a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. good evening. for the first time in more than a month, in two pay periods, 800,000 men and women who serve this country every day will be able to go to bed knowing they will soon have money coming in again. for all you will hear tonight about how bruising a day this was politically for president

trump, it's at least a better day now for people like tsa officer ali morganfield who was worried he might face eviction. it's a better day for malory loragy, who was rationing her insulin. it's a better day for everyone we have had the privilege of getting to know during the longest government shutdown ever. their lives got better today when the man behind that shutdown who said without evidence again and again that the people he was hurting supported him, finally did right by those people. today, he backed down. and maybe we should have seen it coming all along. the president's language about the wall to put it nicely evolved. from wall to whatever you want to call it. from concrete to something else. to mexico is going to pay to i need you the american taxpayers to pick up the check. listen to how he described the wall today. >> we do not need 2,000 miles of

concrete wall from sea to shining sea. we never did. we never proposed that. we never wanted that. because we have barriers at the border where natural structures are as good as anything that we can build. our proposed structures will be in predetermined, high-risk locations that have been specifically identified by the border patrol to stop illicit flows of people and drugs. >> i can almost hear it now. who will pay for those proposed structures? mexico is. i get it. the president doesn't like losing. he is trying to redefine victory. but it doesn't sound like what he has been pitching for years now. >> we are going to build a great border wall. we will build a great, great wall. we're going to build a wall. don't worry about it.

oh, we will build a wall. i promise, we will build the wall. it's not going to be a little wall. it's going to be a big, beautiful wall. it's going to be a very tall wall. very powerful wall. it's going to be such a beautiful wall. it's going to be so big. it's going to be so powerful. it's going to be as beautiful as a wall can be. i've gotta make it beautiful because maybe someday they will name the wall the trump wall. who is going to pay for the wall? >> mexico! >> on that last part, the spin from the white house is that mexico will pay for it indirectly through increased revenue which importers, not mexico, will pay from an unratified trade deal. all right, anyway, what about the concrete part? who would say they wanted to make a wall out of that? >> a wall. i build buildings that are 94 stories tall. that's tough stuff.

this is so easy. i mean, think of it. some of you are in the construction business. think of garages. the concrete plank that goes 60, 70, 80, 90 feet, right, concrete plank for garage floors. it's precast. you put a foundation. the put a rut. you put it up. you make it beautiful. >> sounds like a plan. it turned out it wasn't. >> it's going to be made of hardened concrete. it's going to be made out of rebar and steel. it's not a fence, it's a wall. you could call it a steel fence, this wall or fence or anything the democrats need to call it. a wall, a fence, whatever they would like to call it. i will call it whatever they want. it's all the same thing. >> let's call it a wall, a fence, mexico will pay. mexico won't. as the shutdown dragged on, the

questions grew about whether any of this mattered to the president beyond just prevailing. which would have been nice to know for the public who have been going without vital government services and for people facing hardship and bankruptcy and eviction and worse. the president weighed in tonight on what he did today and where this could go from here. jim acosta is at the white house with that. the president tweeted out a statement. what is he saying now? >> reporter: the supporters didn't get a wall. the president is trying to present it as not a concession. as a matter of fact, he did just put that sentiment in a tweet just a short while ago. it says, in the last half hour, i wish people would read or listen to my words on the border wall. this was in no way a concession. it was taking care of millions of people getting hurt by the shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal, it's off to the races. that last part about being off to the races, that's essentially restating what he said earlier today, is that we could be right back where we were the last 35 days with yet another government shutdown or as the president was saying earlier today, that he

might declare a national emergency to go ahead and get the process started unilaterally. no matter how you slice it, this is obviously a concession, a surrender, and a cave for this president. talk to a trump adviser that i talked to earlier who said, this was a quote, humiliating loss for somebody who rarely loses. this adviser said, i miss winning. anderson? >> how did we get here? a few days ago the president was demanding $5.7 billion for the wall before reopening the government. >> what happened here, you were seeing this is, you had republican senators, republicans in the house starting to peel away from the president. you were seeing calls coming in from republican leaders on capitol hill, like mitch mcconnell, telling the president, this is not going in your direction. i believe the video that we saw this morning, the images coming out of laguardia, the northeast corridor where air traffic control was really just starting to come to a halt.

you were starting to see some of the sickouts, folks not coming to work. to work in the air traffic control towers. and the delays that were the result of that. that was starting to put pressure on this white house, we understand, from talking to officials and sources. that really put pressure on the president to end all of this. >> the president is trying to cast this as a victory on his part. do we know how his advisers, what people in the white house, how they are viewing it? what the mood is like? >> it was strange. i was in the rose garden when he made the statement earlier today. it was just bizarre, surreal to see top white house officials from the vice president on down applauding the president as he was making the statement today as if he had won something. this was as far from winning as you could possibly get. this was losing. yet, the president was getting support from his own team. i suppose that is a sign of loyalty from your staffers. there was a conference call in the evening between top white

house officials here and surrogates for the white house. they were trying to present this as not a cave. i talked -- this adviser i talked to earlier who advises the president said this was a humiliating loss to the president and questioned whether the president would -- whether it's a good idea for him to continue to pursue policies advocated like some top white house officials have been advocating, like stephen miller, this adviser said that perhaps today was not a cave but a grave for stephen miller's hardline immigration policies. >> jim acosta, thanks very much. i want to dig deeper with maggie haberman. what's your sense of what went on here? the president got the same amount of funding he could have gotten a month ago. which was zero. why did he make this move? >> there were a bunch of issues going on. the broad one is that the president made a statement several weeks ago that he would own a shutdown. democrats took him up on that and saw no reason to make a concession on something their base and the democratic house

caucus members don't want to give in to, which is this border wall the president had talked about for so long. and at that amount of money. he made a tactical mistake. he had to own it. shutdowns are not good for anyone. pelosi was getting some blame in polls more, but the president was getting more. remember what close attention he pays to polls. you had that warning from the faa about airlines and airport security and planes being able to take off and fly. this morning you had a ground stop at laguardia, the airport in the president's hometown. all of this caught his eye, as did pressure from republicans who were starting to break. while the republican coalition was showing cracks, democrats were actually holding pretty strong, which surprised among other people democrats who often fight among each other. they were able to stand together and not give an inch. ultimately, the president had to give in to where reality was.

the shutdown was becoming worse and worse for actual voters, actual people as you said at the top. so he is kicking the can down another couple weeks. i think we will try to work on some other proposals up until then. he has left open the possibility of the national emergency declaration. we will see. >> he gave that long speech in the rose garden, which was positioned as a victory lap, describing everything he didn't get as though he had gotten it. >> that's classic donald trump. we have seen him over and over in the course of the last now four years as a politician and certainly he did it before that as a businessman and entertainment figure. he will point to a loss and say, actually, i won and you lost. you are just not understanding this. he repeatedly diverged from the teleprompter at that speech today. he added all kinds of things into it that comported with this vision and this view of the border crisis that he has been

painting for many weeks now. he did not look comfortable. this did not look like a speech he wanted to give. it was taking medicine and moving on. >> stay with us. i want to bring in kirsten powers and senator rick santorum. whether you think the president made the right call or not, the fact is, 800,000 workers will soon get paychecks again. >> right. i do think he made the right call. the one thing that worries me is the coverage he is getting, he rolled over, he got rolled, he got played, all this stuff, is going to only aggravate him and make him more likely to not want to make another deal. he had to defy his base in this. this is what he originally tried to do, if you remember. he had decided that he was going to forego getting the money for the wall. then ann coulter and rush limbaugh went at him. and he caved.

and ultimately, he saw the polls, he saw he wasn't winning this. he saw the democrats weren't going to give in. he didn't have a choice. in the end, i think it was the right thing to do. i don't think he should be shamed for doing it. i don't think there's shame in making a deal. >> senator santorum, was it the right thing to do? politically, was it a mistake? >> kicking the can down the road is a reasonable course. it showed the president was willing to compromise. he is willing to concede to the other team's wishes in order to try to get a deal. to pick up on her point, it's important -- i have been watching the news all week -- all day long. they have been beating up -- he caved. this is from a media who says is recalcitrant, he won't compromise. when he does, you beat him up for caving. you can't -- you can't have it

both ways. you can't beat the guy up when he says, okay, i will have it your way, we will do what you want, sit down with you, we will negotiate. he caved. he cratered. he is a wimp. and then say on the other hand, the president doesn't compromise. you can't have it both ways. >> i wonder, do you think the media is attacking him unfairly? is this a cave? is it a compromise? >> i don't think that it's -- i don't think it's a compromise. i think it's a delaying a possible deal and trying to work toward a possible compromise. i don't think this is a compromise. this is just getting the government back hope. i think the senator has a point. i think that this -- this is something i hear from the white house. they feel like they can't win. they feel like he stands his ground and he gets attacked. if he goes ahead and reopened the government, he gets attacked for that. i think that he complicates his position when he gives a speech

explaining the reasons why to your point he really won and this was a victory and he turned it into something moving away from the workers and all about his campaign promises. i do think that there is at its core a fair point that they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. they did get themselves into this. and the president got himself into this with what he said. but it's true the government is reopened. that was the goal a lot of people had been working toward. that has now happened. >> i would -- >> it's not just the left. i think you have -- >> i agree. i agree. he is getting it from both sides. from my mind, what the president has done is given an opportunity for the old-fashioned politics to work. to sit down and make a deal. that's what the democrats said they would do. i would make the argument that now the ball is in nancy pelosi's court. she said she would make a deal. if the government were open. we would take care of these people suffering. now she has the opportunity --

she can make a deal. she can come together, she can buck her base and find a compromise. it's clear donald trump is willing to do that. the question is whether nancy pelosi can. >> i was going to say, it's not that unusual for politicians to say they are winning when they're not winning. it's not that unusual for people not to get everything that they want and then to go out and try to spin it in the best light as possible. i don't even really fault him for that. i think that really if the democrats want to negotiate now, i think the wall is off the table. he will have to deal with that. they should -- when you negotiate, you should try to find a way to help the other person save face. even if you don't like him, if you want to have a deal, the goal is not to humiliate donald trump because donald trump -- or anybody, frankly, is not going to react well to that, nor is their base going to react well to it. i think that hopefully in getting a deal, they can find a way to get to yes in a way that

makes both parties look good. >> senator santorum, do you think the wall is off the table? >> i'm not sure it's off the table. there may be elements of a wall or barrier -- this is really important. back in the -- when i was in congress, you actually listened to what the other side had to say. you are right, you tried to give them -- if you were going to strike a deal -- something they could look at their people and say, hey, we got something. if the idea from nancy pelosi and her side is, we're not going to give him anything that gives him any quarter, then we will be back shut down or have an emergency declaration. neither is a good thing. >> i don't understand how the democrats could say, there's not going to be any kind of new barriers. in the past, they have agreed -- there's already fencing. if you accept the notion that some fencing is okay in some key areas, i would assume they would have to be open to some sort of

fencing somewhere, even if just a little bit. >> yeah. the thing to remember, the democratic party has shifted a lot. i think it's a good thing. i think that they didn't used to be very good on immigration issues. they have listened to the base more and listened to latino groups more. i think that their positions are different. people are changing and people are seeing things differently. even if they did it in the past, i'm not sure it matters. but if you are going to negotiate, i think -- i think the wall is a non-starter. i think it should be a non-starter. even though i think this -- that this crisis is a ginned up crisis, if the compromise to get daca, something that's very important, is to give them some fencing or something along the border, yes, those are the deals i think that the democrats should be considering. you can't get everything that you want. i think the wall is just -- it's a bridge too far. it's something that he also said mexico was going to pay for.

so why is he asking congress to pay for it? >> thank you very much. the arrest of roger stone. what robert mueller has on him. the mysterious passages in the indictment. and what it could suggest about the president's possible legal exposure. perspective from two men who crossed paths with roger stone. carl bernstein and john doran join us. ...with nutrients that support 6 vital functions... ...and one healthy you. that's the power of one a day.

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they love 'em. doooooooooug! you want to go sell some tacos? progressive knows small business makes big demands. doug, where do we get a replacement chili pepper bulb? so we'll design the insurance solution that fits your business. it's a very niche bulb. it's a specialty bulb. how many times have we said this? on any other day this would be the lead in the broadcast. and, yes, on any other day, this would. >> fbi! open the door. fbi. warrant. >> that from a cnn crew staking out roger stone's house. fbi agents at the home of roger stone, longtime trump associate. he was arrested today on a variety of charges.

including went witness tampering. the charges tie him to his role in the 2016 campaign, wikileaks and hacked e-mails damaging to democrats. the indictment speaks to all of it. it suggests someone at the highest levels, perhaps the candidate himself, were involved. or more than one person. however, it does so without naming names. mr. stone denies all the charges against him, it's important to point out. i want to walk through it. explain what exactly roger stone is charged with. >> simply put, he is charged with lying, trying to cover up his dealings with wikileaks when he was asked by congressional investigators about whether -- what role he had, what role members of the campaign may have had, was he communicating with anyone in the campaign about whether or not he had knowledge of what wikileaks had, any knowledge that they were going to be releasing any e-mails. it's what's in this indictment that's more important and certainly more startling is that

they are accusing him of being the link -- the mueller team is accusing roger stone of being the link between the campaign and assange and how he was the go-around guy. he was talking to intermediaries who were giving him information about what assange had. and he was communicating with senior campaign officials about that. >> was the president mentioned in the indictment? >> he is not mentioned. but, like you said, there are a couple of lines, one particular line that is interesting, that makes -- has been making a lot of us wonder whether or not it refers to the president in the way it's worded. let me read that to you. what they say, the government, is that a senior trump campaign official was directed to contact stone about any additional wikileaks releases and what other damaging information wikileaks had regarding the clinton campaign. what's interesting there is how

they say the senior trump campaign official was directed to contact stone. the question is, who perhaps could be more senior in a campaign than donald trump at the time? it does not say anything else about the president here. certainly, that line has many of us wondering whether or not they are referring to the president here. >> there's two other questions. one, when did roger stone decide to do the richard nixon victory sign? i have a feeling it was a while ago. i would love to know his thought process on that. >> that's right. >> and what are we learning -- roger stone and his attorney, they have been critical of how the fbi raided him, saying, there was no point in doing that. you didn't need people knocking on the door at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. you could have called his attorney. why did they do that? >> i think roger stone from everything we know in the conversations our reporters have had with him, he was hoping the fbi would call him and tell him to surrender. it could be because that's what he wanted to do, put on a show with his surrender, give

reporters a heads up and he was going to show up and put on a show as he did today outside of court. the fbi had other plans. they say in court documents that they were worried he was going to flee, he was going -- had they given him a heads up, he was going to take off. the other concern was that if they had given him a heads up they were going to arrest him and they wanted him to surrender, he was going to destroy evidence. when you look at the video, the way in which the fbi proceeded, it's almost like they were going in to arrest a violent gang member. you don't normally see these kinds of apprehensions in these kinds of cases. i think also the fbi wanted to send him a message. i think he has been harsh on the fbi, on the mueller team for obvious reasons. i think they did not want to give him a heads up. they did what they did this morning at 6:00 a.m. >> thanks very much. with me now, sam nunberg.

also, jeffrey toobin, who wrote that great stone profile in "the new yorker" some years back. does the indictment comport with what you know roger stone to have done? >> it does in terms of the fact that -- the indictment does not say that roger directly had contact with russians, which is what roger has said. it also says to me, between the lines, being there obviously, i'm fired on a sunday, roger quits that friday. i look at this as tragic because i feel as if he wanted to stay relevant in that campaign. he was doing things that were not in his best interest. they weren't because they made him a target. >> this line that shimon pointed out, from the -- a senior campaign official was directed to contact stone about future wikileaks postings. given that you worked in the campaign, who would be in a position to direct a senior trump campaign official to talk

to stone? >> i've read all these indictments. i have been through hours of voluntary and the grand jury. i started following this. mueller is very particular. it could be, for all we know, the president. i don't -- short answer, i don't know. there's a point that they made that is clear, not to say it was a senior trump campaign official. >> right. it's intentional. it's not an accident they used that word. >> absolutely not. the use of the passive voice there is so relevant. i don't -- i don't know who else it could be. isn't that -- you have been around donald trump a lot. isn't that the kind of thing he would say? go ask roger what's going on. >> look, i have no knowledge of donald trump asking roger -- >> i understand that. >> i don't want to accuse the president. what i'm saying is that if you gave me multiple choice, he would be one of the people i think that could be there.

jeffrey, i don't know. >> it's a small campaign. there weren't a huge number of senior campaign officials. then to have somebody -- what other -- >> the dynamics of the campaign -- maybe so, trump didn't necessarily want corey lewandowski or hope hicks knowing he was talking to roger. so, look, i don't know who it is. >> do you know -- who else -- who were the senior campaign officials? >> i would assume are manafort or gates at that time. they are there. if you go down, maggie haberman reported, you have -- it's steve bannon. steve will say that this was something i did because roger had asked me to contact him. i think that's the argument. what i think -- you can talk better to this than me is the narrative building out here. the narrative. now we have close to the

campaign -- we haven't got to the transition. there are questions about that. >> how big a deal is this? sarah sanders is saying it has nothing to do with the president. >> this is an enormous deal. this is someone who is an indispensable figure in donald trump's political career going back to the '80s was trying to get him to run for president. someone who he had a very hot and cold relationship with. sometimes they have been angry at each other. sometimes they have been very close. they have been in contact over the years. also, it's important to establish that there was a relationship between wikileaks and the trump campaign. it is important to point out, as sam said, there is no even suggested proof in the campaign that the russians were in touch with roger or even that wikileaks was in touch with roger. although, roger boasts about that. most of what the indictment concerns is roger going to intermediaries.

randy credico, a talk show host. jerome corsi, who is a conservative writer, the people he was in touch with who he thought was in touch with wikileaks. that's what he lied about allegedly in the indictment. >> do you think roger stone would flip on the president or senior campaign officials? >> i don't, at this point -- >> he says he would never. >> i don't. it depends how he is treated in the public sphere by rudy, by jay, by the white house. i think that if they want to throw him -- if they want to treat him the way they treated michael, maybe enough is enough. i don't think that he -- he has a very strong affinity and respect for donald trump and a loyalty to him. but people can only take so much, especially after this. >> it will be interesting for us to watch is how the white house deals with him. great to have you. appreciate it. next, more on roger stone's

indictment. we will dig into the mystery surrounding the indictment. his claim that he will never testify against the president. we will hear what he has to say about today's fbi raid. with my hepatitis c,

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roger stone professed his loyalty to donald trump. he said he will never testify against the president. here's what he told nick valencia of cnn.

>> what was it like when the fbi showed up? >> not surprising. >> you weren't surprised at all? >> the indictment says you were coordinating with senior trump campaign officials. who were the officials? >> false. false. >> no indication who those officials were? >> they don't exist. >> roger stone sticking with one of his rules, admit nothing, deny everything. preet, how solid do you think the government's case is? >> in some respects, it's incredibly solid. i would say it's a slam dunk. with respect to the five counts that relate to false statements, lying to congress, they are incredibly strong. my favorite, if i could use that phrase, not to make light of it, is the allegation where the special counsel claims that roger stone on one day claimed that he never texted the

intermediary who is person two in the indictment on the same day he texted 30 times. you have the statement. it's clear. it's not ambiguous. then you have, presumably they have the actual texts. that's a lie that's provable. >> you hear from a lot of the supporters is that these are procedural crimes. that these are just procedural crimes. >> they are serious crimes that go to the heart of what the justice system is about. from time to time, people come before a grand jury or before a special counsel or before congress. as jeff knows, the only way you can get at the truth ultimately is if people are held responsible if they lie in the course of an investigation. the lies here went to the issue that the special counsel was investigating. to what extent was there some kind of coordination with or collusion that people like to

use, conspiracy with, by and between people in the trump campaign and folks who were either with the russian government or getting information from the russian government like it looks like wikileaks was. >> jeff, do you believe when he says he is not going to flip on the president, do you believe that? >> i do. i don't think he is a good witness for the prosecution. he has lied so much during his life. he sort of relishes being a b.s. artist and someone who tells people what he wants to tell them. i don't think he would be a great witness for the prosecution. i think he is going to go to trial. he has a better shot of getting a pardon than he does of flipping and becoming a good government witness who doesn't get a long sentence. >> you think that's what he is banking on? getting a pardon? >> he didn't tell me that. i just saw him very recently.

he did not -- he didn't say that. he really thought he wasn't going to get indicted. they thought the storm had passed. i was with him and his lawyers in florida two weeks ago. they were -- they thought this thing was over. they were wrong. now we will see. >> maggie, what's your sense of where the president is in all this in terms of, is he rattled? it wasn't a huge surprise that stone has been indicted. >> do you remember there was a tweet from the president a couple of weeks or months ago or decades ago, because the weeks are so long, where he tweeted negatively about michael cohen, that michael cohen was weak because he flipped and roger stone is strong and he is not doing that? i think that's where his head is. he is looking at it as, this is a problem. i don't think he wants to deal with it. my understanding is he talks more about michael cohen privately than he talks about roger stone. let's not pretend the president is not disturbed by this. roger stone has been the

president's closest political adviser on and off. as jeffrey said, they have been friends and foes at various points. they have had a fraught but durable relationship over a very long period of time. roger knows a lot about donald trump. that will always make the president feel anxious. i do think that the president feels pretty confident that stone is not going to turn on him, that he is not going to cooperate with prosecutors. stone never said to me that he anticipates a pardon. certainly people around the president believe that roger may think that. people around roger think that roger may think that. >> there's another factor at play here, which is that paul manafort is looking at ten years in prison. his financial crimes, given the way the federal sentencing works, he is looking at a very long time in prison. this is a very different case. there's no money involved in this case. even if stone is convicted, i think he is looking at two or three years, which he figures he can do if he has to.

it's just -- it's less of a life or death matter than for manafort. >> preet, do you agree the question is, who the person was who, according to the indictment directed a senior campaign official to reach out to stone? >> it's an important question. i'm trying to understand why it was in the indictment. it could have said a senior campaign official spoke to -- directed someone to speak to -- spoke to roger stone to ask questions about what wikileaks had. >> the fact that it's -- mueller put in he or she was directed to speak to stone. >> the passive voice when nothing else is passive. it wasn't necessary. it's an odd word choice. they don't say who it is. i'm not sure why it's in there. nothing that mueller does is unintentional. they are very careful. >> is that supposed to raise questions about the president? >> i don't know.

it's odd that it's in there. they must have known it would cause speculation. and speculation is something we've been worried about the last few weeks. it's very clear in the circumstance of when you say that the president directed something, viewers will recall there was a sentencing memorandum with respect to michael cohen on the question of whether the president directed him to make certain payoffs. that was there in black and white. they had to believe it was true. i believe also it must be the case that the mueller team has it solidly that someone was directed and they probably know who that -- i'm sure they know who that person is. so, the fact they put it in there, it wasn't necessary, but they don't name the person is odd to me. >> the senior campaign official who according to this indictment was directed, do you think that person is cooperating? we don't know. >> it would be my guess that's how they know that that person

was directed. it also stands to reason that the person who is doing the directing was the president. although, i don't know if that's true. we're just speculating. we have to be careful about that. it would be natural for the president, upon hearing roger stone has information, to say, find out what he has. i know what jeff is going to say. because i've heard him say it before, and he's absolutely right. what i said now maybe sounds very sensational. but it's not a crime. right? it's not a crime in the to be true at the moment for the president to say to someone, find out what roger stone knows. >> right. that is an important point. even though it's -- it would be embarrassing, it would be, i think, inappropriate, but to say as someone might, go ask roger what the heck is going on with wikileaks, get that information. >> that's not illegal? >> that is not illegal. >> on its own. >> on its own. yeah.

but it is part of -- why it sounds like it could be the president is this is the same person who was saying i love wikileaks. he never recognized that -- or never acknowledged that wikileaks was involved in a criminal enterprise. but they were doing his business. >> thanks very much. with roger stone, it's not only shades of nixon but the entire palate. we'll be right back. does this sound dismal? it isn't. ♪ ♪ it's the most wonderful life on earth. ♪ ♪ it's tyeah right. iand the earth is flat.. ahhh!! treat your cough seriously with robitussin cf max.

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roger stone's political career dates back to richard nixon as evidenced by the tattoo on his back. yes, that is real. stone's affinity for nixon was on display after he appeared in court today. there, echoing nixon's double-fisted victory sign. we will see what becomes of roger stone. we know how history remembers nixon. nobody knows it better than john dean and carl bernstein. it was incredible to see roger stone giving the signature nixon victory sign today. no coincidence. he knew that would be a photo that everybody used in reference. this is a man who has a bong shaped like richard nixon's head in his house, as far as i understand. i'm wondering what today surprised you or made you think about. >> when i think about today is how important it is that we get

a real report from mr. mueller that tells us every aspect of his investigation, particularly surrounding the president of the united states, and how crucial it is that the american people hear from mueller everything that he knows about trump. stone is a bit player in the sense that he is a self-aggrandizer. but he is not a bit player, he is a huge player because of his proximity and relationship to the president of the united states as that one part of the indictment makes clear, if indeed it is the president, as preet was speculating, who was being referred to there. what we need to keep our eye on is the difference in watergate and what we're witnessing now is that we had hearings at which the american people learned about what happened in the nixon white house. we have had no such public

hearings, leaving us with nothing but mueller to put all this together for us. so, today, look, first of all, roger stone was not a major player in the nixon presidency. he was 19 years old and 20 years old at the time of watergate. he was a junior scheduler in the nixon campaign. he would like you to think otherwise. he is a consummate bs artist. at the same time, he is up to his neck, obviously, in the wikileaks business and with the president of the united states. >> john, in a book roger stone wrote about watergate, he had choice words for you in it, obviously, given i wonder what went through your mind when you saw him today. >> he has never been one of my favorite people. he has tried to disrupt a couple book festivals when i was there. not successfully.

>> he is a dirty trickster. he seemed to take the worst lesson from watergate and think they are the real lessons that one should employ, and now he has finished it out by getting a charge of lying, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. i noticed with great interest today that they disowned him, the nixon foundation, just to put out a tweet how young he was and he was a junior scheduler and while he portrays himself as a nixon aid, it was after nixon left office that roger worked with him and for him up in new jersey during his post presidential period. i'm not surprised. he's a consummate liar. he would be a terrible government witness. his only hope is a pardon and if he has information that could hurt trump, trump might do that. if he sits on it and goes to

jail with it. >> it's interesting that they seem to publicly live by the same code, denying everything, admitting nothing. counter attacking whenever possible. you can argue nixon did it behind the scenes when certainly donald trump has done it very publicly. >> well, there's been a vast cover up. both by nixon and donald trump. everything russian is being covered up and lied about by the president of the united states and those that served with him who have gone down this road and who we now see are under indictment. they have lied. why does everybody keep lying about the russia the same way that witnesses in watergate keep lying about what happened in the watergate break in and what happened in a vast campaign of political espionage and sabotage run by those close to the

president of the united states to undermine the democrats campaign for president of the united states. we have real similarities there but we also have the difference between watergate and what we see now which is the system was allowed to work in watergate and republicans helped make it work and we're not seeing that now. >> in the indictment there's a text. >> he told him to stone wall it and plead the fifth and anything to save the plan, richard nixon. that's a direct quote in the middle of the watergate investigation. >> it's from one of the nixon tapes on the afternoon of march 22nd. i had just left the meeting the day before i had warned nixon there was a cancer on his presidency. he is meeting and huddling with mitchell. telling him the way it is, plead the fifth. do anything you have to do to save the plan. it was really a rather brutal conversation, used very

effectively against rachel at the criminal trial against him on obstruction of justice. >> incredible. >> thank you. i want to check on chris and see what he's talking about at the top of the hour. >> the coverage you have given us so far is very impressive. we'll try to add on to it with some depth of the people that matter here. we have roger stone tonight. we'll be talking this. it's amazing to me that council was letting him speak after being indicted. >> that's for sure. >> i'm sure he's been warned to stay away from the merits of the case, but there's plenty to discuss. we also have kristen davis on the store. remember her? she has known roger stone for a very long time. >> she worked for him. >> she did. she also spoke to the mueller investigators, stone has not. what are her concerns for roger going forward? he's shown a lot of confidence given what's in this indictment. >> looking forward to that.

roger stone. thank you very much. s six minutes from now. thank you very much. an update on the family we told you about tonight, a couple concerned that their electricity would be turned off, electricity that their daughter harper needs to stay alive. ♪

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>> the end of the shut down is great muse for many families who were struggling. among them, a couple in kentucky we were introduced to last night.

she quit her job as a social worker to care for 15 month old harper that was born prematurely. she needs a breathing tube to live and her parents were worried their electricity would be turned off. since we aired the story there's been an outpouring of love and support for the family. they have a go fund me page and they were floored by the donations that came in including $1,000 from somebody that was a total stranger. the couple tell us they were very touched by the comments that they got from people that donated including this one, i'm quoting, hello, saw your story on cnn. i being a father of a premie baby that didn't make it. when i saw your child it reminded me of my child. i can understand the fear as a parent and love you have for your child, god bless you and your family, don't lose faith and in this difficult time, hopefully this amount helps. we send our thoughts to harper and her parents tonight and to all the families effected by this shutdown. we hope there's better days ahead.

don't miss full circle on facebook. you have to vote for some of the stories that we cover. it's on every night at 6:25 p.m. eastern every weekday night at facebook.com/anderson cooper full circle. that's it for us. hope you have a great weekend. the news continues, though. i want to hand it over to chris for cuomo primetime. "prime time". >> thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo and this is "prime time". the central crime that launched the russia investigation is linked to the trump campaign. that link is roger stone. robert mueller believes he has tied him to the dnc e-mails stolen by the russians and dumped by wikileaks and they do seem in this indictment to have a ton of evidence that there may have been lies told to congress by stone. stone says they have got nothing and he is here to tell you that directly. the indictment is also a window into the campaign and mu