right back in this kind of catastrophe again. >> it's awful. thank you very much, tom. and thanks very much to all of you for joining us. of course you can watch out front anytime. just go to cnn go. anderson starts now. good evening. we begin tonight with breaking news on just how unhinged the final days of the last administration were and how much worse they might have gotten. we have some examples which are just now coming to light. america's top military commander comparing then-president trump's rhetoric to hitler's and his followers to brown shirts, to nazis. that top commander found himself rallying subordinates to protect the peaceful transfer of authority and perhaps to head off a coup. ha these and other chilling scenes are contained in a new book "i

alone can fix it, donald j. trump's catastrophic final year." the authors are carol leonnig and philip rucker. it comes out next week. cnn has obtained a series of experts each really more alarming than the next. in this one general mark milly, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is reassuring his deputies about preventing a coup attempt. quoting now from the book. they may try but they can't effing effing succeed, he told them. we're the guys with the guns. jamey doing the reporting for us, she joins us now. i mean it's fascinating to hear how far general milly and what exactly how he saw this. there are parallels according to the book about what the former president said about the election being stolen and adolph hitler's rhetoric. >> absolutely. milly was so shaken by trump's

behavior that what he did was he got together with the other chiefs, the navy, the air force, the marines and they planned. they believed there really could be a coup attempt by trump. and lenning and rucker write milly views quote, trump as the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose. and quoted as saying this is a rife style moment, milly told the aides, the gospel of the furor. we know people were concerned that trump wouldn't leave office. we reported that. to hear general milly say this, it's clear when you read the book he cooperated. there are extensive quotes. >> and he comes off looking pretty good from what i understand. >> he does. and let's remember he had his lafayette square very bad moment. >> which he apologized for. he was i believe in combat

fatigues walking with the president in that motley assortment of people from the white house to lafayette square. >> a very bizarre moment. but to hear general milly say this is stunning. >> there were also according to this book daily check-in calls that milly started to do with mark meadows and some others. >> one of it interesting things about that is in the book milly says he was doing it also to keep tabs on trump. as if by talking to pompeo and mark meadows he would get a better sense of what's going on. we should say that pompeo has denied some of this account to the authors. but there is another extraordinary moment where after january 6th and milly is seeing the insurrection, he's now preparing for the inauguration with other law enforcement officials, with the national guard at fort meyer. and he's so worried there is

going to be another violent attack by trump supporters that he says to the other senior advisers, quote, here's the deal, guys, these guys are nazis. they're proud boys. everyone in this room whether you're a cop, a soldier, we're going to stop these guys to make sure we have a peaceful transfer of power. we're going to put a ring of steel around this city, and the nazis aren't getting in. >> that's incredible to hear. there's also a lot of revelations including one after the insurrection. general milly and congresswoman liz cheney in which cheney who voted for impeachment describes the confrontation she had. it was during the attack, during the insurrection. republican congressman jim jordan kind of i guess -- tell us what happened.

>> so jim jordan is a staunch ally of president trump. he's at the head of the freedom caucus. he's known to make a circus out of things. he is certainly the antithesis on the impeachment of liz cheney's support of the impeachment. so milly and cheney are actually close. they're friends. they talk a lot. they have a phone call, and in the book milly says to cheney this is the next day, the 7th, how are you doing? and she recounts this encounter with jim jordan. and she says, quote, that effing guy jim jordan, that son of a -- you can read it on the screen -- cheney said. while these maniacs are going through the place i'm standing in the aisle, and he said we need to get the ladies away from the aisle. let me help you. i smacked his hand away and told him get away from me. you effing did this.

i don't think liz cheney felt she needed jim jordan's help. >> according to this during the actual insurrection liz cheney saw this as a direct result of jim jordan and the other enablers of the former president. >> absolutely. looking back we knew about the big lie. and jim jordan was close to the president. he was probably calling the president every day, a couple of times a week in the weeks leading up to january 6th. it was not a surprise to liz cheney that this happened, and she feels that jim jordan was part of it. >> i want to bring in also with us -- stay with us because i want to bring in our chief correspondent dana bash also a cnn law enforcement analyst and former fbi director andrew mccabe. so dana, we're talking about concerns from the country's top military officer of an attempted coup by the president of the united states and his allies. this is one of those things you have to kind of step back and just kind of realize this is so

out of the ordinary. there were clearly a lot of, you know -- a lot worse things happening behind the scenes according to this than anyone knew publicly. >> absolutely. and, you know, it is important to understand and learn this for lots of reasons. but first and foremost it's because, yes, it's history but it is recent history. and it informs what is going on right now. and that is if general milly was, you know, saying these things and screaming from the rooftops and having conversations, jamie's reporting also about this book is that nancy pelosi, the house speaker, was involved in conversations. then there's no way that the republican leadership weren't also aware of some of this even if they didn't have direct conversations with the likes of general milly. those republican leaders are currently running the gop and running towards donald trump still right now.

and that is one of the things if you look at it from where we are now is so remarkable that even those days, these stories, what happened on january 6th in the days following, if that's not enough for them to say, wow, we have to stand up and separate ourselves from him it's hard to imagine what is. >> i just want to read this part about the coup again for your reaction. milly says they may try but they're not knowing to effing succeed. he told them you can't do this without the military. you can't do this without the cia and fbi, we are the guys with the guns. obviously there's an awful lot of guns out there in circulation. but the chairman of the joint chiefs was essentially ready for a showdown with the commander in chief and comparing him to hitler. >> yeah, he was apparently. and sounds like he was actually thinking through the mechanics

of what a -- a military conflict, a hot conflict would look like and how that would play out here in the capitol. it's absolutely extraordinary. i think it, fortunately, shines yet another light on the commitment and the dedication of career public servants, this time of course general milly and his team in the military with the courage to stand up to realize that something was going horribly off the rails with the president of the united states and that they might be thrown into a terrible, terrible never before thought of or experienced scenario in which they had to do exactly what you suggested, which is stand up to the president himself. but they were willing to do it because we have those sort of dedicated, career professionals serving in government. >> also it makes you think about all those people who took part in the insurrection, who attacked the capitol who called themselves patriots, and that

word patriot has now been taken over by far-right -- you know, there were far-right nationalists who marched i think it was through philadelphia the other day calling themselves patriots. you read what milly was doing, and which, you know, is obeying the constitution. it's standing up to the oath that he and serving members have taken. i mean that's what a patriot does. >> that's exactly right, anderson. it's exactly right. so patriot is someone who stays committed to that oath, to constitution despite the politics and the craziness swirling around them. it does the right thing for the american people obeying the law unlike the direction they were being pushed by the presidency of the united states. it's just absolutely stunning, and way that crowd that attacked our capitol on january 6th has completely co-opted the sy symbology and terminology of patriotism should be an offense to all americans. it's not patriots who threw

themselves on the capitol and through the doors and windows of the capitol on january 6th. they're not. >> anderson, can i just add one thing to that? and that is the constitution deliberately setup the balance of power, so to speak, so that there is civilian leadership at the pentagon. and the elected president is the commander in chief. but in this particular case according to this new reporting jamie has in the book it is the military and the military leaders who are trying to protect american democracy and people around this elected official in this case the president of the united states. it's really kind of -- it turns what the founders of america thought on its head. >> yeah. there's another moment, jamie, in this book that you've learned about where the former president, then-president trump is talking about his strained relationship with german chancellor angela merkel.

>> well, some of this won't surprise us because we've heard some of this from donald trump before. but he is speaking in the oval office about merkel and the germans. he says that bitch merkel. can we say that on tv? i just did. and then he goes onto say i know the effing krauts, very derogatory term, i was raised by the biggest kraut of them all and points to a picture of his father. again, maybe not surprising because we've had reporting about the president saying things like this, but another stunning revelation. >> there's also a report in the book about pompeo actually going to milly's house, right, and sitting at the table which pompeo is now denying. but the fact it's two people sitting at a table, it seems like it's got to be true based on the other information they have in this book.

what happened? >> so what happened in that case is they both live at fort meyer. they have houses near each other, and according to the book they were checking in regularly with each other. pompeo comes over to milly's house one day and talks about having to be careful of the crazies and keeping an eye on all of this. >> the crazies are in control or the crazies are now the ones around -- >> correct. pompeo for the record or someone close to pompeo denies his saying that. but when you look at everything in this book, these are very direct quotes. carol and phil are two excellent reporters. >> and assuming -- i mean if one assumes and i don't know this for a fact, but based on if milly did talk to them for this book or talked to other people who talked to them, he was the other guy at the table -- pompeo

clearly has visions of himself running for president or having a political career and wants to continue sucking up to the former president. >> he wants the trump base. he's planning to run for president by all accounts, and he does not want to -- >> directly calling them all crazies probably not a good idea. >> he believes in civilian authority. he did not want to be doing this planning. so he was walking a very fine line so that it wouldn't appear the generals or senior officials were planning something. he was trying to keep the guardrails up to january 20th. >> and we just know what happens next, which is the trump world now goes after milly, which republicans have already been doing because he talked about critical race theory as being something that, you know, as a manager of an enormous

organization, the u.s. military, he wants to know about all these theories just like he wants to know about maoism and communism. >> he's a public servant steeped in history well-read, the kind of public servant we should all want. and i totally agree with jamie based on the account in this book he was trying to walk that fine line knowing he wears a uniform and is not an elect official or appointed by one or confirmed by the congress as somebody who works in that other branch. but there's no question. you can write the script the now press release not tweet anymore that the former president is going to send out. we all know what it is going to be. but the fact is that people as we get a little bit further away and as we said at the beginning of this conversation as the

reality of what happened is becoming twisted and warped and whitewashed, and the former president continues to lie about things, it clearly is more important and more imperative for the people who were there to pull back the curtain. and as somebody just said to me in a text, it's kind of unbelievable that we knew how bizarre and scary and dangerous it was because we saw it with our own eyes. but now that we're seeing even more that was behind the curtain, it's even more frightening. >> also you think about the future and obviously this is the -- paraphrasing the first page of history, the famous idea. these books are now starting to be written. ten years from now, 20 years from now once more documents actually come out and e-mails and things and the passage of time, historians look at this. it's not this president's reputation is going to get any better. as we learn more and more

details it only gets more and more tarnishing. andrew, according to the book general milly tried to stop the former president from firing fbi director chris wray and the cia director gena haspel. as someone who served in the fbi at the highest levels, did you get the sense at the time that director wray may have been fired or was close to being fired? >> i think if you go back, anderson, all the way to the beginning of 2017 jim comey and i knew and frequently talked about the fact he could be fired or i could be fired at any time. so i think that serving under donald trump in particularly the role of director of the fbi came with that understanding. it would not surprise me at all if several times during the course of his service for donald trump director wray thought he was probably pretty close to the knife. and who's to say why that never actually happened. maybe it's because people like

general milly came in and made the comments that he did, according to our reporting. but that's just life in a trump regime. i think people who are compelled to do the right thing and follow the rules are cognizant of the fact they'll probably get fired for it. >> dana, i can't imagine anybody working in the trump orbit who does not now know there is no such thing as loyalty to this person, and no matter how much you debase yourself, no matter how much you rudy giuliani yourself to toady up to him, in the end he is going to trample on you, defame you or just disavow you. >> it's a one-way street. and in this time and place for the former president it is all about -- he talked about his father and this according to the quotes in this book. it is all about not committing one of the major sins that his father warned about which is being a loser.

and all of the lies, all of the conspiracies that he's pedaling all boil down to that one trait that he's desperate not to have, and that is to be a loser, to have lost the 2020 election. and that's why he continues to do what he is doing, and that is why anybody who gets in his way by deigning to tell the truth will get steamrolled by him and we know as part of that the people who support him, the conservative media, the social media, all of those who will just take what he says as gospel. >> yeah. and of course the irony is he has become and is what he always feared he would end up being which is a loser. jamie gengel, appreciate it. dana bash, andrew mccabe. coming up what the book has to say about the house speakers fears of what she feared. former defense secretary william cohen joins us on perspective on

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panera. order on the app today. we're talking tonight about the terrifying new book from "the washington post" philip rucker and carol leonnig, "i uh-uh loan can fix can" trump's catastrophic final year. in this one speaker nancy pelosi confronts general mark milly about the sperspective of the president ordering a nuclear strike without authorization. ma'am, i guarantee you we have checks and balances in the system, milly told her. me walked her through the process and nuclear release authorities. ma'am, i guarantee you these processes are very good. there's not going to be an accidental firing of nuclear weapons. ma'am, there's a process, he

said. we'll only follow legal orders. we'll only do things that are legal, ethical and moral. joining us now former defense secretary william cohen. appreciate you joining us. former defense secretary. what do you make of the fact that house speaker pelosi confronted milly over the possibility of the president of the united states using nuclear weapons inappropriately? >> well, i think she was right to be worried. i have said this on multiple occasions going four years, five years ago saying i thought the former president was unfit to be commander in chief. for the reason i felt at that time were pretty evident. i think his mercurial nature impetuous, he has no sense for the rule of the value of law, and a combination of facts that he exhibited from the time he started running made it very clear to me that he would pose a danger. i had confidence certainly in

the military and dod. i certainly had confidence in jim mattis. and i worried about it because the former president would say wait until i get in and i'll get my generals, i'll get my justice department, i'll get my judges. and so everything was possessive, my, my, my. and i worried at that time he would try and put in place people who would just say yes to him. he could do that in terms of appointing cabinet positions. i didn't feel very confident he'd be able to override the generals who understand the rule of law better than he does. >> can you kind of walk us through in laymans terms how the chain of command works on ordering a nuclear attack. we all know about the football. i mean, can the president just get that and launch an attack? >> the answer is it would be very if not hard almost impossible for him to do. is it possible, rarely. could he ever do this because

you do have checks, you do have others in the chain who have to carry out his order. there would others who would number one check through the chain of command with the secretary of defense. would the secretary of defense continue to support the president under these circumstances? would the chairman of the joint chief, would the chiefs support what the president's ordering? now, they're not in the chain of command, make that very clear. but certainly if he were to give that order and the chiefs are undoubtedly would be consulted on this, i think they would be an absolute lock out en masse on what he was trying to do and send the singinal down don't carry this out. when jim put the word out to people saying, look, to his military if you get any recommendation or command from richard nixon in the use of nuclear weapons, do not do it. you check with me. so there had been checks in the system.

is it possible under some rare circumstance he could do that, i think it's rare and practically impossible but not impossible. >> it's also in your long and distinguished career, did you ever imagine that a general of, you know, the position milly was in would be concerned, seriously concerned about a possible coup attempt in the united states and actively talking with others about, you know, how to prevent such a thing and comparing the former president's rhetoric to hitler's and some of the followers, the ones attacking the capitol and elsewhere from these far right groups as nazis. >> i don't think the full story has been told yet by those who are in the room with the former president. i have talked to a number of them, the top generals. and that story has not fully been told. you've had reporters two now

"the washington post," great reporters. and i would certainly confirm their legitimacy as far as their sources are concerned and what they're reporting. but frankly there are generals who have yet to speak out, and that's because they have been trained not to politicize the military. their goal has been, yes, i'll support the commander in chief provided what he tells me or commands me is legal, is ethical and moral. and if he gives me an order which doesn't meet that test i have a duty to step up and resign and tell the world why i'm resigning. and so it's hard to believe we've come to this point, but if you go back over the past four years and you ask the generals who have been in the room who have not written a memoir because they're trying desperately not to politicize the military, if you put them under oath and say tell me what was going on at any given time, what was the president saying,

how he was reacting or acting and what was your concern he might do? i think you'd get a very different story than what we heard today. so i'm hoping those generals who have served him, who have listened to him, who have watched him will confirm exactly what this book is telling. >> appreciate the time. thank you. coming up next what's behind the troubling rise in covid cases, the delta variant, also what the president plans to do about it and how anti-vaccine beliefs are making it worse. we'll talk to a former top vaccine official in tennessee who lost her job when politics got injected into what should be nonpolitical questions of public health.

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well, sadly there are growing signs tonight as much as we want to be through with covid it's not yet through with us. and increasingly we have no one to blame but ourselves. just two weeks ago the country was averaging a little less than 13,000 new cases a day. today it's more than 23,000 and climbing. positivity has also been rising steadily over the last several weeks more than doubling in fact. the reasons are simple, the more infectious delta variant is spreading and too many americans are still not getting vaccinated making the surge in cases almost entirely preventable. early data from a number of states only underscores that notion suggesting 99.5% of covid deaths since the beginning of the year have been in unvaccinated patients. red states with the worst

vaccination percentages, they are seeing the biggest surge in cases. and republican resistance to getting vaccinated is an issue. listen to this guy at the conservative political action conference and what the crowd is cheering for. >> and the government was hoping that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated. and it isn't happening. right, there's a -- younger people -- >> that's what the fight against covid is now up against. that's what the biden administration today began taking on more forcefully. so the president knows neither he nor his administration are in the best position to convince republicans certainly to get the vaccine. what are their plans? >> well, that's the issue and kind of the delicate balance they have to strike here because they know just having president biden go out every single day for the next 30 days and give a speech on getting vaccinated is not going to reach some people, and that's the issue they have with certain audiences they're trying to reach a lot of them

are not biden voters. if you look at some of the states that have the lowest vaccination rates including my home state of alabama, those are states that voted for donald trump in the election. it's not just politics. of course there are other layers a to this. how do they get this message out if they can't always be the messenger? >> do they have an answer for that? >> i think what they're trying to do is not just implore republicans like senator mcconnell who's been telling people to get vaccinated citing his own personal experience with polio and saying, yes, vaccines do work. but they also have to deal with conservative voices and things like what happened in cpac in dallas just a few days ago also helping sow doubt about this. a lot of this has to do with social media platforms as well, where they feel like a lot of people are getting their misinformation from. and the chief of staff ron klein

recently told "the new york times" when he spoke to mark zuckerberg in may and he told him where are people getting these misconceptions about vaccines, these misconceptions what they're going to do to you, he says time and time again they say facebook which is a massive social media platform. that's another question how to handle misinformation on social media. >> kaitlan collins, appreciate it. until monday when she was fired she was the top vaccine official. appreciate you being with us. i understand so just last week before you were fired you received a disturbing amazon package at your office. what was in it, and what did you think when you received it? >> hi, anderson. thank you so much for having me. yes, the week before i was terminated from the department of health i received a package that contained a dog muzzle and

at first i thought that was a joke and contacted a few friends. and when no one claimed it realized that that was something that was sent to me as some kind of a message i suppose. >> i understand i think it was your husband -- or you said something to your husband he recounted. what was it you said? >> i said they obviously didn't know me because they sent me a size 3 which is for beagles and i'm obviously a pitbull which requires a size 6. >> just for people who haven't been following what happened to you it's really extraordinary. i read your account of it. and what you say essentially is that you sent out a directive to other health officials in the state which was just restating what procedure was and what the law was in the state of tennessee, a law for some 30 years that was backed by the state supreme court about people under the age of 18 being able to get medical treatment without

a parent's consent in some cases. and that became politicized and spun by politicians in the state who made it seem like you were out at nursery schools, you know, with a van trying to inoculate children when their parents weren't looking. >> yes. and so what you're referring to is tennessee's mature minor doctrine, which is tennessee case law from a tennessee supreme court ruling in 1987. 34 years ago that has been in place since then. and i sent a memo to the physicians that were providing covid vaccines across this state because they asked me what to do when minors showed up requesting vaccines if they weren't accompanied by a parent. and if it was, you know, within their ability to provide vaccines or not. and so i reached out to our legal counsel, the department of health who provided me with the language that i put into the

memo, said that it was public facing on the website, that it had been blessed by the governor's office and i was free to use it in any way i saw fit. so i put it into a memo, sent it to those providers to answer the questions they had asked. and what resulted was some blowback with accusations i was actually trying to subvert parental authority and target children, which, you know, this was never public facing messaging until the people who objected to it made it public. >> and what's happening now in the state. because i also read correct me where it was from but essentially the health department there is now saying not just about don't be pushing vaccines for covid but also, you know, don't work with schools right now to do outreach about getting ready for flu season and getting flu shots in schools or hpv outreach. >> that's right. so in the days up to -- leading

up to my termination we were given a directive by the commissioner of health that we were no longer to not only not conduct any kind of outreach to adolescents to get covid-19 vaccines but to stop messaging even to parents about the need for back to school vaccines, for teenagers who are missing hpv vaccines and are therefore vulnerable to hpv related cancers, canceling school based vaccination clinics done in partnership with local departments of health that we've done for years. even not allowing us to even acknowledge that august is national immunization awareness month, which is a platform we often use to remind parents about the importance of vaccination. >> this is nuts. this is -- that this is a statewide mandate is pretty incredible. just on a personal note can you describe what this experience

with you, as a pediatrician with a career dedicated to the health and welfare of children, what has this been like? >> you know, it is maddening and disheartening and frustrating. and, you know, this is politics getting in the way of public health. and political agendas whatever they may be that is obstructing our ability to prevent disease in this state. and as you mentioned at the start of the segment covid-19 is a vaccine preventable disease. there is no reason why anyone should be dying from covid-19 at this point. and yet we're going to see increasing deaths because we have 38% of the state of tennessee vaccinated at this point. compare that to vermont that's sitting in the 70s. we are surrounded by other states that are surging in delta. missouri, mississippi with kids in the intensive care units, arkansas. it is only a matter of time

before that takes over here as well. and, you know, it's like a bad disaster movie. the scientists are warning the politicians and the people that there's bad things coming and it's just falling on deaf ears. >> yeah, dr. fiscus, i appreciate what you've done in your career and speaking out now. president biden traveled to capitol hill to meet with democratic senators amid a whole host of pressing issues. coming up i'll talk with one of those senators who sat in on the meeting.

just before the news broke with that new information about the traumatic final days of the trump presidency, an upbeat president biden sat down with democratic senators today on capitol hill. this as they grapple with concern over voting rights and a massive spending bill totaling around $3.5 trillion the party leaders say they want to pass. among those senators virginia's senator tim cain. he joins me now. thanks for being with us. first i do want to ask you to begin about jamie gengel's reporting that some of the top generals feared there would be a coup and made formal plans to protect against such an outcome. does that surprise you? >> no, anderson. it shocks me, but it doesn't spriz me.

as you pointed out i was on the ticket in 2016 and spent 105 days trying to tell america that donald trump the man pre-2016 would be a disaster, bigoted, narcissistic, bully anti-science guy as a president. and america wanted to take a chance on, you know, donald trump, and they did. and we've got 600,000 dead and we had an attack on the capitol and we had a big lie perpetrated against the 2020 election that goes onto this day in state legislatures around the country that are passing anti-voting laws. so, no, it didn't surprise me at all. what saddens me is the way this guy was able to bamboozle so many americans into thinking he would do a good job. many of whom still want him to return. >> what happens now on voting rights? i mean, you have this case of democrats from texas who fled the state who have come to d.c.

they say what they hope to do is talk to democrats in the senate and talk to anybody who will listen in the senate to try to push for -- to change the filibuster. there doesn't seem to be a possibility of that. i mean, do you believe this whole effort on voting rights is dead in the senate? >> i don't, anderson. and i don't agree that there's no possibility of change of the filibuster. i do think it would be very, very difficult to eliminate the filibuster. but what if we were to return the filibuster to its historic kind of mr. smith goes to washington filibuster rather than mitch mcconnell filibuster? if somebody wants to get in the way of a senate majority doing something for the good of the country, let them stand on the floor and try to convince the country and their colleagues that the senate's about to take a bad step. but if they -- if they tire and they can't continue, then we'll go to majority vote.

the voting rights issues are fundamental. you know, i realized on january 6th i've been in public life for a long time. my own job description is battling for virginians and increasing economic opportunity. i never thought my job description was my oath of office, protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. now i in that oath of office, we have to take steps for it on voting rights. i was proud to play a role in getting all 50 senate democrats to be on board with really big, bold steps forward in protecting voting rights, but we can't be done with this. we've got to make it happen to counter the big lie president trump preached that's still having credence in republican states in this country. >> i understand the idea of, you know, not getting away with filibuster, amending it, you said returning it to its

original format. but that still takes convincing of joe manchin and chkyrsten sinema and others. have they shown consideration to you, because obviously that's not a new idea, it's been out there and floated and yet they haven't grasped it. >> when you say they haven't grasped it -- >> they haven't accepted it. >> -- we didn't have all 50 democrats on board for a robust voting rights bill until two and a half weeks ago, but we worked really hard and we got 50 out of 50 to promote an expanse of protection of voting rights, and every republican voted against it and stopped it. but we were able to get democrats on board with it. so the next thing we need to do, having gotten everybody on board with the content of a bill to protect people's voting rights, is to convince people that this is what the oath of office demands. nobody takes an oath of office to arcane senate rules that we

can change. but we do take an oath of office to protect the constitution, and that's what this voting rights battle is all about. >> i'm almost out of town, but i want to ask about the infrastructure reconciliation package. some in your party are concerned about the $2 trillion figure. are you convinced you'll have the number you need? >> together with a bipartisan infrastructure bill, 6 billion, gets us where we need to be to climb out of a pandemic-filled economic catastrophe and build an economy back not only better than it was before but certainly attainable. >> i appreciate your time. thank you. what britney spears said earlier about her father in the

ba battle for conservatorship. what she says, when we return. at chevron, we're working to find new ways forward, like through our venture capital group. backing technologies like electric vehicle charging, carbon capture and even nuclear fusion. we may not know just what lies ahead, but it's only human... to search for it. [beeping] [ringing] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ you bring your best. we'll block the threats. ♪ cyberprotection for every one. malwarebytes

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the singer britney spears told a judge that she wants her father charged with abuse over his control of the conservatorship that runs her career and her multi-million-dollar estate. she spoke in the hearing by phone as her fans gathered outside to lend their support. >> when i tell them the way i feel, it's like they hear me but they're really not listening. >> reporter: angry. traumatized. unable to sleep. that's how britney spears says she's feeling with her father in control of her life and her $60 million fortune. her desire to now press charges against her father comes as britney called the conservatorship if-ing cruelty. if this isn't abuse, i don't know what is. i thought they were trying to kill me, she told the judge. all of this comes after a hearing last month where she painted a troubling picture of her life under the conservatorship run by her father, alleging emotional abuse, financial manipulation and forced isolation and medication.

all i want is to own my own money, britney told the court, saying anyone involved in the conservatorship, including her father jamie spears, should be in jail. perhaps most disturbing, britney's claim that she can't get married or remove her birth control and have a baby without the conservatorship signing off. the so-called team won't let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don't want me to have any more children, she told the judge. britney spears was 26 when she entered the conservatorship. that was in 2008 after she had been hospitalized, shaved her head, and attacked a paparazzi's car with an umbrella, all fueling concern about her mental health. jamie spears' lawyer told nbc last year that he rescued his daughter from a reckless situation. conservatorships are designed for people who can't take care of themselves. yet since hers was set up, she

released several albums and head aid tour that brought in $30 million. now she wants out of the conservatorship, calling it ab abuse. britney spears has sold 30 million albums. the conservatorship limits her allowance to $2,000 a week. britney was made to. when she was sick with a temperature of over 100 degrees. >> i'm sad. >> reporter: earlier this month, britney's mother, lynn spears, signed a petition to allow her daughter to find her own attorney, which was denied by the conservatorship. now britney obtained a lawyer,

and she got alan rosengart, to represent her. meanwhile, across the country, the movement free britney is growing and celebrities are taking notice. on instagram, it was said, give this woman her live back. >> what does her father say about this? >> the judge is asking him to step down as her conservator. he says his firm is going to do what he called a top to bottom review of what britney spears has been through in the last decade or so. as you know, this conservatorship has been in place for 13 years. he also commented on a statement she made in court. he said she showed courage, passion and humanity, and in terms of her testimony, he called it clear, lucid, powerful and compelling. so, anderson, it certainly

sounds like he is going to make a big move to free britney from the control of her father. that's it for us. the news continues. i'm going to hand it over to chris for "cuomo prime time." >> anderson, i appreciate it. we have breaking news tonight. it was worse than we knew. what was? according to the book "i alone can fix it" obtained by cnn, general mark milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was so shaken after the november election, he feared that trump and his allies might form a coup. they formally planned ways to stop. these revelations come from two pulitzer prize-winning authors at the "washington post." according to the book, milley told his deputies, quote, they may try, but they're not going to f-ing succeed. you can't do this without the military, you can't do this with