david gergen, david axelrod.on't forget as david axelrod mentioned there, "ax files" airs at 7:00 tomorrow eastern time, david's guest former secretary of state condoleezza rice. >>> and just ahead, our gary tuchman goes to the heart of trump country to gauge reaction over the furor over the president's language. so there are no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives in any of the food we sell. we believe in real food. whole foods market. when you have a cold, stuff happens. ♪ { sneezing ] shut down cold symptoms fast [ coughing ] with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. ♪ with expedia, you can book a flight, then add a hotel, and save. everything you need to go. expedia. tonight. the "wall street journal" reporting a lawyer for president trump arranged a hefty payment to an adult film star. why? because of an alleged sexual affair. tom foreman joins us with more now. >> a new claim in the "wall street journal." a woman was paid $130,000 a month before the election to ke

david gergen, david axelrod.on't forget as david axelrod mentioned there, "ax files" airs at 7:00 tomorrow eastern time, david's guest former secretary of state condoleezza rice. >>> and just ahead, our gary tuchman goes to the heart of trump country to gauge reaction over the furor over the president's language. tonight. how do you win at business? stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level. bravo, tall meeting man. start winning today. book now at lq.com don't wait until february. walk into a jackson hewitt, day or night, and you could get up to $3200. so why wait? you could get up to $3200 with a no-fee refund advance. go to jackson hewitt today. with a no-fee refund advance. [burke] abstract accident. seen ♪ video-it. covered it.c we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ i use herpecin l.re, it penetrates deep to treat. it soothes, moisturizes, and creates

also joining us is cnn senior political analyst david gergen.avid, as someone who's worked for presidents, both republican and democrat, what do you make of this tweet? >> well, first of all, anderson, it's good to see you. beyond that, we're back to my hands are bigger than your hands. my nuclear button is bigger than your nuclear button. there is sort of a male sort of, you know, rivalry here that i think that -- what i think is happening is that the white house legitimately sees that the north koreans reaching out to the south koreans to begin one-on-one talks with the south koreans could very much go crosswise with u.s. policy at being very tough on north korea. as you know, anderson, the south korean government is notably more moderate, less aggressive than the trump administration is. so that the capacity of the north koreans to drive a wedge between us will buy time with the north koreans, which is very viable to them, and so i think the president is trying to heat up the rivalry again in doing this, but at the same time, it diminishes hi

cnn analyst and very to four presidents david gergen. also with us tim naftali. i'm interested in getting your perspective. someone who advised and had a personal relationship with four u.s. presidents, you understand the challenge of this role. you think of a reason the president wouldn't want to take his state of the union message on the road and out the his new tax plan, for example? >> i can't really, ana. i think it's more necessary than ever for this president. listen, i've just come back from davos where the president visited. i can tell you for the first time in his presidency, he has some wind at his back. the business leaders there, across much of the united states, they don't really -- they haven't taken to mr. trump personally. they don't personally like him. they think he is odd and erratic and everything else. but they like his policies. reducing his taxes on corporations, trying to bring that money back home and doing regulatory reform and more importantly now infrastructure. what surprises me so far about what we've heard about this week is when y

david gergen served as adviser to four presidents, nia-malika henderson and tim neftali, former director of the nixon presidential library. this is pretty incredible. the reporting, david, saying in this excerpt, has some pretty powerful points. let's start with how many people wolff says described trump as not interested, not smart, off balance? rupert murdoch, as david smith just pointed out, "what an f'ing idiot" is the quote after a conversation with trump on immigration. former campaign adviser sam nunberg, who was reportedly sent to explain the constitution to trump tells him "on the record, i got as far as the fourth amendment before his fingers are pulling on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head." and it goes on with saying the first meeting with reince priebus was one where trump talked nonstop and constantly repeated himself. there are many more examples. it's nasty and consistent. >> and consistent, and it leads you to the conclusion that the worst thing that ever happened to donald trump was he got elected, because the sense you have is that this is a man who did

david gergen, let me start with you.e news out of the white house this past week? >> astonishing. a complete disconnect between a rising stock market and a falling presidency. it's quite astonishing to watch. look, i -- the supporters for donald trump will tell you as "the wall street journal" editorialized today that there is nothing here new in the wolff book, it really just confirms what we've known all along. i beg to differ with that. yes, there is a lot it confirms, but i had never understood that people in the white house were actually as concerned as they are about the mental health of the president. that they watched him -- his capacity, you know, when they first came in, he was telling the same story three times over the course of 30 minutes. perhaps not remembering he had already told it before. that's now down to ten minutes. that was very disturbing. and i think the second thing that came out was that he claims, wolff claims, may be wrong, but he claims that 100% of the inner circle believe the president is

david axelrod and david gergen. you hear senator durbin.ny way for a president republican or democrat to operate in a negotiation on something as fraught with tension as daca? >> no. look, david gergen and i have both been in the room as you mention, but generally with presidents who have some sense of what they want to do. last week, literally one week ago, the president was in a room with cameras talking about a bill of love. that's what he called this immigration bill that he hoped to sign and urged for a bipartisan bill, but there clearly is a group within the white house that doesn't want to see that done, and they staged an intervention before senator graham and senator durbin got over there. what it really speaks to is that this president doesn't really have a lot of grounding in any of this, and you know, i have said before the hat during the campaign said make america great again. the hat should now say rent this space, because he just doesn't seem to have firm moorings. that is concerning. what he said in that room, and i have kno

da david gergen and david axle rod. >> we have been both in the room as you mentioned.ek, literally one week ago the president was in a room with cameras talking about a bill of love, that is what he called the immigration bill that he hoped to sign. and urged for a bipartisan bill, but there is a group within the white house that doesn't want to see that done and they staged an intervention before senators graham and durbin got in there. this president doesn't have a lot of grounding in any of this. and i have said before, the hat during the campaign said make america great again. the hat now should say rent this space. he doesn't seem to have firm morings. what he has said in that room, and i know senator durbin for 40 years. what he said in the room was disturbing. another piece of the story that is also disturbing he don't know what he wants and where he stands. >> david gergen, he saw that clearly on camera in that daca meeting when he agreed with senator feinstein, that is what we will go for, daca first and then comprehensive immigration reform using a phrase tha

. >> joined by david gergen and david axelrod. what is the significance of the "new york times" reporting? >> i agree with what jeff toobin has been saying. adds to the pattern. not sure sending mcgahn to the justice department is in and of itself would qualify as act of obstruction, but seeing it within that pattern, i think has a lot more weight. i do believe there is a question, in any impeachment proceedings, obstruction of justice, is there underlying crime? can you have obstruction if there's not a crime? that depends heavily on what mueller comes up with in regard to the collusion issue, possibly the money laundering issue. we have to wait and see exactly where this goes. one of the curious things i find here, sending someone from the justice department to find dirt on comey. i've never heard of anything like that except for nixon days. does raise questions. who was this person and who sent him? attorney general who already recused himself? number two in the justice department now running things? where did that order come f

say what up, rocco. ♪ >>> back now with our echoes of watergate panel, john dean, david gergen, johnis is a serious, troubling decisions that are looming over the investigation. >> the most important decision is what mueller is going to do. and we don't know what he's going to do. it's clear that he has got the president's campaign, his closest associates, members of his family, in his sights. now it doesn't mean he wants to bring them down in his sights, he wants to find out what they have done. and they have been resisting letting him know what has been done and what they did. >> there's a passage of carl's book which he co-opted with bob woodward. you said, quote, the moral authority of the president is collapsing, how can you be thinking about housing? to me it's a really interesting question. is that what it's like in the white house when all this is going on, to try and get things done and to avert a potential crisis or a huge investigation. >> a lot of people around the president are very honest citizens, they have come in for what they hope is a good cause. when something lik

intelligence may have corroborated what's in the steele dossier, whether it's the finances or the, as david gergen said, having to do with the election, or may have contradicted it. we don't know at this stage. everything gets back to mueller. i will say, i agree with david. we tend to focus on collusion as like the word, the issue. there may be other theories of the case. or there may be no case at all. and it's up to mueller to figure it out because, of course, it is 2018 now. we have an election coming up, elections coming up this year. >> and of course, we will also say, given diane feinstein going out and putting out this testimony among the fierce, the furious, as manu used the words, objections of republicans, you're not having a investigation in the judiciary. congress is losing its responsibility at every step. it all rests on mueller. >>> next, breaking news. the white house bracing for a stopping exodus. are two major players on their way out? >>> plus, trump sounding off for the first time about oprah's possible presidential run. >> oprah would be a lot of fun. i like oprah. i don't th

. >> thank you very much david gergen. >> when we come back, the author author -- who exactly is michal wolff and the president is saying he won't sign any amnesty deals for so called dreamers unless he gets $18 billion to fund his wall, the same one that mexico is going to pay for? are lawmakers closer to a deal for immigration? we'll discuss, next. hey, you every talk to anybody about your money? yeah, i got some financial guidance a while ago. how'd that go? he kept spelling my name with an 'i' but it's bryan with a 'y.' yeah, since birth. that drives me crazy. yes. it's on all your email. yes. they should know this? yeah. the guy was my brother-in-law. that's ridiculous. well, i happen to know some people. do they listen? what? they're amazing listeners. nice. guidance from professionals who take their time to get to know you. >>> welcome back, the explosive new book of michael wolff, the president calling him a fraud. >> so many people i talk about in term of fake news came to the defense of this dpraetgreater administration and myself. i know the author and i know he's a fraud. >>

. >> david gergen said he gave a half decent speech to a half decent reception, but of course, everything was against this backdrop with the conversation. knowing what we know about chris ray and don mcgahn, talk a little bit about the consequences of serving this president. i guess it's not for the faint of heart. >> no, it's not. a number of aides who obviously have tried to bring order to the white house like john kelly have struggled in the past few weeks to keep the reins on the white house and the decision making going on there. i was in john kelly's office on wednesday night when all of a sudden, the door bursts open and in comes donald trump and we start asking questions and he blows the lid on a planned four-day rollout of the immigration plan, tells all the reporters that and i'm standing next to john kelly and i can tell by his body language that he, you know, realizes he's going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan to clean up what the president just did. also, i heard john kelly when we asked president trump about mueller and whether he would be wil

david gergen, tara setmayer and stephen moore. david, i mean, how much room do you think the president's team really does have to negotiate? i mean, he could be subpoenaed, but -- >> i think they have some room to negotiate, but ultimately they're going to be forced maybe far more than they want to. it looks to me so far that the president having a good cop, bad cop routine with the president, he's going to be the good cop saying, yes, i'm going to cooperate and his lawyers will say, yes, but. and then they'll draw all sorts of lines. one issue is of scope and that is, steve bannon thought the ultimate issue was going to be money laundering. >> right. financial. >> the president said, i'm not going down that path. >> he said at times, that's a red line. >> that's a red line. so will they try to force that and will that be a negotiating point of the trump people. if mueller thinks that indeed there is a serious question about money laundering, i would assume that he would say if you're not going to come voluntarily, here's a subpoen

i spoke to david gergen and he was saying that the real question is what kind of message does president trump want to convey? does he want to speak directly to his base back in the united states? or does he want to speak to the internationalist globalist crowd here and the business leaders here and how does he strike that balance? so i think that's what we're really all going to be looking for today. host: can he do both? will he do both? guest: they've played the speech pretty close to the vest for the moment. we're really just going to have to wait and see exactly what he's going to say. but we do have the sense that it may be something of a brief speech. so we'll just have to stay tuned to see exactly what he's going to say. host: how has davos been different than years past? guest: right. well, this is my third davos and i can tell you that there are a number of very high profile people who come here. last year, we had the chinese president who was kind of the star of the show. he came in, of course, right at the same time that president trump was being inaugurated. so there's obvio