we asked do they plan to discipline him. we have not heard back. wolf. >> thank you very much. to our viewers thanks very much for watching. you can follow me on twitter and instagram. tweet the show at cnn. erin burnett outfront starts right now. pr pepared to pay. president biden warning russia will have swift and severe consequences including shutting down a pipeline to germany. is germany willing to go along with biden's threat. the national archive saying trump aides are searching for white house records that were never turned over. comes after 15 boxes of records were just retrieved now from mar-a-lago. tonight we take you inside a secret meeting of fake trump

electors who tried to pull out over turning their state's election. let's go out front. good evening. putin pointing the finger tonight. insisting he's not the threat and he's not the one approaching a border. >> we are categorically against nato taking new members east ward because it presents a general threat to us. we can't move to nato. nato is moving to us. if you say russia is aggressive, it's none sense. they are coming to us. we're not going to them. >> they're not coming to us. we're going to them. putin has masksed 100,000 troop on the border. nato, none. president biden met with one of

the biggest european allies and warned putin will suffer in he moves in on ukraine. sorry. we had a problem with the sound bite. what biden said is it would be a gigantic mistake for putin to move in on ukraine. the impact would be devastating and he will pay a heavy price. the german chancellor agreed. we will take the necessary steps. it's unclear if germany will put its money where its mouth is. only sending helmets to support ukraine, germany's chancellor still would not back one of the most important of biden's sanctions and that's whether he would be willing to back sanctioning the pipeline. when asked specifically will you support a sanctions on the

pipeline, the crucial pipeline sending gas from russia to germany, he would not say yes. why wouldn't he say the words? it's not clear but what is clear is that germany stance on this pipeline matters. germany is the largest buyer of russian gas. so germany, the reality of it is, helps fund putin's military. putin gave no signs of back down. in fact, according to pentagon, putin is moving in more troops to the ukraine border every day. sorry, we're having trouble firing up our sound bites. the press secretary said they are seeing troops come in more by the day. in just a moment i'll speak to him live right here on this program. just so you can see what happens today on the ground, russia carrying out surveillance missions along ukraine's boarder with the belarusan air force.

this is what happens in live television. alex, obviously a very significant day on the diplomatic front. you have a nato ally. macron meeting with putin. still quite far apart. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, erin. you really had this extraordinary diplomatic split screen. the press conferences happened at more or less the same time. it did put out to see where the countries stand. it made clear that germany is not talking a tough as stance against russia as the united states would like. president biden insisting that the pipeline between russia and

germany will not go ahead if russia invades ukraine. the german chancellor waffling on that. we did learn while the foreign minister for germany was here in kyiv to meet with her counterpart that her meeting with president zolensky was cancelled as a result of these german stances. the french president stood shoulder to shoulder, although distanced in moscow and that is not somewhere that you're going to see president joe biden these days. this is someone, macron was

called a quality interlocker by president putin. clearly macron thinks there's a way he can make some progress with the russians in terms of cooperating on european security and agreements there. president putin said that there was positive progress made for future talks. you do have the u.s. at one end of the spectrum, russia at the other end. very close to the u.s. side but not completely in lock step in the way that nato has tried to make them appear. this flurry of diplomatic activity will continue. these leaders going to moscow and that is significant. thanks very much.

pentagon press secretary john ki kirby. thank you for being with me. putin says we are not moving towards nato. nato is moving towards us. he's not approaching a border, nape toe nato is broaching a border. he's got well over 100 tro,000 troops on the border. what's your response? >> it was russia who decided to well north of 100,000 troops over the several weeks around the border with ukraine. that wasn't nato. that was mr. putin. nato is a defensive alliance. we're doing what we believe we need to do to help assure our allies about how seriously we take our commitments to that alliance. we're just suring up capabilities there on the eastern flank as we said very publicly that we would do. mr. putin can deescalate this very quickly.

all he has to do is remove the forces around the boarder with ukraine. make it clear he's not going to provide any capabilities inside ukraine and be serious about sitting down diplomatically and working through a process here that's peaceful. >> let me ask you in the context of when putin spoke today, he spoke with a nato ally. the second to visit with him. today the fs the french president emmanuel macron. before the meeting, he told a french weekly magazine, and i quote, russia's geo political objective today is clearly not ukraine but to clarify the rules of koe habitation with nato and the eu, it was quite sympathetic it sounded to putin's point of view that he's not interested in ukraine as a geo political location. do you agree? >> we definitely think that one of mr. putin's aims is to try to throw nato off balance and to try to divide the alliance.

he would like nothing better than for nato to not exist anymore. he's testing and pushing to see if he can find the visions inside the alliance to make it less united, less solid. he's having the opposite effect. he's making us want to add more capabilities on the eastern flank and his western flank. as for his designs, we said we don't know exactly wa he's planning to do. he's probably planning some military incursion or activity inside ukraine. let me talk do you about that because over the weekend, two u.s. officials familiar with the latest estimates told cnn that he's now assembled 70% of military personnel and the weapon ons the ukraine boarder .

>> he has the capacity to do that. >> he says putin has the capacity, the estimates have been 70%. where in that 48 hours old. are we now at 100? have things changed that quickly? >> i don't think we're at what we would think he would need for 100 100%. it's difficult know what he's doing. he has added forces in just over the course of the weekend in the last 48 hours. he continues to and we think there are more battalion groups on their way to belarus and with the border to ukraine. what the president said about capacity, he's right. he has increasing capability. both of them go together. he's got a lot more forces and he's got a lot more capability

in those forces. they are what we call combined arms, armor, artillery. he keeps adding to his options to the plays he can run out of his play book if he wants to conduct military activity in ukraine. >> what i'm trying to understand here is you said all he has to do to deescalate is remove some of them. to indicate where he's going. right now even though he says there's a diplomatic path, as you point out in the past 48 hours, all he's doing is putting in more and more and more. it seems like the only indications you're getting from him in terms of his actions are invasion. >> that's right. actions do speak louder than words. they keep saying they have no intention of invading ukraine and they are victims. their national security is being threatened. what we see on the ground is more and more troops, more and more forces, more and more capc capabilities. we still believe there's time

and space for diplomacy to work here. it would go a long way of convincing the world of his sincerity if he was able to deescalate by moving the forces away. >> thank you very much. i appreciate your time tonight. >> now steve hall, the former cia chief of russia operations to respond to what he heard. steve, you hear kirby say putin is putting troops in daily. his actions do speak louder than words. every sign he's given is that he will invade. is there way, at this point, for putin to literally start pulling troops the out. >> i think that's going to be tough. vladmir putin is about face. he's in his hoemt right now pause he's got everybody's attention. all the west and on the news showing that russia is a great

power to be dealt with. it's difficult to see him just walk away. i do think there are some things he can do that will take it down the spectrum. he might try something like putting troops in the eastern region. there's a whole bunch of things he can do that will bildifficul. he's still trying to sense how things are going. i think nato did a good job regard to diplomacy. a lot of people are saying the germans didn't say that. the german chancellor was standing right next to the president and could have said, friends disagree or we have some issues with this and we need to talk more. he didn't. i believe largely due to domestic and other issues. at the same time, you had macron in moscow, hopefully, sitting in

fro front of a television did you say what happened in that press conference. you got told that it might be a big problem. sdp we have learned intercepted kp communications reveal that some russian officials worry it would be more costly and difficult than perhaps he realizes. what does that say that the difference exists and what do you think it indicates for putin? >> we have to remember that this is having in a russian contest

and not in an american context where we understand an international security diplomacy happens. in russia it's very difficult. it's not beyond, in my view, not beyond the impossible that you have a group of russian security folks whether they are intelligence or military who are concerned about things going very badly in ukraine and want to make sure that their president understands that. there are people inside of russia who are concerned that it could go bad ly ukraine and the would like putin to understand that. >> thank you very much. next, we're learning that trump's white house, well, i guess we are confirmed what many

suspected but they actually did it against the law, tearing up documents. it was a whole lot worse than we ever thought. a list of republicans calling out the rnc is groeg after the rnc said january 6th was legitimate political discourse. we're hearing from the head of the women's tennis association after chinese tennis star, again, denied accusing a retired senior communist leader of rain. machine pla p

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. aides to donald trump are looking for documents that may be missing and saying the preservation of record s critical to our democracy. the national archives received 15 boxes of records that he took to mar-a-lago. they contained documents that should have been handed over at the end of his presidency, including letters from kim jung-un. 15 boxes. it would seem that trump wanted to keep with him because he took them to mar-a-logo. what else do you know about the boxes? why it took so long to find them? >> we learned he improperly removed the boxes of documents from the white house. the national archive saying they

should be turned over because they contained presidential records. the ar kooifr reached out to the legal team last fall to talk about how to recover these boxes that appear to have been moved to mar-a-lago after he moved out of the white house. it appears they were in the residence and packed up with the former first family's belongings. among the items were the kwoets or what trump has described as love letters between him and the dictator of north korea. they were not picked up by the archives. they were picked up by a man wa trunk and a work order. >> that detail in and of itself says so much. we're learning that other documents that were turned over to the january 6th committee were taped back together after being ripped. this is something that trump has done for many years. ripped documents. we're learning he did it much more than was even thought

though again and again. that would mean there's a lot of things that are ripp ped up and gone they weren't able to tape back together, i assume. >> that's right. it's not clear any of the documents in the specific 15 boxes that were just retrieved from florida have anything to do with january 6th but this raises big questions about whether he was was complying with the presidential records act. he was required to keep letters, memos, faxes if that's what you do to keep anything that had to do with him executing the duty of his presidential offices. sources have told cnn he was observed on numerous occasions rifling through file bok, taking out pages and ripping them up. sometimes a draft tweet. it's not clear what happened to all of that shredded paper. we have learned he was told by two of his chiefs of staff to stop tearing up paper and to make pile of thing he wanted to keep. >> pretty incredible he would go through and pick certain pieces out.

that's where you get into the nefarious level and he did know what he was doing. thank you for that reporting. let's talk about what this means. let's start with paula's reporting of the 15 boxes retrieved. to be clear, it sounds, 15 boxes is a lot. we know trump was so proud of the letters from kim jong-un. some of the stuff trump picked and wanted to take with him. it's purposeful. that's clear. they didn't know it was there. you don't know where the stuff is and it's terrifying. >> it's a dilemma. i would strongly suspect there's more. this happens sometimes when you're a prosecutor or investigator you entitled to a certain set of documents.

you get them and it turns out some are missing. there's almost always going be more. i think the january 6th committee needs to ask witnesses how document were handled. it sound like this is happening to work carefully with donald trump's people, former administration officials to figure this out. how are the documents handled? where might they be. >> i'm amazed that paula was saying draft tweets. paula talks about how he's going through file boxes and pick out specific pieces and rip them up. i want every one to understand it's not just sloppy way he used to do things. he knew exactly what he was supposed to be doing because this is what he said about hillary clinton and her e-mails. >> people who have nothing to

hide, don't bleach, nobody's heard of it. don't plbleach their e-mail or destroy evidence to keep it from being publicly archived as required under federal law. >> he talks about her e-mails. she would need to be publicly archived as required under federal law. he knew exactly what he was doing. >> donald trump hit itd on the head there. he identifies the exact line between something that's potentially illegal or not. if this was just sloppiness, if there was donald trump being careless, thoughtless. there was previous reporting he tended to rip things up, that's not going be criminal. if there's some intent, let me single out certain documents, make sure nobody sees them. make sure they never become part of a criminal investigation, a civil lawsuit then you're into potential obstruction of justice. that detail about going through files and picking out individual documents, that's what's really interesting, most damming in my view. >> you put that together with

the fact he clearly knew that the huge questions there. thank you so much. >> thanks. next, mitt romney with warning to his party. whitewashing january 6th could hurt republican chances in the mid terms. >> anything that my party does that comes across as being s stupid will not help us. several states announcing they will get rid of mask mandates. it goes on clear. no mess just soothing comfort. try new vicks vapostick. it's our ultimate sleep number event on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to relieve pressure points. and it's temperature balancing so you both sleep just right. and now, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 0% interest for 48 months on all smart beds. ends monday

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tonight, senator mitt romney condemning the rnc's recent statement calling january 6th a legitimate political discourse. romney has been texting with his neerks the rnc chairman woman about his concerns. >> it could not have been a more inappropriate message. one to sanction two people of character as they did but number two, to suggest that a violent attack on the seetat of democra is political discourse is so far

from accurate. sgla outfront now, former congresswoman barbara comstock who joined 140 long time republicans calling out the rnc. congresswoman, let me start with you. senator romney said that his niece, the rnc chairwoman is doing her very best and perhaps family ties can be hard to -- maybe he doesn't want to go so far. she approved every single word of that statement. she is the chair. is that doing her very best? >> no. the national review called it morally repellant and politically self-destructive. i think that's true. i know it's a hostage situation for people i think ronmney and others who afraid of what trump

might do. somebody else would be worse. that's how a lot of the members feel. senator romney is exactly right. this is turning off people but it's just wrong. regardless of the politics of it, it's wrong to be attacking those who are trying to investigate which was an asult on the capitol which now mike pence is said what trump wanted him to do was un-american in trying to over turn the election and have one person decide the election. i also work with country first which is a pact that's supporting the electoral count act. there's a lot of thing wes can do on the outside to hopefully help people like mitt romney and liz cheney and adam kinzinger. a think a few people with courage can make a majority. it will be a longer and painful

process than we like. >> certainly longer than any non-trump republican expected just to be honest here. bill romney was asked whether this will hurt the gop in the mid terms where they have been dancing in the streets about how well they will do. listen to them. >> anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid will not help us. >> do you think bill this will hurt what happened from the censure? >> i don't know. it's not general dislike. it's because they are on the january 6th committee and are actively on it. when you think about it, why did trump attack pence? why did pence then have to say trump was wrong? people have been testifying to the january 6th committee and document vs come out and mark meadows e-mail and mike pence staff to testify. the january 6th committee, for those of us who care about

establishing truth and the rule of law and liberating republican party from trumpism and everything goes with that, the january 6th committee is the unheralded hero. mitt romney should urge every one to testify. mike pence should testify. >> as you point out, mike pence doesn't want to. he wants people around him to but he doesn't want to. that's loud and clear. mike pence is taking a lot of heat for standing up to trump as he now has. he's actually now being accused of treason by trump's former senior economic adviser. he went on steve bannon's podcast. let me play the exchange. >> mike, you're dead politically. he wasn't man enough to go to the president and say this is bha my lawyers are saying. what do you think about this? look at this.

didn't do it. he never comes back from that. >> talk about gutless. just a gutless coward. >> that's the base of the gop. that's the reflection there that you have, congresswoman. how can your party move on when that is true? >> well, that's vile stuff. i have to say i would never support a republican who would go anywhere near either of those two people. they are trying to intimidate and scare witnesses. they have an audience of one to make trump happy by intimidating and scaring witnesses which bannon has been doing this all along. ban non is under indictment. had to get pardon from trump at the end of the trump administration. trump is never going to be president again. i know bill and i might disagree on that. i have much more hope in the american people regardless of

whether or not he's nominated. i don't think he will ever be president. steve bannon will not be pardoned for his current indictment if he is convicted. to intimidate people like that, i think that's an act of desperation. i think the rnc resolution was an act of desperation. i think it's because the walls are closing in on trump. more documents are coming in. this committee is doing good work and getting the records everywhere. those records are what's going to tell the truth. the texts from that day, the back and forth that people that we have already seen regardless of whether the people cooperate, their texts and e-mails will tell the story along with mike like bill barr and other justice department officials. i hope they talk to pat and others who told him he couldn't do what he was trying to do crack pots to come in and tell him to do. i don't blame the crack pots as much as i blame him because he was seeking out any nut to

engage. >> bill, i understand the point you're making. it is interesting. it's not slightly manifesting itself in a different way for mainstream republicans but still there. bill, today the florida governor ron desantis refused to call out trump's lies. he's given a question about mike pence and trump and sort of like, okay, what do you think? here is how it went out. >> i'm not -- >> what did you say? >> i had a great relationship working for -- actually governor for two years with the trump administration. >> what do you make of that non-answer, bill? >> it's not that much to say that mike pence is right. donald trump is wrong about trying to get pence to over turn

the election on january 6th. that's all we're talking about. it's the lowest bar possible. we're not talking about all the other things trump did between november 3rd and january 6th. all we're saying is mike pence did the right thing on january 6th. the governor of florida, major republican figure, the front-runner for the republican nomination won't even say that. >> that is hugely significant. thank you both. >> thank you. next, the chinese tennis star in a new interview denying she accused a top official of rape but wait until you hear the demand china required before letsing the tennis champ speak. for the first time we'll take you inside a meeting where fake trump electors were trying to over turn their states election. machine no wayyyy. no waaayyy! no way! [phone ringing] hm. no way! no way! priceline. every trip is a big deal. to support a strong immune system

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. tonight, the chief of the women's tennis association saying the new comments by tennis star does not alleviate any of our concern. in a highly orchestrated and controlled situation denied she

accused a senior communist party leader of rape. this during an interview. she said she deleted because she wanted to. the french journalist said they were rierped to submit questions in advance and publish the conversation as a transcript without any analysis. it comes as the ioc officials had a private face-to-face meeting over the weekend and you'll hear what they had to say about that in a moment. i want to bring a journalist who has reported extensively inside china and written books about women in china's authoritarian society. by the chief of staff for the china. the journalist who spoke described her as very cautious when discussing the rape

allegation. when you put this together, do you think there's any chance she could say what she thinks or believes in such a setting or is she speaking under coercion? >> i think there's no question that she was speaking under coercion. it's been over three months since she posted this exempexplosion accusing the former vice premier of sexually asaulgt her. then the post was deleted in half an hour and she disappeared. i believe and a lot of other people believe she's probably being interrogated, pressured. probably every day since then over the last three months. i would not be surprised if she has opinion personally threatened. if her family members have been threaten so she's been probably

coached extensively to do these things of very orchestrated public appearances and that's what we have seen. >> of course the women's tennis association standing strong on this and saying this interview doesn't abelievuate their concern. they have been clear they want there to be a full and transparent investigation into what happened. an ioc spokesman says it's not for the olympic committee to judge at all whether she was speaking under duress this weekend. saying we had meal but it's not our job to say whether she was under coercion or not and they also still refused to say whether her allegation should be invs. gaited. take a listen. >> it shouldn't be for us to judge whether there should be an investigation or not. we need to listen to her and we need to read what she is saying. >> of course she's not saying

anything when she isn't are you aware sounded by chinese officials. that's the reality. what do you say to that? >> i think it's shame ful the extent to which the oic is moving in lock step with the chinese government to whitewash all of the accusations. they haven't mentioned the name of former vice premier that she's accused of sexual ly assaulting her. there's a complete media plblac out about this case. i know the chinese government is behaving in typical fashion. there's a long history in china.

make forced confession that are tel televised. they just spout out the communist party line. the fact the ioc is going along with it is extremely disturbing. >> thank you so much. i appreciate your time. next, a never before seen look at a meeting of fake trump electors who were trying to over turn the election. several states tonight, now a new one coming in, a big blue state announcing they will be easing covid restrictions for millions of students. does it worry me? absolutely. sensodyne sensitivity & gum gives us the dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity as well as our gum issues. there's no question it's something that i would recommend. if you're washing with the bargain brand, even when your clothes look clean, there's extra dirt you can't see. watch this. that was in these clothes... ugh. but the clothes washed in tide- so much cleaner. if it's got to be clean it's got to be tide hygienic clean.

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tonight, inside a meeting of fake trump electors, a newly scrutinized podcast revealing how trump supporters in wisconsin tried, but ultimately failed, to overturn the election results in their state. it is one of seven states, where team trump, led by rudy giuliani, tried to pull this off. kyung lah is out front with tonight's "inside look."

>> in just moments, six more states are convening. minnesota, new mexico, wisconsin -- >> reporter: december 14th, 2020, in madison, wisconsin. >> to joseph r. biden jr. >> the state electors officially contact their votes for biden. but elsewhere, in wisconsin's capital, another meeting of fake electors was happening at the same time. >> it's all super secret for security reasons, so we met in a secret location. we waited for almost an hour before they took us to the state capitol. >> reporter: that's bill fein, one of ten republican electors who signed the certificate of the 2020 electors. thigh declared donald trump won wisconsin's electoral votes. the problem? trump lost. but that didn't stop these wannabe republican electors, in a deleted facebook post, snapped a photo of himself and others in the meeting as they met secretly with guards to protect them.

fein also detailed this a year ago in his newly scrutinized podcast. >> there was security. armed security to protect us and other officials from the republican party of wisconsin were there. we had a meeting room reserved and that's where we met to cast our ballots in the electoral college. each of us cast a ballot for president of the united states, and we cast a ballot for vice president of the united states. in the event that something would transpire legally here, where the outcome in wisconsin would be reversed, then our ballots would be sent to washington, d.c., and those would be the ballots that get counted. >> i thought they were going on a magical-mystery tour from listening to them. i mean, the reality the legal situation is that what they were about to do but had absolutely no legal forks at all. >> longtime republican election lawyer ben ginsberg, despite that, and repeated court losses across the country, fake electors from multimillion swing

states from wisconsin to arizona. >> we, the undersigned, being the duly elected and qualified electors -- >> met to sign phony documents declaring trump the winner. submitting them to congress to try and stop the electoral vote count. the justice department is investigating, and the january 6th select committee has subpoenaed 14 republicans from seven states who served as fake electors as part of the trump campaign's attempts to subvert the electoral college. >> joseph r. biden jr. of the state of delaware has received 306 votes. >> reporter: that would ultimately fail. but the frenzy that drove the fake electors to try and stop the electoral vote count was a part of the puzzle that led to the capitol insurrection, says ginsburg. >> an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power and to stop the count of the electoral college. and had that succeeded, it certainly would have undermined democracy. >> reporter: we did reach out to

bill fein by phone and e-mail. we did not hear back from him. we did hear from the wisconsin republican party. a spokeswoman says that even though fein described it on his podcast as a secretive meeting, she wrote quote it wasn't secretive, despite the efforts to rewrite history for clicks. and she points out, erin, that the party did put out a statement on the day that this meeting happened, that it had happened. but they published it after the meeting was all over. erin? >> kyung, thank you very much. and next, the growing number of states run by democrats taking -- well -- a big step towards normalcy. matrix... serena... matrix... serena... matrix... ♪ ♪ ♪ get your tv together

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new tonight. california governor gavin newsom just becoming the fifth democratic governor today to roll back covid restrictions. newsom announcing that the state will lift its indoor mask mandate for vaccinated individuals next week. now, that is a big step for california. but indoors, for now, means indoors for everyone but kids. kids are still required to mask in school in california. state officials, though, do say they are working to update those school masking requirements, so

stay tuned because california may be about to follow four other democratic states that said they are lifting school mask requirements. they are new jersey, delaware, connecticut, and oregon. one of the states that is still silent on mask mandates for kids in schools, though, is the one with the largest school district -- new york. thanks for joining us. "ac 360" starts now. good evening. as increased numbers of russian troops gather near the ukrainian border and key world leaders met today to ward off a possible i invasion, president biden and germany' chancellor stood before reporters to try to put an end to reports of a divide. they pronounced themselves unified in their country's opposition to russian aggression and both they and the leaders of france and russia meeting in moscow agreed on the need to find a peaceful conclusion, which means today could be a turning point or just the calm before the storm. i'm john berman, in for anderson. at the white house, with