sarah sanders expected to step up to the lectern you see on the left screen right now at any moment. the president has gone out to robert mueller this morning just hours after the special counsel said former trump campaign chairman paul manafort broke his plea deal by repeatedly lying to prosecutors. the president tweeted this... sarah sanders, again, expected to take questions on the administration's response to the crisis on the southern border with mexico. as you know, border agents fired tear gas on rock throwing migrants who rushed on major u.s. crossing from mexico over the weekend. we should note, this will be the very first briefing since october 29th. the first since the white house implement the new guidelines for reporters. things could get very interesting very quickly, as they always do and our man navigating it in the room, chief white house correspondent john roberts joins us live from the white house press room, great to see you. >> first briefing in almost a month, clearly there's a lot for the press to talk with sarah sanders about, it's a full house, standing room

to hear sarah sanders say from the podium, as you noted, this is the u.s. government, federal agencies over which the president has oversight over these agencies. it is his government that has issued this report that the president and his spokesperson now are trying to dismantle. it's their government that put out the report the day after thanksgiving of course to try to bury it because, as you know, this does not fit their political narrative in any way whatsoever. to gloria's point, everything is viewed through the political lens right now inside the white house, and the president clearly understands that this an issue that he does not want to deviate from where his base of support is and giving into this kind of scientific report sort of deviates from the base talking points on climate that the president has been putting out there. >> reporter: can i just add something to that, brooke, which is i believe it was last night that the president was talking about the deep state and how his administration is effectively trying to winnow out the deep state and

sarah sanders:"they are making a car that frankly people don't want to buy." (ken) (ken) that was jim acosta reporting. (pam) we are learning more about the deadly shooting at the borderline bar and grill nearly three weeks ago in california. a gunman opened fire during 'college line- dancing night' in the thousand oaks club. police say, the shooter opened fire and tossed several smoke grenades into the bar... to create confusion. he then sat and waited to ambush law enforcment officers who responded to the shooting. the ventura county medical examiner spoke today.. about the victims' fatal injuries. <"all of the victims died rapidly as a result of one or more gunshot wounds. the victims sustained injuries to vital areas. many of the gunshot wounds were from close proximity, and there was no chance of survival."> the gunman killed 12 people, including a law enforcement officer, before turning the gun on himself. one victim was also stabbed. the motive still remains unclear. (ken) mysterious explosions...neighbors in north phoenix say that ever since october...

sarah sanders, president putin and trump were supposed to talk.lled off the meeting because he said of ukrainian -- the incident that happened in the black sea. russian aggression against ukraine. this morning, russia came out and blasted back and said we think the reason for the cancellation is not ukraine. we think it's because of the michael cohen story. the domestic issues that the president faces back home. sarah sanders is telling us the russian witch hunt hoax in her words are nearing an end. she says it probably does undermine our relationship with russia. she adds the meeting is ukraine. hopefully that will be resolved soon so productive conversations can begin. this is an acknowledge froment the white house. we take a look at some of these live images coming from. >> do you know why this statement was put out because there's really nothing in here. it doesn't seem like any reason to put out this statement. was it in a response to a question? do you know? >> reporter: we asked about it and i'm sure other outlets did. a spokesman came out

sarah sanders issued a statement saying the russian witch hunt hoax which is hopefully is nearing an end is doing very well. it does undermine our relationship with russia. the meeting for the cancelled meeting is ukraine. hopefully that will be resolved soon so the productive

>> let me read the statement sarah sanders released, quote, today k the court made clear there is no absolute first amendment right to access the white house. in response to the court, we will temporarily reinstate the report reporter's hard pass and further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future.

dhs secretary nielsen run out of a restaurant, sarah sanders with her kids run out of not one but twoestaurants.he so, too, senator ted cruz with his wife, pam bondi accosted at a movie theater, majority leader mitch mcconnell, a guy banging on his desk, followed him through airports, transportation secretary elaine chao, his wife, with him. and accosted on a number of occasions, kevin mccarthy, his office vandalized.os two republican politicians punched in minnesota. one victim, a serious concussion. the other, a woman. and we had, just before the election, packages, white powder, mailed to the president, his son, don jr., his wife, mattis, wray, fox news has also been a target of the mob. we just saw brian kilmeade,a well, he was stalked through the streets of new york city, harassed, followed in a subway, calledf out in a subway. i have had more threats in my personal life than you can ever imagine. i don't talk about it often. last night, our friend, tucker carlson, targeted at his own home in washington, d.c.d, angry group,p, far left extremis surrounding his house, his wife, hom

sarah sanders was there, among others, answering questions. >> reporter: yes, wolf, i was at the first briefing in a month. white house officials tried to carefully ask questions. sarah sanders appeared to indicate there weren't talks inside the white house on pardoning former chairman paul manafort, but the white house didn't exactly encourage manafort to cooperate with the special counsel's investigation, just as he has been accused of lying to the investigation. handle with care. >> that seems to be the white house approach from dealing with the allegation from the special counsel's office that former chairman paul manafort violated his plea deal by lying to investigators. >> good afternoon. >> reporter: at the white house briefing, there was no talk of pardons. >> i know we are not in any one's conversations regarding pardon. >> reporter: no real push to urge manafort to cooperate with special counsel robert mueller. >> would the president recommend that mr. manafort offer full cooperation to the special counsel's office? >> we can only speak to what our role is in that process and

sarah sanders kept responding noclusion. she appeared to be making a point of defending only the president this time and not his campaign. >> that's right. i think that sound byte you just played demonstrates that pretty well. when she was asked whether or not they are still sticking with the story that there are no campaign officials involved in collusion with the russians, she said we are confident in the white house's assertion that the president was not involved in any wrong doing or collusion. that seems to leave some space, some room for what may be coming. that is possible new indictments of the mueller investigation and that full report which may lay out exactly what happened. my sense of it all day long during that briefing was that sarah sanders was being very careful, perhaps more careful than i have seen her before in answering the questions. >> sarah sanders says they are ready for the mueller investigation to wrap up. she didn't say whether the president would encourage paul manafort to cooperate. >> she avoide

the way you treat sarah huckabee sanders is horrible.ther people is horrible. you shouldn't treat people that way. trish: unbelievable. i am not talking about the president's response. i'm talking about the cnn chief white house course yenlt. flipcourse -- correspondent. there is such a thing as time and place. but apparently this reporter doesn't understand or perhaps he understands, he just doesn't care about any of that. if you consider how that reporter started the interview, it was clear, his biases were on full display. but let's put that aside. we all know where cnn is coming from. my problem is what transpired when the president tried to wrap them up so another journalist could get in a question or two. this reporter wouldn't give up his microphone. he wouldn't stop. when a young woman, a white house intern tried to remove it to his hand so they could move on to the next question, he sort of seemed to be wrestling with her. wrestling her for the microphone. i get it, jim acosta that you are bigger than stronger than her. not that

white house press secretary sarah sanders insists the federal government's climate change study produced by more than 300 scientists and experts is not based in fact. >> it's not data driven. we'd like to see something that is more data driven, that's based on modeling which is treatmently hard to do -- extremely hard to do when talking about the climate. our focus is making sure we have the safest, cleanest air and water. the president's going to do salt lake exactly that. >> -- do exactly that. >> when asked about the wildfires in california, the president claimed the problems could be solved by raking the floors of the forest. the president blaming drops in the stock market and plant closings at general motors on the federal reserve. mr. trump says he is not even a little bit happy with jerome powell. he tells the "washington post," quote, so i'm doing deals and i'm not being accommodated by the fed. i'm not happy with the fed. they're making a mistake because i have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me. >>> a check on cnn business now.

sarah sanders claims cnn is grandstanding by suing. administration is going to vigorously defend itself. the white house cannot run an orderly and fair press conference when a reporter acts this way. if there is no check on this type of behavior, it impedes the b ability of the president, the white house to conduct business. no doubt there were outlets or reporters that you and the president didn't like. but you didn't take their passes away, did you? their press pass? >> well, it wasn't even about who you liked and who you didn't like. there are plenty of people who -- on a personal level you may have a good relationship with, when they were in the briefing room, they were very tough. jake tapper from cnn is one of those reporters. he was tough every single time he was in a press conference with president obama. john carl from abc, savannah guthrie, april ryan. a lot of reporters came in there and were tough with the president, with robert gibbs who was my boss at the time. or me when i was at the podium. that's part of the job. you c

yeah he has remained quiet although the white house press secretary sarah sanders they just walked past her office she still at her desk working away and sent out a press statement to the press corps here at the white house cicely updating us on the president's activities not only is he still watching for these returns as they still continue to trickle in moving towards the west coast but he has been making telephone calls we know that he's called mitch mcconnell the republican leader in the senate to congratulate him he spoke with the outgoing house speaker paul ryan as well as congratulating now palosi who of course is piers is poised to become the next speaker of the house a position she has held before and we also know that in the discussions he called chuck schumer who is the minority leader in the senate and they the white house says that the president continuing to make phone calls he's been sort of working the phones making a series of cream graduate or recalls to those that have one tough senate races governorship successor a as still the president remains up but is still very

joining us now is sarah sanders.he statements that came out of the white house today was a statement from you that indicated that there were rules being developed and a protocol being developed. when will we expect to see what that looks like? >> well, i think the biggest thing to take away is -- and the place that we focused on is exactly what the president said. we support a free press, but freedom of the press doesn't mean freedom to be disruptive, rude, intercept, and impede the ability of the colleagues from actually being able to do their jobs, as well as white house staff being able to do theirs. we've laid out in a letter to cnn and their team what we think were some of the missteps that their reporter made at the press conference on november 7th in a letter that we sent them tonight. and we expect to see a response from that. the judge i think was actually very clear that the white house has the ability to say, you can't come in. you don't have -- freedom of the press doesn't mean freedom into the white hous

in an explanation, press secretary sarah sanders lied and cited an incident that never happened." kabee sanders tweeted this video. there is some slowing down and zooming in and in this video. people have been quick to point out this version seems to have been subtly edited to make the situation look worse. that's not verified, and lots of video specialists are saying the proof is not at all conclusive. matt dornic from cnn. "absolutely shameful, @presssec. you released a doctored video — actual fake news. history will not be kind to you." we can be sure of is that sarah sanders shared a version of the video that had been posted by an editor of infowars, that's a media operation that focuses on conspiracy theories. it says it didn't doctor the footage, and it is hard to see clear proof that it did. in the past, though, it's claimed 9/11 was staged by the us government, and that the sandy hook school massacre was a hoax. so truth is not top of its agenda. people are saying that both president trump and cnn... this is a war that has gone on to this presidency, and in a way, a war tha

also, sarah sanders, the press secretary, is saying that the fact that the president hasn't directed the firing of robert mueller shows that he doesn't want to short circuit this session. it's just clear he likes to air his grievances and frustration on a regular basis over twitter. jake? >> except for firing the fbi director. anyway, pamela brown, thank you so much. appreciate it. kaitlan collins, let me start with you on our expert panel. take a listen to white house press secretary sarah sanders about the president's concerns or lack thereof about the mueller report. >> i don't think the president has any concerns about the report because he knows that there was no wrongdoing by him and that there was no collusion. so i don't think he has concern on that front. >> no reports about the report, of course, but this morning, the president tweeted among other matters, "wait until it comes out how horribly and viciously they're treating people, ruining lives for them, refusing to lie, mueller is a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue. the fake news media builds robert mueller up as a saint,

interestingly tonight we saw ivanka trump, we saw the white house press secretary, sarah sanders, and the white house counselor, kellyanne conway, take the stage to talk to this crowd here. anderson when, sarah sanders came out, i was looking around and looking for our friend april ryan and some of our other colleagues in the white house press corps because it was so interesting to see sarah sanders at a rally like this. they seem to acknowledge the fact that they may be getting very dloclose to violating the hatch act because they said they were here on their own personal accord. >> the stakes couldn't be higher tonight. we have just the right folks, david chalian, gloria borger, rick santorum and david urban. we also have john king at the wall. i do want to start with him. john, let's just talk about late polls and what they show about voter preference, how much does the president factor into that? >> the president factors in big and the late numbers show us the democrats will have no excuses come wednesday morning if they don't retake the house of representatives. this is the map.

a lot to discuss, especially what that statement meant from sarah sanders. me, samantha vinograd. former security adviser to president obama. also, max boot, the author of the corrosion of conservatism, why i left the right. sam, what do you make of the statement, put aside the befuddling first sentence about the russia investigation doing well, what does -- what is she saying in the statement? >> well, it's very clear she's echoing russian talking points. we heard the russians blaming u.s. politics for the reason president trump has canceled the meeting. she's probably not wrong, though, right? it's very clear that the president didn't cancel this meeting because of ukraine. he summited with vladimir putin several months ago in helsinki when vladimir putin was actively attacking our sovereignty. so attacking u.s. sovereignty wasn't a red line for canceling a meeting and the president has a consistency problem if he's now claiming russia's violation of the territorial integrity is why he's not meeting putin. plus, he to date has pursued a strategy that love

we will see how much time we have with sarah sanders. they end quickly and in recent weeks as you noticed, they put in place ground rules for reporters in terms of what they can ask of the press secretary. we noticed that the president hasn't been abiding by the rules, but we will see if there is a different rule book for the press secretary than the president. >> what are the rules, jim? >> we were told that you could ask a question and if the press secretary or the president deems it appropriate, you could ask a follow-up question. that was part of the rule book put out by the white house immediately after that put that out. we saw the president taking multiple questions and multiple follow-ups from reporters. we haven't seen sarah sanders take a lot of questions from reporters outside of her appearances on conservative media outlets. it will be interesting to see how he handles that rule book that she put in place. hopefully in a few moments. we believe we are going to hear from the national security adviser, john bolton. he may be ta

sarah sanders claims cnn is grandstanding by suing. the administration is going to vigorously defend itself. the white house cannot run an orderly and fair press conference when a reporter acts this way. if there is no check on this type of behavior, it impedes the ability of the president, the white house to conduct business. you were the press secretary. no doubt there were outlets or reporters that you and the president didn't like. but you didn't take their passes away, did you? their press pass? >> well, it wasn't even about who you liked and who you didn't like. there are plenty of people who -- on a personal level you may have a good relationship with, when they were in the briefing room, they were very tough. jake tapper from cnn is one of those reporters. he was tough every single time he was in a press conference with president obama. john carl from abc, savannah guthrie, april ryan. a lot of reporters came in there and were tough with the president, with robert gibbs who was my boss at the time. or me when i was at the podiu

and that's the purpose of his comments. >> sarah sanders could offer no evidence of widespread illegalgations date further back for the president. here he is tweeting about it after taking office. "in addition to winning the electoral college in the landslide, i won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." there's no evidence of that. back then like now he offered no evidence. the voter commission he set up a short time later in part to validate his groundless claim was disbanded after a year without finding evidence of the voter fraud the president was alleging back then and still is today despite the advice he got nearly two years ago from a leading republican. >> so i would urge the president to knock this off. this is the greatest democracy on earth. you're the leader of the free world. and people are going to start doubting you as a person if you keep making accusations against our electoral system without justification. >> that was the january 2017 version of lindsey graham. back now, jen psaki, ken cuccinelli, abby phillip, and maggie haberman.

up next, sarah sanders is going to join us for a live one-on-one interview with me. to be fun. this special edition of "hannity" continues in a moment. ♪ to spellbinders, pathfinders, to grand plan designers. to historians, victorians, and all the targaryens. to gastronomers, astronomers, and new cinematographers. to wizards, to witches, to those who cross stitches. if you're a dreamer, big thinker, or discovery seeker. through these doors, more wonder awaits. nobody knows books like we do. barnes & noble. ♪ >> a federal judge who you appointed has just ruled that you must give cnn reporter john acosta his press pass back. your reaction to the ruling? >> it's fine. it's not a big deal. what they said, though, is that we have to create rules and regulations for conduct, et we're doing that. we're going to write it up right now. it is not a big deal. if he misbehaves, we'll throw him out or stop the news conference.. nobody believes in the first amendment more than i do. if i think somebody's acting out of sorts, i will leave. i'll say, thank you very much, everybody.

. >> alcouindor: white press secretary sarah sanders said acosta was being punished for "placiisngands a white house intern. she later tweeted out an edited video of the exchange. u.s. districjudge timothy friday afternoon, acta returned to the white house and reacted to the ruling. >> that's my cue to go back to work. >> alcindor: in an interview with fox news today, mr. trump said the white house is now uplanning to cowith new rules for press conferences. >> nobody believes in the first amendment i think somebody is acting out of sorts, i will leave. i will say, "thank you ery muceverybody, i appreciate you coming," and i'll leave. and those reporters will not be too friendly to whoever it is that's acting up. >> alcindor: the president has often sparred with a number of reporters-- including myself. on the campaign trail, you called yourself a nationalist. some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists. now people are also saying-- >> i don't know w that.d say that's such a racist question. >> do you want him to rein in robert mueller? >> what a stupid question that is. at a

sarah sanders, of c put it most bluntly-- she is, of course, e white house press secretary. she said g.m. is simply making cars pet le don't w buy. so she is criticizing g.m.'s business model. >> woodruff: different subject, yamiche. there has been a lot of speculation about whether the president would pardon his former campaign manager, paul manafort, whis very much in the news today. what is the white house saying about that? ingthe white house is say that president trump has not spoken to anyone at the white house about pardoning his fomir campaign chairman, paul manafort. but the president has been going after bob mueller and the russia investigation pretty tough. he tweeted today that robert mueller was "a rogue prosecutor," and that he was doing tremendous damage to the criminal justice system. but sarah sanders said because president trump has notred robert mueller yet, and because he has not stopped the russia dvestigation, that we sho all look at that, reporters and the public included, and asce evidhat president trump is going to continue to let robert mueller do h

initially, of course, sarah sanders tweeted the night jim acosta's hard pass was revoked, she tweetedt was in large part because jim acosta had placed an arm on the intern that was trying to take that microphone away from him. so the judge delved into that, asked why where these shifting explanations from the white house and who exactly made the decision to revoke the hard pass, because it did seem to come perhaps directly from the president. so quite a lively two-hour hearing. no decision just yet, but cnn's attorneys did talk just after the hearing. here is what he had to say. >> we're waiting for that sound. unfortunately, we don't have it, jessica. but let me get the -- what did the white house attorneys, the federal attorneys, the justice department attorneys say when the judge asked them who made the decision to suspend jim acosta's pass? >> reporter: they said that there was nothing particularly in the record, but they said that all signs pointed directly to the president. they said that in sarah sanders' tweets and in that subsequent discussion, that press availability with pr

sarah sanders's job is to take questions for the american people.n what gets lot of and why people don't like washington. the president has given her a long list to prepare for. >> i wouldn't even know where to start in that briefing room. there are so many questions. that's one and the president said in a quick gaggle before he got on the helicopter that the kids weren't tear gassed at the border. >> let's listen to this. he was asking the question. >> we didn't. we don't use that. the tear gas is a very minor form of the tear gas itself. it's very safe. the ones that were suffering were the people putting it out there. it's very safe. you say why is a parent running up in through an area where they know that tear gas is going to be form and they are running up with a child? >> that's from the president. i want to share reporting from our own layla santiago on the scene. >>> are she said she was holding her child like her child had fainted from the gas. >> you see children. if they thought they needed to use tear gas, it is unfortunate that there a

now some people have looked at the clip and agreed with sarah huckabee sanders and attacked acosta for being what they sow allege was essentially disrespectful to the president others however have looked at the clip and said this was simply a unfortunately position arm this was not in a ten intended assault and said that actually it's sarah huckabee sanders who should resign if she's violating the freedom of the press and free speech rights of this reporter let's review the m.s.m. mainstream media reaction it just is it crosses a line you don't put your hands i don't want him a cost to sort of wrestling this young white house intern jim acosta clearly never touched that white house and so that's just a lie and what i saw was a battery not by jim acosta but by that young white house aide if you can use a fake video use a fake video if you go all the way do something like this. so what do you see in the video clip if you look at that clip do you see an inappropriate touching or an assault or do you see simply an arm it's in the wrong place and some confusion about the microphone that dep

sarah sanders on the media's outright despicable, horrific, unprecedentedly low coverage leaving leading midterms. and anra important announcement, it's pretty important. t we'll tell you about that coming up later in the show. ♪ mat and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they took care of everything a to z. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that's a privilege. >> sean: so this week we saw the hate trump destroy trump mainstream media blatantly rooting for the democrats to win in four days. in case you missed it, here are some of the examples. >> you want a slight check on this man, and his unrelenting race to the finish here to make sure he can continue destroying the country. you might want to vote all d.in >> instead of standing up to this kind of hatemongering by president trump, republicans are imitating it. >> i know i haven't stopped praying since you were elected. dear god, when will this end? >> sean: joining us now with reaction, white house press secretary, the hardest job in the entire universe, sarah sanders is wi

sarah sanders saying, the judge said there's no absolute right to the first amendment. first of all, he didn't say anything about it. he didn't rule on it. and he said cnn is likely to win about. and their lawyers -- actually our lawyers because we pay their salaries at the doj. they were arguing that, you know, the president does have a right to do this, which is offensive and expensive. but they wouldn't defend that infowars tape, and the judge even said -- i mean i laughed because it's so absurd. that her suggestion about what the reporter did was likely untrue. >> yeah. >> and based on questionable proof. >> yeah. >> they used infowars. i mean come on. >> listen, in normal times and previous administrations, you know how this would have been solved? you get call today the principal's office, right? say, chris, you had an interview or whatever. they thought you were acting up at at press conference. they'd say, hey, chris, can you take it down a notch? i know that this president is- whatever, he's under a lot of pressure. we love having you there, but can we just agr

listen to what sarah sanders said today. >> it's not based on facts.t's based on -- it's not data-driven. we'd like to see something that is more data-driven, that's based on modeling, which is extremely hard to do when you're talking about the climate. >> this president and his white house, they think that they can just dismiss the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that climate change is caused by human activity, and their assault on the facts continues. this is the national security adviser john bolton's answer. you have to listen to this if you didn't see it live today. his question on whether he has even listened to the tape that captured part of the murder of "washington post" journalist jamal khashoggi. >> no, i haven't listened to it, and i guess i should ask you why do you think i should? what do you think i'll learn from it? >> well, you're the national security adviser. you might have access to that sort of intelligence. >> how many in this room speak arabic? yeah. >> you don't have access to an interpreter? >> well, you want

pretty clear denial there and it was after sarah sanders also said point-blank from the white house the president didn't know. >> there was no knowledge of any payments from the president, and he's denied all of these allegations. >> and for the next couple of months sandra has kept up the same line about the payments right up until rudy giuliani admitted he reimbursed the payments for stormy daniels. >> specifically can i ask, did the president approve of the payments made in october by his long time lawyer and advisor hi michael cohen? >> look, the president has addressed these directly and made it clear none of these allegations are true. i've addressed this as far as i can go. >> did he know about the payment at the time? >> not that i'm aware of. >> you haven't answer the subsequent question of whether the president was aware of a $130,000 payment the president was aware of an agreement. you were asked threes weeks ago and today you weren't aware. are you aware now? >> look, the president has denied these allegations. anything beyond that i would refer you to the outside counsel. >

and this manipulation from sarah sanders. court made clear there is no absolute first amendment right to access to the white house. that's what she said. that's not what the judge said. the judge said this. i haven't determined the first amendment was violated here. remember, this was a temporary relief. there is still the personal innocent relief that will be argued. he went on to say while he hasn't decided it, he believed cnn is likely to prevail. again, the law is clear. we know our rights. the question is whether the president will do what is right when it comes to respecting the free press and if he doesn't, he better be ready to fight and lose again. >>> next up is the great debate. kamala harris isn't one to mince her words but comparing united states to the kkk? too far? time for the -- comparing i.c.e. to the kkk? too far? time for the debate. you ok there, kurt? we're about to move. karate helps... relieve some of the house-buying... stress. at least you don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. call geico. g

this is the statement from press secretary sarah sanders.y the court made clear that there is no absolute first amendment right to access the white house. in response to the court, we will temporarily reinstate the reporter's hard pass. we will also further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future. there must be decorum at the white house. we'll keep you posted on any new information we receive. meantime, on capitol hill just about 30 minutes ago an intriguing meeting got underway. the lone democrat to step up and say she may challenge nancy pelosi to be the next house speaker walked into pelosi's office. congresswoman marcia fudge of ohio says she thinks the party leadership needs to change. we've got a crew watching pelosi's office. we'll keep you posted on that. in the meantime, i want to bring in congressman elect josh harder who just wednesday became the apparent winner in his race for the seat in california's 10th congressional district. california putting a lot more in the d column for the

>> reporter: well, vigorous is the word from sarah sanders. she says the white house will vigorously defend itself. essentially, in her statement today, she accuses acosta of being unprofessional. of being a show boat. and she says cnn is grandstanding by filing this lawsuit. here's a portion of her statement, wolf, which came out earlier today. sanders said the white house cannot run an orderly and fair press conference when a reporter asks this way, trying to hog the mic. she says it was neither appropriate nor professional. she says it impedes the members of the media to conduct business. so basically, what the house is doing here is complaining about acosta's style. they're complaining he was trying to ask too many followup questions at last week's press conference. but, of course, reporters oftentimes ask followup questions, nothing unusual about that. so she is focusing on the style. but the substance of the lawsuit is pretty clear. the substance of the lawsuit dates back to the '70s when there was this reporter named robert cheryl to tr

the press secretary, sarah sanders, appeared to indicate that there weren't talks going on inside the white house on pardoning former campaign chairman paul manafort, but the white house didn't exactly encourage manafort to cooperate with the special counsel's office, just as he's been accused of lying to investigators. handle with care. that seems to be the white house approach to dealing with the allegation from the special counsel's office that former trump campaign chairman paul manafort violated his plea deal by lying to investigators. >> good afternoon. >> reporter: at the white house briefing, there was no talk of pardons. >> i'm not aware of any conversations for anyone's pardon involving this process at all. >> reporter: but notably, no real push to urge manafort to cooperate with special counsel robert mueller. >> would the president recommend that mr. manafort begin to cooperate, offer full cooperation to the special counsel's office? >> we can only speak to what our role is in that process and not only has the president, but the entire administration has been fully coopera

sarah sanders said in part it was because jim acosta had placed his hands on the intern when she had tried to get the microphone back from jim acosta at the press conference the day after the midterm elections. the judge noted, a, it wasn't clear who made the decision to revoke jim acosta's hard pass, and b, he noted the shifting explanations in that after that initial tweet from sarah sanders, the other statement that came out from the white house on the day cnn filed its lawsuit mentioned nothing about jim acosta playing his hands on the intern. in addition, it's important to note that the judge really did talk about the irreparable harm jim acosta faced. he said the white house's argument that 50 other journalists from cnn with hard passes could still go to the white house every day, he said that shouldn't overweigh any of jim acosta's rights here. he said it was important jim acosta as an individual journalist have that right and have his due process rights not violated. so kate, an important ruling here for cnn, and really for all journalists as the aclu has noted. jim acosta, h

sarah sanders expected to step up to the lectern you see on the left screen right now at any moment.eller this morning just hours after the special counsel said former trump campaign chairman paul manafort broke his

the white house press secretary, sarah sanders as well as the white house counselor kellyanne conway, they just came out a few moments ago and spoke to this crowd here. it's very unusual to see a white house press secretary and top official like kellyanne conway at a rally like this. but as i heard from a top trump advisor just a few moments ago, they are very worried about where women voters stand heading into this midterm election vote taking place tomorrow. in the words of this advisor, quote, the gap is large. jake. >> very, very unusual for white house officials like kellyanne conway or sarah sanders to appear at an election event, absolutely. jim acosta in indiana, thank you so much. we have with us cnn senior political analyst mark preston, david gergen, former advisor for pour presidents, including reagan and clinton, april ryan, white house correspondent for american urban radio networks, joan walsh, stephen moore, former senior economic advisor to the trump campaign and current informal advise to the white house and amanda carpenter, former communications director for republ

that's between cnn and the six defendants named in this suit, including sarah sanders, among others. but what it does, it's symbolic. it has the impact of saying, we, as always of these news organizations together, stand in respect of and in support of first amendment freedoms. and we believe in the constitutionality of that. so it is significant. and obviously, as the chief white house correspondent for nbc news, it is good to see nbc news represented on that screen. i will say that i think one of the most important and notable outlets that has come out now, filing an amicus brief is fox news. why? well, obviously, steph, this is a news organization that has been traditionally extremely friendly to president trump. we know he watches it, because he talks about it, he tweets about it, sometimes live tweeting about it. two people who work for fox in the prime-time hours, which is different from the daytime news shows, came out and campaigned for donald trump during the midterms. so that fox news is coming out and filing this amicus brief, this friend of the court brief is significant,

can you elaborate on what exactly sarah huckabee sanders said when asked about this? >> reporter: when asked about a pardon, she said she wasn't aware of any conversations between anyone on a pardon. that's not a flat-out denial. that's just saying she doesn't know anything about it. she also said on a question about firing mueller that he had two years to do so and he did not have any intent to do so. so to answer your question about what was a response to, the intent was no intent to fire mueller. >> all right. and sort of no absolute denial that any conversations have taken place. hans, thank you for that. let me bring in joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and professor at alabama school of law. joyce, correct me if i'm wrong. while it's not uncommon for a cooperating witness to necessarily withhold some details, this filing by the special counsel's office where they basically say he lied and the plea deal is done is rare. i wonder what you think, what would possess paul manafort to risk spending potentially the rest of his life in prison? >> the deal that prosecuto

in a statement sarah huckabee sanders outlined the new guidelines. among them, a journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question and then will yield the floor to other journalists. at the discretion of the president, follow-up questions may be permitted. when a follow-up has been asked, the questioner will yield the floor. when applicable, physically surrendering the microphone to white house staff for use by the next questioner. failure to abide by any of the rules may result in suspension or revocation of the journalist's hard pass. sanders added, we would have greatly preferred to continue hosting white house press conferences and relies on a set of understood professional norms and we believe the overwhelming majority of journalists covering the white house share that preference. but given the position taken by cnn, we now feel obligated to