who are you going to believe? the u.s. intelligent community or former officer. that question tops this hour 360. it's a question president trump reportedly faced according to andrew mccabe. he's the one the president fired. the life long republican that's written an account of his turbulent encounters with the president in the wake of james

comey's firing. one recurring theme, what mccabe saw as the president's affinity for russia. he appeared on 60 minutes and recounted one such incident. >> the president launched into several unrelated diatribes. one of those was commenting on the recent missile launches by the government of north korea and essentially the president said he did not believe that the north koreans had the capability to hit us here with ballistic missiles in the united states, and he did not believe that because president putin had told him they did not. president putin had told him that the north koreans don't actually have those missiles. >> and u.s. intelligence was telling the president what? >> intelligence officials in the briefing responded that that was not consistent with any of the intelligence our government possesses. to which the president replied, i don't care, i believe putin.

>> i believe putin, he said. quite an account. it's not sitting well with the president that called mccabe a disgrace. mccabe has plenty to say as you'll see when he joins us tomorrow night on the program. so what else did he have to say in the interview last night? >> so anderson, it was the first time that we get to hear from him on the record, talking about his interaction during the several day period where it appeared things were extremely chaotic after the firing of the former fbi director james comey. mccabe told us it was he who decided to launch this counter intelligence investigation into the president because he had feared that the president was compromised by russia. he ordered the obstruction investigation and really one of the things that i found most fascinating was how he described his interaction with rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney

general who as we know wrote that memo that ultimately the president used as a way to fire the former fbi director and just their interaction and then rod rosens rosenstein's explanation that rod didn't think that he needed to do it and ultimately he didn't do that but when you look at what mccabe says he painted this entire picture of an fbi and department of justice that was just in such turmoil because they really didn't know what was next and that's perhaps why, as he described, why rod rosenstein offered to wear this wire to go see the president. so i could get in there he says. they wouldn't search me so i could get in there with the wire and then the whole issue of the 25th amendment. so it's just this back and forth. this back and forth between them for this several day period. it was one of the most fascinating things to give us a look inside of a period.

>> what was the response from rosenstein and the doj to the allegations? >> they didn't outright deny that these conversations had taken place. obviously there were things about it that were inaccurate and others have certainly said that perhaps rod was joking. that there were indications that he didn't take these conversations so seriously but for mccabe it was something that he took seriously. then he also brought them and discussed them with his general council and senior leadership. >> his credibility has been in question since department of justice inspector general concluded he lied multiple times about his interactions with the press. what did he have to say about that in the interview? >> so he essentially says he was confused by some of the questions. he denies that he lied intentionally in anyway that some of the questions he was confused about.

what was interesting is mccabe's explanation of why he went to and spoke to a newspaper reporter about the clinton investigation. and his whole point in doing that was to make sure that the facts were right. that the information getting out there was not going to be wrong and inaccurate and he felt it was his duty to make sure that the right information concerning that investigation was in the newspaper. >> appreciate it. former director of national intelligence and retired air force lieutenant general james clapper. more recently the author of facts and fears, hard truths from a life in intelligence. this that the president dismissed his own intelligence agencies conclusions saying i don't care, i believe putin, it's not that hard to imagine him saying that given that he essentially said the same thing in helsinki at the press

conference when he talked about information dan coates had told him about that vladimir putin had given a strong defense denying that there was any russian involvement. >> i think that was fairly early on in the administration. and it's part of what has since become a pattern where if the intelligence introduced by the intelligence community doesn't purport with his world view then he rejects it and in this case accepts putin's word over his own intelligence community. and in this particular instance having to do with north korean missiles but later, you know, putin, he accepted denials of meddling in our election over the coordinated and high competence view of the intelligence community. it's stunning.

>> do you think given everything that we have seen from this president, it's reasonable to ask if he could be working on behalf of russian interests and not the u.s.s? it's a reasonable question. whether wittingly or unwittingly. that's an important consideration. that's what drove andy's concern to initiate an investigation. which in my view is entirely appropriate and i think, you know, the fbi would have -- could have been accused of dereliction for not considering that possibility. >> you worked with andrew mccabe. you know him well. what can you say about his work at the fbi? the kind of agent he was? because the criticism of him among other things is that he, you know, according to the inspector general gave misleading statements, lied several times. >> well, my engagement, my encounters with andy were

entirely positive. it goes back to when he was in charge of the field office and later on when he went to the headquaters and ultimately as the deputy director. he and i appeared together as witnesses in the seemingly endless hearings about benghazi and i found him to be credible, professional, dedicated, and level headed and honest. >> and lastly, a friend of the president's who was there this weekend is hearing there's a general disappointment with the president with dan coates and maybe there needs to be a change of leadership there. what kind of an impact would that have if coates were to, in fact, leave? this has been simmering for a long time based on a number of things the president said about coates. >> as far as the impact on the intelligence community, i think it would be pretty devastating. dan coates is regarded as an honorable man that has right

values and standards and wants to do the right thing. believes in the truth and telling it. that's precisely what he did at the hearing before the senate intelligence committee recently and he said some things which, by the way, he wasn't making that up but he was representing the coordinated views of the entire intelligence community when he says that north korea is not going to give up it's nuclear weapons and isis has not been defeated, that's right. and iran is in m copliens with the jcpoa and apparently the president didn't like that because that didn't comport with his world view. why this is really serious, anderson, is if we ever have a really serious international event of a magnitude, god forbid, of a 9/11 or another confrontation with the likes of

russia or china, a serious one, the president and the country are going to need the intelligence community and relying exclusively on his gut poses a real threat to this country and to his presidency. >> his gut and whatever vladimir putin is whispering to him. >> exactly. >> director clapper, good to talk to you. thank you. just got this in from an official at the justice department. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein is expected to leave the justice department in mid march. the timing of his departure has anything to do with the latest revelations from andrew mccabe. emphasizing that the plan is always that he would help for the transition for his successor and then leave. the new deputy attorney general could be announced as early as this week. joining us right now is the republican strategy and democratic strategist and former ci chief of russia investigations. >> so the white house says andrew mccabe has no credibility. it's not like he's alleging

something that isn't plausible. we have seen president trump giving putin the benefit of the doubt. >> it's shocking. i will say what mr. mccabe is accused of dissemiabling about was a story that was planted in the wall street journal that attacked hillary clinton. if he was a deep state guy trying to get trump, that story hurt hillary's campaign: if you look at the objective evidence, this was a president that said go easy. then he fires the fbi director and he tells nbc news the president does this because of russia. then a few days later, he brings the russian foreign minister and the russian ambassador into the oval office and highly classified information. if i had done that, i would be in gitmo.

and seems to believe thoempl our intelligence and now he gives us another example. if he's not a russian asset, he's sure playing one on tv. >> what do you make of the breaking news that rosenstein is on his way out. >> i believe the administration on this. he did put out that when the new attorney general was sworn in and he seems to, from press reports, have a candidate to be the new deputy attorney general so i think actually they're telling the truth on this. >> if what he said is true and president trump did believe vladimir putin, would that concern you? >> a lot of ifs here. with all due respect, i think this is a little bit of icing on the cake here on mr. mccabe. of course an obama appointee at the office of personal responsibility of the justice department recommended his firing. the inspector general report on

his lies and his leaks, so the track record he has is zero. so answer your question, i don't know the context of which this supposed conversation took place and how the president referred to the matters that he might have said to him. >> but you did see the helsinki press conference in which president trump said dan coates told me one thing but president putin had a powerful denial. >> denial. that's what he said. >> he took in the denial and he just presented it as such. i think there is a narrative that's being created to assume automatically that just because the president is questioning bureaucrats and intelligence that's been faulty in the past and previous administrations there's so much criticism of the

intelligence, the president is just the questioning of these things and having his suspicions of people that do not share his views having their own agenda. there was a movement to a soft administrative coup underway although he recommended mr. comey be fired. >> my question is would it concern -- i understand the questioning of u.s. intelligence and having skeptism and everybody should but he seems to be, if this story is correct, he believes what vladimir putin whispered to him about north korean nuclear abilities. wouldn't that concern you, if it's true? that the president of the united states seems to be going with stuff that vladimir putin is whispering in his ear as opposed to stuff the u.s. intelligence community is saying? >> yes, but i don't know if this is true.

>> frankly in 2016 and early 2017, there were a lot of criticisms about the amount of intelligence we had on north korea and whether they even had the capability and how some of these weapons might have been and some of the tests that failed and so forth. so i don't know the context in which it was played. what is clear, though is that throughout his tenure since donald trump became president i think he had the objective to have him removed from office and i think every person should be concerned about bureaucrats coming together and taking head counts supposedly on cabinet members to skper siexercise the amendment. i think that's what should be extremely concerning. >> can you think of any scenario under which an american president should take the president of russia's word for something instead of the word of american intelligence? >> no.

the only narrative that's going on here is the one that this president has himself done. he has a track record. you can see him talking about classified information and talking about how he just fired his head of the fbi. i have to agree that it would be absolutely remiss if the fbi at this particular -- at that particular point didn't open a counter intelligence investigation on this president because there's no other, i can't think of another way to explain this stuff away and it's only gotten worse with time. the more and more connectivity that we have seen, not just between donald trump but his family members and his team. so yeah, you can disagree with intelligence, you can do whatever you want with what your government systems are telling you is going on in the world.

you can create your own policy but to say you're not going to listen let alone to your western allies but that you're going to listen and agree with people like putin and others, i just can't think of a good reason why any president or any american citizen would do that. and that, in my view, is what the american people need to be worried about. >> paul, you see the president raging on twitter this morning against not just mccabe but also rosenstein saying they were both involved in a deep state conspiracy. doesn't this whole 25th amendment thing fuel that conspiracy? >> it does. i'll note that mr. mccabe says he's a life long republican. jim comey was a republican until trump fired him. these are all republicans. many of them put there by donald trump but i do think you're right. the 25th amendment does not enter into this. it just doesn't. it says if the president is

unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. unable, they meant, he was essentially talking about a kidnapping. not just acting like a russian agent. that's more for mr. mueller and an impeachment process if you think it's true. i just think he was way off on that. >> thank you very much. quick reminder, be sure to tune in tomorrow. andrew mccabe joins us live here on the program. a lot of questions for him. coming up tonight, what the president is not talking about in the wake of his emergency declaration on friday. namely emergency. new developments in the bizarre jussie smollett case. especially what the two brothers have told investigators about what really happened. ♪

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and every time we move, things change. apartments become houses, cars become mini vans. as we upgrade and downsize, an allstate agent will do the same for our protection. now that you know the truth, are you in good hands? remarkably little to defend this action. tweeted again about saturday night live a few moments ago and when he announced a national emergency he knew the lawsuits were coming and sort of sang a little song about it. >> the order is signed. and i'll sign the final papers as soon as they get into the oval office and we'll have a

national emergency and we'll be sued and they'll sue us in the 9th circuit even though it shouldn't be there and we'll possibly get a bad ruling and then get another bad ruling and end up in the supreme court and get a fair shake and win in the supreme court just like the band, they sued us in the 9th circuit and we lost and then we lost in the appellate division and then we went to the supreme court and we won. >> congressman, should it come as any surprise that lawmakers are split along party lines on this? >> yeah. it actually does surprise me because the underlying emergency

here is the attack. he plans to raid nearly 35% of the entire construction budget is going to be diverted without congressional approval. to me, this is a clear violation of congress's article one powers under the constitution. so i am amazed at the -- i think republican prone ys have to go that. these are requested by the president of the united states and the secretary of defense as essential and the president said he didn't think these were too important. that's not what they told congress. >> i want to play something that senator graham had to say this week and display this for our viewers. >> let's just say for a moment that he took some money out of the military construction budget. i'd say it's better for the middle school kids in kentucky

to have a secure border. we'll get them the school they need, but right now we have a national emergency on our hands. >> is a border wall versus schooling going to be a viable argument for the president and his supporters to be making? >> i don't believe it will be. when you look at what the military construction budget funds it funds military housing, military family housing, military schools, military healthcare, vital infrastructure. we're building the f-35 jets. where are we going to park these things? a shed? we have to build hangers and infrastructure that supports the force. this will undermine military readiness and preparedness. this is a bad choice because you're going to see some very -- the state of alaska, nearly $1 billion in military construction funds has been allocated there over the past couple of years. i can't imagine the republican senators and house members in alaska are going to take this

lying down. are we going to take their funds to pay for the wall? by the way, the remedy, in this case the wall, has to address the underlying emergency and you have to make a strong case that it won't address the issue of migrants surrendering themselves at legal ports of entry. the president has a lot of problems here but he's going to stall a lot of essential projects because this money will be tied up in court for years. >> in an interview yesterday, steven miller hinted that the president would veto congressional disapproval vote against a national emergency. while there's some republicans in the senate that may vote with democrats on this, it doesn't seem like there would be enough to override a veto. >> i think that's correct. i do believe the resolution will pass both chambers but it's probably not likely that the resolution will gain a 2-thirds majority. the president is going to have a really tough time in court with

this thing. in order to transfer money, as a chairman of a subcommittee i'd have staff come in to me and ask me to sign a letter to authorize a movement. so the president intends to move the money without the sign off of the chairman of the house appropriations committee and the subcommittee chairman i can't imagine them signing letters to approve this type of transfers. so i just don't see how the president is successful in this venture. >> good to have you, thank you very much. >> the president tweeted tonight about snl. in fact, don jr. tweeted tonight about snl. coming up about 40 minutes from now, stay tuned for the cnn presidential town hall with amy

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may be. i can't even -- i'm an advocate. >> who would make something like this up? a sociopath might do that. according to sources police think smollett himself paid two men to orchestrate the assault. >> so how do we get from that staunch denial to him orchestrating his own attack. >> a twisted story. there's no updates right now for when the actor may meet with detectives but this story has already fallen apart from january 29th and then from there police released an image of two men walking away from the scene and i remember people thinking who could identify two people from there but police started working from that moment. from there they were able to figure this out that they were two brothers that went to

nigeria. police talked to them and let them go and we found out from police that they were able to track them down and then they started talking to the men. the men turned over their cell phone to police to give them extra information in terms of how the whole thing is set up. and there's financial records that prove one of the brothers bought the rope found on jussie smollett's neck. and to go further, one of the men appeared on an episode of empire. >> i should point out that both men have put out a statement saying that they're american of nigerian decent. i'm told that the two men that were arrested in connection with the attack are speaking out. i know they said they're americans and they also said something to the effect that

they're not anti-trump, they're not anti-gay, they're not racists. >> they said in a joint statement we are not racists, we are not homophobic. we are not anti-trump. we're born and raised in chicago and are american citizens. from what i was told today, they are cooperating with the police department. so you think about this, those partial phone records that jussie smollett gave over to police, of course they wanted more but these two men turned over their phones, they're giving the background to this information. now his attorneys fought back over the weekend on saturday releasing a statement that read something about the fact that he was going to pay these men to be his personal trainer to get ready for a video shoot but all of this is falling apart at this point. police of course wanting to talk to jussie smollett to figure this out. one other thing, in this area of chicago there's so in surveillance cameras in the area. it was interesting from the

first days to realize this attack was not caught on video. so you start breaking the pieces down from there and you think about detectives with that image being able to go this far to get the two men not only to come in but then to turn evidence on mr. smollett. >> thank you. >> mark, i don't know where to begin. if this turns out it's a hoax, something like this, it hurts people of color, it hurts gay people, it hurts anybody who is a victim of a crime. >> and if it's not a hoax it hurts him. if it's not a hoax and he's a victim, he's being revictimized. i generally resist, as you know, over the years, any time you start to get law enforcement drip, drip, drip leaks, that to me is a tell-tell sign that something else is going on here.

i don't for a minute believe and i think it's ludicrous to believe the police tracked these two down through the grainy photograph. i don't think that's what happened. i think that the cooperation of smollett is why they have these two. my guess would be is they find their phone numbers, they know they have a connection and they arrested two guys and put them in custody for two days because there was an enormous amount of pressure to solve the crime. does that mean smollett was in with them? i haven't seen anything accept leaks according to law enforcement sources. to me that screams out somebody trying to manipulate something. >> it seems obvious that there's a great deal that we don't know about what happened here. what we can talk about is the initial response to this allegations and it seemed to me that there was not enough skepticism and scrutiny of what was a pretty bizarre

circumstance. the notion that he is on a street corner, 2:00 in the morning, second coldest night of the year and there's suddenly two men that appear and assault him on the street, particularly in chicago, in that particular area in chicago, two trump supporters. >> it also seemed to have a number of beats to it that seemed like if you were writing it as a story. like an anti-trump statement. an anti-gay statement. a racist statement, a news. >> but i think part of the problem is a lot of stuff has been floated that is dem demonstrably not true. the first thing people say is why would he do this? there was the rumor that was floated out there that he was being written out of empire. fox came out immediately and said that's absolutely untrue. in fact, it's almost the opposite. was he in financial trouble? absolutely not, apparently.

was there -- was this because he was trying to gain some kind of attention. this is somebody who by all accounts just finished a successful tour, his trajectory if you will, the borrow the word the cops have used is on the up. this is not somebody who needed the attention. i treat all of this, my skepticism is with all of the law enforcement leaks. i think there's something else going on here and i forget who it was and i wish i could give her the credit, but somebody tweeted yesterday or the day before and i thought it made a lot of sense. she said this is a police department that has had some issues and -- >> it's certainly true. >> so before we start believing and accepting and having -- >> although police for the longest time were the ones saying we are considering this a -- he is the victim. even when the stuff was swirling

the police were holding the line. >> they knocked down early reporting sceptical of the narrative that jussie was laying out. when i talk about skepticism about the narrative, i'm talking about what he has said and the things that make that something less than believable. when you have an extraordinary claim like that, the standard ought to be extraordinary evidence and when it comes to the public at large and a lot of the journalists that covered this story i don't think there was enough scrutiny. >> in the me too era there's no scrutiny. >> that's part of the problem. >> in the me too era, it's whatever you say that goes, you believe it. but the fact remains, he is being, if he -- and he is presumed to be innocent. >> sure. >> and the idea that we're going to just swing the pend yulum fr embracing him to convicting him -- we have seen it. we have covered it anderson, i can't tell you how many times

around here and it's astonishing how many times people go the opposite direction. >> if it is a hoax, if he did plan the whole thing, for him to go on good morning america late last week and and cry and make appeals to a young gay boy out there listening to let them know that he fought back, i mean, that's, that's doubling and tripling down. >> and if he is truly a victim, think about that. >> well, people that do perpetrator frauds like this, they generally have a point to prove. he has a point to prove if he contrived this story. so i'm not at all surprised if he goes and talks to the press or someone else at that point. >> i haven't seen anything that rings true or resinates as a motive. and i know, you don't need a motive. >> can't speculate about that. >> you can't speculate about that. but people have speculated.

everything they have speculated has been false so that's the push back. >> we'll see. >> the search is on for someone to take over as un ambassador. a lot of intrigue about what lead to that decision and we have information on who the president may pick to replace her, next. could switching to geico really save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance? did the little piggy cry wee wee wee all the way home? weeeeeeeee! we we weeeee! weeeeeeee! weeeeeeee! weeeeeeee! max. maxwell! yeah? you're home. oh, cool. thanks mrs. a. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

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>> the president now has another one to look for at heather nauert took her name out for un ambassador. john james is a leading contender for the position according to a source from the white house. more on nauert's rise and recent withdrawal. >> heather nauert's rise in the trump administration was on fire. she went from being a fox news personality. >> what do you need to do to win? >> to suddenly the number four person at the state department. she was spokesperson, often with a hint of combativeness. >> fake news i hate to say but is a real thing. >> she was acting under secretary for public diplomacy for awhile, overseeing a billion dollar budget. then came trump's choosing her for ambassador to the un to replace former governor nikki

haley. >> she's very talented, very smart, very quick, and i think she's going to be respected by all. >> but now, nauert steps away from this huge move. the question is, why? almost immediately, word started leaking out that it was all about a nanny issue. at least that was the final straw. she hired a nanny for her two children years agatha was legal to live in the u.s. but not to work. there were unpaid taxes. somehow this didn't emerge during nauert's first vetting to be spokesperson. sources tell cnn she did not bring it up at the time but now for the ambassadorship she did raise the issue. the tax situation was rectified but this could have been a big problem in a confirmation hearing that was already going to be tough. >> she has no experience as a diplomat. she has no meaningful experience in government. >> her qualifications came into question. past statements she made on fox.

>> when she was picked in december, even the conservative washington examiner said she is not remotely qualified to serve as our ambassador to the united nations. >> the day she started as spokesperson at the state department she had the highest security clearance. she had all the boxes checked and ts crossed and is dotted so this raises a lot of questions. >> household staffing issues plagued other nominees throughout time. remember the names. in this administration, both andy for labor secretary and wilbur ross for commerce had staff immigration issues. both said they were not affair of it at the time. he dropped out but ross made it through. multiple sources say nauert's nanny problem is front and center but multiple issues could have made her confirmation

hearing unpleasant. she has chosen to avoid all of that. >> do we have a sense of what happens now with her job at the state department? >> well, nauert has been violent on this except for a brief statement she put out saying the last two months have been grueling for her family. but within the statement was the fact that not only is she pulling herself out from consideration for un ambassador, but she is leaving the state department all together and that's not ever explained. so right now, there's no nominee for un ambassador, no nominee for undersecretary for public diplomacy and no nominee for spokesperson for the state department. nor have they named an acting spokesperson, anderson. >> it's a long list. thanks so much. coming up at the top of the hour, stay tuned for cnn town hall with amy klobuchar and the list is bound to get larger. what will it take to prevail in a very, very long road ahead.

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as we look at the setting for tonight's cnn town hall with democratic presidential candidate senator amy klobuchar, consider just about a year from

now we'll be analyzing the first results from the caucuses in iowa and the primary in new hampshire. it will be a very, very long road. joining me now is brian fallon, hillary clinton's former campaign press secretary, "usa today" columnist kirsten powers, and symone sanders, former national press secretary for bernie sanders's campaign. >> that central left line that amy klobuchar is looking to secure, if vice president biden runs, what happens to that lane? >> well, i think if you're somebody like amy klobuchar, you have a lot of room to grow. i think if you're vice president biden, you start off with pretty high numbers right now based on name i.d. and the struggle or challenge for him will be once you get into the race, it sort of takes -- your reputation comes under scrutiny. the sort of good feeling that surrounds you gives way to more sharp elbows and continuing to preserve that front-runner status can be challenging. it's hard to do that

wire-to-wire. so i think you'd rather enter a race as the underdog, has somebody who has tremendous upside or a high ceiling as opposed to starting off with 33% of the vote as most of the polls show vice president biden. you might start to worry in that situation that you have nowhere to go but down. hillary clinton of course entered the race in 2015 as the most popular woman in the world and 70% approval ratings. and after about six months in the race, people just look at you differently. >> symone, how much more time do you expect key democratic supporters will give vice president biden to make his decision. you think all these other campaigns getting into full swing. donors are getting -- >> an important date or month we should all keep in mind is the first democratic party presidential debates and those debates will happen in june. so if i'm a candidate thinking -- a potential candidate thinking about getting into the race, especially if i'm vice president biden, i kind of want to be out there right

before. i don't want to pop in maybe the day before because you have to qualify to be in the debates, and the democratic party has just put a list including your grassroots efforts, so you have to be in the race in enough time to qualify. look, i think vice president biden -- and i've said this before. i think he and others like senator bernie sanders, they have a little bit more leeway because the name recognition is so high. when we're looking at the polls of who is the quote, unquote, front-runner right now, anderson, that's really all about name i.d. so someone like vice president biden has a high name i.d. somebody like bernie sanders has a high name i.d., so they don't have to get out there too early. but, look, the clock is winding down. it's not just about the voters that are waiting for folks to get in and endorsers. you need staff to work for you. i know there are lots of people that love vice president biden, but you can only wait so long. there's lots of people that love a lot of other folk who's have suggested they'll run for president. but you can only wait so long to hop in the race and have a good

staff, solid staff to help you win this thing. >> kirsten, biden has said he believes he's the most qualified person in the country to be president. i guess one question is does he want to risk his legacy having a footnote of a bruising democratic primary that didn't go his way? i mean he's run for president before, and it hasn't worked out. >> yeah. that, and as brian said, there's no way he -- you know, if he runs and he loses, you know, in the primary, he goes from being this beloved person with this extremely high, you know, approval rating to somebody who, you know, lost in a primary and probably got beat up along the way. it's very hard to stay popular when you are in a primary, especially if you're one of the front-runners because everybody is going to be focusing their attention on you, you know, trying to pull themselves up usually by knocking you down. and so i think he -- you know, he's not really going to be able to just rise above it and be the vice president. of course he is the most

experienced out of this crowd because he was the vice president. and so, you know, that is unique experience. but i think that right now the democratic party is -- it's not clear where the voters are going to end up in terms of what kind of candidate they're looking for. >> brian, is it clear to you that anybody in the democratic party at this point knows how to run against president trump? >> i think they're going to have plenty of time to figure that out, anderson. i think this primary is going to be a good and healthy thing. as we sit here tonight, all of us -- none of us here could predict who might emerge as the nominee, and i think that's going to be a healthy and enlivening thing. in 2016, there was a sense of inevitability of hillary as the nominee, and i think overall that was not to the good. it sucked a lot of drama and intrigue out of the primary process and people looked for that melodrama in other places, in things like faux e-mail scandals in my opinion. this time around we're going to

have an enlivened debate about policy, and i feel like the energy out there is pretty high. you saw lines around the block in new hampshire for kamala harris today. so i think that the candidates rightfully right now are not focused on trump out of the gate. they need to define and differentiate themselves. let's let the voters decide over the next 12 to 18 months who they want the nominee to be. there will be plenty of time to do battle against donald trump by the time we get to the fall. >> symone, do you agree with that? there were how many republican challengers to donald trump, all who thought they knew how to run against him, and they all failed. it's not clear to me that anybody since then has figured out what the achilles' heel is or how to go about -- i mean ultimately it's going to come down to beating donald trump. >> yeah. but i mean you have to win the democratic presidential primary first. look, i do agree with brian that folks have time to figure out how to -- what's the best strategy, if you will, to combat donald trump in a race. but i think what we know -- what

i think we know across the board is that you can't fight donald trump down in the gutter because in my opinion, nobody is dirtier than him. he is willing to go lower than anybody has ever -- lower than anybody thought you could go. so because of that, you always have to elevate the conversation when dealing with him. and i think there have been a number of instances, most prominently, the dna debacle, if you will, with senator elizabeth warren, where you have to elevate the conversation because if you try to fight donald trump where he is, you won't win. so i think that's something many candidates and potential candidates have learn and have seen. and i think that will be a telling thing that they'll expand upon going forward. >> kirsten, you heard the argument the democratic party can't afford to go too far left. it alienates the moderates. if they go too far to the center, it alienates the liberals. who do you see best poised right now? >> well, i think that's just a debate that's being figured out. you know, there's no way for us to know this at this point. i think a lot of things people

are calling too far to the left, the republicans call too far to the left, actually are things that have support of a lot of americans. so, you know, i think we'll just have to see what voters want. >> all right. brian fallon, kirsten powers, symone sanders, thanks very much. the cnn town hall with amy klobuchar, moderated by don lemon, starts now. [ applause ] wow. good evening, everyone, from manchester, new hampshire. the first presidential primary state. and welcome to a cnn democratic presidential town hall with senator amy klobuchar. i'm don lemon. we're so glad that you could join us this evening. we are here at st. anselm college less than one year from the new hampshire primary. it is presidents' day, and across the country democratic candidates are competing