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>> should make. and later they thought it was going to be a short trip into space. but they've now been on the international space station since june. tonight my fascinating and fun conversation from space with the astronauts. suni williams and butch wilmore. just how much longer will they be up there? good evening. thanks for joining us. we begin tonight with the breaking news. today's resignations from the department of justice. after being ordered to drop corruption charges against new york mayor eric adams. quitting today, danielle sassoon acting u.s. attorney for new york's southern district also stepping down. john keller, acting head of the justice department's public integrity section and deputy assistant attorney general kevin driscoll, the department's top career prosecutor. then this evening, we learned from sources that as many as three additional public integrity prosecutors also quit. all of this follows what happened just three days ago, when the new acting deputy attorney general, emil bove, a former attorney for president trump, ordered danielle sassoon to dismiss the charges against adams. bova's memo to sassoon laying it out raised eyebrows in that he said the doj reached its

determination. quote, without assessing the strength of the evidence. now, instead, bove said that the case, which was supposed to go to trial this spring, would have distracted the new york mayor and mayor adams from supporting the federal government's crackdown on migrants. now, on this broadcast monday night, law professor jessica roth paraphrased the argument that bove was making. >> it's because we want mayor adams to be able to pursue the president's immigration policies unfettered by worrying about this prosecution, and also because we think that the prosecution itself was in some ways politically tainted when it was brought from the outset. >> now, roth went on to call that highly unusual. but tonight, the resignation letter by danielle sassoon goes further, and it is blistering. quoting now, adams has argued in substance, and mr. bove appears prepared to concede that adams should receive leniency for federal crimes solely because he occupies an important public position and can use that position to assist in the administration's policy priorities. what's more, she recounts a meeting at which she

suggests that bove did not want anyone having a record of what was actually discussed. quoting again from her letter, adams attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. mr. bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. so it seems like they confiscated the attorney's notes. that wasn't the only bombshell from sassoon, who, we should note, has some very conservative credentials. she's listed as a contributor to the conservative federalist society, and she clerked for the late supreme court justice antonin scalia. so it's hard to paint her as some sort of deep state stooge. and she is relatively new to the job. she isn't some biden era agent hiding out in the doj. as for the bombshell, she reveals they were going to have further charges against mayor adams. she writes, as you know, our office is prepared to seek a superseding indictment from a new grand jury. under my

leadership, we proposed a superseding indictment that would add an obstruction conspiracy count based on evidence that adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the fbi. late today, the president was asked about it all. >> did you personally request the justice department to drop that case? >> no, i didn't know nothing about it. i did not. >> the president was talking to cnn's kevin liptak a few moments later, responding to someone else's question, he turned back to kevin and added this. >> that u.s. attorney was actually fired. i don't know if he or she resigned, but that u.s. attorney was fired. >> now, two two sources familiar with the matter tell cnn that emil bove had plans to fire her, but she quit first. did the president order her firing? that is certainly another question to ask him. in any event, the president certainly knew about the adams case, was sympathetic to the mayor, and certainly made it clear. >> i know what it's like to be

persecuted by the doj for speaking out against open borders. we were persecuted, eric. i was persecuted, and so are you. >> eric emil bove responded to sassoon today saying he's put attorneys who worked the case on leave. mayor adams attorney weighed in, denying any quid pro quo and saying, quote, we offered nothing in the department, asked nothing of us. as for the mayor, who made a pilgrimage last month to mar a lago and conspicuously attended the inauguration two days later, he met today with ice director tom homan and promised to use his executive power to allow ice officers to return to the city's jail on rikers island and increase cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies. so lots to talk about with us tonight. cnn chief law enforcement intelligence analyst jon miller, cnn senior legal analyst elie honig, who served as a federal prosecutor with the southern district, and cnn's kara scannell and former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe. kara, let's talk a little bit more about what danielle sassoon said in her letter to emil bove. >> well, i mean, as you lay it out, she's very transparent

about what happened in those meetings. so she's making the public record here about what transpired and sort of the pressure that she was under and just what beauvais was doing without even her input. >> it's a very detailed like, i think six pages or eight pages. >> an eight page letter. >> very single spaced, you know, a lot of detailed information in there. but she writes in there. it is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward adam's opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment. she actually says that this amplifies the argument of the weaponization of the justice department by playing favors for people that they like who are in line with their politics. >> she's essentially suggesting that it's the trump department of justice, which is now weaponizing. >> right, and saying that, you know, she still stands behind this. she dispels that. the prior u.s. attorney was motivated, saying this investigation began before him and that they followed all the proper channels. they went through doj to get sign off from higher levels within main justice in order to do that. and she also lays out what is going to be potentially some issues

here, which she says could be embarrassing for the department because they have to bring this whoever. ultimately, if it's beauvais himself or if he gets someone else to write a motion to dismiss to the judge, and the judge is not likely to rubberstamp this, he's going to want more information because this is not based has been transparent on the legal arguments and the legal merits of the case, but really about the political use that donald trump hopes to gain from staying in with with eric adams and even pointing out that one issue here is that it's improper for a prosecutor to hold something over someone's head and to hold a criminal indictment over eric adams, and to see if he does comply with what trump wants, saying as beauvais directed that this would be dismissed now, but could potentially come back later after. >> the sort of damocles over eric adams if he if he does something the trump administration doesn't like, they can just bring back the charges. i mean, it was remarkable three days ago when we learned that the charges had been dropped or were supposed to be dropped. this is stunning.

>> yeah, we're way beyond unusual here. this is thoroughly unprecedented. i mean, we've never seen anything like this. and what's so unusual here? i mean, this is what happens when politics infects prosecution. and what jumps out to me is this detail, the political motive here. it's not even disguised. it is explicit. and to put a point on it, what emil bove says in his letter to the southern district of new york is the reason we need to dismiss this case, as cara said, is so that mayor adams can continue to support our immigration agenda. well, what if eric adams had said, i'm actually not on board with the immigration agenda? by emil bove logic, then no dismissal in that case. and so this is what danielle sassoon means in her letter when she says it's a quid pro quo. the exchange is right out there, it's overt and it's overtly political. it's the worst thing that can happen to doj. >> so i mean, what happens now? do they? does emil bove and the the department of justice in d.c. just hire somebody else who will sign these documents?

>> this is not over because, as cara said, doj has to find somebody. they'll find somebody. there's 6000 prosecutors. beauvais himself will sign it, but doj has to submit a paper to the court saying we want to dismiss. here's why. but then the judge has to sign off. i'm telling you right now, a judge is not going to sign off on this. i don't i'm not big on predictions. there's no way a judge signs off on this. then you get into a situation. what happens? because doj is going to say, all right, judge, but we're not sending anyone to prosecute the case. so it's going to be a showdown ahead on this. >> john miller i mean have you seen anything like this recently or in recent decades? >> i don't know what i mean. you'd have to go back to the, you know, the saturday night massacre of watergate, where nixon ordered the firing of the watergate prosecutor and the attorney general wouldn't do it. so he was fired. and the deputy attorney general. and so it went till they found robert bork, the solicitor general, who said, i'll fire him. um, but i mean. this this in an ongoing criminal matter in a public corruption case. >> here's the i mean, it's a

high profile involving the mayor of new york. >> here's the thing, though. it's the personality factor here that gets me. when i was in the new york city police department running the nypd, half of the. >> the joint terrorism task. >> force, the joint terrorism task force, we picked up the january 6th cases. the head of the national security branch in the u.s. attorney's office was emil bove. and when we needed search warrants, we went over there. when we needed subpoenas, we went over there when we needed preservation orders. all the legal process we needed and what we got from emil bove at the time was, you know, we need more cases. you know, we've got to pick up the pace here. we've got to get these guys. so how do you go from that guy to donald trump's criminal defense lawyer in the manhattan da's case to deputy attorney general in an acting capacity, where he is now behind firing the move to do a mass firing of the same fbi agents he was directing on the january 6th case as the the chief. >> i hadn't realized he was

directing january 6th cases. >> yeah. >> and under these new under. >> packaged up all of those investigations and sent them to the u.s. attorney in washington. but all the process we got to do that was directed by him. so now you see him, you know, on the other side of that coin and trying to shut down a case from his own old alma mater, the southern district of new york, where he was a chief under a u.s. attorney, where they where they did cases like this. it's such a complete reversal that it's a little bit of a shock to the system of former and current federal prosecutors who say, we don't do that. >> andrew, have you heard cases where the acting attorney general tells an attorney from the justice department to to not take notes and actually, like, takes their notes? >> no, no, no. and any reasonable world that does not happen. very sensitive meetings take place at the department of justice every day on national security matters. sometimes on

matters where, uh, where people in high level white collar cases, maybe political corruption cases come in with their attorneys and they make kind of a final pitch to doj to avoid getting indicted or something like that. notes are taken, notes are retained. there's nothing it would be it would be insanely irregular for a senior justice department person to say, okay, give me everybody's notes before you leave the room. that's like an organized crime meeting, right? nobody wants to leave. uh, any evidence behind. but to be clear, what is happening here is not just politicization or weaponization. we use that word a lot lately. this is corruption. this is corrupt at its core. they are trying to use the levers of the criminal justice system to achieve a political result. it is, it is. it doesn't get any more corrupt than this. what is specifically. >> the corruption? >> the corruption is using what they have control of with the department of justice controls. is the criminal justice system

right? who gets indicted, how they get tried, how strong those cases are. they are taking that system which they are obligated to use for the public benefit, and using it instead to achieve some political result. in this case, immigration enforcement, that is, immigration enforcement and your willingness or ability to engage in it has nothing to do with the case that the grand jury indicted. they indicted the case based on the facts that were presented to them and the law. and the way those two things are applied. and and now the case goes forward. the mayor has every opportunity to present a detailed, full throated defense of himself at trial. but that's how the process works. they have completely derailed the process here and demanded the dismissal of this indictment to to achieve a political result completely outside the system. it's outrageous on any count. >> i got to say. i mean, i'm no lawyer, but i read an eight page letter and it's it's very

convincing. and also, she comes off seeming very responsible and ethical. i mean, she's relatively new to this job. it's not like she wanted to to get out of here or she some, some old holdover who's been there for for 40 years. um, is she in trouble? like, can she is there some can she be? >> i don't think so. i mean, she's left the department. what bovey has done is put the members of the team, the line prosecutors on administrative leave, saying that he is going to have them investigated under the auspices of the office of professional responsibility and which could ultimately, depending on the recommendation, result in their termination. but i don't see what recourse they really have against her personally. i mean, she does have the conservative credentials that they would have expected her to perhaps follow in line, but she's also saying that she has these credentials because she's following the rule of the law. >> that's what i found so chilling about emil bove response when she pushed back in that eight page letter. and this goes to your point. before john, the response was, well, now everyone around you is fired too. and we're going to

investigate all of you not criminally, but internally within doj. i mean, that's a very serious thing. and if we look big picture over what's happened in the first not even month of this new doj. okay, let's take the lesson here. all the january 6th rioters have been pardoned. eric adams has gotten out of this case for explicitly political reasons. that's on one hand. on the other hand, all the january 6th, all the jack smith prosecutors have been fired. a lot of the january 6th prosecutors, not emil bove, but all the other ones, a lot of them have been fired. so the message is as clear as can be. we're going to reward you or punish you for your political views with the prosecutorial might of the justice department that goes against everything that's written on that door at the doj building. >> elie honig grenell john miller. thank you, andrew mccabe as well. coming up next, more breaking news which will likely please vladimir putin. the president, when pressed, cannot come up with a single sacrifice that putin should make to end the war in ukraine. later, the president takes fresh aim at fellow republican mitch mcconnell, the only republican who voted against rfk jr.. for

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800) 217-1487 now or visit us at gofundme.com. >> ben thinks he's about to compete in a new reality show, but it's all completely fake. >> all right. see how ben handles this? >> he is trying so hard and everything is going wrong. >> it is hard to stay in character. >> she's got the giggles. >> this show is wild, and i feel like i'm going insane. >> oh. >> this is so good. >> boy, do i hope we're all friends after this. >> the joe schmo show all new tuesdays at 9:00 on tbs. set your dvr now. >> more breaking news today. after president trump suggested it was unlikely ukraine would get back territory lost in the war, he once again parroted russia's rationale for the war that ukraine wanted to join nato, effectively ceding ground before trump's stated desire for peace negotiations could even start. now, earlier tonight, he was also asked in response, what should russia give up? >> you have suggested with regards to the russia-ukraine war, you've suggested several

things that ukraine should give up the idea of nato membership territory that we seized back in 2014 by russia. what should russia give up? >> russia has gotten themselves into something that i think they wish they didn't. if i were president, it would not have happened. but as far as the negotiation, it's too early to say what's going to happen. maybe russia will give up a lot. maybe they won't. and it's all dependent on what is going to happen. the negotiation really hasn't started. but i will say as far as nato is concerned, from many years before president putin, i will tell you that i've heard that russia would never accept that. and i think ukraine knew that because ukraine wasn't in and never requested to be in until more recently. so that's the way it is. and i think that's the way it's going to have to be. >> well, this comes the same day that defense secretary pete hegseth appeared to walk back comments about ukraine not joining nato that he made at nato headquarters in brussels on

wednesday. >> i want to be clear about something as it pertains to nato membership not being realistic outcome for negotiations. that's something that was stated as part of my remarks here, as part of a coordination with how we're executing these ongoing negotiations, which are led by president trump. all of that said, these negotiations are led by president trump. everything is on the table. in his conversations with vladimir putin and zelenskyy. >> joined now by anchor and chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins, also chief national security correspondent nick paton walsh. caitlin, it's pretty remarkable that secretary hegseth, on his first big international trip yesterday, point blank, says ukraine is not going to join nato. and then today, now walks it back. >> yeah, i mean, these comments yesterday were extraordinary. when secretary hegseth made them because it was really laying down a marker of the future of what these negotiations could look like. and it was before we

even knew that president trump was set to speak with president putin yesterday. that only came hours later that we found out about that 90 minute call and got the readouts of that and the zelenskyy call. and so to see hegseth soften those comments today was equally remarkable because it raised a question of what that meant. we had asked questions back at the white house yesterday. if those comments by the defense secretary were taking bargaining chips off the table, because those are two things that that putin very clearly wants in these negotiations. and so i asked president trump about that today inside the oval office. he himself also acknowledged that, yes, hegseth was softening his comments. did you ask secretary hegseth to walk back his comments yesterday saying ukraine won't join nato and won't go back to pre 2014 borders because those are bargaining chips you could use? >> no i didn't. somebody told me that, but i thought his comments were good yesterday and they probably good today. they're a little bit softer perhaps. but i thought his comment. >> that at your direction.

>> i thought his comments yesterday were pretty accurate. i don't see any way that. a country in russia's position could allow them just in their position could allow them to join nato. >> so the president was acknowledging that that he was kind of easing up on them. but then trump himself agreed with what secretary hegseth said yesterday that it is unrealistic for nato to have ukraine join as a part of this, and that also those pre 2014 borders, which is before russia illegally annexed crimea, that that was unlikely as well. and so he himself was kind of laying down those markers as they are hoping that these talks move forward from here. >> yeah. nick, i mean, you've spent so much time covering the war in ukraine in the front lines. you just heard president trump again was asked this afternoon with prime minister modi about what russia should give up in the negotiations. again, seem to blame the war on ukraine's goal of joining nato, which is a line russia has been using. how much daylight is there between president trump's position and the kremlin's position on this? >> yeah, i mean, it's really

familiar, it seems. how much of his conversation you'd imagine with the kremlin head. we're not privy to what's said between them, but how much that he appears to reiterate in public. just to recap here, russia invaded ukraine. it appears to have been a strategic decision about trying to ensure the country and its orbit stayed very much so. ukraine had ambitions to get closer to the european union and in the future possibly join nato. but it's a very long, unrealistic path. that wasn't the reason why the war started. and so, yeah, we're seeing increasingly things that the kremlin would like to have become part of u.s. policy being spoken by trump. he appears to be a bit fuzzy on the details of nato membership. that is something, certainly, that zelenskyy has reached for recently as a bid to try and get some sort of security guarantees. if there was a future ceasefire. and the fascinating thing about hegseth comments is that the idea that ukraine can't join nato or get its 2014 borders back is a reality. it's one accepted by

the european allies of ukraine, but it was one that they were never going to lay out in public, because essentially the bluff of it was part of a negotiating strategy. in the same day that hegseth called trump the best negotiator in the world, he basically showed their hand entirely. and it leaves me wondering whether this actually may have been more by design. it may be about washington making sure that publicly they're stating things putin wants to hear as part of a process that we don't we may not be privy to at this stage. anderson. >> caitlin. president trump also said today that he'd like to see russia rejoin the g-7, formally, the g-8, before russia's membership was suspended because they annexed crimea and invaded. did he go into why he wanted to see them back in this group? >> so this is a long standing position, actually, that he's had. i've talked to sources over the years. he felt this way his first time in office. but what's notable about him reiterating it today and making the case pretty forcefully for why he thinks russia should be involved today, is that it happened after russia invaded

ukraine and 2022. and of course, after all of the deaths, the ukrainian deaths that russia has caused by by invading and keeping its troops there and continuing to bomb ukraine even in the last 24 hours. trump's argument was that in all of these g7 meetings, it feels like the leaders are always constantly talking about russia, and that is something that they're discussing. so his argument that he was making in the oval test today was, why not have russia there if we're already talking about them and whatnot? but of course, the reason that they were kicked out of the g7, as it was known as the g8, was because they went into crimea and took that land. i asked the president what his response would be if russia invaded and took over land, sovereign land that was not theirs. when when he was in power. given he was criticizing obama for for what they did, he didn't really get into the details there, anderson. but it does speak to how he views russia. and instead of kind of pushing them aside or ignoring them and not having conversations with russia and with putin until they have made

some concessions here or withdrawn some troops, the president is ready and willing to have those discussions, to have those talks, and to also go and meet with them, even as we've seen other european leaders or even president biden himself, reject that notion because of of the invasion of ukraine. >> nick, if the u.s. stopped supporting ukraine in the way that it has been over the last several years in terms of money for for weapons and continuing the war, would they be able to wage this war much longer? >> uh, and in short, no, really. i mean, the europeans certainly have said that funding is guaranteed through this year. the europeans don't have the kind of industrial capacity to supply weapons at the scale that ukraine needs. yes. it's more a drone war than it has been. so some of this is homegrown now in ukraine, but the money simply isn't there. the europeans might be able to tap into frozen russian reserves and use that, but that's deeply problematic. so without the united states. yes, there's an enormous problem on the ukrainian battlefield. and look, you just got to remember, there's a morale issue here as well. we're

dealing with the ukrainian military that are short of infantry, that are losing on the front line, and now they're hearing their key supporter. they've always known trump wasn't a huge fan of this conflict, but parroting at times what seems to be kremlin notions about how the war started. and i want to draw your attention to one thing said last night, uh, trump called into question the future of zelenskyy, essentially saying that he'd have to have elections soon, and talked about how his polling was not good, to put it mildly. that's essentially started an electoral race. i think it's fair to say in ukraine, trump is saying zelenskyy won't be there forever and he's going to have to hold a vote. a vote in wartime, and a leader who essentially is now trying to run a war at the same time. so these words, or they seem often in isolation in the oval office. part of that kind of show we're seeing of trump involving himself in the peace process here have very immediate consequences. in a war where there are currently 200,000 people in trenches trying to kill each other.

>> nick paton walsh kaitlan collins i'll see you at the top of the hour for the source. thanks, nick. appreciate it. coming up next for us, mitch mcconnell's vote against rfk jr.. for hhs secretary. and the president's reaction, which included questioning a well documented part of mcconnell's life, his childhood battle with polio. later, astronauts butch wilmore and suni williams a fascinating conversation with them. i had in space how they're doing after eight months in space. they thought it was going to be a pretty short ride, and the chances they now have to finally come home. we'll be right. >> back. >> cookbooks. corporate fat cats, swindling socialites, doped up cyclists then? yes, more crooked politicians. i have a feeling we won't be running out of those anytime soon. >> a new season of united states of scandal with jake tapper, march 9th on cnn. this is what joint pain looks like when you keep moving with aleve. just want to leave 12 hours of uninterrupted joint pain relief. aleve. strength to last 12

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kennedy has a long record as a vaccine skeptic at best. in a statement explaining his vote today, senator mcconnell said, i will not condone the relitigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles. well, today, talking to cnn's kaitlan collins, the president had this to say. >> well, i feel sorry for mitch. uh, and i was one of the people that said he couldn't he wanted to go to the end and he wanted to stay leader. he wasn't he's not equipped mentally. he wasn't equipped. ten years ago, mentally, in my opinion, he let the republican party go to hell. if i didn't come along, the republican party wouldn't even exist right now. mitch mcconnell never really had it. but he's not voting against bobby. he's voting against me. but that's all right. he endorsed me. you know, mitch, do you know that mitch endorsed me, right? did you think that was easy? what? >> he had polio, obviously. >> and i don't know. i don't know anything about. he had polio. he had polio. >> are you doubting that he had polio? >> i have no idea if he had

polio. all i can tell you about him is that he shouldn't have been a leader. >> well, joining us is cnn senior political commentator scott jennings, who served in several senior campaign positions for senator mcconnell. also, cnn political commentator jamal simmons. scott, as somebody who's been close to mcconnell for a long time, it. what is that like to hear? >> yeah, i mean i don't love it. i mean, these guys obviously aren't friends and they're not going to be friends. and, um, you know, they represent different wings of the republican party. i've been friends with senator mcconnell since i was 17 years old, and he served the country well and served our nation well. and he's obviously coming down to the end of his career here on this vote today. look, i don't think he cast it based on any grudges. i think he had a personal story regarding his polio. experience that led him to cast this vote. i would note he did vote to put the nomination on the floor, as he did the other people that he voted against. he didn't try to obstruct the trump cabinet here, but he cast his personal opinion, which all the senators

do. my anticipation is 90 plus percent of the time he's going to be with donald trump on the issues of the day, whether it's energy or immigration or taxes. but, you know, on this one today, it was personal. he had a personal experience, and that led him to cast his vote. so, you know, i don't i don't love it when two people that i like are fighting. uh, but, you know, my hope is that in the future, they'll be able to work together on the big ticket issues facing the country. >> jamal, i mean, it is amazing that i mean, mitch mcconnell has stood up on his beliefs on rfk jr. and also hegseth and also tulsi gabbard, um, and that the president sees that as a personal attack on him. is is fascinating to me. not surprising, but it's interesting. >> i was going to say, have you been watching the news the last couple of years? ten years. listen, donald trump obviously has a perspective about getting his people in office, and he wants to when mitch mcconnell was the majority leader, he was kind of his, you know, ace in the hole in the united states senate. and he helped him get some of the things done that he needed to get done. now, what we're seeing is that mitch mcconnell, who really if if i don't give a flying fig was a person, it would be mitch

mcconnell, right? and that is what he is up to right now. he is sort of saying what he thinks or voting the way he thinks. and the rest of us are kind of sitting back and acknowledging it. i wish he would have had that kind of perspective the last time we had an impeachment vote, because if they had done that last impeachment vote and donald trump would not be president of the united states today. >> scott, what do you what is behind senator mcconnell's vote against pete hegseth and tulsi gabbard? >> well, he has been pretty clear about how he felt about these nominees on hegseth. he didn't believe that he was qualified on gabbard. he laid out a few issues on which he strongly disagreed with her, such as the her views on snowden, who is a traitor to the united states. by the way, just as mitch mcconnell said. and on rfk, i do think this whole issue of the polio vaccine was deeply personal to mcconnell. in each case, he voted to allow the nomination to come to the floor. so he voted on the cloture piece. but he just obviously had a difference of opinion with

trump about whether they were right for the job. now, trump got all three, and i would point out that he's going to get his entire cabinet and that all three of these people now have a chance to serve our country. and mcconnell specifically with hegseth, is going to have a chance to work with him in his role as chairman of defense subcommittee on appropriations. he'll be the one funding the pentagon. and so they're going to have to work together. and i think they will work together. so i think in the long run, what you're going to ultimately see is that mitch mcconnell is a loyal republican, and he's going to try to achieve republican and conservative outcomes, whether it's on immigration, energy, national security or taxes. and i think the vast majority of the time he and trump are going to be on the same page, maybe on a few issues they won't be. uh, but obviously, um, you know, the republican party is as unified on most policy as it has ever been under trump. uh, and, and they're on the cusp of being able to do some great things. i think mcconnell will be part of most of it. >> jamal, it is interesting to to try to figure out what hhs is going to what the public health system in america is going to

look like under robert f. kennedy jr.. >> it is interesting. listen, i always approach government thinking about what's going to make america stronger, what's going to prepare our kids to be able to compete in the future as they go forward. there's so many things that we can't predict, but there are things that we know. we know that the world is safer now that we have a polio vaccine. we know we all got back to work and we're able to go back to school because there was a covid 19 vaccine. so the question is, is science going to govern what hhs does, what hhs does, and what secretary kennedy allows? or is it just going to be his personal feelings or some random rumor he's heard on the internet? and i would just hope that the president, president trump, listens to the scientists and they all pay attention to the to the data so that the country can be safer. >> jamal simmons, thank you, scott jennings as well. thanks so much. appreciate it. up next, when can they return home? a conversation with astronauts suni williams and butch wilmore next.

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the gum experts. >> this week, two astronauts aboard the international space station learned they may finally get to come home. commander suni williams and captain butch wilmore have been there since june. their departure date has been in flux since they had technical issues with the boeing starliner spacecraft they arrived in. in a world in which things are so polarized, it was a pleasure today to be able to spend a good chunk of time talking with these two remarkable american astronauts. so we're going to play you a lot of my conversation with them, because it's fascinating to hear about what their lives in space are like. and frankly, they deserve as much attention as they can get for their sacrifices. i spoke to suni williams and butch wilmore earlier. commander williams, captain wilmore, thanks so much for joining us. you've been up there since last june. how are you doing? >> we're doing pretty. >> darn good, actually. you know, we got food, we've got clothes, we're have great crew members up here. you know, of course, it was a little bit longer stay than we expected. but, you know, both of us have

trained to live and work on the international space station. and we i think we've made the most of it. >> commander williams, what does it feel like to to be floating around all that time? i mean, uh, i was going to ask the captain, but his hair is pretty short. i mean, your hair is up all the time. is that. does it feel weird? >> you know, it's a lot of fun. i like my crazy hair up here. it sort of gets a little einstein look, so it's. it's pretty cool. both of us have lived here before, and it is just amazing how when you come across the hatch after you've been here, it's like, oh, my gosh, i remember what this is all like. i remember feeling what it's like floating. and i think both of us adapted really quickly. um, and i think i'm hoping the same will be true when we come back home. >> yeah. how much time does it take to to adapt when you land again? >> yeah, that's going to be a little bit hard, as usual. um, i've been up twice before for a long duration missions, and it's almost a day for a day that you get that, like fast twitch muscle action back again.

but i think both of us will be a little bit sad when that feeling of space sort of leaves us after about 24 hours. and we're not a little bit like motion sickness from coming back home. um, that will that will actually be a little bit sad when that goes away, just because that means that really physically, the the spaceflight came to an end, and. >> yet you. >> don't know. >> it right now, anderson. but gravity. >> is really, really tough. >> uh, that's what we'll feel when we first get back to gravity is tough. >> tough in what sense? just on your body. >> uh, yeah. everything. i mean, we have no gravity. well, we don't feel the effects of gravity here. we're floating, as sonny has been saying. but when you get back, gravity starts pulling everything to your lower extremities. the fluid that is shifting might get a little puffy face. it's always that way when you're. when i'm in space and all that fluid is going to be pulled to my lower extremities, and it's really going to be difficult even to lift a pencil. you don't even feel a pencil when you lift it. when we get back, even to lift a pencil, we will feel the weight. that's that's the transition

back. we all experience it when we come back to earth. >> and what's the latest information you have from nasa about your return? is it still your understanding you'll be brought home on a spacex spacecraft.? >> that's affirmative. yes. right now the plan is that crew-10 will launch on the 12th of march. they'll come here, rendezvous and dock will do a turnover for about a week, and we will return on or about the 19th of march. >> and why can't you leave sooner? i mean, what will happen between now and march 12th, when you're expected to depart? >> um, we bring crews to and from space station. we have a cycle of period of time where those things take place. and to alter that cycle, since ripple effects all the way down the chain, we would never expect to come back. just special for us or anyone, unless it was a medical issue or something really, really out of the circumstances along those lines. um, so we need to come back and keep the normal cycle going. >> i'm not going to i don't want to get into politics at

all. but i know you've been asked this question before. there are some who have suggested here, president trump, that that you were virtually abandoned by the last administration. again, i know you've been asked this question before, but do you feel you've been abandoned? >> we don't feel abandoned. we don't feel stuck. we don't feel stranded. i understand why others may think that we we come prepared. we come committed. that is what your human spaceflight program is. it prepares for any and all contingencies that we can conceive of, and we prepare for those. so if you'll help us change the rhetoric, rhetoric, help us change the narrative, let let's change it to prepared and committed. that's what vice what what you've been hearing. that's what we prefer. >> i think it's i mean, i've read both of your records and they're extraordinary. i mean, all the stuff you guys have done in your careers is just amazing. i'm fascinated, though, by, like, a typical day for you. like, how do you sleep? do you sleep tethered to something? i mean, i assume you're not just randomly floating around while you're sleeping, are you? in like, a pod, like in 2001 or 1

of those space movies? that's how you sleep? i hope you don't. i hope you don't snore. >> so each of us have a sleep station. so it's, you know, from the old days, like, sort of like a phone booth size a little bit bigger than a phone booth. >> a little larger than a coffin. >> a little, yeah, a little larger than a. >> coffin. >> and it's interesting, though. like, it doesn't really matter once you close your eyes if you're upside down or sideways. and so we have one sleep station on the, on the ceiling, one on the floor and two on either side. >> and when you dream, do you dream that you are in space or do you dream that you're on earth? >> that's a great question. actually, my father was a neuroscientist and asked me that same question when i returned home for the first time, and i didn't really think too much of it about it when i was up here. but i do dream that i'm up here at times when i'm here, and i do dream that i'm home as well. i think, you know, it must be based on your experience and what you're sort of familiar with. so a little of both and what's i think sort of cool is

i took note of all of this. and after i got home last time, i actually dreamed that i was in space a couple times. and that's that's pretty unique and that's pretty special. >> are you able to stream movies or tv shows? do you have wi-fi? >> so we have tv shows and movies that are in like a library that's up here. so anytime anybody wants to watch anything in particular when we're like working out because it sort of makes the the treadmill go by and the, you know, the stationary bike go by a little bit. so it's nice to do do that a little bit. um, we have those all the time whenever we want. we do have some internet connection up here so we, we can get some internet live. we've gotten, um, football has been this crew's go to this past fall. uh, also, you know, youtube or something like that. it's not continuous. it's has chunks of time that we get it and we use that same system also to make phone calls home. so we could talk to our families and do video conferences even on the weekends as well. so it's they

they have the this place is pretty nice place to live. um, for, for the most part. >> and could wouldn't you just show us around just a little bit? >> cooper 360. >> oh, yeah. sure. of course. i bet you say that to all the all the anchors. um, can you just show us around a little bit? like what? what is that stuff around you? is this so fascinating to me? i love how you're moving. that's so crazy. >> so just to give you an example of one of the experiments that we were we've been working on with folks on the ground, these are called astro bees. um, so they actually can come off the wall and fly around. uh, huge opportunities for people to test out, uh, guidance, navigation control on a quote, unquote spacecraft in microgravity inside here. so we have um, companies, universities, students all flying these astro bees around at different times. some of them are actually even grabbing on to other satellites that other

pieces that we might have floating around, and that might help us clean up space debris. this right here is, um, where are you going now? oh, yeah. going down the rest of the gem. this is a huge module that has all sorts of scientific experiments going on. we have a tray right here that does some, uh, combustion experiments as well as over here. we've got a couple little micro centrifuges over here that we have plants and animals in at times. um, right on the other side of butch is a glove box where we've done some stem cell research as well as dna sequencing. um, and behind right behind us, where you saw in the beginning there's an airlock where it's can take payloads out of the space station, and then with the japanese robotic arm, put it on a platform out there. and those could be earth observation satellites. so there's stuff throughout this whole station, and it's about the size of, i'd say like of a seven, for seven. the interior of that, as

you fly through the space station takes about 30s. >> it takes me about 15. >> we're going to have more of my conversation with them ahead. i just think it's remarkable what they're doing. commander williams and captain wilmore talk about their families and what it's been like being away from them for eight months, and how they stay connected. we'll be right back. >> got one more antoine. >> with usgs ground advantage. just like you're with us every step of the way. >> cool. >> right on time. >> stay in the know from your dock to their door. >> can a personal loan unlock your ambitions? oh, yeah. take a

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800) 217-1487 now or visit us at gofundme.com. >> lockerbie premieres sunday at nine on cnn. >> we're now on my conversation today with commander suni williams and captain butch moore, who have been aboard the international space station since june. months longer than expected after problems with their boeing spacecraft, we talked about what it's been like being away from their families. take a look. i know you have kids. how often do you get to speak to your wife, to your daughters? i mean, they must be, first of all, just so proud of you. and they must. i mean, when kids in school ask, like, what do your parents do?

you've got they must be top of the list in terms of what their what their dad is doing. >> i appreciate you making that comment, anderson, i really do. i'm proud of them. my daughter is at college. my my oldest. my youngest is a senior in high school. i'm missing her senior year. that's the lowest. the lowest point for me. but she's a trooper. my wife is something else. she's amazing. they're the ones that are that are really resilient in all this because, you know, their their lives have been altered to, you know, since since i've been here, we've had a hurricane hit houston. i had to replace my roof. tree fell down. neighbors and people from church came and cut it up and hauled it off. people cut my grass, all that. so thanks to all of them. and and and like i said, my, my ladies are have been amazing. and i just say hello to y'all. deanna, darren logan and happy valentine's day. >> is there anybody you want to say say hi to or. >> sure, i would love to say hi to my husband and also my niece and nephew who my my niece is actually graduating from high school this year too. and one of

our other crewmates, his son, is graduating from high school too. so, you know, we've all missed some time with our family up here. and and that's that's unfortunate. but you know what? you know, they are also, like butch said, very resilient and, you know, ready for, you know, to support us. and that is that's a huge task to ask them to do. but they're up for it. >> yeah. well i mean, you know, all folks in the military make tremendous sacrifices serving overseas and away from their families and and their kids. and you guys are just you're doing incredible things. and it's such a sacrifice. and i appreciate talking to you. and i appreciate all you're doing. thank you. it makes us all proud. >> anderson, it's been a pleasure talking to you today. and thank you so much for being interested in the international space station and our space program. we have a lot of things to do in the future, and we're looking forward to having a bunch more space explorers join us. >> yes. thank you anderson. >> all right. >> you take care. >> stay safe. more news ahead on cnn.