laura coates is here, evan perez, ryan lizza as well. we're going to dig into that, all of it, next. so, that goal you've been saving for, you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! ♪ ♪ -whoops -sorry! ♪ ♪ ♪ (music throughout) >>> just hours after republicans lost control of the house, president trump fired attorney general jeff sessions and installed matthew whitaker as acting a.g. whitaker now controls robert mueller's russia investigation after openly criticizing it in the past. and sources tell cnn views whitaker as a loyalist. so is the president moving to control, to derail or end the mueller investigation? i think we all know the answer to that. laura coates, evan perez, and ryan lizza. good evening. we know the answer. thank you. good night, right? so in firing sessions, is the president trying to interfere with the mueller investigation? >> i think that's the big concern, and i think th

joining me laura coats, david axelrod. good evening. it's interesting he's having a meltdown.his morning with mueller, tweeting, and over this white house dysfunction, he's saying it's fake news, right? >> yeah. >> don't you think his oregon twighlighting -- his tweeting confirms -- calling it fake, doesn't it confirm that? >> it's almost as if he's proving the reports about his mood, how sour he's feeling and panicked he's feeling is manifest in those tweets this morning. i think he was distracted by the midterms and the adoring crowds. he forgot about mueller. now that washington is thick with rumors, the possibility of indictments being handed down, against donald trump, jr., who has told friends he might be indicted, he's worried. this moment in time has become real with president trump. he's huddled with his lawyers coming up with written answers. this is present in his life in the way it wasn't a number of weeks. he's in a bad spot. >> i want to move on to the other guests, because it wasn't in our reporting. some of his long time conif i dantzscher are worried about his

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joining me now, frank bruni, laura coates, david axelrod. good evening.certainly is very interesting. he's having a meltdown. he's had a meltdown this morning with mueller, you know, tweeting -- and over this white house dysfunction. he's saying it's fake news. right? >> yeah. >> but don't you think his tweeting confirms exactly what he's thinking and that the reporting, he's calling it fake, but doesn't it confirm that? >> well, it's almost as if he's proving that all the reports about his mood and how sour he's feeling and how panicked he's feeling, all of it was manifest in those tweets this morning. i think he was distracted for a while by the midterms and by the big rallies and the adoring crowds. he kind of forgot about robert mueller for a while. but now washington is thick with rumors about the possibility of indictments being handed down including possibly against donald trump jr. who has told friends he's worried he's about to be indicted. so this right now at this moment in time has become very real again to president trump. he's huddled with h

to do is have someone who is already involved to get the we also have former federal prosecutor laura coatsa, when you hear chris christie say that, do you take that as obstruction? >> i find it odd there's an insinuation he's going to get it done or wrap it up. also, mueller's pace is mueller's pace. it's an appropriate one. it's been 18 months. you've got jury convictions, guilty pleas, evolving documents or grand jury issues, and, of course, the forthcoming report issued to matt whitaker at this time. i think at this time he's placed there knowing it's temporary, it's not confirmed, and to accelerate the pace at which he is informed, not to conclude the delegation. >> gloria, do they have any resources at their disposal? >> chuck schumer later in the senate was saying, look, we're going the try to pass legislation to protect roberts mueller, we're going to try to attach it to must-pass legislation. he hasn't said whether he'd shut down the government over it, but they do want to protect mueller and mueller's integrity. also they'd like to know the answers to a lot of questions, which is,

we have our panel and a former federal prosecutor, laura coates. there's so much to get to. it's supposed to be the day before the holiday, and the news cycle used to slow down, but not now. laura, before we get to the morality of all of this, let's start with prosecuting and going after your political adversaries. legally can a president of the united states go after -- order an investigation and prosecution of political rivals. >> well, not in democracy. the thing is, the president is the head of the executive branch of government, and everybody thinks because the department of justice falls home run his purview, and in reality the executive branch is to evnsure the laws are faithful executed, and not to determine who is prosecuted. the president over the course of the last two years back to the nixon administration, they have certain parameters they must abide by. they can have their appointees to do something, but likely -- largely speaking the notion of the president in a democracy being able to go after political rivals for no other reason but to grind an axe is unheard

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laura coats, harry litman. we're going to dig into it next. ♪ can you feel it there's endless fun with great toys and games for everyone at amazon, with low prices and free shipping on millions of items. for everything you need this holiday, visit amazon. ♪ >>> you knew it wouldn't take long. president trump in buenos aires tweeting about the mueller investigation, quoting alan dershowitz criticizing the investigation and falsely claiming it's what he calls an illegal hoax that should be ended immediately. going on to quote greg jarrett and calling it, wait for it, a witch-hunt. let's discuss now with laura coats and harry litman. good evening. >>> laura, you first. >> good evening. >> the president has been reluctant to condemn russia and it seems we may be learning why. >> well, you're very generous about the word reluctant. it seems like all this time one of the main questions that robert mueller has had and everyone looking at the collusion investigation has been to figure out why would there be a foreign c

laura coates, you've tutored me in this before. we know these questions, this set at least regard actions before president trump became president trump. what do you expect has to be included that creates some exposure for the president? >> well, the number-one thing is that trump tower meeting. that's something that took place before the president was grated, before there was a trump transition team. before the president of the united states became the president of the united states through a campaign election. that's the point in time we see the most exposure for legal jeopardy where you have discussions between donald trump jr. and wikileaks and questions concerning whether roger stone was trying to provide information and what role he played on the campaign and the president's own words saying there was something to come, something expecting for the american people to see as the demise of hillary clinton and there seemed to be a correlation between these things and if you are mueller, you're asking yourself what was the connecti

chris cillizza, ryan lizza, and laura coates. good evening, everyone. here we go.t almost, and we're still counting. i don't know. maybe this is like a slow blue wave. this has been a great wave to surf, right, because it's so slow. you can get up on the board and whatever. ryan, i'm going to start with you. democrats flipped a senate seat tonight with kyrsten sinema's victory in arizona. do these blue waves continue to crash? >> yeah. look, election night, it's not over on election night anymore. i think we got to be careful now. you know, a good lesson for 2020 on election night. be careful in drawing too many firm conclusions because in america, we vote for, you know, not just one day but weeks afterward. >> and not just in this country. there are votes that come in from overseas. >> absolutely. and, look, this is so -- everything has been more and more positive for the democrats over the last week. it looks like they will be closer to 40 seats in the house than 30. i think there are, what, 30, 31 right now, and there's ten more races to be called. so they're go

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laura coates, let's get to this controversy.people actually believe the appointment of whittaker to be the acting-attorney general after sessions was fired was unconstitutional. >> they would be really accurate, because what happened when this person was appointed it upended the line of succession. there's a reason it has to be a senate-confirmed person. there was a line of succession. the chief of staff was never there in the line of succession. you got the notion of how did the president have the authority to do so. normally you don't argue with somebody that can answer the question, you and what haerm, but, mr. president, is it the vacancies reform act you are using? no, that wouldn't qualify. though he was confirmed in iowa, that was years ago. you can't rely on that. number two, is the recess appointment. that is kind of a give and take, too. the president has done this action. i have been talking about it as akin to what if the president of the united states was suddenly incapacitated and they put chief general kelly there

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we have former commission general counsel and laura coates joining us with gloria and pamela as well. when you hear what shimon was reporting and hear about the cooperation now extending beyond trump tower moscow, what is standing out to you? >> the chain reaction that took place after the president of the united states handed in his answers. you had paul manafort established as a liar. >> he is stuck to these. these are under oath. >> they may as well have been written in wet pavement. they will solidify and form the foundation for what he said going forward. they will compare what he said in writing under oath to what goes down now. they waited of course and now they know that paul manafort was a liar and they can say michael cohen was misleading the congress and he is ready to plea. they set this up perfectly on this issue. what stands out to me is the timing of it. the timing of all these things. why would russia feel there was a campaign receptive to try to influence or intimidate or change the outcome of the election? why did they have a safe haven in the president's campaign? y

let me bring back jeffrey toobin and laura coates. laura, the president says a lot of things that aren't true. he spreads falsehoods, he lies, he fibs. every manner of falsehood that is out there, he does it. does it matter if he is not honest with the special counsel? >> yes. he can lie all he would like to people he knows as friends, to the media, even the american public. but if that portion of the american public includes the federal investigators or the special counsel to whom he owes a duty of credibility and to tell the truth, be then you have a much bigger issue here. and remember, the fact that he had that kind of lawyerly statement, the lawyerly caveat and to the best of a recollection is saying, well, i can't really commit perjury that has nefarious intent if i'm only remembering. and you could probably refresh my recollection and let me know. but remember, papadopoulos was somebody who recently was sentenced to prison for two weeks. the idea of even paul manafort. you have to actually convince the prosecution you really don

bring in cnn legal commentator, president of the senate conservative fund, ken ku kuchenelli and laura coatsstipulate for the record, your honor, the president has a right to fire his ag but i think we all know why he fired him because sessions recused himself from the russia investigation. are you worried about the precedent this could set for another president who might be a democrat? >> no, i think there's really been bad blood between the president and his choice for attorney general jeff sessions for a while. >> fair. >> certainly, it has always rubbed the president the wrong way that sessions recused himself and i think sessions' recusal was overbroad but not inappropriate. >> okay. >> he calls now for whitaker to recuse himself are baseless and silly, frankly. the reason. >> the reason i asked. >> the reason sessions recused himself. >> first, answer the question i asked because we'll get to that to and i want your thoughts on whitaker but the question i asked was, are you worried that firing the ag under these circumstances and replacing him with someone who is hostile to an investig

joining us, federal prosecutor, laura coates.ere's a big meeting with the president's lawyers on monday, and there's lawyers working in the special counsel's office on monday and cohen heading down to washington and people saying they are going to be indicted here. feels like a big week in the investigation? >> it's not a big deal. but my eyes are on the meeting. until you have an in-person discussion with somebody, the written answers will not be impactful. they will have a lot of legal ease and ways in which if you were to draw a flowchart how to avoid more legal scrutiny. they are not going to be full of comprehensive answers, and for that reason if you are mueller's team looking at any written answers that are forthcoming is figuring out where do you see gaps and you will target on those areas. the obstruction aspect will be a minor part of a written answer but a lengthy part of a verbal discussion because that's when the intent can be tested. up to this point it's on the paper and will be highly vetted and not impactful. >>

we have a lot to discuss with laura coates, former white house secretary, joe holockhart and sarah marie. look, every day for over a year we have seen saying we don't know what robert mueller is doing and what is going on in the investigation, but now for the first time we know exactly what is going on as it pertains to roger stone and jerome corsi. >> who knows what they would have changed between now and when they actually wanted to release it, but it did not outline the way corsi lies, but shows you the lengths roger stone was trying to go to to get his hands on the documents from wikileaks. he went to this guy, corsi, and he said get to weak and assange and to ted malic, and roger still insists he did not get any information in advance of its release from wikileaks and never saw the podesta e-mails early, and jerome corsi insists he was never actually in touch with wikileaks, and the e-mail traffic shows you how badly roger stone wanted these e-mails and it shows jerome corsi knew wikileaks had dirt and knew when they were going to drop it. >> yes, this seems to fly in the face of th

. >>> former trump white house lawyer james schultz and cnn legal analyst laura coates.'s game out the scenario we were talking about. say robert mueller does want to ask the president questions about why he fired fbi director james comey, say he does want to ask obstruction of justice questions and his attorneys say he shouldn't have to. what argument would the mueller team make that he does? >> besides, yes, you do need to do so, you're not above the law. they would have to argue the notion of explaining why executive privilege does not apply in this context. the president does and has the prerogative to have open and candid conversations with members of his cabinet, people he can rely on for advice. you want to have a candid discussion without the president and cabinet members without having it revealed. you can't assign executive privilege or assert it any time you like. it has to be in the nature of what you're doing, you had to be a member of the executive branch at that point in time. when he was a candidate he was not. at the time of the trump tower meetings he w

. >> laura coates and julie hirsch felled davis. thank you for sticking with us. .sident is about to award the presidential medal of freedom. this is a very neat event that is going to be going on at the white house. there will be seven recipients that include elvis who we hope shows up. that would be amazing. babe ruth and antonin scalia as well as others there to receive the award. we are standing by for that. one election official. actually, let's listen. >> on behalf of the honorable antonin scalia, mrs. maureen ska lay. scalia. [ applause ] >> dr. miriam addleson. mr. roger stall buck. the honorable alan c. page. on behalf of george herman, babe ruth, mr. thomas stevens. [ applause ] on behalf of elvis aaron presley, mr. jack soden. [ applause ] ♪ ♪ ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states and mrs. trump. ♪ >> thank you very much. >> it's a great honor. melania and i are thrilled to welcome you to the white house. as we honor the recipients of our nation's highest civilian honor. the presidential medal of freedom. something very, very special. w

. >> laura coates, matt whitaker had talked in the past about a biblical, i'm trying to get the right phrase, i think a biblical view of justice. what does that actually mean to you? i mean, what does that exactly entail? biblical view of justice. >> i mean it fundamentally means he miscontrues and doesn't adhere to the first amendment and we do actually have a secular for the judicial branch and other branches of government. for him to take that viewpoint actually shows, frankly, there's no other way to describe this as being an asinine and idiotic statement to make. that in addition to the fact to have a biblical view also eliminates a lot of people whose religious viewpoints or the existence or absence of religious viewpoints would not be fit to serve on the bench, which is not how our society is run, and now when we have a separation of church and stalte. i think he's grasping for straws. >> can you explain what it means for the nation's top law enforcement official to disagree with marbury vs. madison, which is actually a pretty big deal? >> yeah, it's a foundational constitution

laura coates, walk us through your analysis of michael cohebb's guilty plea today and what it means forhe overall russia investigation. >> well, the underlying question everyone has had about they could lose probe is essentially why would there be some thought on behalf of russia or a foreign nation if there was some reception or receptivity on behalf of the trump campaign? why would they think for some second they would have a safe haven or inroad in any what i? what this has told you in the actual guilty plea you have a motive, some reason to understand why perhaps the president of the united states has been reluctant to condemn russia hand not willing to speak out in favor of our inintelligence community about the ties and the collusive activities or perhaps the interference and why there may be financial dealings at play. all of these things that we've been talking about and not wanting to provide financial forms or tax returns, all of this hints at to what michael cohen said. he's not the most sympathetic of witnesses. he's pled guilty to six felonies a few months ago. has a credib

laura coates, let me play some of the sound from the president that started all of this -- he has criticized before but he did it again yesterday. here is what he said. >> they file it in what is called the ninth circuit. this was an obama judge. i will tell you what, it is not going to happen like this anymore. everybody that wants to sue the united states, they file their case -- in almost, they file their case in the ninth circuit and it means an automatic loss no matter what you do, no matter how good your case is, and the ninth circuit is really something we have to take a look at because it -- because it is not fair. >> and then the chief justice today with just this amazing response. you just never see this from a chief justice. we do not have obama judges, bush judges or trump judges or clinton judges. we have judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. that independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for. i don't think i have heard a chief justice rebuking someone this way. there's the impression that the president of the united s

joining us, a new voice, cnn legal analyst, laura coates.ood to see you. >> thank you. >> i wanted sto stato start witn this. he has no evidence. the democratic party is vehemently denying this. >> it was a predictable conflict of interest to begin with. someone who was going to be player, coach, and referee of an election would have something like this happen. but it's very transparent to think about using it in this way, when you know you're neck and neck, a point away, and not having the majority to use this tactic. one of the reasons he was using the mischaracterization or the mismatching of one's ballot application to the actual voter maintenance rolls was that he felt that stacey abrams, who was in charge of trying to galvanize voters before she was a candidate and trying to get people to vote, that it was her fault that there were mismatches in the long run. she's to blame why you had to have this purging at the last minute. it's predictable, it's incoherent not to actually have any proof at this point in time. and really, it's just a

shawn lou, laura coates, kirsten powers, rick santorum and in some far off distant land called new york cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin, a creature of new york. laura, the defendant -- there's a lot of stuff that just seems normal now, but when i saw that retweet from the president, the president is defending his own deputy attorney general behind bars. >> you could say it was shocking but it isn't shocking anymore. that's what's so shocking about it, is that he's accusing effectively his own deputy attorney general of treason. and it just seems to me he's accusing bob mueller of being mccarthy and the rage we're seeing now seems to be getting more and more frantic every single day. and i think it's because the walls are kind of closing in on him and maybe manafort's attorney has been telling him things he's not happy to hear because he's been keeping him informed on what's been going on in the mueller negotiations. and giuliani has said they knew it wasn't going well. and so, you know, i think this is a president that is under an awful lot of stress because he seems to be spendi

joining us now is former federal prosecutor laura coates and former nixon white house counsel john dean. carl bernstein. and cnn chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin. jeff, you say this is the president, himself, essentially taking over the mueller case. explain that. >> well, the -- robert mueller is an employee of the department of justice and understood the regulation he is to be supervised as an employee of the department of justice which means it's usually the attorney general unless the attorney general is recused. now because there's a new acting attorney general, he is the supervisor of the mueller investigation. mr. whittaker. look at what he has said about the mueller investigation. it is virtually identical to what donald trump has said about it, that there are no crimes here. it needs to be forestalled. it needs to be ended. and the only question is when or if whittaker decides to shut it down. >> sorry, who do we have? carl bernstein. how do you see this? i mean, this has been talked about now for quite a while, the idea of jeff sessions, you know, the president has been mak

laura coates, just reading some of the quotes from the giuliani "the washington post" article. all relating to activities before donald trump became president. some create more issues for us legally than others. some one necessary and some possible traps. we might consider some as irrelevant. he says the president spent four hours on monday with his attorneys going over the answers, questions and answers, 90 minutes wednesday night. he said there's no firm deadline that mueller has imposed but added that trump's answers, quote, could be tomorrow >> you know, my initial reaction, of course, is that he is alluding that he has the leverage to say which questions are relevant and which are relevant. every single question that was asked has some importance to robert mueller and his team. the time frame for the questions should not be surprising to anyone. the directive of robert mueller is to focus on things during the campaign, before he was the president of the united states. that would make sense to everyone, but the one part that maybe is odd if that includes everything that mue

i want to go to former federal prosecutor, laura coates now. what do you make of this?haps there could be a decision at the hearing. the judge, as brian said, wants to sleep on it. >> a little more nuanced than your average 1st amendment case where the government cannot choose to restrict the free right or the free press a the any way, shape, or form. what you're seeing here, the argument made by cnn, this is clearly content, viewpoint diskrim facdis kr diskrim discrimination. they're asking questions the american people have a right to know and fryi itrying to silenc that's why there was a bizarre withdrawal from the hard pass. one argued by the white house to say, well, this is no different than me deciding who to call on at a press e which interviews to actually give or grant. the nuance of it being a hard pass, erin, i think what the judge is hung up. the hard pass merely facilitates access to the white house grounds and arguing jim acosta can still actually cover the white house. he has 50-plus other colleagues who can do the same. the judge is trying to think to h

coat with you. kari will talk about the forecast in a bit. thanks for starting your morning here with us. i'm marcus washington. >> and i'm laura garcia. let's get straight to that forecast. i'm already putting layers on. >> it's been so cold the past few mornings. i was like, i don't want to turn on the heat in the house, but i had t do i did it. it's fairly cool out there, and then here is a look at the poor visibility that we're seeing from our emeryville camera, looking at the bay bridge. air quality will still be unhealthy today. slight impro east the south bay and still trapped in santa clara valley, so unhealthy air quality there, with a lot of smoke coming through. concord starts out in the upper 30s, then it does warm up fast. we'll be up to 57 by 10:00. we'll look at our microclimates coming up. you told me there was a traffic alert in the north bay. >> the good news is it's not the commute direction, novato down to san francisco. that part of the north bay can be critical as things get st hanging north up toward santa rosa out of rohnert park. chp closed the freeway because of a fire. there's an overturned double big rig tru