Transcripts For CNNW Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20190304

President s sons as well as his soninlaw, as well as his administration, his business, his campaign, his transition, his foundation, and his inaugural committee. The list reads like a whos who of Robert Muellers investigation with paul manafort, roger stone, Michael Cohen, and Michael Flynn also named among so many others. Democrats are also going to new lengths to learn what President Trump said in his private talks with Vladimir Putin without other u. S. Officials in the room. Three Key Committee chairmen, they are demanding the administration make mr. Trumps translators available for interviews. This hour, ill talk with House Judiciary Committee member madeline dean and correspondents and analysts are also standing by. First, lets go to our chief White House Correspondent jim acosta. Jim, what are we hearing from the president about this very broad new investigation of him and his inner circle . Reporter not much so far, wolf, its been awfully quiet over here at the white house in terms of any comments to news of the day questions, but the president seems to be suggesting so far hell cooperate with this massive congressional investigation that is really going to be delving into just about everything in the world thats related to donald trump. The white house is already signaling that attorneys over here wont be complying with the request coming from House Democrats in this huge investigation. Surrounded by College Football players at the white house, the president sounded ready for the blitz. As House Democrat s launched an expansive new investigation into allegations of corruption in nearly every corner of trump world. Are you going to cooperate with i cooperate all the time with everybody. You know the beautiful thing, no collusion, its all a hoax. You going to learn about that as you grow older. Its a political hoax. Theres no collusion. Theres no folks, go reporter the House Judiciary Committee issued demands for documente documents from 8 o relatives, aides, and soisassociates to th president , Family Members and Top White House officials to oth other advisers past and present. Targeted in the probe, organizations tied to the president and companies and other groups that may have aided mr. Trumps campaign. The House Judiciary Committee chairman said its too early to talk impeachment. Impeachment is a long way down the road. We dont have the facts yet. But were going to initiate proper investigations. Reporter the white house signaled it wont be complying with the document demand, saying in a statement the fact chairman nadler would try to force the Public Disclosure of private conversations that he knows are protected by law proves he only wants to play politics. Hugging the stars and stripes o over the weekend, the president made it clear what he thinks of the special counsels investigation into possible russian collusion with the trump campaign. You put the wrong people in a couple of positions and they leave people for a long time that shouldnt be there, and all of a sudden, theyre trying to take you out with bullshit, okay . Reporter using a southern accept, the president also expressioned his feelings for former attorney general Jeff Sessions who recused himself in the probe. As you know, the attorney general says im going to recuse myself. And i said, why the hell didnt he tell me that before i put him in . Reporter the president even tried to rewrite history about his call on russia to intervene in the election insisting he was joking in front of an audience. If you tell a joke, if youre sarcastic, if youre having fun with the audience, if you Say Something like russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clintons emails. Please, get us the emails. Please. Reporter but thats not true. Mr. Trump made the remark at a News Conference in response to a question from cnn. He didnt sound like he was joking. Talk to putin and say, stay out. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. Reporter but there may be new calls for other investigations into mr. Trumps actions while in office. The new yorker reports the president ordered former economic adviser gary cohn to block the merger between at t and time warner then the Parent Company of cnn. The president is quoted as saying ive been telling cohn to get the lawsuit filed and nothings happened. I mentioned it 50 times and nothings happened. I want to make sure its filed. I want that deal blocked. As to whether the president ordered gary cohn to try to block that merger between at t and time warner, the white house has not responded to a slew of questions from cnn about this. And earlier today, the president was not asked about it in those couple of photo opportunities. There was no White House Briefing today. So there was no opportunity to ask Sarah Sanders, the press secretary, about any of this. But getting back to the judiciary committees investigation into trump world, that is just beginning. As some of the targets of that probe with receiving notification from the panel seeking these documents. I talked to one of those targets earlier today. This target of the nadler investigation told me that one lesson that hes taken from the 2016 election, it would be wise to hire a lawyer before joining a president ial campaign or administration. Wolf, that is certainly the case with this administration. Wolf . 81 individuals and entities that have to provide information, all of them are going to require washington lawyers to go through that reporter a lot of lawyers. That extensive investigation. Reporter thats right. Jim acosta, thank you very much. Lets go to capitol hill for more on this extensive investigation of trump world and what democrats are hoping to accomplish. Senior Congressional Correspondent manu raju is joining us. Is the democrats strategy right n now . Is this setting up potentially an impeachment proceeding in the house of representatives . Reporter theyre not going to draw conclusions or say theyre planning on impeaching this president. Right now they want to have this investigation which is going to carry on for weeks and weeks and months and dominate much of the work for the House Judiciary Committee and also could be very distracting for the white house and all the entities this broad request of documents is demanding. Now, these 81 individuals and entities close to the president encompassed all aspects of the president s inner circle. Trump organization, the cfo of the trump organization, Allen Weisselberg, longtime gatekeeper there, his two sons, eric trump and donald trump junior, his Senior Adviser jared kushner, and former aides like hope hicks and don mcgahn, all hit by these requests for documents, information. Now, jerry nadler wants this information within the next two weeks. And if theres not compliance from all the entities including the white house, Justice Department, the fbi over a wide range of information its seeking including hush money payments the president was involved to silence stories about the alleged affairs, if there are not responses within the next two weeks, expect the fight then to intensify. Subpoenas, potentially public hearings, thats something theyre open to. They want to bring this forward and bring this to light. Theyre saying they want to conduct this in public so while Robert Muellers investigation is looking into a lot of similar matters, they say they want to do this in a public setting so people can judge for themselves exactly what happened here. The question ultimately is how much compliance will they get from the white house . And all these other entities. Right now, the white house is saying that theyve received these documents, theyre criticizing the democrats from moving forward, but well see what this next phase leads to. Theyre saying, the democrats are saying, wolf, these 81 individuals, thats not the list, the exhaustive list, there are going to be many more people who are going to seek information from. I suspect its only just beginning. As you know, House Democrats, manu, theyre also asking the white house and the state department for information about the president S Communications with the russian president Vladimir Putin. How significant is this request . Reporter yeah, three powerful democratic chairmen, adam schiff, eliot engel, elijah cummings, sending letters after weeks of demanding information about what exactly happened in those facetoface encounters between President Trump and president Vladimir Putin over the last couple of years. Theres been very little documentation about what they discussed, very little readout about what exactly happened and, of course, the president gave remarks at the helsinki summit last year that raised a lot of concerns among individuals because the president seemed to side with Vladimir Putin over the intelligence communitys assessment about the russian interference campaign in the 2016 elections. Now, these chairmen are demanding information. They want by the middle of the month responses to the questions about exactly what happened hire. Theyre asking whether or not the president destroyed any of the evidence or interpreters notes involving that happened during this conversation and, wolf, they want transcribed interviews with everybody who was involved and knowledgeable about what happened here including the interpreter, themselves, who were involved in this discussion between trump and putin. Again, the question is, will there be compliance . The state department saying they have received the letter. Theyre going to look into it. Theyll dwecide how to resfond n a timely fashion. Well see what they ultimately decide to do. Well follow it closely with you. Thank you very much. Lets get more context on the new house investigations. How they figure into the mueller probe. Our crime and justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz is joining us right now. Shim shimon, the white house has repeatedly said this russia investigation, the probe, the Mueller Investigation, has to end, but the sprawling request is suggesting at least from the democratic majority in the house of representatives, its only just beginning. It is only just beginning. Were talking about this could go all the way through his presidency. So were not even talking about months here. This is when you look at everything theyre asking for, 81 individuals, entities, all of this nfrgs,information, this co take years to go through when you really think about and try to connect the dots and trying to figure out with what all of this means. Were not thinking about some of the legal battles some of the folks are going to put up in turning over some of these documents. Only one other thing i would say is a lot of this information has already been provided to the mueller team. People at the Southern District of new york. So some of it may be readily available, and so folks may just go ahead and turn it over. But nonetheless, we do expect to see, obviously, a big legal battle. The other thing i think is significant is that the Committee Said that they ran this by the Southern District of new york and the mueller team and it seems that they have given them their okay to go ahead and pursue some of this. Thats certainly significant. Then were going to see, i think the other thing thats really going to be significant for the white house and this president is the fact that hes that people who are within his organization, the people that are closest to him who have been around him for decades who know all of his history, his political foes, the people that hes now fighting in congress are going to have access to all of this information that has not been out there yet, and that could many ways will politicize a lot of this and arm them with information that they dont have. Is that the biggest concern the president right now has . Yeah, i would say that is the biggest concern. Its a political concern in terms of all of this information that mueller may have. Mueller already has a lot of this information. The Southern District of new york has a lot of this information. These are people who have been before mueller. Mueller has talked to them. Mueller has subpoenaed them. A lot of this information has not been publicly out there, but it has been before investigators and what were seeing here is also a concern, perhaps, maybe from members on the committee that the Mueller Report may not be made public, so they need to find a way to at some point tge this out there. They may be able to do that in this fashion. Yeah, theres a lot going on right now, shimon, thank you very, very much. Joining us now, congresswoman madeline dean, democrat who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee has launched this new wideranging investigation. Congresswoman, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, wolf. The scope of the investigation as youve heard and know, very, very broad right now, is this a serious new investigation or is it simply as the republicans are alleging all for show . No, its obviously a very serious new investigation, robust in its request for documents. But i would say we could use the word, target, or could just say were asking for documents. From 81 people and or organizations. Documents most of which theyve already handed over either to special counsel mulemueller or others. If theres nothing to hide in the documents, its not that big a burden. This is a robust Oversight Initiative by our committee. The judiciary committee. Seeking documents from 81 different entities and people. You have a list of 81 different people and entities. How do you prioritize their importance . Actually, i think theyre all important because each one will be able to offer us facts and evidence to put the puzzle together. You know, for the past two years under this administration, weve seen observable actions and then also accusations about improprieties, possible improprieties by this administration, yet weve seen absolutely no oversight. Congress has an obligation, a duty, for oversight. To make sure that we are those checks and balances on these branches of government. No one branch is superior to the other. So im very glad that were going to be taking a look at, and you saw the framework that the chairman came up with. We are looking at possible obstruction of justice. Possible abuses of power and possible political corruption. These are very important areas to be looking at for any administration. This is a monstrous and robust investigation and its the right thing to do. Logistically, do you have the staff to do all this . I do believe we do. Its a really impressive staff on the judiciary committee. And you know weve hired two top counsel to help us sift through this information. So were prepared. Is this a backup plan of sorts in case Robert Mueller doesnt come back with evidence of collusion or obstruction or anything significant against the president . I dont call it a backup plan. What i do realize is that i, and i believe every person on the judiciary committee, wants the robert Mueller Report protected, but also brought forward into full light of day because remember, at the end of the day, the American Public has the right to this information. And also recognize that what were looking at is far broader than the mission and the mandate of the Mueller Investigation. The Mueller Investigation is narrow in its scope even though we see that its broad and in the people and entities its touching. It is to look at possible collusion between trump, trump campaign, trump organization, and the russians. Ours, were looking much broader. Is this investigation from your perspective laying the foundation in case you decide to begin impeachment proceedings in the house . I believe we have to do the background, but i dont leap to impeachment. I know the chairman doesnt leap to impeachment. I do believe we owe the American People the facts and the evidence and take that where it leads us. If it leads us to the very difficult burden of impeachment, then we will have done our homework and it may not lead us there. Because as you know, the chairman of your committee, jerry nadler, says, im quoting him now, before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American Public including trump voters. Thats a pretty high bar right there. Do you agree that should be the standa standard . What i agree is the facts and evidence ought to show us whether or not the president is likely guilty of Impeachable Offenses. I believe the American Public has a right to that and im also old enough to have lived through the Richard Nixon era. And i know the gravity, the weight, that possible impeachment puts on the American Public and puts on our government. So i take it very, very seriously and i dont leap to any of it. Let me get your reaction to this explosive article in the new yorker magazine that President Trump may have actually tried to wanted to pressure the Justice Department to file a suit challenging the acquisition of time warner, which owns cnn, by at t. The president reportedly said, im quoting now from the article, ive been telling cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothings happened. Ive mentioned it 50 times and nothings happened. I want to make sure its filed. I want that deal blocked. From your perspective, is that an abuse of power . Certainly, thats a troubling allegation. I have not yet read the article which i realize just went online today and will be in print next week. Those are troubling quotes. Troubling accusations. I want to make sure they were corroborated. But that would go toward possible abuses of power, public corruption, but also obstruction of justice. So this tells me exactly that we are doing the right thing by in this Committee Going after the documents that will tell us, will tell the story, so that we can tell the American Public, we have a duty to report. Just like you do, wolf. We have a duty to report what actually happened. If proven true, the allegation in this article, would you consider that an Impeachable Offense . I wouldnt leap to that. A, i havent read the article, and as i said, im somebody who really believes in doing my homework, collecting the facts and evidence then we can drew legal conclusions with legal counsel. Very long article. Very important article. Very wellreported. Thank you so much, representative madeleine dean, for joining us. Thank you, wolf. Just ahead, well have much more on what information House Democrats will actually get from those 81 people and groups connected to President Trump. 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Breaking news tonight, House Democrats launching a sweeping investigation of President Trump looking for possible obstruction of justice. Possible corruption. Possible abuse of power and more. All of it possibly laying the groundwork for impeachment proceedings in the house of representatives. Lets dig deeper with our correspondents and analysts. Gloria, the investigation, theyre trying to get information now from these 81 individuals. Yeah. And entities. What do you make of the scope of this new investigation . Its everything. Its absolutely everything, and, you know, what theyre saying is this is essentially a preimpeachment strategy. I mean, jerry nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said something that i felt was telling over the weekend on abc. He said, you cant proceed with impeachment unless you have the public on your side. So what theyre trying to do is educate the public, bring these people before cameras, if they can, and i think the only danger here is that it can look like overreach at a certain point. When you have a president whos saying witch hunt, witch hunt, witch hunt, and then you look at this list that you were just showing of people that they want to interview, the president can say, oh, this is just president ial harassment, and his supporters will probably believe him. Hows the white house, pamela, responding . Well, theyre echoing the same message that gloria just said that, look, this is overreach. Youve heard Sarah Sanders say nadler is playing politics, trying to force the disclosure of private documents protected under the law, she claims executive privilege. Today the white house sent out a statement saying it has received this letter, white House Counsel and other white house officials are looking at it and will respond accordingly. I can tell you, though, in speaking to white house officials this is what theyve been preparing for. The new white House Counsel, has been beefing up his office with more lawyers than the previous white House Counsel. This is exactly what they ex. Pekted to happen and theyre preparing for battle. How does this fit in, jeffrey toobin, democrats calculations potentially on launching impeachment proceedings in the house . I try not to be too cynical. I think in Part Congress is just trying to do its job. I mean, there is a lot to look into in the white house and in the Trump Administration and in the campaign. And there are hhas been no over for two years. Obviously, impeachment is a possibility down the road. This is a Democratic Party that is deeply informed by the 1998 experience of the republicans who went ahead with impeachment in the house, knowing it would never succeed in the senate. This Democratic Party, democratic majority, is simply not going to do that, but theyre not going to stop investigating. Theyre going to do their job, and this, if it leads to impeachment, well, as donald trump would say, lets see what happens. Yeah. But i dont think you know, it is not just an impeachment or even primarily an impeachment strategy. Its a strategy to find out what the heck happened here. Yeah, you need a simple majority in the house to impeach a president , but you need a twothirds majority in the senate to convict the president and remove him or her from office. Lets talk, david swerdlick, about what jerry nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is up to. Hes setting a pretty high bar right now for impeachment, suggesting you got to convince more than just democrats that this is the right thing to do, you also got to start convincing republicans and even trump supporters. Right, congressman nadler is part of leadership, hes the Committee Chair and the leadership of the democrats, kind of along the lines of what jeffrey was just saying, know that the line they have to strike, wolf, is they dont want to rule out impeachment too soon and dont want to rule it in too soon. Its not a madeup procedure. Its right there from the framers in the constitution. They dont want to proceed along a partyline vote just with democrats, just as you just said because they know both from 1998 and also that because of the public mood, that it would be seen as removing a president from power illegitimately, even if they find things out in this investigation that are damaging to the president. And democrats, excuse me, republicans, i think the conventional wisdom is theyre cowed, right . Theres not a republican like howard baker saying what did the president know, when did he know it . Theres not a senator goldwater eventually putting the arm on president nixon in that case saying, look, its time to go. Thats where we are. These things are not mutually exclusive. You know, as jeff says, look, you can make the case that this is congress doing its job, and i believe thats absolutely true. You can also say that theres a political strategy at work, and i believe that is absolutely true, which is educating the American Public and educating themselves because as they prepare for the Mueller Report, pamela knows this, as they prepare for the Mueller Report, theyre not so sure what theyre going to get. The white house doesnt think theyre going to be getting much. Right. The way that they view the regulations is that barr has the discretion to decide and that he wont be hinting over much of the confidential report from mueller. I think what you see is democrats preparing for not getting a whole lot from the attorney general. This new long list of investigations, the new democrat majority in the house of representatives, is now open, jeffrey. What does that give you, what kind of insight does that give you about what the democrats potentially are expecting from the Mueller Report . You know, i dont think it necessarily tells you much. I think, you know, they have been guided by the News Coverage of the Mueller Investigation. You know, mueller hasnt said anything, but, you know, we know whos been called on the grand jury, we know whos been indicted. We know, you know, whos been subpoenaed to a certain extent. And they are tracking that in seeking the information. You know, its not just the 81 names that you have up there. If you drill down into what the democrats have done, they have requested specific documents from all of those people, and so its not just give us all your documents, its very specific requests from each, you know, for each of those figures, and each of those people have had some connection to the Mueller Investigation. They dont know any more than we know how much of the Mueller Investigation is ultimately going to be public, but they are tracking the Mueller Investigation so that they can make public whatever they can find out. Its interesting, gloria, all the 81 individuals and the entities that have now been addressed by the House Judiciary Committee for all this information, they all have to go and hire washington lawyers right now, which is obviously good for the washington legal business, not necessarily what these companies and these individuals want. But this is an expensive proposition clearly for all of them. How do you expect this to unfold . Well, its going to take a long time, and, you know, this is the way washington works now. You go work in the white house, you sort of presume youre going to end up having to hire a lawyer for better or for worse. Many of these people, i should say, are sort of overlapping with the Mueller Investigation and so they already have lawyers, but theyre going to be, if they dont, if they dont come willingly, theyre going to be subpoenaed and theyre going to have to produce documents and thats costly and it also takes a long time. So this is going to take months and months to play out. It isnt going to happen overnight. Can i just yaerkeah, go ahead, jeffrey. You know, people in Barack Obamas white house didnt have to hire lawyers because there were no scandals. Its true. George w. Bush, there were no scandals to speak of in the white house there. So, you know thats the way it is now. Its the way it is now. Well, no, i dont think its just the times. I think its the presidency. Thats what i mean. I mean, yeah, its like not all president s are are the same. I mean, this is a president who is under investigation for good reason. Well, and anybody going into this white house knows upfront youre going to end up having to hire a lawyer. Thats true, yes. Which is we agree on that. Which is obviously not cheap. The white house right now, you heard Shimon Prokupecz say probably one of their big concerns, if not their biggest concern, is all this information that the mueller team has is going to be made available to their political opponents, the democratic majority, in the house of representatives, leading these investigations. And i think this is really where youre going to see this fight over executive privilege because mueller was still in the executive branch, they didnt invoke executive privilege. As you well know, gloria, weve been working on this reporting. This changes things, obviously, if these documents are going to be turned over to a Different Branch of government. And so i think, again, youre going to see the white House Counsels office really putting up a big fight for any documents that are covered under executive privilege. What about that, jeffrey, executive privilege . How strong of a case will the white house have in invoking it. The way executive privilege looks, you have to look at document by document. Cant just say we invoke executive privilege into everything. Remember, executive privilege only applies to the white house. There are 81 names there, virtually all of them dont work in the white house. And they certainly dont have any executive privilege. So, yui do anticipate the ones who did work in the white house, don mcgahn, his deputy, would be protected youre certainly right about that. There are a lot of names there that have that were not government employees, didnt work in the white house, and they have no executive privilege, but youre certainly right that, you know, what, you know, both current and former white house employees, there are likely to be legal fights over there. The president is the one who invokes privilege, right . Right. The president is the one who says these my conversations with, say, kcorekor corey lewandowski. It has to come from donald tr p trump. Remember, too, emmet flood is now in charge of these responses. Emmet flood comes from williams conley. They dont believe in accommodating anything. This is a new group, you know, its not ty cobb who was in charge initially. Emmet flood is going to lead a fight on everything. And, you know, well as, again, to quote the president , well see what happens. You know that Allen Weisselberg, david, the chief Financial Officer of the trump organization, hes been there for 40 years. Hes not going to be able to cite executive privilege. He never worked in the white house with the president. He worked for the trump org or david pecker, the head of american need yeah the Parent Company of the national enquirer, hes not going to be able to cite executive privilege. No, not at all. For two reasons. One, Allen Weisselberg worked for President Trump when he was donald trump in a business capacity. Right. Number two, even if he had worked for him in some political capacity, its not anybody whos politically worked with the president. Its the Senior Advisers as jeffrey said in the white house. Correct. Not anybody the administration. Everybody, stick around. Theres a lot more we need to discuss right after this. 2 what . im here to steal your car because, well, thats my job. What . What . . What . laughing what . . What . what . [crash] what . haha, it happens. And if youve got cutrate Car Insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. So get allstate. 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Correspondents and analysts as we follow the breaking news, House Democrats now opening a wideranging new investigation into possible corruption and obstruction of justice involving President Trump. You know, pamela, i want to play for you some excerpts. This is the president on saturday, he spoke for cbac, the conservative Political Action conference, more than two hours and two minutes and went on and on and on. Listen to this. I said, what the hell, lets run for president. You know im totally off script right now. Now green deal ore whatever the hell they call it. All of a sudden theyre trying to take you out with bullshit. Okay . With bullshit. The attorney general says im going to recuse myself. Going to recuse and i said, why the hell didnt he tell me that before i put him in . He still hasnt gotten over getting his ass kicked, okay . And we kicked their ass. Were you surprised to hear the president go on and on and on . Thats a tiny little snippet of what he said. I have to say, after covering this president for a while, it does not surprise me at all. I feel like ive seen this show before. I mean, this reminds me of candidate trump when he was on the trail, and, you know, last year, i remember at cpac, i think he said something similar like were going off script. This, he was clearly in his element. And it seemed like he was blowing off steam after what appeared to be a rough week for him. The look at this. Look what hes doing now. Yeah, hugging the american flag. Tight. Hes clearly hes pawing the hes pawing, hugging, however you want to say it. It was quite an interesting display for more than two hours, and what really just, i guess, if i am going to be surprised, its that two years later he is still fix sasated on inaugurati crowd sizes, Jeff Sessions not prek recusing himself. Doing an impersonation of Jeff Sessions. Really interesting behavior. It seemed like after the week when he blamed his attorneys hearing on capitol hill for the failed north korea summit, he was happy to be in front of a crowd that likes him and he was blowing off steam. You know, most people dont know this go ahead, jeffrey. Most people dont know this, but that speech was a wordforword quote of a speech from abraham lincoln. Wegettysburg address was a little shorter. I agree with pamela its no surprise anymore. Especially you heard someone on tape two years ago saying grab them by the p. Okay, he drops a bs in the middle of the speech. Heres the thing. It underscores this incredible, incredible hypocrisy among people on the right and republicans about the comportment they demanded from president obama ver sksus with t they demand from President Trump. You had andrew card criticizing president obama for not wearing a suit jacket at the resolute desk. Representative king criticized obama for wearing a tan suit. Not a perfect comparison because president obama didnt ever say bs in a speech. The idea now this is anything goes when all that criticism happened before, its just a its bs. It was the first time, you know, gloria, that i heard him make fun of Jeff Sessions southern access. It was awful. Terrible. The first time i heard him use that vulgar word in public. Right. It was like a tweetstorm on steroids. It was just, he unloaded because he had this awful week as pamela points out. The north korea summit had failed and Michael Cohen had testified calling him a con man, a cheater, and a racist. And he was before an audience that loves him and what does he like more than anything else . To be flattered and he was getting cheered and so then he continued and continued and continued. This is this is who donald trump is. He gets his energy from the audience. The oaudience had a lot of enery and decided im going to go with it and profane in a way thats not fitting the office of the presidency. Even when youre giving a speech at cpac and not in the oval office. He said over and over again he could be the most president ial president ever. He cant do it. Two years in jeffrey, they had originally at the cpac conferenceminutes. He spoke for 2 hours and two minutes. He delivered value. I think they were happy. Thats what they came for. You know, he responded you know, i dont think that audience was unhappy with what he said. No, not at all. You know, is anything surprising about what he does anymore . I mean, this is just how he conducts himself. Going off script there, forgetting about a teleprompter, that was his style, jeffrey, during the campaign. He beat 17 other republicans for the nomination then he won the presidency. And may well get reelected. I mean, you know, look, i, you know, have pointed out many times how wrong i was about the 2016 election. So i am out of the prediction business. But anyone who predicts the outcome of this election, you know, this next election with any great confidence, you know, buyer beware because i dont think anyone knows whats going to happen. Jeffrey makes a great point, gloria, the new nbc news the wall street journal poll, his job approval number has gone up to 46 . Last april. According to the same nbc news wall street journal poll, it was 39 . This is obviously among republicans, its much, much higher, but this is the country 80 , 90 among republicans. 46 , thats pretty good. I thought that was a striking number because normally, his Approval Rating has been sort of at the 35 to 40 range and his disapproval is still 52 as you can see there. But among his base, you know, this is a president who has done nothing to reach out to anyone beyond his base, but you see his approval number moving up. I miean, among his base, hes 80 , 90 . Its just one poll but thats higher than inauguration day, 45 . Everybody, stick around. Theres a lot more we need to follow. Were also going to give you any details emerge right now about a killer tornado thats left at least 23 people dead. If your moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis or crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough it may be time for a change. Ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. Infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. Entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. Pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. Tell your doctor if you have an infection experience frequent infections or have flulike symptoms, or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio®. 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There were a family of four living here. Miraculous, three of those Family Members left just moments before this tornado struck. This is what happened. You would have been here, but i had just left and went to the Grocery Store with my kids to get my baby formula. Reporter so but for that mother necessity, you would have been inside that trailer. Yeah. Reporter tell me how bad your boyfriends hurt . He has a fractured leg, his ribs are broken, he has puncture wounds, cuts, bruises. Hes really sore. He got out of the hospital last night. Were thankful hes alive. He saw the porch fly up, the front porch was a like a patio. He seen that fly up and he said he had just enough time to dive to the couch, which the couch is about a foot away from the screen door and just held on to the couch for dear life. Reporter wolf, he rode that couch through the tornado. They looked for that couch today. They couldnt find it. Thats how bad the damage is. He is fine. The death toll is at 23 and thankfully, it is holding there. We did see dogs out, going through all the debris, looking for anymore potential victims out there. Apparently, they didnt find any today. They have kind of reconciled the missing list, so this may be contained to 23, although the sheriff said, dont be surprised if the body count doesnt go up a few because of people we dont know about. But right now, people just reeling in this county from this, as you said, 170mileperhour tornado that just ripped through here yesterday afternoon. Wolf . Awful situation, indeed. All right, drew griffin on the scene for us. Thank you. And well have much more right after this. It turns out, they want me to start next month. She can stay with you to finish her senior year. Things will be tight but, we can make this work. Now. Grandpa, what about your dream car . This is my dream now. Principal we can help you plan for that. [indistinct conversation] [friend] ive never seen that before. 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Kids whoa kids vo safelite repair, safelite replace now to israel where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing corruption charges and taking a page from President Trumps playbook. Cnns other thren liebermann isg us from jerusalem. After a twoyear investigation, israels attorney general announced he plans to indict netanyahu. Reporter on charges of bribery and breach to have trust. A major employee to president netanyahu after he seeks a fifth election term here in israel. The challenge he faces, hes answering it in a very trumpesque style. The two employeei ingemploying of message and style as they attack the investigations they face. Two leaders, one message. Fake news. Fake news. Reporter as the Mueller Investigation comes to a close, criminal investigations are encircling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His case built, like trump, on the testimony of former associates. The two have the same tactic, attack the media, the system, and the justice system. The attorney general is weak skp and ineffective and he doesnt do what he should have done. Translator today the press is carrying against us an unprecedented political witch hunt. Reporter they favor social media to traditional news outlets, with one american exception. They have not been able to beat Bibi Netanyahu at the ballot box, so theyre trying to beat him through these trumped up, he calls it a witch hunt, call it what our president calls it, trumped up charges. Reporter the two leaders share more than a message. Trump and netanyahu are wellconnected millionaires, the ultimate insiders, who portray themselves as fighting a system rigged against them, and standing up for the little guy. There is a big difference here. Trump keeps crashing into the american political system. Netanyahu is a master of finessing israels system. I think that trump in his reactions, definitely clear and was very emotional. Very impulsive. And i dont think that netanyahu is either emotional. I think that he is very calculated and hes definitely not an impulsive person. Reporter trump has made his admiration of netanyahu clear. I can say this pb th, that h done a great job as Prime Minister. Hes tough, hes smart, hes strong. Reporter netanyahu has done the same. Israel has no better ally than the united states. Reporter the mutual adoration has helped each leaders popularity. Rightwing israelis celebrate trump. Republicans hero worship netanyahu. In a time of surging rightwing politics, these two have risen hand in hand. They have supported one another, as each leader faces the investigation that threatens to topple him. In the first election polls since the attorney general announced his intention to indict netanyahu, wolf, according to both of those polls, netanyahu will not be able to form a Coalition Government in israels parliamentary system. His response to that has been to go on the attack. And the israeli election is coming out april 9th. Not very far down the road. Well see what happens over the next few weeks. Its going to get very, very intense, the political situation over there. Oren liebermann, reporting from jerusalem. Thank you very much. And to our viewers, thanks very much for watching. You can follow me on twitter and instagram, at wolf blitzer. You can tweet the sho show cnnsitroom. Erin Burnett Outfront starts right now. Outfront next, investigating trump. Democrats launching a sweeping probe on the president. Could it be the biggest threat to trump yet . The man in charge. The house judiciary chairman, jerry nadler, is my guest. Plus, the house intelligence Committee Chairman says the Mueller Report is the, quote, bare minimum. Whoa well talk about that. And the art of contortion. Top officials twisting themselves into pretzels, denying reality, lying, just to defend the president. Lets go outfront. And good evening. Im erin burnett. Outfront tonight, the biggest threat to President Trump. His name, and its a person, is jerry nadler, the powerful new