spending ten minutes outside. >> these are my pants that i just had damp this morning. >> reporter: he discovered global waming in his pants. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> thank you for joining us. "anderson" starts now. good evening. robert mueller investigating russian meddling in the 2016 election now says that russians are meddling with his investigation. that's the bottom line in yet another court filing that's just as striking and what it implies is what it alleges. secret material allegedly altered, then made public to discredit the special counsel's work. there's no shortage of twists and turns and wheels within wheels to the story. people being investigated apparently trying to derail the investigation. so what are the details of this new mueller filing? >> reporter: exactly what you pointed out there, anderson, essentially the russians were able to obtain documents from the mueller team, documents that

were given to defense attorneys representing a russian company charged by the mueller team for the disinformation campaign and those documents, important to point out, some of them nonsensitive documents, were then put out over the internet and shared and what's key here also not only did they use some of the real documents the russians had their hands on, they also then altered some of the documents in essence trying to discredit the mueller team. a lot of concern from the mueller team from the fbi which says they have linked this activity to the russians. they say that the website that put this information out came from russia. and so obviously the concern now is for investigators to be careful and not give any more documents to the russians. >> this is something the mueller team has been concerned about for a while, right? >> reporter: they have and they've been fighting this in court.

every time the defense attorneys, it's for the specific company concord management, have come to court fighting the charges. every time they've come to court they've been asking for more documents. they've been asking that their clients have access to these documents. specifically one of the main people they're asking to have access to these documents is this man known as putin's chef. very close to putin. obviously a lot of concern that by giving some of these documents it would release potentially very sensitive information. here is what they write, the mueller team writes, the sensitive discovery identifies uncharged individuals and entities the government believes are continuing to engage in operations and interfere with lawful u.s. government functions like those activities charged in the indictment. what the mueller team is saying they do not want the russians to have access to any of this information. if they do they will know about other people that are engaging, still continuing to try to interfere in the u.s. election,

still trying to interfere in the u.s. government. >> so just finally i understand cnn was actually offered these documents last fall? >> reporter: yeah, we were. one of our reporters, they reached out to her via twitter. it was a direct message. they said we have these documents. we want to give them to you. we accessed them through a database, they say, that basically was from a russian lawyer's company and they have permission to get access to it. they were willing to share these documents. our reporters reached out to the special counsel's office and also the defense attorneys and obviously we were suspect. we couldn't understand how they were able to get ahold of this information. today we learned it was the russians and they were trying to use it to essentially hurt the russian investigation. >> shimon, thank you very much. a better sense of the significance of this. i spoke with a member of the senate foreign relations committee. senator, the fact that russians are waging a disinformation

campaign against the mueller investigation with documents directly from mueller's team, how much does that concern you? >> well, anderson, this is just another very disconcerting way in which president trump's interests seem to be aligned with russia's that there is news today that a russian entity is using information from the defense team on the opposite side of robert mueller's investigation to try and discredit that very investigation, and that lines up with the ways in which president trump has been attacking and criticizing the mueller investigation. >> according to our reporting it's been a concern to mueller's team all along if they shared documents with russian defense attorneys those documents could end up in the wrong hands, and it seems like that's exactly what happened. >> that's right. that is what happened. anderson, that's why it's more important than ever that we have voices here in the senate both democrats and republicans speaking up in defense of robert mueller's investigation and giving him the room, the resources, the ability to make

independent decisions that he needs to reach a conclusion to this investigation. i am grateful that senators graham and tillis have joined booker and me in reintroducing our bipartisan bill to protect the mueller investigation to ensure a report is given to congress at the end and to make sure robert mueller isn't interfered with as he tries to conclude the most important steps of his investigation. >> your colleague on the senate judiciary committee lindsey graham is calling for the fbi to brief the committee on the tactics used in the arrest of roger stone saying that the arrest, it appears to have only added to the spectacle surrounding the mueller investigation, the way he was arrested. do you agree with senator graham? >> well, look, it is chairman graham's prerogative to question the tactics. what i saw in the press they used a lot of agents for a predawn raid and there's an argument he could have simply surrendered during a daylight hours through his attorney's

offices. the larger point here is that roger stone, his arrest included raids on offices not in florida where he was but in new york to try and get access to some of his electronic devices. i'll remind that you executing a warrant like that meant that a federal judge signed off on the idea that there was a high probability something would be recovered in that raid that would lead to evidence of a crime. so, to me, the roger stone arrest and the items likely seized in subsequent searches lends even more credibility to the idea the mueller investigation has not yet concluded. >> the g-20 in buenos aires president trump sat down with putin for several minutes with no translator and no taker from the u.s. side. yet again is there any reasonable explanation in your opinion why this seems to happen over and over again whenever these two leaders come together? >> there isn't particularly given the timing.

the g-20 was not long after a very aggressive action by russian naval forces against ukrainian forces just off the black sea. i'll remind you relations between the united states and russia soured significantly after they took aggressive action annex crimea and that president trump chose to sit down in person for what was reportedly 10 or 15 minutes with no translator, with no aide, and then with no readout to senior levels of the american government. it would be deeply concerning and unprecedented. this would not be the first time president trump would have taken the opportunity at an international meeting to have a side-by-side conversation with vladimir putin. why i feels compelled to keep doing this, why he keeps doing this, i think just adds more concern to the nature of the relationship between the trump

administration and vladimir putin and personally between our president and the president of the russian federation. >> we still really have no idea what they discussed in helsinki behind closed doors. it's unprecedented in presidential history but not in the history of this president, it seems. senator coons, thank you for your time. appreciate it. president trump has just spoken out on some of special counsel mueller's work. we are joined now by phone. thanks for being with us. if you could just walk me through what the president told you this evening. i understand he took issue with the arrest of roger stone. >> that's right, anderson, and thanks for having me. he talked about how he was troubled with the way the roger stone raid had been handled. he didn't understand why so much force had been used in the raid. we asked him whether he was asked to review fbi policy on raids concerning white collar crime and said that's something he would be taking a look at. one of the things particularly concerned with if you know roger, if you look at roger,

he's not somebody where it would seem the amount of force would be used. he clearly was troubled by what he saw. >> and, saagar, did he have anything to say about the mueller probe itself? >> reporter: we talked a little bit about the mueller probe. i asked him whether he had gotten a heads-up from the acting attorney general matt whitaker about whether the mueller probe would be wrapping up. he told us he had not spoken with matthew whitaker about that, about those comments that he learned about them just like everybody else. broadly i asked him about the mueller report whether it was something he would be signing off on as commander in chief, and he actually said he would be leaving that the matter up to the justice department. that was very significant. >> and i understand, saagar, he spoke about the 2020 field as well. >> reporter: yeah, he did speak a little bit about the 2020 field. he didn't name check any candidates in particular. we asked him who his dream candidate was to run against in 2020. he said he wasn't impressed by much of the field that currently

exists, and so he saw that and he said currently all of them don't seem to be standing much of a chance against him. >> he also, i understand, took a swipe at howard schultz who has not officially announced but is exploring it. >> reporter: he said he didn't have the it factor and seemed quite boring in much of his media interviews. he was his classic self in the interview when we were talking about this. >> it sounds like he's already trying to come up with a nickname. saagar enjeti, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. more perspective, jeffrey toobin, steve hall, and former fbi agent joins us. first of all, do you see any reason why the fbi should review its policies on the roger stone raid? >> not at all. this wasn't just about arresting roger stone, who i agree was not a likely threat to anyone. but it's about immobilizing a situation so he can't destroy

documents or computer records. that's why all that force was used. >> somebody who has been sort of talking about being arrested for quite some time, if they were going to destroy documents, wouldn't somebody already have destroyed documents? >> it wasn't clear roger stone was going to be arrested. being arrested is very different, being told that you have to be -- you are going to be arrested is being under investigation. i don't know the precise reasons that they went to those lengths, but the fbi does this all the time and the idea the only reason the president is interested in it is on the one occasion his friend of 30 years gets arrested. that's not generally how law enforcement is supposed to be reviewed. >> as a former fbi yourself, do you see anything wrong with how the fbi handled the stone raid? >> no. as far as i could tell, this was standard. as jeffrey mentioned there was a search warrant involved. you have many agents who are assigned to do different duties during a search. some are there to secure certain

areas that need to be searched. some are there to -- if there are more people in the house, for example. this seemed pretty standard and i think it's really interesting the president wants to look into this given that just a year and a half ago he gave a speech to law enforcement officials telling them not to be too nice when they arrest people, which, you know, at the time was very troubling. >> he was telling people -- police not to put the hands on the heads of suspect, not even people convicted of anything when they put them in a police car. >> exactly. i think even from roger stone's account, the fbi was professional and respectful as i would expect them to be when they did their job in this situation. >> steve, just in terms of russians trying to spread disinformation to discredit the mueller investigation using information that they got from their attorneys from the mueller investigation, is that straight out of the russian playbook? >> oh, yeah, absolutely. it's definitely -- and we know

from yesterday's testimony, from the intelligence community chiefs, we know the assessment is the russians are going to continue this type of information operations against the united states. they did it in 2016. they did it a little bit less detectably in 2018. i think it's coming in 2020. the intelligence community is assessing they're learning as they go, which is to be expected. the particularly interesting thing for me that i smiled at, this is such typical russian m.o. inserting false information and changing things around. people ask, for example, about wikileaks. what exactly did -- it doesn't matter. as soon as the russians get access to something like wikileaks or get into the stream of information, they'll create whatever documents or whatever e-mails they'll want, adjust however they want to. it's interesting they targeted the mueller investigation. you have to ask yourself why are they concerned about the mueller investigation, perhaps the same

reason the president of the united states is. >> jeff, it's not just that they're trying to discredit the mueller investigation, it's that the documents came from the mueller investigation. is it illegal to give it to the russians who publish it? >> it depends if there was a public order, whether there was a specific order that they not share the documents. this is a very hard problem. it comes up in sophisticated criminal prosecutions a lot is that prosecutors say the defendants are bad guys. but under the law they are required to turn over evidence to them under the discovery rules. and sometimes there are issues like the names of informants, stuff that is potentially life and death. so judges and prosecutors and even defense attorneys have to navigate this problem of disclosing information but not seeing it put to bad use. here, apparently, it was put to inappropriate use. the idea that you simply couldn't give these people information, that's just inconsistent with our laws, too.

it's a hard problem. >> asha, things like this part of why counter intelligent investigations rarely result in criminal charges? >> exactly. this is like a textbook case. people always ask, why aren't there more charges being brought? and this is the reason why. counterintelligence cases use certain methods, sources that are typically highly classified. and you don't want your adversary to know what you know. the game is spy versus spy. that's how you have your advantage. as jeffrey just mentioned that's not how our criminal justice system works. you lay all your cards out on the table and that is an opportunity in this case for russia to find out exactly how our intelligence service, the fbi is finding out what they're doing. and so this is the tension being played out in court. basically mueller is saying we don't want this to be shared in an expansive fashion because it could go back to russia and, by the way, now our fears have been

realized because this nonsensitive information has now shown up in this twitter account that claims to have hacked our database or whatever. so it is attention, and i think that it means that it is even more important that mueller's report goes to congress because many of these kinds of findings won't make their way into a criminal indictment. >> asha, i appreciate it. steve hall and jeff toobin as well. we've been talking about late word on the extent of the president's anger at one of his top intelligence officials. later my conversation with howard schultz who might run for president has been making some democrats unhappy with the idea of an independent run. how does he reconcile his opposition to president trump with the argument a third-party challenge might ensure mr. trump's re-election.

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breaking news that sheds new light on president trump's latest attack on the intelligence community, his intelligence community, our intelligence community. the day after top intelligence officials said the facts they see on iran, north korea, isis contradict what president trump says. he tweeted, seem to be extremely passive and naive. he concludes perhaps intelligence should go back to school. now the tweets, of course, are the latest public eruption of a long-standing antipathy. tonight, though, we have also learned how that antagonism played out in private. cnn white house correspondent kaitlyn could the lillins with news. >> reporter: you can tell from the tweets he sent around 6:00 a.m. as he watched the highlights of the intelligence chiefs testifying on capitol hill. but what's new tonight we're learning the president singled out the director of national intelligence dan coates specifically during his morning

rant about that coverage of what had transpired yesterday. now he didn't name dan coates in those tweets but according to two people familiar with what the president said today he was going after dan coates specifically and was very angry about the snippet of the interview where dan coats was saying it's unlikely north korea would ever give up its nuclear weapons. that goes against what the president has said. he know what is dan coats' feelings on that are because dan coats is part of that intelligence briefing the president gets reg ularly. the tv chyrons that said the intelligence chiefs contradicted him on this. >> so it's not the first time the president has been unhappy with coats, but is he in danger of being fired, do we know? >> reporter: an official said, no, his job is safe for now. they do not think dan coats is at risk of being fired but really their relationship had just started to recover from the wobbly position it had been in. last summer when dan coats was on stage when he was informed

about reporting the white house was considering inviting the russian president here to washington. the president was angry at him then. they say that subsided but it's unclear what this will do to their relationship going forward. the president did only have one thing on his schedule today, an intelligence briefing. it's unclear if dan coats was there or his deputy. the senate minority leader, chuck schumer, has sent a letter saying that he is very concerned about the criticism that was shown in the president's tweets at the intelligence chiefs. he calls on them to hold a meeting with the president where he says, and i'm quoting chuck schumer now, he is putting you and your colleagues in an untenable position and hurting the national interest in the process. he says, you must find a way to make that clear to him. >> kaitlan collins, thank you very much. adam kinsinger sits on the house

committee. this president refuses to believe what his intelligence chiefs are telling him. >> i wish he wouldn't do that. some of his points about iran, you know, and getting out of the nuclear deal and the pushback has been accurate. there is a lot of internal strife in iran like there's been. i don't see the reason to get into a public spat with your intelligence agency. these are a lot of your assessments when you decide when to do in iran or anywhere else. you have to rely on assessments. they may disagree with your point. you're the president. you have the right to do whatever decision you want, for instance, in syria, but to publicly disagree and try to shame, i don't understand that. i don't know what the president gets out of it. i certainly think it's damaging to our national security and what it looks like around the world. >> it's one thing to disagree with an analysis that you're given, but he's now publicly

demeaning them and undercutting them publicly. between director coats, these are people who have more than 70 years of service to the country. >> yeah, and the other concerning part, anderson, let's say we have a national security crisis, again, which is not too far out of the possibilities and then the president will need to come to the american people. he's going to need to explain that threat that exists and will be relying on his intelligence community to give him that threat. again, it's one thing to disagree and another to take issue. a lot of assessments are as much as opinions and theories based on information they have, but to publicly disagree and some day have to use that as an impe it tus for action can be damaging in the future. i wish he wouldn't do it. >> i'm wondering is it dangerous the commander in chief doesn't accept what the most pressing national security threats actually are? it seems something enemies of the u.s. would be happy to exploit. >> i think if that's the case --

i'm not convinced the president isn't accepting the greatest threats are. there's some aspect of i don't know whether he's trying to protect his image in public or whatever. i've met with the president on things like syria and he's introspective and wants to make sure isis is defeated and worries about another attack here. it's his right as president. but to come out and publicly say i disagree with this massive infrastructure of intelligence gathering we have, i don't see a benefit to that. i don't think it's doing anything to make him look better. >> republican senator john thune said he would prefer the president stay off twitter with regard to important national security issues. i assume you would probably second the motion. >> yeah. national security to me, i certain on the foreign affairs and despite my age i'm old school. i still think when it comes to issues outside of the shores of america we have to show a united

front. now that means you can still disagree and have those disagreements. things like cnn are worldwide platforms and people will see them, but to disagree within your national security establishment i think is something that needs to stay off twitter. it's one thing if he wants to tweet we're making progress with kim jong-un, for instance, but another thing to say i have a problem with what my intelligence folks are giving me. >> congressman, i appreciate your time. thank you. >> you bet. take care. >> up next howard schultz is getting a lot of pushback after saying he's considering a 2020 independent run for the white house. i'll talk to him about it next.

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you heard at the top of the program president trump has taken a shot at billionaire howard schultz, the former ceo of starbucks, weighing a third-party run for the white house. the president saying he doesn't have the it factor. mr. schultz announced over the weekend he is considering a bid for the white house. some democrats fear he may help president trump get re-elected by splitting an anti-trump vote. right now he's traveling around the country talking about his potential run in his new book called "from the ground up: a journey to reimagine the promise

of america." i spoke to him earlier. mr. schultz, first of all, do you have a time line when you will decide whether or not to officially announce? >> what i've said publicly since last sunday is i want to spend the next few months traveling the country listening and learning from the american people. and by spring or summer, i'll make a decision. but what i'm really trying to do more than anything else is really ask a very simple question, what kind of country do we want to live in? and i think we can do better than this. i think the extremes of both parties are not representative of the american people. and the american people are better than this political class. >> if you want president trump out of office so badly as you have said you do, why not just run in the democratic party especially given that you are a lifelong democrat? >> what i've said nobody wants to see president trump fired and out of office more than me.

i think a false narrative has been created in the last 48 hours that if, in fact, i ran for president as a centrist independent there has been a rush to judgment that perhaps i would take votes away from democratic party. what i believe is that millions of lifelong republicans who are not interested in re-electeding donald trump but are not going to vote for left leaning progressive democratic nominee. so given the choice donald trump will probably be re-elected. what i really want to do is provide a better choice. >> to that point, as you know, mayor michael bloomberg said that he's crunched the numbers on an independent run and said, quote, the data was very clear and consistent given the strong pull of partisanship and realities of the electoral system there's no way an independent can win. that's a risk i refuse to run and we can't afford to run it now.

do you have your own electoral data to rebut bloomberg? >> i do. anderson, let me say this. i have great respect for mayor bloomberg. but he's not a proxy for 2020, and i would suggest that if mayor bloomberg did run for president in 2016, there might have been a much different outcome. what i see is this. 42% of the electorate affiliate themselves currently as an independent. the problem is they have never had a legitimate choice. so what if they had a legitimate choice? just think about what could happen. >> are you that different in terms of your policies and your politics than michael bloomberg? wouldn't he be appealing to a lot of those republicans who are dissatisfied with donald trump? even though you make the argument joe biden as well is probably more centrist. >> this is not about michael bloomberg or joe biden. it's about the american people.

what i'm saying is, and the american people agree with me is that our politics and our government is broken. >> your argument for your independent run is predicated on the notion you're the only one making the argument that you're making and in between donald trump and a left-leaning democrat if there's michael bloomberg or joe biden. doesn't that weaken your argument? >> this is what the american people believe and will decide. your first question is that you asked me how am i going to make this decision. the american people will make the decision. the american people are disgusted and exhausted with the partisanship and the politics that exist every single day that doesn't produce any kind of solution. >> do you see anything that president trump has done that you support? >> no, i don't think there's anything that president trump

has done or support. i think the only thing he has said over the last couple years that i agree with is when he said that he was personally responsible for the shutdown. >> on monday president trump went after you on twitter saying you, quote, don't have the guts to run, unquote, and that you're not the smartest person. then he reportedly told supporters that the reason he took shots at you is to draw you into the race. are the president's taunts any more or less likely to make you run? does it concern you that he's claiming he wants to you run? do you believe what he's saying? >> i'm paying very little attention to president trump's tweets. i'm exhausted by it. i'm bored by it. and i'm not trying to win the twitter primary. >> i want to ask you about senator kamala harris. you've criticized some of her proposals. she was a tough on crime prosecutor. can she be lumped in with candidates that you think are too far to the left?

>> well, i don't know senator harris. i respect her from afar. i don't know her. what i said publicly yesterday was responding to the fact that she came out publicly with regard to free health care for all that she would wipe out the entire insurance business. the entire industry. that is not an approach to solving this program and demonstrates what's wrong with our politics. >> what do you say to those who argue the president says she shouldn't be an entry level job in government and also do you feel like you know how to run against president trump? you're not engaged in this twitter war. there are a lot of very qualified republicans who are running against him and he beat them all. do you know how to beat him? >> i've spent the last almost 40

years billing the kind of company we serve people. 100 million customers a week, we employ almost 400,000 people. i spent my entire career building consensus, creating imagination and innovation and working well with people on both sides of the aisle. president trump to me is not the litmus test for the presidency or for what i'm going to try and do. what i will say is i'm going to do everything i can to remove president trump from office. >> and you think you have a strategy -- you know how to do that? that you've gone against people like him before? >> well, again, president trump is a person that fights with hate and a lot of vitriol. i view that as insecurity and weakness. what i will do is speak directly to the hearts and minds of the american people.

>> just lastly i want to ask you about something you tweeted today. you tweeted thinking a writer, roger simon, for a thoughtful analysis of what's possible. he was saying it's possible you could win the presidency, your tweet has been deleted. the analysis you were referring to was that an article written by simon two days ago titled howard schultz could actually win the presidency? in that he called kamala harris shrill. is that why you deleted the tweet? >> i don't want to get into the mud with anybody. i don't want to get into revenge politics which is the problem that i'm identifying. i want to speak positively and do everything i can to elevate

the information conversation. that is what's necessary. >> did you not realize he made those comments? >> i did not. >> howard schultz, it's good to talk to you. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> more perspective on our breaking news and anger at dan coats and the intelligence community. joining us one time high-ranking member of the community former cia chief leon panetta will talk about that and the new reporting russians have been meddling in robert mueller's investigation. ♪ not long ago, ronda started here. and then, more jobs began to appear. these techs in a lab. this builder in a hardhat... ...the welders and electricians who do all of that. the diner staffed up 'cause they all needed lunch.

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i want to return to our breaking news, sources say president trump was seething this morning and that he singled out director of national intelligence dan coats. joining me is leon panetta. thanks for being with us. this isn't the first time the president has singled coats out. i remember he also did it in helsinki during his joint press conference. i want to play that for our viewers. >> my people came to me, dan coats came to me, and some others. they said they think it's russia. i have president putin.

he said it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. >> he doubted coats then. he doubts him now, demeaning him. when coats speaks the truth, the president apparently goes on rants about it or rants about him in the morning. does that make any sense to you? >> well, this president, although he appointed dan coats as director of national intelligence, is somebody who if he doesn't hear what he wants to hear from somebody is going to get very angry at them. the responsibility of dan coats and, for that matter, the intelligence community, is to speak truth to power. that's why they're there. they've got to be objective. they've got to be nonpartisan. they have to basically tell it as it is whether that person likes to hear it or not.

when they speak the truth as they did yesterday, the president did not want to hear it and as a result got angry. the reality is if you're president of the united states, it's much better if you appreciate the facts as they're presented rather than trying to create your own view of what the world should be. >> an interesting -- i don't know if interesting is the word or strategy, behavior by the president that it's one thing to disagree with an intelligence assessment, one thing to push back on it. it's another to publicly demean the person and the persons who are working in the intelligence community. i'm not sure long term what that's about. he gets angry and he tweets about it.

>> well, it is not only unprecedented. i think it's dangerous. >> how so? >> the president of the united states has to protect our national security. in order to do that he's got to know what our adversaries are up to. and who provides that information. it's the intelligence community. why? they have sources of information that provide credible intelligence to the president of the united states. presidents don't always agree with those assessments. if they disagree they usually sit down with their officials and ask them to go back and check their sources and, again, check their credibility.

that undermines the credibility of our intelligence officials and it sends exactly the wrong message to our enemies who believe this president operates basically on his own gut sense rather than on the truth. i think that's a message of weakness and it creates, in my view, a dangerous situation in terms of how this president relates to the rest of the world. >> the president is putting coats and his colleagues in an untenable position and that they have to find a way to make that clear to the president. is that something that can be made clear to the president by the very people he's targeting? >> this president obviously doesn't have a great deal of

experience in government accepting the intelligence that's presented to him. he's been resisting this from the very beginning. not only on russia but he has questioned intelligence assessments on everything from syria to see how this president will accept intelligence in a responsible way. he does modify some of his positions based on the intelligence. he tweeted to get our troops out of syria. he said isis had been defeated. he's beginning to back a little bit away from that position. he's done other things with regards to intelligence assessments that have been provided for example, on north korea. he knows he has a problem with

the whole issue of denuclearization when it comes to dealing with north korea. so i think the best way that you have to deal with this president is for him to bear the consequences of his and the way he bears the consequences is that those matters then turn sour on him because he's failing to lead this country with regards to national security issues. >> secretary panetta, always appreciate talking to you, thank you very much. i want to check in with chris, see what he's working on for "cuomo primetime" at the top of the hour, chris? >> hey, coop, there's always a premium in talking to someone in the news instead of talking about them. you had schultz on, perfect. he's the man of the moment in terms of what's he going to do with the party and in terms of running. great to hear from him directly. we're going to do the same thing tonight on these kind of puzzling questions about why the president keeps disrespecting his own hand-picked intel chiefs. >> yeah. >> chris christie is with us here tonight. he's got a new book out.

it provides really interesting insight into the white house, but also, he was there for much of what was said and done. i'm not blaming him, but he will know the mindset of the president and the men and women around him that led us to this fuzzy place. so we're going to talk to someone who has the answers we need. >> it's also, i mean, he gives such a fascinating look at the whole transition process that the -- going from the cam pine campaign to the presidency to the white house. >> his reckoning, fairly from from sources i had during that period, the only process was christie. once christie wasn't there anymore, we see the results. >> yeah. >> only the best led us to certainly the worst. they still don't have a ton of positions need filled they that do have to pill. so the results speak for themselves. the insight we get from christie very valuable. doing two blocks with him tonight. >> he also has a lot to say, obviously, about jared kushner, which is fascinating. >> look, the history there, got to separate kushner from his father, obviously, kushner

couldn't do that. that's somewhat understandable until you look at the facts, but, yes, he understands what kushner's role is, what that meant vis-a-vis him and others and i think it's a singular perspective, happy to have it. >> look forward to it, chris, thank you very much. see you coming up eight minutes from now. coming up, the cold, the ridiculous, ridiculous cold on "the ridicu-list." would you want the onechoosing , the experts at rootmetrics say is number one in the nation? sure, they probably know what they're talking about. or the one that j.d. power says is highest in network quality by people who use it every day? this is a tough one. well, not really, because verizon won both. so you don't even have to choose. why didn't you just lead with that? it's like a fun thing. (vo) chosen by experts. chosen by you. and now get apple music included, on us. it's the unlimited plan you need on the network you deserve. switch now and get $300 off our best phones. your mornings were made for than psoriatic arthritis. as you and your rheumatologist consider treatments, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once daily pill

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the windy city, but we're not talking just about the midwest. nearly 70% of the continentuent united states, more than 200 million people, will have temperatures at or below freezing over the next few days. in louisville, kentucky, right now, windchill is about negative 6, that's cold enough to close the schools and the governor of kentucky, matt bevin, had these words of guidance during a radio interview. >> now we cancel school for cold? >> it's deep freeze. this is serious business. >> it is, come on now. there's no ice going with it or any snow. i mean, what happens to america? we're getting soft, terry. we're getting soft. >> these kids today. they're not willing to stand outside and wait for the school bus like we used to in sub-zero temperatures an freeze right there at their desks. they're soft. was the governor kidding? we're talking about kids' safety here. >> i do appreciate, it's better to err on the side of being safe and i'm being only slightly facetio facetious. >> i know. >> but it does concern me a little bit that in america, on this and any number of other fronts, we're sending messages

to our young people that if life is hard, you can curl up in the fetal position somewhere in a warm place and just wait until it stops being hard. >> that actually sounds kind of awesome. throughout the country, principals and superintendents went in another direction in announcing their school closings. ♪ it's a snow day a winter cold day ♪ ♪ stay home and just play ♪ it's a great family day ♪ can't take no chances ♪ safety first that's what our stance is ♪ ♪ we haven't had school for the longest time ♪ ♪ don't come tomorrow we're closed ♪ ♪ value your nose ♪ stay home and drink some coca ♪ ♪ school's closed tomorrow >> see, in my days, school officials didn't sing. we're getting soft.

as the bitter cold grips the country, as always, the nation's turns its eyes to its leader for guidance. "in the beautiful midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees" the president tweeted "the coldest ever recorded. in coming days, expect it to get colder. people can't last outside for even minutes. what the hell is going on with global waming?" on this one, i stand with the president, what the hell is going on with this so-called global waming? global waming doesn't exist. there's no such thing. it's a hoax. oh. i'm being told he meant global warming. apparently got so excited on the t twitter machine that the left out the "r." nasa does have a great explanation of this which we'll, again, point the president to on its website for children. >> when you look out the window, you're seeing what the weather is like today. weather is only temporary. climate describes the typical weather conditions in an entire region for a very long time.

>> what about waming? he'll get it eventually. that would be a heartwaming day in this country. until then, if you need me, i'll be curled up with a hot cup of covfefe next to a fire on "the ridiculist." it is cold. the news continues. i want to hand it over to chris for "cuomo primetime." chris? >> thank you, very much, anderson, i appreciate it. i'm chris cuomo. welcome to "primetime." new information on russian int r interferen interference, to mess directly with robert mueller, our president takes putin's word over that of his own intelligence officials. what is going on here? now, many speculate about why the president and those around him do what they do regarding russia. tonight we can get answers from a man who should know some of those answer answers. he was there for a lot of what was skaid and done. former governor chris christie, former trump transition chief