we're joined now by our analyst and specialists to break all of this down, rebecca berg, phil mudd, and and ron, you saw this tweet this morning from the president, where he said, wow, fox and friends, dossier is bogus. clinton campaign, dnc-funded dossier, fbi cannot after all of this time verify claims in dossier of russia/trump collusion, fbi tainted and they used this hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the trump campaign. i mean, he's on vacation, but this is clearly what he's thinking about. >> you wonder what people are going to do with their extra 140 characters, right? >> and we know now. can we go back? >> yeah, packing a lot into one tweet there. look, this is, i think, a continuation of what we have seen from the president really from the outset, from his point as a candidacy, where he has shown a determination to try to delegitimize any institution that he thinks can stand up against him or cause him difficulties. whether it was the media, whether it was judge curiel. now in office, it has been the fbi. that has not changed and what has changed that is sign

that is phil mudd and matt lewis of "the daily beast."ith you because we had a conversation on this last night. how do you reconcile republicans' claims today that the fbi is biased against president trump and of course the hillary clinton camp that the fbi was biased against her in the e-mail probe. both of those things can't be true. >> look, no, they probably can't be except i would say two things. one, james comey had promised congress that if he found new information, that he would have to reopen the case. he was sort of bound to do it, it was going to come out eventually. of course it was very public. anthony weiner's laptop had these e-mails on them from huma abedin so that's one explanation. the other one is frankly by the time james comey in october comes forward and reopens the investigation into hillary's campaign, i think we all assumed that donald trump was going lose in a landslide, that hillary clinton was going to win. now, i'm not saying, i don't even frankly believe this to be true, but if you're looking for a conspiracy

actually, phil mudd first. what do you make of the conversation with jim jordan there?> you mean after tylenol? they come and yell at us about what is relatively simple. let me give you some facts. there's 35,000 people in the fbi. dozens or hundreds are involved in an investigation. are you surprised that some of them have views about either hillary clinton or the president of the united states? i'm not. in a politicized america, everybody has views. they should not have shared them on government computers but of course they have views. let's be clear here. a republican-nominated former fbi director robert mueller runs the investigation. that investigation has been certified by a republican deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and the key senator on this, last i checked, is a republican, senator burr. and you want to tell me that this is a biased investigation? there are people who are going to have views on politics. they should have been removed because they talked about it in a government space. they are going to talk about it at home like every single american do

phil mudd, let me start with you.ur reaction to this word that manafort was working, ghost writing an op-ed with ukrainians and a russian who has ties to russian intelligence as recently as last week? >> i mean, you've got to be kidding me. as grandma mudd used to say, that dude ain't dumb, but he is stupid. how can you go into a bail hearing wherp you know the judge and the feds are so suspicious of you that they put incredibly restrictive measures in place so that you can't leave your house, you have to ask permission to go see one of your kids, and you decide the feds are suspicious enough to ask a question about whether you're authorering a document with some contacts with a russian known to u.s. intelligence. what the heck is this guy thinking? the best part about this, wolf, is when he gets in front after a judge and says, old man, unless you want to spend some time in federal prison you better figure out how to pay attention. i think he's in trouble with the judge. i thought i've seen everything. you can't make

phil mudd how big of a threat is a suspect like this? >> if you own the case, it looked like the fbi owned the case, this threat could be ended early on, they're following him, doing surveillance. the problem is that the life of isis is going to live beyond the demise of isis in syria and iraq. you're going to see because of the internet and social media, people for years if not decades, get inspiration. you see in the charging document he's talking to people on social media and getting inspired to do things like this. if you want an example of why federal investigators worry about copy cats it's right after this guy getting a truck license after the west side highway in new york. in this case he may not be brilliant, but he's looking at what happened around the world, including new york, and saying i can do the same thing here in san francisco. >> isis, al qaeda, they recommended all sorts of things, if you can't get a bomb, get a gun, if you can't get a gun, get a knife, just go out and kill the infidels. >> i've seen the media posts g

i'm going to bring in cnn's phil mudd to talk about had. i want to start with the sanctions, phil, against russia. when you think about the timeline here, it's pretty interesting that it's taken so long for the trump administration to act because these sanctions were passed overwhelmingly, bipartisan passage in congress in august. there was a deadline in october to deal with some of the i guess you could say administrative things, sort of like just a clear step on the way to getting these under way. the administration missed that deadline. they were almost a month late on it. and now they have -- it seems like they're taking up all the time allotted until the end of january to get these things in place and you see putin taking steps to get around them. >> let's set the context here. it's not just about sanctions. it's not just about u.s. congressional action or presidential election. let's step back. we've had obviously russian intervention into crimea, into eastern europe. we've had russian intervention into syria two years ago. we had russ

let's bring in our cnn counterterrorism analyst, phil mudd. he's a former cia counterterrorism official. so, phil, walk us through the interrogation. the suspect is alive. he was badly injured in his own crude suicide device. but walk us through the interrogation, what they expect to be getting. >> look, we heard jason say, many people believe this was an isolated attack. a belief is not a fact. there's a couple of things you have to do first. first, you have to figure out the credibility of the guy you're talking to. and before you talk about motivation, isis, number one, imminent threat. did you plan any other attacks? did you make any torre boother plant any other bombs? then who else was involved? my guess is no one else was involved. a guess is not a fact. did anybody know about this? did anybody help you prepare this operation? did anybody help you build this device? so proving that no one else is involved and no other event is imminent takes a while, wolf. that's what they're doing now. >> because he's apparently already pledged allegian

and phil mudd, let me start with you.ed that this decision by the president if he announces it tomorrow as earthquake expected will trigger some violence against the united states? >> of course. whether or not you like the decision, you have to be worried about it. let's look at a factor. number one, if you look at recent polling data according to last year, 80%-plus of the arab world see the united states, not russia, not china, but the united states as a threat to their countries in the range of 80%-plus in the range of arab residents in those countries. what do you think they're going to say when they see the united states make this move? they're going to say the united states pretends to be an arbitrator between the israelis and the palestinians. this proves they cannot be an arbitrator. one final thought, wolf. i'm really worried about visuals. for example, going back to the detention scandal in iraq when people really focused on that, they remember the visuals of the prisons in abu ghraib prison. i'm worried about c

which brings us to a conversation with former fbi and cia official, phil mudd and matt lewis.daily beast. matt how do you reconcile republican claim that's the fbi is bias against president trump and hillary clinton camp that probe was bias against her both can't be true. >> no they can't. one, james comey had to reopen the case. he was bound to do it. he was going to come out eventually and it was very public. antho anthony weiner's laptop was one thing by the time the investigation came forward, we assumed hillary clinton was going to win. i'm not saying it to be true but if you're looking for a conspiracy theory you would easily say of course james comey opened that investigation, he never thought looking into hi hillary was going to hurt her. everybody thought she was going to win. >> that doesn't answer the fundamentally charge from the president, he's alleging the entire bureau's leadership is bias and some going further to deep state conspiracy extended to intelligence agencies not about one person or one day or one step in the investigation, they're making a much broad

. >> phil mudd, you are nodding your head. >> absolutely. let's look at the timeline here. the first line out of the document talks about conversations going back, we know, to december 29th then flynn lying to federal officers in january. last i checked, we're now on december 1st. which is when we get the guilty plea. what do you think the mueller people and before him, the comey people, were doing in the interim? they're collecting information, including financial irregularities about what michael flynn was doing. what happened in the past month or two? i suspect those amounted as susan was suggesting to significant charges. they went in and said, either these are going to get laid on you, or you better lay yourself something on the table that's huge. and i'll tell you one more thing, i don't think it's been a week or two since flynn was cooperating. i think it's been a while? >> really? >> when the feds went in to talk to jared kushner, whatever it was a week or two ago, i suspect they already knew the answers to every question they asked him. they wanted to see whether h

phil mudd joins nous. cnn national security julia kiam.rt ray, a former white water counsel and former federal prosecutor. good evening to all you. julia, you predicted a lot of what has taken place, and you predicted that something big from mueller, you said around thanksgiving. and here we are. so what does this tell us about the investigation? >> so despite what i think trump supporters will tell you, it's really remarkable what mueller has done in six months. he's gotten two indictments against senior members of the trump team, including his former campaign manager manafort, a lower level plea arrangement with a campaign adviser, and today, the national security adviser. let's say those words again, the national security adviser for donald trump has pled guilty for a very, very minor offense, right? so that's where this now leads, is that why would he plead guilty to relatively minor offense and why would mueller accept that? that's because you and i and phil and robert and everyone will be here for the next couple of months determinin

cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd joins us.go to the policy, james. the first suicide bomber attempt in new york city since, of course, 9/11. >> we know that there have been three of these attacks, chris, in the last couple of months. you and i have been at the location where these happened, one down at the west side highway and in 2016 in september there was an attempted bombing as well in chelsea. what does this tell us? new york city is a city of 8.4 million people. on an average commuting day you could have 600,000 to 1 million extra net folks inside the city, and 6 million people take the subway every day. this was the perfect soft target. what it tells me tactically is the huge mistake was made here or the device was prematurely detonateded. >> they have a great picture of the guy after it went off. people say don't call it great. i don't have a whole lot of sympathy for this guy getting hurt by his own bomb. there you see him with burn marks on him. >> it was a five-inch metal pipe bomb that he fashioned at an electronic

we have chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin and phil mudd.od rosenstein was trying to give a logical answer to, yes, we understand agents can have political opinions. and we hope that they are responsible and don't let that color the investigation of their work. if so, we reassign them or take some political action. obviously fbi agents are human. they have opinions. how can they make sure it doesn't ruin an investigation? >> a couple things you're looking at. if you think of the inspector general, remember the inspector general is looking at these. these are tphpld individuals, inspectors general, who do not report to the fbi director. whenever they investigate whether there's wrongdoing on the team, they can do that. i can tell you they are a hammer for anybody in this viewing audience who has ever seen flashing red lights behind them when you get a speeding ticket, it is that feeling of dread. they don't look without coming up with something typically. they are really rough to deal with. you can expect not only that they are looking at thi

phil mudd, let me talk to you about what we just heard from adam schiff.e lays out his fears that potentially deep concern that president trump might actually fire the special counsel robert mueller or republicans are aggressively trying now to shut down the entire russia investigation. do you believe those fears are justified? >> let's separate this out. should he be saying things like that? sure. he's concerned about the action of the president. is that likely? if the president chooses to go down that path, we're not talking about the special counse counsel, we're also talking about the attorney general who's recused himself in this case and if we want to shut down this investigation, we can't now because the president has just shown the american people that we can't trust what's going on at the department of justice. it also includes the fbi director. that's a trump appointee who would have to say what's going to happen with the investigation now that mueller is gone. i think there's a chance maybe that the president does this but the law of unintended

joining us, former fbi, cni former official, phil mudd. former senior justice department official, kerry cordero. matt lewis of the "daily beast" with us font. cnn political analyst and legendary investigative reporter carl bernstein. carl, for one, it seems the president here is trying to conflate the entire russia investigation with the dossier, of course, as evan said, it goes far beyond that. he's also trying, it seems to me, to color any individual or agency that has criticized or investigated him as not to be believed. >> everybody else is the issue here, not donald trump and his actions or those around him. the key word in all of this that he keeps using is "tainted." there's only one sioinstitution that has been tainted through these months and that is the trump presidency. it's tainted by the president ee's lies, disrespect for american institutions operating under the law with traditional american democracy thereof. he's contemptuous of those instruments. what we're seeing in those constant attacks which are undermining, indeed,

. >> and that's a good point, phil mudd, because in the document, the document calls china and russiat power who's want to shape a world antithetical to u.s. values and interests. it's a very tough document, very detailed documents. you heard all about the russian interference in the u.s. presidential election. but it's, as i said, a marked contrast to what we hear from the president on a day to day basis when he refers to the russia involvement as a hoax. >> i think there are a couple of things to take note of here, wolf. you hit on one. the gap between the president and what he says including what he said about the strategy today and how policy is executed in the u.s. government has never been broader in my view. for example, the president talks very aggressively about north korea and the state department rex tillerson got sideways with the president a short while ago when he was talking about face-to-face talks with the north koreans. the president has talked very tough about iran, but it's not clear the state department and others are opposed to having some continuation of a nucle

. >> phil mudd, i want your thoughts on what's happening up at the united nations tomorrow. u.n. general assembly is going to have a big meeting and there's a resolution to condemn the united states' for the president's decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital, to move the u.s. embassy to jerusalem from tel aviv. listen to how the president react in advance of that >> for all of these nations that take our money then vote against us at the security county u sell, vote against us potentially at the assembly, they take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars then vote against us. let them vote against us. we'll save a lot. we don't care. >> what do you make of the tone, the substance of that warning by the president? >> we don't care. are you kidding me? why do we give people money, wolf? is it because they vote for us in a resolution in the unit ued nations that relates to israel and jerusalem? if a child is dying because of can disease, because he didn't have food. if there's a place that's divided by civil war and the american people can send

mudd. great to have you here. every day there are new attacks on the fbi. and other law enforcement. phils charge of attacking the fbi for a while. now right wing politicians are jumping on board. the latest comes from francis rooney of florida. he goes even further. listen to what he said. >> i'm very concerned that the doj and the fbi, deep state or what, are kind of off the rails. i don't want to discredit them. i want to see the directors of the agency purge it. look, we have a lot of great lawyers here. those are the people i want the american people to see and the good work being done not the people of the deep state. >> phil, is the fbi the deep state, whatever that means? >> absolutely. this is a coup that will talk over the president within the next 24 hours. >> breaking news. thanks for that. >> let be be clear. there's 30,000, 35,000 fbi employees working on on gangs and violent crime to white collar fraud. most of them, as i would be, are looking at the seventh floor. the president is taking aim at a handful of top officials. congress is taking aim because this is a political

joining us now is phillip mudd, cnn counterterrorism analyst and former cnn counterterrorism official in fbi and joe jacques jacqueslong. so philre friends with andrew mccabe. can you peel back the curtain and help us understand what's happening at the fbi when they wake up every day to the president poisoning the well at the fbi. >> when you go to the fbi, the first thing you do in the morning is sit around and laook at threat information. behind closed doors, despite the fact that the fbi director has been appropriately quiet in public, i can tell you that the fbi officials will be going to andy, whom i knew when i was at the bureau saying, look, brother, you know, it's okay, we're with you, we'll stick with you, we're staying low because we don't want to engage in a fact with the president. when you fight in the mud, you get dirty. there's got to be a ton of support for andy mccabe, regardless of whether people think the russia case is a good case or a bad case. he's got decades of service. you support somebody like that through thick and thin. >> joe, let me ask about this tweet that came from the ethics czar of the bush wh