you are live in the "cnn newsroom." i'm jim acosta in washington. good evening. this week it's back to the courthouse for former president donald trump. for the first time he'll appear in a federal courtroom and be arraigned on federal charges in miami on tuesday. trump faces 37 separate counts related to classified documents he allegedly kept and conspired to hide from the government. some boxes openly stored in a mar-a-lago ballroom. others kept in a bathroom at the resort. some behind the shower curtain there. trump's own former attorney general, bill barr, saying of the charges, if even half of it is true then he is toast. that is a quote.

cnn's katelyn polantz joins us from miami. less than 48 hours to go. how are we going to see the former president spending his time between now and then? >> well, jim, we're going to see the former president traveling but not much else whenever he actually gets to the federal court for these proceedings on tuesday afternoon. let's walk through his schedule over the next couple of days. he's going to be traveling to miami tomorrow, taking the flight down from up north, and then he's going to be staying at his resort in miami-dade county. overnight he's going to be meeting with his lawyers, preparing for what's to come on tuesday for that initial appearance, arraignment. we do believe he has spent the weekend or at least was with yesterday his body man, walt nauta, the man who's charged alongside him in this case. walt nauta also has to come to florida and appear before that judge. he has a summons as well to be here at 3:00 p.m. on tuesday. but then tuesday we might not see donald trump at all physically walk inside this federal courthouse behind me.

that's because there are lots of preparations by the secret service and other arms of the federal government that offer protection of the building, of judges, of trump. and i believe the idea is that he'll be ferried into this building and we won't be seeing him because he was driven underground. and then inside a federal courthouse building there are no cameras, no video cameras, no still photography. so we won't be able to get to see him in a courtroom like we were able to see him walk into in new york state when he was arraigned there in a separate case, separate charges. but whenever he goes before the judge he and walt nauta, they will be very expected to plead not guilty. that is quite typical at this stage. and donald trump says he definitely will do that and then he will be making a political speech later that night. jim? >> no surprise there. katelyn polantz in miami. thanks very much for that. joining us now cnn legal analyst

norm eisyieisen. norm, obviously you've gone through this 37-count federal indictment. what stands out to you? what should we be thinking about? what's top of mind for you heading into this tuesday arraignment? >> jim, it's really the espionage act charges, the charges that trump unlawfully, criminally removed and retained national defense information. it was itemized in the indictment, and it's really striking. plans for u.s. attacks on other countries. attacks on the united states, how we would counter that. nuclear secrets. some of our most sensitive national security information. and we saw the pictures on ballroom stages, in bathrooms. there's another photograph of top secret information spilled on the floor. so any other defendant who faced this, as trump's own attorney general bill barr said, any other defendant who faced this

would be in the most grave trouble. and i think donald trump is. nothing political about it to my mind. >> and what do you make of this trump-appointed judge, aileen cannon, getting this case? what thoughts run through your mind? she made some news last summer when she oversaw proceedings related to the mar-a-lago search, and there was some controversy around that. >> judge cannon's decisions in the initial stages following the search warrant, she froze the government investigation or use of the documents. she appointed a special master. both of those were slapped down strongly by an extremely conservative 11th circuit appellate panel. three judges, two trump appointees, one bush appointee. judge pryor, he may have been the most conservative of them all. and they took the strongest exception to her rulings using words like "radical." so i think that presents a

challenge under the federal judicial recusal law. i believe if an objective observer, jim, would say, well, this judge can't really be impartial here, the judge is supposed to step aside from the case. i think there are serious questions about that. and i suspect sooner or later either in her court or in that appellate body, the 11th circuit, because there are going to be a lot of things that go there immediately appealable, we're going to see those recusal issues emerge. >> and during campaign stops yesterday in georgia and north carolina trump blasted the indictment as, quote, ridiculous and baseless, a sentiment many of his voters agree with. we saw some evidence of that earlier in this program, we were playing some of those sound bites. but let's listen to what bill barr, his former attorney general, said. let's listen to this. >> and this idea of presenting trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt, is ridiculous. yes, he's been a victim in the

past. yes, his adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims. and i've been at his side defending against them when he is a victim. but this is much different. he's not a victim here. he was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. >> yeah, what did you make of those remarks from bill barr? >> well, when we were doing the first impeachment of trump, i personally tangled with bill barr. we were about to hold him in contempt. at the last minute he blinked and gave us some large trove of special counsel robert mueller documents we needed. he's a fierce partisan, has been, of president trump. he proved it in the trump administration. so for him to say that trump is not a victim here and that this case is -- >> i believe he said he's toast. >> he is predicting the demise

of the president. for him to do that, jim, is extraordinary. and the reason that he says the president's toast is because the proof is so overwhelming. that doesn't mean we're not going to hear defenses from donald trump. but i worked on the classified document rules that the government cited in its indictment. and there virtually is no defense for this. anyone else who did this once or twice, one or two documents would be looking at jail time. this volume, 31 counts under the espionage act alone, and then the long pattern of alleged obstruction of justice, wow. the biggest legal jeopardy donald trump has ever faced by far. >> yeah, most people, if they're hiding top secret classified documents behind a shower curtain, that would not be a good thing for just about anybody else. >> not a good thing for anyone. and the volume of it, it's just -- it's staggering and very perilous for the former

president. >> all right, norm eisen, thank you very much. appreciate it. in other news, a major interstate in philadelphia is no longer an option for thousands of drivers who depend on that highway every day for their daily commute. this nightmare scenario comes after a tanker truck burst into flames, caused a portion of i-95 to collapse earlier this morning. the governor of the state, josh shapiro, state just a short time ago saying it will take months to rebuild but plans to issue a disaster declaration to speed up the process. president biden has been briefed on the situation, and the department of transportation is already sending help. cnn's danny freeman is live on the scene with the latest. what can you tell us? >> reporter: well, jim, i can tell you that first of all, this is going to be a nightmare for drivers in the near future and likely weeks and months to come after that. the pennsylvania department of transportation, they said that this stretch of i-95 behind me is maybe the busiest in the entire commonwealth of pennsylvania. and this repair, as you said, may take months. but let me get back into what we

do and don't know because at this point we still don't know why and how this truck caught fire but we do know a little bit more about what the situation is at this point. it all started just before 6:30 a.m. this morning when a tanker truck was basically sitting underneath this stretch of i-95. it caught fire. we still don't know how. but that fire led to the entire northbound section of that highway in this particular spot behind me collapsing onto the ground and the southbound lane the governor told us in a press conference a couple of hours ago, the southbound lane is also not safe to drive on at this time. currently the truck actually in question is still trapped inside of that wreckage and all throughout the afternoon we've been hearing this intense jackhammering. you may be able to hear it behind us. this intense heavy machinery working to clear some of the rubble, to clear some of the debris. the good news is there have been no reported injuries yet at this time. but the governor did say that they don't know if someone was inside of that truck when this highway collapsed down on it. i want you to listen to some sound from governor josh shapiro when he first laid eyes on the

tragedy around us. >> remarkable devastation. and i found myself, you know, thanking the lord that no motorists who were on i-95 were injured or died. just a remarkably devastating sight. one that our first responders, law enforcement and others contained very, very quickly. they got people out of harm's way. and now under the leadership of secretary carroll and others the hard work of clearing this site and rebuilding it will be under way and we're going to move as quickly as possible. >> reporter: now, specifically governor shapiro said that this cleanup will take, quote, some number of months. he said he issued a disaster declaration, as you noted and hopefully the idea is that will clear up some funds to fix this as soon as possible. jim? >> all right. cnn's danny freeman for us in philadelphia. thanks very much. in just minutes from now

philadelphia's fire commissioner will join us live for an update. so stay with us for that. coming up, the political impact of the federal indictment of donald trump as his republican allies try to defend his handling of classified documents. >> if he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, if he wants to store it in a box on a stage, he can do that. families of mass shooting victims are holding a sit-in outside the capitol calling out lawmakers for their inaction. we'll ask two participants what their demands are. and later, new reporting on president biden's re-election strategy and the so-called brawler we're learning is at the center of some of the strategy there at the white house. we'll talk about that as well. we're live in the "cnn newsroom." passing through their uk port every year. don't t just connect your business. (d(dock worker) right on time. (vo) make it evenen smarter. we call this enterprise intelligence. life... doesn't stop for diabetes. be ready for every moment, with glucerna.

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can with it. >> less than 24 hours after the release of that indictment donald trump was back on the campaign trail using some of his favorite lines to defend himself against the charges. and there are some early indications it may be working at least among some republicans. a new cbs poll finding 80% of gop voters say the charges are politically motivated. a view apparently shared by many of trump's top republican rivals. excuse me, abc poll. >> what i see in that document is deeply politicized. >> i'm deeply troubled to see this indictment move forward. >> i think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. >> today what we see is a justice system where the scales are weighted. >> this is the kind of stuff that you never thought would happen in america. so i think it's a dangerous precedent. >> joining me now is the director of the university of virginia center for politics, larry sabato. larry, great to see you. what do you make of trump

talking about election interference? i guess that's his latest defense here, that this is election interference. >> same old song. i think he captured some of that smoke we had in the air. smoke and mirrors. he's doing the same thing he always does, hurling insults and vitriol. and really it's terrible. i think we all feel sorry for him because if there is one group that is heavily discriminated against by our justice system, it's rich, privileged powerful white males. i feel for him. i know you do too. >> oh, certainly. and in this video that we're showing right now i guess he traveled to a waffle house in columbus, georgia and you actually see video -- i believe you see video of him and that aide. might not be in the shot right there. but you do see video of him and that aide, there it is right there, who was also indicted. how remarkable is that? you don't see that every day. indicted one day, out on the campaign trail in a waffle house the next or the next after that.

>> well, to say it's unusual is an understatement. look, it's just classic trump. he's going to do what he wants to do because you know, he's special. he's told us many, many times. and there's a reason for his believing that. his partisans, a large majority of the republican party in many cases and at least here a marginal majority of the republican party supports him and believes that even though he may be guilty and the charges may be just it's all political, it's all political. as bill barr said, and bill barr has covered for donald trump many times while he was trump's attorney general, he's made it very clear that the case against trump here is very strong. very strong. but that doesn't matter. it's all political, you know. >> let me ask you this. a new cbs poll from after the indictment shows nearly 40% of

republicans agree that trump jeopardized u.s. national security if he kept nuclear or military documents. i mean, the rest are of the country is 80%. so i guess you can have some discussion about that data point. but why are so few of his gop rivals willing to agree that this is a national security risk that he kept these documents? if 38% of republican voters feel that way but only 2 of some 10 or so candidates feel that way, what does that tell you about what's going on inside the party? >> well, there are some wonderful human qualities called integrity and courage, and they're absent in all but two of the candidates. that is not as important to them as getting on the right side of donald trump and his tens of millions of republican voters for the nominating process. not because they think they can get those votes away from trump. they're counting on trump not being there. they're counting on the legal system taking him out or something else taking him out

and then they can say to the trump voters, you see, i backed him 100%, i'm deserving of your votes, the trump voters. you come to me now. that's their real goal. it's to get nominated. and they're willing to do anything to get that position once trump leaves, if he does. >> all right. and that's a big if. wl all right, larry sabato, great to see you as always. thanks so much. >> thanks a lot, jim. >> appreciate it. and tomorrow night on cnn join anderson cooper for a cnn republican town hall with former new jersey governor chris christie. it starts tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cnn. a stretch of highway totally gone after a fire collapsed a section of i-95. the philadelphia fire commissioner joins us next for an update. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." o potting mix. that's it.

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the fight to ban assault weapons is taking place right now at the steps of the nation's capitol. today marks day six of a sit-in protest where survivors and families of victims from mass shootings at parkland, uvalde and sandy hook and other massacres are demanding action. joining me now to talk about this is sam schwartz, the organizer of that sit-in protest. he is the cousin of a parkland victim, alex schachter, and manuel oliver, anot activist and the father of parkland victim joaquin guac oliver. manny, great to you again. sam, nice meeting you for the first time. it's been six days now since you started this sit-in. what's the response been like? >> we've had 30 or so lawmakers come up and talk to us. and that's great.

we know that they -- a lot of the ones most in support will. we've heard from no republicans. the ones who we really wanted to hear from and haven't heard from quite surprisingly is schumer, durbin and jeffries. now, it's not enough zblsht democratic leaders in the senate and jeffries over in the house. >> senator durbin actually chairs the judiciary committee. the reason why we started this is because it's not enough to co-sponsor a bill. it's not enough to say you support an assault weapons ban and you stand with people like manny, you stand with people like myself. they need to take legitimate action, come out to the sit-in and tell us that they will champion a vote through. so i need everyone watching to call this number that's on our shirts. it's 202-224-7703. that's the judiciary committee number. durbin chairs that. and you need to tell him to mark up the assault weapons ban immediately for the judiciary committee. >> manny, you and i have talked about this issue so many times, talking about your son joaquin over the years. do you get the sense that you're close at all to any kind of a vote on an assault weapons ban,

which we should remind our viewers, similar legislation, a similar law existed back during the '90s and into the early 2000s. it's not like we haven't had a vote on something like this before. it has made an impact in the past. studies have shown that. >> and it's showed that it brings results. but you know what? we're out there. we're fighting every single day. what sam did in six days is amazing. it's something that our politicians haven't been able to do in decades. and he did this without hollywood stars showing, without a huge stage in the middle of d.c. he did it five years after we lost our loved ones. so hope is back. i have a lot of hope on the youth. and if anyone should be worried about someone, it's them. they will have control of the situation. >> and sam, what made you decide to do this? >> well, it's pretty simple. it's like manny said, it's been five years since parkland and no change, no legitimate change, no necessary change has been taken. an assault weapons ban would

have saved my cousin. would have saved his son's life. and we need change. we go into these meetings, we lobby, we make phone calls, we hold marches and vigils and rallies and nothing is enough. they think we're a joke. so i wanted that sit-in, i wanted to do that sit-in to show them that we will not leave until you listen to us and we want to make our voices heard. and what i've seen the most is that a lot of these politicians are fighting for their seats and they're fighting for their jobs and their chairs and we're out here fighting for our children's lives. and our parents and our community members' lives. they need to put the ban and gun safety legislation over their seats because why would they uphold -- why would they take the oath? why would they run for office if not to fight for us? why? why else? >> manny, what some of these democratic lawmakers have said is that, well, they did have bipartisan action on gun legislation just in the last couple of years. but as we've seen, in all of these tragedies that have occurred since the passage of that legislation it obviously wasn't enough. >> and do you remember that i

said it's not enough? you remember that i stood there and said this is not enough, we've got to do more? that was 45,000 victims ago. so now we're sitting in front of the capitol showing that we do care and it's not enough and if we need to sit there another five days, another ten days, another 30 days, every single day counts. >> that's what i was going to ask. you guys are planning on staying out there. it's been day six, i guess, six days now of this. you're willing to do this through the summer. >> there is a press conference tomorrow. >> yeah, there will be a press conference tomorrow right at the sit-in at 5:00 p.m. kind of to just say what we've been doing, what we've experienced. but if we need to go longer we certainly will. and we all have the will to do it. because i'll tell you right now, nothing can be harder than losing our family members. a sit-in is easy compared to that. they just need to come out and talk to us. tell the families, tell the family members of victims, tell the survivors of these mass shootings why they won't do it, why they value the ar-15s over our lives, over their children's lives. >> and what do some of these lawmakers tell you? you said you've spoke nguyen a

b with a bunch of them. >> now they support what we do of course. my concern is that a couple of years ago we were promoting their campaigns. we factually voted for these people. some of these legislators, some of these representatives received our vote and our support. so they promised results. they're not delivering those results. so yes, we call all republicans that are against our intentions here. but guess what? it's not anymore a party thing only. we need those democrats that decided to give us their word. we supported them to deliver what they decided to deliver. >> these lawmakers like durbin and schumer need to show my generation that they're fighting for us. we saved them in the 2022 midterms. and if they want to see us come out in record numbers like they're expecting us to in 2024, they need to vote on an assault weapons ban and show us that they don't care about it passing, they value our lives more than just a passing of a

bill. which of course we all want. but we want to see movement. >> you want to see a vote. >> we want to see a vote. we deserve movement of some kind because right now it's nothing, it's just tweets, it's just platitudes. it's enough. it's just like thoughts and prayers. we don't want that. we need direct action. that's what we want. we need a vote. >> all right. manny oliver, sam schwartz, good luck with the sit-in. thanks very much for coming in. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. life... doesn't stop for diabetes. be ready for every moment, with glucerna. it's the number one doctor recommded brand that is scientifically designed to help mage your blood sugar.

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ask your doctor about switching to dovato. several months. that's how long the governor of pennsylvania says it will take to repair the collapsed interstate. officials say the tanker truck that burst into flames was carrying a petroleum-based product. the department of environmental protection, the state's coast guard and the philadelphia water department are now assessing any environmental impacts and philadelphia's fire commissioner adam thiel joins us now. commissioner, what is the latest you're hearing about this fire

that caused the collapse there? do we have any sense of what the cause might be? >> jim, it's going to be a little while until we know the cause. our fire marshals, all of our investigators assisted by our police department and atf colleagues are there on the scene now. they'll be processing that scene for a while. and of course it's also been a busy day elsewhere in philadelphia. we've had a couple of other working fires that they're investigating too. so it's going to be quite some time until we know the exact cause. >> and forgive me for being a pest and asking a follow-up, but was the truck, was the tanker parked under that section of i-95 or was it rolling through and it just happened to catch fire at that particular moment? >> well, jim, our initial dispatch was at 6:22 this morning for a vehicle accident. the first agent got there very quickly, quickly recognized the situation involved hazardous materials, called our hazardous materials team and additional

firefighting units to manage this incident. so i'm not sure yet. of course the state police will be as well as police department will be investigating the accident part of this. but we still don't have the answers to all of those things. >> so there might have been an accident which caused the vehicle, the tanker to stop and be parked under the interstate? is that -- am i getting that right? >> well, it's an intersection where actually vehicles constantly cross under that section of the interstate to get to the ramps, to get on to & off 95. it's actually a very new area. a lot of traffic goes under there. it's very possible this vehicle was moving through and something happened. again, the initial response for us was for a vehicle accident. of course it turned into something that was quite a bit larger than that. >> absolutely. we were talking to a motorist who was going through the area earlier today and he has some dash cam video where you can see where the interstate buckled as he was going across that area where the fire was going on.

and i mean it just seems like this could have been ai much, much worse situation than it ended up being. what did it take to put out this fire? especially given the location under the highway? i have to imagine it required a the lot of assets on your part. >> yeah, our firefighters, ems providers, dispatchers, our entire team, more than 3,000 women and men in the philadelphia fire department, very well trained, very experienced, 800 to 1,000 emergency incidents of all types every day. so actually, for us this wasn't a huge response, believe it or not. we had about 100 of our members, a lot of our response partners on scene. obviously, it did take a lot of firefighting water, a lot of firefighting activity. our hazardous materials team working with some of those other agencies that you mentioned, still there working on that aspect is the product leaked and we had kind of running fuel fires. just an incredible job. our members actually had this fire under control in about an hour. so one hour really. now, under control doesn't mean

it's over or out. it simply means it's not going anywhere, we don't think the incident is going to break containment. but as you heard or as you said at the outset, still going to be a long time for the recovery and traffic on i-95. it's going to be rougher than usual for the next several months i expect. >> yes. those famous philadelphia tempers may be flaring just a little bit. all right. philadelphia fire commissioner adam thiel. i say that with just the greatest affection for the people of philadelphia. don't get me wrong. but commissioner, thanks very much for your time. best of luck getting that back up and running as soon as possible. we appreciate it. new tonight, ukraine's president says the international criminal court is investigating a dam collapse that caused major flooding. we'll discuss with someone who is helping to investigate russian war crimes in ukraine. that's next. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." shelves that know what taste buds want. shelves smart enough to see, sensnse, react, restock.

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today both ukraine and russia announced a large prisoner swap of nearly 200 p.o.w.s. here you're seeing ukrainian prisoners returning home after months in captivity. officials say they were originally taken hostage in multiple locations both by the russian military and the wagner mercenary group. this comes as ukraine and russia point fingers at each other over the ukrainian dam collapse that officials are calling a humanitarian and ecological disaster. ukrainian president zelenskyy says the international criminal court has begun its investigation into the incident and retired u.s. army colonel evgeny vindman joins us now. he's also the military analysis director for the atrocity crimes advisory group. colonel vindman, great to see you as always.

what did you think of this prisoner exchange? >> well, these have occurred quite frequently over the course of the conflict. and it's frank ly a good development. the militaries are talking to each other. they're exchanging prisoners. unfortunately, most of the videos that i've seen the prisoners, at least that the ukrainians are getting back are quite emaciated. i suspect the treatment was potentially in violation of the geneva convention. but we'll see as the investigation continues. but the prisoner swap is definitely a good news story. >> let me follow that thread. you're working with a ukrainian group that's in washington on a mission to hold russia accountable for alleged war crimes they've committed. ukraine's president says the international criminal court is investigating this dam collapse that caused major flooding.

is that a war crime to add to the list? >> i think so, frankly. under the law of war democrats, like nuclear power stations, are considered sort of inherently dangerous objects. so even if there is a military necessity and we're not sure in the attack that an attack on a dam requires additional measures to safeguard civilians, provide reasonable precautions, and i think these were completely absent. and frankly, this attack on a dam is one of several. there have been some in the past. and there was a report again today of an attack on a dam up north. so if you think about these attacks on dams, the wide swath of destruction, economic, infrastructure, damage to the

ecology and to human lives is of the scale of a weapon of mass destruction. so this will take years to remediate and along with the other attacks on dams up north and previously in the kyiv region i think we're going to see a major effort to hold russians accountable. in fact, our team is deploying, or in coming days an expert, environmental expert to that part of the country. >> and i wanted to ask you about trump's criminal indictment. you were a lawyer at the white house, some of us recall, that was responsible for overseeing compliance with the presidential records act during that administration. what did you think when you saw these charges that were levied against the former president? >> well, frankly, when i first saw the news of this break about a year ago, i thought that this was going to be a critical legal

issue for the president. the presidential records act is really quite clear that the records belong to the american people. they're federal records. they are collected by the national archives. the president does get some say about who sees what for a certain period of time. but they are the records of the american people. and it's quite a simple case frankly if you think about it. did the president have records that he was not supposed to? yes. did he know he was not supposed to have them? apparently yes from what we've heard released so far. and therefore he's liable. so i think the president is in some real trouble. and really there's no excuse for this. my job at the white house was to brief all personnel on the presidential records act. we took it very seriously.

everybody knew that they had to safeguard these records. i wasn't around of course at the end of the administration. i was fired two days after he was acquitted. but i think the president's in some real trouble. >> right. and there were other aides who had to have been aware of the ground rules as well. >> undoubtedly. so one of my jobs was to brief all members of the national security council staff. and the same briefings occurred for white house staff, west wing staff, and everybody knew that these records were supposed to be maintained, that they were supposed nobody has any business taking classified records with them once they leave the government and there's zero excuse mere. i think the former president is in serious trouble. >> all right, colonel.

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cnn report something putting the spotlight at the key figure, anita dunn. she's the president's top communications and adviser. it's a favorite meme of progressives trying to counter conservatives on social media. >> i am going to be fine with your jokes, but i'm not sure about dark brandon.

>> cnn white house producer, betsy cline, is here to share her reporting. what did you learn? as i was saying at the top of this, people around d.c. know who anita dunn is, but not so much outside of washington. >> absolutely. we know that president biden has a very tight inner circle of key advisors, and anita dunn is at the center of that, and she's taken a more expanded role as we look to 2024 and she has a massive task ahead because we know the president has low approval ratings, and there are serious questions in polling about the president's age, and so her job is to help the president communicating why he deserves a second term, and she does that with a combination of experience and trust with her staff and with the president. >> of course, the president has

addressed the age question before. a lot of democrats will point out he's just a few years older than the man he might run again. >> we know it's on voters' minds. the president is 80 years old, and he would be 86 at the end of the second term, and we have seen a recent shift in the president, and at a recent fund raiser in new york he framed it as a combination of experience and wisdom. that had her fingerprints all over it and it's something we will see in the weeks and months ahead. >> what do we know about her 2024 role? >> any president in an election for the incumbent re-election. she's one of those people, but in the course of my reporting

what i learned is she emerged as a key decision-maker, and things like where the headquarter campaign would be, and you know, i think when we think about anita dunn, she's a person under the radar and she's not a household name and she's a person that really appreciates a digital strategy but she's not on social media herself and she connections with lawmakers and that's by design. the other thing we have to keep in mind, for an incumbent re-election running for president, the most valuable commodity is your time. >> where does this come from? i remember when ron -- a couple things, i remember when anita dunn was in obama's orbit, and

she was known as a tough operator appeared d.c. but not the brawler. what is it that is making her the brawler? where does that come from? >> i think because she has to be. in this white house they have a lot of perceptions to combat and be more aggressive. she fosters that more aggressive posture. the dark brandon was a sub verse ul liberal meme that came up across the internet. it's fun and funny, and the president mentioned it in the speech, and it's a t-shirt you can buy on the campaign's website. >> yeah, they love the dark brandon thing, and it started off as something you would not think they would embrace? the biden team, it can be contained to just a small number of people, but she's really penetrated that bubble a little bit. >> yeah, i think a consistent theme, everybody i talk to during the course of this

reporting was loyalty and that's with the president and her staff. she was one of the very small group of aides that was encouraging him to think about running in 2016 right after his son died, making plans towards that. in 2020 when she was a senior c campaign aide, she was credited by a lot of people to coming and righting the ship. >> when ron was leaving as the white house chief of staff, she was saying we need to be more tougher. betsy cline, a great profile. i am jim acosta. thank you for joining me this evening. "the whole story with anderson cooper" is up next with a new program, the indictment and the case against trump. see you next weekend. welcom