deal involve iing her. >> lots of intrigue going on right now. brian todd, thank you. and thanks to our viewers for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. erin burnett starts right now. >> pardon me, the president's adviser roger stone showing there's nothing he won't say to get the president's attention. as mueller is about to drop what could be his biggest reports yet. plus concerns intensifying over an all-out trade war after the arrest of a top chinese tech executive and unprecedented move the white house trade edadvisers out front. and trump claims undocumented immigrants are taking american jobs. why were they reportedly working in his room at the country club? let's go "out front." good evening, i'm erin burnett. anything for a pardon. roger stone speaking out today

lay iing the flattery on thick. hoping that president trump is listening. >> i pray that he runs for reelection. i believe that he can be reelected if the next two years are anything like the last two years and i will be proud to stand with the president through thick and thin. thank you and god bless you. >> this after the president praised the guts and standing up for him in a tweet. robert mueller is investigating the efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. the special counsel has spoken to several associates, but hasn't spoken to stone himself. today stone was publicly defiant, even as he made it clear he knows the walls are closing in. >> mr. mueller and his strike force have examined every aspect of my life.

x my personal life, my family life, my social life, my business life, my political life, my sex life, fbi agents have been seen rummaging through my garbage, my cleaning lady was interviewed by the federal bureau of investigation. >> stone is admitting mueller is certainly looking at him closely. and he's well aware in 24 hours mueller will drop the two most consequential court filings so far. filings that could lift the lid on the mueller investigation. one a memo on what michael cohen told mueller in 70 hours of interviews and how helpful he was. whether he should be sentenced. and a memo about what paul manafort lied to mueller about even after agreeing to cooperate with him. and stone truly in the center of this now. he's a third part of a grid along with manafort and donald trump himself. manafort and stone ran a lobbying shop back in the day.

stone has been close to trump for 40 years and both trump stone and manafort were close advisers to trump during the election. this comes as we are learning who may be mueller's boss as the russia investigation come s s t close with these big. decisions. william barre is emerging at the top to replace the fired jeff sessions according to two people familiar with president trump's thinking tonight. and a look back at what barre has said in the past reveals he and the president seem to be quite close on a few crucial issues. barre seems to back up one of the president's favorite talking points about the special counsel, which is this. >> the problem with the mueller investigation is everybody has got massive conflicts. i call them the 13 angry democrats. >> echo barre who told "the washington post," prosecutors who make political contributions are identifying fairly strongly with a political party. i would have liked to see him

have more balance on this group. barre also commenting on former director jim comey's firing, which is central to the whole investigation and obstruction of justice considerations write in in an a op-ed in may of last year the headline "former attorney general trump made the right call on comey." evan perez is out front in washington. there's certainly some reasons why people may have um bridge with this possible nomination of barre. democrats could raise heck about some of those things, but we also know that barre and mueller go way back. >> that's right. when he was running the justice department in 1993, mueller was the head of the criminal division. he was mueller's boss back then and had a very good relations p relationship. people who know both of them i talked to today said they had a very good. respect for each other and over the years since bill barre has been in semi retirement, i think

these are people who would have run into each other here in washington. both of them are republicans. bill barre was a support er of president trump. so it's not a surprise that he would be making some of these comments unlike a lot of people in the establishment. people connected to bush 41. bill barre was a full-throated supporter of the president. the fact that the president is considering bill as a consensus candidate for the president to nominate as the attorney general, you mentioned we're waiting tomorrow for a big drop from bb mueller and his consideration investigation. in particular the memo that he's going to file tomorrow with regard to paul manafort, who you remember went to bob mueller at least nine times, dozens of hours spent behind closed doors providing interviews. and now according to mueller has lied. so we expect we're going to see

more about what exactly those lies are and we hope we might see a little bit more about what this investigation has turned up on to the central question of whether or not there was any illegal coordination between people connected to the trump campaign and the russians, who by the way, were the people that manafort was in business with for many years. >> thank you very much, evan. as we said, the wall is closing into something. the question is what. the former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district is joining us. harry, a lot to talk about here. stone i pray runs for reelection. and he did work for nixon. but after he spoke there, he spoke to our sam murray off camera to cnn and would not say if he would invoke the fifth if contacted by mueller.

that's a hypothetical. is it? >> at the end of the investigation into stone, which there does seem to be an investigation into stone, it is often the case, but not always that the prosecutor will go to the targets' lawyers and say would you like to make a presentation. would your client like to testify in the grand jury or meet in the session. so many prosecutors, and i wouldn't be surprised ffs the case here would give him that opportunity, but many defendants would at least decline to do it themselves. maybe they'd send their lawyer in to make a pitch to say don't charge my client and here's why. >> interesting though as stone is willing to be a sycophant to the president. i pray you run for reelection. i'm with you through thick and thin. >> that was for the president. stone is playing potentially the pardon card if had gets indict ed.

i think he would probably look for a pardon. i also agree with harry's point. it's clear he's under investigation. he's the target of a federal investigation. there's no reason why he would go in voluntarily. he's testified in the house intelligence committee. potentially could have jeopardy if he was not truthful. so that testimony now would be problematic. >> it was interesting to make the point. he is taking the fifth when it comes to a senate request from dianne feinstein, which came yesterday. but the president the other day tweeted quoting roger stone 37 i will. i will never testify. the statement was recently made by roger stone stating he will not be. forced by a rogue prosecutor to make up lies and stories about president trump. nice to know some still have guts and stone today continued.d not just to say he'd pray for reelection, he laid it on. he was very direct to the

president. >> i was proud to see a tweet from the president of the united states who louded me for my guts. >> these two are so close. it's so important to remember that for years before donald trump became president, he a closed circle around him of people who he trusted, who he got advice, both good, both. bad, the dark arts. >> for the school of politics and having someone there who will give you a lot of advice about how the ends justify the means. and michael cohen is and roger stone were two key figures in that. roger stone knows the words that the president wants to hear very much. he gave it to them. he was giving it to him again today. but again, this is such a major figure that trump does have to worry about. the reality is that roger stone knows and has a lot of secrets

around things like wikileaks, like julianeoule assange. mueller knows there's something there. >> which is important because you have to remember trump did take stock and faith in people generation and age and respect them in a way he didn't. some of the younger people knew more people. when we look at where we are, you've got stone saying these things today on the eve of a crucial day. you have the manafort, what did he lie to mueller about. and then michael cohen. we're going to find out. 70 hours. how useful. michael cohen could go to jail for a long period of time. so if minnesota fort says we really need to truncate that, that would be saying something. >> yeah, i mean i think that that if we see more than we saw a couple nights ago with the

redacted document, we could learn real details about the investigation. normally when a cooperator is sentenced, it's at the very end of their work and the case is mostly over. so the 5k letter is usual hi not heavily redacted because it's all known. we're in this unusual position where cohen or the manafort story is in the middle of the story. i wouldn't surprise me that we see something like we saw with flynn. >> we know there have been multiple avenues for mueller when it comes to obstruction of justice, but then we found out the other day saying multiple investigations. so you have cohen's essentially similar filing and perhaps with equal if not more redactions. >> i think i agree with harry completely. if manafort lied about things unrelated to the other investigations or about things that are not -- let's say he lied about his personal filings. anything related to any ongoing

investigation, we'll knnot see. i think we're all going to be curious about it. but i personally am prepared to read a lot of blacked out lines. >> but i think the context is is important. if it's blacked out, it matters to the investigation. if it isn't, it might be manafort specifically. so now william barre. how do we take william barre. a guy who said there's too many democrats on the mueller team. a guy who has questioned the president should be awe loied to start an investigation if he wants referencing hillary clinton. this is a guy who did the are right thing with comey. this is what trump wants to hear. but he's an establishme menment. >> he's an establishment guy who joe biden praised in the '90s. he's someone who got a lot of praise for running the justice department in a professional way. he's not someone who would seem like an obvious political lackey who would just protect the president as trump said

president obama had and eric holder as trump saw it. william barre doesn't seem to be that figure. so he's sort of maybe enough to kind of satisfy the president, satisfy the white house, which does want a permanent attorney general, but not the person who is going to give the president control over bob mueller. it does not look like that. it seems that's what the president was pushing at. >> he sees the headline. you have to read an op-ed to know what it says, but it's the newspaper that writes the headline. thank you all very much. and next, president trump said he was going to fix the trade deficit with china. >> we have a trade deficit with china of $500 billion a year. it's no good. but we're changing that. >> he's halfway through his term ask we found out that trade deficit is at a record high. what the heck is going on?

peter no vo ro is out front. plus why were they making his bed at his country club? and the north carolina race royaled by accusations of fraud, the democrat in that race a moment ago withdrawing his concession. the story getting bigger, the republican chief out front. our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. holiday inn express.

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business leaders arrested in canada. she's with one of china's marquee companies. it makes more cell phones than apple. revenues are set to toch boeing's. the view amongst some officials is she could be used as leverage with china in trade talks and the expectation is she will be extradited to the united states. out front now is peter navarro, assistant to the president for policy. this threw everything into disarray today. it shocked everybody. what is going on here? >> it's pretty simple. two issues are totally separate. the trade negotiations and this arrest. the justice department acts on ab independent track. the coincidence of the arrest happening in the same time frame was just that. and what we need to do on the negotiation side is just proceed from the dinner that we had in

argentina over the next 90 days to see if china can come to an accommodation with the bad behavior they engage in across a wide range of things. meanwhile, the justice department will do what it needs to do. >> but can i just ask you a question on this? if that's really what happened, the justice department did it, are you saying they didn't tell the president? they had no idea? >> yes, i was at the dinner with president xi and president trump. this was an amazing thing with two presidents there. i was also an active participate in several meetings we had with the president leading up to that dinner. we had discussions with the t m team. this issue never came up. the president was unaware of it going into that dinner, r as

were all members of the team. i think what's interesting to observe here, is the reason why we're having trouble with china is they do stuff like this all the time. they lie, cheat, steal, force technology transfer. so on any given day, there have been actions taken against china over the course of the money strags. >> but let me ask you. this company is important. it's got ties to the chinese government. they sell more smart phones than apple. the revenue is set to top boeing, which is the largest exporter from the united states of america. this woman is the daughter of the founder. it doesn't get more important than this. so if the president didn't know and he's in the middle of trade talks with the president of china and this it happens, he's got to be po'ed that no one told him? >> you'd have to ask the president. i think it's important. we're a democracy. we're not china. in a democracy we have the justice department that pursues

felonious behavior. >> but we have a president who regularly likes to tell the justice what it should and should not be doing. >> let's stay on point here. we're talking facts now. i'm giving you the facts. what i'm saying simply is that the justice department did what it had to do based on the evidence that was presented to them. meanwhile, we were in argentina at an extraordinary dinner. if you want to get into some of the details, i think your viewers might be quite interested in that. but i think we covered the ground. anymore you'd like to talk about? >> i'd like to ask about the details. i personally think the president if he did not know about this has to be really angry. because it doesn't add up. but i want to ask you about the specifics about the talk. he comes out of the dinner and sends some tweets that that's really what sent the market into chaos when they fell 800 points because he was tweeting specifics of a trade deal that would end tariffs. then there's no signed deal. one of those tweet, china has

agreed to remove tariffs on cars coming into china from the united states. currently it's 40%. has china agreed to do that or not? >> first of all, on the market issue, you and i go back years ago we were on another network talking markets all the time. and my read of this market is that we have a very strong economy. all caters are bullish. the market is trying to work through a number of things in the housing market trigger bid actions by the federal reserve and some other things there to assign this volatility to the trade issue is misplaced. now having said that -- >> i don't think there's any question what caused the 800-point drop the other day. >> there's a big question in people's mind about that. i don't buy into that. you know this as well as i do. when you get a downward move in the markets in these days, you have all these electronic

trading programs come in. they are not parse iing that th way you and i might parse that. but i think the more interesting question is is what happened at the dinner. >> is that agreed to or not? the president tweeted it. is that for real or no? that's a simple question. >> certainly, we didn't sign anything over the appetizer. here's what happened. again, your viewers will find this it very interesting. we came into that room as a team prepared to listen to the chinese very carefully and prepare to leave that room and have the tariffs go up on january 1st or not. and what happened was something that's never happened in modern history. the president of china sat there for about 45 minutes with translation and basically tried to sell the american president on this deal. that's extraordinary. you usually don't have the head

of state at the dinner. it was extra oordinary because kept laying one thing after another on the table. there's the list of 142 items that china collected based on the original complaint that we made when we went over to beijing with the team. my point is that based on what appeared to be sincerity on the part of president xi and the warm chemistry between the two presidents, at the end of that, there was understanding that the chinese would proceed in good faith over the next 90 days. there's structural issues and market access issues. then we would see where we're at. >> where we are at right now this morning, the numbers came out. the trade deficit between the united states and china is at a record high, which is the exact opposite of what the president said again and again and again

would happen under his administration. here he is. >> we have a tremendous deficit in trade with china. we have to do something. we can't continue to let that happen. our relationship is very good with china. we intend to keep it that way. but we have to do something to seriously relieve that trade deficit. we can't have a $500 billion a year trade deficit. we have a trade deficit with china of $500 billion a year. it's no good. but we're changing it. >> when is he changing it? i mean, he's been in office almost two years. his term is almost half over. he talks like that all the time. and yet it just hit a record. >> so let's say two things here. first, i share completely the president's concern for the trade deficit. it represents a trade of wealth, factory and jobs to foreign lands. the reason why china's deficit

continues to rise is precisely why it's going to be difficult to trust them when it comes time to sign any kind of deal. two things that have happened. for example, from the time that the investor announced there would be tariffs, we saw the chinese currency go down by 10%, which was clearly designed to offset the impact of the tariffs. at the same time in anticipation of the tariffs, the chinese upped their exports to the u.s. trying to stuff things into channels. so what i think will happen is with the tariffs in place, which are important and necessary to defend our technological crown jewels, we'll see that deficit begin to come down. one of the things that was addressed clearly at the dinner was china's currency misalignment, which historically has been egregious. so these things, we're trying to

affect structural change here with our trading partners. for example, with the new usmca, it's going to be a great deal, but it won't really take place, take effect for months more. so we won't feel the effects on the trade deficit until all these things come in. but nobody is coming to the table unless president trump is doing what he's doing, which is to be the toughest president on trade in history. >> maybe, i'm just pointing out the numbers show we're going the wrong direction. that's all i'm pointing out. >> i told you why i think that's so important that the president is committed to that. structurally, what we need to do is to really nail that. we're working hard on it. >> i'm sure you are. it's nice to talk to you. peter, i appreciate your time. >> take care. >> thank you. illegal immigration takes american lives, american jobs.

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my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. new yo"new york times" repo undocumented immigrants are working illegally at president trump's golf course. two women telling the times they used phoney papers to get. jobs as housekeepers are ta saying many workers do the same. one of the women even told the times that quote an employee of the golf course drives her and a group of others to work every day because it's known they cannot legally obtain driver's licenses. amanda miller tells cnn, quote, we have tens of thousands of employees across our properties in a very strict hiring practices. if they submitted false documentation in an attempt to

kir circumvent the law they would be terminated illegally. >> this is typical trump inconsistency. we see this in the pattern and the past. we know he was having the trump shirts made in bangladesh. we know trump ties were made in china. suits were made in mexico. trump was hiring workers who were foreigners. the trump's wineries were hiring seasonal workers who were foreigners in virginia. so trump does a lot of talk about immigration and how horrible it is to have foreigners taking our jobs. but he's one of the chief culprits that's guilty of the practice. >> you're talking about legal immigration. >> this is ul legal. let's be clear. >> let's also be clear as "the new york times" said in their story, there's no indication

that the president knew about this or that management of trump organization knew. >> can i make one point on that? i know people that work in these industries and have to hire people. it's common for people to submit false paperwork and everybody knows they do it. because you can't get enough workers. they have fake numbers. the sometimes says they ran security numbers. none got a match. it's an vags that it's invalid. it doesn't respond to the format used. any basic smell test, it would appear this is quite common. so when they say we have strict hiring practices, i call bs on that. >> i don't doubt some low level manager chose to not look with a skeptical eye. she wouldn't have been hired by the the president. >> here's the thing. what this case proves, i'll be

the first to admit it's mildly embarrassing for the president. someone that rails against illegal immigration and he has one working in close proximity to him. >> literally cleaning his personal room. >> here's the thing. you know what proves the fact she was able to work there and she used kou ed counterfeit doc to get that job. it shows how pervasive this problem is. >> trump is a hypocrite. >> it's not fair. he did not hire her. >> if his company was serious about not hiring illegal immigrants, they could have run a basic due diligence test to prove this wasn't true. trump brag. ed he did e-verify. clearly, he didn't do that. he was not telling the truth. >> he was talking specifically about the new trump hotel, which was his newest project and he said emphatically no one illegal

w ly was hired. this one was hired before he got into politics. >> tell me whether you think this is relevant. "the new york times" reports she doesn't speak english. she's a maid and does not speak english. trump asked her her name, where she was from with her basic english and said she's from guatemala. >> his response they work incredibly hard. >> he was generous. no one is saying that. but look, he's got a lot going on. it would appear hard for him to not realize at that point. i'm on this platform. make sure everything is clear over here. >> if he were to say are you illegal, you would attack him for being biassed against foreign people. >> i wouldn't suggest he would say that to her. he would make sure that his hotel was not doing that. >> trump wants the police officers to be asking immigrants

people who look differently. >> he wants them to cooperate with federal law enforcement to get dangerous illegal aliens out of our country. >> talking about the trump hotel e-verify thing. when trump built his own trump tower in 1980 he hired polish undocumented workers to build that tower. he stiffed them. he didn't pay them for that. it's true. it's documented. and this is a history. it goes way back. it's not something he started doing recently. he's been doing this for decades and doesn't care about immigration against as a wedge to use against his opponents. >> that's total ly untrue. >> the history suggests otherwise. >> there was an article today. there's 8 million illegal wo workers in the united states. i think there's more. think of how much higher wages would be for american citizens, particularly working class people who do these menial jobs. if we didn't have 8 million ul legal workers competing, donald

trump identified the unfairness. both parties were complicit in tolerating if not encouraging illegal immigration. >> you're say iing the presiden is willing to hire people to do jobs and stiff them out of jobs? >> i'm saying he identified this problem, ran on it in 2016. >> he's the exploiter of the problem. >> your premise is that he interviewed her, knew she was ill local and hired herny way. >> do you think he doesn't know people in the broader restaurant business, this is how it's done. >> under the table. >> the fake numbers, everything. everybody knows it. >> the service industry is unfortunately -- >> to not be aware of that. >> of course, he's aware they are largely operated that way. but he's aware it needs to change. that it's incredibly unfair. >> wouldn't he want to set an example at home? >> he did.

because once he got into politics, he didn't know she was illegal. i guarantee she's gone now. >> that's the whole thing. she's getting kicked out. >> by the way, she should. she should be. she's not a legal worker. she used counterfeit documents to obtain the job. the president is the victim in this case. >> she's a courageous to come ifrd and speak about this issue. >> there's nothing courageous about breaking into our country and taking a job of the american citizens. >> knowing she will probably lose her job takes courage. >> we hit pause for now. thank you both. good to see you. next, cnn uncovering new evidence of questionable ballots in north carolina. allegedly to help the republican candidate ahead of the north carolina republican party. plus acting epa administrator today rolling back rules on the poll industry. this is the same andrew wheeler

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breaking news, north carolina's ninth congressional district race rocked by allegations of voter fraud now an even more turmoil this evening. the democrat says he's withdrawing his concession after growing evidence of fraud, which allegedly benefitted the republican mark harris.

>> i didn't serve overseas in the marine corps to come back home and watch politicians and career criminals attack our democracy. i call on mark harris to tell us exactly what he knew and when he knew it. >> harris currently leads by 905 votes. drew griffin has been covering the story, investigating all week in north carolina. drew has new information tonight about suspicious ballots uncovered in yet another location. >> reporter: another county in that ninth congressional these absentee ballot mail-in envelopes found that just four people had signed dozens of those ballots raising the questionable validity of those ballots. i want to show what i'm talking about. you're supposed to have two witness signatures on the outside. these are supposed to be your relatives or friends saying, yes, the person voting is a real

person. this one person lisa britt signed 28 ballots. she signed another 42 of those ballots in another county. she's associated with this ring of workers who are working for mccray dallas, paid by the republican candidate to get out the absentee vote. he's now the subject of a criminal investigation looking at, number one, did he stuff the ballot box with ab ssentees for the republican. and two, did he suppress the vote of democrat absentee ballots by tossing them out. both under investigation. also under investigation by the board of elections here. and as you just pointed out, more and more almost hourly now the credibility of this ninth district congressional race erodes. >> thank you very much, drew driven, who has been on the ground reporting on this.

i want to go to the executive director of the republican party in north carolina. dallas, i appreciate your time. trying to understand as much of this as we can. you heard dan mccreedy taking back his con zegs. do you support a new election in this race? >> we're not quite there yet. it is our position that the board of elections has to come out and lay out everything they know. the question of certification of the race is separate of the, criminal federal and state investigations, which have to continue. we have to put people in jail who violated the law. the question of certification needs to be a numerical one. is the illegal behavior enough to call into question the outcome of the the race. if that is the case, the law requires a new election and we will not oppose it. if the state board of elections can definitely say that the bad

behavior, the criminal behavior that should be prosecuted did not rise to a level of putting the outcome of the race in doubt, then mr. harris needs to be certified. i think the more likely outcome is the board of elections is not going to have had sufficient time to answer those questions and since the democrats and the u.s. house said they don't plan to seat mr. harris, it seems like the investigation has to continue to these questions or answered for the people of the ninth district in north carolina. >> the bottom line is is you're waiting for the number of questionable ballots to exceed the margin of victory for har s harris. if i'm summarizing, you're not going to lead on calling for a new election. you're going to wait for the board of elections. >> no, and i have talked with drew and this has been a systemic failure in the state of north carolina for a decade or more between three different governors of both parties. federal and state prosecutors have known about this for years. they haven't been able to get a handle on it.

the truth is only the significant media sunlight, which has been a helpful thing to the people of north carolina, they are the ones that are going to help get this fix for the future. but as good as those media reports have been, we don't call for new elections based on media reports, even as credible as they may be. we have to let the nonpartisan election investigators come in public and lay out the facts. remember, it's also important that should a new election need to be called that the people on the other side that voted legitimately and believe in their candidate are brought in on board realizing that this would be necessary. so it takes a full public airing of the facts. >> i understand. let's talk about some of those starting with "the washington post." they are reporting and beg to differ with this if you want to, but they are saying you were told about suspeced voter fraud in may after the gop primary. so gop primary happens and they come to you.

aids to congressman robert pith pithenjer telling you, hey, we suspect voter fraud. he lost to mark harris. they said to you they were suspicious. do you think you dropped the ball, dallas? >> i don't. we vaguely recall some of that. it's psimportant to remember we can't interfere in primaries. if we understood the magnitude of all this, but frankly, we get a lot of calls from candidates after think lose a primary wanting us to referee disputes and we try to avoid that. even if we should have done something, let me say this. all we could have done is call the state and federal investigators and the board of elections, which already knew. they already knew and knew for years and they weren't able to stop it. so nothing we could have done would have stopped us being where we are. as bad as it is, i have to tell you, i saw his reporting last

night at 10:30. i went into the bathroom and started throwing up. the talk about manipulation of ballots of certain demographic categories is abhorrent to everybody in the republican party. i can't think of anything worse. and it's just horrendous. >> look, when we look at the absentee ballots cast, which in the primary they say they specifically raised this issue. 22% in one county. the next closest county in terms of percentage of total votes was only 2%. when you look at a hockey stick, you have a hockey stick right there. this overall issue is something that you have spoken about very passionately. i want our viewers to hear. >> should the election board find that these are absentee ballot mills, with the purpose of fraudulent voting, those people should go to jail. they should go to jail. they should spend the first

tempt of the trump administration behind bars. >> you were talking specifically about absentee ballot mills, as you call them. people should go to jail. >> let me be clear. that's still my position. the people involved in this that executed it and knew about illegal hafr, they should be spending their time in prison through the second term of the pence administration. that's not changed autoal. that's why i'm here to talk about how bad this is. i'm just trying to say -- one thing is we do not necessarily examine the vote totals very closely of our winning candidates. we win and we move on to the general election. i did notice that it came out favorable for mr. harris, but we didn't look at the absentee ballot. we asked around a little bit and what we were told is something that i think is true, but incomplete is that mr. harris had a number of churches that

know him from his preaching and evangelical positions and they were supporting him. that was enough telling the same investigators that already knew. they already knew! >> i appreciate your time. thank you very much for coming on and answering the questions. >> and i want to shut out to cnn. y'all have done a fabulous job and it's been helpful to the people of north carolina. >> thank you very much. thanks again, dallas. and next, the trump administration ignoring scientific evidence, helping out the coal industry in a very specific way, and the guy in charge used to be the lobbyist for the coal industry. new york city's latest celebrity. th that's coming up. ♪

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and a complimentary first month's payment. ♪ you think you've seen everything? ♪ let's talk about that when you get here. ♪ the united states virgin islands. new tonight, the trump administration helping out the coal industry. the acting epa chief andrew wheeler today announcing he's

rolling back rules for new coal plants. this is the same andrew wheeler that was a lobbyist for the coal industry. renee marsh is out front. >> we're putting them back into business. we're going to have clean coal. clean coal. >> reporter: keeping his campaign promise, the trump administration is trying to make it easier to build new coal power plants. >> we're rescinding unfair burdens on the energy providers so that new energy technologies can be part of america's future. >> reporter: acting epa administrator andrew wheeler was a coal lobbyist. his firm represented clients, including murray energy, which bills itself as the largest coal mining company in america. from 2009 until last year, murray energy paid his old firm nearly $3 million. wheeler was cheered on by members and supporters of the coal industry thursday, as he announced a proposal that will benefit his old industry. >> it's snowball.

>> reporter: wheeler is also a former top aide to climate change denier senator james inho inhofe. wheeler's new proposal would roll back an obama era rule that required most newly built coal plants to drastically reduce their emissions. the agency's new proposal flies in the face of a recent trump administration report that urges swift action in curbing greenhouse gases to avoid catastrophic flooding, drought, economic recession, and extreme heat due to climate change. is this the sort of situation where you are ignoring this government report because it clearly said that we urgently need to curb emissions? this proposal seems to do the opposite. >> we're not ignoring the government report, we're still looking at the report itself. >> reporter: the report warns the economy would lose hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century. >> i don't believe it. right now we're at the cleanest we've ever been, and it's very important to me.

>> reporter: the trump administration wants to roll back yet another environmental law, just as another new report warns that global fossil fuel emissions are about to hit an all-time high. that matters, because it's the emissions that scientists say that triggers the catastrophic effects of climate change. and today's announcement is happening as the world is meeting to talk about how they can curb their carbon emissions. >> thank you very much. jet stream, jenext, jeanne hunt for the most famous duck in the world. ♪ 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. ♪

unstopand it's strengthenedting place, the by xfi pods,gateway. which plug in to extend the wifi even farther, past anything that stands in its way. ...well almost anything. leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. tonight, why is new york, social media, and cnn's michael bass so obsessed with a particular duck? here's jeanne moos on a rare bird. >> reporter: he's the duck that all other ducks revolve around. a flaming star, the manld run

duck of central park, since he parked himself here about two months ago, his celebrity has taken flight. >> it's beautiful. >> reporter: out of up toers flock to see him. >> paid $50 to park. >> it looks fake, honestly. like am i being punked >> reporter: regulars have given him names. >> i call him mandy. >> reporter: others have called him mandarin paninken. he's also the most eligible duck in new york. >> he belonged to somebody. >> reporter: the coined theory is mandy escaped from someone's collection of exotic birds or someone dumped him here. his photo has made it all the way back to china. he's on t-shirts and even inspired imitators like mandarin dog. >> it's the talk of the town. >> it's almost like a picasso

painting. >> reporter: mandy the duck, photograph efficient ers are al to train their cameras on him. urban rangers to keep an eye on him. over the weeks, his reputation has take an hit. >> enchanting b mandarin buck turned out to be a mallard nipping jerk. >> reporter: we did see him attacking ducks. >> he's attacking them, that's not fair. >> reporter: a case of mistaken identity, or perhaps he's defending himself from underwater sneak attacks. he's the kim kardashian of ducks. we tried to lure him. mandy. with his namesake song. ♪ but it drove him back into the pond. i guess he wanted to duck barry

man row. ♪ and i need you today >> reporter: jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> i didn't know ducks could be so nasty to each other. thank you for joining us. anderson starts now. we have breaking news on the eve of what is already a big day in the mueller investigation. new reporting tonight on the investigation we didn't know much about, an investigation launched in the days after fbi director james comey was fired, but before robert mueller was named as special counsel. we're getting new details on the frantic few days that led to that and mueller's appointment. pamela brown joins us now. explain what is this other investigation? >> reporter: anderson, we have learned that in the days after president trump fired fbi director james comey, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and top fbi officials