Diplomat. Cnns dan merica is not far from the maralago estate. Break down what this reporting means. Its really hard to believe, frankly, that George Papadopoulos, according to the New York Times, is really what set off this investigation. According to the New York Times and a story that is out today, George Papadopoulos was boasting in a bar in london to an australian top diplomat that the russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Two months later, when emails began to be appearing nline, that damaged Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign, those Australian Authorities passed along information that, according to the New York Times, set off the investigation into possible collusion between russia and the Trump Campaign. Now, why is this groundbreaking . Its groundbreaking because George Papadopoulos was somewhat of a bit player in the campaign. But the dismissals by republicans when George Papadopoulos name cropped up, this report throws some cold water on those on those dismissals. A number of Trump Officials talked about George Papadopoulos as a coffee boy. The president himself said he was nothing more than a low level volunteer. This New York Times report elevates him in a way not only to somebody who was obviously involved in the campaign but somebody who could have set off the investigation that has really dominated the Trump White House for the first year in office. Additionally, the report also throws a bit of cold water on the republican talking point that the dossier, the steele dossier, controversial information that compiled by a former mi6 british operative is actually what started the russia investigation. So theres still more to come out. The white house has yet to respond to what is alleged. But it does get to how this investigation started. Its worth noting that this investigation really has dominated the first year of President Trumps time in office. He is down here on vacation in maralago. But for the last 11 months and the foreseeable future, one has to assume, you know, Robert Muellers probe into russian meddling in addition to what the fbi has already done, will continue to dominate news in washington, boris. Yes, especially as more and more details trickle out. Dan merica, thank you so much for that reporting. Joining us now to talk about this and a lot more, cnn contributor selena zito. Cnn National Security analyst steve hall. Steve, i want to get to you right away. Apparently, weeks prior to this may meeting in the uk, between George Papadopoulos and an australian diplomat, he had learned that russia hacked the clinton campaign. How does low level coffee boy have that kind of information when it wasnt until june 2016 that the dnc came out and said they were hacked . Yes, thats an excellent question. And it gets to the idea of, you know, what role did papadopoulos really play and how close was he to the russians. I think whats important to also take a step back and say look, whether youre talking about the steele dossier, talking about a guy like papadopoulos or even a guy like flynn or Paul Manafort playing much larger roles in the campaign, in the Trump Campaign, you could take away any one of those legs, and this is from a counterintelligence perspective now. You could take away any one of those legs of this investigation and you would still have a whole lot of stuff that the Trump Administration needs to explain. The whole idea of dirt on Hillary Clinton is first and foremost sort of gets you to collusion pretty quickly. Again, thats coming from a lot of different places. Theres just a lot of you could see how broad the russian operation was here trying to get into the Trump Campaign. You dont have to go interject, go ahead. You dont have to go any further than President Trump on the stump. As hes campaigning, encouraging the russians to turn over information about hillary. I mean, that lets start there. Besides all of that. As far as all the legs go. This is a sentyy centipede. There isnt anybody around in the Trump Administration who doesnt have some tie to russia in some way. If they decide its damaging to the United States and illegal, go forward from that. So the New York Times, while it throws cold water on some of the allegations made by the Trump Administration, you also have to remember were still looking at blue smoke and mirrors and the final word is going to come out of the Mueller Investigation and not anything we say or the times says or the post or anyone else. You have to keep your eye on that prize. Salina, another nugget in the story stands out to me. It again draws into question the likelihood of whether or not George Papadopoulos was just a coffee boy or a low level volunteer. The times reporting that papadopoulos actually helped broker a meeting for then candidate trump with the egyptian president fatah el sisi. So how is it possible that this lowlevel volunteer is setting up these major Foreign Policy meetings . Well, to your point on what stands out to you sort of stands out to me in sort of the same way. In that it shows how sort of loose the campaign was. How unprofessional it was. And how unpolished it was. It wasnt like sort of any other normal campaign that any political reporter that has done this for years and years and years has ever seen. And thats part because we he was a populist. He wasnt someone who sort of ever had political experience in terms of running. So, you know, it seems like he kept sort of piecing people together. And i shouldnt even say trump. Because we dont know who started to pull all the people together to be part of the campaign. But there seems to be a Loose Association with a number of people. And its unclear to me after reading the report, still, how im not going to be able to pronounce his name, but how im not even going to try. But sort of was he part of it or wasnt he part of it . It still remains unclear to me how, like, what was his role . Im sorry, the difficult thing here salina is that so many people on Trumps Campaign and even in the Transition Team denied there were any contacts at all with the russians. But yet were seeing kind of this systemic approach. What do you make of that . Do you think these folks are just forgetful or perhaps they didnt really give these meetings or contacts as much weight as they should have in retrospect . Well, what i think is oh, was that to me . Go ahead, im sorry. Okay, sorry. So what i think is it again shows the sort of immature nature of this campaign. I dont think a lot of people talk to each other. There seems to be this sort of inner circle thats spread out. I dont think among all these layers there is a lot of conversations going on. There may be some here and some there but i dont get the sense of connectivity. So people may not be lying when they say i never had contact with this guy. That might be true. We dont seem to understand what the infrastructure was well, thats true up to a point. At the point where they become a Transition Team and we still have President Trump denying that theres any type of connection with russia. By then, they had assembled some people. By then it was organized. By then, as the facts show so far, there was a connection. What it was or whether or not it goes to trump, we still dont know. That remains to be seen. The early part of this campaign was a populist movement that wasnt popular. The gop didnt even back him all that much and backed away from him. Once he became a team that was in transition and once he won the election, those connects, connections, by then, im sorry, youre the president elect and you have a responsibility to the american people, and i think at that point in time, you can clearly see there was someone was talking to someone somewhere and they were a lot better organized. You might say they still arent organized. They got rid of a lot of people. 34 of the people that came in with this administration have already flipped, which is huge. Nonetheless, there was some communication at some point in time and someones responsible for it. I do want to let steve in here but i want to clarify something that brian said. The president has not only denied there was any collusion with russia, he apparently has trouble admitting russia interfered in the election at all. Absolutely. Steve, what do you make of these denials from the trump team . Do you agree with salina, that it just seems to be caused by chaos and a disorganized operation . I spent most of my career, boris, looking at foreign governments and foreign intelligence services. I think i can speak to a point here which is sort of interesting. That is that the Russian Intelligence Services had this amazing stable in the Trump Campaign of possible spies they could go after, they could try to recruit, to work inside the Trump Campaign for them for any number of different reasons. Again, from p gmanafort to flyno papadopoulos. It would not be uncommon for those individuals not to know necessarily how far they had gone along with the russians, if at all. The russians are going to want to compartment that. They wont tell manafort, hey, we were just talking. Because they want to keep those channels of communication point to point. So that contributes of course to the chaos part of it. You know, in manafort doesnt know, you know, what flynn has told the russians and who knows what papadopoulos, you know, via the maltese professor. Theres fascinating lines that do all have a tendency, however, to end up back in the kremlin and back in russia. That from a counterintelligence perspective is the real thing. The big point here is why didnt anyone when they were approached by the russians go straight to the fbi . Why are we hearing about thats a good point. Thats the point that has to be made. If the russians had approach ee papadopoulos, flynn or manafort, the first stop should have been the fbi. They should have said these guys are trying to interfere in our election and its wrong. They didnt do that. Were short on time. The last word to salina, very quickly. The reason i speak to chaos is i sort of had a firsthand experience. The second week of december of last year, i went into trump tower in new york to do an interview and i never saw anything like it. It was an incredibly chaotic situation. And so i think that that stays with me in terms of wondering who i mean, it just seemed like nobody knew who was what, was where, was how. That is why i sometimes wonder if there is a lot of communications with a lot of Different Actors and characters. Salina zito, brian, steve hall, it is unfortunate we are out of time because this breaking news is worthy of closer inspection. Thank you. Moving on to iran where a top official says the government will work harder to resolve the countrys economic woes. He also warns that anyone who uses these issues as an excuse to hurt the government must be identified. Crowds have taken to the streets over the past two days to protest the countrys rising gas and food prices. State media is reporting three students at Tehran University were arrested. Adding to the chaos today, progovernment supporters also staged their own rallies. Just moments ago, senator john mccain voiced his support for the antigovernment demonstrators, sending out this tweet, quote, the u. S. Stands with the brave protesters who yearn for freedom, peace and an end to corruption in iran. Nic robertson has been following the latest developments for us from london. Nic, this is very different than the countergovernment protests that we saw just a few years nation 2009. What stands out to you . Well, we know that there are these issues that are driving some antigovernment protesters to the streets. Inflation is running at about 8 . Unemployments up to about 12 . Food prices, because of shortages, are going up. So there are conditions. Some of these antigovernment rallies started out with people with economic chants. Now theyve morphed some of those some of the chants have now become of a more political nature. Theres an element here, whoever got these people out on the streets with one message, another message is coming out. They are spread out across iran. These are the biggest protests since 2009. The Deputy Governor of tehran said many of these protesters dont realize theyre being manipulated by antirevolutionary forces. Theres an indication here the government is trying to push blame outside the country as well, which is something you can tell the government is doing from a position of pressure on the government. But what weve heard from the deputy from the spokesperson at the Foreign Ministry is a pushback directly on what President Trump and the White House Press secretary said that the world is watching it ing te this time. Weve heard the government spokesman saying the people of iran give no value or credibility to such opportunistic expressions. The government of and the person of donald trump. American officials, through their conduct, have no have not earned respect from which they can express their expressions. This is the government here absolutely pushing back on what President Trump has said, on what the white house has said, that the iranian government says they have no credibility and theyre just being opportuni opportunistic, boris. Nic, very quickly, how much is the protesters anger over Economic Conditions and how much is it clerical rule . Weve heard something here we never really heard before. People chanting in the streets death to the ayatollah. That is something new. Weve also had, you know, down with rouhani and there has been the president of iran, and there has been a view that some of these rallies were originally organized by hardliners trying to bring down the iranian president , trying to put him in a difficult position because of what he promised would happen after iran signed the nuclear deal with the United States and the other nations. That its been an effort to undermine him. When it morphs into calls for an end to the supreme leader, khomei khomeini, this is new ground. Of course those protests in 2009 went on for months and months and months. This is just three days of protests. Its impossible to know at the moment with a lack of information, clarity that we just lack at the moment, its impossible to know how much longer theyll run, what they may come to. Yes, we will certainly keep our eyes on the situation in ir iran. Nic robertson, thank you. From rooftop snipers to hostage rescue teams, major cities are pulling out all the stops to ensure that americans stay safe tomorrow night. Well talk new years eve security right after a quick break. news anchor downtown traffic is still bad. Expect massive delays. news anchor 2 all lanes on highway 50 remain closed at this hour. news anchor 3 the stats are in and this city leads with some of the worst traffic, with the average driver sitting in gridlock the equivalent of three days a year. 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