fuzzy. >> reporter: but when i made a warm and fuzzy gesture -- >> here's the finger i'll give you. >> reporter: at least you can't say he never lifts a finger. jeanne moos, cnn, work. >> thank you so much for joining us. anderson starts now. good evening, thanks for joining us. we begin tonight with breaking news. another plea deal and this time it's a russian, maria butina is now cooperating with federal prosecutors after agreeing to a plea deal according to a source familiar with the matter. this is separate from the robert mueller investigation, but the news comes on a day when there are new and looming questions hanging over the presidency after friday night's court filings from mueller and the southern district of new york. from court filings, public statements, and reporting from cnn and other news outlets, we now know that at least 16 associates of candidate trump had contacts with russians

during the campaign. for more on how to new plea deal from maria butina in what is becoming an intricate puzzle, we go to sara murray in washington. what do we know about this plea deal. >> first of all, it's not final. they had the outlet of a plea deal, but nothing is done until they show up in court wednesday and the judge accepts it. but the cooperation is very interesting. maria butina is someone prosecutors say was working here in the united states, she was infiltrating gop political circles, ingratiating herself with the national rifle association and doing all of that to advance russians interests. they're going to be interested in her contacts with her handlers, one of those the alexander torsion who was a banker in moscow. he stepped down from that position. they're going to want to know more about that. they also want to know about her relationship with another american. this is a man named paul ericson, a man she said was her

boyfriend. and they want to know his role in her plot here in washington as well as whether he may have committed fraud in south dakota. he's under investigation there too, anderson. >> this is the same woman who asked a question of then-candidate trump during the campaign, which i want to play for our viewers. >> i'm visiting from russia, so my question -- >> good friend of obama, putin. he likes obama a lot. go ahead. >> if you would be elected as president, what will be your foreign politics, especially in the relationships with my country, and do you want to continue the politics of sanctions that are damaging both economies, or do you have any other ideas? >> okay. . obama gets along with nobody. the whole world hates us. i know putin, and we get along with putin. i believe i would get along nicely with putin, okay? >> he didn't know putin. he never met putin.

anyway, do we know the significance of that question and how candidate trump just happened to pick her of all the people out of the crowd? >> we don't have any indication it was anything owner coincidence that he called on this woman who is now being accused of being a russian spy. it was so early in the presidential campaign for then-candidate trump to be weighing in on issues with russia and it gives us an early look into how donald trump wanted to have a friendlier relationship with putin, a friendlier relationship with moscow and obviously we've seen that narrative last for years now, anderson. >> i know putin. sarah murphy, thanks very much. if you can judge by two tweets today, a duo filled with misdirection and inaccuracies, and i'm quoting here, democrats can't find a smocking gun tying the trump campaign with russia after james comey's testimony. no smocking gun, no collusion at

fox news because there was no collusion. now the dechms go a simple transaction. even if it was, it's only a civil case like obama's, but it was done correctly by a lawyer, and there would not even be a fine. lawyer's liability if he made a mistake, not me. witch-hunt. it's not the dems, it's the southern district of new york. it's not a simple private transaction as president trump said right there, it's multiple alleged felony hush payments. one to a former playboy play mate. once again, we don't know about collusion, but some may be tempted to say where there's smock, there's fire. it's an old saying. joining us is chief white house correspondent jim acosta. what are you learning about where the president's head is right now about the smocking payments? >> it's pretty smocky over here

at the white house tonight. i did talk to a source close to the president who said earlier this evening that the president has expressed concern that he could be impeached over some of these issues that you just talked about. he has said it's a, quote, real possibility according to the source. but at this point he doesn't see it as being certain. you saw in that tweet where he refers to these payments as being a transaction. that obviously is simplifying things a great deal because michael cohen has said he believes and he has said that he was directed to make those payments by the president. now, where things go from here, i talked to other sources close to the white house, one source says they do believe there are advisers inside the white house that the one item that could stick with this president are these alleged campaign finance violations. these campaign financial crimes that have been alleged in the michael cohen case. but at this point they don't

believe inside the white house that it's going to be enough to get a conviction in the senate and a removal from office vote in the senate. might be enough in a democratic house, but they don't think it will trigger the bipartisan support for impeachment in the house that could trigger very serious action over in the senate for the president, anderson >> also continuing to say no collusion whatsoever. >> that's right. just a very important caveat in all of this, when we talk to sources over here who say the president is concerned about impeachment, they are basing all these comments on what they think they know right now. so some of this is wishful thinking. so when the president goes out and repeats these talking points, no collusion and so on, that is based on essentially redacted documents coming from the special counsel's office, some of which we saw friday night. so at this point i think a lot of this goes back to what donald rumsfeld back during the bush

administration, there are no knowns and no unknowns, and at this point people inside the white house recognize they just don't know what robert mueller is going to the and they can base what they think going to happen at this point on what they understand to be the case. but obviously robert mueller is not really finished with his investigation at this point. but it is important to know i did talk to a source who expressed to advisers that he does think impeachment is a real possibility. he just doesn't know if it's certain at this point. >> is that a protester drum somewhere in the distance i'm hearing? >> it is. there is music being played out on pennsylvania avenue. don't see any smock or smoke as some might call it over here. >> i just want to make sure the drum isn't being played in the white house. jim acosta, thank you so much. the question is what democrats in congress do with these allegations.

>> they would be impeachable offenses whether they are important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question, but certainly they would be impeachable offices because even though they were committed before the president became president, they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office. that would an impeachable offense. >> with me is democratic congressman ted deutsche of florida. congressman, thanks for being with us. are these in your opinion impeachable offices, and if so, are they enough to justify an impeachment? >> thanks for having me, anderson. look, here's what we've learned over the past few days. we have learned that there is now evidence that te president of the united states engaged in a felony to obtain the office of

president, that there's further -- that's in the payments to these women, accusers. then there's further evidence now of the use of his corporations to pay them off, thus the coverup. when you look at those two things, you realize why the president is facing such pressure now and why the president is at risk of both political jeopardy and in criminal jeopardy. these are felonies that we're talking about. as it relates to impeachment, anderson, the constitution couldn't be any clearer. impeachment is the appropriate remedy for treason, high crimes, and misdemeanors. we have to look at what robert mueller delivers to us, the american people will review it, but there's every reason for the president to be very concerned about what continues to come out of this investigation as it relates to him, his legal

jeopardy, and the potential for things to get worse for him. >> what is the difference between an impeachable offense and one that justifies an impeachment? are there crimes a president can commit that should be overlooked? >> no, of course not. no one is above the law, and i think that point is particularly important when you look at those tweets that the president put out today. those simple private transactions that he referred to, the criminal code is full of simple private transactions, and if you're guilty of one of them, in this case, a felony that may have been committed in order for him to become president, then he has to be held accountable. the whole process of impeachment is a political decision, which is why we have to wait, i believe, until the mueller report comes out. so we know from a fraction of what we've seen how this is, but we have not yet seen the

totality which there's every reason to believe when you look at the potential obstruction of justice we've already seen, the dangling of pardon for manafort, the potential obstruction by firing comey, there's so much more that we have yet to see that i think is going to provide the blueprint for what congress does next. >> i want to play something that congressman adam schiff said over the weekend for our viewers. >> sure. >> my takeaway is there's a real prospect that on the day donald trump leaves office, the justice department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real proximate cause of jail time. >> does it behoove democrats at all at this point to be talking about possible prison time once they leave office? >> i don't think it's unreasonable to make clear what the president himself has said, what democrats and republicans alike say over and over and to

make sure it has meaning, that no one is above the law. if he committed felonies in order to win the white house, further, if he committed felonies to cover up those crimes in order to win the white house, then those felonies, if it turns out that that's what happened, of course the president has to be held accountable. that's what adam schiff was saying. certainly it's consistent with what everyone believes about the way this country should work. no one is above the law. >> a lot of house democrats have been talking about their committees investigating various aspects. where is the line between holding a president accountable and going on to use one of the president's favorite phrases, a witch-hunt that might backfire on democrats? >> well, congress has a responsibility to provide oversight, anderson. that's our job. unfortunately for the past two years the republican leadership

on the judiciary committee has instead seen its job as -- there's been a refusal to actually provide the necessary oversight that the constitution requires us to provide. so it's not -- we shouldn't be guided by how the president characterizes anything in tweets. we ought to be guided by the facts, by the indictments, by the lies that we've seen by this president about his connections to russia. that's what has to guide us, not what the president chooses to tweet out in a moment of real concern about himself and his future. >> congressman ted deutsche, appreciate your time, thank you. a lot more to talk about. jeff, i want to start with the breaking news tonight that the person being accused of being a russia spy, maria butina is cooperating with federal

prosecutors. at least there's a deal on the table. how significant is that? >> well, it depends what she knows and who she had contact with. obviously it is significant, yet another person in the trump orbit, in particular, someone who was closely associated with the national rifle association, she is pleading guilty to a serious crime. it's not espionage, but it's failing to register as a foreign agent. and she was in touch with all sorts of people, including asking that very significant question at that press conference in 2015 of the president. did she have contact with the trump campaign? who paid her? all of that presumably now, federal prosecutors will learn because she has agreed to cooperate >> jeff, turning to the president's tweets about his payments, he calls them simple private transactions. are those the words you would use?

>> i would not use that. remember the timing of these private transactions. they were within weeks of election day. i think we all can imagine how politically explosive it would have been if either or both of these women had come forward. so this was campaign money. this was money going to elect donald trump. that's why michael cohen had to plead guilty to a crime because they didn't treat it in the way campaign contributions are supposed to be treated. whether he will have to go to prison because of this, it's a bit premature. but to say they are simple contracts between two people is far, far from the truth. >> steve, do you believe these were simple private transactions? >> i agree with jeffrey. i have to push back on that

point because we don't know, it's a hypothetical. let's play a decade before she had an affair with then-candidate trump. do you really believe that would have swayed the election. none of us on team trump or the 63 million who voted for him thought they were voting for francis of asysy. >> when i didn't they make it public? >> because it was not a campaign contribution. and the "law is clear on this. if the expenditure can be reasonably be made, there's a lot of reasons why you would want these women to keep their stories private even if they're not telling the truth you might want them to keep these stories confidential. there are many, many reasons outside of politics why you would do that. and the fec is clear that means it's not a campaign contribution. >> as you point out, that was an

affair several years earlier, so it was an incredible coincidence that the money happened to change hands just on the eve of the election? >> no. listen, that's a good point, but that part is not coincidental because the reason there was an impetus for them to come forward was the fact that donald trump was achieving fame even though he was already a famous person. he was achieving fame like he had never seen once he became the republican nominee. so that encouraged them to come out, but that doesn't mean there weren't several reasons why, personal life, business life, politics, you would want this to stay confidential and that doesn't make it a campaign contribution. it's legal and allowed. >> carrie, how do you see this? >> i think, anderson, that the campaign finance part of it and the payments to the women is somewhat of a distraction from the big issue of the cooperation with russian government and russian government surrogates.

if we take the big special counsel investigation, i understand that the southern district of new york has a responsibility to enforce the law, and they obviously believe that they have a reasonable likelihood of succeeding on the merits of a campaign finance case. and so i think it's possible that the president has potential criminal exposure for it perhaps when he leaves office at some point in the future. but from the documents that were filed on friday, i think the more important parts from the national security's perspective and from a future potential impeachment proceeding perspective, is the fact that michael cohen coordinated his statements, his lying statements to congress and to the special counsel's office with others, and paul manafort was apparently either in touch or trying to be in touch with the trump administration up until early 2018. and so what we're learning is that there were so many different contacts between the campaign and russian government officials and russian surrogates

and trump campaign officials in those now in the administration have been trying to cover it up. and so the question becomes why were they trying to hide the moscow project? why have they been lying to congress >> reporter: why did they coordinate their lying statements? from the perspective of a potential jeopardy for the presidency, i think it's all the obstruction of justice and potentially what's revealed about whether or not they actually coordinated with russian efforts to affect the election >> we haven't heard from robbie yet. we will also have more on the possibility of impeachment. also why the president is said to be, and i'm quoting here, super pissed. this is not directly related to the russia investigation or the hush money payments. details ahead. coaching means making tough choices.

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. the president of the united states cease it as a possibility he could be impeachment after democrats take control of the house. is source also saying the president isn't certain it will happen but he's expressed concern. back with the panel. at the same time we're hearing the president thinks there's a possibility he could be impeached, there's also reporting the white house is adopting a shrug shoulder strategy tot mueller findings. they believe most of the g gop-based voters will believe whoever the president tells them to believe. >> i want to pick up on a point carrie made just before the break that if we focus on all these details, we lose the bigger picture. the scope of what's going on here, both to the agree to which

the president was passable crimes but the agree to which the russians were infiltrating the republican groups, i think that's going to continue to expand. if we get bogged down in all the individual constituent pieces, we're going to lose sight that we had a major national security incident. these influences may still be embedded in our political fabric here in our country, and that should be really disturbing to anybody. so i think everybody needs to wake up, pull back, look at the big picture, and then obviously we need to wait and see what sort of details are in mueller's report and we need to track these other indictments and investigations that are going on through the u.s. attorney's office. >> to that point, steve, does it raise any concerns with you that by cnn's count now, 16 people in trump world had contacts with

russians either during the campaign or in transition? >> right. my answer is yes and no. do we need more light shined upon that, i believe we do. for instance, some of the was during the transition when it's critically normal to have conversations with foreign powers. we need to learn more, and i would say to those of us who support the president, we can't be complacent, clearly. but i would also caution those who can't stand the president, including a lot of people in congress who are ready to put him in a cell, i would caution them that we haven't seen anything even close to criminality. but look, i do think to your opening point, i think at this point impeachment is a given. i believe that before the election if the democrats took control, now they've taken control. i think it is happening. i think the white house and those of us who support the trump agenda, we need to prepare for the legal and communication strategy to take on impeachment

and to eventually, i think, turn it into a positive once we get to the senate. that is the reality. i'm not sure the white house gets that yet. >> that is absolutely absurd to say that impeachment is a certainty. i've spoken to a lot of the people involved here, the democrats know that in 1998 the republicans impeached bill clinton knowing full well he would never get removed from office. there were never going to be 67 votes in the senate, and the democrats have vowed not to repeat that mistake. they're not going to repeat that mistake. there is no support for going forward with impeachment among the leadership of the house democrats under current circumstances. so the idea that impeachment is a certainty is just absurd. it's just like trying to gin up the republican base. >> to build on what jeffrey is saying -- >> i don't disagree on logic, but that would assume they are basing the vote on the law. because it's a political proceeding and their entire

agenda, they don't have an agenda outside of resistance to this president. because they are defined by resistance, they will vote for impeachment. i agree with you ultimately it will backfire on them, but they're heading there. to me it's a certainty. >> if i can just level set here, the job of members of congress, what they are paid to do in part is oversight of the executive branch. the republicans for almost two years now have completely abdicated that responsibility. they have not done their job. they've cheated the taxpayers by not doing their job. democrats are committed to doing that oversight, which is badly needed. democrats are not going to go out on a limb and vote to impeach this president. it's too early to even talk about impeachment right now. we don't even have mueller's report. i think democrats need to be cautious about suggesting that. but once we have the facts, a determination will be made, and i promise you this, democrats will not give republcans the luxury of abdicating their

responsibility again. democrats will wait day in and day out, demand that republicans do what is their constitutional duty, join with democrats, and hold the administration accountable. >> carrie, for those who believe that a president can't be indicted, he's a participant in extraordinary serious crime of some sort, something more veers than campaign violations, they believe he still cannot be indicted, correct? >> the prevailing legal opinion from the justice department is that a sitting president cannot be indicted while he's sitting. so there could be a sealed indictment that would then come forward once he left office. but there also is an argument, i think, a new opinion could be written that would take into account the way this president conducts himself in office. in other words, a significant part of the original olc opinions that were issued by the justice department, which are historical and there was one written in the nixon years, another one that's authoritative that was written in the clinton years, talk about the fact that

it would affect the president in being able to to carry out his duties. this president spends a lot of his time actually doing things that are not presidential, tweeting, executive time, golfing, all those things. and i actually think there's an argument that that could play against the historical interpretation. in any event, i think there is a strong argument that politically, because impeachment is a political matter, the democrats in congress are not going to want to proceed on these payments to the women. what does matter is whether or not there was a coordinated obstruction effort, whether the president lied in his written answers to the special counsel, and whether or not it turns out that the trump campaign coordinated any of the efforts with the russian government which we already know through the indictments tried to affect the election. those are matters that republicans will have a very hard time turning away from. >> jeff, very quickly, you were on this program a couple months ago saying the kavanaugh appointment was basically the

beginning of the unraveling of roe v. wade. today kavanaugh sided with the liberal justices. do you still believe in light of how he sided today? >> i absolutely did. it wasn't even an opinion in the case. he didn't write an opinion. keep your eyes peeled for abortion cases. they don't want to engage. that's what really the message was today from the six justices in the majority. they don't want to engage on the subject of abortion yet. but donald trump is going to get what he wanted from neil gorsuch and kavanaugh. this is big! t-mobile is offering the awesome iphone xr, with an unlimited plan, for just $40 bucks a month. unlimited. with the new iphone xr?! yeah! iphone xr included. for $40 bucks?! that is big.

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breaking news in the search for a new white house chief of staff. multiple sources say president trump is frustrated with how it's going. one source even saying the president is super pissed and humiliated after he was turned down by the vice president's chief of staff, nick ayers. he's not the only one saying thanks but no thanks. several are saying they are not interested. the job itself brings its own challenges, but whoever replaces john kelly faces a tougher situation. joining me are obama white house veteran david alex rod and gloria borger. i know you have new reporting on how the president is dealing with this entire process. >> he's frustrated, he's not

happy. i was told he feels somewhat humiliated by the way this has played out publicly. this is a president who says the best people want to work for my administration, and you want to offer a high-level job that most people would jump at in any other administration. and he gets turned down and everybody knows about it and he doesn't have any plan b. and so he's not happy. >> david, it is hard to kind of, you know, reconcile a president who says he only hires the best and the brightest and the smartest, and they are back logs of people who want to work for his administration with the reality. >> yeah, i have one word for him, anderson, craigslist. i mean, nobody wants this job. there's a reason for that. who has left this administration save maybe nikki haley who has left this administration with their reputation intact? people watch what's going on and, more than that, they

anticipate what the next couple of years are going to be like. if they're smart, they understand that there may be a suggestion they can control what happens in that white house, but there's only one person who controls what happens in that white house, and he is an unmanageable client, and that's the president of the united states. so for all those reasons, people are changing their numbers, going on a long vacation, doing anything they can to avoid his call right now >> glory, to david's point, both the combination of a horrible working environment just in terms of how the place is set up, unlike any other white house, certainly, that in modern times, and the polish for long-term career damage. >> right. i'm told that was part of nick ayers' calculation. you're kind of stepping into the unknown here because you don't know what's going to unfold with the mueller investigation. do you want to be on top of that?

do you want to suddenly -- >> or buried under it. >> do you want to do that? i sort of doubt it, ayers wanted to be there for a short period of time and the president want someone like ayers who has political sensibilities because the president actually understands what he's heading into for the next two years with the democratically controlled house, and with the mueller investigation. and he always criticized kelly for not having political sensibility. but i think ayers had enough political sensibility to say no way i'm stepping in this mess >> are there indications the president wants someone who is good as running the west wing, dealing with congress, doing everything the job traditionally entails, or do you think helmets someone spoiling for a political fight, potentially an impeachment fight, or someone who's just going to kowtow to his every wish? >> i think it's a combination of those things. but there was a tell he wants

ayers in that job because he's using the next two years as a long fight for re-election through difficult circumstances, and he wants someone who has the political sophistication. i think he misses the other piece of this, which is that the incoming from congress is going to be very, very intense. as you guys have mentioned, mueller seems to be breathing down his neck. and that is a huge, huge managerial problem for whomever takes that job. but i maintain the biggest problem is still the fact that you may be able to manage down to some degree, although you plainly can't manage the president's daughter and her husband who are key players there. but what you absolutely can't do is manage up, because donald trump is going to tweet, he is going to speak, he is going to

do all those things that he thinks got him here. and in this situation and environment, that's a very perilous thing, so you're left helpless, but with a big title. >> donald trump wants to be his own chief of staff, he wants to be his own lawyer too. do you think his lawyers like that he's tweeting about mueller? of course not. he will continue doing what he wants to do and there's no way to control him. so he's his own chief of staff. he just needs somebody to run the ship maybe >> gloria borger and david axelrod, thank you. up next, more about our latest reporting on the number of associates of president trump who had contact with russians during the campaign or tuition with "360" continues.

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at the top of the hour, accused russian spy maria butina is cooperating with federal prosecutors after agreeing to a plea deal according to sources particular familiar with the matter. it comes after new filings in the russia probe and from the southern district of new york on friday. as we mentioned earlier by cnn's

count, we know of at least 16 associates of candidate trump who had contact with russians during the campaign or the transition. this comes from public statements from court filings and reporting from cnn and other news outlets. as we touched on already, all of this as the president's associates denied any contacts with russians during the campaign or the transition. joining me for their take is tom hamburger of "the washington post" and steve hall, a retired cia chief of operations and a cnn national securities analyst. >> another russian who had been trying to influence the political system according to authorities. who she was influencing and how she was doing it that, we really still don't know, is that correct? >> it's certainly not clear. we do know she's changing her plea. what exactly she's pleading to and who she influenced plae precisely, we don't know. she met some of the presidential

candidates during the campaign. >> steve, it's certainly not every day that an alleged russian spy agrees to a plea deal and starts cooperating with federal prosecutors. >> yeah, anderson. i've heard a couple commentators talk recently about eight years ago the group of ten russian illegals that were caught and then returned in exchange for russian spies. i think this is a little bit different. maria butina in my mind is not a formal illegal. she probably doesn't work directly for the russian intelligence services, but she's rather a co-optee. i think that's why you're seeing the legal path she's going down right now as opposed to a spy swap like we saw back in 2000 with the illegals at that time. >> you're saying if she was actually an intelligence officer or directly working for one of the intelligence services in

russia, that it would more likely there would be some sort of swap? >> it would have gone very differently from a legal perspective. i don't think she would have been in jail for as long and the russians would have been more aggressive about cutting some sort of diplomatic or some sort of spy deal. >> tom, of all the trump associates who had contact with russians during the campaign, right now it's 16 by cnn's count, it's easy to get mired in the details of this. but that's just not normal, is it? >> it is not normal, and that's what we've heard from people involved with presidential campaigns going back to reagan. of course presidential campaigns have contacts with foreign officials. trevor potter, who was the counsel for it john mccain campaign in 2008 said, yes, there were contacts that the candidate had, but it was always done through cooperation with the state department, there was transparency, and never did the

discussions have to do with personal business deals or with the candidate's personal political outlook. >> steve, talk a bit about how the russian intelligence services actually work. particularly looking at michael cohen and his contacts with russians, what we know about them so far. is that typical russian operations? >> it bears a lot of the hallmarks. if you look at the information released by mueller's office, it's a nice nut shell. we know that the russians were cast ago wide net when they were looking at the trump team and the trump campaign. so they knew that cohen had the access because he was the personal lawyer and he also had an e-mail that was associated with the trump campaign. we knew that he was deeply in debt, so he had vulnerabilities and motivations that the russians could take advantage of. and perhaps most importantly, and this is sort of a common thing with these dozen people that had been associated with

russia, is the approach to him was quite reasonable. it wasn't, hi, i'm from the russian government. let's talk about trump. let's talk about synergy with our governments and talk about the relationship. that's an interesting way. but it's a very nonthreatening way. it's an innocent way to start down that path. >> the willingness of trump aides to engage for what appears to be a wide variety of reasons, sermon seems like russia took notice of that early on and from an intelligence standpoint, that's the thing you want to make the most of. >> well, one of the things that people involved with previous campaigns made clear to us is that the number of contacts and the nature were both unusual. so as steve was just saying, you have some contacts that

initiated around trump tower moscow, but quickly a word like synergy gets imposed by one of the russian nationals in touch with michael cohen. felix sater, who was working with michael cohen to build a trump tower moscow talked about it as an opportunity not only for economic gain and to achieve a long-sought goal by the trump organization but also a chance to help boost trump's presidential ambitions, putting donald trump and vladimir putin perhaps on stage at a ground breaking at the same time. >> tom, appreciate you being with us, steve hall as well, thank you, guys. let's check in with chris and see what he's working on for cuomo prime time. >> how are you doing, my friend? this is such a wild atmosphere that we're living in. it's almost impossible to plan the show. >> yeah, i know. >> because things break late. jim acosta just puts out reporting saying yes, the president is ruminating slash worrying slash whatever verb you want to put in about what

democrats are going to do with respect to impeachment. that now he is worried and it just so happened that tonight par of the plan of the show was to give the president reason to worry. this on ned the "new york times" about what obstruction is about what is seen and unseen, what it could mean in obstruction, because that's a conversation we've had very little because we don't know anything beyond the obvious with comey but now we're lenni in learning more and those 16 associates with contacts is leading to a new tendency for this probe. and a letter from over 40 senators just came out with all this language, i've never read a letter like this before and that happened in the last 15 minutes when i was looking at your handsome face. >> see you in eight minutes for

that, chris. appreciate it. a little question. president trump has a solid base of supporters but is one portion of that base maybe shakier after one of the latest presidential tweets? we'll explore that just ahead. ♪ voice-command navigation with waze wifi wireless charging 104 cubic feet of cargo room and seating for 8. now that's a sleigh. ford expedition. built for the holidays. and for a limited time, get zero percent financing

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president trump continues to have a solid base of support among evangelical voters but his belittling attack on former secretary of state rex tillerson may be the latest in a long line of tweets contributing to erosion of that base. it began when tillerson publicly chastised the president for being undisciplined, for not being fond of reading and requesting actions that in tillerson's view were illegal. that led to this presidential tweet, and i'm quoting. mike pompeo is doing a great job, i'm very proud of him, his

predecessor, rex tillerson, didn't have the mental capacity needed. he was dumb as a rock and i couldn't get rid of him fast enough. he was lazy as hell. now it's a whole new ball game. great spirit at state. in the view of david brodie, the chief plolitical only frisanalye christian broadcasting network, he said he won't lose diehards but fence sitting ones who are fed up with these tweets who will di side if he gets a second term. >> what he tweeted wasn't the worst thing in terms of insults he's ever tweeted about someone. what about it made you think about that? >> it's pile-on situation. it's kindergarten stuff and he's done this before, we know about that so we can let them all but this is piling up with fence-sitting evangelicals and what i mean is ultimately those

fence-sitting evangelicals will have to decide do they want to support him again. i'm not talking about the deplorable evangelicals as i call them but the ones that held their nose a little bit. >> i think the point you're making is important because it's easy, i think, for people to paint evangelicals with a very broad brush and think about evangelicals as this one block of people but there are different philosophies, different outlooks, different points of view and it's interesting you're breaking it down to fence-sitters and people who are -- they were for trump from the beginning. >> it's very dangerous, especially for the trump administration, to think they have all evangelicals. that they'll be with them again. this administration has done a lot for evangelicals, no question, but you can't assume the whole pie will be with you in 2020. for sure. now, look, having said that i

have to tell you the folks on the fence, at least from an informal poll on twitter but word on the evangelical street, the folks i travel with basically say they will still take actions over insults. >> so bottom line, the point you've been making in the last couple days is that the administration should not take evangelicals for grant ed that the percentage he got, there are a certain percentage of those who voted for him, the 81% of evangelicals who went to the vol s some of them are fence-sitters and the cumulative effect could hurt trump if they turn against him? >>. >> i think that's a distinct possibility. having said that -- and this is the important part as well, there's a lot of evangelicals that did not vote for trump in 2016 and those folks will see his actions in these first

couple years of his administration and go you know what? he was right on judges, he was right on the embassy in jerusalem and those folks may in turn vote for him soing you could have 2% less but he could gabe folks, too. >> a lot can happen. david brobrody, good to talk to you. don't miss full circle, you get to vote on stories we cover, you can get the detail, watch 6:25 p.m. eastern at facebook.com/andersoncooperfull circle. let me hand it over to crishris cuo cuomo. tonight, we just learned the president is worrying that the democrats may try to impeach him and the president has reason for concern. the case against him for obstruction of justice has reached a high watermark. not simply because of what arguments you can make about what