you peek out whefrom your finge the red trees are still there. jeanne moos. cnn, new york. you can watch "out front" my time, anywhere. i'll see you tomorrow night. anderson starts now. good evening. thank you for joining us. we begin with breaking new developments in the russia investigation and what they could mean. first, republican senators today blocked by partisan legislation to protect the special counsel. majority leader mitch mcconnell says it's not needed. >> this is a solution in search of a problem. the president is not going to fire robert mueller. for do i think he should. for do i think he should not be allowed to finish. we have a lot of things to do to try to finish up this year without taking votes on things that are completely irrelevant to outcomes.

>> the solution in search of a problem, he says. the majority leader seems to be suggesting there's no reason to believe the president would take action to undermine the special counsel to delegitimize his work in the public eye. defenders of the president says he has yet to do anything along those lines. keeping him honest. if a wibill protecting the specl counsel is, is it a problem to replace the attorney general with someone who has spoegen out against the attorney general? t at least three major players are intimating the angry gang of dems is lying act facts and they will get relief. okay. maybe by now you're accustomed to a president tweeting at him. if that's no longer shocking, what about this item? it's a photoshopped collection

of people the president has lashed out suggesting they're traitors. amo this is something the president actually tweeted out. no doubt he would say well, i just retweeted it. that is true. but the president of the united states who would think you have a lot of things to work on at all times took time to find this and retweet something from what is essentially a fan account. former president obama traitors? is that a problem. >> with the president tweeting on a regular, daily basis that the special counsel is conflicted that he is leading so-called 12 angry democrats and demeaning and ridiculing him in every way to be so sanguine about the chances of him being fired is folly for us, i

believe. >> oh, we'll bring in more on what jeff flake has to say. here's chris coons of delaware talking about the possibility of trump trying to move about mueller. >> i don't know what would give me the idea that president trump might do something unpredictable. he does it almost every day. >> the president in his written answers to the mueller team said roger stone did not tell him about wikileaks. the source said he made clear he was answering to the best of his rec. that's the kind of thing a lawyer tells you to say so you have some wiggle room. the president spoke to would he try to undermine the special counsel by pardoning? it was never discussed but i wouldn't take it off the table. why would it take it off the table? why would the president take it off the table? that's a good question. why did the president decide to

answer the posed question in that way? if his answer is seen as enticing manafort to lie for him, holding out the idea he might reward manafort for his help after the fact. that is the kind of thing that can get a president impeached. i'm reading from facts in the nixon impeachment case. it's really just a fancy way of saying it's a no-no to ask someone to lie for you if you're in turn promising to pardon them down the road. we have no evidence the president is doing anything similar in talking about pardons today. he was asked a question and answered it. he also did choose to answer it in exactly that way. more now on the developments including the president's answers to a pair of question keys on wikileaks, the meetings at trump tower.

what the do we know about the answers? >> this was in writing. they handed it in as part of a set of questions. it was several questions. these were the two key points that we have all been focussed on that the special counsel has been focussed on. and like you said, anderson, the president essentially is denying that he had any knowledge of that trump tower 2016 meeting that his son don junior set up with the russian lawyer, and also roger stone. whether or not he was communicating with roger stone about what he knew about wikileaks and whether there was going to be additional dumps of e-mails concerning john podesta and whether or not roger stone and the president were communicating about that. all of that he's denying, and as you said, his lawyers carefully worded these answers to say that at least based on the president's recollection, he doesn't remember ever having these communications. >> and it's important. the reason mueller has been focusing on these two things is the scope of his questions was

limited. he wasn't supposed to ask any questions about the obstruction of justice or potential obstruction of justice or anything that happened while the president was president. he's focusing on wikileaks and this meeting. it was potentially a huge deal because that was, according to the e-mail that was sent to set up that meeting, the first time the trump campaign was told that the russians were actually backing the trump campaign. >> that's right. that is an important part of what mueller is looking at. the idea that if anyway that the president knew about this in advance would set off alarm bells. he would have had to do things to go to lawyers. perhaps go to the fbi. put things in place to protect himself. and the idea that he would not have done any of that and knew this and allowed this meeting to go on would be damaging both legally and even politically at this point. it's interesting because there are these phone calls, blocked phone calls that we've all focussed on about don junior. we don't have definitive answers on the blocked calls.

don junior told investigators he doesn't remember anything about the phone calls, who he spoke to. with the democrats coming over, they intend to try to see if they can subpoena the phone records and find out who placed the calls. >> again on the trump tower meeting. it was manafort, kushner was there for a time. there's also the candidate at that point, donald trump, promised big information about hillary clinton at a press conference that never took place. >> that's right. that never took place. the russians set this up to say we have -- they wanted to talk about adoptions and then they come in and say well, no, we want to talk about hillary clinton and dirt. all this different things that were happening in this meeting. and whether or not anything that was going on in that meeting, whether it was relayed at any time to donald trump. even though the president is saying no, it's still not definitive from the special counsel's team. >> thank you very much. you heard a bit at the top from

senator jeff flake. there's also the breaking news about pardons. the senator and i spoke at length earlier this evening. senator flake, the president saying he wouldn't take a pardon for manafort off the table. his pardon power is absolute. as long as there's not a quid pro quo behind the scenes, a pardon would be legal. right? >> right. the president's pardon power is nearly absolute. >> in terms of your push for a vote to promote mueller, why do you think -- protect mueller. >> i can't understand it. when this bill passed, the bipartisan vote of 14-7, the majority leader said there's no worry. nobody is being fired. the president is not going to fire mueller. now the attorney general has been fired and someone who has been installed who has expressed hostility toward the mueller probe, and he now has oversight

for that probe. i don't know why we're not more concerned here. i don't. >> if you look at mitch mcconnell's argument, over phenomenon they're not concerned about the president firing mueller, what would be the harm in passing something to protect mueller? >> yeah. that's my feeling as well. i know the president wouldn't like it. i think that's exactly what we need to do. the president needs to know that the senate will not stand for him firing mueller. and the message he's getting right now is that the senate and the leadership will protect him. so i think that's the wrong message to send. there are some so have legitimate concerns about the constitution constitutionality, but they can vote no. i think the constitutional scholars on both sides of the issue are in disagreement on this. i think it's structured in a way that it is constitutional. i hope that we can pass it. >> the president supporters will say look, he hasn't taken any action to block or defund the

mueller investigation. he told "the washington post" he has no intention of doing anything to stop it. despite some of his tweets, he hasn't shown any concrete steps of stopping it. does that -- >> just look at what has happened. the attorney general has been fired. and oversight for the investigation has been taken from the deputy attorney general where it belonged. rod rosenstein, and given to matthew whitaker who has not been confirmed by the senate and who when he was auditioning for the job, expressed a lot of hostility toward the mueller probe and indicated at that time that there are ways that you could without firing mueller, neuter the probe like starving the probe of funds. and we just don't know how much interaction there is right now between mr. whitaker and mr. mueller. mr. mueller might have to ask permission to issue certain subpoenas or to take certain actions that might be denied by

mr. whitaker. when the report is actually issued, it will be mr. whitaker's job to decide what the congress sees and what it doesn't see. so those kind of things are very much in question. and i think it behooves us to move in the senate. >> you have roughly a month and a half left in office. is this the end of the road for you in terms of trying to protect mueller? >> i can speak out as a private citizen. right now i have leverage because there are a number of judges about 25 or so that we haven't moved through the judiciary committee that my vote is needed to move them through. i indicated i won't vote for those judges. more than a dozen are slated for a vote tomorrow morning in the judiciary committee. i will vote no which means they can't progress to the floor. in addition, i just voted no on one that they had to bring the vice president in to put over the top on a cloture vote. there are a number that will have problems on a floor vote as well. i can use that leverage and i well, but by january third, somebody else has to take it up.

>> and just last, i want to ask you about cnn's reporting that the president told mueller that he wasn't made aware of the 2016 trump tower meeting. the president may be telling the truth, but if for any reason he isn't, what would the consequences be? >> you know, i don't know. we'll have to see the totality of the mueller report. hopefully he will. but i don't know what context that would be in or what evidence we would have to the contrary. i'd have to see it in the context of the report. >> do you find it hard to believe that then president -- candidate trump was not informed of the trump tower meeting by his own son? >> you know, i don't know. i'll wait for the mueller report on that. i don't want to speculate. when you're the candidate, you're usually informed of those kind of things. >> senator, i appreciate your

time. we have some of the best minds in the business with us. gloria, the defendant, there's a lot of stuff that just seems normal. when i saw that retweet from the president, the president is defending an image that shows his own attorney -- his own deputy attorney general behind bars. >> you could say it was shocking. but it isn't shocking anymore. that's what's so shocking about it. he is accusing effectively his own deputy attorney general of freez treason. it seems to me he's accusing bob mueller of being joe mccarthy, and the rage that we're seeing now seems to be getting more and more frantic every single day. and i think it's because the 8

walls are kind of closing in on him and maybe manafort's attorney has been telling him things he's not happy to hear because he's been keeping him informed on what's been going on in the mueller negotiations, and giuliani has said they knew it wasn't going well. so i think this is a president that is under an awful lot of stress because he seems to be spending all of his time, all of his time, tweeting about -- >> it is a little ironic for the president to be talking about joe mccarthy in a negative way when the president's idol, roy cohen was the right hand man of mccarthy. he was like the snake behind the power. >> did you want to have common sense -- it's hard to inject here. it is ironic. it's hypocritical, and what's so shocking is the president has essentially tried to create his own list of people who he thinks are his political adversaries, his enemies including the press. people who are required by law and ethical obligations to

recuse themselves. jeff sessions. somebody entitled and required to appoint a special counsel, rod rosenstein. he's accusing them of doing the wrong thing when they're required to do that which they did. it's difficult because the president of the united states is the head of the executive branch. if you don't understand that people need to actually follow the law, everything that follows that will be hypocritical. will not have common sense and logic. you get hotter under the collar the closer you are to the flames. every statement he makes, everything entices mueller and the special counsel to say why is the lady protesting so much? >> do you think rosenstein belongs behind bars? are you immune at this point to the president's retweets or tweets? >> i guess yes. i think we all are. i mean, to the way the president interacts on twitter, i think

rod rosenstein has made a lot of bad decisions as deputy attorney general, and i don't believe there should be -- there should have been a probe. i think it should have been handled internally within the justice department. having said that, that is not an appropriate retweet on the part of the president, but, again, that's par for the course. >> jeff, from a legal standpoint, the fact the president says he's not ruling out a pardon by manafort, he was asked about this. does that -- could he be accused of sending a message to manafort? >> he sure could. and he sure could be -- it could be obstruction of justice. you started the program talking about nixon. this idea that the pardon power is absolute is not true. if someone walks into the oval office with a suitcase full of cash and says pardon somebody in return for the cash, that's not

protected. and to use the pardon power to interfere with a pending investigation which is the only interpretation possible of what the president was saying today, that is an obstruction of justice. now, remember, we are in the realm -- criminal prosecution is off the table. he's president. he can't be prosecuted. this is now a political matter of impeachment. nancy pelosi, jerry nad ler, the new chairman of the judiciary committee, they said they're not interested in pursuing impeachment as long as it's impossible in the senate, but is it, in fact, obstruction of justice? could the house of representatives conclude that this abuse of the pardon power is obstruction of justice? absolutely. >> do you think he was sending a message to manafort? >> i think he was. and to imploer gloria's point o tension, this odd agreement

between manafort and the trump lawyers is reckless. you don't do that when someone is cooperating. and the most intriguing aspect is that could convert the lawyers sminto witnesses. if trump's team is telling manafort, don't say this, say something else. that is obstruction. they could end up having to testify about that. it would essentially pierce the privilege aspect of it. >> they could also convert to defendants themselves. because although impeachment may be off the table if it's a full, hardy quest by the democrats and the house to try to guard the senate, it doesn't apply to somebody like a lawyer. maybe rudy giuliani. i don't know what he's done. the idea of someone who is not the president of the united states trying to impede an investigation, that could be something that you could go under. now, the jury is still out on that, but it's a possibility. >> let me get kiersten. one of the things i find fascinating with this president, he does for the lack of

transparency, he is also incredibly accidentally transparent. he does say stuff which is in his head which many presidents wouldn't say. >> right. yeah. i also think another thing that is different and maybe the lawyers can correct me if this isn't right. as a layperson it seems that pardons -- i don't think -- i think other presidents were more judicious, obviously, in considering who they gave pardons to, and followed more of a process, but i think because donald trump doesn't do that and he sent the message clearly from the beginning he wasn't going to do that, it opens up these kinds of situations where you have somebody angling for a pardon the way manafort is. in such an overt way. i don't think in the past you would have been able to do that. you wouldn't have been able to anticipate. >> jeff toobin, you've had plenty of sleazy people trying to get pardons from the president in the dead of night after their term is just about

up. >> that's right. bill clinton really shamed himself by pardoning mark rich, a fugitive. his brother. the end of the clinton administration was really a very bad low point. if i could go back to the lawyers for a second, i don't think there's anything necessarily improper about lawyers talking to each other when they're all being investigated. i think what's really bizarre about all this is that manafort's lawyers are telling all this stuff to the trump lawyers and everyone else even though they're supposedly cooperating with the mueller investigation. i think that just shows how much manafort has given up on the legal system and is putting all his bets on getting a pardon. because he's just -- that's his only hope. because he's now burnt all his bridges with mueller. >> we have to take a quick break. we'll talk more about this when we come back. also will the president eat

with vladimir putin in argentina later this week? and later what the united states does and does not about the murder of jamal khashoggi. allegations the trump administration is not saying all that it knows about what role saudi arabia's ruling crowned prince played in it. cnn is reporting the cia believes he ordered the killing. the administration is saying something else. and to come the cia's director's absence in the briefing speaks volumes. details on that. before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

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emmy, which, it was, but he talked about it. he's president, and he's still thinking about that. i don't take the stand on whether it was. i never watched it. >> he talked about it and why he's not going to win the nobel peace prize. >> that's right, and he's not going back to the apprentice because schwarzenegger ruined it. >> the cnn reporting that mr. trump told the special counsel in writing through his attorneys who obviously worked that need to know anything about wikileaks during the campaign, we don't know what robert mueller knows. a number of people who testified in front of mueller have said that they felt he already had the answers to things they were being called to ask about. >> right. which would make a lot of sense that he would. it's also not surprising that the president would say i had no knowledge of either of these things even though he seemed to be foreshadowing what he thought

was going to occur, particularly with wikileaks. we're going to do a big dump and we're going to have all this information on hillary clinton e-mails. he then didn't have it. so it's not surprising. i think that what we see there is the lawyerly -- excuse the expression -- wiggle room put into this. >> no offense taken. >> lawyerly is not a bad word. >> wiggle room is not the word, but they would say to the best of my recollection. trump has said he's got the best memory of anyone in the universe. now we put weasel words in there so that he could -- >> do you agree mueller knows the answers to those questions? >> he certainly knows who that block phone call was -- >> he does? >> yeah. that's easy to get that information. and i think that's generally true. i mean, at this time in the investigation they're going to know most the answers. that's why we're seeing so many

false statement problems come up. they already know those questions. they're testing the credibility of the people that are coming in, and most of those tests are being failed. >> senator santorum, you heard senator flake saying he wanted a vote to protect the special counsel. do you think it deserves a vote? >> no. it's never going to be law. i don't want the game. he's holding up judicial nominations which are important for a bill that is never going to become law. to get a vote on it? >> you say never become law because the president isn't going to sign it. >> and there isn't enough to override the president's veto. this is him thinking he's running for president in 2020. what he's doing is just really harming the ability for these judges who deserve to get on the court. we have shortages on the court, and he's blocking nominations for no good reason.

>> the flip side of that -- you know, we had mitch mcconnell saying the president isn't going to fire robert mueller. and this is a problem -- a solution in search of a problem. >> then pass the bill. >> that's the flip side. >> you can say if it's not going to be an issue, just pass the bill and sign it. i mean, what's the problem if he's not -- >> there's constitutional questions as to whether this is something that the senate can and should do. and then there's just the idea of raising the specter of saying we're going to vote for this because we're concerned the president is going to do this. i don't think most republicans and i talked to a lot of them, are concerned the president is going to do anything to stop the mueller investigation because they know that would be a cataclysmic disaster for the president to do. so this is just more hype and more drama than it is reality. >> he fired his attorney general.

>> he wanted to fire his attorney general two years ago. >> he put rod rosenstein behind bars on a tweet today. that's his own deputy attorney general. and he said he did it because he should never have picked a special counsel. >> i agree with him on that. >> why in the world would you ever see the president of the united states would do something like fire bob mueller? >> because it's not in his interest to do so. he knows that. >> every single thing that has deviced the mueller probe has been a self-inflicted wound by the president of the united states. number two, the notion that we have only relevant laws on the books is a joke. even in the home state of kentucky where mitch mcconnell lives they have a law that says you have to take an oath that you haven't been in a dual to be a public official. if you think about this is, this is a law that would protect somebody who is overseeing the american people. >> he's not going to sign the bill, so it's an irrelevant exercise. >> i think the notion of it

being an exercise in fuel titils a different issue. >> more on what seems like the president's agitated state of mind over the mueller investigation. we'll talk about it with ralph peters next. [ horn honking ] critics are raving,

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there's a lot swirling around in the mueller investigation including what we now know were two answers the president gave. the president denied being told about the 2016 meeting promising dirt on hillary clinton and

denied roger stone told him about wikileaks. now, all of this is bubbling up. the president is getting ready to head to the g-20 summit where he could be meeting with vladimir putin. joining me to talk about it all is ralph peters. thank you for being with us. let's talk about the putin thing. we still don't know what was discussed between vladimir putin and president trump behind closed doors in helsinki. >> and we will never know unless the russians tell us. it's a problem. i suspect that even trump's most loyal henchmen, and they are henchmen, are advising him not to embrace vladimir putin. but trump is a creature of impulse. it's hard to imagine him not going off into a corner with putin and that's always dang danger -- dangerous. also we don't know what trump and his people are telling the

russians. today in the russian papers, they're convinced there's a full blown meeting going to happen probably saturday or maybe friday between putin and trump. it's odd. i mean, even if we move the issue of whether putin has something over trump, which i continue to believe, trump is just drawn to him. there's this -- >> he's drawn to power, it seems like. any sort of person who exudes the power he pishs wishes he ha. >> that the the case for many. but there seems to be something special about putin that just draws the guy, and we should all be terribly concerned about this. because right now the media is so concerned with other things. we're blowing off the crisis. >> of course, between russia and ukraine. >> again, the russia papers, russian media, they're beating

war drums. that may mean nothing in the long run, but putin has been amassing troops. he wants ukraine back. he believes it belongs to russia. it's a mystical tie. and he also in a practical level wants a land bridge. he wants a land bridge between russia and crimea. there's that. there's a crisis with the ukrainian church, the orthodox church succeeding from the overlord -- >> which is a blow to putin. >> it's a huge blow, but it also further divides ukraine and russia. a lot of things that we're ignoring are building to a head. does that mean putin is going to get a green light from trump to invade tomorrow? no. not necessarily. but we need to pay attention. >> but to the idea of a green light, if you're a world leader and looking at how the u.s. is responding to things, you look at how president trump has

responded to the murder of this journalist, jamal khashoggi, and how continually no matter what the cia says, you have john bolton saying look, i didn't listen to the tape. i don't speak arabic. why would i listen to a tape of somebody being killed? >> that infuriated me. you don't want to listen to that tape? i don't speak arabic either, but i'll tell you if you listen to a tape of somebody being tortured to death, you can figure out a couple of things. the screams are universal. the gloating tone of the torture is universal. and these people are cowards for not listening to the tape. it astonishes me they would take such a position. the president's position on khashoggi has squandered much of the remaining credibility we have. i'm a real politic say. i want what's best for this country for security and internationally, but we've been presented with this false

dichotomy. the idea that the practical approach to strategy precludes human rights. in the age of hypermedia when we're bombarded with images of suffering around the world, why is rational support for human rights around the world a part of real policy? >> what the president often says is there's a lot of bad people. but you look back at ronald reagan who would talk about a particular soviet disdent. even if he wasn't able to make a difference for all of them, to highlight the plight of one person can make a difference and have a ripple effect. >> the fact that you can't do everything doesn't mean that you shouldn't do anything. and yes, picking moral examples. there is a place for ethics that forgotten word in washington. indeed, for morality in our policy. it doesn't mean compromising our security. it means a legal resident of the

united states, when they are murdered in a consulate on foreign soil, that you take a stand on that. and by the way, anderson, the 1970s are over. we do not need saudi arabia. saudi arabia desperately needs us, desperately. for all the armaments they've bought and will continue to buy, any u.s. military officer ever around the saudis in training and schools in the desert can tell you that they expect us to do it all for them. and we can't and we shouldn't. trump is shaming us. >> i appreciate you being with us. thank you. coming up, more on jamal khashoggi's murder. one nagging questioning after the meeting with senators. why wasn't the cia director there? we'll have that, plus hear from senator jack reed next.

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we spoke before the break about jamal khashoggi. today mike pompeo gave a closed door briefing on his murder. after ward defended the trump administration's response. he said there's no direct reporting connecting the crowned prince to the death. cnn has assessed the prince directed the murder which the president doesn't seem to want to believe. the trump administration did not send cia director to the briefing. here's what pompeo said when

asked why he wasn't there. >> i was asked to be here, and here i am. >> but senators were frustrated. normally in your -- you would be here briefing senators on an issue. why isn't the cia director herself here? >> i was asked to be here and i'm here. >> joining me now is senator jack reed. what's your understanding? the cia said the notion that anyone told her not to attend the briefing is false. >> well, i think senator durbin is probably more accurate than anything else. obviously we wanted her there, and it was not just one senator but a broad range, a bipartisan range wanted her opinion. many of my colleagues have not had the opportunity to hear directly from the agency about their conclusions. they want her to do that or ask questions. and the sense i have, senator

durbin's comment is indicative, is that she was told not to go. and by the white house. >> what did you make when you heard bolton say that he hadn't listened to the tape because he doesn't speak arabic. >> well, i think he'd have to listen to it. one is it's not just the words. those can be translated and understood. it is a sense of what took place. hearing how quickly mr. khashoggi was assaulted. was there any discussion? you don't really have to understand the language. you can understand screaming and hollering and ultimately what happened what's been described in the press as what happened to mr. khashoggi. >> senator lindsey graham switched his vote on the bill to end the american involvement in the process of war in yemen. i want to show it. >> i changed my mind. i'm pissed.

the. i said it's obvious to me that we're a co-equal branch. you made your assessments about what the intelligence shows. i'd like to make my own. the only way i can make that assessment is to be briefed. if it is credible that the crowned prince was complicit, then i will take action consistent with that. >> there does seem to be some pretty strong bipartisan support on this. is there enough that any potential presidentoverridden? >> we had 62 votes today. i think this whole issue of getting access to the cia report for all my colleagues is important. so we have a bipartisan basis of support. i think we work step by step. the first step is to take action in the senate. we hope we can get the sanders bill through. hopefully the house.

and we can move forward. >> you introduced legislation requiring a public report on the killing of khashoggi. why do you think that's so important? >> it's important because the khashoggi murder was a violation of the basic norms of international behavior, and even the suspicion that the crowned prince was involved or high level members of the saudi government was involved raises serious concerns about their conduct, their reliability, and our relationship with them. and there's been -- the president has gone out of his way to dismiss this. it can't be dismissed. it has to be evaluated. the only way is to get a redacted report out that doesn't talk about sources and methods about the intelligence agency. it comes to a con cluess. it will be different than the president's conclusion. the best approach would be an

international investigation by credible and neutral authorities so these questions can be asked. the president said we may never find out whether the crowned prince was involved or not. you'll never find out unless you ask probing questions and put evidence into a picture. >> senator jack reed, i appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> i want to check in with chris. >> we're going to go keep on two questions tonight. the legalities of what it means that the president says a pardon is a possibility for paul manafort. what does that mean legally? what are the parameters? are the abilities of a president to pardon absolute? you'll hear arguments on both sides of that tonight. we will also be talking about the political considerations of what will happen next in the mueller probe with this new information about what the president said in his answers. more importantly, what he did not say. then we have a moral argument tonight about what's going on at the border. there's a reason it's being called a humanitarian crisis

right now, and we have a special announcement on that to make as well. >> all right. chris. about 10 minutes from now. there are still thousands of central american migrants in the border city of tijuana. we are there. we'll talk about what they're seeing and they think there could be more violence. ♪

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at the border in tijuana tonight, thousands of central american migrants are taking shelter as they wait for a chance to seek asylum in the united states. their crowded conditions at the makeshift camp and even more migrants are expected to show up in the coming days. that's a drone shot of it. cnn crews have visited the site and found pretty bad conditions including open sewage drains. this is in the wake of last weekend's clash at the border where they said rocks were thrown at patrol officers and teargas was fired in return.

there is an estimate of how many undocumented immigrants in the united states. the pew research center says the number continues to shrink. the estimate shows 10.7 million undocumented immigrants in the country in 2016. the most recent year government numbers are available. that is at lowest estimate in a decade. before i spoke, jorge ramos who is in tijuana. jorge, the situation where you are now in tijuana, some have described it, the city's mayor has described it as a crisis. he's been asking for humanitarian help. can you tell me what you've been seeing, what you've been hearing? >> reporter: what i'm seeing now and what i'm hearing is we are right in the middle of a humanitarian and international crisis. of course there is a lot of blame to go around. we can blame the central american governments for extreme poverty, for rampant corruption, for the gangs, for the violence. we can blame the mexicans for allowing them to come here. we can blame the united states and the trump administration for creating a bottleneck.

let me give you an idea, anderson. we are here in this refugee camp. there are about 6000 people. among them, 1,000 children. and they want to go to the other side of that wall. that's the united states right over there. but they can't because every single day the trump administration is only processing about 100 asylum applications. and with that, it will take months for many of the people over here just to go to the united states legally. so many are trying illegal ways to get into the united states. >> what are the conditions in the camp like? i was talking to our reporter leyla santiago yesterday. it looked like there was a lot of water on the ground. people were complaining about access to food, even the toilet facilities. >> reporter: the conditions are terrible. what i see, i see a lot of trash around me. i've been talking to families all day long. many of the kids are sick. you can see people coughing. it is getting really cold at

night. there's no possibility for them to go anywhere else. >> are more people continuing to arrive to stay at that camp? >> reporter: yeah, they're coming every single day. they have hundreds more, sometimes thousands more. the number that i have in this camp last night, there were about 6000 people, but thousands more are coming. the new government told me they are considering between 9,000 central americans to 15,000 central americans. and after christmas, in january, february, more are coming. >> is there any sense from what you see or what you hear that frustrations could boil over to the point where there will be another clash with mexican officials, with u.s. border patrol? >> reporter: well, let me just say this. trump is the wall for them because they realize that they cannot go to the united states legally.

and they also understand that, that they might face teargas again. teargas is not a strategy, but they learn very fast, so they are not trying to go in mass again to the american side, but they are doing something completely different, probably more intelligent. i was talking to some of our correspondents right here at the border. if you go five miles that way or 25 miles that way, the wall that you see behind me disappears. and guess what? i mean, if they don't see a legal possibility of applying for political asylum, they're just going to go a few miles and then they're going to try to cross. that's exactly what's happening right now in theory o rio grand valley, record numbers are trying to cross. that is what's happening. if there is not a legal possibility for them to go to the united states, they're going to try to do it illegally. >> the people you have spoken with there with long waits to

claim asylum, if they're not going to go someplace else, are they planning to just stay where they are now and hope eventually to have their claim heard? >> reporter: yeah, i think if president trump wanted to send a message to central america, that people shouldn't come, that message really hasn't reached them. more people are coming. they are willing to stay here. i talked to many of them throughout the day and they are willing to wait as long as it is necessary because for them it's not a possibility to go back to their countries of origin. we're talking about thousands of dollars to go back to their countries of origin and they decided to come with the caravans because they didn't have to pay 4, 5, 6, 7, $8,000 to come to the united states. so once they are here, once they saw the possibility of coming collectively, therefore, without having to pay the coyotes and being more protected, they're not going to go back to their countries of origin. this is a real crisis, a humanitarian crisis, an international crisis.

it has to be resolved by many countries. and teargas is not a strategy. teargas was used. they understand it could be used again, but they're trying completely different ways of getting to the united states. >> jorge ramos, i appreciate your reporting. thank you. >> reporter: thank you, anderson. >> quick reminder don't miss full circle, our daily new interactive on facebook. get all the details. watch it week nights, 6:25 eastern facebook/anderson cooper full circle. i want to hand it over to chris cuomo. primetime starts right now. >> we now know the president's answers to some of mueller's most pressing questions. but the real story is how they were answered. and did the president really signal to paul manafort that he may get a pardon? if so, what does that signal to bob mueller? there is plenty to test, my friends. let's get after it.