This ijust listen. vo theres so much we want to show her. We needed a car that would last long enough to see it all. avo subaru outback. Ninety eight percent are still on the road after 10 years. Come on mom, lets go this weeks cnn heroes delivering meals with a dash of love, shes 75 years old and owns a small diner in san diego. But she also makes home cooked meals for sick people unable to feed themselves, shes made and delivered over a million free meals and has been doing this for 30 years. Meet ruth. Theres a special connection when youre feeding people. Lets do the veg gee burgers. In the beginning our mission was feeding People Living with a. I. D. S. And now we have added People Living with other chronic illnesses. A lot of them are bed bound. Many times they dont have the money to shop. Its kind of a desperate thing when they dont have any food in the house. Nice to see you. Its bringing that love. Its bringing that dignity to them. This is the assignment that i feel that ive been given. To see how ruth got started and has kept this amazing work going, or to nominate someone you think should be a hero go to cnn heroes. Com right now. Thanks for watching, our coverage continues. Good evening, we begin tonight with breaking news. An Administration Official revealing that the white house asked former White House Counsel Don Mcgahn to say publicly that President Trump did not obstruct justice and mcgahn refused. A source familiar with the president said he was upset with mcgahns refusal. The story was first reported in the wall street journal. The New York Times has reporting that the white house made the request to mcgahn at least twice in the last month. Mcgahn was a key witness for Robert Mueller. He was mentioned in the report more than 500 times. According to the Mueller Report, President Trump sought to have mcgahn fire mueller. Mcgahn refused to do that as well but the president denied that ever happened. Joining us is the reporter who first broke the story, rebecca ballhouse. Rebecca, what are you learning about this outreach from the white house to don mcgahn. What we understand is within a day of the release of the Mueller Report, emmet flood, a Top White House lawyer, the white house special counsel, received a request from the president that he ask don mcgahn to publicly declare in a statement that he didnt believe his interactions with the president , which included trump asking him to seek muellers dismissal and subsequently to deny that that conversation ever happened, that mcgahn thought that that amounted to obstruction of justice and they wanted the statement to come out right in the middle of sort of this public furor that was emerging over the report that had a lot of these explosive details about the president s efforts to get rid of Robert Mueller in the early stages of his investigation. So President Trump wanted mcgahn to say that he didnt believe the president had tried to obstruct justice . Thats right. And we know that emmet flood, when he reached out to mcgahns lawyer, pointed to some previous conversations that mcgahns lawyer had had with other attorneys for the president in which he had said that if mcgahn felt that he had that the president had ordered him to commit a crime or that the president had committed a crime that he would have resigned. Since he didnt resign, there was an inference to be drawn there. So flood pointed to those conversations and essentially asked them to say that again more publicly. So what was their response . Their response was that mcgahn declined to put out any kind of statement. This was for a couple of reasons, according to what were hearing. Number one, mcgahn didnt want to be perceived as commenting on anything in the report beyond his own testimony. But in addition to that, he didnt really want to comment on his own testimony because he felt that you cant really say whether the president obstructed justice based off of one part of what was testimony from hundreds of witnesses. And he also felt that his own statement saying what he believed or didnt believe about whether the president obstructed justice wasnt really relevant when the attorney general had already determined that he didnt believe there was a prosecutable crime. Do we know, does mcgahn actually believe the president did not obstruct justice . Well, i think thats a hard question to answer and its one that i think that lawmakers will want mcgahn to answer. I think the fact that he threatened that he felt that he would have resigned if he felt like he was witnessing a crime and didnt resign is interesting. But it is, as you noted, important to point out that he was prepared to resign if trump pressed again about having him seek muellers dismissal. So he clearly felt that there was the potential for obstruction of justice there if it had been carried out. Is it known when mcgahn left the white house i mean he and the president , do we know what their relationship was by then . Did they leave on okay terms . We know that the president was really incensed by reporting around last summer that mcgahn had spent 30 hours with muellers investigators. I think that shows itself in the fact that the president s lawyers reached out to mcgahns lawyer to figure out what exactly mcgahn had said. So i think relations were pretty tense by the time that mcgahn left last fall. I believe at the time the president announced that mcgahn would be leaving in a tweet, which surprised mcgahn himself. Rebecca ballhaus, appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. The New York Times also has this reporting. Michael schmidt has the byline. Joining me is maggie haberman. Who is the White House Correspondent and cnn political analyst. Maggie, what does it say that the president wanted mcgahn to make a Statement Like this . Look, i think this fits, anderson, with a pattern of what we have seen the president try to do over the last several years, which is he tries to get aides to tamp down information he thinks could be problematic. He tried to get don mcgahn to issue a statement saying that the president had never told mcgahn to fire mueller. Mcgahn refused to do that. That is one of the acts mueller considered as possible obstruction of justice. So i think this fits in line with what weve seen the president do repeatedly, try to get people to issue statements on his behalf. Its notable that mcgahn declined to do so. If the president wasnt concerned about obstruction of justice and fully believed he had been exonerated as he keeps saying he is, why would he need to go to mcgahn to go out and say this . I think thats right. Look, mueller to your point, mueller was pretty clear, he and his team, in the report that they were not exonerating the president on obstruction of justice. That if they felt they could say that a crime was not committed, that they would have made that very clear. They didnt feel they could say that and so they didnt. It was bill barr, the attorney general, and rod rosenstein, then the Deputy Attorney general, who said in their summary that they do not believe that obstruction was committed because there was no underlying crime. Thats not the view of the mueller team. You point out that this is a pattern. Its not only a pattern with don mcgahn, he did the same thing with jim comey, asking comey to publicly say that the president wasnt under investigation. He did it with rod rosenstein, trying to get rosenstein to have a press conference, according to the Mueller Report, and say that it was his idea essentially to fire comey. Correct. We also know from the Mueller Report that the president asked corey lewandowski, his former campaign manager, to ask Jeff Sessions to Say Something favorable to the president about the russia investigation and the possible conspiracy between the campaign and russian officials. That also didnt happen. We know that the president wanted Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer and fixer, to stay sort of within his world and not say anything critical and not cooperate with authorities. When Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, that was when the president branded him a, quote unquote, rat. So we have seen this over and over again. Mcgahn refused to do this. Do you think its at all connected to the attempts by the white house to prevent mcgahns testimony in front of congress . I dont think that you can look at it as unrelated. I cant speak to their mindset, but its certainly worth noting the context that the white house has asserted executive privilege over the report. That they invoked privilege, did not assert it in terms of the documents that mcgahn has and the testimony that congress wanted from him, both documents and testimony. They have told him not to comply with the subpoena that he was issued. Mcgahns view as i understand it from people close to him was that the white house was the client. Hes not in a position to violate that. Either the president has to waive privilege or a court has to order mcgahn to comply. But i dont think you can take away the fact that the white house was asking mcgahn to issue this statement saying he didnt obstruct justice at a time when congress is eagerly looking for mcgahns testimony. Mcgahn is a key witness in the mueller case and this will add another question if he ever does appear before congress that hell be asked. It was interesting, during the president s talks to reporters today, he said something that kind of actually it was yesterday, im sorry. He said something that he used a word he normally doesnt use in reference to obstruction. I just want to play this. I didnt have to give them a document. I gave them 1. 5 million documents. I gave them white House Counsel. I gave them other anybody you want, you can talk to. At the end of the testimony, no collusion and essentially no obstruction. I think its the first time ive heard him say essentially no obstruction. I dont know if its a big deal at all, but its just interesting whether he meant it or not, he usually says no obstruction. Hes definitely now putting an asterisk on it. Lets see if he continues to do that. Up next, breaking news from steve bannon. Well get his take on the administrations tactics on requests from house democrats. Also meet a couple who travel the country on a mission to help survivors of Mass Shootings. Unfortunately they know this grief firsthand and try to help survivors prepare for a future that few can imagine. 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[chuckles] i couldnt have asked for better parents, but like most people they didnt have anyone to teach them the best financial habits. So we changed that. As a Financial Health coach, i help people every day. I try to put myself in their shoes from my own experience. I connect to them because ive been there. Helping families like mine save a little money changes everything. This is personalized guidance. This is wells fargo. Forget about vacuuming for weeks. The new roomba i7 with Clean Base Automatic dirt disposal empties the roomba bin for you. So dirt is off your hands. If its not from irobot, its not a roomba. Welcome back. Again, our breaking news, an Administration Official saying the white house asked former White House Counsel Don Mcgahn to state publicly that President Trump did not obstruct justice. Mcgahn refused and a source says the president was upset at that refusal. The other breaking news story, the escalating fight for the president s financial records. One of the most powerful democrats in congress has issued subpoenas now for President Trumps tax returns. Richard neal is demanding six years of the president s returns after the Treasury Department refused to turn them over. He has sent subpoenas to the irs commissioner and Steve Mnuchin setting up a likely Lengthy Court fight. This is democrats facing what they call unprecedented stonewalling by the trump administration. Joining me now is steve bannon. I want to get your reaction, first of all, to the reporting about mcgahn. Do you think mcgahn is an honorable guy . Do you believe what he told the mueller team about what he says the president asked him to do is accurate . Well, i think, you know, the president at the time waived executive privilege, sent his white House Counsel up and had over 30 hours of questioning. I was sent up, Reince Priebus was sent up, everybody in the white house. The president said go up and spend as much time as possible. I think it was over a million and a half documents. A hundred and some witnesses. Do you think mcgahn was honest to what he said to mueller . I think youve got to read the report. Don mcgahn is a pretty straightforward guy. This was a very serious investigation. I think its unprecedented in what the president did. Remember, i was the one that advocated not to fire people like comey. I said he had the right to do it. I thought just for the politics of it and get it out of the way. But the president says mcgahn lied. I didnt agree look, i think he got its in the document. I think youve got to read the document. Ive read it. I think the document is pretty straightforward. Okay. A New York Times report i think its pretty straightforward. Sorry, go ahead. I think its pretty straightforward. Youve got to read the document. Thats what you know, mueller and these guys had months and months and months to put it together. Read the document. I think the document is what it is. A New York Times report from earlier this week showed the president hadnt paid federal income taxes for eight out of ten years, called it sport when he was claiming enormous losses to the irs. Does that play well among Blue Collar Workers where the president did very well and turned democrats to his side, folks who are paying their taxes . I mean when you talk about an elite, that makes the president sound like an elite. Look, if you look at the midwest states the president won, i think he won because of whats happened with china this week. He promised that he was going to reverse the pattern of the elites in the United States and really focus on bringing jobs back to working class people, middle class people throughout the country and particularly in the rust belt. I really dont think, anderson, somebodys taxes from 30 years ago and we dont even know if theyre a summary of the taxes, what he did on depreciation. Hes a real estate developer. You know, youd have to go through the whole thing. I dont think its going to make a big deal. I dont think its going to make any real difference. I think the issues are the issues of today and voters will say, hey, we thought about that in 2016. We either voted for the guy or didnt vote for the guy on other reasons. I think this is just something thats on the margin. I want to ask you about china in a second, but i understand why the president doesnt why the president doesnt want to release his tax returns. Isnt the law pretty clear . It reads upon written request from the chairman of the committee of ways and means, the chairman of the finance of the senate or joint taxation the secretary will furnish the committee with any returning or return information specified in such request. It doesnt seem like theres a lot of wiggle room. I know it can be challenged in courts for a long time, but isnt the law clear . Well, i think look, im not a lawyer. Thats why you have teams of great lawyers around this. The secretary of the treasury said hes not going to do it. Steve mnuchin also i dont agree with steve all the time on his negotiating tactics, but steve is a pretty straight guy. Secretary mnuchin. I think he came out and said hes not going to do it. That will go to the courts and theyll fight it. I think, anderson, this is what i was saying back in the summer and the fall, elections have conseq