have cooperated extensively and providing as much as 30 hours of testimony. and giuliani said that he was encouraged to interview, and the white house knows exactly what he said. >> the president encouraged him to testify. he is happy that he did. >> yeah. >> he is quite secure that there is nothing in the testimony that will hurt the president, and john dowd told you that when he said that he was a strong witness for the president. >> the president meantime is lashing out comparing the probe to mccarthyism and tweeting today that the failing new york times wrote a fake piece today implying that because the white house counsel don mcgahn was giving hours of testimony to the special counsel he must be a john dean-type rat, but i allowed him and others to testify. i didn't have to, because i have nothing to hide. ryan nobles is joining us now from brooklyn heights, new jersey, where the president has been for the weekend, but again, he is op on the way to the washington, momentarily, and so, ryan, rudy giuliani says that he has a pretty good feeling about what don mcgahn would have said, but, do they know specifically what he said and what the q&a was like? >> yeah, i mean, that is a big question right now, fred. we know that don mcgahn spent an exes tensive amount of time with the special counsel and more than 30 hours over three different occasions around we know that don mcgahn has been around the president at these key moments of interest of the special counsel and the president and the white house are insistent that it is okay, and they are the oneses who gave him the right and the ability to go to have this conversation with the special counsel, and they also were the ones who told him it was okay to waive attorney/client privilege which allowed him to say whatever he knew about the interactions over the past year and half, but what is interesting about all of this is that it is not abundantly clear that the white house knows exactly what dan mcgahn told robert mueller. this is what rudy giuliani said when he was pressed on "meet the press." >> we have a good sense of what he testified to -- >> how do you say that good sense? have you debriefed him? >> no, but mr. dowd does, because he talked to them at the the time. >> and you don't know what mr. mcgahn, 100% of what he testified to mr. mueller? >> i think that through, through john dowd we have a good sense of it, and john dowd yesterday said, and i will use his words rather than mine that the mcgahn was a strong witness for the president, and i don't need to nknow much more about that. >> but what the white house has not really responded to was the assertion in "the new york times" report that when don mcgahn learned of the counsel for the president, his private attorney suggesting that he meet with the special kocounsel and that he was concerned that perhaps he was being setup, and this is a way for them to perhaps put him on the hook for any obstruction of justice charges that the special counsel discovered and that is when he got his own personal attorney and advised by his own personal attorney to handle the situation, and don mcgahn's personal attorney has been clear this weekend, he did not go into the interviews with the goal of providing incriminating information, but no doubt he has been a corroborating witness, and the attorney for don mcgahn has said that he was very honest as anyone should be when talking to a federal investigator. so of course, fred, this is back to the original question, what exactly did don mcgahn tell the special counsel? it seems that the only operson who knows it for sure is robert mueller. >> thank you, robert nobles. and rudy giuliani also said that the et meeting was of no consequence and could not result in charges against the president. >> if someone says i have information about your opponent, you would take that meeting -- >> from the russian government? >> she didn't represent the russian government. she is a private citizen, and i don't know even know that they knew she was russian at the time. >> i think they knew she was russi russian. >> when theyt met with her, but not when they set up the the meeting. you asked me if they showed an intention to do anything with the russians. well all they knew was that a woman with a russian name wanted to meet with them. they didn't know that she was a representative of the russian government, and indeed, she not a representative of the russian government. >> and of course o, we kn, we k is not true, because we have the e-mail from don jr. who proves it otherwise. and rob goldstein said that the crown pros ecutor of russia met with his father this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia, and would be useful and sensitive to russia and the government support for mr. trump. donald trump jr. then responds if it is what you say, i love it, especially later in the summer. i want to bring in jamil jafr the former white house koun snell the george bush adm administration, and mr. neftali, thank you. and so, there is no negative inference from it, and what should the white house be worried about? >> he is speaking on a regular basis about what the president was doing or the vice president was doing. he waived the executive privilege and gave him time to talk and more conversations to be provided or advice and now that don mcgahn has gone and said everything that he knows, because that is what the president told him to do and the president is in a situation where the stories varies from don mcgahn and he goes to testify that is a real problem for the prosecutor because nothing a is at stake there. >> and you are looking at marine one with the president and first lady to leave new jersey bearing president trump's name. and so the personal president of donald trump julie giuliani says that he has a good idea of what don mcgahn would say, and on that q&a of "meet the press" it does not seem that rudy giuliani has heard from don mcgahn what the questions were or what information he would have given, but clearly don mcgahn is protecting himself by having his own attorney with him. he is a witness in this exchange with this special counsel. how concerning should the white house be? >> well, the first thing that the white house should be concerned about is that mr. mcsgan the lawyer f-- mcgahn is for the office of the presidency, and not donald trump personally, and so we of course believe he is telling the truth and his answers are in support of the country's presidency, and so it is possible that he is going to give information that provides the special pros ecuto with more about mr. trump's behavior. and mr. mcgahn may not have gone in to incriminate donald trump, because he was not with him through the campaign and he does not know every associate of donald trump's. >> and it is interesting that giuliani would say that it is his belief that don mcgahn would be a strong witness for the president. >> fred, fred, i have to say that during the watergate period, the white house, and this is the richard nixon white house made the same claim, because what is the al tern tte? you can't have giuliani going forward to say, we are worried, even if they are, they can't say it publicly. >> but i guess worry sounds like that is the sentiment, jamil that is coming from the president when he tweets a reference to the nixon administration attorney john dean and calling him a rat almost says that, you know, maybe a warning to don mcgahn that, you know, you should only say but so much. what do you interpret from that coming from the president today? >> well, fredricka, it is hard to know what the president is thinking when he puts the tweets out there. and on one hand, he is admitting that i pulled don mcgahn to the tell the truth and the whole truth and if the president's story varies at all from don mcgahn's, that is a problem for him and talking about john dean and others with a parallel to nixon and -- >> why does he do that? >> it is inexplicable and he needs to get off of twitter right away and listen to lawyers and stop talking about the investigation, and going after robert mueller and jeff sessions and anybody else, and anybody working for the president has to think that this is a train wreck. >> and there is baron, and we have not seen him a long time, and the first family there, you know, getting off of marine one on the way now to air force one as they are still in new jersey and ending the weekend there. any chance we might be able to hear anything? all right, no. but if anything is going to be said, we will have to rewrack it and bring it to you, and you can see them waving there, and the white house, perhaps it is trying to look like it is not worried at all and calm and cool and collected by all of this, and especially hearing from rudy giuliani today, and if you are don mcgahn, while you have gotten the green house from the white house to do this interview, and now, there is that new york times' report to say, yes, it is 30 hours of interviewing over the nine months' period, what is that like for don mcgahn to go back to work as the white house counsel, and would he share the testimony? would he be mum on it? what is this going to be like for him? >> i'd leave it to to a lawyer to determine whether he should share it, but, look, one thing that is really interesting about this particular story is that when john dean cocan oper coope the investigators he was looking for immunity and on the way out. and presumably mr. mcgahn is not looking for immunity and planning to be the lawyer for the office of the president. he is a pro. he is a professional. that is his job. his job is to answer questions to defend the presidency. not necessarily to defend the president. and that is where the challenge is. because frankly, mr. trump, president trump is not accustomed to having people around him whose job it is to protect the institution and rather than the person. >> right, and jamil, so why would he have his own attorney present? >> well, phil burke is a very bright guy and been through other investigation, and he is providing the best advice he can for his client, and unlike the president, i bet that he is taking bill burke's advice. >> thank you, both. >> thank you. and come oing up, the men and women who have kept our country safe from terrorists, but the country is threatening to revoke even more security clearances from veteran intelligence officials, and this is as 60 now former cia leaders are urging that the president's threats could weaken u.s. democracy. stay with us. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? ancestrydna can open you to a world of new cultures to explore. with two times more detail than any other dna test... you can get a new taste of your heritage. only $59- our site's lowest price ever. all right. here come the name calling, the loud mouthed political hack is how the president is calling john brennan this weekend and now the white house has a new defense to strip his security clearance. brennan's access was revocced after the white house said that he used highly sensitive information to use a series of outrageous allegations, and today, the national security advi adviser john bolton tried to clarify the statement. >> it is my view at the time that he and others in the obama administration were politicizing intelligence and that is a dangerous thing to do, and especially for senior officials the do, and senior officials to do to keep the wall between intelligence and policy, and number of people have commented that he couldn't be in the position that he is in of criticizing president trump and his so-called collusion with russia, unless he did use classified information. >> but brennan is not going to remain kquiet on n and today, h defended his criticisms from the president and he said that the two sides could square off in court. >> i have been contacted by a number of lawyers, and they have already given me their thoughts about the baysition for a complaint, injunction, to try to prevent him from doing it in the future. if my clearances and my reputation as i am being pulled through the mud now, and if that is the price that the we are going to pay to prevent donald trump from doing this gaiagains other people, and to me, it is a small price to pay. so i will do whatever i can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future. and if it means to go to court, i will do that. >> all right. here with me, cnn political and national security analyst and national security correspondent for "the new york times" david sanger and cnn national security analyst elli ackerman, and so is this the right track for him? >> well, the president has the authority to take away any security that he wants, but i found mr. bolton's statement mystifying, because once an official like mr. brennan is no longer the director of the cia, i don't see why he would be in a different position about policy position or issuing critiques to the president than any other american citizen as long as he did not reveal classified information that he could obtain on the time that he was on a job, and the position that mr. bolton was taking was that he had to remain an analyst after he had left the cia. i find that not only mystifying, but something that few previous cia drirectors have been abidin by. >> and elliott, the president's lawyer rudy giuliani made the case to remove brennan's security clearance and this is how he put it. >> brennan made the extraordinary charge that the president was treasonous, and i commend you for the questioning that he has no information that the president is guilty of conspiracy. well, i mean, it is just conjecture that this man accuses people of a crime that could carry death as the result. >> it is a highly charged word. >> unhinged character who shouldn't have a security clearance. >> and elliott, brennan is still respected still in the intelligence community, and now to have the word unhinged associated with him, and how might this potentially backfire for the white house? >> well, i think that what we are going to basically see is a continued tit-for-tat for particularly the former director brennan take s it to court, but failing to see the forest for the trees. what is most concerning is that you are seeing the politicization of our intelligence is services, and some day, we, the american people, are going to need those intelligence services to work for us again, and we are going to need to believe that they can impartially speak truth to power, and the longer this goes on with both sides and with president trump and brennan, and i would say to blame is to become less and less likely that the intelligence services can can get out of the other end to have once again the credible impartial voice that is essential to defending the country. >> and david, something like upwards to 60 members of the intel committee who said add me to the list, and you can revoke my clearance, too, if it means be being in solidarity with john brennan and others, but if they are called upon, and any number of those people are called upon by any of the intelligence communities under this administration, do you see them as saying no, they would not be consulted? they would not allow their expertise to be used to help the intelligence community right now? >> i don't see that. i imagine that they would allow their expertise to be used, but the question is if the intelligence community would share with them information that they would need for an informed opinion. but that 60 numbers is remarkable. think about a couple of summers ago when you saw the national security officials writing a letter to oppose the endorsement of, including most of the republicans who said they would not serve in the administration and not a huge amount of overlap of that group anti-trump starting in the campaign in 2016 and this group. it is telling you u that the president has managed to alienate intelligence professionals and many of whom probably i think that they were perfectly happy to see him take office or believe that he might be on the way to improving things. so it is going to tell you how much the president has managed to politicize the issues in these times, and it is not the first time that the president has politicized intelligence, but the question came up in the run-up to the iraq war. >> all right. we will leave it right there. david sanger and elliott ackerman, thank you, both. we appreciate it. >> straight ahead, another white house exit. and this time, it is a speechwriter leaving after it was discovered that he went to conferences and gatherings for white nationalists. more details next. but they're. it's nice to remove artificial ingredients. kind never had to. we choose real ingredients like almonds, peanuts and a drizzle of dark chocolate. find your favorite and give kind® a try. ♪ ♪ let your perfect drive come together at the lincoln summer invitation sales event. get 0% apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus $1,000 bonus cash. to put on our website? 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>> well, what happened is that i reached out to the white house early last week asking with the evidence that we had that he had spoken at the conference and listed on a schedule for it, and recap of it sort of alluded to him speak iing. i reached out to them and i asked about it. they said that they needed a couple of days to look into it. on thursday they told me that they would get me something on friday and then all through friday, it was me playing phone tag with the white house deputy communications director, and me calling him and he would call me right back, and they the really delayed this sort of until 6:30 on friday when they told me that he had left the white house. >> hmm. so what do we know to be in the content of what he said at the conference? >> so we don't know the content of his exact speech. the title of it was "the right intelligentsia" and there are some clips on the web that we can glean a little bit into mr. beatty's world view, and he was previously at duke before he joined the white house. what he said is that he supported trump from early on, and from the beginning, and he said it is because he agreed with the position on immigration. >> and is he no longer at the white house because you reached out to the white house asking about his participation, or is there some other reason that he is no longer at the white house some. >> it is interesting, because when i reached out the white house, when they finally got back to me late on friday said that we don't comment on personnelle matters, but he no longer works here. that is when i asked when did he leave and they would say we won't comment on the personnel matter, which as we at cnn know that they talk about the personnel matters all of the time. so what we are a abble to see however is that the white house e-mail active all week when i was reaching out for comment was no longer active on saturday. >> all right. andrew, thank you so much. >> straight ahead, less than a month after the president issued an all caps warning to iran, cnn sits down with the foreign minister who says that he believes that the u.s. has an addiction problem. that exclusive interview is next. i was there, just not always where i needed to be. is she alright? 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>> he is very much the man who put the name to the deal and ye years of his own life to try to persuade john kerry and his own government to sign on to the complicated deal, and very much in the interview, he tried to stick to it. the european allies of the united states are against trump coming out of the deal unilaterally and we saw the first wave of the sanctions coming in, and more coming up in november. this is what he had to say about the u.s.'s attitudes toward sanctions. >> i believe that there is a disease in the united states, and that is the addiction to sanctions. even during the obama administration, the united states put more emphasis on keeping the sanctions that it had not lifted rather than implementing its obligations on the sanctions that it had lifted. >> reporter: if you felt that the u.s. was addicted to sanction, why did you go ahead with the deal? >> that is maybe one of the m mistake, but the problem was that we felt that the united states had learned that at least as far as iran was concerned, sanctions do produce economic hardship, but do not produce the political outcomes that they intended them to produce. i thought that the americans had learned that lesson. unfortunately, i was wrong. >> a lot of the soul searching here as the way forward for a relati relationship with the united states. many who thought that the foreign negotiations were a good idea, but they are not sure they can trust the trump white house. and from mr. zarif say s ts tha is a country preparing for the worst storms ahead, but there are many suffering are from the drop in the local currency and the task of negotiation, and he is trying to persuade people here, the hardline errs that th is a path ahead despite mr. trump's unilateral erratic behavior on the world stage. back to you. >> thank you, nick paiton walsh. cnn and nick tapper are going to dig deeper into the tape that showed sexual abuse by more than 300 priests in pennsylvania. he is finding out why one of the most powerful priest s ts the archbishop of washington is under scrutiny for the way that the church handled the allegations. it's america's most popular street name. but allstate agents know that's where the similarity stops. if you're on park street in reno, nevada, the high winds of the washoe zephyr could damage your siding. and that's very different than living on park ave in sheboygan, wisconsin, where ice dams could cause water damage. but no matter what park you live on, one of 10,000 local allstate agents knows yours. now that you know the truth, are you in good hands? ancestrydna can open you to a world of new cultures to explore. with two times more detail than any other dna test... you can get a new taste of your heritage. only $59- our site's lowest price ever. the smoother the skin, the more comfortable you are in it. and now there's a new way to smooth. introducing new venus platinum. a premium metal handle boosts control... to reveal up to 100% smooth skin. venus your digestive system has billions of bacteria, but life can throw them off balance. re-align yourself, with align probiotic. and try new align gummies, with prebiotics and probiotics to help support digestive health. one of the most powerful catholics in this country is under growing scrutiny for the way that the most recent sexual abuse allegation s has have bee handled by the church. washington cardinal donald wuerl was a pennsylvania bishop for nearly two decades and now calls for his resignation following the explosive grand jury report this week on the horrifying abuse allegations at several diocese at pennsylvania. cnn's jake tapper has the story. >> this sunday morning is the first mass here since this shocking pennsylvania grand jury report detailing allegations of widespread predatory behavior by more than 300 priests against more than 1,000 children. i am standing here at st. matthew's cathedral because before donald wuerl the powerful cardinal of the washington diocese was hosting popes in this town, he was bishop in pittsburgh for 18 years and named throughout the report as one of the bishops who helped to cover up the crimes. the archdiocese declined our invitation to interview cardinal wuerl, but in his defense he said that the report confirms that i acted with diligence and concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse, end quote. and josh shapiro disagrees. he says that he is not telling the truth, because many of the statements in the grand jury say th says that the statements are conro tcon ro -- controverted by his own statements. >> i think that i did everything everything. >> and really? two former group of priests said that they manufactured child pornography and used whips and violence and sadism in raping the victims. and sioux la was arrest -- zula was arrested with more than 300 count, but he had been arrested before he came to the ministry in pittsburgh which is true, but cardinal wuerl authorized a $900,000 confidential settlement between zula and his victims. and diocese under his leadership hired a doctor who worked with dr. zula to lessen the statement s that he blamed the child victim and rather than the adult predator. >> did you move priests quietly -- >> that is not the process. >> well, it was the process with charles zula because it says that they were aware of complaints for abusing children as early as 1987 and between 1995 including in 1988 and 191 1 while wuerl was bishop of the diocese, quote. however, he continued to function as a priest in this period and reassigned to several pairish i parrishs and despite this, he says that he removed him. >> if there were allegations we dealt with them immediately. >> immediately? really? the predatory behavior went back to 1960, and he was shuffled from tie owe seize to diocese. he admitted to moving him to reno, even though that the diocese knew of his past. and wuerl refrained from sharing everything that the pittsburgh church knew about his past with the diocese of san diego. and wuerl's defenders say that as bishop, he disciplined priests and fought the vatican to reinstate a predator priest. he wrote no the vatican that parishioners had a right to know if their the priests were pedophiles. and he said that he acted quickly to act against the claims of paoni, and he said that despite the statements to the vatican, he was clear that the behavior was hidden from three states and wuerl's statements were meaning leless withoutt any action. and those are three stories in a report in which cardinal wuerl's name appears 170 times. the cardinal claims that to answer to a higher authority. when will he answer on this earth for allegedly covering up crimes against children? i'm jake tapper in washington. and a stunner the russia investigation. a white house lawyer involved in so somef of the most intimate discussions with the president spends a reported 30 hours talking to robert mueller's team. we are on that, but first the state of oklahoma has the highest incarceration rate of women in the united states and has held that record for more than 25 years. that is where we meet this week's cnn hero, high school english teacher ellen stackable who goes inside of the prisons to give some of the women a voice and power to heal themselves. >> i came here when i was 20. i have a 30-year sentence. after i hit the yard, and i kind of got a taste of what prison was, it shocked me that i was here. >> there is a lot of feelings in prison and you don't get to feel them. you not a person and your feelings are not valid. >> many of the women incarcerated have been victims of some kind of abuse. we provide a safe place for them to overcome trauma and pain. so it is so much more than just writing. it becomes a therapeutic way for healing to the occur. >> and you can go inside of that prison and hear more of these stories by going to cnnheros.com. 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>> well, generally speaking of a comedian's on stage persona is off stage and exaggeration of how they think. so somebody who is cussing off stage all of the time is going to cuss on stage all of the time. and somebody who does not cuss that much off stage won't cuss that much on stage, so it is not a matter of in the old days older comedians would say, the you younger comedians today use a four-letter word to get a laugh and it is easier to get a laugh with a four-letter word. maybe it was shocking in the 1960s, but is it nott shocking anymore to hear anybody say a swear word today. it is a reflection of that own comedian's personality. however, if you want to do network television or the "to night show" or late night tv, you are to play by the rules. we hear of the comedians complaining about the censorship or political correctness, but if it means to do the "tonight show" they will censor themselves to get that five-minute spot that might lead to a career break. >> interesting. so the flipside of that, and to be a good standup comic, you know, as any of the standup kind of clubs, do you need it to be dirty? do a lot of the comedians feel like, keeping it clean is not going to be a good enough laugh for a 20 minute show or the 15-minute standup, but they have to be racy? >> no. a comedian is going to do whatever they feel is funny and not what they think that the audience wants necessarily, but what they themselves believe is funny and then try it out on stage, and hopefully the audience will agree with them in finding it funny, so it does not matter if it is dirty or or clean, but it is a reflection of their own comedian's personality, and people like brian regan or bob newhart who were considered clean comedians and some of their favorite comedians are comedians who are d dirty. i don't like to use the word dirty, because it is a negative connotati connotation, but use cuss words or language, and richard pryor for example. and so it account also go vice versa. there is no pressure in the comedy club to do anything other than make the audience laugh and be funny and you can do that if you are swear words or not, and it is honest on stage, and if you swear off stage, you will be swearing on stage and that is being true to yourself. if you are clean off stage, you will be clean on stage, and you should not be pressured to change your own personality to placate who is in the audience. the one exception is if somebody in the audience a booker for the "tonight show" or a tv show, that you have to be clean, you want to show them that you are capable of doing it. >> all right. kliph nesteroff, and the history behind comedy is to fascinating. >> and a new episode of "the history of comedy" tonight at 0 10:00 p.m. eastern. thank you for joining me this sunday. i'm fredricka whitfield and that is it for me, as we continue with ana cabrera right now. it is 5:00 eastern and 2:00 out west, and i'm ana cabrera and you are live in the newsroom. from the same white house that brought you alternative facts is the new line, the truth is not the truth, and that is why the the truth, and that is why the president won't testify. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> no, it is not. truth is not truth. the president of the united states says they didn't -- >> truth is the truth. mr. mayor, do you realize -- >> no sh, no, no. >> this is going to be a bad meme. >> don't do this to me. >> the president's attorney rudy giuliani in damage control mode today making not just that head spinning claim, but also this one about the russian lawyer at that now infamous trump tower meeting. >> she didn't represent the russian government, because she is a private citizen, and i don't even know if they knew that she was russian at the time. >> and giuliani is talking about natalia vassal net sky ya who is a russian attorney who has admitted to being an infor mantle for the government. this is a note that was received. the russian government attorney who is flying over from

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