invite some democrats over tomorrow to twist some arms as key votes are scheduled this week. also tonight, still no sign of brian laundrie, who disappeared about two weeks ago after the body of his fiancee, gabby petito, was found in wyoming. police in florida say that the fbi is taking over the search for him and may scale back the effort. and the justice department is agreeing to drop strict conditions on movement for john hinckley jr., who tried to assassinate president ronald reagan more than 40 years ago. i'm going to ask the former president's daughter, patty davis, how she feels about that. i want to bring in now cnn senior political analyst kirsten powers and contributor evan osnos, a staff writer for "the

new yorker" who is the author of "wildland: the making of america's fury." good evening to both of you. thank you so much for joining. evan, democrats say that they are getting really close to a deal on biden's largest spending package. i want you to listen to what ilhan omar told me just last hour. here it is. >> we are really getting close. the senate majority leader continues to have a conversation with the few senators that are holding up progress. our chairwoman, pramila jayapal, had a phone call and a conversation with sinema. what we are waiting for is what is it that they are interested in seeing changed so that we can move this legislation forward. >> evan, simple question. is the president going to be able to pull this off? >> well, we're starting to see some of the kicking beneath the

surface of the water begin to reveal itself. yeah, we're into the horse trading phase now, don. it's pretty clear that people are starting to put numbers on the table. one of the big questions, and this is what the chair of the progressive caucus indicated earlier in the week, was that, look, this is going to come down to how many people can be covered by these changes. how long will they be in effect? will they be a few years? will they be permanent? but that's exactly the process they had to get to. biden has been sort of calm throughout this, trying not to say this is a five-alarm fire. but the stakes are enormous. but at this point, the language, the body language you're hearing from everybody has changed from where it was a few days ago where there's a general recognition that this is a political necessity. they have to get this done. >> kirsten, can you hear me? are you having trouble? i think kirsten is having trouble. so we're working on kirsten, and i'll continue to talk to you evan. just hours ago, the situation was very tense.

manchin was saying an agreement was a heavy lift. progressives were standing firm. so what do you think has changed, evan? >> well, one of the things you're hearing was an important detail from jim clyburn, influential of course congressman from south carolina. he's one of the people who has been pushing for an expansion of medicaid, saying we have to push this into states that have said no to it under the affordable care act for nearly a decade. he's starting to say, look, if we can't make this permanent, as he said today, we'll take half a loaf. we'll put it in place for five years. these are the kinds of changes that begin to get something moving. i think the larger point here that's really interesting too is you've begun to hear little bits of how joe biden is talking to some somebody like joe manchin. joe manchin telling reporters they're having conversations about the direction of the country. he's not going to say, i'm going to squeeze you. you're going to have to do this

for your own voters. he's trying to put it in larger interprets, competitiveness terms, saying, look, for the united states to be competitive in the 21st century, we have to have things like paid family leave of the kind that is standard in western europe. we have to have the kind of high-speed trains that they have in japan, in china. we have to have the kind of broadband access you see when you go to south korea. this is about making the united states fit for competition for the decades ahead, and that's an argument that lands better with joe manchin than it does fighting with him about what his voters want and are not willing to pay for. >> thank you for that. kirsten, our democracy is under attack. republicans are rewriting laws all across this country based really on a lie. president biden has been clear that he thinks that the way to defend democracy is to show that government can work and do things to help people. so how important is it for democrats to come together in this moment with really so much else on the line here? >> well, i think it's incredibly important, and actually i would say if they weren't able to

produce some sort of, you know -- deliver basically on biden's agenda, i think it would be catastrophic. so because there's so much on the line, that's why i've been saying i really do believe that the democrats are going to figure this out. and what we're seeing right now is just the sausage-making. we're watching this happen, and this is -- this is how it works. you have different factions in the democratic party staking out their positions. they are fighting for the things that they think are the most important. and because of the numbers, because of the fact that joe biden really doesn't have 50 votes that he can count on of people that all think exactly the same way, he's having to navigate a lot of different people who have different constituencies and different concerns. and so that's what he's facing, but i think they're going to figure it out because if they don't figure it out, it really would be disastrous. >> kirsten, i knew that you were having trouble because i didn't think you would be on with your

commercial break glasses as i call them. >> i wasn't hearing the show. i heard nothing, and all of a sudden i heard you're on camera, and i'm like, awesome. >> thank you, kirsten. thank you, everyan. i appreciate it. joining me now is valerie jarrett, the former senior adviser to president barack obama. good to see you. thank you so much. the former president is weighing in on biden's spending plan. he's saying the wealthiest americans can afford to pay month to fund it. this is what he told good morning america's robin roberts. >> i think they can afford it. we can afford it. i put myself in this category now, and i think anybody who pretends that it's a hardship for billionaires to pay a little bit more in taxes so that a single mom gets child care support or so that we can make sure that our communities aren't inundated by wildfires and floods and that we're doing something about climate change

for the next generation, you know, that's an argument that is unsustainable. >> so the problem with all that, valerie, is president biden has not been able to secure agreement from all democrats. do you think he'll be able to get this over the finish line? >> i sure hope so, don. good evening. thank you for having me on. listening to the items that president obama mentioned that have to be taken care of if we're really going to be a country that cares about our fellow citizens is we don't have any choice. and so i know that president biden is working hard at this, but it's also up to those who are elected to lot net perfect be the enemy of the good and to move forward because families right now are sitting around those kitchen tables, don, trying to figure out how to make ends meet, and they need some help. and that's what government is there to do. >> say again. >> that means that people who can afford it have to pay a little bit more in taxes so that those who cannot afford it have

a little help. >> the former president obama mrs. took part in a virtual chat, and you were part of that. he said this about the threats to democracy. here it is. >> because of, i think, some of the fraying or the crumbling of guardrails around how information goes out into the public, you know, we now have certain portions of our populations that are operating on entirely different baselines of facts, of history, of, you know, how democracy is supposed to work. we've got to figure out how are we helping people to distinguish

between truth and falsehood, facts and opinions. >> so he went on to say that that may happen through the education system or how we think about the media. but this is an urgent problem, valerie. what needs to be done right now? >> well, it's up to all of us, don, to start stressing the importance of engaged and active learning, that it isn't enough just to pick something off the internet and think it's true. we have to be critical learners. we have to look at the data. where did it come from? and we have to talk to one another, not at each other. and this brings us to an important role that i think the obama foundation has to play is a gathering place of people with great ideas that have done their research, that have done their own homework, evidence-based strategies that don't tell people what to think but how to think, how to be those critical thinkers and how to come together to solve the big problems that we have that lie ahead. we know what the solutions are, and if we're willing to look at the truth and be rigorous and

disciplined and care about us, not just ourselves, to your earlier question, we can solve these problems together. and i think that's what he believes in, and that's what he wants to see happen through this new obama center, this foundation that he has created. >> i also want to ask you something about something i know that you care deeply about, and that is police reform. republican senator tim scott told pbs last year that he supported police departments losing federal funding if they didn't make reforms. now he seems to be calling that defunding the police. did he flip-flop? is police reform in congress doomed, valerie? >> i surely hope not. i think it's incumbent on all the members of congress to recognize we have to provide some broad parameters at the federal level about what is acceptable in policing to give local law enforcement the tools that they need to do their jobs in a fair and equitable way. and so in some cases, that might

require them to receive more resources, but those resources should have strings attached that show that these police departments are going to actually implement change and so that black families don't have to teach their children a certain way to interact with the police that the rest of the country doesn't have to do. and that's in everyone's self-interest, don. >> you mentioned it a little bit but we didn't talk specifically about the obamas breaking ground on the obama presidential center in chicago tomorrow. you talked about what he's trying to do with the center, but we didn't talk about what's happening. you said it won't be a typical presidential library, more like an active campus. tell us more about what we can expect. >> yes. on the south side of chicago, we are going to have a beacon of hope that i think will help support change agents to go around not just the city of chicago but the world and be forces for good. it's going to begin here on the south side, and as you know, don, knowing chicago, that there's been a traditional disparity between the south side and the north side.

>> mm-hmm. >> and this investment, this incredible economic engine, is going to help generate a ripple effect across the entire city. but the goal, don, is when you leave and you leave this center, that you're not only inspired, but you feel empowered to go back to your community and be a change agent. it's all about what we can do, not what i can do. >> well, i can't wait to see it. i hope the opening is not, though, in the middle of winter because i do know chicago. that's how i met you and the president and former first lady. thank you very much. always a pleasure to see you. >> take care, don. and there is news on the gabby petito case. newly released dispatch audio reveals what police were told about the altercation between gabby and brian laundrie. >> the female who got hit, they both -- the male and the female both got into the van and headed north. 're sensitive to dairy. so anyone who says lactaid isn't real milk is also saying

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tonight, there is still no sign of brian laundrie who disappeared from his florida home about two weeks ago. the body of his fiancee gabby petito was found earlier this month in wyoming, her death ruled a homicide. police in florida say the fbi is taking over the search for him. i want to bring in a former fbi

profiler who is the host of the podcast "killer psyche." good evening to you. thank you so much for doing this. the fbi is now leading the search for brian laundrie. that's according to the north port police. they say that is going to be scaled back from last week's hunt in the nature reserve. it will now be targeted based on intelligence. tell me about this change in tactic. >> well, the fbi has tremendous resources and are always available to help out state and local law enforcement, so that's what's happening here. they apparently have collected information possibly from a variety of sources, what they found in their initial search and possibly some tips that have led them to determine their search is now going to be more targeted. so i would call this good news. >> you know, candice, yesterday the fbi took personal items belonging to brian laundrie from

his parents' home to assist them with dna matching. does that mean they are assuming they will be identifying his body at some point, or could they use that to find him alive in this nationwide manhunt? what's going on here? >> it could be they're just getting it for a just-in-case scenario. however, what struck me first was that we know they have recovered gabby's remains, and we do not -- we know it was a homicide, but we don't know how she was killed. was she hit with a tree branch? was a knife used? we just don't know. but they may have a weapon or things surrounding her remains that they have tested and they can use the samples they've received from brian's parents to test and see is there any of

brian's dna there or not? additionally, frequently when people, especially women, are in a struggle for their life, they will scratch the offender and get dna from skin tissue under their nails. this we know. and so they will -- if that is the case with her remains, they will want to be comparing brian's dna with anything they found at the crime scene. >> yeah. there is newly released dispatch audio that reveals that the utah police officer who pulled gabby and brian over in august were t -- told that he was the alleged aggressor, not gabby. let's listen to some of that recording. >> but the female who got hit, they both -- the male and the female both got into the van and headed north. a male hit a female, domestic. he got into a white ford transit

van. >> so the dispatcher refers to gabby as the female who got hit. the moab city police department is now under investigation for its handling of this incident. what went wrong here, candice? >> well, i've watched that interview with the two police many, many times, and it appears to me that brian was pretty skilled at hoodwinking people. he -- when he approached the police, he was what i call c-3. he was cool, calm, and collected. gabby was the opposite. she -- i'm not going to say she was hysterical, but she couldn't stop crying. she could hardly complete a sentence. she was clearly upset, and brian kind of, with a wink and a nod almost, says to the police, well, she gets this way. and when she gets this way, i

have to distance myself. and then he plays the classic abuser's card. well, you know, she's crazy. so that was all bad, bad for abby -- gabby, i'm sorry. >> so according to their attorney, the family of gabby petito will be holding a press conference tomorrow afternoon. what do you think this could be about? >> i can't imagine other than maybe they are aware of the manner of death. that would surprise me. usually medical examiners or investigators make that announcement public. perhaps they have received information that they want to share, and maybe they simply want to thank the public for all the support. >> that's it. well, candice, we always get such insight from you, and we

thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. and, don, tomorrow on my podcast, "killer psyche," we are devoting an entire episode to this story. we usually do historic cases. we thought this was important enough that we focus on it right away, and we'll be addressing a lot of these issues and questions. >> we'll be listening. thank you, candice. >> thank you, don. he tried to assassinate a president, but he'll be completely free in june. that president's daughter speaks out right here next.

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can your internet do that? so the man who tried to kill ronald reagan, john hinckley jr., is about to be free. a judge saying all remaining restrictions on him will be lifted, and they're going to do it next year. hinckley got the idea to kill the sitting president after seeing the movie "taxi driver." he identified with the main character played by robert de niro, who plotted to assassinate a presidential candidate. hinckley thought his own attempt would impress an actress in that movie. the actress was jodie foster. this is how it played out on march 30th, 1981. i want you to listen to cnn's bernard shaw. >> john hinckley jr. was rushed, as we saw from that videotape, to district of police headquarters. we're told that he's going to be

charged -- will be charged is the phrasing that's used -- with assault with intent to kill a police officer. he'll be charged with attempting to assassinate the president of the united states. >> i remember that day very vividly. joining me now is the author of the new book "floating in the deep end," president reagan's daughter patti davis. patti, it's so good to see you again. thank you very much. it's been a while. >> thank you. >> are you doing okay? >> i am okay. yeah, thank you. >> i think i've shared this with you. by the way, thank you for the beautiful picture of your dad that you sent me. >> oh, you're welcome. >> i think i told you this before. i remember that day, and i was getting out of class. you know, it was when your dad was shot. i was driving my 1972 volkswagen beetle, and i had the radio on, and i'd just got in the car and everybody was on the bus or walking and i said, the president has been shot. nobody believed me. they thought i was joking. that day remains very vivid for

me. i'm showeure it is ingrained inr memory. what do you think about hinckley's upcoming release? >> well, obviously i have all sorts of negative thoughts about it. the one thing i didn't feel was surprise. i mean i think this was inevitable. barry levine has been working for this for many, many years, and he wasn't going to stop until he got all the restrictions taken off of john hinckley. you know, hinckley has been out and about for many years. i mean i spoke to sarah brady a couple of years before jim brady died, and she lived in sort of the same region as john hinckley. and she said, you know, every time i go out somewhere, i'm so scared that i'm going to see him. so he's been around for a while. but the last restrictions were about him having to have mental health checkups and also not being able to contact any family

members or jodie foster. all of that is being removed. >> you were in your 20s back then when it happened. can you take us through what that day looked like for you? >> yeah. i was actually in a therapist's office, and one of my secret service agents like barged in, and at first i was so angry because i thought, oh, my god. i can't even have a therapy session without the secret service barging in. but i looked at him, and he was just white as a sheet. and he said, there's been a shooting. and, you know, the day just sort of careened from that point on. i wasn't able to get through to the hospital. i really didn't know much more -- sorry. my cat just joined this interview. >> it's all right. we like animals and their appearances.

go on. >> she does it every time. i don't know. you know, i was really getting my news from the secret service and from the television, and they finally put me and michael and maureen on an army transport plane that night. they wouldn't let us fly commercial because they didn't know how -- if other people were going to try to kill the whole family or something like that. >> wow. >> so they put us on an army transport plane, and we ended up getting into washington, i don't know, 2:00 in the morning or something like that. and, you know, my mother was already asleep. it was -- it was just -- i didn't know -- none of us knew if my father would live, and he came very close to not living. and, you know, i wrote in "floating in the deep end" about the memory of being so terrified that he would die that day, and

obviously he didn't. but when alzheimer's claimed him, the piracy of alzheimer's was actually a little less scary for me. it was still scary but less so because i could wrap my head around that. i could wrap my head around the piracy of alzheimer's. i couldn't wrap my head around someone taking a gun and going and taking another life. >> mm-hmm. >> and i still can't. >> it's the immediacy of it, and i certainly understand that. >> yeah. >> listen, i want to read part of your new op-ed out today. it said recently a decision to recommend parole for sirhan sirhan divided the kennedy family as well as much of the public. a half century has passed since 1968, one of the arguments for his release went. but the family members who objected know this. when someone you love is gunned down, time doesn't move on from that day, that hour, that

moment. that event is your prison, and there is no release from it. hinckley's assassination attempt took place 40 years ago, but, you know, it's not over for you as you write there. >> yeah, but, you know, also i reread today rory kennedy's "new york times" op-ed about sirhan sirhan and objecting to his release, and he's been incarcerated for 53 years. and she brought up a really good point about the loss to the country. obviously her father died and my father did not die that day. but when something like this happens, when somebody tries to assassinate a president or assassinate a public figure or a presidential candidate, they affect the entire country. i mean you remember the day that my father was shot. i remember very clearly when robert kennedy was shot. the country is paralyzed. so you're not just affecting the

family and the loved ones. you're affecting an entire country. >> well, patti, listen, i wish we had nicer things to speak about when we see each other via satellite, but i appreciate your candor and i appreciate you coming on. you be well, and i hope to see you soon, okay? >> thank you. you too. >> and bye to the cat. >> yes. minnie says good-bye. bye! >> have a great night, both of you. so he won't give up. he lost the election. it has been proven over and over and over. but instead of accepting defeat, the former president is digging in. what does it mean for the next election?

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the disgraced former president spreading the lie that he won the election. he didn't. and attacking arizona's fraudit that wound up confirming joe biden's victory. the fact is he lost arizona. he lost the popular vote. he lost in the electoral college. so why all the lies? joining me now to discuss is a professor of history at new york university. ruth, thanks for joining us. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> so the twice-impeached serial, lying, disgraced former president who tried to stage a coup is still out there spreading these lies. he is calling the shots for the gop and could very well run again in 2024. i'm often frankly tired of

talking about him, but why is this so important to keep an eye on? what is he up to? >> yeah. i sympathize with those who are tired of speaking about him and wish they never had to hear his name again. but we can never underestimate the tenacity of somebody like trump, who is a highly skilled propagandist and will stop at nothing to get back into the white house, which we saw with january 6th, if not only because he needs immunity from prosecution. and he's been extremely obsessive in an effective way at chipping away at the idea of fair and free elections very effectively. and what better domination play is there to make? you know, tens of millions of people believe that you actually won the election. so he's a formidable adversary for democracy. >> at this point, though, do you think that he's actually making people believe that, or is it more about the people wanting to

believe that than him because at the end of the day, they're adults. >> they're adults, but they're adults who have been swept up in what's truly an authoritarian personality cult. it ticks all the boxes of all the strongmen i've studied. and when people bond with somebody who has considerable skills -- you know, trump cultivates them. he tells them he loves them. he's really very skilled at this. they believe him because they believe in him, and they want to believe everything he says. so think about january 6th. it was a leader rescue operation, and there's nothing they won't do to keep the idea of him alive. >> yeah. >> and he knows that, and he plays that very well. >> i think you just articulated what i was trying to say much better than i did. it's mostly about the idea of him. yes, it is him, but it could be

someone else who espouses the same ideas as him. they want to believe in him. but he happens to be particularly skilled at getting them to do that. we saw with the arizona fraudit that when the truth comes out, it doesn't shake trump supporters' faith. it only reinforces their loyalty, and you compare it to a cult. why? >> because also conspiracy theories, they provide a seamless explanation for the world. and trump says, well, this is just more evidence of the fake news lying to persecute me because the strongman has to have the victim complex, and that's how he gets people to feel protective of him. and what's so dangerous is the more that evidence could come out that makes him vulnerable, the more that he could -- he's been cultivating people to embrace violence as a way of solving problems.

and we saw that with january 6th. he's already shown he's willing to go there. and so the more he feels in danger, the more reckless he becomes, and that's how we got to january 6th in the first place. >> yeah. the big lie has only gotten worse since november. election officials stood strong in 2020, but now republicans in at least 16 states are trying to change laws to move authority over final election results to the legislature. is this a bomb waiting to go off in 2022 or 2024? >> yeah, it is, and it's a devastating combination of legal changes that could give an appearance of legality and give the legal, you know, mechanisms to do this. but it's also a psychological operation. donald trump intends to take down american democracy. he's been cultivating people through disinformation to make

them feel that democracy is already dead in america, that the election system is already a total sham. and once you get people into feeling that there's no freedom, that biden's a socialist dictator, all of this incredibly focused talking points that the whole gop and republican universe has been churning out and fox news, that prepares people for an alternative, which is authoritarian rule that's billed as saving our freedoms. and that's what january 6th was for the believers. it was saving our freedoms. that's why it's so dangerous. >> listen, we'll be having you back on to discuss this as we get closer to 2022 and 2024 and as the rhetoric continues to remain high for the former president. thank you very much. >> thank you. r. kelly facing life in prison, found guilty of nine counts including sex trafficking and racketeering. stay with us.

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disgraced r&b star r. kelly found guilty today on nine counts including sex trafficking and racketeering. the jury convicting the former singer after hearing weeks of powerful testimony. joining me now to discuss is areva martin. she is the author of the upcoming book "awakening: ladies, leadership, and the lies we have been told." congratulations on the book. good luck with that. the acting u.s. attorney saying today that this verdict, quote, forever brands r. kelly as a predator. his defense attorney says that he was surprised. i mean what do you think of today's decision, areva? >> not surprised at all. i can remember sitting on this network, having this conversation about a year ago with you, don, where i said we wanted justice. and today we got justice. obviously this won't change the hurt, the trauma, the pain that so many of the women endured that got caught up in r. kelly's circle. but it sent a strong message

that the kind of conduct that he was engaged in is not acceptable and that, you know, he will be held accountable and anyone involved in that kind of conduct will be held accountable. >> these kind of accusations have followed r. kelly for a very long time, areva. in 2019, the scathing docu-series surviving r. kelly put new scrutiny on his behavior. why did it take so long to get to this point? >> well, it's not just r. kelly, don. it's taken us a long time for women in general to be believed when they come forward to tell of being sexually assaulted, sexually harassed. we've seen this sea change, this movement really centered around me too, where for the first time in a long time -- and i've been doing this kind of litigation for a long time -- where we are now understanding that it's a very complicated process for women to come forward. oftentimes they don't come forward at the time they experience the trauma. but we are now seeing a difference in the way women are treated, the way their stories are handled, and women are being believed. and i think for a long time, we

just put our heads in the sand. we revered certain entertainers like r. kelly. we danced to their music. we bought his concert tickets, and we just ignored the pain that he was inflicting on so many women. and today that ended. >> you know, the first woman we heard from in the trial took to instagram today, posting, for years i was trolled for speaking out about the abuse. will today's verdict help some of the victims get closure? >> oh, absolutely. you know, what will happen in terms of their psychological well-being probably will take years and years of therapy and counseling, but knowing that the justice system worked, that he will be held accountable, he faces up to life in prison for these charges, the nine counts that he was found guilty of. i think it gives some of these women a great deal of closure. we know there's strength in numbers, and when one victim comes forward, it gives power to

the next victim, and that gives power to the next victim. so there are over 50 witnesses, don, that testified in this trial. it went on for almost a month. there was graphic video evidence that was presented. there was audio that was presented. and some of it so graphic in nature the judge said he didn't even want to play it back for the jurors. he didn't want the press to have access to it. so it wasn't just the compelling testimony of the victims and those around him, his ex-employees also testified during this trial. but it was that graphic video, i think, that also was seared in the minds of these jurors. >> so you weren't surprised by this verdict at all? >> not surprised. the evidence was overwhelming and expected it to be guilty on all counts, and it was guilty on all counts. >> areva martin, thank you. and, again, congratulations on the new book. >> thanks, don. appreciate it. >> thank you for watching, everyone. our coverage continues. and i love the science behind neuriva plus. unlike ordinary memory supplements,

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