"prime time". we have new information on the status of the russia probe. the president's acting attorney general offers up an estimate of when it should end. his words has a key member of the senate calling them chilling. the investigative minds are seated for cuomo's court to take on the relevance here. $11 billion of loss later, the government is back open but for how long? how could the president even threaten to shutdown the government again. will congress be able to stop him? we'll ask the only democrat to vote for the president's wall last week, senator joe mansion and we're just minutes away from the first big event of the 20 20 election cycle right here on cnn. you get to join us on the road to the white house. what do you say? let's get after it. >> so 2.5 years and 70,000 news cycles later, we have gotten the first word ever from the statement of justice on when the russia probe could end. here it is.

>> i have been fully briefed on the investigation. and the investigation is, i think, close to being completed and i hope that we can get the report from director mueller as soon as possible. >> close to being completed. that's according to acting attorney general matthew whitaker. who was briefed on it. how close? seemed like he was fumbling with that, like this wasn't planned. if he's right, it's going to set off a lot of alarm bells, especially with democrats. take a listen. >> i am comfortable that the decisions that were made are going to be reviewed, either through the various means we have -- >> what does that mean? now, senate judiciary committee member says that was chilling for him to say decisions made by mueller would be reviewed. he doesn't have full confidence that the acting a.g. will respect the independence of the

probe. diane feinstein also saying whitaker should not be a sensor. let's take it up with cuomo's court. mike rogers, let me start with you. do you believe that whitaker meant to suggest that the doj will look at mueller's findings before releasing them? >> i think there will be some process of redaction that will happen. that process will happen. it sounded to me like he's saying we have a review process in place for this and that's going to happen. i don't think he was very artful in the way he said it. >> so the question becomes, is it censoring or redacting? how much transparency will we have? what are your questions? >> we all have lots of questions but regulations themselves do call for the special counsel to submit his report to the

attorney general, so the review process that whitaker referred to is built into the regulations. so it's not that big of a surprise. as for whitaker's comments themselves, that's consistent with my reporting. with the reporting of others. >> with his wife. >> who's wife? >> whitaker's wife. she had come forward and said this is by all accounts ending soon. >> turns out she was right. >> i don't know how she would know anything about it but those of us that have been following this closely are not terribly surprised. >> it's all about when does it end and how does it end is probably more important. so mike, let's talk about where we are in the most recent developments. roger stone gets indicted. this is not a surprise to those following this closely. might not have even been a surprise to roger stone but how

it went down certainly was. here's some sound from him about it. >> to stormy house with a greater force than was used to take down bin laden or el chapo or pablo escobar, to terrorize my wife and my dogs, it's unconsciousable. i would have turned myself in. i would have been able to wear a suit and tie for my mug shot. it would have looked a lot better. >> now, they don't buy it. obviously he's being very hyperbolic and comparing himself to the other crime figures. but here's an interesting question. they went hard and heavy to search and find things that wouldn't be suggested by this indictment. it looks like they have the proof already for the indictment. so why do you think they were so aggressive in trying to capture as much other equipment and information from stone as they seem to have been? >> well, i'm going to guess on

this one based on what we know. the most interesting thing in the stone indictment was the piece that said there was another investigation involving stone so more charges could be coming. i'm going to guess if you read the indictment in what it was, they either have external information that he may be engaged in some activity that they believe would lead to destruction of evidence and or, they decided this was the time to move because they are getting close to wrapping this thing up and they'll see what they have in the house and the next series of charges will be coming. the answer is going to be somewhere in the middle. >> what's your sense on it? >> stone was charged with obstruction. when you have a defendant charged with obstruction, i think it is not uncommon for the fbi to play hard ball like this and certainly mueller's people

played hard ball over the course of the investigation, but i wouldn't read too much into that because, look, if they had probably cause that there was something on roger stone's devices, whether his laptops or iphones, they had over a year and a half to get a search warrant to get access to those and they didn't do it. they didn't have to wait for his indictment to seize those devices. >> so you're not a big proponent of t it's all about whatsapp and encrypted things. it's all on his phone and they need the phone. >> they have other ways of getting access to those things and like i said, if they had good reason to believe that there was something on there that was going to unlock the mysteries of this investigation, they would have done this a long time ago.

>> that's fair. while i have you. you have been in touch with randy credico and you learned you might have also been a target of threats from stone and others. how so? >> right. exactly. credico and stone had this close relationship. they were texting and e-mailing almost every day, and suddenly, stone turns on credico. the reason is at some point when i was wrapping up russian roulette, the book i wrote, i interviewed credico and he disputed roger stone's account that he, credico, was his back channel to julian assange. at that point, stone turns on credico and all these texts that you saw in the indictment flow from that but there's a couple

that credico shared before that weren't in the indictment, but they do give you a flavor for it. there was one january 8th which we played on our podcast this week, this is stone writing to credico, you should strap dynamite to your body and invite him for another dinner. it's the least you can do for your country. i guess he was suggesting credico should be a suicide bomber. now maybe he was joking, but in the same sort of -- its the same sort of tone that you see in the texts quoted in the indictment telling him you're a rat, you're a stool. prepare to die. that's quoted in the indictment. another says he should do as someone in the god father. who refuses to testify truthfully to congress. >> do a dead on impression. >> he does a pretty good one. we have it on the podcast. >> thank you for putting meat on the bones of that speculation. thank you very much.

as we learn more, please come back and help us understand it in the context of all the big questions that matter. >> all right. so mueller keeps proving that president trump's distant advisers and now closest advisers are lying about their activities related to russia. can the white house keep saying none of this has anything to do with the president and be credible in anyway? let's look at it through the facts, next. and in just minutes, senator kamala harris face to face with iowa voters right here on cnn. how will she do in her first big test of her run. for the president. you get to see it firsthand right here on cnn. stay with us. at&t provides edge-to-edge intelligence, covering virtually every part of your retail business.

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same reaction to every mueller indictment. nothing to do with me. however when roger stone got charged, the same ole from sanders seemed suspect. >> the more this goes on the more and more we say that none of these things have anything to do with the president. in roger stone's case they have nothing to do with the president and have to do with his communications with congress. so, in fact, i think the further we get into the process, the more and more we see this has nothing toot with president trump. >> suspect. why? because the farther the probe has gone into the process, the more the president has been exposed. we've seen manafort and stone and trump's friends and advisers for four decades in trouble for russia related actions. both searched for communications with others. manafort allegedly gave polling data to a russian with bad connections. who knew he did that?

now stone is in trouble for trying to get the fruits of the dnc hack at the same time the president was singing wikileaks praises. the indictment makes it clear that the president is relevant to stone's activities, by all indications, except being named. a senior trump campaign official is directed to contact stone about wikileaks. obvious question, who is higher within that campaign apparatus? especially when we know that stone talked directly to trump. >> you remember what you say, you are in regular contact with the president. >> i think i said occasionally. i don't speak to him every day. >> two of trump's closest advisers both messing with those that would enable russian interference. the white house thinks it doesn't involve the president? maybe it's being named in an indictment as potus was in the cohen papers but by every

standard, every shady moment from the trump tower meeting to george running around europe and michael flynn's meeting with russians and now you have them discussing the very information the russians used to interfere in the election. all of them were about russia and all but one involves people close to the president. the timing of all of this is also all about donald trump. remember the testimony when stone is accused of lying to congress. do you know why you probably didn't hear about this sooner? trump's republican buddies were sitting on the transcripts. mueller only got them when potus lost the majority in the house in the midterms. the connection of someone trump has known from the 1980s is sure to add fuel to the democratic investigations that will encircle trump between now and 2020 which brings us to what may be the worst and best defense

for potus and it's the campaign was too disorganized to pull off any real collusion. this isn't a new argument. is incompetence really the case you want to make as you ask voters for four more years. all right. we're just minutes away, talking about 2020, in four more years, the first town hall, the first state that votes a senator vying to become our first female president. a lot of firsts as we await kamala harris. would a third party candidate like the former ceo of starbucks stand a chance? or would it practically guarantee the president a second term. great start for a great debate, next. meenew tattoo brow pomadew. from maybelline new york. ♪ for up to 24-hour sculpted brows. new tattoo brow pomade. only from maybelline new york.

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tonight's town hall means the 2020 race is fully underway but there's a new wrinkle this time. the former ceo of starbucks. howard scultz. >> i'm seriously thinking of running for president. i will run as a independent. >> the next ross or something else. let's debate. mike shields, he runs, do you think he does or he doesn't? if he does, whom does he help and who does he hurt? >> he's going to run. he has a team around him and he's paying them and putting this together. look, i mean, there is no real room for a third party. we have seen that over and over again. it's hard to get on the ballot. it's hard to establish the kinds of things that donald trump is doing now, getting grass roots activated and raising money and

those sorts of things. he's a liberal on minimum wage and global warming. and health care. >> he splits the ticket on the left. >> what he is seeing is what the democratic party is so extremely liberal so far as to be socialist that even a liberal like him doesn't fit in anymore and that's a huge statement about where the democratic party is right now. >> how do you see it? >> i agree with him. i was at an event that mitt romney puts on during the summer in utah. and both were there and both of them spoke. at that time, we were thinking that both, either, one or the other might wage an independent candidacy for president. mike bloomberg took a cold hard look at the data and concluded you could not win as a third party candidate and instead you would help donald trump win re-election and decided not to run that way.

i think howard schultz, he came across as earnest, likable, sincere, deliberate, knowledgeable. listen if what you want to do is help reelect donald trump and go at it. you're free to run. what you want to do is make sure that a man dividing this country creating culture wars, fabricating problems, destroying international alliances, threatening the environment, if that is your goal to get rid of donald trump running as a third party candidate only helps trump and maybe putin. >> michael bloomberg sent that message directly today saying what you said. it is intriguing though, and here's why. you know, remember, coming out of the great recession, let's call it. the message for schultz, do you

remember what he did? he put out the bracelets that said we are indivisable and it and it wept to help people jammed up by the recession. was a great thing to see a big corporation doing. he got a lot of wattage out of it. it would be a relevant message today against this president. going against disunity, literally. with the definition of it within the constitution. is there room for that message within the democratic party? >> he's a liberal. there's no question about it. if you look at the policies he talked about on 60 minutes, he said i'm more conservative on the debt. every other single thing he said was a liberal. he would be defeated by the president. because the country doesn't want a liberal like that to be president but it's amazing to me that he doesn't want to run as a democrat and he sees they're going the way of socialism. they're going to have a race to the left and to be as extreme

about impeachment and government run health care and guaranteed job wage, and government handed out job. on the left they'll have a race to that and even a liberal like howard schultz doesn't fit into that anymore. it's a statement and we're just getting started. >> he's hit that point twice. what's your response to that in the context of having harris on tonight right after our show and what she is going to try to demonstrate? >> i think part of it is that there's a post trump stress syndrome being suffered by americans and the last thing democrats want is to nominate another billionaire corporate guy that's never served in public office to run against trump. they want somebody that can offer some experience having run a government or having been part of a legislative body. knowing how government works.

it's hard for the democrats to nominate somebody that is like that. they also have a very deep stable of democrats running that have held elected office. who represent a broad spectrum of ideology. look. i hear a lot of democrats, in my mind, you can hardly get more liberal than bernie sanders. and i hear a lot of democrats say we don't want bernie sanders to run because after he lost the nomination he became an independent and now he wants to become the democratic nominee again. no, you don't just put the shirt on and take it off whenever it suits you. >> anna, what do you hear about harris? >> look, i think harris, what i hear about her, i have heard more good things about harris from democrats than i have about anybody else, and i tell you this as an unofficial poll through my twitter feed. when i write about elizabeth warren, a lot of people say i like her, but.

when bernie sanders is talking about running, a lot of them say he's an independent. i think kamala harris is engaging and she is capturing people's creativity in a way of no other candidate until now has done. >> she's capturing your friends on the right enough that they came after her. with the birther. so obviously she has guys on your side spooked as well. >> one thing about a billionaire sort of business man running. one of the pitches that the schultz campaign made is we need a disrupter. there is. a disrupter. he's in the white house now. that's a great campaign for donald trump because he is disrupting politics the way we have never seen before. on kamala harris, look, she's a good politician. i don't know if we know what she is. as a d.a. and a.g. she tried to be a tough on crime democrat. now she's moving far to the left because that's what her audience wanted. she's shape shifting a little

bit and that's what good politicians do. they're very political. they read polls. she became a protestor in the kavanaugh hearings to show off a little bit how liberal she could be. >> liberal. >> she was going after obvious holes in a narrative and she's obviously warranted enough scrutiny from cheap shots from you people on the right. >> in the first kavanaugh hearing, not once we had the accusation but the first hearing that was going to be a boring hearing, she and corey booker were taking turns at who could attack him the most because she's running for president. you'll see in her on the, starting tonight, right after this show and moving on through all the democratic nominees, a fight to change their old narrative and move harder to the left. >> to me, harris's sweet spot is she comes across as a no nonsense woman. she comes across as tough. she comes across as knowledgeable.

she doesn't take crap from anybody, but at the same time, she's likable and she does it with a smile. i don't hear people talking about the dislike issue like they do with an elizabeth warren. people that like elizabeth warren try to say that's a sexist remark. when did you ever hear a man being referred to as dislikable. well i heard plenty of people including myself call ted cruz dislikable. the reason she's not is because she ain't. it's not a woman thing. maybe it's an elizabeth warren thing. >> he's playing to convenience. so far left. it's a challenge for them. >> oh the problem with the left is its going to be so far left. it's a challenge for them. i don't know if it's as frightening or daunting as mike is making it out but another challenge is how hard do they play the antitrump card? harris gave a very rousing speech, big on truth. speak truth, seek truth. it's not an original line but it is a clever one in this context.

do you think they have a big challenge to figure out how to move past just saying anybody but trump? >> i think they have to say something in addition to that. it's not enough to think that people are going to run away from trump. hillary clinton tried that. you need to be able to attract people toward you. you need to get people to be enthusiastic about you. you need to get people to come out and vote for you in droves. we saw it here in florida. bill nelson thought rick scott is tainted with donald trump, there's no way the puerto ricans are going to vote for rick scott. they're voted by larger numbers than anybody expected for rick scott. so he worked that vote. politics are local. and sweat equity still matters. and you can't take any vote for granted. so it's not enough to say to

people i am the alternative to trump, therefore you must vote for me. you must also give them something to be happy about to vote for. >> you can't just be against. you must also be for. good points. thank you for setting up our big night tonight. appreciate it. see you both soon. we're getting very close to this first town hall. this does mark the unofficial beginning of the 2020 race. kamala harris is going to take the stage in des moines, iowa. the state that votes first. you'll see it only here on cnn with our man jake tapper. we have another big issue. the government is back open again. but for how long? what's going to happen on the 15th? could there be a law on the books. both sides of the aisle discuss preventing a shutdown from ever happening again. who should we ask? how about senator joe mansion. would he vote for that? the lone democratic defector is here this week. where's his head and his heart right now? [ doorbell rings ]

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on the mueller investigation. and close to being complete and lastly that mueller's report is going to be reviewed. some democrats are not taking kindly to the review part or any of that being said. let's get perspective from joe mansion. democrat from west virginia. welcome back to primetime, senator. >> good to be with you. how are you? >> i'm doing well. let me ask you, do you think the acting a.g. did the right thing making those disclosures today? >> i didn't. i don't know where that came from or why he thought it was important to do that. i'd say overwhelmingly they have all the faith and confidence. we're waiting and he's wrapping it up, i hope. this will be coming to an end and i hope to see the report and be basically unfeathered to where nobody else has their hand print on it. he's done a job for a long time and i think he's been thorough and he's gone into every nook and cranny and when it comes out, it will be factual report and we need to take that and go with it.

>> you know this. there's a mandate. he's supposed to deliver a report. and there's a review process for redactions and classification. >> sure. >> what is your concern about review? >> well, this has been so public and had so many twists and turns to it. if anybody sees something that could change the outcome or change the report in it's entirety or in any type of concept, that could be very damaging and i don't think that anyone is going to stand for that. i think that basically this has been long awaited. it's time for it to come out. the president has been very clear, he keeps saying he's not involved. there's no collusion. this should exonerate. or point fingers. we've seen a lot of indictments that he had overwhelming evidence that he felt he was able to indict.

i don't want it to have any more or any other hands on it than necessary. >> most recently, we saw the indictment of roger stone. the white house keeps saying this has nothing to do with the president. how can you have his two oldest, closest advisers, not only both indicted but indicted and accused of doing things they shouldn't have been doing with people with bad connections to the same people that are trying to interfere on behalf of russia. how can that have nothing to do with the president? not legally. just logically. >> i've been around the process like yourself for a long, long time. and when you have unsavory people such as that that want to be part of the decision making process, and then say, it wasn't me. he made a living doing this for many years way before donald trump and those type of people

basically come out of the woodwork at different times. this is something that's going to be very troubling, i believe. and i'm sure very concerning. >> what's the chance that your two oldest and closest advisers could be doing something like this and you wouldn't know a thing about it even though you're calling for the same thing that roger stone was looking for publicly on a regular basis. wikileaks wikileaks, give us more. would you be surprised if there is absolutely no suggestion that the president knew what they were doing? >> that would be hard for anybody. some of us have different approaches to how we govern. i want to know what was going on. i was probably more like your dad. i wanted to find out if there was a bridge down or road out. public service i took very serious. it's all about serving the public. i wanted to know. maybe other people were disconnected more than i. i wasn't that way.

i won't speculate. i know i would know. i would have heard from the rumor mills and gotten to the bottom of it and if there was any type of problem, they should have been gone. >> shutdown. god forbid on february 15th we wind up where we were. the president is threatening it. hopefully he learned the pain is too real. then you get the problem of, well, how do you fix it? port man and warner have proposals. both sides of the aisle. you have to change the ability to shutdown the government. do you agree with changing the rules so that you can't shutdown this way? >> i want to change the constitution. i want a constitutional amendment that says the day the government shuts down not one member of congress gets paid. not one staff member gets paid that drives a lot of the thinking and the policy. not the president gets paid. not one member of the president's executive staff in that white house get paid. you stop the paychecks, you'll never have another shutdown.

these are all very good, very smart, very policy driven people. they understand the process. i have the utmost respect. the only thing i can tell you, i went to a lot of federal employees and not one congress person or senator got harmed. not unless you gave up your paycheck, but you didn't get harmed and the people getting harmed, the first question they would ask me is, are you still getting paid senator? the constitution makes them pay us. i tell you one thing, it would be the quickest approved constitutional amendment you have ever seen. >> constitutional amendment, i don't even think we could get that kind of consensus on what letters are in the alphabet. but in terms of changing the law, do you think this is real or just big voices. >> there's big thoughts out there and good processes out there but it's still a process. until the hurt is felt here in washington.

until the members of congress and their staff. until they see real hurting. if you weren't talking to the correctional officers or the tsa people or the fbis, if you weren't talking to the people on the front line, coast guard, everybody, you didn't feel the pain or see the pain. when people told me, joe, my insurance, i have to pay for my prescriptions for my daughter who has diabetes, i have to pay for that up front. i'm an essential. i have to go to work. have to make decisions, do i put food on the table? do i buy my daughter's medicine? do i go to work and put gas in the car? these were tough decisions and people were hurting very bad. >> we'll see what can be done. you have to have the continuing resolution process. >> they would live forever because you can never stop so you have to thread it through,

but you can do it. let me ask you something else while i have you here as a democrat. what do you think of the idea of a howard schultz entering the race as a third party candidate. would you suggest he not do it? >> if anybody has looked into that deeper and researched it more than mike bloomberg, i don't know anybody. he's the most practical person and bright business person. he looked at every angle there was and didn't see a path way forward. this person would be wise to take his advice. i truly believe that. >> senator, always a pleasure. thank you for giving us the straight talk. appreciate it. >> this cannot help. >> this cruel and unusual punishment cannot continue again. >> the irony of it coming the day after valentine's day. hopefully there won't be any heart break. pun intended. >> >> help us all. >> lots of enthusiasm building for senator kamala harris.

can she maintain it? can she harness the enthusiasm and make something bigger of it and become the democratic nominee? this would be the first step. we're live for the first down hall of the 2020 season. in des moines. our man jake tapper is there. next. ♪ and if you feel, like i feel baby then come on, ♪ ♪ oh come on ♪ let's get it on applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood.

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take a look at that. that is a live picture in des moines, iowa. we'll have the democratic presidential contender kamala harris taking the stage for the town hall. the first of the 2020 season right here on cnn. now this comes after harris's really impressive gathering yesterday in her native oakland, california. thousands turned out to see the pictures there. a rally. some reports say it was larger than the kick off for barrack obama's first white house bid. he joins me from the town hall. that's the crowd you want to see. and you want your competitors to see it as well. what do you see as the plus minus on harris going into the race? >> that last point you made is critical. she clearly wanted to show some muscle there, right? she wanted -- it was a show of force to all the other democratic contenders.

by far, it was the biggest, most organized robust event we have seen of this political season. wanting to come out with a big statement, certainly. but also, what you saw in that announcement were twofold. you saw the contrast with trump when she was very clear that he represents an america we don't believe in. america, we can do better than this. that was the trump contrast. then she has a battle for the democratic nomination ahead of her. the issues front and center that she thinks it will jazz progressives including medicare for all, middle class tax cut and her criminal justice reform plan. she was putting the issues up. she was contrasting with trump and showing some force with that. >> so when you hear that checklist, where does that position here within her own party and what does that expose of her flank for the other party?

>> well one place is her record as san francisco's district attorney. california's attorney general. her prosecutorial record. if she was too tough on crime in exchange for some civil liberties. you have seen a critical op-ed in the "new york times". her answer to that is no, no, no. i'm a progressive prosecutor. i have dedicated my career to criminal justice reform and she will be out there to push back on that notion. the other issues, she's lumped in a lot. with the sander and made care for all. medicare for all. now that elizabeth warren is out there with her tax to wealthy plan, will folks like senator harris get on board with that? that's not been the case so far. that's not where she has put her attention. >> what does she mean to the right? >> well, you know, some people see her as a threat. but i don't think she has been largely defined by the right just yet.

which is both an opportunity for the president to define her for the republican machine to sort of get out there and create that. they haven't done that yet. they have done with that the others but that is what is so critical about nights like this. this is kamala harris coming out and introducing herself to americans. she's not that well-known. she may be getting people excited about her potential, but she's not that well-known. it's a critical introductory moment to the nation. >> so here's who i am. best foot forward. give me two more things she has to achieve tonight. >> i think she's got to show interplay with voters. we've seen her in the last week do interviews. we've seen her give the big rally speech. what we've not seen is the human to human interaction with voters. is there an authenticity there? i believe that's one of the

tests she's got to pass tonight. then we're going to start to hear what issues are on their minds. and then some lines are going to be drawn inside this democratic nomination fight. is she moving as far left as the party base is to try to court them, or does she try to hold as much flexibility, which seems to be her approach, as possible to not be boxed in as somebody who may be seen by the right as unelectable in a general election, that she moves too far left. so i think, watch her ideological positioning tonight, and watch her one-on-one, human to human interaction with voters. >> you gave me a great tip before i did my first one of these town halls. you said, hey, remember, it's not a debate. but at the same time, remember you're there for the audience. and it made me see there is one of the classic blunders that you can make as a potential candidate up there, which is don't give canned answers at a town hall because they are listening differently.

it's different than when you're going against your opponent, and you have a moderator, and it will be interesting to see how she handles that tonight. it's usually a strength for her. when she gets a tough question, will she own it, acknowledge that it's tough, acknowledge what she's doing on that. it will be interesting to see. david chalian, can't ask for better than you. enjoy the night. >> thanks, chris. in the context of what harris has to do, what any challenger has to do, there's one word to hit on president trump's greatest weakness, and senator harris used it a lot at her official announcement yesterday. the word, and then my argument for why that one word is a good word, but it's just a start. next. ♪now i'm gonna tell my momma ♪that i'm a traveller ♪i'm gonna follow the sun♪ ♪now i'm gonna tell my momma ♪that i'm a traveller transitions™ light under control™

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okay. so in just moments, a rising name for the democrats, senator kamala harris from california, will join our man, jake tapper, for a democratic presidential town hall live from iowa. and we know exactly where harris is taking her campaign right off the bat. >> in this moment, we must all speak truth about what is happening. we must seek truth, speak truth, and fight for the truth. [ cheers and applause ] >> to speak the truth, we must seek it. that's a clever, if not original line that hits at harris' two biggest opportunities. hit trump for his monumental

mendacity. we've never seen a president abuse the truth as he has in his short tenure. the latest line crossed for this president is this nonsense. >> women are tied up. they're bound, duct tape put around their faces, around their mouths. in many cases, they can't even breathe. >> where is he getting this? vox exposed an e-mail from cbp asking exactly that. if any of its members can substantiate what the president just said. again and again, we catch the president creating a false crisis on the border. so attacking him for truth abuse is fertile ground. the other angle is the need to seek truth, which harris says she'll offer and could easily speak to the need for the mueller probe and its findings. again, fertile ground. exposing questions about the president's openness to corruption and enemies abroad. that could be something. the truth is powerful.

but in politics, it is a companion, not the driver. so in that context, there are two challenges for all challengers to trump. set aside the general public discounting the existence of truth in politics anymore, and their potential inability to ever believe any politician is a pure truth-teller. the real challenge is that the truth must be part of a message that is more than just true. it has to capture the voters' imagination, their hunger for more and better that gives them a reason to believe. now, that's just not about the truth. it's about the power of the message and the persuasiveness of the messenger. let's take a look at where harris is on that. >> we can achieve the dreams of our parents and grandparents. we can heal our nation. we can give our children the future they deserve.

>> now, while all that may be true, it's all conditional on what is done. and to beat this president, pointing to his truth abuse may not be enough. it requires something else. harris or whomever emerges from the rapidly expanding field of those who think the presidency must change, they have to offer something to the country that combats all of the president's barbs and blusters with a rigid adherence to the truth, yes, but also that shows you can be on offense without being offensive and that you can convince people that you have something to offer that they need, that you know how to get it, and that you are the right man or woman to do it. my father said this much better than i ever could. he used to say, any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good man or woman to build one. what's the point? the negative will be powerful, but it may not be enough.

thank you for watching. the news continues here on cnn. this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. you just heard from 2020 candidate senator kamala harris. you see there, she is shaking hands with the folks who came out to see her in iowa. very interesting town hall. we'll be joined by david challian in moments to talk about this and take us through what you saw and heard this evening. well over an hour of questions from audience members by the california senator who has a legal background, was once a prosecutor, answering questions in a very prosecutorial way. very thought out. seemed to be very prepared with information and knowledge on all of the subjects she tackled and questions she had this evening. again, it's very early on. this is one of many town halls