security, just before the election, then seemed to disappear at least from the president's mind after the election, suppose that could drive anyone nuts. remind he, don't miss full circle our daily interactive news on facebook. you can get all the details and watch it 6:25 eastern on facebook.com/anderson cooper 360 full circle. also here on 360, news continues right now, want to hand it over to chris for cuomo primetime. chris? >> presidents obama and bush did use the d.o.d. for support, but they used the national guard. it's exempt from a law that doesn't be allow the use of active duty troops for law enforcem