be watching the live statements from the members of the house judiciary committee in the historic time as they formally have the statements to begin discussing and debate on those two articles of impeachment set for a house vote on impeachment next week. ac 360 starts now. good evening, thanks for joining us. any citizen can say the president did something wrong only 435 elected represent he was have the sole rate and the awesome responsibility for saying a president should be removed from office for it. today some of the lawmakers spoke. they put it all on paper in formal articles of impeachment for only the fourth time ever. nine pages containing two articles drafted by democratic members of the house judiciary. accuseding president trump of abusing his power and the language of the drafters to corruptly solicit election help from ukraine and to obstructing congress's investigation into the affair. now tomorrow evening the committee utterly divided along party lines will debate.

by thursday they could be voting setting the stage for the entire house to decide perhaps by next week whether to impeach. and even as they weigh the next move is the president lashing out his attorney general on the attack over the russia investigation. democrats in red districts wonder how to proceed process. by the way the russia. s also happen to be visiting. it's been a big day. a big night and i want to the start at the white house with jim acosta. how is the president feeling about all this. >> et cetera at a rally right now in pennsylvania. process he said that his support he is should not lose sleep over the articles of impeachment. he said that the articles of impeachment are the lightest and the flimsiest he has ever seen before. and you're essentially getting the same take away from people inside the energies, inside the white house, talked to a senior administration official a short while ago who said, listen, the president was unbothered by this when he was spotted leaving the white house a short while ago heading out the door to go to the ral in pennsylvania.

but despite the claims he is not concerned about this, the president is continuing to mislead the public about what happened in that phone call with the ukrainian president as he was talking to reporters leaving the white house earlier this evening. the president said well when he talked about asking about a favor with president zelensky of ukraine he wasn't talking about himself. as we all know looking at the summary transcript he was very much talking about himself. he was trying to get information from the ukrainian leader about his bogus conspiracy theory that the ukrainians meddled in the election and get information on joe biden. he is continuing to mislead the public despite claims they are not worried process it. >> does the white house believe that impeachment by the house is a done deal at this point. >> they see it as a done deal and moved beyond the house. they see the senate trial as perhaps a place where they'll be vindicated in all of this. they like the fact obviously that mitch mcconnell will be running the show over there. and just to show you how much they have given up on any kind

of, you know, daylight in the house in terms of you know the president escaping impeachment, i talked to a senior administration official earlier this evening who essentially said, no, we are not even considering the idea of a censure of the president as a compromise that some of the moderate democrats were talking about because they are concerned about other political future and some vulnerable districts. so that's injury a solid indication that yes at this point the kwhous is looking to the senate. >> and they made it clear at least the president is looking for a defense to be mounted, a defense of himself mounted there. >> that's right. and i talked to the senior administration official this evening, anderson, who said a lot of this is up in the air. it's unclear at this point they see the white house council pat cipollone as potentially leading the trial in the senate. but haven't ruled out the possibility of the president appearing himself as unlikely as it sounds.

and there is the continued talk of they may try to bring in other witnesses who have not been called to testify, sort of the republican dream list of witnesses people like hunter biden, joe biden, the whistle-blower and so on. i talked to a republican official on the senate side and asked how likely is that to happen? and this republican official said well it depends on if, you know, you can get 51 votes for that kind of an idea. and so this could be wild and woolly. no doubt about it when it gets to the senate. while the white house while the president and defenders seem to be welcoming the idea and relishing the idea of a republican-led senate trial. it does open up the possibilities that they have they haven't emergency imagined that other witnesses could be called to testify mick mulvaney mike pompeo, rudy giuliani. wray on the darkside of the moon if we get to the senate. and i don't think anybody knows how it turns out at this point. >> a lot of unknowns jim, thanks. joining to us eric swalwell.

obviously a historic day. i know you said you hoped to keep the articles as simple as possible. are they pleased they are narrowly focussed >> they reflect, one, the president in realtime is jeopardizing our national security and the integrity of our elections. that's why they are written not with passive voice but with active voice. and two, that as we sought to investigate him he has has categorically refused to cooperate at all. >> do you -- do you believe that every democrat in the house will vote for them? and what message will it send if they don't. >> well it's my hope that every member would consider the evidence and vote for the articles, anderson. but it is really truly a personal decision. and there will be no lobbying by anyone in leadership on this. this is a matter of conscience of constituents and the constitution. >> and opening statements they begin tomorrow night. will all the members of the committee speak? is there something specific, overall strategy that you, other

democrats hope to accomplish accomplish in people's statements. >>? >> that's the tradition of impeachment in the congress. as you pointed out it's only the fourth time the judiciary committee has done this. in the past the judicious judiciary committee members lay out the case gebs the president. it will be very personal. for me what i will convey is that no one else in their life at their job at their church anything they do would be able to leverage their power over someone else for a purely personal gain. that's not how it works for any of us in our daily lives and not how it should work for the president of the united states. >> do you have any idea when the committee and full house will vote vote on the articles. >> we'll begin tomorrow night. of course it could go into thursday and even beyond. we're ready to do that. we are moving expeditiously. but it will be fair. and just so it's career, anderson, the president has been of the inned to participate in the process and at every opportunity he has refused to show up. i think that goes to a powerful

conscienceness of guilt on his part. >> do you know when the full house might get it. >> as soon as we vote on the articles of impeachment if they pass, the house stands ready. i can't speak to a specific date. but i know my colleagues are eager to participate and make sure we protect the integrity of the elections and national security. >> looking ahead to the senate trial your name has been apprehending as a manager, someone arguing the case on the senate floor. would you like to have the chance to do that. >> i'm interested in managing sleep right now. all of us on the committee both intelligence and judiciary have put everything in into this. it would irresponsible to look beyond the task ahead of us this week. >> do you have any sense of kour contentious it may be in the next several days on the committee it's sfwleef it doesn't have to be that way. what's interesting is all of the fire coming from the republicans is about process. you haven't heard anyone dput the facts.

and i tried to lay that out yesterday. you'll see that tomorrow and thursday which is that there are about 12 key facts here that are just absolutely not in dispute. they're acts of the president. and yes, there may be times we don't know what the president is saying. and in the history of crimes like this no one has ever said i'm going to commit this crime in this way. but the acts of the president show that he used your taxpayer dollars, his office to ask a foreign government to cheat an eye election that would benefit him. >> finally, i know you said obvious hi how each member votes is personal. i want to go become to that, are you at all worried that more than just a handful of democrats might pull become and actually not vote for impeachment? >> actually, anderson, i'm encouraged that it was many vulnerable members when the call record was released about what the president was doing with ukraine, people who served the military and in the intelligence community who were in vulnerable seats came forward. seven of them wrote an op-ed in the "washington post" saying no

one is above the law. and this offended sense of duty when they served and oefds them today serving in congress. >> congressman, appreciate your time. >> my pleasure. >> more on the political calculations of the impeachment. how solidly the democratic caucus behind the leadership and william barr's unprecedented attempt to distort intentionally knowing the conclusions of the inspector general report and the investigations into russian meddling in the election. we're keeping him honest, just raid. >> announcer: the 365 interview brought to you by movement. join the movement. are the color cartridges in your printer

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house democrats must justify the political calculations behind the decisions. why the include articles of abuse of power and obstruction of congress but not obstruction of justice. are they moving too quickly. how to address the concerns of members interested in a censure vote. many noted the timing of the announcement as they reached a deal for the trade agreement to replace nafta, something popular with the same swing districts democrats. let's talk about it. cnn political analyst and reporter for "the new york times." julie hirschfield davis. jeffrey toobin aen a carl bernstein. jeff, were you surprised the democrats went with two articles of impeachment narrowly focused on ukraine as opposed to three articles of impeachment to include obstruction of justice? >> not really, anderson. you know, i don't want to say the words don't really matter much. but, you know, the words don't really matter much. does anyone really remember other than historians how many

articles there were against bill clinton? what everybody remembers is he was impeached. that's what matters here. the fact that the democrats decided to come to a consensus on the articles, i think matters so much more than what precisely the articles say. >> speaker pelosi took this path at least in part in order to get the more moderate democrats onboard, obviously a political decisions. is that at odds with her constitutional duty which is holding the president accountable for his actions? >> are you asking me. >> carl. i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry. >> it's perfectly consistent with her duties and to the constitution. these articles of impeachment are very carefully and specifically drawn. and make it much easier to have a meaningful debate that shows how the president engaged in a conspiracy to undermine our free

electoral system by soliciting the interference in the campaign of a foreign power. not only a foreign power but a foreign power at war with russia. once again, the subtext, it's very clear through all of the articles drafted and the text, the subtext of all of this is about a president of the united states who continues to lie and to do the bidding of russia and of vladimir putin. why? that's still the question that we need to have answers to. and i suspect there is a lot more reporting to do for those of us in the press between now and the trial and further into this administration about now what happened in ukraine fits in with the putin agenda. >> you know, that's very high minded. but, you know, the framers gave the power of impeachment to politicians, to the house of representatives. there is always going to be politics involved. and of course this is partially

political when it comes to pelosi. but, i mean, everything congress does is political. and i don't think there is any point in pretending otherwise. >> julie, the articles of impeachment came hours before the deal announced on the u.s. mexico canada agreement. pelosi saying it went been politics. you look at that and say that's certainly about politics, no. >> well, absolutely. it was very clear i think to nancy pelosi and to many democrats in the -- in the rank and file that if members had to go home right after -- go home for krms and the holidays after impeaching president trump and didn't have anything to show for waents to show the house majority for winning that back last year that could be a difficult place for democratic members particularly in conservative leaning districts where mr. trump has support to do. clearly there was -- a big incentive to get this done. they didn't necessarily time it

to the day. but i think there was a big push to be able to say they had gotten this accomplishment and able to still do business with the president even as they try to remove him. i would also say in terms of narrowing of the charges i do think part of the issue here in addition to the political dahm, which is certainly a big impetus behind the decision, is what they think they prove in a gnat trial. i think there are a lot of lawyers working on this thinking a case including the obstruction of justice issues tide to the mueller report would be more difficult prove and wouldn't be the strongest case. they are looking in the end to see if they can't have influence winning over some republicans in the process. i do think that there were other reasons beyond just the politics which were clearly a factor here. >> jeff, do you think there is any chance of winning over republicans? >> it depends what mitt romney thinks. other than mitt romney i can't

imagine any republicans voting to convict. as i have often quoted john boehner there is no republican party anymore, just the donald trump party. the team has assembled. and that's the way it's going to go. >> i want to play something, carl, that chairman schiff said earlier on the articles of impeachment. >> the argument why don't you just wait amounts to this. why don't you just let him cheat in one more election? why not let him cheat just one more time? why not let him have foreign help just one more time? that is what that argument amounts to. the president's misconduct goes to the heart of whether we can conduct a free and fair election in 2020. >> carl, imschiff is basically saying democrats have no choice but to move quickly here with the election less than a year

away. >> well, the articles drafted talk about the president persisting. i think the word used is persists. he continues to persist in trying to entice foreign entanglement into our election. but more important, i think we need to look at not just the time line but the question of the constitution of the united states, if the democrats and hopefully republicans as well did not move to impeach this president, because of the grievous nature of the conduct. in watergate richard nixon trade to undermine free elections by massive political espionage and sabotage and run against the democrat he wanted to run against in the democratic party. very much like here except nixon didn't involve a foreign power. but it was the abuse of authority, the corruption involved in saying our

constitution means nothing, you know, the impeachment claus was specifically drawn dsh george washington, james madison talked about the danger of entanglement of foreign powers in elections. this was intended from the impeachment claus. and here we have a very strong case of exactly what can happen when a president engages in this kind of basic corruption. >> julie, cnn is reporting that there is a growing divide between president trump and majority leader mcconnell what the senate trial should look like. mcconnell wanting it to end as quickly as possible. and but the president wanting a dramatic event. thinking a spectacle is the best chance to hurt the democrats in the election who win that is. >> in the end mitch mcconnell has to control the process.

he has to run the trial. obviously the chief justice of the sproufrt supreme court will preside. but he has to determine the rules. and others republican senators are showing -- we reported over the weekend, have told pat cipollone, the white house council and other white house officials they don't have 51 votes to call the edgy witnesses. there is not senators in charges of calling hunter biden for instance. in the end the rules of the senate has to dictate and also politics for mitch mcconnell. he is very aware that he has some vulnerable republicans who don't want a long drawnout trial, a big spectacle many votes on the floor on this. they want to consider this, look like they are serious about it and then dispense with it. obviously there will be more discussions. but i think mcconnell will be the one in control here. >> julie hirschfield, carl bernstein. jeff stick around. we'll get your take on the

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the similarities between the impeachment of this president and the one more than 20 years ago. begin with this fact. 84 current members of congress cast a vote in president clinton's impeachment one difference noted today. back then the republican led house voted on four articles but

only succeeded in impeaching on two. still it's winding up in the senate of course as president clinton a's did. here a day of the defense from january of 1989. >> the president's defense is base on the grand jury transcript itself. i heard to you traed that transcript. watch the videotape. you will see this president make painful difficult admissions, beginning with his acknowledgement of an improper and wrongful relationship with monica lewinsky. you will see that the president was truthful. and after reading, seeing, hearing and studying the evidence for yourself not relying on what someone else says it is, not relying on someone else's description, characterization or par phrase of the president's testimony, we believe that you will conclude that what the president did and said in the grand jury was not unlawful and that you must not remove him from office.

>> well two veterans of clinton impeachment joining us joe lack hart serving as white house press secretary and paul balka, a white house strategist. i wonder when you watch the chip from the white house counsel it at the time using the words difficult admissions do you see that as a major difference how the clinton team approached this, president clinton admitted making mistakes. >> yes, yes. as greg said in the statement, the first thing bill clinton did was read a statement he wrote kefzi kefz confessing all this. nobody loves bill clinton. we were angry and heart broken. it's not a cult of personality. the defendanto defense was he is a good man did a bad thing but not impeachable. process the trump defense seems to be at least what the president wants is perfect call i am perfect, nothing wrong. that just doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for frankly for

sanity, admitting it wasn't good but let's not impeach him over it. >> in the past paul talked about the lessons learned and there was compartmentization of president clinton when he wasn't meeting with the people who were working on his defense he was not talking about publicly the impeachment because he wanted voters and the americans to know there was still being being done. that seems not the system set up in this white house. what other lessons do you think there are that this white house should learn? >> well, i think -- i'm stealing paul's lynn which is for president clinton the work was his therapy, how he got through this. i think there is the -- the similarity is that i think both our white house and this white house has said that the actual act is partisan. where it breaks down though is that democrats in 1998 took the process seriously.

there were moments this this thing and paul will remember particularly after the president addressed the nation the day of his testimony where a lot of senators thought it was time for the president to leave. dig gep hart without being asked and said you know impeachment is a possibility here we may have to do this. republicans from the beginning have basically said there is nothing to see here, there is no problem with obstruction. and i agree with paul. there is no room for them to move if he doesn't acknowledge wrongdoing or apologize like clinton did. and the last thing is the president was very clear at the end of the -- on impeachment day and end of the senate trial it was time for the country to move on and heal. this president was out in pennsylvania tonight making it -- saying i want to revel in this stuff. these guys -- he said the fbi is scum and the democrats are crazy, maniacs. he is talking about this from now until election day. >> paul, just in terms of

mistakes, the clinton white house might have made what traps would you advise in white house to avoid. >> well, look, first don't lie. seems simple but you teach your children that. we should teach our presidents that. president clinton paid an ee norpz price for lying about an affair. but what's interesting is clinton has a strong economy. everybody would say to people like me well you are saved by the strong economy. we had a strong economy then and have a strong economy now. partisan impeachment then and likely to have one now. clinton went to 73%. trump at 43. how i do explain the 30 point gap? it's because people thought the offense he committed was a sin not a crime. and second he was working for the american people every doing gone day. and the president had a good win on the trade deal with mexico and canada. i'm glad pelosi did it too it shows the democrats aren't obsessed with impeachment.

but he needs more than that. free advise, mr. president. join the gun bill. he said before he supported the background check bill. support it now. support the democrats on childcare roads and bridges. he could get a lot of stuff done right now. maybe the trade deal opens it. maybe he will watch this after his therapy session tonight in hershey and change his entire approach. >> paul belling awe joe lack hart we'll see. coming up next the attorney general attack on the fbi, the inspector general report and as painful as it is to say his attack on the truth itself. keeping him honest, next. let's be honest,

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today abthe nation's top law enforcement officer took aim at the top law enforcement agency. attorney general william barr suggesting the fbi acted in bad faith in the russia investigation. that's you unprecedented but given the last 24 hours or so it's not unexpected. right after thement inspector general report came out barr's boss was denouncing at the same

time attorney general barr began criticizing his own agency as top independent watchdog also unusual if not unprecedented pointing to a separate ongoing investigation he commissioned. that too is certainly unusual. as is the u.s. attorney in charge of the investigation putting out a statement right after barr criticizing the inspector general report as well. which is what he did. and now there is more. attorney general barr sat down with nbc news pete williams who asked him whether he stood by the claim that the trump campaign was spied upon. >> dwas clearly spied on. that's what electronic surveillance is. wiring people up to go and talk to people and make recordings of conversations is spying. >> well, the what the attorney general is blandly making two seemingly uncontroversial statements of fact that invite the listener to then draw a false inference that the campaign was spied upon. keep him honest he is smart enough to know better. for starters attorney joernl -- the attorneys general do not

call court sanctioned electronic surveillance spying. or they haven't until now precisely because it suggests bad behavior. and although the inspector general did identify 17 separate problems in connection with the warrant applications he didn't find the politically motivated wrongdoing the president alleged for three years. and that the attorney general is insinuating. no hoax, no politically motivated witch hunt were found. no informant inserpent into the campaign. as for wiring people up the doj doesn't call it spying either. but whatever you call it it's immaterial because it didn't happen. quoting from the inspector general report, we found no evidence that the fbi placed any chs, confidential sources, or uce undercover employees within the trump campaign or tasked any confidential sources or undercover sources to report on the trump campaign. and the funny thing is that attorney general barr doesn't claim this specifically happened either. he only suggests that it did.

he did straight up stay this about the big are picture. >> i think our nation was turned on its head for three years. i think based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by an irresponsible press. >> the inspector general did not conclude the russia investigation was built upon a bogus narrative. just the opposite quoting again from the report, the fbi had an authorized purpose when it opened cross fire hurricane to obtain information about or protect against a national security threat or federal crime even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity. so, wait did someone say bogus narrative. >> it was an illegal investigation. it was started illegally. >> they were spying on my campaign and it went right up to the top. >> this was an attempted coup. this was an attempted takedown

of a president. >> this was spying on my campaign something never done in the history of our country. this was an overthroe attempt at the presidency. >> everything about it was crooked. >> comey lies and links. he is a liar leaker. >> some of the people at the top were rotten apples. james comey was one of them. >> the expire thing a witch hunt. >> it's a total witch hunt. >> a one great hoax. >> a democrat hoax. i call it the russian hoax. one of the great hoaxes. >> that is the bogus narrative. and in normals tames times the attorney general would congratulate the superior general for a thoreau and professional job after the report taking two years. saying something like this inspector spernl horowitz a piercely independent investigator, a superb investigator who i think conducted this particular investigation in the most professional way. and i think his work when it comes out will be a credit to the department. well, that sounds like a reasonable statement. because that is what attorney

general barr said about horowitz, the inspector general and his investigation just a few weeks ago before he suddenly didn't like the conclusions then trashed this morning. joining me now is jim baker the former fbi top lawyer and cnn political analyst. chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. jim, the attorney general what's going on here do you think? we're seeing statements from this attorney general unlike any we have seen from any attorney general in recent times. >> yeah, i can't really explain it, anderson. it doesn't make sense to me. i think he is trying to help the president advance his narrative in order to help the president stay in power which the president obviously desperately wants to do. but i'm just like filled with sad thisness frapgly about all this. because the attorney general has had a great reputation over the years of his career. and i think he is -- i find it sad to see what he is doing now. i tound found mr. durham had a great reputation within the

department. that's sad as well. i am profoundly sad about everything that's happening here. and it's just really unjustified. the facts do not support his assertions with respect to the investigation that we conducted. i was one of the people at the top of the fbi at the time. and i know we weren't involved in some plot to overthrow the united states dwoft obviously. we were conducting lawfully authorized investigative activities to protect the country from russia. the focus was on russia, not on trying to get political information to hurt the president in any way. so. >> spare. >> i find if sad sfl spare me your sadness, baker. the attorney general of the united states is a fox news bot. and we have -- and it's just -- it's an outrage. just the first quote you started with, it's like, i think it's troubling when they wire someone ---en a they wire people up to go in a campaign. they didn't wire anyone up. it's a complete invention. i mean, the -- you know, the

justice -- i used to work in the justice department about 17 levels down from where jim baker was. but, i mean it's just outrageous. it's not sad. this is what's -- i mean the fact that the attorney general of the united states keeps demanding investigation after investigation until he gets the results that he wants? that's something that happened in the soviet union not in the united states. >> jim, what message do you think it sends to everybody working in the justice department that their leader has chosen to support the president and his lies about the investigation over his entire department, including the fbi and the inspector general who is an independent body within the organization? >> yeah, jeff me worked up i'll remain rye to remain calm. >> okay. >> i think it sends a terrible message. look and the president's statements i think in his tweet whenever it was about director wray, i mean the fbi is not a broken organization. it is not and has not been. it's a tremendous organization. it's out there every day defending america.

so the american people should rest assured that the fbi is there. doing its job. it's protecting all of us. that being said, it's demoralizing i think when the attorney general makes these statements about the investigativeworkwork work we did. and certainly deters people from wanting to be involved in these cases. the fbi has a lot of stuff on its place. a lot of sensitive matters that they need to pursue aggressively and need to be encouraged to be aggressive to protect us within the bounds of the law but not to be -- not to be commented on sando and said to be spying. because if this is spying then under the attorney general guidelines and the law of supported by mr. barr then his department of justice and fbi are spying all the time because this is lawful activity and not spy sfwloog the president tweeted today i'll put it on the screen he said i don't know what report current director of the fisher christopher wray was reading but it wasn't the one given to me. with that attitude he'll never

knicks the fbi which issed aboutly groeken despite having some of the greatest men and women working there. the only thing christopher wray did was state factual evidence and the lack of factual evidence on the idea that ukraine was interfering in the 2016 election. the fbi and others in the intelligence community say clearly it was russia. the evidence shows that. that has now suddenly now he is in -- you know the cross hairs of the president of the united states. >> yeah, the word that certainly jumps out at you in the tweet is current. the current director of the fbi. and he could clearly be a former director before too long. but the president has lied about this constantly. he stillying about it. and the thing that's just so disgraceful is that he is enabled, supported and endorsed by the attorney general of the united states who should know

better. >> jim baker jeff toobin thank you very much. if you watch fox new for a balanced explanation of the inspector general report you wouldn't get it. it was remarkable to see. more on that when we come back. what'd we decide on the flyers again? uh, "fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance." i think we're gonna swap over to "over seventy-five years of savings and service." what, we're just gonna swap over? yep. pump the breaks on this, swap it over to that. pump the breaks, and, uh, swap over?

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some late word from the president's rally in pennsylvania. the president attacked the fbi calling some members of the bureau and this is the word he chose, scum. chris, i assume you're not very surprised by that. >> anyone and anything that is in the way of what he thinks benefit him loses. he lied about an inspector general report. he's lying because he believes people won't watch it. he'll lie and trash the fbi. he'll trash anybody. he'll trash you -- maybe not you but he'll certainly trash me. anybody who is in his way. he will never surrender the me to the we. that's him. move him to the side. we're going to look inside these

articles of impeachment. is this the best case the democrats could make or is it the safest case? we're going to test it with hakeem jeffries. there's word he might be one of the managers in the senate. and why doesn't the president admit what's obvious? and russia in the house again, coop? why do they get the red carpet when they lie to our faces? >> chris, we'll see you about eight minutes from now. we look forward to it. appreciate it. attorney general barr's repudiation of the inspector general's report, we'll show you how it was reported in what at times seems to be an alternative universe. that's next. urke) a "rock and wreck." seen it. covered it. at farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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investigation that while there were serious issues along the way, the investigation was not because of political bias and was appropriate. the folks at fox sprint two years promising they would find something completely difference. listen to how they reacted and their new hopes for a new investigator. >> how can you determine there was no political bias in the fbi's hand willing of the fbi probe? >> his purview was limited. he was in the bubble. >> horowitz gave democrats the talking point they craved. >> horowitz couldn't find it. perhaps durham has been able to find it. >> john durham is very strongly hinting the origins of the russia probe weren't just wrought with inaccuracies and errors but instead downright unlawful. >> with durham, he'll look into. >> that last person is stephanie grishham. you don't see her anywhere else

other than fox. with me is brian stelter. it is interesting how they interpreted this. >> incredible and really disappointing for the people who work at fox who are still reality based, who still want this channel to be as accurate as possible. there's a difference between confident and conspiratorial. there's a difference between supporting trump's agenda and lavishly, blindly believing whatever he said. it's as if all nuance is lost and nonsense wins out. we're seeing that vividly this week. >> there is this echo chamber that's been talked about a lot. the president watching fox, the president criticizing fox if he doesn't like a poll, which, you know, is ludicrous the idea that they're somehow manipulating polls against the president. >> i've been talking to dozens of sources inside fox in recent months. a lot of them describe a frustration that the network

feels like it's surrendered to trump. there's a sense that trump is in charge of fox. >> is it a financial decision? obviously there's some politics. is it political purely or financial as well? >> it's partly political and definitely also financial. viewers -- fox sure expect a certain message. in some cases fox viewers reject anybody who is not delivering it. look what happened with shep smith who was at fox. we are suffering through truth decay. the echo chamber is a big reason why. it's like plaque that builds up that we're not just getting cavities, we're getting root canals. i think if trump didn't have fox, he'd have to invent it because it is the main thing keeping him around 40% in the polls. you wonder if he'd be at 20 or 30% in the polls were it not for those daily cheerleading

sessions on fox. i want to hand it over to "cuomo prime time," chris? >> thank you, anderson. we're going to ask two key players about abuse of congress. why no mueller report included? no mention of trying to bribe ukraine? is this safe or too safe? and we'll get reaction from a trump defender about the impending impeachment. why won't they just admit the obvious? and on this day of all days, guess who trump rolled out the red carpet for? russia. he lets putin's puppet just lie to our faces about not interfering. what is worse, the perception or the reality? that's the question. what do you say? let's get after the answer. two