. >> stay with me as i bring in ryan lizza, washington correspondent for the "new yorker" into this conversation. what's your reaction into this, as we see what is a show of unity, you heard ryan nobles talking about it, there is a lot to be done. this is very difficult as we look towards the mid-terms in the off-year races. the last eight years, one thing that the obama era will be known for is the democratic party being gutted at the state and local level. loss of, more than a majority of the governorships, the house and the senate. and so in the post-obama era, it is a party that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. there's only so much the dnc can do, right? at the end of the day the party committee itself is a fundraising and organizing vehicle. it can't it doesn't have the power that someone like an obama or a hillary clinton, or you know, whoever that next figure is, to inspire that next generation of grassroots activists. just look down the republican side, brianna, it was donald trump who came along and added the energy and excitement to the republican party that allowed them to whip

ryan lizza and lynn sweet. house speaker right out of the gate saying i'm not going to comment on whether the media overreports or underreports terrorism. right out of the gate the house speaker saying obamacare, we're going to pass legislation some time this year, despite what the president said, maybe next year, and right out of the gate, paul ryan saying maybe the president wasn't criticizing federal judges. >> he's been criticizing the media, federal judges and he gives the answer any politician normally gives. don't attack the judiciary. they are independent. he gave the sort of normal politic response to all of this. look, every republican press conference for the last two years has been the same thing, right? donald trump said this outrageous thing. what do you think? so this is just the way it's going to be. >> i just wonder what you think that does overall to the party. big picture. is it going to be four years of clean up on aisle three as john puts it? >> i like that term. it's also going to be three

i want to start with ryan lizza. e been here before where house speaker paul ryan is asked to justify something that the president has done or not done. today, you know, while he said that the national security adviser should go or should be gone, he did not seem to go that next step to say that there is more information that we need that the republican-led house will pursue in trying to figure out what happened here. >> that's exactly right. i think that was the key news in that he did not commit to any sort of investigation and just to follow up with what poppy said, speaker ryan said that as soon as the white house lost confidence in the national security adviser, that's when -- he said -- he asked for his resignation. the white house says he offered his resignation. that's when the parting of ways happened. as poppy points out, the timeline, that's not quite right. the timeline is on january 12th, david ignatius in "the washington post" first reported that flynn may have spoken to the russian ambassador about sanc

let's bring back our panel, cnn commentators, ryan lizza, alice stewart and mark lamont hill. an what can president trump say at this rally that will reassure america and its allies in your view? >> and its allies? >> yes, and its allies? >> well maybe he'll talk a little bit about how he's closing in on actually having a national security adviser. if you read any of the reports coming out of this conference in munich, an annual conference known as the munich security conference and vice president pence is over there a lot of senior american officials are over there. a lot of senators. the headlines from that conference is really one of the first gatherings where a lot of european leaders and american colleagues are there together. it's alarm, right? it's a fundamentally questioning whether or not the united states wants to play the same role in the world that it has played since the end of world war ii. frankly europe is worrying whether we still have their back. angela merkel, and the foreign minister talked about the new administration seems to want eq disturbing. there's no

i have to leave it there, ryan lizza, julian salazar, lieutenant colonel francona, thanks to all of you. there are fast moving developments on the hill, our reporters are digging. did not feel like a cloud... that driverless car? i have seen it all. intel's driving...the future! traffic lights, street lamps. business runs on the cloud... and the cloud runs on intel. ♪ i wonder what the other 2% runs on...(car horn) won't replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, you won't have to worry about replacing your car because you'll get the full value back including depreciation. and if you have more than one liberty mutual policy, you qualify for a multi-policy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. and her new mobile wedding business.tte at first, getting paid was tough... until she got quickbooks. now she sends invoices, sees when they've been viewed and t

>> ryan lizza? >> well, he's -- his background is in new york real estate.e inherited that from his parents and his other entrepreneurial endeavor was buying a print newspaper that was not a great success, the new york observer. so i don't see anything in his background that would lead me to say that jared kushner is the man to solve the most intractable problem in the world, maybe world history. but having someone with some fresh eyes on a problem is never a bad thing. i think there's a process question of what does this mean for rex tillerson, the secretary of state? what does it mean for whoever ends up being the new national security adviser? just having a senior white house official as your envoy to israel and the person with the responsibility to solve that problem, it's a lot of traffic he's going to run into. if that's the way trump is going to set it up, he better figure out how to have a smooth process running for that. >> and don, one more thought. don't underestimate, benjamin netanyahu is a clever negotiator. we talk about donald trump and the a

i'm glad you pointed that out, ryan lizza. thank you so much to all of you and we are awaiting a moment with the white house correspondents association president, jeff mason. of "reuters," to talk to us about this new development and what it's going to mean for the association and for the dinner and the relationship between president trump and the press corps. >>> plus this ahead -- screaming mad, supporters of congressman keith ellison lash out after former labor secretary tom perez wins the battle narrowly to lead the democratic party. now president trump is weighing in. >>> and town halls gone wild. angry protesters target more republican lawmakers in their home districts. one congressman now saying these events diminish democracy. we're live in the cnn news room. ♪ ♪ i'm back! get to the chopper! ♪ hasta la vista, baby. mobile strike! download and play now. free, from the app store. we can't stay here! why? terrible toilet paper! i'll never get clean! way ahead of you. charmin ultra strong. it cleans better. it's four time

get to jim sciutto, kirsten powers and carl bern stein and ryan lizza. jim break it down. investigation on the links between trump advisers and russian officials is fast moving. catch us up on the latest. >> two big headlines, u.s. intelligence and law enforcement found frequent -- constant it was described to us -- communications between senior-most officials in the trump campaign, during his campaign after his nomination as republican nominee, contacts between campaigns and representatives of foreign governments not unusual but what stood out to u.s. intelligence and law enforcement was the frequency of the communications and also the senior level of the officials involved. closest leaders to donald trump during that time period. of course the context being this is happening while russia is hacking u.s. political organizations in a u.s. presidential election year. all these questions still being investigated by u.s. p intelligence and law enforcement. what happened in the conversations and what was the intent and why did they happen? we don't have answers to those questi

so, ryan lizza, what do you make of this? it almost seemed as if there was no way that donald trump, if he really did want to put the press in this role as being so in opposition to him, it didn't really seem that it would make sense for him to attend this dinner. >> yeah, i was in the room that night and that was one of the most vicious roastings i've ever seen. it was one of the reasons i thought that trump my want to go this year is to return to that dinner and sort of come full circle as the conquering hero of the dinner. look, after the last month of trump's statements about the press defining the media as the enemy of the american people, mocking the first amendment this week at cpac, as you pointed out, brianna, accusing reporters of making of sources with no evidence, i don't think that that dinner was the appropriate forum for the president and the president. there's a moment in that dinner where everyone stands up and toasts the president and my own opinion is, you know, this is not a time to be toasting someone who

we've got the beer ♪ miller beer >>> all right back with me now, jamie gangel, david chalian and ryan lizzash up the russian stuff before we move on to the one state, two state solution. someone sent me a note, can someone just ask the question. president trump did you authorize anyone in your campaign staff to contact the russians about the obama administration sanction, yes or no. >> they've been trying to ask a lot of questions. the one point we have to make in all of this, i think what david said about serving the president to have this come out is all well and good. except the one thing that every republican has said they can't wrap their head around is donald trump, his position on russia. he has never backed down on russia is good and putin is good. it's not as if he feels badly about this or he has a concern. and throughout the republican party, people are mystified by this. >> is this just as simple as he didn't have as much knowledge about russia as people -- as he should have. backed into corner and feels he has to dig in when it comes to russia? >> well you know -- >> that's a l

>> joining us now, senior political reporter and political commentator, ryan lizza.h care could be so complicated. >> he's the only person to ever utter those words. >> everyone knew this was complicated. it's almost he can be forgiven for thinking it was simple, because the approach to health care from the republican's point of view is repeal and replace, it's a bumper sticker, it sounds so easy. he adopted that approach. he said you could repeal and replace it on the same day, swap it out. but the tentacles of health care so embedded in the economy. and obamacare is the system. and we see all the time -- >> he said about terrorism. it's a number, yeah. >> even when he's reading about obamacare, it's almost like he's learning the information for the mi first time. >> i want to play something president trump said back on the campaign trail in october before he became president. let's watch. >> my first day in congreoffice going to ask congress to put a bill on my desk replacing this disastrous law. you're going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the

. >> ryan lizza, you've done a lot of reporting on this.you see these new orders moving forward right now? because as we've been pointing out, there are a lot of nervous people in the united states awaiting a decision. >> i think we have to wait and see how it's enforced. the language of the orders basically gives dhs, you know, wide, wide discretion to do what they want with the 11 million people who are here illegally so that is a big break from the bush administration, from the obama administration, where the policy was to try and come up with a legislative solution to deport the hardest cases, the most hardened criminals who were here illegally, but have some kind of other options for cases that, you know, most people agreed were worthy of having a track for citizenship. this is a big, big policy break. not surprising. exactly what donald trump campaigned on. but i think we have to -- i think, if you are a -- if you are an unauthorized immigrant in this country right now, you have serious concern tonight because of the language of this

. >> ryan, ryan lizza, some have suggested that flynn's context with the russians were directed from president, himself. the white house has denied that accusation. is there any evidence to support that theory? >> none that i've seen yet, but it is the obvious question sort of hanging over the whole chronology here because, wolf, as you -- i think you pointed this out before, in yf you go b to december, the crucial period here that sparked this entire episode on december 29th, the former president, barack obama, publicly made known what the sanctions against russia were going to be for the election hacking. that included the, you know, expulsion of the diplomats and closing of two compounds. as soon as he announced that, the entire russian system put out statements saying that they would respond in kind. the foreign minister, the foreign minister spokesperson, vladimir putin's own spokesperson, the twitter feed of the russian embassy in america, they all said we will respond in kind and laid out very specific steps they would take. well, by the following morning east coast time, afte

joining us, paul begala, jen sake, jeffrey lord, jason miller, gloria borger, ryan lizza joins us, and finally, matt lewis. jason, let's start with you, since you're new on the panel tonight. i mean, why not -- to darrell issa's point about openness and transparency. if the white house has nothing to hide, why not just come forward and say there were these phone calls, this person may have spoke on the this person and say an investigation is fine and dandy? >> first, i have to say this is completely cooked up and there's nothing to this. i was glad to see the chairman say there's no "there there." but between attorney general sessions and chairman nunez and chairman burr will go through their process, and that's part of the oversight committee that we see from congress -- >> but the white house said there's no there there, but they haven't said paul maniafort may have spoken to this person -- >> anderson, there's been these nameless, faceless sources who still haven't come forward and shown any evidence, and even the four names that they threw out there, two of them have said this is r

with us, pam will brown, supreme court correspondent, ryan lizza, washington correspondent for "the newker, dana bash and gloria borger. about ten democrats up for re-election next year in states that donald trump won and they have a delicate balancing act right now. how far do they go in opposing, for example, judge gorsuch. >> chuck schumer, their leader, has a delicate balancing act, as well, to decide the strategy and the question is, does he take the long view and does he say, you know what? we're not going to filibuster this time, endanger the seats because after all the ideological balance in the supreme court is not at stake right now. you're essentially subbing scalia for somebody very much like scalia. and that was part of the brilliance of the choice in a way. and next time if there is a next time when the balance of the court is really at stake, that is when you use the filibuster and that is when you force your democrats there to really go out on the line because he also would like in his dreams to gain back control of the senate so he can't afford to lose any of these peop

power which kls be said for cnn political analyst kirsten power who joins us along with matt lewis, ryan lizza and retired army lieutenant general mark hertling. you know general mcmaster. he's getting a lot of support among political and military figures. how do you see him steering the national security council? >> there is not going to be anyone that speaks ill of h.r. mcmaster, anderson. he's a brilliant guy, fine mind, as barbara just said. his book is a good one. i have it on my personal book shelf. it's one of the better ones. i expect to get some royalties from him for hawking it right now. what i will tell you, he's very good in terms of strategy and policy. he's been working the army futures for the last several years. he's got a good brain and the key thing is, will others in the national security council and national security team listen to some of the things he says, because he will organize it. he will command that organization well. he will pull people together, get the right thing on the ground and make forward advances. but the key thing that he has to do, h.r. is used to lead

you're seeing ryan lizza, who writes for "the new yorker," sources told him, members of the white house inn circle is that conway thought the prohibition against commercial eorsemes was overly broad. their response was, hadn't michelle obama promoted certain fashion designers? the quote is, what if you had worn a tom brady jersey after the super bowl? this is what kellyanne told sean spicer. >> oh, please. if she doesn't understand the difference between wearing something on her person and going on television and literally saying i'm going to do a commercial now for ivanka trump, everybody please buy ivanka trump clothing, she should not be counselor to the president. that's her title, counselor. yet she has to be counseled about this? this goes back to donald trump saying on the "access hollywood" tape saying, when you're a star you can do what you want. she has no record for the most ba basic ethics rules. >> you are a star, i'm assuming you can't do whatever you want. this is a part of the celebrity world, people want you to wear their clothes and promote their brand. but in the cont