a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! let's go back to work. john berman here sitting in for anderson. that's what your jim acosta said today after a federal judge a trump appointee, by the way, director of the white house, to reinstate his press pass. it's a good choice of words. the work is the most important thing asking questions, holding elected officials accountable, keeping them honest, no matter who is in the white house. the administration's particular words and actions have sparked so much concern. it's why organizations supported cnn when the white house did what it did with his credentials.

it is why we're giving this claim by the president such close scrutiny tonight. >> you understand we want total freedom of the press. that's very important, more important to me than anyone would believe. >> he said that shortly after the judge ruled. we'll look closer at all of the legal angles in a moment and we'll speak to sam donaldson about it. right now let's focus on that claim that the president wants total freedom of the press, and it's more important to him than anyone would believe. keeping them honest, it's hard to see much evidence of that. as record shows, no president has ever expressed the kind of overt, ongoing bitter antagonism toward the work we do than this one has, which is not to say that plenty of other presidents haven't also had plenty of complaints, but until now even saying so out loud was so rare, it was considered a career killer. this was richard nixon lashing out at the press after his bid to become governor of california in 1962. >> as i leave you, i want you to

know -- just think how much you will miss me, you don't have nixon to kick around anymore. that outburst landed him in the political winteredness for six years, now trump barely goes sixth minutes between attacks on the press, while he may have believed the press was the enemy of the people, it might have been connected by allies against "washington post"-owned tv stations, it was always shadowy and deniable. president trump just lets it all hang out. here's a tweet from october of last year with all of the fake news, he says, coming out of the nbc and the networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their license. bad for country. so leaving aside the factual matter that nbc as a network does not have a license. to challenge. the intent there was plain and people noticed. they noticed this threat against emmys which is one by "washington post" owner jeff bezos. i'm right about amazon costing

the united states post office massive amounts of money for being their delivery boy. amazon should pay these costs, plus, and not have them bourn by the american taxpayer. many billions of dollars,po leaders don't have a clue, or do they. that's the the president of the united states threatening to use the government entity to put a bite on the guy that owns the newspaper that he hates. many of them were demonizing the and the necks which is set the stage which in turn has put the entire press corps on notice you could be next. was the chilling effect intentional? we don't know. is it noticeable? you bet. is it coupled with other efforts, some of which that have been tried by other administration limiting access to information? yep. and finally, does it jive with this? >> we want total freedom of the press. it's very important to me.

>> so today's court action was only preliminary. the judge focusing mainly on the due process side of things, not the first amendment question. jeffrey toobin joins us with more on where this could be headed. was it the ruling you were expecting? >> it was better than i expected and a very savvy and courageous move by the judge because -- he didn't turn this into a big press versus white house fight. he said to the white house, look, you do have the right to control the decorum, the discipline of briefings, but you have to do it in an orderly, fair way. you have to have procedures, you have to have rules that people can understand, and you have to have a person who is in charge of making those decisions. none of which the white house had. so he basically sent the case back to the white house and said acosta gets his press pass back immediately and make rules and then we will see where the case is. >> he punted on the first

amendment, didn't decide on that per se yet, but made this preliminary judgment on the fifth amendment, due process, saying to the white house you have to put a process in place. >> and the white house, the president, sanders today said we're going to put procedures in place which i think is a good idea. will they use the procedures to try to pursue jim acosta again. my hope and i think if rational minds prevail, they will simply say okay these are the rules going forward, by gonz aes are bygones. >> the judge made clear there is no first amendment right to access the white house. >> i think that is close to what he said in fairness to sarah sanders. he did say the white house can make rules, there is no absolute access to the white house, but from anybody under any

circumstances. but the rules have to be fair. and they have to give journalists notice of what the rules are, and the opportunity to challenge them if they're punished. >> so is there a chance this becomes the de facto permanent status there? is it in cnn's benefit to play this out to a trial? >> no. look, cnn has to do whatever it can to let jim acosta keep doing his job permanently. so far, so good. if the white house says these are the rules going forward, but we're not going to apply them retroactively to what we thought jim acosta did, then i think that's a pretty fair solution. the problem is if the white house says under the rules we're now prescribing, acosta is out again, then we have to go back into court and continue the fight. >> so that could be the future. if they decide they want to play it that way? >> correct. that's up to the white house. they're going to make the rules,

but will they apply them retroactively to jim. >> i want to drill down deeper of a notion of a chilling effect on this and other efforts to make holding this administration accountable that much harder. joining us veteran journalist who sparred with presidents over the years, and clashed with answers they got, and joining us, saim donaldson, former long time abc white house correspondent and anchor, whom i did research for, whose questions to ronald reagan were truly something else. sam, great to see you. thank you so much for being with us. thank you for the declaration you submitted on behalf of jim acosta to the court. what do you make of the ruling today and the response by the white house? >> i'm glad the judge went as far as he went. i'm worried about these rules. sarah sanders said there was to be decorum at the white house and need to make the preference

fair and orderly. what does that mean? one question? if a reporter tries to follow it up, he's out or she's out? that doesn't accomplish anything. if the rules are aimed at try to suppress tough questions, the questions that dig in, then we're all in trouble. john in 1999 at a white house press conference, i asked president clinton whether it was true he had raped way knee at a broderick as she claimed. he said his lawyer gave a statement about that, and the statement said it was not true, and he wouldn't comment so i followed up by asking, couldn't you just deny it, sir? and he said, see my lawyer. those horrible questions, they were questions at the moment, though, but i never heard a word of complaint from president clinton or anyone else at the white house about that.

if president trump thinks somehow rules can avoid his having to answer jim acosta, john carl, abc's correspondent, april ryan, anyone else, he's wrong. i just hope it doesn't come to that. >> carl, the president said today nobody believes in the the family more th-- first amendmen >> i believe he does. by dealing with the press and the tabloids which went to bat for the false image of himself that he pedalled. he would be nothing today were it not for the tabloids so he understands how to manipulate the press. what we saw was a first-rate decision that enables the press to pursue the best attainable version of the truth, which is its job at these preferences and at these briefings.

and we need that and it was a good suit that cnn filed. we should prevail. beyond that, i think we need be rethinking how we conduct these briefings and what our response is when the president of the united states basically uses them as an occasion to lie and manipulate the press. i don't think we should necessarily be running them verbatim from beginning to end. i think it's like giving him free air time during the campaign. i think we need to reevaluate how we engage with the president, not get ourselves manipulated. our job is repertoirial. we need as a profession to start finding new way to do business in this white house. >> on the flip side of that, sam, is that there was this threat from the white house

today, which is to suggest if they don't like a question they might just end the news conference or walk away. they may try to turn reporter against reporter there. what happens then? >> it would be terrible. carl's right. we have to rethink how we're going to the this. we've never had a president like this. carl might even say even richard nixon wasn't even quite like this, not even in public. we've been discussing whether we should walk away, should the press corps walk out? i don't think so. it's our job to ask questions. it's our job to stay there. we got to keep our cool, of course. you know, i think it's fair discussion did jim press to hard, i think he was doing the right thing. but that's a fair discussion. what's not fair in the sense of trying to suppress the press is that he asked a tough question, the president made it clear he didn't want to answer it. excuse me, sir, we want to get answers. for us?

no, for the public we serve and we're going to keep on. >> i went to jack kennedy's press conferences as a copy boy and i dictated a text back to the washington star where i worked for an afternoon newspaper. to watch kennedy engage with the press, to tell the truth, to have a kind off in his answers o understand this national engagement of the press was a thing to behold. with successive presidents also did this. it began to break down. and i said to sam at the time, i think we need to rethink how we cover these press conferences, and i still believe that. >> are the answers worth it, sam? that's the suggestion that carl is getting to there. what we're hearing from the president may not be worth it.

>> we need to be able to get the truth out of these events. >> whether it's worth it or not is a value judgment. but he gets to say it. carl and i get to ask questions and the people there now. he gets to give whatever answers he wants, but his answer, whether they're worth it or not in the long running, history will say that's made no sense. it's not up to us to get the questions. that's why we're there. we got to keep trying to do that. carl, i went to the john kennedy press conferences also, about three or four of them. i never had the encouracourage a question of him, but he was a chapeler. a lot of the questions were, the president would you mind telling us how you feel about -- come on, folks. one question famous was mr. president, this was to linden johnson, it's a lonely job, isn't it?

we have to ask direct questions politely, but firmly on issues of the moment and not put our punches and say gee, it's too bad this happened. it's not your fault, but maybe you could have done something about it. no, not that. not that. >> one thing about reporting of this president, it has been fabulous reporting that indeed has exposed this president from the beginning of administration through today in a way that no presidency has been covered with such persistent excellence by the washington press corps to reveal what the president is saying, doing, and what we are learning is because of a free press exercising its repertoirial function. we should not go deferential in a kowtowing way, but makes it possible to get more information and not allow the president to

simply conduct a symphony. >> sam, last word? >> but carl, when you and bob were covering nixon earlier and breaking stories, the public was and listening watching. as watergate went on and on, the public got on to what was happening and came to believe that richard nixon ought to leave. what's happening now is these good reporters at the white house are bringing forward things that the public should pay attention to and half the public or almost half doesn't care. the president's right, he's great -- >> making them press the issue, not his conduct. he has sought to undermine our credibility at every turn through lying, and that is something we need to engage with. >> sam donaldson thank you so much for being with us tonight. >> in the end -- >> sam, thanks for being with us and thank you for the example

you set for me and so many others through the years. really appreciate it. i could listen to both of you all night. stick around, we'll get your update on another story. breaking news in the killing of jamal khashoggi. for weeks now the question has been what did saudi arabia's ruling crown prince know about the murder? perhaps did he order it? tonight new reporting, what the cia has concluded, and it's big. vice president pence who can look a.orgly at the president the way few people can, after all, it is his job, so why, then, is the president said to be asking all the time about his loyalty? him, that guy. details ahead. ♪ the greatest wish of all... is one that brings us together. the lincoln wish list event is here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln

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>> did you provide answers, sir? >> about what. >> the special counsel? >> yeah, my lawyers are working on that. i'm working on that. i write the answers. my lawyers don't write answers. i write answers. i was asked a series of questions, i've answered them easily, very easily. i'm sure they're tricked up because they like to catch people was the weather sunny or rainy. he said it may have been a good day, it was rainy, therefore he told a lie, he perjured himself. you have to be careful when you answer questions of people that have bad intentions. the questions were routinely answered by me. >> very routinely answered, he says, by me. yet a source familiar with what we've been reporting that negotiations between the white house and team mueller, they say the president's legal team has taken issue with some of the

questions, especially those covering the transitionered approximate after the 2016 elections. the sources wouldn't say whether the president answered those questions other than to say that there are responses to all the questions that were asked. back with carl bernstein and jif jeffrey toobin. the lawyers are involved. >> right. this is a take-home open-book exam, and the advantage of it is you get to have help and he gets help from his lawyers, but what i think he was doing was responding to rudy giuliani's post where he said there are a lot of troubling issues and some of the questions are problematic. the president is trying to give the impression this whole thing was a piece of cake. i have nothing to fear, i answered the questions easily, i don't need my lawyers. that's the message he's trying to send, whether it's true, that i couldn't tell you. >> we've been calling this an

open-book exam, making light of the fact that he has his lawyers there. but still he has to tell the truth. i have to believe the legal team is going over every word of these questions and every word of their answers meticulously. what's going on behind closed doors? >> of course they're going to review his answers. some of this information if it has to doed wi with instruction that goes to his intent, whether it was before he was president or the firing of the fbi director. so in some of these cases it may only be him who knows what the actual answer is, but certainly his lawyers are going to be reviewing these, perhaps rewriting these, redrafting them, writing them in the way that they think minimizes his exposure when the responses are provided. i'm really struck, john, by his statement that the questions are

from, quote, people who have bad intentions. he's talking about federal prosecutors who are part of the executive branch and who are charged with enforcing the law. so it's just really -- every time he does it, he said these types of things before. but i just think it's worth pausing on it because it's so extraordinary for a president to constantly denigrate prosecutors whose job it is to enforce the law. >> and it was an intention of what he said yesterday when he went after the special counsel by name. >> look, robert mueller has a distinguished record as few public servants in this country have, who is respected and highly regarded by republicans and democrats, who was head of the fbi under both republicans and democrats. along comes president trump and calls him a disgrace. there's no evidence of robert mueller ever having been a disgrace in anything he's done in public life.

we have seen a rage hollic president of the united states, such as we have never seen, certainly in our modern history. we have never seen a president in a prolonged rage, a public rage such as we have seen these past weeks. in paris, in washington, at the special prosecutor, at the press. it has been unceasing, it has been horrible to look at in terms of what does this mean, in terms of our governance. what we are seeing now is this president has his back to the wall. i want to say one thing about -- he keeps saying no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. we know that mueller has a sprawling investigation that is all about looking for collusion among trump's associates, his family, his campaign aides. whether or not he has found it or not, we don't know.

but it is a serious sprawling investigation with lots of dots following the money and following the connections. and trump understands that. what has happened with matt whitaker as the new deputy attorney general is that trump -- >> acting attorney general. >> acting attorney general, thank you, is that trump has a spy for the first time who is looking at what mueller has. and he has been, trump, throughout his presidency absolutely in a crazed state because he doesn't know what mueller is doing. now he has a sense of what may be going on and we may be seeing that in this rage hollic behavior. >> yesterday he wrote about the inner workings. we don't know. we don't know what matt whitaker's been telling him. we do know once again the president is talking about something he likes to refer to as a perjury trap. that's not something they taught

you at harvard law school. >> perjury trap, it's a phrase people throw around. i think it is literally a meaningless phrase because perjury and perjury. and this idea the president talked about it, if you say it was a sunny day and it was cloudy, they're going to charge you with perjury, of course not. perjury has to be a substantive statement that is relevant to a central issue in that case and it has ton an intentional falsehood, not a mistake. just because your testimony conflicts with another person, that doesn't mean either one of you is lying. perjury is about intentional lying, and it is rarely prosecuted, but it is prosecuted when prosecutors see it. they don't prosecute people who make mistakes. >> what's the best way to avoid perjury, by the way? >> tell the truth. >> these written answers, they're not the end here necessarily, they turn in the homework assignment, but the special counsel could come back

and follow up on these, right? >> the special counsel will receive at some point in time these answers it seems like and they'll decide whether or not they find those answers sufficient, whether or not they want to still pursue potentially talking to the president. so much time has gone by that it does seem like if the president was requested to interview or even if they decided to go forward with a subpoena, they certainly would challenge it. that's where the appointment of acting attorney general whitaker becomes really important because the acting attorney general over the special counsel's investigation exercises real substantive authority, and a decision like whether or not to serve a subpoena on the president is something that right now could be decided by the acting attorney general, who is in a questionable legal from a statute tory perspective, a questionable legal appointment. so it is hard to understand with

all of the other senate-confirmed senior officials who could have been and should have been appointed as the acting attorney general sessions resigned, that position becomes quite important. >> remember, he has only agreed to answer questions about events during the campaign. he has said, his lawyers have said he's not answering questions about the firing of comey or any of the acts he made as president because that's protected under article 2 of the constitution. >> thank you so much for being with us. great discussion, really appreciate it. next, we have breaking news. what the cia has concluded about who ordered the murder of jamal khashoggi. it could cost you your life. it's time to get out of line with upmc. at upmc, living-donor transplants put you first. so you don't die waiting.

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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! breaking news tonight on the very dark subject, the murder of jamal khashoggi, specifically whether the de facto saudi ruler mohammed bin salman ordered the killing. according to the reporting, the cia has concluded the answer is yes. which may approximate tough for the white house to swole given how tightly the administration has tied its fortunes to that prince known by many as mbs. john hudson did reporting on this story and joins us now. thanks for joining us. the cia's conclusion that the crown prince ordered to assassination of khashoggi,

what's it based on? >> this this comes from multiple intelligence sources. obviously a major part of this is the audio that the turks had, but the cia had multiple sources of information, including a phone call that was made by the saudi arabia ambassador to the united states to jamal khashoggi. and so it's based on a number of pieces of evidence and it's a high-confidence assessment by the cia that mohammed bin salman ordered the assassination of jamal khashoggi. >> again, in that reporting you suggest it was the saudi ambassador who suggested to khashoggi that's good to the turkish embassy. the saudi arabia vehemently denying those claims. what do you make of that >> reporter: we included the essence of the statement in the denial. you can see him on twitter saying that they provided a

longer statement and then they published that, put that out there. but we boiled down the essence of that and put that in the story. but, of course, we also reflected what we've heard from other sources on this story. people familiar with the situation. >> president trump, he has been briefed on this. he has been told the intelligence community thinks that the crown prince ordered this assassination. do we know what his reaction has been? >> yes. we've seen the reaction and we've seen this play out over several days that the president has always said that the relationship that the united states with saudi arabia is important. but he's also made, you know, made it very clear that he believes this was one of the worst coverups ever. so what they've tried to do is balance what is a growing amount of evidence that this was something directed by very senior saudi leadership, and they've tried to balance that

with the reality that they would like to keep this relationship with the crown prince, who they've tried to cultivate a very strong relationship with for a couple years now. they considered the lynch pin of their middle east strategy. >> john hudson, terrific reporting. thank you so much for being with us. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> here's a small sample of what the president has been saying lately. take a look. >> as of this moment they deny it and deny it vehemently. could it be them? yes. >> jared, your son-in-law got on the phone and asked the prince, did he deny it? >> they deny it. they deny it every way you can imagine. >> i just spoke with the king of saudi arabia who denies any knowledge of what took place with regard to, as he said, his saudi arabian citizen. i asked and he firmly denied that. >> joining me now is the former

directory of national intelligence retired lieutenant journey james clapper. director clapper, explain how sure the cia needs to be to come to a conclusion like this when they conclude the crown prince ordered this assassination, how certain? >> well, as i understand it, again, i can't officially corroborate the reporting on the cia report, but let's just say for the sake of discussion it's accurate and validat. apparently this came with a high confidence. when you ascribe a high confidence level to a report, typically you have very good sourcing from multiple sources. so that, i think, was the case here. beyond that, i think this report simply serves to reinforce what anyone with a modicum of understanding about how things

operate in saudi arabia, which centers around mbs, mohammed bin salman, who was de facto the rural in saudi arabia who involves himself in all matters big and small. from the beginning no question that an operation like this could not have been planned and executed without not just the acquiescence and knowledge of mohammed bin salman, but i'm convinced the direction. and i felt that way before this reporting of the cia report. >> again, the phraseology you point out is high confidence, which means they have it from multiple sources. he's yet again questioning the intelligence he's getting from his own agencies. we've seen that before. i wonder if this is a similar thing or if this is because he doesn't want it to be true for policy reasons. >> i suspect it's the latter. the president as we've seen over the last couple years does have

what i'll call an elastic evidentiary bar. i'm sure he'll keep raising it, the bar, ever higher. you know, it stretches credulity to think that mohammed bin salman wasn't directly involved and directly ordered this. >> director, it's interesting to me because the "washington post" broke this story and then quickly appeared in "the wall street journal" and "new york times." which means someone wanted it out there. someone wants it out there that the cia has a high level of confidence that the saudi arabia crown prince ordered this murder. why would someone want this out there? >> well, somebody -- it may not necessarily have been someone from within the intelligence community. i want to make that point clear because lots of people outside the ic would have been aware of this reporting. and so i think it's obviously somebody that's concerned about

this whole situation, finds it despicable and wants it out there, and in doing so, i think, puts more pressure on the administration and makes it harder for them to tap dance. >> if it is true, that khashoggi's murder was ordered by the crown prince, should there be in your mind severe consequences? does the united states need him as an ally? >> well, i think we need saudi arabia. right now i guess the administration view is that saudi arabia is synonymous with mohammed bin salman. i would hope maybe i'm fantasizing here, that the royal family would think about some other heir apparent other than mohammed bin salman because for my money he's severely compromised himself by his involvement in this really despicable act. >> direct james clapper, thank you so much for your insight and

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almost all of my cabinet. according to a report in "the new york times" that may not 100% include the vice president. according to the reporting, the president has been asking aides and advisers if mike pence is loyal, asking it so many times that it has alarmed some of his advisors. you wouldn't know this by the way the president acts in public. here's one week after the midterms. >> will the vice president be your running mate in 2020. >> i haven't asked him but i hope so. mike, will you be my running mate? stand up. will you? thank you. okay, good. the answer is "yes." >> thank you so much, sir. >> that was unexpected, but i feel fine. >> you'll note that menace stood up and asked and did raise i had right hand when asked. joining me is cnn contributor, the only man to have written a book about donald trump and

menace. also join us, political analyst kerstin powers. this loyalty issue is interesting. and the reason i think this "new york times" piece is getting so much focus is because the idea of menace mike pence and loyalty, has there been anyone that has gone out of his way to just pour the praise on the president than mike pence? >> no, there hasn't. that's what makes it so ludicrous and it sounds paranoid, frankly, because this is not somebody you think the president would even think twice about whether or not he was loyal because i think you could say mike pence is probably loyal to a fault. there's nothing that the president does that he won't defend no matter how horrible it is. so this to me suggests the president is not in the greatest state of mind if he is, in fact, questioning right now whether his vice president is loyal to him. >> michael, you've written about the president before. is loyalty a one-way street for

him? >> it always has been a one-way street. let's think about the person before mike pence who was abjectly loyal or fawning, it was michael cohen. so it's quite likely that the president has been reflecting on who's loyal, who's not loyal, who can i truesst. he's starting to be paranoid in a way that's almost ferral. he's established this problem of not gaining enough trust and therefore never giving any trust and never creating any. so who would be loyal to donald trump after he's done what he's done to jeff sessions and to came ho

james comey and any number of people he's betrayed. >> kirstin, there is an element of this. every president i've covered, there's been a rumor at some point or another or a discussion at some level or another about what it might mean to replace the number two on the ticket, to replace the vice president, even though barack obama, there was a discussion, i don't know how serious it was, but they said, hey, should we at least think about someone else other than joe biden. for donald trump we saw what just happened in the suburbs, how he did with women in the midterms. people are saying what about nikki haley? there's a reasonable political discussion to be had even if it's not taken seriously. >> yeah. i think that that's true. that wouldn't explain the questioning the loyalty. i mean, he could just say, look, i have a problem with women voting for me and maybe we need to do something different. but i will say i don't think that that would make much of a difference. i don't think a vice presidentle candidate is going to make up

for the deficit that he has with women, assuming nikki haley would even do it. i don't think it transfers that way. he's the president, he's the person people are voting for, and a lot of women are turning against him. >> michael, it's interesting because in this reporting in "the new york times," they make note that president trump has never let go of the fact that pence did issue a statement critical of him over the "access hollywood" tape. trump is not one to forget a slight, is he? >> no, he never federal courts a slight. i remember karen pence was very upset about that "access hollywood" tape and i think the presidentens the pences have a relationship that's very different from any marriage donald trump has ever had. these are two people, mike and karen pence, who respect each other immensely.

karen has always been mike's number one adviser in all matters, and i think he's disgusted by donald trump. there's really no doubt about that. so we have to wonder, you know, the president may be right here to be and who would be happier if donald trump left the white house early than mike pence. i think he would be delighted and the vice president is a man who is always had his eye on the oval office. since he was 17 years old he had this ambition. he accepted the officer from trump to be the running mate over his wives objection. >> kirsten, what do you make of michael's note. the questioning of the loyalty. what do you think that this gets to the president's mind-set over the last two weeks? >> i think up it shows he's feeling paranoid. it's normal to wonder about the

types of things of whether or not he has hi eye on the vice president. of course he has his eye on the presidency. that's why he's vice president. >> it's what being vice president is all about. an update on the midterm elections. in georgia, stacey abrams ended her bid to become the first african american woman to be governor in the united states. kemp was accused of voter suppression. resulted in systemic disinfranchisement. abrams acknowledged republican brian kemp will become the next governor of georgia. kemp was repeatedly accused of voter suppression. in a speech, abrams said kemp's eight years as the chief's elections officer resulted in she and her supporters hoped for a runoff and she was considering more legal challenges but

desized to end her campaign. kemp ended up ahead by more than 54,000 votes. at twist in the mid-terms, republican when the president mocked mia love of utah for not embracing him before the race was called? >> mia love gave me no love. and she lost. too bad. sorry about that, mia. >> too bad. right now mia love has pulled ahead of her democratic challenger. as of tonight she is ahead of ben mcadams by 419 votes. let's check in to see what he's working on. for cuomo "prime time". >> jb, my man. >> if you determine elections by what happened on tuesday, that's how you wind up with mia love and many others. he doesn't get -- i don't know why it's crazy that i'm saying this but it's always takesing weeks and that's why we're looking. it's very close. we're in a divided country right now. the electorate is reflecting that. tonight we'll take on a couple big things in a deep way. what does this mean that the president says his answers are done for the mueller probe? what most those answers include? and i will suggest there are

things that must be in there. and what will that expose the president to. we have two great legal minds going after that for you tonight. and we'll look at what the law is surrounding free dm of the press. what the lawsuit was really about and what remains as a challenge going forward. it's not just about acosta or cnn, there's much bigger prospects involved? >> you got me hooked. look forward to seeing the show, we'll see you in just a few minutes. ahead, an update on the devastating fires in california. ♪ ♪ eastbound and down. ♪ loaded up and truckin'. ♪ are we gonna do what they say can't be done? ♪ ♪ we've got a long way to go ♪ and a short time to get there. ♪ ♪ i'm eastbound, just watch ole bandit run. ♪ whatever party you've got goin' in the back, we've got the business up front. ♪

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the death toll from the fire in northern california has risen to 63 and the number of missing is more than 600, possibly as many as 630. the camp fire, as it's called, is the deadliest and most destructive of the state. kaylee hartung has the latest. >> reporter: the smoke from the

camp fire lingers and survivors on the ground face a bleak picture. this makeshift campground in a walmart parking lot is near the remnants of the town of paradise. many have lost everything. these survivors are just trying to catch their breath in the smokey air, looking for answers to the question, what's next. >> did it burn down or didn't it and we just don't know and it's hard to try to figure out your game plan when you don't know your game plan. >> reporter: anna goodnight and her husband william rushed out of their home. they were only able to grabbed me -- grabbed medication and important documents. >> we saw everything burning down. as we were leaving. that was scary enough. >> reporter: they have no idea if their home is standing. they ears just glad they made it out alive. >> i hope there's some closure for the families that have lost family. we're hearing a lot of horror stories.

i'm sure it will get worse before it gets better. >> we're living, a lot of people didn't make it. >> reporter: crystal survived hurricanes in florida, she was hoping to make paradise the next chapter. putting a down payment on an apartment in paradise. >> i thought -- we were happy, exciting, they had called us and told us to come next week, it was going to be a time where we came in but everything is gone and i don't know what's the next step. i'm just winging it. >> reporter: despite facing her own long road to recovery, crystal's been visiting the people at the camp, offering to help however she can. >> i can't do anything but one day at a time. it's out of my hands. stay praying, stay asking the lord to cover us or cover them. make sure they have a safe place to land in all of the situations. >> people are wondering why the number of people missing continues to rise.

630 names are on the list's last release by local officials but they caution it is difficult for them to pinpoint that number because so many people have been displaced. paradise is a town with a population of more than 25,000 people. they say some people could have evacuated to areas where cell phone service is unreliable. others, that i say, could have evacuated and not reached out to family members so they don't realize people are looking for them. anna goodnight who you just heard me speak with, she told me she hasn't looked at the list because she's afraid she will know names on it but, john, authority asks if you look at the list, please let them know. if you see anybody you know. because in the meantime they will make sure everyone is accounted for. >> kaylee hartung, thank you for your reporting. terrific job. the news continues, we'll hand it over to chris cuomo. cuomo "prime time" start tss now. >> i am chris cuomo and welcome to prime time. let freedom rein. the president can't just pull a press pass because he doesn't like certain questioning.