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good evening. today cnn learned that the president of the united states asked a top border official to break the law and promised him a pardon if he did. we also learned from the president himself who tweeted and spoke about it today that he wants his immigration authorities to do something that they have already told him would be unlawful and that others have called inhumane and extreme, whether it's legal or not. that's on top of new reporting that just days after telling the country he would not close the border for a year, he told officials in private to close it now. put it altogether along with other recent statements and actions and it raises a number of questions. is this a president who doesn't know the difference between what's legal and not. is this a president who simply acts as if he's above the law? or is this a president who will do and say anything to cater to hi base and appear what he would consider to be tough even if the

actions he's proposing are not likely to occur. the day began with the white house downplaying the plan to use migrants as human trash to be dumped as retribution on the cities of his political adversaries. here's part of the statement. again, this is from the white house essentially poo-pooing the story. the simple question is whether illegal aliens already being released on a daily basis could be sent to and cared for by sanctuary jurisdictions whose stated policy is to welcome and embrace illegal aliens. the idea was briefly and informally raised and quickly rejected. there it is. the white house saying this was just a question that was informally asked, it wasn't seriously talked about, briefly raised, quickly rejected. that was at 11:35 a.m. this morning. then came the old white house whiplash. at 12:38 p.m., one hour and three minutes after his white house just knocked down the idea and poo-pooed the whole thing, the president gave the idea a big ole bear hug. here it is.

we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities. then at a white house telecom event later this afternoon, he said this. >> california certainly is always saying, oh, we want more people. they want more people in their sanctuary cities. well, we'll give them more people. we can give them a lot. we can give them an unlimited supply. let's see if they're so happy. they say we have open arms. let's see if they have open arms. >> he wants to put undocumented immigrants on buses and send them to democratic districts to punish his opponents and then threw his white house under a bus by contradicting the denials they just put out. he's talking, remember, and it bears repeating, about human beings, many of whom who are seeking asylum here, which is their right under international law, whether you want them to do that or not. it's the obligation under international law for the host country to give their claims a hearing. the president is discussing the possibility of casting all that aside because he'd rather use

these human beings to bring retribution on the politicians who oppose him. as if these men and women, some with children were, as jeffrey toobin put it on the program last night were some pestilence to be visited upon your enemy. just in case you're wondering whether the president is capable of reducing a group of individuals to a single negative or hateful term, just the other day he accused democrats, all of them, of committing treason. it's not a stretch to think that he sees the humanity of people he wants to use to punish his opponents. one thing is certain. what he said is a far cry from what he said on the subject a year ago. remember when he and lawmakers were trying to hammer out an immigration reform bill? >> it should be a bill of love, truly. it should be a bill of love, and we can do that. >> could he have done it? senior advisor stephen miller favors hard-line immigration policies. kirstjen nielsen resisted some

but not all of them. she repeatedly lied saying there was no policy of child separation meant to deter illegal immigration. but none of what we've seen and none of what we could see happens unless the man at the top wants it. so does president trump want it because his base wants it? because he wants to assure them he is tough? or does he want to treat people like this because this is who he is? which brings it all back to how the president sees undocumented immigrants and illegal immigrants. cnn was the first to report that he asked a top border official to break the law and close the border. we were the first to report that he promised a pardon for doing it. to be precise, it was jake tapper who got the scoop. i'm pleased he could join us to talk about it. jake, what exactly did the president say to the then commissioner of customs and border protection last week? >> well, the context is the president had just visited the border at calexico, california, and told border patrol agents as

i told you earlier this week to stop enforcing the law by letting asylum seekers in. basically just keep them out of the united states and the border agents had been told after president trump left you can't do that, you have to let people in. that's the law. after that, president trump met with the head of customs and border protection and said we've really got to keep them out. if you go to jail for this, i will give you a presidential pardon. now, the senior administration officials who were briefed on this conversation who told me about it said they didn't know if the president was joking or serious, but he definitely said this. it all really is of a piece having to do with the president's frustration with immigration laws and his desire stated to have his officials, administration officials and agents break those immigration laws to be even more hard line. >> in terms of the president's proposal to release undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities for political reasons, again,

there's no other reason other than driving somebody -- driving bus loads of people up to nancy pelosi's district, it's just to try to punish nancy pelosi, i guess, in the president's mind. i understand you've actually obtained documents from the general counsel from the department of homeland security, documents that he sent to the white house about this back in february. >> that's right. this was actually being very seriously pushed by president trump and other immigration hard liners in the white house, stephen miller and others, saying that they really wanted to do this, even though the white house earlier today tried to poo-poo this story saying it wasn't really taken seriously. it was taken seriously. the general counsel of the dhs sent the white house a legal analysis and basically had three parts. one was we are not allowed to spend dh money to do this, to transport these individuals, unless it's for a clear agency-related purpose such as providing medical care to individuals or facilities becoming overcrowded.

and the underlying message is we can't do this for political reasons, that would be against our charter, that would be against the law. he made two other points. this would open up the agency and the u.s. government for lawsuits because you'll be denying due process to these individuals. and if you do this, the odds that these individuals do not show up for their deportation hearing are much stronger. so in other words, you'll be undermining the law and undermining your own purpose of wanting these people to go back where they came from. >> you know, it bears just sort of stepping back for a moment and pointing out, we're talking about human beings here being loaded onto buses and sent far away to random places for political purposes to punish democrats. to think that that's an actual serious consideration is incredible from this white house. >> the law is not let's ship them thousands of miles away to the district of somebody so we can make a political point, regardless of how vulnerable this individual might be. what if it's a 19-year-old girl

and she has friends and family in tennessee and she doesn't know anybody in san francisco. >> or somebody, you know, has a medical issue, dies on the bus going there. i mean they have died going someplace for political purposes to be used as a pawn, it's incredible. we should also point out customs and border protection, the folks working at the border have a tough enough job as it is and they're not getting paid a lot and often living in remote areas. they sacrifice a lot. and to have the president instructing them to do illegal things and then talking about pardoning him, it just -- i don't know, it's -- it's where we're at, i guess. jake tapper, thank you. >> thanks, anderson. >> that alone is plenty to talk about but that's far from all there is to say tonight so we're digging deeper. earlier i spoke with kathleen rice who sits on the house homeland security committee. >> congresswoman rice, when you heard this idea floated, we were on the air when this story broke

in "the washington post" last night. at first max boot the person i was with thought it was a spoof from the onion, it seemed so outrageous. to have the white house say, oh, no, no, no, this was nothing. then the president comes out and doubles down on it. >> first of all, it's just so horrible to hear the president talk about these people the way that he does. like they're some kind of contagion that he's going to drop on these cities all over the country when all he has to do is look no further than mar-a-lago for hard-working people that came here for a better life. >> he's been hiring them for years. >> he's been hiring them for years. this is just a terrible -- but this is the way he talks, anderson, about this issue. it's no surprise he's going into his re-election. the one issue that really fires up his base is to talk about immigration. >> so do you think this is even -- i mean there's no -- i imagine legally i don't think this can be done. department of homeland security pushed back on this.

do you think this is just something where he can say, look, i wanted to dump them in sanctuary cities for his base? or do you think he actually wanted this to happen? >> well, i think a lot of these ideas that he comes up with are really the brain child of stephen miller. one of the things i have a problem with is you have this white house figure, stephen miller, who has come up with all of the policy proposals that have been shot down by courts as illegal and against the law, and he's basically the de facto head of the department of homeland security right now. and yet he's unanswerable. you can't have it both ways. stephen miller cannot draw all of -- decide what the policies are going to be at the department of homeland security and then hide behind executive privilege saying, no, no, no, i'm just a white house employee so that he can't be held accountable. he needs to come before congress. i'll work with the homeland

on to see if i can get him to answer these questions. these policies are even people in the department of homeland security are saying we're not going to do these policies because they're illegal. >> jake tapper tonight reporting that the president told the head of the customs and border protection when he was down at the border a couple of days ago that if he followed through and didn't allow people in the country, told them we were full, that he would pardon the head of customs and border protection if he got in trouble for it. >> first of all -- >> whether it's a joke -- we don't know if it was said jokingly or not. >> well, it wouldn't be a surprise. we've been hearing for the past two years that he's been talking to people from michael cohen to michael flynn about pardoning them. i can tell you that homeland security is going to call mcaleenan to testify before them and that's going to be the first question i ask him. it's great to talk about the president asked this question, but i want to know what he said. is he going to be willing to put this policy in place that he knows is illegal and is going to

put his officers at risk of personal responsibility for carrying out these policies? >> it is -- i mean just going back to the idea of bussing, you know, arresting people at a border and putting them on buses and sending them to san francisco so they can be dropped off in nancy pelosi's district, again, it just bears repeating, these are human beings we are talking about. this is not -- >> anderson, i was at the border last weekend in el paso and in mcallen. and there are women and children being held in cages. i held a 2-month-old baby. there was a woman who had just given birth two days before. a 2-day-old baby who's an american citizen being held in a cage on the border. this is just as unamerican as you get. >> congresswoman rice, thank you very much. >> thank you, anderson. as we mentioned at the top, in addition to possibly soliciting illegal activity and pushing a plan that may violate federal international law, we also got reporting on what would be a major reversal on closing

the border. the president said he would take that off the table for a year. "the new york times" learned he could be eager to reverse himself. maggie haberman joins us now so does jeffrey toobin. so explain what's happening here, maggie. he's not going wait a year to possibly close down the border? >> what happened was we had the same reporting that jake did. we approached the white house at 11:00 a.m. and they very notably would not comment on it. the fact that he had this discussion with mcaleenan about closing the border and i'll offer you a pardon if anything happens to you. he appears to have been taken aback by it. this conversation took place a day after his public pledge of we're going to wait a year and then maybe we will close the border to to believe, you know, asylum seekers or people trying to cross. it's not clear where the president's head is right now. what seemed to have been happening in that conversation

is he was using it as some kind of a nudge or a push with the person he knew he would be bringing in as the new secretary of homeland security. he knew that he was going to be pushing out kirstjen nielsen. the fact that this conversation took place at a time when he was preparing to bring this person on i think speaks to the type of pressure he's planning on putting in place going forward. i think it speaks to the fact that the president is fully prepared to say one thing publicly and do something differently privately as we've done he does for quite some time. he's willing to test the bounds of the law repeatedly, we have seen that happen in other contects and we're going to see it with immigration over and over as he watches tv images of immigrants coming over the border and gets frustrated. >> if the game for him is hold the base and appeal to the base, whether or not this policy gets executed doesn't this -- isn't this exactly what he wants? >> oh, yeah. >> raises this idea, people point out it's illegal, that it's unethical, but for the

people he's trying to reach it sends the message he's tough. >> you said something at the top. is it that he just doesn't care? he knows what the law says. and he doesn't care. that is certainly my sense from my reporting is he has been told that these things are not legal and he doesn't care. he goes ahead with them because to your point he thinks this works for his base of voters. he is not going to, you know, run a positive message for his reelection campaign. he is going to run, as he did in 2016, a campaign based heavily on fear, and on concerns, and if he does it this way, it's a way to make himself look as if he's not a part of the system that he said he alone can fix. >> jeff, i mean, again, dropping undocumented immigrants or driving them on buses to sanctuary cities, maybe far away as san francisco, i mean, as we were just talking about, is that legal? would that be legal? >> i think if it could be established, and i think it clearly could be established.

now. that the only reason that these unlawful people -- these undocumented people were sent to specific locations was to punish the democratic representatives, that would clearly be unlawful. i mean, the department of homeland security, which is in charge, has a certain list of obligations and rules to follow, that congress has established. and punishing your political enemies by sending undocumented aliens to their district is simply not within the department of homeland security's authority. so i think if -- a court would stop it almost immediately. >> just in terms of jake's reporting about the president offering to pardon the head of customs and border protection, who's going to be the acting secretary of homeland security, is it legal for the president to preemptively dangle a pardon to someone who may break the law,

you know, at the president's direction? >> you know, i think -- that's a novel question that i don't think has ever -- has ever been resolved. >> it's been debated in ethics classes. >> yeah, that -- >> it's not a scenario that comes out. >> the short answer is i don't know. but the irony here is that the craziest idea of all, which is closing the border all together, with all the trade and all the legal traffic between the borders is actually probably within the president's power, unlike what he's talking about doing with asylum seekers. if he wants to simply shut down the border in el paso or near san diego he could probably do it. it would cause chaos. it would be crazy. but legally i think he'd actually be on solid ground there. >> but again, maggie, just as a bumper sticker, i wanted to shut down the border, i understand

the messaging of that for his base. the ripple effects, the economic effects. >> right. >> which are hard to kind of comprehend but would certainly be drastic, makes it unlikely that he would actually do that. >> yeah, because he is also very aware the economy is incredibly important to his reelection as well. that's why you wouldn't see him do that. you saw him say today of this concept of bussing or placing, you know, undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities, he said, you know, we can bring them an endless supply or unlimited supply, this is not for those democratic officials it's not seen as a punishment. this is not something they're upset about what people are protesting is that he is treating individuals, people who are coming here, many of them fleeing violence in their own countries, like political pawns to be moved however he wants at his whim. and that's what they're reacting to. >> we'll be talking to the next mayor of chicago to get her reaction how she would feel about this being done in her

city. jeff, a president who doesn't care if his policies are lawful or not, again, i don't think it can be said enough, yet again this is not a normal situation. i just feel like it's important -- >> it really is so -- yeah, it is. i mean, the idea that encourage someone who was seeking a job from him. think how -- what a vulnerable situation it was to violate the law. you know, whether it was technically a crime or not, i don't know. but is it an abuse of power? it absolutely is. >> i mean even if he now says some point down the road that he was joking -- >> he always says that he was joking. it doesn't matter. >> hey, wikileaks, i love wiki leaking. i was joking about that. go find hillary clinton's emails, i was joking about that. it all turned out to be pretty serious, didn't it? wikileaks much in the news today.

just proof that what he says as jokes may not really be jokes. >> maggie, just a little while ago the president tweeted out in all caps we will never forget. he then attached a video which had horrific images from september 11th mixed in with a snippet of something that the congresswoman omar said recently, which basically characterized it in sort of a dismissive way. that's -- those images are something that people use with great caution if at all. why do you -- is that just -- that's just about -- >> it's the second half of the equation of what we were talking about. about this appeal to his base of supporters. the secret sauce for him in 2016 was concern about undocumented immigrants across the southern border and an anti-muslim sentiment. don't forget what he was saying around the time of terrorist attacks abroad, terrorist attack in california in the fall of 2015.

he suggested a ban on muslim immigration, an entire ban. it was not like there was some caveat there. this is what he is going to run on again. congresswoman omar, yes, some people took issue with what she said about september 11th. the president has never used caution with those images. for those of us who covered that day, they're hard to watch still. he is trying to make sure she's not as well known nationally as, say, congresswoman ocasio-cortez. he's trying to make her very well known. it's very dangerous what he is doing. he is putting a huge target on her back. he is the president of the united states. it is absolutely going to be inflammatory. i understand what his political aim is but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have other problems. >> look, we know this is a president who has no shame. he's willing to go places -- >> there is no floor. there is no floor. >> there is no floor. jeff, thank you. maggie as well. maggie will stay with us. we'll come back shortly on

another topic. coming up next, though, what a trump supporter thinks of all of this as we dig deeper in all the news the president made. and later the potential news when the mueller report hits. rod rosenstein weighed in on that today. we'll talk about what he and others said when we continue. up. up. down. down. ah ah! that's one. up. that's two. down. down. get down, get down. wenit gave me a leafput in the names almost right away. first. within a few days, i went from knowing almost nothing to holy crow, i'm related to george washington. i didn't know that using ancestry would be so easy.

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promised a pardon to his customs and border protection commissioner if he would unlawfully turn immigrants away. then you have to ask was he joking when he told border agents on the same visit to do the same thing? was he joke when he likened asylum seekers to con artists. putting aside the legality for a moment, do you think it's a good idea? do you think it's ethical for the president to try to retaliate against democrats by sending busloads of undocumented immigrants to their districts or to their cities? >> i guess i'm a little confused here because i didn't see the president say the word retaliation. you know, i've watched mayors of seattle, san francisco, portland, others talking about how their sanctuary city would accept illegal immigrants with open arms. now that the president wants to

do this, he's talking about perhaps sending illegal immigrants to cities that will welcome them with open arms and care for them without limits, why that suddenly is bad. it sounds hypocritical to me that these folks who were crying out for sanctuary city status don't want the people that they're talking about. >> well, the president may not have used that word, but in emails that were seen by "the washington post" which broke this story last night, there were specific references to sending them to nancy pelosi's district, i believe, according to "the washington post." >> that's san francisco. >> why would they deny it? the white house denied it earlier and the president said actually -- >> i think we see this a lot in this white house because it's typical white house -- a white house move or many white houses for many presidents to walk back things that make them nervous or make them uncomfortable. i don't think the president feels the necessity to do that. you were just commenting on that earlier.

the president sees this -- mayor breed of san francisco, mayor wheeler of portland, they should get ready for the busloads of illegal immigrants that they want. i don't understand if they're asking for them why they finding it so offensive that the president is going to send them there. >> well, i'm about to talk to the mayor-elect in chicago. i don't think she is actually complaining about accepting undocumented immigrants. i think she has said that she welcomes them. but it's more the idea of being done against -- as retribution, you know, against a political opponent. that is if in fact what is behind this. >> he didn't say that. >> that's what was discussed on emails. >> we're on pace for a million illegal aliens coming across the southern border, mostly across the open areas not necessarily

through the legal entry areas. a million. if we're just going to catch and release them and let them go on the border areas where they cross, i think that has the makings of an unprecedented crisis. you know, up here in buffalo where i'm from, the local border patrol agents have been told that they are being sent down to the southern border because it's an unprecedented crisis. >> yeah, there's certainly a lot of manpower issues. carrie, how do you see this? if -- is there a distinction if it is just sanctuary cities that say they'll accept them so for no other reason the u.s. government and the white house wants to send undocumented immigrants there? dhs standards, that is apparently not good enough. >> yeah. this isn't about sanctuary cities, this is about the president wanting to use a law enforcement agency for political retribution. he wants to be able to go against his political opponents in a way that he thinks is on an

issue that supports him politically, and he's willing to use and abuse a law enforcement agency, border protection, in order to implement that. and so what he does actually is he puts the agents and the officers in that agency at risk of violating people's civil rights. even though he may not like the law once people enter this country, they do have rights and he potentially exposes those agents to vulnerability in terms of them violating the law themselves or violating procedures. which gets to the issue of him offering as has been reported potentially the border protection head, now the acting secretary, a potential pardon. and on that issue i think the president is potentially in the area of a public corruption problem because it is against the law to offer a public official a thing of value, which would be the pardon, a thing of value in order to include their

public -- their lawful act, their lawful function. and so that's something that congress really needs to take names and take people under oath to find out what happened at that border meeting. >> i'm afraid we're out of time. carrie, i appreciate it. michael as well. we've been running late. the outgoing deputy attorney general rod rosenstein shed a bit more light on the mueller report at a private lunch in washington. what he said and the potential impact going forward. straight from the world's best plant scientists, comes miracle-gro performance organics. organic plant food and soil that finally work... for twice the bounty. guaranteed. miracle-gro performance organics. so... you're driven, and you have a ton of goals... but you're stuck in the vicious cycle of credit card payments. it's time to get a personal loan from sofi. borrow up to $100k to pay off your credit cards, and then pay us back with one monthly payment. and it's all with zero fees.

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according to a justice department official, rod rosenstein told attendees at a private lunch in washington today that the full mueller report will clear up questions regarding russian interference in the 2016 election. he defended attorney general barr's four-page summary of the report. he's being as forthcoming as he can. quote, it would be one thing if you put out a letter and said i'm not going to give you the report. mr. rosenstein said what he said is look, it's going to take a while to process the report. in the meantime people really wanting to know what's in it. what do you make of rod rosenstein, is he -- what is his position here? he's sort of been all over the place an it seems like -- i don't know if he's trying to run interference for the mueller report or get people to wait.

>> i think you've hit on an important point, he's all over the place. he's right in the middle of this whole thing. remember, mueller was appointed by rosenstein. it's not as if rosenstein is a passive observer in all of this. where i think there has been a tone deafness on his part is not understanding why people would be concerned, especially given the reputational damage to the department for a variety of reasons, given comments that bill barr has made in hearings why people would be concerned about the level of candor that they're getting. he described that letter to congress from bill barr as, well, these were just the top line conclusions. they weren't just the top line conclusions. barr added his own conclusion in what he described as his and rosenstein's at the end. again, i just think there has been this remove from the public interest aspect of this that has been surprising. >> he doesn't address at all his own role with barr in saying there's not enough evidence. >> no. he acts as if he's a spectator and he was not a spectator.

he's a very active participant in every aspect of this. >> shan, why do you think rosenstein is going out of his way to in this case defend the attorney general? >> i think he is setting us up for a lot of disappointment in that report when we do see the redactions. his remarks focused more on the russian collusion aspect where barr and he can rely on the fact there have been actual indictments. he's staying away from the obstruction issue. i think we'll be very disappointed on the obstruction issue unless mueller specifically wrote in his report that he's asking barr to decide that issue. if it's a question of barr's internal calculus that's not going to be in there to be redacted. so i think rosenstein is setting us up for what he wants us to look for in the report and paving the way for a lot of unhappy people. >> why do you think he is doing that? >> so that he can tamp down expectations, basically. trying to get the public and congress perhaps to focus on the

collusion, which they can say we've had indictments, we've thoroughly explored that and there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing and wanting to avoid the scrutiny which is going to happen anyway on why is it that barr reached out to decide that obstruction issue. >> you're talking about him being all over the place. he went from the memo in the public -- he went from the memo justifying the firing of comey, which the white house then used, to being -- to appointing mueller. >> right. >> and then being the president's punching bag essentially for quite a while and now defending attorney general barr. >> also as we've discovered through reporting by my colleagues, mike schmidt and also testimony to congress from justice department officials while also talking about people possibly wearing a wire to tape the president and having discussions about the 25th amendment. so it is hard to pin him down. i think it is true that he is trying to pave the way for some disappointment from people who

thought this was going to end with the president being frog marched out of the oval office, which was never going to happen. i think that was always a belief that people who don't like the president had invested a lot in. but again, i think he should either say that there's going to be a lot of redactions and people should be prepared or he should say nothing and just let people read it. but i think he is sending a lot of signals that are hard for people to discern. >> shan, how much do you expect is going to be redacted, particularly in the obstruction of justice portion? because obviously there's plenty of legitimate reasons to redact the russian interference part for counterintelligence reasons. >> i think there's going to be an enormous amount of redactions. part of the problem is in these types of memos, the grand jury material is so deeply interwoven with the analysis and barr will use a very broad reading of what was before the grand jury or what arose out of it. between that and his interesting color coded redaction system, i think you're going to ending up

with a document that looks a little more like that recent photo of the first black hole than a smooth reading document. >> what's the color coded redaction system? >> he's mentioned that he's going to have color coding to indicate was this material grand jury material, was it sensitive material in terms of intelligence, et cetera. >> so which of the four criteria he's using for redactions. >> exactly, yes. something that doj usually doesn't do very much, using color coding. >> maggie, you know, the president also, talk about being all over the place on mueller, certainly -- he's been pretty consistent on mueller except for in those few brief days after the four-page summary by barr was released. then all of a sudden in the words of kellyanne conway, it became the gold standard. the investigation -- you know, she was criticizing anybody besmirching mueller or barr. and now the president seems back to kind of preparing people perhaps for something bad by going after mueller. >> or preparing himself for it, right? i think there was always a risk.

there were a lot of people around the president who hoped that he would not say, see, i'm fully exonerated. they hoped that he would say vindicated or used different language because even with heavy redactions there are likely to be things in there that don't painting the president or his campaign in a particularly favorable light. in normal times one would tread a little more carefully. that said, these are not normal times. he tends to be able to set the tone for his coverage and the terms for his coverage and it holds. i think he's banking that he can do that here. we'll see. still ahead more on our breaking news. the president threatening to take undocumented immigrants detained at the border and essentially dump them in sanctuary cities. coming up next, i'll get reaction from the newly elected mayor of one of those cities, chicago. ♪ you asked for something ground-breaking. something epic. so, we took all our engineering experience... a hundred years-worth of learning from impossible projects

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back to our breaking news. president trump promising the customs and border protection commissioner he would grant him a pardon if he would break the law. today he not only admitted but doubled down on his proposal to release undocumented immigrants into sanctuary cities. lori lightfoot was just elected as mayor of chicago and i talked to her earlier. mayor-elect, what's your reaction to all of this? there's dirty politics and proposing using human beings as pawns and to punish democrats in cities like yours.

>> well, look, the president obviously likes to be provocative. he likes to prompt a response in the media and across the country. but for the city of chicago, which routinely gets asylum seekers at our airports and coming in through other ways, we've been dealing with these issues really for decades. as you know, this was a city that was built by immigrants for the last 150 years. so we take this in stride. i think from our perspective it's much ado about nothing. >> the current mayor, rahm emanuel, said that chicago would welcome these migrants with open arms. would that be the case when you were mayor? >> of course, because we're doing that now. we have people who are routinely coming to the city. we have a whole infrastructure that's built up to make sure that their rights are protected. the city of chicago has under the current administration provided funding for various groups to help support asylum seekers and other people going

through the immigration court system. i expect that we'll continue if not expand upon those kinds of resources. >> so you have no problem with the president of the united states using migrants, using undocumented immigrants as in his opinion a weapon against political opponents? >> no, no. don't get me wrong. what i'm saying is i don't think that we should take the bait every time the president puts out a provocative tweet. what i think we need to do is make sure that we are being very clear in speaking our values. we are a city that is a sanctuary city. we have immigrants from all over the world who call chicago their home. they'll continue to do so that. we'll continue to make sure that this is truly a welcoming community for those immigrants. we want them to come to the city of chicago. i also as a lawyer and former federal prosecutor want to make sure that we are doing everything that follows the law and that people's rights are respected. immigrants, particularly asylum

seekers, have a right to due process, they have a right to a constitutional process that is consistent with the rule of law and we are going to continue to insist that that law be followed. >> is there, you know, a cap on how many people you can -- you can absorb in chicago? >> well, i think we've been doing a pretty good job with the resources that we have. i don't have a specific head count. but i'm not concerned that we're going to be able -- that we're not going to be able to accommodate the people coming to our borders seeking asylum and otherwise immigrating to our great city. i think the point is, is that we have to make sure that we speak our values. harmful rhetoric, xenophobic rhetoric, hate, is something we can't tolerate. we haven't tolerated it to date, we're not going to tolerate it on our watch and we're going to do everything we can to make sure people who come to the city, whatever their immigration status is, will be treated fairly and with respect. >> just finally after your victory, president trump reached

out to you to offer his congratulations. you said he extended an offer to be helpful to the city during your conversation. how do you see yourself working with the president moving forward? >> well, look, the people in the city of chicago pay federal i want to make sure that we are getting the benefit of the bargain and getting the resources that we deserve from the federal government. so i'm going to try to forge a productive relationship with people in washington from our delegation, our two great senators, and of course with the white house and executive agencies where possible. but we're not going to compromise our values as a city. i'm certainly not going to compromise my values in making sure that we are a city that is welcoming and that we have no tolerance for hate or disrespect. i appreciate your time, thank you. >> sure, thank you. >> all right. let's check in with chris and see what he's working on, chris. >> all right. we'll be taking on what seems to be a real bright line that's being crossed by the president. you don't have to like decisions, you don't have to like what laws are.

you're supposed to work to change them but openly disrespecting them and telling an official, break the law and if you get in any trouble, i'll pardon you, that is certainly a bridge too far even for this president. so we'll go through the legal analysis of where the line is and how this is crossing it and how it's not the first time. we have tom perez on. what does he think about the video he put out about representative omar and this contrast of 9/11 based on her comments that the president put out and what is his goal to democrats to combat this president's messaging across the country in a new initiative. >> thanks very much. nine minutes from now. see you then. worldwide search to the secrets for living better. sounds great we'll have a preview of the cnn original series "chasing life with dr. sanjay gupta." i'll talk to him about his incredible journey. this is not a bed...

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and accessoriesphones for your mobile phone. like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program visit right now or call during business hours. one of my good friends here at cnn has a cool project he's airing this weekend. he is chief medical correspondent and renowned neurosurgeon. he has travelled the world for it.

very jealous that he got to do it and i didn't but of course he actually has medical knowledge that i do not. the program debuts saturday night at 9:00 p.m. pacific. heres a preview. >> my grandfather died very young of a heart attack and my father had heart surgery when he was very young. so my father and my grandfather i think unwittingly really motivated me. we know that there's remarkable things happening all over the world that can help us live longer, better, happier, more productive lives. >> i thought i was in pretty good shape. this takes it to a whole different level. >> is this what helps you live longer? >> can i work here? i could work here. >> chasing life is an opportunity for us to travel the world looking for extraordinary health practices, experiencing them ourselves. that's my job.

that's chasing life. to find those things and bring them back. >> joining me now is sanjay and what sounds like a remarkable journey. in the first episode you travel to japan and you're focussing on extreme stress in urban areas of japan. >> japan is considered one of the most stressed countries in the world. it's interesting because there's mainland japan, very stressed, you see the impact of what's described as explosive growth over the last several decades and this desire to maintain that growth and the pressure on the younger generations to do so. so they're working harder. they have a term in japan that means either illness or death from overwork. it's a medically reimbursable term and they talk about this openly which is amazing because there's such a stigma around mental illness overall in japan but the fact that this has become such a crisis that it's now something openly discussed is remarkable but then okinawa, you have a chain of islands off the coast of southwest japan

where you're more likely to live to 100 than anywhere else in the world. now people on the mainland are resorting to ancient practices to try to relieve their stress because they need to. >> how do they go about doing that? >> all of these practices like forest bathing for example, something done for a long time in certain parts, this idea of being out in the forest breathing in the aroma of the forest. >> you're bathing in the aroma of the forest and what's interesting is you see the science around this. plants, trees, they release these chemicals which protect them from stress and they release that into the air and we humans can breathe that in. we have receptors for it as well so we can breathe in these stress busting chemicals by being out in the forest. we always know that it feels good to be outside but now the science is catching up and

you're seeing that in japan. >> in upcoming episodes you go to bolivia where there's a group that has a very, very low rate of heart disease. >> you'll find this amazing. they're the healthiest hearts in the world. they're an indigenous tribe that lives in the amazon rain forest and there's others around the world. just because they're an indigenous tribe doesn't mean you don't have heart disease. most of them do but this group does not. we lived with them to see what their lives were like. 70% of their diet is carbs which surprised a lot of people. >> what are they eating? >> plantains and cassava and things like that. unrefined. unprocessed carbs. they move a lot. 17,000 steps a day we calculated. but they don't run. it's movement but not intense movement. the human body wasn't designed to sit or lie for 23 hours a day and then get up and go to the gym for an hour and then they

demonstrate that. >> fascinating stuff. >> thanks for having me. >> the news continues. i want to hand it over to chris, cuomo primetime starts now. >> thank you, anderson. welcome to primetime. break the law and according to sources this president told the now acting head of dhs, if there's trouble, i'll pardon you. is that making america great again? also illegal, threatening to punish his political rivals by dumping bus loads of migrants into their sanctuary cities. today after the white house assured it wasn't happening, president trump insisted he is strongly considering it. what are the implications? we'll bring in cuomo's court into session for that and the president lashes out at congresswoman omar's comments on 9/11, a video that some lawmakers are saying is putting her life in danger. did he cross the line? is there any such thing for him? let's get after it.