the white house, as i understand it, was falling apart and had not been reconstructed. moved across to blair house and an assassination attempt occurred. did he ever talk to you about the assassination attempt? >> no, that was one of the things that came as a surprise. my parents and my grandparents i think kind of cherry picked what they were going to tell the children about grandpa. being shot at is not something they told me until later on. >> in those days, there were no presidential pensions, or secret service after you left the white house. your grandfather, he carried his station, hetrain then went back to independence. the first time he came back, 1953 or so, he drove back. can you describe the trip? >> he caused havoc. he got in the car, he and my grandmother drove across the country. stopped traffic all along the way. every time they pulled into a motel, the operator called everybody in town. after they finished the trip, local authorities across the country said, mr. president, please don't do that again. fly next time. >> when president truman died, it turne

through the white house. and so mrs. bush had made sure that any of the resident's staff that were still working in the white house that had been there in the johnson time were there to greet mrs. johnson at the diplomatic reception room door when she stepped in. and in addition, one of the butlers that had worked for the johnsons, mr. german, was now a part-time elevator operator, operated the president's elevator in the white house, just a few days a week, mrs. bush made sure that he was there and that he was the one that greeted mrs. johnson when the door was opened of the car for her to get out. and the way that mrs. johnson reached up in recognition to embrace mr. german and how he embraced her, is really would just make you weep. but would also, the two last things that i'll just say about mrs. johnson's visit, her last visit to the white house, is, mrs. bush wheeled her into the vermeil room on the ground floor, which had just been repainted under one of the restoration projects that mrs. bush did, than

and the white house. a discussion was recorded at the john f. kennedy center for the performing arts in washington, d.c. >>> good evening. i hope you've been enjoying tonight's program. it's been fascinating and there's more to come. a your ago i was honored when fred ryan, chair of our board, asked me to chair the white house historical association's board committee for this important four-day senate. i want to thank the members of our committee for their year-lock commitment and contributions to the planning of the summit. with the terrific staff of the white house historical association and the vision and leadership, we've convened more than 100 presidential sites, as well as leading experts in the wide array of fields and interests at the presidential cite that the representative told us they wanted to hear from. that is what it is like to be in the white house. our next panel, we'll shift gears to hollywood. as dd myers said in her message, we'll examine you the big and small screens portray the ficti

>> an architectural element from the white house. hat. >> it's not until 2007 that brother-in-law larry forrest convinces the meister family they need to get some answers. and he takes on the role of lead investigator. his first line of inquiry -- the white house itself. >> i spoke to a gentleman, and i told him about what the family had. and after the laughter and telling me that that wasn't possible, i said, "we're pretty sure, it's written on the back," and so forth. and he goes, "it's probably from some other old building or whatever." >> but larry persists. his letters, his calls turn up nothing. then after two solid years, his search leads him to historian and author bill seale. >> i said, "can i just send you pictures?" so when he received them, he called me back and he goes, "i swear i've seen it." >> was it a eureka moment? that's next. >> but first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question. the current oval office was not built until 1934, when f.d.r. was president. the answer when we return. hey guys. today we're here to tal

you know and with the year passing at the white house, i learned to love the first family at the white house, the president and the first lady, whoever they were. and you know win served five. and all -- many times, people ask me the same question, which one were you favorite? i said, they are all my favorite. and they say, you are a good politician. it has nothing to do with politics, it is the truth. it is truth. they all were absolutely fantastic, fantastic, with me, first lady, president, no problem, you know? and so many time, i had conversation with some -- and i can assure you another thing. during all my year in the white house, i have seen every president and first lady cry, seen them cry, and i've seen them laugh. and i tell you one thing, it gets right here. i gets right to your heart. because the first family become your family. you know, many times when i first come to the white house, i put like guidelines for me in my head. i said, if the president or first lady was attacked, would you put your body to shield them? that's not even a question. it's not even a question tha

a shot of the white house driveway. why are we showing you that? e deputy attorney general at the white house. a meeting concluded moments ago with john kelly. here's what gets curious. the reporting is that rosenstein having this meeting with the question on the table, will he be fired or will he resign? our report laura jared is he stayed to attend a previously scheduled principals meeting. confused? join the party. forgive me, but only in the trump administration does someone get summoned to a meeting with the chief of staff to stay at home and deal with the crisis and then you go to a principals meeting? huh? >> i don't think we know what's going on here. any scenario is possible right now. we obviously don't know what happened this this meeting with john kelly. i think the thing we do know for certain is this relationship between rod rosenstein and the president and john kelly is untenable in its turned situation. if rod rosenstein is going to stay in his job, something will have to be resolved. he can't keep living in this situation expecting

the white house is saying he's coming to the white house to resign. what we're hearing, in fact, from the justice department is that he has been summoned to the white house, and that if he's asked to resign he will refuse to do so. and that what he's prepared to do is to tell the chief of staff john kelly with the person with whom he is presumably meeting that if the president wants him out, the president will have to fire him. which, of course, the president has the authority to do. so will this result, this meeting result in one way or the other rod rosenstein being out? will it be a standoff? nothing will happen, or what? it would appear that the president wants rod rosenstein out one way or the other, and that if he won't quit, it does sound like the white house is prepared to fire him, but we just don't know how that's going to go. now, it's as we've been saying here, more than just a senior official at the justice department which is unusual and newsworthy and important in and of itself. but rod rosenstein, because jeff sessions is refused, rod r

he did not talk about it on his way out of the white house on his way to the rally, but the white house has been struggling to contain the fallout from this anonymous op-ed all day long from a person claiming to be a top administration official slamming the president. cabinet secretaries have been coming out with statements saying don't look at me. trump world has gone -- it's become a washington who done it as in the history of the senior administration official who anonymously wrote a scathing op-ed in the "new york times" claiming to be a part of the internal resistance. so far more than a dozen top officials a who's who from the vice president to cabinet secretaries released statements to say not it. >> i think it is a disgrace. the anonymous editorial represents a new low in american journalism. i think the "new york times" should be ashamed. i think who wrote this editorial should be ashamed. >> reporter: the daughter of u.s. ambassador to russia said it wasn't her father. >> my dad works for the administration. >> did you write it? >> i did not write it. my dad did not write it a

-- into the white house. then there was one elevator to go up but those were very tiny. it was better than nothing. it worked for me very well. i was given an additional room, that was the chocolate room of the white house. so you see, everything is possible to give it time. and the white house, i always said, was a place made for me. i love to work there because they let me produce whatever i wanted to. but all my desserts had a significance in some way. >> sometimes, we had desserts from italy. i find something special around the town and that will be duplicated in the pastry of course. i did that all the time, all the time, all the time. one of the first ladies, she was great. i loved to work for her because she knew what she wanted. personally, you better do what she asks you to do and do it the right way. there is nothing wrong there. again, i love to work with people like this. i would rather do that then people who say i do not know. the last one with mrs. reagan, we were doing sunday noon at the white

the press. speakers include former white house press secretaries and reporters who have cover the presidency. the include mike who worked for president clinton and ron who served president for. white house historical association hosted this event as part of its presidential site summit held in washington dc. >> to introduce our distinguished panel of presidents in the press is another very distinguished journalist and author and director of the white house transition project and also member of the board of the white house historical association, my fellow colleague and also my fellow colleague of the committee that we work together on to bring this summit to life. this person has been incredibly instrumental and has added a lot to the planning of this including putting together this next panel for which he is perfect to introduce. thank you. >> [ applause ]. >> thank you very much, anita. you have done a great job -- all have done a great job, haven't they? >> [ applause ]. >> it has been a super conference. i am here on the behalf of the association to welcome you to the presidential site sum

but the group came to me and said could we possibly have it at the white house? and i said i don't know. so i went to the ushers office, it's kind of the liaison place between the family and the white house or whatever you need. the usher's office takes care of it. so i went and spoke to the head usher at the time and he said he'll get back to me. and so they did. we did our own flowers. the flower shop ordered the flowers and taught us how to do the arrangements. we paid for all the food. the only thing we didn't have was a room rental. it was like any other hotel, it just happened to be at the white house. and everybody in my class showed up for their prom. [laughter] >> before your father was president, he was house minority leader and also vice president. but did you find from the time that he became president to all of a sudden, people laughed at your jokes more, you were invited to more things and did you find your life changed dramatically? it really didn't for me. i already had my set of friends. and so when there were other girls in my class who tried to

he changed it to the white house. david: linda, what is the fondest memory of your father being president? when you think back on those years, what do you enjoy the most, or what is the best memory you have about it? linda: i think when he went to the congress and asked them, it was bipartisan, he went and asked them to pass massive civil rights legislation. and i'm -- [applause] david: that wasn't easy for somebody whose best friends in the senate were not in favor of it, and had come from texas. why did he decide he wanted to do that? linda: he knew it was the right thing. before he represented texas, he represented his constituency. time had changed. and he personally knew of discrimination. he'd seen it, not just with people who were african-american. but for instance, when he was the senator, our phone number was in the regular phone book, and he got a call, a hispanic in texas, i believe he was killed in korea. the local funeral home in texas, refused to take his body. they said, that if they took his body from t

and the white house's credibility from the white house. both are under siege today. there's very little trust in the press and there's very little trust among some, anyway, in the information that's coming from the white house. i certainly remember when i was at the white house and when i was bureau chief at cnn, if the president said something or a press secretary would say something that was mistaken or a misstatement there was an effort to quickly correct the record. i remember marlin fitzwater would walk around with his big cigar that he wouldn't light and he would actually walk through the press office and say, what i said or what the president said, let me just tweak that. there was a very good relationship there and he got a lot of credit for that. but we are not at that place now. i mean -- and now there is a very particular and personal and some would say grandstanding environment around this. where do you see this question of credibility now in terms of, again, plugging this into all the technology that we've got and the cameras a

kennedy had been to the white house. he reportedly believed himself that he had been picked for the court. but then at the very last minute, conservative staffers in the reagan white house intervened and said no, no. we have a different guy we would prefer for the seat. better choice. somebody we like more. and so this man, who you see here with reagan, douglas ginsburg, he jumped to the head of the line and he got the nomination. and then it all fell apart. reagan didn't get him on to the court. and immediately everybody started to try -- everybody started trying to figure out who they were going to blame in the reagan white house for this political disaster. >> president reagan today suffered his second defeat in trying to fill a seat on the u.s. supreme court when the man he nominated only nine days ago, douglas ginsburg, asked that his name be withdrawn. it was an embarrassing admission of marijuana use that doomed ginsburg. white house officials knew he could never win confirmation. the front-runner to become the new

at least numbers here at the white house and we are grateful. when the press finds mistakes, we are grateful. >> from the white house, they are grateful when the press finds mistakes from the president. you heard it here. it is not ten years. it is about 12 years. anyway, 56 days until the midterms. the economy should be a strong selling point. his tendency to exaggerate and embellish. he goes for superlatives. the best economy in history. you see the poll numbers. it is not translating outside of that specific point. >> i'll bathe in that for a while from hasset. grateful the press points out must ta mistake mistakes. it was smart for them to put him up. he is nice and mild mannered and honest. that was a breath of fresh air. >> we may see him again. >>> ahead, new details in the shooting death of the young man in dallas. killed in his own apartment by an off-duty police officer. that officer is now charged with manslaughter. ♪ light shine every day >>> the scene last night. a vigil for botham shem jean who attended the arkansas school. students

this happened in the white house from time to time, in the obama white house, there was something notis level, but it was a national security space that started a snarky twitter account and had to be removed. what half. what happens when you discover someone like this? >> nonof the last eight presidents has been free of a woodward book, right? rahm emanuel said you have to figure out who is doing this, and president saying let's not worry about other people this is what we're talking about lie detectors. >> did you try to out them all? >> you look around, you ask questions, you say to folks hey, let's all be on the same team here. and sometimes you have figured it up. >> yeah, you have to be really down, it was what i figured out after two years in the white house. you have to be really stupid. >> what do you think the president is feeling so put aupon by all of this. what is going to happen? >> white houses do not, in the white house, they are probably not. white houses do not protect their security punitively. they protect their security by inspiration. people believe in the preside

because the white house wouldn't agree to his terms. now, of course he has come back to the justice department here after that meeting. he even stayed on for another principals' committee meeting at the white house acting as if this was a regular monday. of course, it was not. everything is still very tenuous at this moment, brooke, as we wait to find out what will happen over the next couple of days. of course, he now has this meeting scheduled with the president on thursday, brooke. >> you mentioned kaitlan collins. we've heard what you've heard. let's go to the white house. before we do that -- laura, thank you. before today's development, regarding rod rosenstein, president trump in a pretaped interview would not flat out say if he would fire rosenstein in response to that bock shell "new york times" piece. >> i don't want to comment on it until i get all the facts. i haven't gotten all the facts. but certainly it's being looked at in terms of what took place, if anything took place. he was hired by jeff sessions. i was not involved

the white house tells the fbi hey look into this. that was not the stop the presses moment in the anita hill/clarence controversy. there was not any big fight about this. the white house learned there were new allegations of derogatory information about coll clarence thomas since the fbi looked antonio the nominee and documenting derogatory information about him. the white house asked the fbi to look into this new information, too. we actually spoke with boyden gray today about that moment of the clarence thomas nomination. mr. gray confirmed the understanding that we have from looking at the historical record that this was -- it was not a pivotal moment in this controversy. the fbi did reopen its background investigation to thomas to add this matter when the white house asked them to. the fbi when they receive the request, they interviewed anita hill and thomas about it. gray told us by phone today what they interviewed hill about was the basic facts. the fbi inquiry such as it was were basic and quick. if there were any controversie

whatever it is they do. >> the white house is not micro managing this process. this is the senate is dictating the terms. >> for more, let's bring in nbc's jeff bennett at the white house. jeff, okay. so it's been ever moving here. question being who's on the list that we know about? and who is not on the list? >> great to see you, richard. there are reports that the fbi spoke with deborah ramirez today in the investigation into supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. nbc has not yet independently confirmed that. but we have confirmed that the fbi has not yet contacted dr. christine blasey ford. it doesn't mean that they won't. but they haven't yet. meanwhile, president trump and senior white house officials are pushing back against our reporting that the white house has laid down ground rules for this new fbi background investigation into the sexual assault and misconduct allegations leveled against brett kavanaugh. democrats have said a limited investigation could taint kavanaugh and the confirmation process, criticism about which president trump is saying in a

let me get your reaction to that report in a moment, but first the white house. is was driving the news at the white house. the white house says the justice department should still investigate who wrote the anonymous op-ed because that person might be involved -- and this was speculation on their part -- in national security. would that concern you if the author of that article was handling national -- sensitive national security issues? and should that person be investigated? >> it concerns me to my very bone that the president would suggest that we need to mobilize federal law enforcement in order to stop somebody from exercising their first amendment right. that's what deeply disturbs me. look, jim, i don't give two sticks and a fiddle as to who wrote that anonymous guest editorial, nor do i care why "the new york times" decided to publish an anonymous guest ed storm. it is much more relevant, especially when taken with all of the other information about the state of dysfunction in the white house in washington, d.c. look, i have been a chief of staff to a gove

hopefully the white house will put out a statement after. s said between the two in that meeting at the white house happening shortly. >> we will, and it will come from you. thank you so much. we'll get back with you in a second. as she was talking about the timeline of how things transpired and how things have developed since the bombshell "new york times" report first came out on friday night, laura jarrett has more on what has played out since that report was released. laura, what has happened? how did we get from there to today? >> well, kate, the short story is this is not a done deal yet, i should say, and there is still a deputy attorney general over here at the justice department, and that person is rod rosenstein. there has not been a resignation. there has not been a firing. we have not seen a statement officially out from the justice department or the white house. but we are getting a better picture of the timeline of what happened here. just to take us back to friday afternoon, "the new york times" issues that bombshell report on

so, you know, i think a lot of people in the white house understand that, that we're not the same side of the house. we are separate. a lot of people inside the white house want to get information out there. we're grateful for that. >> peter, is there any indication that donald trump comprehends the irony of the moment? specifically, the irony of the conversation that you and i are having at this very moment? which is that today with his white house in crisis over people within the white house expressing their dissatisfaction with the trump administration that when they have a meeting about that and when they have a discussion about that and when they reduce their suspect list to 12, that it is immediately leaked to "the new york times" that their suspect list has been reduced to 12. >> yeah. you know, of course it's also in their interest, perhaps, to make clear that anybody that might think about doing the same thing as this author that they are doing to respond, right? a white house wants to have discipline. they don't have any discipline, as we see in this white house at the moment

the call is coming from within the house, as you pointed out, and it's somebody speaking with real knowledge. the whiteill try to find the leaker, and what is different here is the surreal vision, can you imagine lie detectors lined up in the east room to out do themselves. the woodward book has not dropped yet, and when it does there will be a lot of former staffers and the bad blood and the distrust in the administration will become even more. very unclear if those documents will show what he wants them to show, but this is a white house in chaos right now. >> we will talk more about carter page and bruce orr in a little bit. it seems to me that it has a lot of spin to it, if they are down to one or two names you would think they would be marching these people out the door if they are suspicious of them. it's hard to believe they have an idea of who really did it? >> yeah, it's hard to know what they are going off of in terms of trying to identify this person. are they just using the words off the page. are they just using suspicions? i think one of the things we heard from the sources in the white h

we're getting mixed messages from the white house. president trump saying they have free rein to investigate whatever they need to. the scope of that investigation will be limited. kavanaugh and the gop, will the supreme court nominee help or hurt republicans come november and what the future of the party may look like if republicans go all in. he hasn't made it to the supreme court. >> i'm here tonight to tell you it was a con job orchestrated by the democrats and hillary clinton. i'm usually an optimist. i'm a keg is half full kind of guy. for what i've seen from the monsters make me want to puke and not from beer. >> president trump saying snl is no longer funny, no talent or charm. every someone a critic. >>> white house official confirms to nbc news that investigators were told to steer clear of kavanaugh accuser julie swetnick. officials telling nbc that fbi has not received new instructions after the white house counsel limited the scope of the inquiry. also off limits, kavanaugh former classmate who is contradict him on stories

press corps on the lawn of the white house. one of the reporter says laddie boy was supposed to be in the picture. he's right in the front row. he's right here. saidurse right when they they couldn't see him, i said i have to find him now. he's right in this front row there. george, who gave up his house in the campaign. tois personal secretary harding. he's also going to act as a press secretary, although that term wasn't used yet. they didn't have a chief of staff. but he's everything rolled into one. to george to get through the debt you to get through george to get to president harding. he's the one that white house correspondents are going to go to first to say can we talk to the president or when is he scheduled come out and talk to us? going to filter a lot of those press requests. until the hoover administration that they had some of called the press secretary. you can see how we are moving in that direction. until the hoover administration that they had some of called the press secretary. oren harding loved the new tech

. >> some say not since the nixon white house have we seen this level of paranoia. joining us now is john dean, the former nixon white house counsel, a cnn contributor who is scheduled to testify at the brett kavanaugh hearing today. mr. dean, great to see you again. >> thank you. >> your worst fears have been confirmed. yesterday when you were on "new day" with us, you feared that you would make some sort of suggestion just in talking about history and how it went down in the nixon white house that would then be applied and it seems as though senator rand paul was listening when you said this yesterday morning. >> when he thought there was a leak in the department of state or his national security council would demand everybody take a lie detector test and if you want to work here, strap down and get on the box and test your truthfulness. >> president trump during executive time is taking note of this saying, oh, lie detectors. let's get them in house. >> i hope i haven't suggested something. >> well, mr. dean, a few hours later we heard senator rand paul say that.

press responds to what the white house is doing in this white house, it always seems to thrive in chaos. >> christopher: he can change the new cycle with a snap of his fingers or with a single tweet. >> harris: is accomplishes something else to because it is also helpful if you were trying to test the waters for the timing of doing something. i don't know many people who think inside the beltway or out that i've talked with at least that jeff sessions isn't going to exit at some point. and probably after the midterms and what i was just saying is you could also look to do that with rod rosenstein if, in fact, you have on books of interest which catherine herridge copiously laid out in anyhow this "new york times" article which "the new york times" is not backing down and is kind of a he said they said type of situation in terms of whether or not rosenstein was willing to wear wire to give information to people who want to kick the president out of the white house. so if you're looking at a timing to do something, this is also accomplishing what? the trial balloon. see how

the egg white. whip the egg white. we were whipping the egg white at the time. and you know what? it never came up. i said, man. or different word. so, at the dinner, the white house takes a little bit less than an hour. we wash the bowl. start all over. it don't come up again. it's sticking. you know at the white house, when they come for dessert, you cannot say, i need another 10 minutes. you cannot do that. the only word the butler wants to hear is, speak up, now. so, we were cutting eggs again. washed the bowl. when i heard -- this is when i was still working in the main kitchen with the chefs. i heard executive chef about the mayonnaise they made on the machine that morning. do you know how many drops of oil it takes to mess up on those egg drops? one drop, two drops, that's it, forget it. they do the mayonnaise, but i didn't see it. i wasn't there when they did it appear so the oil splash on the machine. so, when you came with your merringue, you don't know what it is. when i heard them talking, i said, oh, my god, should i kick their ass now or later? i was very upset, that they didn't have the sense to tell me. be careful, we made mayonnaise. so, luckily i

frankly, the white house and the staff here are focused on doing our jobs. not deal with cowards that refuse to put their names on an anonymous letter. >> reporter: the white house is trying to put the name on the mystery rather than the substance behind the anonymous accounts. substance of the fact that top aides are trying to keep the president from harming the country in some respects through strange impulses that he has had. clearly the white house is trying to turn the page beyond this, but the president has fueled it himself. we will see if that continues. the president will fly to shanksville, pennsylvania, for a brief stop to mark 9/11 and coming back to the white house having a meeting as well about hurricane planning and preparation. it is still the two anonymous accounts shaking the white house that creates a deep sense of parano paranoia. dave and christine. >> thank you, jeff. as jeff mentioned, the president is headed to shanksville, pennsylvania to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the attacks. vice president pence will attend a ceremony at w

cnn's kaitlan collins at the white house for us. kaitlan, this follows excerpts from the bombshell book by bob woodward, the book comes out next week, but it fits in with this general theme that there are senior officials in the trump administration who are trying to protect the country from president trump's worst impulses. >> reporter: that's right, jake. you can't ignore the timing coming out one day after that excerpts from that bookmaking stunning claims about things that bob woodward alleges, that the defense secretary to chief of staff, several other people close to the president who work with him on a daily basis have said and now we have this stunning op-ed in "the new york times" with a rare thing for them to do to publish an anonymous senior official in the trump administration. they don't say this person works in the west wing or the administration generally but this person essentially making the same argument as a lot of those claims in bob woodward's book saying that they do not agree with the president. they are stayin

now with a republican in the white house they've changed their position. the majority rushed into this hearing and t is refusing to evn look at the nominee for record. in fact, 93% of the records from kavanaugh's tenure in the white house, as counsel and staff secretary, have not been provided to the senate. and 96% have not been given to the public.he we do know what the white house thinks of this nominee. donald mcgahn, the white house counsel, spoke to the federalist society and make clear brett kavanaugh is exactly the kind of nominee the president wanted. in his speech, mr. mcgahn discussed president trump's to list of potential supreme court nominees. one, he said, was filled with mainstream candidates. the other list included candidates that are kind of too hot for prime time, the kind that really would be really hot in the senate. probably people of britain a lot we really get a sense of the views, the kind of people that make people nervous. that's a quote. now, what i'm saying, this is the backdrop into which we come into this situation. so yes, t

the u.n. meetings. nbc white house correspondent kristen welker is at the white hous house. on as to what's going on at 1600 pennsylvania? >> well, it's our sense that the deputy attorney general will be arriving here, so we have our cameras positioned to try to get a shot of him. what happens next? that remains to be seen. of course, there is this report swirling that the deputy attorney general, his job could be in jeopardy. not a surprise in the wake of the bomb shell report by "the new york times" at the end of

how has the white house tried to whittle down the list? >> reporter: fredricka, the white house is trying to root out the identity of the unnamed senior administration official who penned an op-ed in "new york times" earlier this week, portraying the president as somebody who really needs to be checked from within his own administration because of the decisions that he makes, reckless decisions in the words of the unnamed senior administration official. while the hunt is on-going, the president seems to have some idea of who it may be. kellyanne conway, counselor to the president, told our colleague kristy achristiane am he believes it is a national security official. >> do you think that person is inside the white house? >> most of us don't think that, the president just today said he believes it is somebody in national security. but what i do believe is that who has said that ought to come forward and say it or ought to resign because the loyalty is not to the president only or at all, it is loyalty to the presidency, loyalty to the const

is this a concern at all for the white house? >> well, i think the white house is focused entirely on just getting him on the bench right now or on the bench at the supreme court. whether there is a broader concern about what sort of credibility he will have or whether his nomination will be tainted, i think is something that they've set aside. but certainly critics have said that it will and that, you know, that very strong testimony that came out from him and angry testimony in which he accused democrats of a smear campaign and mentioned the clintons and said that they were ruining his life, that is something that will always be associated with judge kavanaugh and a potential justice kavanaugh. >> jeff, do you hear coming from white house officials discussion more about short-term, about political gain, about just getting him on the bench to your point, versus this guy will have a lifetime appointment on the supreme court if he makes it there. >> again, alex, i think that what they want is for this confirmation to be finished an

she told the white house staff, take care of the china. we will be back in four years. they were back in four years. the romance that they had prior to them getting married in the white house was just a love ofry that lender the test time. she was married in the white house. beautiful down. susan was founded by george cleveland. he is the grandson of grover. s found that actual dress. it's in the white house collection at the smithsonian. that's just a powerful display of how wonderful and elegant she was. i think people will certainly learn from history from that. >> there was an enormous age difference. how does the family process that piece of information? >> i think it was a love story that was kindled by francis his father. he was a dear friend of grover. upon his death, grover felt the need to make sure that francis was taking care of for the rest of her life. they love each other. older,definitely a lot by like third -- by up to 30 years. he trusted him. he was the guardian for many years. even prior to mr. folsom's death. i think that she had complete trust. they

i am going to reach out to you at the white house. there is plenty more from the administration today on this, right? >> that's right, alex. great to see you. as you might expect, white house officials are working overtime to dismiss and discredit the claims made in this anonymous "new york times" editorial and this forthcoming book from journalist bob woodward which paint this disturbing portrait of a president who is uninformed, unprepared, and unprincipled. you saw vice president mike pence who in terms of temperament is opposite of donald trump but is nonetheless a royal trump foot soldier. he is dismissing this as absurd. he was asked by margariet brennn if he took part in conversations about impeachment ever. he said no, why would we? the president liking this to treason, pence called it un-american. talk of lie detector tests being used in the west wing to ferret out the author, pence said he would take a lie detector test in a heartbeat. there has been speculation that the person behind this op-ed might be in the vice president

pete: bob, what will the white house do? >> they're trying to figure out the pepper but they're lost, talking with some of the president's closest advisors they say they don't know what to do. the president is urging the department of justice to get involved but they know that's a maze that's not going to go anywhere. they're trying tfigure out who could be disloyal but they know that so many people have been leakg inside of this administration since january of 2007. as m people are coming out with their own lists they reall have as mu an idea in the white house as we do on this show. pete: ya current number reporter, you're a former one. do you think wewh'll ever kno wrote this? >> we might. we were reminded this week but for almost 30 myeark -- wrote "deep throat" and yet he was deep throa it may not be tomorrow, it may be years from now but i sus one day we will. one thing to keep in mind, the m senior official" could conceivably apply to as many as 4,000 confirmab positions and hired political guns across the federal gove

ni bryant, bbc news, at the white house. aura: for more on the bombshell -- ony spoke earlier with the bombshell book, i spoke earlier with our north america reporter anthony zurcher. even by the standards of books about the trump white house and how extraordinary a portrait is this? anthony: when you say that woodward says this is the equivalent of an administrative coup, that members of trump's own staff we removing papers om his desk so that he wouldn't sign them, it is remarkable command the picture it paints of a white house in turmoil where members of his administration are second-guessing each other, worried about tempering the president's rashest impurees. that is rkable, detailed account. laura: the white house is pushing back and so is the president's former lawyer, who seems to be quoted at length in the book. isn't the difference between this book and others that the author is so credible? anthony: right, and nick bryant mentions that in his p the thing about bob woodward is he has been doing this with administrat

have heard from a number of people both in the white house and in the president's general orbit. and that's what the real problem is for this president and this white house. it's that this op-ed, the stuff in bob woodward's book, even some of omarosa's recordings, they all feed a narrative that has played out in news stories since just about the day that he took office. so even if it is just one person, they are sort of channeling a broader concern, and that's why the administration has an incredibly tough time pushing back on this. because, yes, on the one hand it may just be one person, but it is one person expressing what a number of people in the president's orbit believe to sort of be, at this point, an incontrovertible truth. >> and, jonathan, two points here. everyone loves a search for a suspect. and it's true the op-ed takes a turn late in the game and goes into almost speech writer poetry. you could conceivably come up with two or three people in the business who write in that soaring a style and would quote john mccain. but point too, for you, you and maggie haberman

they take that report, they send it to the white house. the white house reviews that for the nomination process. there's no criminal investigation here by the fbi. they don't have any jurisdiction about any of the events that occurred more than 30 years ago, but they could go back and do a follow-up investigation to look at these allegations if in fact the white house went to the fbi and said we want you to follow-up on these allegations to determine the credibility of the allegation, ali. >> i guess that's an important distinction to make. there's likely not to be any criminal charge to come out of this, but there's an establishment of facts that the senate now is charged with trying to figure out, and as senator leahy said, they're not really good at that, they're not really equipped for that. so the mind goes to the fbi, you think they're an investigative body. what can the fbi do if this is not their bread and butter, if they don't investigate one off crimes, do enterprise crimes and bigger things, let's say the white house said open th

is john kelly, the white house chief of staff. that's him. he reaches his hand out. that's rosenstein through the trees. now you see him coming out. that's an extraordinary thing for the white house chief of staff to come out and say bye bye to the person who just had an appointment at the white house. that's an obvious attempt, staged for the cameras. not staged but conducted out there in public view to say see, he's still the deputy attorney general. for now all systems are go. >> i think you can probably argue they knew the cameras were watching that particular angle. >> without question. >> does this mean this is put on hold until thursday? >> kind of, yeah. right now rod rosenstein is the deputy attorney general. he is 2:00 eastern, 11:00 pacific. this sets up major split screen moment on thursday because the other big story that all of us were covering up until this news broke is what is going on with judge brett kavanaugh who seems to be in jeopardy at the moment. there's real questions about whether he will end up on the su

. >> the white house is saying that he is coming the white house to resign. what we're hearing, in fact, from the justice department is that he has been summoned to the white house and that if he's asked to resign he will refuse to do so. >> as you spent the morning with the president, do you have any idea what's currently going on with the deputy attorney general? >> we don't have any comment. you will have to talk to the white house about that. >> this looks like to me a slow-moving saturday night massacre. >>> huge implications for judge kavanaugh. the confirmation in more serious jeopardy as a second woman accuses him of sexual misconduct. >> deborah ramirez telling yt the new yorker" in 1983 or '84 when they were both fresh men kavanaugh exposed himself to her. >> she did spend six days trying to make sure that she remembered this clearly enough to want to come forward and put herself into the middle of this just a, you know, a brawl basically politically. >> we did receive, however, several direct accounts of people who said they were told right after or

, presumably the white house counsel, the white house chief of staff, that they talked ore t ed over the w that perhaps it's time for rosenstein to go. and we're hearing in the white house that the president was not the one pushing for this. and now they have got the president in this box to decide what to do about this. it's all very odd. the fact is we don't know for sure what's going on here because we're being told so many contradictory things by people who ordinarily would know. >> and you're hearing from some people who have a vested interest in this, so it's really hard to know what these sources are trying to do. are they trying to get the president a liability, we believe he's in trump tower we believe and has some time on his hands. and in fact he is in important meetings, he's meeting with the president of south korea this afternoon, to get messages from kim jong-un from north korea, after the meetings they just had. he said he thinks today there will be a second summit with kim coming up very shortly. that was news. adam schiff, in the midst of all of this, we have t

he also called the white house a well-oiled machine. that's not. that is not what we're hearing from multiple reports. so what's really going on in the trump white house? here to discuss, two people who are there almost every day. cnn white house correspondent kaitlan collins and cnn political analyst brian karam. good evening to both of you. >> hi, don. >> glad we have people who are there almost every single day. you're camped out there, see what's going on. good evening. brian, you shouted a question at the president as he was walking over to board marine one on the south lawn. let's take a look. >> who's in charge at the white house? >> who's in charge at the white house? he didn't answer. talk to me about what it's like at the white house today. does it feel different? >> well, it's, look, i've covered every president since reagan, and we dealt with many scandals, the iran contra scandal, you know, bill clinton couldn't tell us what the definition of his is. i've never seen anything approaching this. there was a holy, you know, moment last nigh