today officials authorize today know. trump supporters complaining about the source of leaks rather than the substance of the leak, jim sciutto. reporter: a source close to ambassador susan rice tells me the claims she improperly unmasked u.s. citizens caught up in surveillance is in a word false coming from ambassador rice, but i ve also spoken to senior intelligence officials from democratic and republican administrations to ask them about the process of unmasking. is it unusual, illegal? and the answer is usually no, not unusual, not illegal. they say a couple of things, one the law allows it, two for it to happen the official requests, the intelligence community has to approve it, it is often times approved because that official wants to provide more information as they are reading intelligence report they want to know more about the significance, that is shared between the briefer. it s possible that official could do that him or herself but by nature of it it is only exchanged one to one. there are open questions how extensive was the unmasking, what was the source, but this practice is not unusual, it happens, and two, it certainly is not illegal. there are protocols for the unmasking under certain rules. thanks to jim sciutto. we have to apologize we used video that was conda lee za rice. that was a snafu. sorry, everybody. trump officials were incidentally surveilled, listen. i know nothing about this. i was surprise today see reports from chairman nunes on that count today. okay. so a lot about the credibility here of susan rice said there on pbs news hour she knew nothing of this, surprised of it in the context she misled the public from the benghazi attack due to an internet video, there is some questions about her credibility related to truth with the american people. let us know what you think about that the web of this, his associates and seems to be spreading this morning. a russian connected to vladimir putin and founder of black water security prince. on the indian ocean the sources saying the meeting was used for a back channel communication between the kremlin and president-elect trump. eric was not part of the transition, but has ties to the circle, including steve bannon, betsy devos secretary of education. he calls it a quote complete fabrication. the house intelligence committee plans to meet at noon today. the committee convened last clear leegd up ading up his mai will be to push on dealing with north korea, a threat that is sure to cause allies a little bit of consternation. a showdown of historic p proportions of confirmation of neil gorsuch. now the president s pick is enough to sustain a filibuster unless mitch mocconnell follows through to block the number of votes. it s not certain whether all 52 senators will back mcconnell is he decide to deploy this so-called nuclear option. if three just three balk at the idea, the change would not have enough to pass the gorsuch nomination could be blocked. stand by, because this will tell us everything we need to know about how this congress can work together forward police reforms could be in jeopardy, jeff sessions ordering review of troubled departments. he wants to make sure they don t conflict with the president s goal of safety and fighting violent crime. investigations into law enforcement agencies is enforcing 14 consent decrees. the white house kills off a series of obama era privacy rules. president trump did it. signed into law a repeal of protections that would have required internet service providers get your permission before collecting and sharing your data. why block the rules? the chairman says those flawed privacy rules which never went into effect were designed to benefit one group of favored companies not online consumers. they have your browsing history, your app usage and your geolocation. you will have to get a vpn tour to do that. republicans feel the rule put service providers at a disadvantage would have put them at a disadvantage like facebook and google. it personally hands over your information to the highest bidder. president trump has earned and turned over the money to the ryan zinke foundation. they are 22$9 million behind. battleground maintenance. i was just talking to the kids about trying to get to gets burglary th gettysberg. pion who s faced thousands of drivers. she s a world-class swimmer who s stared down the best in her sport. but for both of them, the most challenging opponent was. pe blood clots in my lung. it was really scary. a dvt in my leg. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. my doctor and i choose xarelto® xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner. .that s proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. here s how xarelto works. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least six blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective. .targeting just one critical factor, interacting with less of your body s natural blood-clotting function. don t stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor as this may increase risk of blood clots. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. if you ve had spinal anesthesia, watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle-related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures and before starting xarelto® about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. you ve got to learn all you can. .to help protect yourself from dvt and pe blood clots. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. there s more to know. pabut with odor free blue-emu continuous pain relief spray, i can box out any muscle or joint pain immediately. blue-emu continuous pain relief spray, it works fast and you won t stink. petersburg russia. what are we learning this morning? reporter: good morning, there s suddenly a fleuur rry activity, some two dozen firefighters from stretched a fire hose with a sense of urgency and paramedics and police officers, this happened in the last few moments. it is from this station to the last station this explosion happened last night and this has become a sight of the memorial. they have identified the main suspect. born in 1995, that makes him 21 or 22 years old. a russian citizen born in kerg st kergst kergstan. the investigation moves from the who to the how and why and investigators will find out whether he acted on his own. that is another fire truck pulling up behind me. now the people looking an standing what s unfolding here standing by this memorial that has grown in size less than 24 hours ago when this attack happened. thousands of flowers, dozens if not hundreds of candles, to pay respects of dozens killed injured in the attack. the russian president vladimir putin paid his respects last night. could have been a lot worse. orrin thank you. the driver kept going so he knew they would be able to help the injured people better if he was at the station. 18 minutes past the hour. the president s son-in-law expanding his portfolio to iraq. we re live with that trip to iraq, what s on the agenda and what else is on his plate. like never before. with hyaluronic acid it plumps and quenches. delivers natural, flawless coverage that treats skin to 24 hours of hydration. this is what makeup s been missing. hydro boost hydrating tint. neutrogena® see what s possible. i wanted to know where i did my ancestrydna. the most shocking result was that i m 26% native american. i had no idea. it s opened up a whole new world for me. so you rhow nice.a party? i ll be right there. and the butchery begins. what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. let s go. i m ready. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] [ tires screech ] hold on. [ upbeat music ] the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who s that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week! now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. he may be the person that president trump trusts the most, son-in-law jared kushner includes advising the president, brokering middle east peace, restore the department of veterans affairs and help end drug addiction and shadowing the secretary of state at maintaining relations with mexico, canada and china. is that all. and now add iraq to the list. he is there meeting with the iraq s prime minister leading a coalition on the fight against isis. sean spicer said he was there at the invitation of the chairman of joint chiefs and said he wanted to see what was going on for himself. reporter: as if he didn t have enough to do already why not add iraq to the portfolio of your long responsibilities. he was taking part in meetings with chairman of joint chiefs of staff in addition to steven townsend who leads the international coalition against isis. they were meeting with iraqi prime minister, discussing the battle for mosul which at the moment has reached a difficult point where there is street to street house to house fighting, mounting civilian casualties and talked about the future of the involvement of united states in iraq after isis is destroyed whether it s going to maintain some sort of presence. obviously there are some ruffled feathers that need to be smoothed in iraq keeping in mind mr. trump as candidate and as president suggested that the united states might have a future opportunity to take iraq s oil, it was included the first travel ban proposed by president trump in the second version issued now on hold because of the courts. iraq was removed. many iraqis, despite all that, seem to admire mr. trump, see him as a strong man, we have reported on iraqis who named their babies after trump, restaurants after trump, so mr. kushner though he s no new territory not necessarily hostile. when a person s son-in-law is treated with respect and listened to, that s just the way it is in some places. thank you so much. nice to see you. the national hockey lead at odds with players decision not to participate in the 2018 winter olympics, they usually pause for a couple weeks, but a league in a statement says the majority of owners were adamantly opposed to sending the players to games saying they would no longer reimburse the cost of travel and insurance calling it short sided exactly i would share that sentiment. short sided. redemption for north carolina winning the national championship a year after losing the title on a buzzer-beater beating gonzaga 71-65, it was close they tell me. this is the sixth national championship that north carolina s storied history. it set off a wild celebration, this time lapsed video of fans swarming the streets in chapel hill to celebrate. congratulations to the cnn tar heels. brooke baldwin did well, kate baldwin wins the cnn brackets. the reves tof s took a lot of h. real story or fact scandal, wanting trump associates unmasked, but is that a problem? we ll discuss. hey allergy muddlers and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. i ve got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn t pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. 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[ male announcer ] join the millions of people who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an organization serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. remember, all medicare supplement insurance plans help cover what medicare doesn t pay. and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now - and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. more links to russia emerge. democrats now enough support to filibuster the supreme court nominee. will republicans change the senate forever and change the rules to get neil gorsuch on the bench? police reforms nationwide coming under review, why does the attorney general want to examine changes made under the previous administration? i think it s fair to say changes are being done across the government. that s they re agenda. welcome back. congrats to the tar heels. 4:31 eastern time. the constant drip, drip, drip between trump administration and russian associates. now the president doing his best to make unmasking sound illegal fighting off a barrage of tweets seemed at cooking up a scandal to distract from what might be a real one. all this began with a fox news report that a high ranking obama official requested the unmu unmasking of those caught in surveillance. naming president obama s national security adviser susan rice as the official requesting the unmasking, what are we talking about? unmasking is not the same as leaking. unmasking is revealed to officials only authorized to know. the leak of the susan rice information has the president trying to stir the pot. more on unmasking and response from susan rice let s bring in jim sciutto. reporter: a source close to susan rice tells me the claims she improperly unmasking names of u.s. sincitizens caught up i surveillance is false coming from ambassador rice, but i ve talked to both democratic and republican administration to ask about unmasking, one they say the law allows it, two, for it to happen the official requests it but the u.s. intelligence committee has to approve the request, often times it is approved because that official wants to provide more information, as they re reading intelligence report they want to know more about what it means, that information is only shared between the briefer from the intelligence community and that official, it s not more widely disseminated. it s possible that the official could do that him or herself, but by nature only exchanged one to one, how extensive was the unmasking, but this i know from speaking to intelligence officials is that this practice is not unusual, it happens and there are protocols specifically established after 9/11 to allow for unmasking under certain rules. thank you. susan rice was asked last month that trump officials were incidentally surveilled during the transition here is what she said. i know nothing about this. i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes today. that certainly speaks to the credibility of susan rice as does the whole benghazi situation where she misled the american public with an internet video, she s going to have to speak to why she was surprised and the exact question was what? unintentional surveillance of trump transition officials. it was very direct and very spot on this subject. not about the obama administration wiretapping? correct. also, why did she ask for the unmasking? was it in the interest of national security or purely politics. or maybe she wanted to make people aware of how serious it was. we just don t know. the web of connections between the president and russia seems p to be spreading. the founder of black water firm eric prince, a meeting took place on the indian ocean, sources say the meeting was to set up a back channel line of communication between the kremlin or president-elect trump, or at least an attempt. eric prince was not part of the transition, but has ties to steve bannon and his sister is secretary of education. a spokesman for prince calls this claim of connection a quote complete fabrication. the house intelligence committee plans to meet at noon today with the future of its russia investigation hanging in the balance. the full committee convened last night since adam schiff called on devin nunes to recuse himself. the topic of russia and alleged ties to the trump administration will be on the table. a highly unusual trip to the white house i dare say infamous trip, which has been talked about ad nauseam, it called the ability to call into question the investigation. now we know these documents came from the nsc, national security council, devin nunes had to view them at the white house. gives a cover why he was there. historic proportions unfolding over neil gorsuch. 43 democrats now oppose the president s pick, that s enough to sustain a filibuster, unless mitch mcconnell decide to change the rules so only a simple majority of 51 votes would be needed to push him through and like all nominees it is not certain whether all 52 republican senators will back mcconnell if he decide to deploy the nuclear option. the rule change would not have enough to pass and gorsuch nomination could be blocked. police reforms enacted by the obama station could be in jeopardy, jeff sessions ordering a review of all departments. since 2009 the justice department has conducted 25 investigations into law enforcement agencies and currently in 14 consent decrees and agreements. a reboot of health care, vice president mike pence meeting with mark meadows to pitch a new proposal that essentially gives states flex biibility to repeal obamacare. chairman meadows says he is intrigued by the new approach but needs to see more details. house republicans will discuss the plan when they meet later this morning for their weekly caucus. the trump administration plans to file an appeal on friday in an attempt to lift a or the order blocking the six-nation fratravel ban, it wi be heard by the ninth circuit court of appeals, last month a judge in hawaii revised the order. 4:40 a.m. in the east today is equal payday. it s the proposal that women earn the same amount as men. women earn about 80 cents for every dollar than a man makes. for a 20-year-old entering the workhorse it amounts of $418,000 over a 40 year. hispanic women only just 54 cents compare today a male and the narrowest gap is asian women. so why and what s being done about it? the gap has been closing slowly over the past 20 years, experts say only congress has the power to act on a national scale and companies are responsible. teaming with businesses to offer 20% discounts to make up on the difference, luna bars, lyft, and p & g. i would rather not have a discount, america. i was waiting for that that s not going to make up the gap. no, but even when you adjust for two people with the same education, same age, in is aim job no matter what the category is men make a little bit more, and the why is fascinating, it s not just raw discrimination and the maternity tax that thlose o on opportunities when they step out and have a baby. is negotiation part of this? some say it is. maybe in hollywood. no worry about people making a few thousand dollars more, i m worried more about the rank and file women. statistics show uneducated women in big cities make more than their male counterparts. they re going take charge and not except it. president trump has earned $78,332 as sally as commander in chief and donated it to the park service turning it over to ryan zinke, they will be used for the maintenance of battlefields. it s called a publicity stunt. drop in the bucket in a sense. yeah, i mean look, i love revolution battlefield tours. field trip. the death toll rising in that deadly attack on the metro in st. petersburg, russia rus. a officials releasing the name of the bomber. needles. essential for him, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an unjection™ . xeljanz xr. a once daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don t start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. needles. fine for some. but for you, one pill a day may provide symptom relief. ask your doctor about xeljanz xr. an unjection™ . orrin? reporter: no group has taken credit but still less than 24 hours since the attack happened and the identity of the suspect has just came out who say the man behind the deadly bombing that happened from a short distance from us is akbarzhon jalilov, that makes him 21 or 22 years old, a russian citizen, that s who authorities say is behind the deadly bombing, it has just risen to 14 dead and dozens wounded. there s still a flurry of activity, nine to ten fire trucks, two paramedics, they have run two or three fire hoses and blocked off the sennaya station. that is where this explosion happened. just a short distance past that is where police found another unexploeded device. we don t have an explanation for the flurry of activity. authorities have identified the suspect, akbarzhon jalilov, he is from kyrgyzstan, now the investigators are working on the how and why and the question is was he working alone? thank you. what happens when two iconic internet companies join forces? apparently boring not a good vepgs online. reception online. so when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. i m from all nations. it puts a hunger in your heart to want to know more. parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what? 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[ [ screams ] ] [ shouting ] brace yourself! this is crazy! [ tires screeching ] whoo! boom baby! rated pg-13. [ screams ] . it may be the person president trump trusts the most, son-in-law jared kushner, white house portfolio already includes advising the president brokering mideast peace, restore the department of veterans affairs to help end drug addiction and shadowing the secretary of state, maintaining relations with mexico, canada and china. that s all. now you can add iraq to the list. he is there traveling with the chairman of joint chiefs, on us-led coalition on the fight against isis. ben wheatman has more for us what s the essential mission of this trip to iraq? reporter: i think in the case of the 36-year-old jared kushner is get to know the place, he done have any military or diplomatic experience so being companied by the chairman over the joint chief of staff and general who coordinates the coalition against isis. yesterday they were in baghdad meeting with senior iraqi officials meeting with the prime minister. we understand part of the trip will include a visit to the northern part of the country where they may be meeting with u.s. forces involved in the offensive against isis in mosul where that battle at the moment is proving to be quite difficult really house to house, street to street fighting particularly in the old city. this is a fight in the western part of mosul where we ve seen mounting civilian casualties in which of course it s believed the united states may have had a role in a series of airstrikes on the 17th of march although the precise details of that particular day are not all together clear. mr. trump, the father-in-law of mr. kushner, the president, has in the past said some things that have riled some iraqis, for instance he did say as a candidate and as a president that the united states should have taken iraq s oil after the 2003 us-led invasion, president trump did include iraq in the initial travel ban though it was later removed, so some iraqis not all together thrilled with the president others do admire a strong man, dave. no doubt about that. thank you. the national hockey lead at od odds with the players association not to participate in the 2018 politics. the league usually pauses for players to play in the league. they were adamantly opposed. it said it would no longer reimburse the cost of travel and insurance. the players say it is short sided there are players that still want to go. are they poor? no, they want to protect their assets which you can understand from a business model right? we shall see, maybe it s not over. redemption for north carolina winning the championship after losing the title on a buzzer-beater to nova. the game close throughout, unc trailing at the half, the last eight of the game to close out the victory, third since 2005 for roy williams. the win setting off a wild celebration as you can see the school posting this great time lapsed video of north carolina students swarming the streets in chapel hill to celebrate from what it appears very peacefully. you don t see any fires or cars tipped over so it looks like a student body well used to celebrating national titles. congratulations to all of you and gonzaga great season. shares falling overnight. tokyo down 1%. the optimism over president trump s policies could be waning. tesla, look at this shares jumping 7% after the upbeat delivery on vehicles. tesla is now valuable than ford by market cap, think about that and general motors is not far off. needs about 3 million more to get there in value. more proof this morning that college education is key. a college education is key to achieving one piece of the american dream. 55% of students who graduate without debt own a home by age 33. without debt own a home by age 33, those who did not graduate from college only 28% will own a home in their 30s. there s a lot of competition, a census report shows americans 25 years or older with a all time high. 33% have a college degree, back in 1940, it was just 4.6%. my advice is the degree is worth it. keep the debt down on the front end. 529 college plans, save your money. already owns aol. so many have questioned what the company will do with the two struggling, but legendary internet properties, aol, yahoo,
your government and the united states government seems to be miles apart on the syria issue, ukraine and other issues. did you feel that you ve cleared up any of those issues you mentioned earlier today since you ve had those discussions with secretary tillerson? we did discuss at length the future role for assad, whether it be in a future political process or not. clearly our view is that the reign of the assad family is coming to an end. and they have, again, brought this on themselves with their conduct and war these past few years. we discussed our view that russia, as their closest ally in the conflict, perhaps has the best means of helping assad recognize this reality. we do think it s important that assad s departure is done in an orderly way, an orderly way, so achieved. this is a very high legal hurdle in order to bring such charges against an individual, so i would not suggest to you that all of that evidence is in place. but i think the longer time goes by, it s possible that the case will be made. there are certain individuals who are working to make that case. i for one would like to say that i do not think russia and the u.s., it cannot be breached on in issues of the international agenda, both with regard to syria and ukraine, it s not impossible. in our introduction remarks with mr. tillerson we mentioned the agreement that related not just to preserve it, but also to intensify the communication channels with regard to syria and ukraine. for syria and bashar al-assad. we have had sort of a historical background. rex said that he s a new guy and not looking to make history, but to deal with the matters of today. the thing is, the world is built in such a fashion that if we do not take lessons from the past, we will hardly be able to keep success and the president. and i record certain situations when groups of countries, primarily western countries, major countries, were fixated on eliminated the to tatalitarium order to oust the former president of yugoslav sra. they launched a war in 1999. a tv station was bombed, which incidentally as a military crime, however you interpret the geneva convention. residential areas were shelled. the chinese embassy was also attacked. civil trains and bridges were bombed. the shelling went on for three months. and then they ran out of targets that could be qualified as double use facilities. there was another dictator, sadam hussein who was hanged when no invasion was justified. since then i think tony blair was the only one to defend publicly, admitting that it had been a fake, or the ground for the iraq invasion. there was another one, moamargadafi. it had been said there was no place for the man in that country and that democracy would prevail, but we know full well what is happened in libya. the libyan state is all but nonexistent. our president talked about that yesterday with the italian president. right now we re trying to restore the libyan statehood through reconciliation. we re trying to put an end to the situation in which this country turned into a channel of human trafficking, as your media reported today. incidentally, there are other examples, not so recent. the president of sudan, there has been a warrant for his arrest issued by the international court and civilly the obama administration decided to settle this problem, sudan had to be split into two parts. south sudan was established and the obama administration tried to help them secure al-bashar s agreement to this splitting up. president bashar held up his end of the bargain. on anyone or assad or anyone else as they do in libya. we want them to sit at one negotiating table. as a resolution state, they have all gathered together. this has to be with syrian dialogue. as the council resolution states the future of syria has to be determined by the syrians themselves without any exception. the most important thing is not to eliminate a political leader from the chess board, so to speak, but to agree on how the country is going to be built. it has to be democratic. has to be secular, which is something the high negotiations committee speaks against. all ethnic and religious groups have to feel safe, have to feel represented at government agencies. and only if such a consensus is achieved, which has to be done for elaborating a new constitution will the issues related to certain personalities be settled very efficiently without any tragic consequences for the country or for their people. thank you. comments and news people, please. your question? thank you. i have got a question to secretary tillerson. have you talked today about the alleged interference of russia into the american election? in what way do you think russia s actions are different from the american actions in cyber security in accordance with what the american media say we know that the iranian nuclear program was compromised by american created virus right now. u.s. is trying to present the north korea from using the same means. and another question to both men. a working group has been set up talking about resuming the work of the presidential commission. do you plan to do that? thank you. we touched on it briefly, on the issue of cyber security and, in particular, on the challenges that it is placing on everyone, in terms of a new threat, an emerging threat. i think i do make a distinction when cyber tools are used to interfere with the internal decisions among countries as to how their elections is conducted. that is one use of cyber tools. cyber tools to disrupt weapons programs, that s another use of the tools. and i make a distinction between world. without resorting to the procedures that exist between russia and the u.s., they started to detain these hackers and prosecute them after extraditing them from third countries. back then we said we were not interested, and our citizens being involved in these crimes. therefore, we suggested that a special mechanism should be created that would exchange information in real-time about anyone trying to breach the international or national norms of both russia and the u.s., the obama administration refused. they didn t respond, but then at the end of the obama administration in november last year, they proposed that we should meet certainly our relevant government agencies agreed, but at the last moment, the obama administration changed their mind because they were probably very very interested in underminding the relations of the new administration in power. that s why we once again confirmed the interest of ours today. this is a relevant matter. and that is why we suggested that our contacts should be resumed at the level of special envoys of the u.s. administration and the russian president. also contact at the level of relevant authorities. we feel that this time the result of these efforts might be different leading to the establishment of new channels of communication and cooperation. and what is your second question? the ballot for presidential commission? no, we have not yet touched upon this matter. it has been buried, so to speak, but maybe it must be resuscitated. still, we ve got channels to discuss some serious issues in our relations. it might be not under this umbrella structure, no. it might be in a different format. we have designated special persons who will sit down and look at our grievances, to look into those, and to look into how we can overcome these difficulties that exist. thank you. secretary tillerson, did you discuss today with president putin or foreign minister lavrov sanctions or other concessions that the u.s. might make in exchange for a change in behavior from the ugs government? and also speaking about what you just answered previously, did you present to president putin or the foreign minister specific evidence the russian government interfered in the u.s. election? and foreign minister lavrov, if an independent investigation finds the assad government attacked his own people with chemical weapons, what will russia do? president putin said there s an effort to blame assad and plant evidence. did you present that evidence to secretary tillerson today? and would russia refuse to consider to agree to any circumstance that results in the ousting of bashar al-assad. we discussed no change in the status of sanctions that have been in place with russia as a result of certain actions taken in ukraine, as you know. i think as to the question of the interference with the election, that is fairly very well established in the united states. that has been spoken to on the hill as well, with the congress. it is a serious issue. it s one that we know. it s serious enough to attract additional sanctions. and so we are mindful of the seriousness of that particular interference in our elections. i am sure that russia is mindful of it as well. secretary hasn t threatened at all. we have had a frank discussion about the issues from our agenda. and unfortunately, we ve got some difficulty with regard to majority of those issues. now, as for the counts, this investigation revealed the government s implication in chemical attacks. if so, if hypothetical, we do not want to speculate. we see how speculation can bring results. we see some statements from the representatives, the air strike against the air base. we do not want to speculate on what is really important on the serious matter of the use of chemical weapon, trying to exonerate anyone on the attempt staging an attack with the use of chemical weapons. what we want is to establish the truth in who complies with american legislation, the russian laws, legislation, the laws of any normal country. but the principle of innocent until proven guilty has to be respected. today we sent an appeal to the hague to conduct an unbiased transparent investigation. but should there be an attempt at dragging on this investigation, we ll have to make the necessary conclusions. now, as for the allegations that the u.s. government has irrefutable proof that we interfered with the electoral campaign, i have to say once again that we have not seen any facts, any hint at facts. we have not seen any evidence. no one has shown us any evidence, even though we have requested on many occasions that these evidence has to be produced to us to support the allegations, the accusations we hear. during this time, are there remaining people who want to under mind our relations, to pursue their internal or external political interest. these are just games. we want to hear concrete proof and then we ll respond accordingly. thank you. good evening. question to both ministers. the u.s. has sent a strike group with an aircraft carrier. has this issue been raised during the talks? and what are the risks that step might entail for the regime? and this question for secretary tillerson. if this group has been sent to the korean peninsula, does that signify the u.s. has some plans for military intervention in north korea? thank you. the carl vinson strike group is routinely in the pacific ocean. it s in the pacific indicator. and its movements in the pacific are made in a way that s planned by the military planners. there is no particular objective in its current course. the vinson sails up and down the pacific routinely. and so i would not read anything into the carl vinson s current location. the only thing i can say is that among other issue, we have discussed the situation in the korean peninsula, as well as around there. as far as i understand, given all the answers, we still have a common determination to resolve this issue through peaceful means to achieve the demilitarization through diplomatic talks. there are certain efforts undertaken by the participant of what used to be called the six party talks. we also have ideas of our own, just as our chinese counter parts do. we believe we have got to rally around the cause of finding peaceful solution to this issue. and the last question. thank you. thank you very much. mr. secretary, before these meetings, you said you believed russia was either incompetent or complicit in these chemical weapons attacks. after your extensive meeting with president putin and mr. lavrov, do you know which one is and what concrete thing can be done to rebuild that lack of trust? and minister lavrov, if i could indulge you in an answer in english, if you would, sir, president trump has called bashar al-assad an animal. this is the leader your government continues to back. can you tell us how long russia will be willing to risk the lives of its soldiers and spend its money to protect him? with respect to russia s complicity or knowledge of chemical weapons attack, we have no firm information to indicate that there was any involvement by russian, russian forces, into this attack. what we do know and we have very firm and high confidence in our conclusions, that the attack was planned, carried out by the regime forces at the direction of bashar al-assad. i can only say once again that just as the case with the so-called russian hackers and the chemical incident in syria, we would very much like to get some concrete evidence, not just words. so far we have not seen any facts. let me highlight once again. in syria, we are acting at the request of the government of the country which is a member of the united nations. this country is under no sanction of the u.n. security council. we are acting there in order to fight terrorism. and it is in our interest to prevent damascus from being engulfed by isis on that front. if you look at the facts, over the last 18 months, the coalition set up by the obama administration did almost nothing to achieve the objective that it had stated when being established. it had not fought consistently against the front for isis until the russian air base forces were deployed in syria. in essence, after the deployments of our forces, the u.s.-led coalition under the obama administration only performed strikes against certain places held by isis. and it was always sparing that front. we ve got some suspicions we think that the front is still chaperoned and spared to resort to plan b, to overthrow the assad regime with force. we know how this is going to end, because we saw similar situations in libya and iraq. and we do hope that the people will prevail and learn how to learn from history. now, as for who is responsible for the crimes committed in syria, we ve got to look into that. but as one american counter part said, there will be time for everything with god s priorities and recently we ve heard new priorities from washington, saying that isis is priority number one and as mr. spicer has said, we have the resources to defeat isis without doing anything to the assad regime. this is the same thing john kerry had told me. the u.s. administration, he said, was convinced that isis was a more serious threat and a more important objective than the assad regime. so i think we think along the same lines. we have to see the common thread if they are apparent. and if we are to fight isis, if we are to emerge victorious from this fight without ousting the regime. when ousting the regime, this is no guarantee that we are going to defeat isis. on the contrary, they might emerge victorious if we oust the regime. so we should be guided by commonsense, thank you, not by emotion. colleagues, this is the end of the conference. thank you for participating. thank you. dana: rex tillerson and sergi lavrov wrapping up a press conference after tillerson meets with president putin for about two hours. i m melissa francis. tillerson told putin that he thinks u.s./russian relations are at a low point. they also talked about the russian s interference with the u.s. elections and whether syrian president bashar al-assad should go. lavrov saying they want an investigation into the chemical weapon attack in syria. we have team coverage with kevin cork at the white house, rich edson is in moscow. we are going to start though with fox sunday host chris wallace, who is in washington. chris, it was interesting to watch rex tillerson there. he was poised. he was firm during the long questions, he didn t take notes, he answered straight off. i don t know if this is what everyone expected. you remember before saying that maybe he was an inexperienced diplomat. what did you think? let me say first of all, we may not have a cold war, but that room was pretty chilly today. these two men held a news conference for over half an hour and really didn t give an inch to each other, as you point out, secretary of state tillerson said relations are at a low point. he talked at one point about a steady degradation of relations. they were completely on opposite sides when it came to syria and assad s responsibility. i would have to say, i wouldn t give tillerson quite as strong as high grades as you apparently did, melissa. i thought you could see a contrast between sergi lavrov, who seemed very comfortable and completely unyielding, giving long complicated answers, in which he went back to u.s. foreign policy in kosovo and iraq and libya, and sudan, to say that the u.s. seems to have this fixation with ousting dictators and countries end up in much worse shape afterwards. tillerson giving brief and not nearly as aggressive answers as lavrov did. he didn t seem to want to come looking for a fight. lavrov was very comfortable looking for a fight and taking the argument very much to the u.s. melissa: yeah. i thought lavrov was noticeably more aggressive and, frankly, dominated the news conference. melissa: he did hit very hard, especially on that point. he went through the litany of history of what has happened when secular deck taters have been deposed and how badly that has worked out for the u.s. tillerson was clear on what he thought assad s future role was. let s listen to that an get your reaction. we did discuss at length the future role for assad, whether it be in a future political process or not. clearly, our view is that the reign of the assad family is coming to an end. it is possible that the threshold necessary to charge individuals including bashar al-assad may be achieved. melissa: chris, it s very clear where they disagree, right? is there any chance to come together? well, that s the point. that s kind of what tillerson s been saying for the last few days. that s fine. we don t like assad. we d like to see him out. but he s got tremendous support from iran and from russia. and there wasn t the slightest hint on the part of sergei lavrov that the kremlin is going to back off its full support for al-assad. at the very end he said, just remember, we came in at the request of a legitimate government, no u.n. sanctions. he made a very interesting charge near the end where he suggested that the u.s. seemeded, while going after isis, they weren t going after an off shoot of al qaeda and seemed to suggest that we would be perfectly okay with an al qaeda regime taking over in syria. i thought it was a very aggressive offensive by sergei lavrov without much push back by tillerson. tillerson stated his positions, but he sure wasn t in the mood for an agreement with lavrov. melissa: do you think he should have hit back harder? well, look, it s not my job to say what the secretary of state should do. i just think it was interesting to note the difference between the two. lavrov went on very aggressively stating the u.s. position and several cases making strong charges about the u.s. and tillerson did not respond in kind. melissa: it s interesting to note as well that he said along those lines that you were just mentioning that last time around when secretary kerry was there, that he seemed to indicate it was more important to fight back against isis than to depose assad. and if you think back to when secretary kerry went in 2013, he was kept waiting for, what was it, three hours before he could see president putin? that was another one where they really sort of were very aggressive, as they re sitting there trying to have talks. where do you think it goes from here i guess is the question? well, you don t see any reason to believe that there s going to be any change. melissa: nothing. welsh russia has some very serious interests kind of laughing or scoffing at the trump administration talking about, well, this is what s in russia s interest. russia knows what s in russia s interests. we may not agree with it, but they have a port in the mediterranean in syria. they have air bases in syria. they srf a geo political view, as does iran, about what role they want syria to play in the power, the balance of power in the middle east. certainly nothing today indicated that tillerson and/or trump and/or the missile attack had changed russia s view of this position in the world, syria s position, in any way shape or form. melissa: no, but maybe in those details you just mentioned, there s a deal. if that is their interest, does that outweigh or is there some way to negotiate within that frame work i guess is what we ll see. some have suggested that. it s possible to maintain their interest but still you don t have assad in position there. it s somebody else. i don t know how hard that is to achieve. that is certainly one of the things that the white house has been talking about. the possibility that while the allowites, the sect that assad represents, that could remain in power and the assad family would have to go. but there are limitations here. we re really kind of grasping at straws. there was no indication from lavrov that there s any intention to back off. melissa: chris wallace, thank you. always fantastic. thank you for enlightening us. rich edson joins us from moscow. he is in the room where secretary tillerson and foreign minister lavrov just wrapped up. rich, you re the man that s there. what was the room like? yeah, melissa, it was a cramped room filled with russian media, all trying to get a question in to the secretary and the foreign minister. you have to imagine people were in that room for four hours today. there was this public relations dance going with the russian government as to whether vladamir putin was going to invite the secretary of state over to the kremlin to meet with him. they found out late in the afternoon that, in fact, secretary tillerson was welcome to come over to the kremlin, so they met for a couple of hours today. after a series of meetings today, hours of meetings with sergei lavrov, this afternoon with vladamir putin, it is clear that the u.s. and russia have essentially just decided to continue talking. there are major substantial disagreements even on a basic set of facts. when it comes to syria, when koeuplts to russian interference in elections. in fact, you heard the answer that secretary tillerson gave to our question about whether he brought up interference in the u.s. election and the response from foreign minister lavrov was essentially, well, wasn t what we discussed in the meeting. so on the issue of syria, the resolve and the number of statements we have now heard from the trump administration on the future of bashar al-assad. the secretary of state reiterated again today that the long term solution is that assad will eventually transition out and just have to develop a process to do so. sergei lavrov talked about this obsession with deposing dictators and didn t seem like he signed on to that point of view at all. melissa: rich edson, thank a syndicated talk show host, mary anne march is a senior adviser to john kerry. thank you very much for joining us. chris, let me start with you. next up we are going to see president trump come out and talk later this afternoon. what does he say about this? well, look, this is sort of a first meeting, a first go around. i think that the president meeting with nato leader, is probably going to talk about what role nato might play if there were requirement to go further with syria militarily. and it s good to get nato in line. also good for the president of the united states standing there with the leadership of nato when it is russia that is rattling the saber. they should be reminded that we are not standing here alone. melissa: mary anne, what s your take? the thing to look for, will trump take a tougher tone against lavrov and putin than tillerson did this afternoon? trump has been unwilling and unable to do it to this point. so was tillerson today. even though you could argue with sanctions, the united states clearly has the upper hand. the fact that lavrov pushed so hard on syria to get the resolution in the united nations and then the national security council, which he objects to in that form, in the united nations. everybody knows russia and china can stop anything. that s what they re looking to do. so if trump isn t tougher than tillerson was this afternoon, then everyone has to question why neither one of them are willing or able to take on putin, lavrov and russia, especially over syria. melissa: chris, did you watch that and see a pushover in rex tillerson? no, i didn t see a pushover. i saw someone who wasn t there to pick a fight over bosnia and iraq and libya and sudan. by the way, if he wanted to, there s plenty of push back that is readily available. number of countries that russia and the soviet union rolled over. not to liberate, not to provide with democracy and elections, but to occupy. and, by the way, when we came up against milosevic in the former yugoslavia and against hussein in iraq and also bashar in sudan, we re coming up against soviet and russian weapons systems, from their air defenses, to their tanks, to their rifles. they re all provided by russia and the soviet union. so the bad guys, who are not democratic, are backed by russia, and armed by russia. and when we go to knock out dictators that bring democracy, the russians are always there to trip up the freedom loving people of the world, the democracy seeking people of the world. melissa: mary anne, president trump was not tough with 59 tomahawk missiles? no. as i said monday morning on this network, the fact is that airport was up and running faster than delta. that s the problem here. you add to the fact that russia had soldiers on that base and they re either unwilling or also unable to say what they saw there and knew what was going on there. that s just impossible to believe. so at every turn russia is somehow involved. yet nobody, seemingly, in the united states government, including the people in the white house and the secretary of state, are willing to call them out on it. russia having troops in the air base doesn t mean they re involved, other than the fact that we all know they are supporting the butchers in damascus. they were given a heads up. melissa: they didn t see the weapons? sure. we knew they were there. i believe we knew they were there. russians got a heads up so we didn t kill any of their people. you seem to be suggesting that we should have been harsher? there should have been more than 59 cruise missiles? melissa: we gotta go. if you re going to take out an airport, take out an airport. melissa: they did take out all the aircraft that were there. they did take out the munitions. should we take out all the air fields? melissa: we ve got to go. sorry. what is the u.s. military s next step in syria? in nearly three years after scandal exposed patient deaths at the va, the new va secretary is shaking things up. we ll talk to two combat veterans next. we discussed the current state of u.s./russia relation. i expressed the view that the current state of u.s./russia relations is at a low point. there is a low level of trust between our two countries. the world s two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. we further discussed approaches to improving our channels of communication. we had a lengthy exchange of views regarding the situation in syria. and shared perspectives on possible ways forward. melissa: so that was secretary of state rex tillerson with russia s foreign minister, sergei lavrov, wrapping up a press conference that happened just moments ago. so what is next for the u.s. in resolving this syrian issue? joining us now is staff sergeant johnny jones, a retired u.s. marine corps bomb technician and michael wolf a former green beret commander former terrorism adviser to vice president dick cheney and a fox news contributor. gentlemen, i ll start with you. sergeant jones. what do you think is the logical next step given the new information we got just now from that press conference on where everybody stands at this moment and where they re sticking? well, first off i think we have to look at the air strike as a form of diplomacy. our missiles don t often miss. and if the air field went back to business, it s because we allowed it to. i think that we did take a step to say that red lines matter this time. but i do think we re in the diplomatic stage. i don t believe we re escalating war in syria. i don t believe that we re moving to topple the regime there, assad s regime. but i do think that we re showing posture, which is one of the critical aspects of war. and i think we re showing we are willing to do something if our national security or if the interest of the humanity is what is at stake. melissa: lieutenant walsh, the.he s making is it looks like the administration is willing. i don t know about the american public necessarily. they re leary, if you look at the most recent polls. full u.s. military involvement, including u.s. troops on the ground in syria, 18% supported that. only u.s. air strikes with no ground troops, 30% supported that. you can see from the screen, that was sort of the most popular option. but while the american public is outraged about what they saw and felt perhaps good about the strike, greater involvement is another thing. well, i think that s right. i think the sergeant is right. in the sense that this was a limited strike to draw and enforce a red line against the use of wmd. inaction has consequences. if the united states has turned its head yet again as we did for eight years under the obama administration at the use of chemical weapons, we would have green lighted its use not only in syria, but around the world. so that had to be done. what next? what happens when the assad regime continues to barrel bomb and use conventional weapons to conduct mass atrocities against its territory? i think we re seeing a broad outline of a policy shaping. one, we had a lot of talk of safe zones. and why to get to the point of the poll. is this in america s interest to stop? well, essentially, you know, the assad regime and russia have weaponized refugee flows. they ve done more with 12 million refugees to destablize europe and provide terrorists a platform to penetrate the united states than the soviet union ever did. so i think safe zones in place and driving a wedge diplomatically between assad and russia s interest so that they say he can go. melissa: yeah, no, great point. i want to turn you though three years since the phoenix va scandal broke. a new website was unveiled revealing exactly how we care for va s at the hospital and how it compares with nearby private sector hospitals and national averages. the site has put on 20 hospitals. the va said they are going to add more. sergeant jones, what do you think about this? is this a steup in the right direction or too little? i mean, i applaud and appreciate the idea of a transparent policy. in other words, stating publicly we are no longer trying to cover up where we re failing. but that s only if vets are allowed to go outside the system. current policy, you have a 29 day wait or 49 mile drive that s good to go as far as applying care. what s really the issue here is we re talking about getting veterans to their medical care. we re not even talking about the quality of care they get once they get there, once they have waited and get there. it s good to know that there s places in los angeles. there s an 80 day wait. but the political pressure is there. melissa: gentlemen, thank you very much. i wish you had more time. thank you for your insight and service. thank you. melissa: while many have seen this troubling video of a united passenger dragged off the plane to make room for crew, we re just getting video of the moments before this. i m not going. i am not going. i won t go. i m not going. i stay right here. my insurance rates are probably gonna double. but dad, you ve got. .allstate. with accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates won t go up just because of an accident. smart kid. indeed. it s good to be in, good hands. to err is human. melissa: united airlines is scrambling to get out of a horrible night mare of a doctor dragged off of his seat from a plane. trace gallagher is live with more on that. trace? reporter: let s begin with the video of the man arguing. while dr. dow is confronting place, he reportedly is on the phone with his lawyer. very hard to hear, so watch and read along. play it. i have to work tomorrow. no, i m not going. i am not going. you can take me then. i won t go. i m not going. i stay right here. reporter: course, moments later dr. dow was pulled over the arm rest and dragged down the aisle by his arms. he remains hospitalized. the 69-year-old kentucky doctor is speaking out telling a tv station that he s not doing well when asked ab his injuries, dow replied, quote, everything. the doctor s family is also commenting saying they appreciate the outpouring of prayers and support. the family has also obtained a lawyer. mean time united s ceo who initially commended his cabin crew for going above and beyond is continuing his apology tour. he told good morning america that the world saw united at a bad moment and vowed never again to allow law enforcement to remove people from its airplanes. listen. it was a system failure. we have not provided our front line supervisors and managers and individuals with the proper tools, policies, procedures, that allow them to use their common sense. reporter: remember, united said dr. dow was randomly picked by a computer to give up his seat, melissa. melissa: absolutely. amazing. we ll be right back with some early voting. like using glucerna to replace one meal or snack a day. glucerna products have up to 15 grams of protein to help manage hunger and carbsteady, unique blends of slow release carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes. every meal every craving. it s the choices you make when managing blood sugar that are the real victories. glucerna. everyday progress. melissa: early voting is underway in georgia for the race to replace tom price and a lot of money is already being spent. jonathan serrie is in atlanta. who is raising the most money right now? that would be john alsoff. he s raised $8.3 million. much more than any of the other can did. this is a huge field. a total of 18 candidates, 11 republicans and five democrats. alsoff is a moderate alternat e alternative. this is a solid red district. it s affluent and educated. generally leans to establishment candidates. although trump won, he s he only carried the district by 1.5
wanted to have them all in this same meeting in the same room here to discuss all this with the president. but still, even though the vote is scheduled for this evening, expected this evening, other republicans i m talking to here and on capitol hill say they would nobt at all surprised if it was set aside or pushed back. that happens, that s a sign there is a big problem. john? that s an understatement to say the least. jeff zeleny at the white house. let s bring it into the room. house speaker paul ryan was supposed to speak to reporters this morning. he s delayed that until this afternoon. horse trading behind closed doors, wheeling and dealing, the very thing republicans criticize the democrats for doing when they passed obamacare but we ll put that aside for a second. what does this tell you that the president is meeting and gets a standing ovation from members of the house freedom caucus who at the moment you can make the case are undermining the president on priority number one because they won t accept what he thought was the plan early in the week. they are 100% undermining him buy them a la cart. they become unaffordable. are murkowski and collins going to be willing to vote for that. the moderates in the house. you move the bill to the right, it becomes a problem on the left. i ve seen about 30 members opposed. 15 in the freedom caucus, about 15 outside of that. those people are on the left and the more changes you make in terms of maternity leave and things like that. we ve seen four or five members on the left side of the party. they re voting no in the last couple of days. that s where the draining of votes is coming from. what is the president willing to do to get this done. this is the guy who said i can do this. i can cut these deals. even now the changes they ve made so far. they d already agreed to add a work requirement on medicaid. let states pick block grants for the medicaid funding if they wanted to. ban new states. 30-plus states have already expanded medicaid. with a win. but he doesn t have a lot more he can offer them and still hold to what he said during the campaign. we re on what was supposed to be the day of the vote. we ve seen these things play out before. a lot of horse trading. small details. but what they are debating here is the fundamental question of whether the federal government should be dictating what kind of insurance benefits people have or not. and that is the fundamental question that lies at the whole root of this debate. they are actually having this debate at the white house hours before and the man cutting the deal, the closer, is a nonideological republican president who promised many things during the campaign that gives conservatives fits. is he willing to change? you spent a lot of time on capitol hill. if paul ryan has to pull this bill today, what does that say? and for those of you at home, apologies for washington speak but they re trying to do this under reconciliation. the reason they can t do everything is that the senate rules they believe won t allow that. the house is trying to do part of this. what does it say for the speaker if he has to, as speaker boehner did before him, has to pull this? it s very, very bad for his leadership. it s very bad, again, not just for the president but for paul ryan. there s no question about it. is it bad also for tax reform and for everything else down the road? i was just going to saiy, it is also entirely possible that s going to happen, that he is going to have to pull the bill unless the president can seal some kind of deal with this bloc of freedom caucus members who are there right now. but what does that mean? let s just take this hypothetical down the road here. if he has to pull the bill, it is possible that it probable that they ll turn to tax reform. and i actually think something like tax reform could be more of a consensus builder for republicans. could be. could be. one big exception, though. the import adjustment. no question. they could have the same dynamic. no question, they could. but it s not as personal for these constituents. and health care is about as personal as it gets when you talk about legislation that affects me. that affects people would the freedom caucus be team players once obama was out of the presidency? sounds like they re behaving the exact same way they were before. that s important the question is the model they re establishing. if the price of getting it out of the house is adding provisions that make it almost impossible to pass the senate, even if they do pass it in the next several days, have they created a precedent that s valuable or damaging? can i just answer your question in one other way as well about paul ryan s leadership? there already has been a lot of second-guessing about the way he approached this from the beginning. basically for a lot of conservatives, he compromised and negotiated with himself. this has already been too moderate. that he should have, knowing the freedom cacaucus, knowing the w has republicans are, started further to the right knowing that when he gets to the senate it s going to have to be moderated and even more so and that many members of the freedom caucus understand that. that they are already starting, from their perspective, way too far to the middle. the congressional budget offers said would remove health insurance for 24 million people and they may vote before having a final estimate on this bill, which likely would be even higher and would have higher out-of-pocket costs for those older working age adults. a majority of votes came from whites over 45. three-quarters of all people in the country over 45 are white. these are republican voters who would be the big losers in this shift of risk and cost that is inherent in the deregulation in this bill. we ll come back to this later. we are keeping an eye on this meeting. someone else has his phone or he s taking a break. he just tweeted out, we re going to pass this. contact your representatives. the president is asking for your help, even as he s in this key meeting. we ll track the defining day on health care throughout the program. one american killed. now the attacker has been identified. the latest on the london terror investigation just ahead. you sidelined. that s why you drink ensure. with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. for the strength and energy to get back to doing. .what you love. ensure. always be you. got a minute? 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i just took new mucinex clear and cool. what s this sudden cooooling thing happening? it s got a menthol burst. you can feel it right away. new mucinex clear & cool. feel the menthol burst. while powerful medicine clears your worst cold symptoms. let s end this. suspect. what do we know about him? reporter: his name is khalid masood, according to scotland yard, london s police force. he s 52 and lived in the west midlands where the focus of their arrests were. a key city here in the united kingdom. and a man with a record of petty crime, of violence, which may perhaps explain some of idiotically violent rampage that began here just over 24 hours ago when he took a car he had rented up onto the pavement here, a hyundai, and plowed into 40 people who received injuries. it s here that two of his victims, two of his three victims lost their lives. one of them kurt cochran, a man from utah here on his 23rd anniversary with his wife. she s in the hospital with a broken leg and injuries to her face. one tragic loss of life there which president trump has called the loss of a great american. and another individual, a spanish teacher age 43, aysha aysha frade. a large collection of tourists, people just coming to see this big ben, a key london landmark attached to the heart of the british democracy and government near the houses of parliament. now this is a scene where life will be permanently altered for those who come past here on the way to work as part of an everyday routine but also today, too, as life gets back to normal. tourists, some of them oblivious to what happened here 24 hours ago. but the car continues down the road, 24 hours ago, into the railings and then went around the corner. tried to get in to the courtyard of parliament and stabbed to death keith palmer who gave his life trying to defend the houses of parliament here. often we have no idea if they had any prior knowledge at all. just trying to to this sick crime. let s bring the conversation back here. tell me if you are struck as i was, by the demeanor of our president yesterday, president trump who in the past where it s san bernardino, orlando or nice or brussels, has sent out tweets essentially saying, i told you so. we need to get tough, be tougher. very reserved yesterday. sent out a tweet. i spoke to theresa may today to offer condolences on the terrorist attack in london. she is strong and doing very well. the president being very measured there and we re told by sources that after a conversation with his new national security adviser, h.r. mcmaster who briefed him on what they knew and gave him a message, mr. president, at this moment let s try to keep it calm. don t put things out there. it was different, yes? it was striking. he was very quiet yesterday. they put out a read-out of his call with theresa may. he was just beginning a meeting when they got news of the attack. he made a very glancing reference to it. some news out of london and did not take the opportunity to talk about radical islamic terrorism or this is why we need to get tough or this is why we need my travel ban. it was very muted and what we learned later he s been talking to his national security adviser about this, i think that that s probably the reason why. they also hadn t learned a whole hell of a lot by the time that hasn t stopped him before. that has not stopped him before. that s a striking contrast. that look felt like a tweet that may have been written by someone else. the staff. may have felt like a staff tweet as opposed to the tap with two ps in the middle of the night. we re probably going to see a presidency that goes back and forth and any time you look you ve turned the corner and have a restrained donald trump as president, you know, a few hours later you ll have something else. his son acted differently. donald trump jr. tweeting an old article from the london mayor, a muslim, from september 22, 2016 in which the mayor said if you live in a big urban area like this. donald trump tweeted out, you have to be kidding. terror attacks are part of living in a big city, says london mayor. the mayor has said i ve got more important things to do. he quoted the mayor out of context. not to say the way donald trump jr. said. and on day one, donald trump the president behaved differently but i would be curious when the muslim ban conversation comes back, does he start invoking london. the muslim ban grew out of the french attacks in the first place. that was his justification. day one he behaved in a traditional way. i ll be curious if we re talking about the muslim ban, he s defending it, on stage some way next week and invokes it in a way a lot of people don t support. he s someone who generally likes to tweet about things he sees. obviously we ve seen going back way before he was a candidate some of the really bizarre things he decided to comment on. but with regard to yesterday, i m not saying he hasn t learned a lesson and he s not going to be presidential on big moments like this, but he also was a little distracted with trying to say that he was vindicated, which he was not by the house intelligence chair and trying to get his first important critical piece of legislation passed. to donald trump jr., maybe focus on the business and stay out of politics? international relations? everybody sit tight. up next, new cnn reporting on the fbi s russian election probe. and trump says he s been somewhat vindicated. is that right? .allstate. with accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates won t go up just because of an accident. smart kid. indeed. it s good to be in, good hands. the kind of deep sleepnt. i can only get on my tempur-pedic. it adapts to me. my shape, my size, my body. tempur-pedic. this sleep is power. nobody does unlimited like t-mobile. while the other guys gouge for unlimited data. t-mobile one save you hundreds a year. right now get two lines of data for $100 dollars. with taxes and fees included. that s right 2 unlimited lines for just $100 bucks. all in. and right now, pair up those two lines with two free samsung galaxy s7 when you switch. yup! free. so switch and save hundreds when you go all unlimited with t-mobile. he s a nascar champion who s she s a world-class swimmer who s stared down the best in her sport. but for both of them, the most challenging opponent was. pe blood clots in my lung. it was really scary. a dvt in my leg. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. my doctor and i choose xarelto® xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner. .that s proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. here s how xarelto works. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least six blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective. .targeting just one critical factor, interacting with less of your body s natural blood-clotting function. don t stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor as this may increase risk of blood clots. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. if you ve had spinal anesthesia, watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle-related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures and before starting xarelto® about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. you ve got to learn all you can. .to help protect yourself from dvt and pe blood clots. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. there s more to know. they say it proved yesterday he s more interested in protecting president trump than following the facts. the chairman will need to decide whether he is the chairman of an independent investigation into conduct which includes allegations of potential coordination between the trump campaign and the russians or he is going to act as a surrogate of the white house because he cannot do both. more on that wrinkle and the fallout in a moment. important new cnn reporting on what the fbi director this week confirmed is an investigation into the possibility associates of then candidate donald trump coordinated with russian operatives last year just as the kremlin leaked hacked e-mails from the democratic national committee and from hillary clinton s campaign chairman. several sources familiar with the investigation tell cnn the fbi has not concluded there was collusion but has gathered evidence suggesting such coordination may have taken place. justice correspondent evan perez helped break this story and joins us now to lay it out. what information do investigators have that make them believe there may have been some collusion or coordination as the fbi director put it in his public testimony this week? john, u.s. officials tell cnn that the fbi has information that includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings that this information is raising the suspicions of the fbi counterintelligence investigators. and one law enforcement official said that the information suggests people connected to the campaign were in contact and it appeared that they were giving the thumbs up to release information when it was ready. that said, there were other officials we spoke to who said it s premature to draw that inference from the information that s been gathered so far since it s largely circumstantial. the bottom line is that the fbi cannot yet prove that collusion actually took place, but the information suggesting collusion is now the focus of this investigation. i should note the fbi would not comment for this story, nor would the white house. trump officials have denied that there s any evidence of collusion, john. that they have. we should make that clear. they have denied any collusion. they have said they will be proven right. do we know at this point who is being investigated? we don t know exactly who is connected who is connected to trump that s being investigated for possible coordination. but we do know that the fbi has already been investigating four at least four former trump campaign associates, michael flynn, paul manafort, roger stone and carter page for contacts with russians that are known to u.s. intelligence. now all four of these men have denied improper contacts. and one of the interesting things here is that the fbi is running into some obstacles in trying to find any conclusive intelligence that communications between trump s associates and russians was meant for coordination. some of that communication that the fbi knew about has ceased in recent months given the focus on russia s ties to the trump campaign. and also some of the officials at the fbi was keeping an eye on has changed their methods of communications making it that much more difficult for the fbi investigators. evan perez, fascinating investigating. it s clear from the fbi director s public testimony that he admitted and acknowledged the investigation included possible possible urk, under possible coordination. if you thought this was going to go away quickly, no. the quote from the law enforcement official that evan reported was the finish line, i think, in the worst case scenario for republicans as this story has developed. they re not there yet, obviously, as he said. they ve not yet proven this. but the fact they have enough evidence to that someone with knowledge said something that strong about circumstantial evidence or even more than adam schiff said morthan circumstantial, pointed to collusi collusion. we re talking about the stakes raising very quickly. in other scandals in my adult lifetime in washington, things often move forward when individuals begin to face possible legal jeopardy and have to make choices about what they re going to say in congressional testimony or to federal investigators and the fact that there are specific individuals that they were citing as being the areas of focus of this investigation means that things could happen potentially to move this forward more rapidly than seems possible. and as this plays out, the fbi investigation, which as you can tell by evan s choice of words there. we re being very kaurful about what we know and don t know. the fbi clearly has evidence, travel records, other documents, phone calls, scheduled meetings that lead them to believe this is something they need to explore. as that plays out, the fbi director was quite clear, i don t know how long this is going to take. we have intelligence committee investigations and the head of the house intelligence committee caused a bit of a stir yesterday. devin nunes reviewed some intelligence that showed him that members of the trump transition team were under some form of surveillance. he said it was incidental meaning that someone was legally under surveillance, had a conversation with the trump transition. devin nunes said that he believed it had nothing to do with russia, nothing to do with the issue under investigation by his committee at the moment. today he came out from a meeting. the democrats were mad about this. devin nunes took that information and talked to reporters and then went to the president of the united states and briefed him on information before he talked to any other members of the committee. republicans and the ranking democrat. devin nunes emerged from a meeting this morning saying that was his judgment call. it was a judgment call on my part. and that s at the end of the day, sometimes you make the right decisions. sometimes you make the wrong one but you have to stick by the decisions you make. and here before we jump into the politics of this and the fascinating part of this. here s what he said yesterday. he s the chairman of what is supposed to be an independent investigation of possible inappropriate activity by associates of the president of the united states. that s what they re investigating. here s what he why he said he went to the white house. because what i saw is has nothing to do with russia and nothing to do with the russia investigation. has everything to do with possible surveillance activities, and the president needs to know these intelligence reports are out there. i have a duty to tell him that. does he have a duty to tell him that? no, he doesn t. that s not his job at all. the duty when it comes to the president is from the intelligence community. now the cia director, the director of intelligence and so forth. what the duty of the house and senate intelligence committees are is oversight of those communities. it is not to be the person to keep the president inform. he s got an entire intelligence apparatus to do that. one thing i want to add to the reporting here is that now he s saying he made a judgment call. i m told that before he went out to do his initial press conference, first he talked to reporters on the hill and went to brief the president and then came out and talked in that clip he just showed that he was actually very upset, steaming mad about whatever he said he saw or was told about. and that at the time, there were members of the committee, republican members of the committee, trying to calm him down saying a couple of things. don t go out and do a press conference about this. this is going to throw the entire investigation about russia in the garbage, basically. and don t you want to talk to adam schiff, the top democrat before you do this? he was so mad, he said no. and one of the reasons i m told by a source familiar with this meeting is because he said adam schiff at the hearing on monday, where they had james comey, had a 15-minute monologue trying to connect dots that weren t there and he was upset about that. but it s pretty clear in what he said today that he realizes now that he s calm that he probably should have heeded the advice of those republicans. like your mother told you, count to ten. not only is this not his role as the intelligence committee chairman but particularly when this investigation is going on. the fact that he came out and did this now taints the investigation which is what adam schiff came out and said. so it only amplifies those calls for an independent investigation, a select committee or even a committee outside of congress to really look more deeply into this. and that is something that president trump doesn t want. and so to the degree, if devin nunes thought this was going to help the president by refuting some of what s been out there, i think it s only done the opposite. he has a legitimate concern that the intelligence committee is too quick to unmask people. you speak to somebody overseas being monitored and get cat up that your name should not be put in an intelligence report and moved around. he has a legitimate concern about that. but by running to the president, he looks like a partisan, a defender of the president, not an independent chairman of an important investigation. apparently no one else has seen the actual evidence. republicans or democrats. either side. and adam schiff yesterday contradicted what the chairman said. he said that people were not unmasked but it was possible to tell who they were from the descriptions. so there s a lot that we don t know and that members of the intelligence committee don t know, but i think julie is right. the biggest point is that investigation has now been, i think, permanently clouded and does raise the question. if the senate intelligence committee is not able to credibly do this, then who will be able? the fbi. the fbi. the fbi, but if you go back to past investigations, these are not apples and apples, but you have the law enforcement investigation continue there and then the congressional investigation usually to sort of inform the american people that the criminal investigations or law enforcement investigations deal with were there crimes committed and what can we filter through the classification process and inform the american people in a democracy about what happened. if those are compromised, democrats will say let s have an independent investigation. john mccain is i think we re getting a little beyond select committee. we ll see. john mccain is a lonely voice still on that issue. we ll see how this one plays out. next, let s make a deal. the president trying as we speak to win the votes necessary to get a big health care bill through the house. but are the concessions dooming its chances over in the senate? be right back. . .just go to bed. new aveeno®. .positively radiant® overnight facial. get the benefits of a spa facial. .overnight. aveeno®. naturally beautiful results® dearthere s no other way to say this. it s over. i ve found a permanent escape from monotony. together, we are perfectly balanced, our senses awake, our hearts racing as one. i know this is sudden, but they say: if you love something. set it free. see you around, giulia knows how it feels to seees your numbers go up, despite your best efforts. but what if you could turn things around? 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she does. she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips colon health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes? wow! try phillips colon health. welcome back. this is a critical day of the young trump presidency. the president at this hour meeting with a group of house conservatives who are a giant abstackle to his number one legislative priority. repealing and replacing obamacare. the president in that private closed meeting trying to cut the deal to get the votes necessary to get the legislation through the house today. that would be step one. it would then have to go to the senate. before this private meet, the president taking to twitter this morning to send a video out hoping his supporters will pick up the phone and help him get the votes. you were told that you could keep your plan and keep your doctor. you were given many, many false stories. the fact is you were given many lies. go with our plan. it s going to be terrific. you re going to be very, very happy. call your local representative. call your senator. let them know that you re behind our plan. it s an interesting test. we have not seen the president, both the inside and outside game. he s in the room right now trying to twist arms and get a deal. how much will he give? members are also learning how much can we get out of him? and then there s the outside game. can he get his supporters to pick up the phone? to call these members and say, hey, be with the president. a lot of republicans who have come out this week as no have cited the fact i m getting 400 calls no for every two calls yes. they know that their constituents do not feel good about this bill and that s why it s losing support. somebody at the white house has, obviously, told the president that it s important that these members hear not just from you that they need to vote for it but also from their constituents. he did go to the hill and sort of threaten them earlier this week saying it s your political hydes on the line if this thing goes down. this is his way of demonstrating that. stranger things upside down about this is the members giving him the most trouble are the ones he theoretically has the most leverage over. freedom caucus is from districts he was strongest. it s really the people on the other side of the caucus that should be the most 23 house republicans in districts that hillary clinton carried looking at a bill that according to quinnipiac today, 17% of college whites, 18% millennials and 10% of nonwhites support. and among independents and among 50 to 64-year-old age group, the group most in the crosshairs of the insurance changes, 62% opposition. y the focus on the freedom caucus and their concerns is front and center but you have to wonder how far many of these more moderate members will go given the reaction to this bill. the president is trying to get it over hurdle nem ber one, them number two in the senate. a lot of people don t like this bill. they know it s going to change something and rip the floor out from under them. the president s own standing in that quinnipiac poll. 37% approval. 56% disapprove. among republicans, he is at 81% support among republicans. that s good, but it s down from 91% two weeks ago. so that, if you are the president, and you didn t win the popular vote and you know your coalition is to keep your base together, if you are donald trump and his political team you have to look at that number and say, whoa, we need a win. big time. more importantly, they can t afford to lose. and a lose of such monumental proportion as the key promise that swept republicans into into the mairmgity in the house starting back in the tea party, you know, fight of 2010 and then on and on and on until the white house now. obviously there were lots of other factors but the promise to do this was front and center. the problem is that you have, as we were talking about the freedom caucus who were in the white house right now, then you have ileana rossalaten in from south florida. i saw her yesterday. any chance you can change? no. the only regret she has is that she can only vote no once because she s so much opposed to this. and because she s hearing it from her constituents. isn t the complication here, obviously, losing would be devastating, something they promised for so long. but this is so winning has its own problems because in substance, this is so against the brand that he has established. a different kind of republican. going to protect programs that protect older working age adults. put out a budget and say we ll exempt medicare and social security. focus all the cuts on discretionary spending and come back with a health care bill that hammers the same people you say you are protecting and are protecting in your budget. how does that add up? this bill is like kind of more of an in the end, more of a ryan, house republican, small government than the bannon-esque redesign of the party. usually a first year president gets something db. clinton, the budget, obama got the systemus done. you have a president here with low ratings and he s selling a bill that s really unpopular among everyone so those two things make it hard. if he was popular itself, he could sell it. those two combined make this hard to happen. the republican party has changed a lot in ten years. this is the first chance they ve had to govern and have a nonideological president. an unpredictable president. stay tuned. we ll see if they have this vote today. up next, president trump speaking out to time magazine defending his own credibility by saying, if it doesn t back up by the facts, i m president. you re not. with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. for the strength and energy to get back to doing. .what you love. ensure. always be you. including depreciation. and if you have more than one liberty mutual policy, you qualify for a multi-policy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. greatest misses. he suggests you skip the fact check because, quote, i can t be doing so badly because i m president and you re not. that is one indisputable fact. he is president. you are not. as for the rest of the interview, good luck finding facts. they detailed 14 statements made by the president in the time interview that were demonstrably false. this was a conversation about truth telling. its highest or lowest award was bestowed, four pinocchios. but remember, he s the president and you re not. you have to focus on everyone here has read it. anyone at home, please go online and read it. before we talk about the substance, talk about yet another example of the president being obsessed with saturday night live. from generation or two ago, chevy chase. carry on. you know, i i m going to name check two of your colleagues. i remember a classic tom friedman, maureen dowd new york times cover story about the contentious jim baker/george h.w. bush relationship. george h.w., they quoted him as saying, if you are so smart, how come i m president. so it may be something that infects once you get into the oval office. part of the briefing on day one. absolutely. we can laugh about it and this was a remarkable interview in a lot of ways. the thing that strikes me is this idea of i m president and this enables me to say basically whatever i want to say, this lies at the heart of the credibility issue for mr. trump because his view is for all of these months on the campaign trail, he would say things that were demonstrably false and we d do fact checks and he d say them again. unlike other candidates, he d not back down from things when it was demonstrated they were false. he kept on winning primaries and then won the general election. there s a core sense he has that it means that people don t care if it s true or not. they just want to hear me own what i think and he talked about himself as an instinctual person and that s what people like about me and he has no apology for that. i m ap instinctual person but it turns out to be right. i m amazed in a week like this that donald j. trump, that article about truth telling. was he going to prove to time that he s right and they re wrong? a very strange decision. he knew he was going to be on the cover and he wanted therefore, he wanted to be in the story and say he has the record for covers, except snl lifetime magazine. like us and yours, new york times. i mean, a lot of elements of his agenda controversial right now. but the reason he s so much lower in poll opinion is mostly about personal characteristic. 60% of that quinnipiac poll said he was not honest. he s like passing his former opponent in the campaign. got to go. that s it. we re keeping an eye on the white house briefing up next hour. also waiting for those conservatives to come out of that meet with the president of the united states. that might delay the briefing a bit. hope to see you back here tomorrow. after a quick break, wolf blitzer. the pollen count, flonase allergy relief keeps your eyes and nose clear. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. for relief beyond the nose. flonase. but shouldn t it be about firsts?d in zeros. and seconds? 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opposition to the threat of budget cuts to agencies that fund scientific work. the president tweeting a couple hours ago i am committed but always remember it enhances environmental protection. jobs matter. miguel marquez is in washington where demonstrators marched from the mall to capitol hill. miguel? reporter: ana, this is the end point for the march for science. thousands and thousands of scientists and their supporters clog the streets of washington. it was cold, it was windy. where they ended here at the capitol, what they were concerned about was the general tone from the trump administration on science and matters of science on funding. very enormous ly engaging in science in washington, d.c., said they didn t want their work to be sifted through. it certainly had a very political edge to it. ana? thank you, miguel. now to new york where the rain didn t keep away the crowds. here is rachel crane. reporter: i m in a crowded and rainy times square. lots of umbrellas and lots of homemade signs here. educate washington. there s been a lot of spirited and creative posters out here today. there was a rally held at central park that got kicked off with a bunch of elementary school students around the age of 10 talking about how they loved science was. they had the chance to speak to the executive director of the nature conservatory. this is the first time they have marched in their 65-year history pointing out typically the scientific community is nonpartisan. they felt the need to come out and hear their voice. this whole day of action start ed on social media. their march for washington. rachel crane, thank you. coast to coast. let s go to san francisco. people marching in support of si science and against president trump s environmental policy changes and budget cuts. sarah? reporter: huge numbers, thousands of people here. they are here to stand up for science, scientific fact, also to stand up against the trump administration. something about the roll backs and they are reminded that in 1970 that s when this all started, earth day. at that time is when the epa was created. that is not lost on this crowd. you see a number of families coming out here and scientists as well wearing lab coats and bringing very clever signs. a big crowd here in san francisco. it has been a perfect day for this. the heat is rising on the president s environmental policy, the russian cloud still looms over the white house. cnn has exclusively learned russian operatives tried to use trump advisers to infiltrate his campaign, all part of a larger effort to influence the election. carter page is the same adviser the fbi had been monitoring through a fisa warrant. today he denied doing anything inappropriate. are you aware of their efforts at using you to get into the trump campaign? i was never nothing i was ever asked to do or no information i was asked for was anything beyond what you could see on cnn. there s great depth of reporting, nothing i ever talked about with any russian official extends beyond that publicly available, immaterial information, michael. with me now crime and justice producer to help break this exclusive reporting. the fbi had a fisa warrant to monitor page s communication. does that mean they know what he was discussing with russian officials? well, to some extent they may know. they were on his phones. they were monitoring his communication. when news started leaking out, there was this investigation about russian meddling and some of the trump people may have been targeted, the people they were targeted in the investigation who they were looking at started to change their methods and it became more difficult to monitor them. we don t know if one of those people is carter page. up to that point the fbi had a good window into what was going on into who some of the people were talking to. who carter page was talking to overseas, the fbi has a good idea about. it s not clear to us if they know what the conversations were about. but it was enough to concern them to get this warrant. also that dossier. while the fbi doesn t refer to it the mfgs contained in those documents helped the fbi get the fisa warrant. they were able to confirm some of the information in the dossier? that s correct. they were able to confirm some of that. that s not all? there were addition al piece of information they learned to support the application to the fisa court. they write this memo. they go ahead and monitor someone like carter page. what these people are up to. a good idea who russian intelligence is. without sort of the kremlin backing. there s always this feeling that anyone in power in russia or anyone of influence is reporting back to the kremlin. carter page was talk iing to so of these people. your sources are telling cnn there is some evidence of possible collusion but they stopped short of saying there s proof of a crime. that s a key point. this is something that investigators are dealing with and grappling with because the intelligence is coming from different places. some is learned by the nsa. anything that happens within the u.s. on a domestic level comes from the fbi. they have different streams and have seen but can they present that to a grand jury? can they use that information to proceed with a criminal case and not everyone is certain they can. there s another threshold level. there s a lot of different levels they would need to go to try and bring any charges. thank you for your reporting. you saw the marches for science across the globe. the actress who played fig in orange is the new black joins me to talk about why she is making climate change her mission. .that had the power to whawaken something old.. .or painfully dated. .or something you simply thought was lost forever. .because it could form a strong bond, regardless of age. if a paint could give any time-worn surface stunning new life. .you have to wonder. is it still paint? 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nooooo! yeah, it s free for everyone. thank you. gravity, is a fickle mistress. what s in your wallet? juswho own them,ople every business is different. but every one of those businesses will need legal help as they age and grow. whether it be help starting your business, vendor contracts or employment agreements. legalzoom s network of attorneys can help you every step of the way so you can focus on what you do. we ll handle the legal stuff that comes up along the way. legalzoom. legal help is here. we are seeing global s solidarity for science on the annual earth day more than 600 marches worldwide including this march in st. paul, minnesota. the crowd showing support for science and evidence-based research. today is a chance to make others aware of ways each individual can affect change. in the nation s capital a group gathered to raise awareness for projects that reduce carbon emissions. joining me now co-founder dean lawrence and cool effects spokeswoman you probably know as the actress who play iing fig i the netflix series orange is the new black. i want to start with you. thank you for being here and coming into the studio. we appreciate it. why are you so passionate about this? i remember earth day when i was my daughter s age. i have an 8-year-old daughter, and my first earth day i remember learning all of these things that we re marching for today and going, oh, my god, we have to do something. so you felt it even as a youngster. my daughter can tell you so much about the environment, and i think it s so important for our children. so that s really where it started for me. and now it s about how many changes can i do? how much action can i do on a daily basis? i want to get your reaction to what the president has said on this earth day taking note. he writes this in a tweet saying i m committed to keeping our air and water clean but always remember that economic growth enhances environmental protection. jobs matter. what s your reaction? well, yes, jobs do matter and there s plenty of jobs that help the environment and what s being ignored here is that fact. if you think about renewable energy, for example, and the enormous growth of wind or solar or some of the other major types of renewable energies that we ve had in the last several years, tons and tons of jobs are coming our way just because of it. so they don t have to be mutually exclusive, mr. president. and that s job creation as well. there are new jobs which we have to pay attention to. and president trump doesn t always listen to hollywood. so how do you get your message to him? you know, for me i don t need to get a message to him. i need to talk to the people who i care about which are the average american person who i think the statistics say most humans on our planet and most americans believe in climate change. 97% of scientists believe in climate change. so i don t really have any de r desire to talk to him. i just want to talk to the people about what we can do to change, and that s what i love. your organization is focused on reducing carbon emissions. what is the single most important thing people can do in their daily lives to impact that? one of the things i like to echo is what alysia said there are 130 million alarmed and concerned people about climate change. we are directing our message at them. they re doing what they can. there are so many things you can do. you can eat less meat, take public transport, you can put solar on your house and turn the air conditioning off in your car when you travel. you need to be doing all of these things. we believe there s something else you can do which is to support simple technologies that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. and what are some of the worst things we are currently doing and may not even realize? well, i think every american has a 17 ton carbon footprint. and that s per year. so we have people asking us today is that for my entire life. no, that is for this year. and that s the average american. americans have the biggest footprint of any group of people in the entire world. we have our cars, our luxuries. we have tremendous use of electricity. sometimes we leave our lights on. so what we tell people you can do everything you can but you can t get your footprint to zero. we re all damaging the environment with our emissions. so what we d like to do is provide an opportunity and a way for people to verifiably reduce greenhouse gas emissions. help projects around the world that are doing the work on the ground. and i ll just say i work in new york and l.a., and i fly back and forth a great deal. and as an environmentalist, it is the hardest thing for me. it s really hard because i know that it affects my carbon footprint. and one of the things i love about cool effect, i can go and it s not like, oh, i m putting money to this random thing, i can go on the site and see, oh, i m helping fund wind power in costa rica. i m helping fund this super cool project that takes poop in india and turns it into fuel. and that s so cool to me and it makes me feel good and it educates me and it helps me educate others. and it s rewarding as you say. so there s a sense of satisfaction in making a difference. i m sending a random check. oh, i see what i m doing really specifically. thank you for coming on, a s alysia and dee to talk about the impact on our daily lives. thank you so much for having us, ana. i want to show you some video. this is the march of penguins. it happened today in california. how cute is this? the aquarium holding this mini march for science featuring five fearless african penguins. victors are reading up signs. african penguins are here to say. if it sound familiar it s probably because of the 2006 documentary by the same name. thanks for being with us. we re back in just a moment. when you have allergies, live claritin clear. the baby she was holding when a male passenger gets up, things get pretty heated. here is how it plays out. [ woman crying ] just give me back my stroller, please. hey, bud. you do that to me and i ll knock you flat. you stay out of this. [ inaudible ] come on. you try that i ll knock you out. i ll knock you silly. you don t know what the story is. i don t care what the story is. you almost hurt a baby. you don t know what the story is. you keep looking at me. keep it quiet. see exactly what you did. maybe you ll get videotaped, too, and be all over the news. this comes two weeks after united airlines made news, police dragging a passenger off a plane. with us now from washington, d.c., to discuss this new airline debacle is jason maloney, president of j. rock price. the flight attendant is suspended while they investigate. the airline says the family was upgraded to first class the rest of the trip, the woman and her family. how would you rate american s handling of this incident? i think american has done a very good job. this is an airline that takes its responsibility seriously. not too long ago, four years ago, it was a major partner of disney and marketing its planes, its movies. it cares about its family friendly mantra and brand. of course it s going to be seen actions and words will be seen in light of how united handled last week and i think they ve done a fairly good job. they ve taken action quickly. they suspended the employee, presumably the gentleman in the video, and they re investigating. and that s the best thing you can do. a smart company, when something bad happens to a competitor, says what would we do if we were in the situation? they practice and prepare. i m sure they ve had statements like this in the very event they re faced this week. as you point out things like this don t happen in a vacuum and there was the event that is still fresh on everybody s mind involving united airlines. what do you make of how this incident was handled as it unfolded as you watch this video? well, i m trying to be very clear about what we re seeing, and i don t want to jump to conclusions. i credit american not just for its statements, its actions. i see flight attendants and staff helping that mother, and it looks okay right up until the individual loses his temper because what s clear in the video is an employee engages in a hostile manner with another passenger and that s what s wrong. that s clearly what s clearly bad behavior in the video. i m disappointed no one has offered to take the child out of the mother s hands. i think she had two children on that airline, twins, in fact, and i m disappointed there wasn t more done. let s be very careful about what we re seeing. looks like some good things for american airlines employees and, unfortunately, some bad behavior. i m kind of laughing to myself and it s nervous laughter because if i m in that mother s shoes i have traveled with young kids and it can be so stressful and overwhelming and then to be in that situation just to escalate it to that level, i can t imagine. i hear you. i ve done it, too, and flying with kids is a pain in the assigned seat. oh, my, indeed. the way the passenger reacts to come to that mother s defense. we aren t trying to say he reacted in a way that maybe he should have. he escalated the confrontation as well, it seems, by watching the video, in terms of with the flight attendant saying hit me kind of thing. do you find it surprising he was not taken off the plane? well, i m not exactly declaring him a saint. i think pulling back a bit what we re seeing there s a lot of tension on flights these days and, of course, everybody has a cell phone and a camera and i think there s just a moment where everybody ought to be taking a deep breath and observing these are stressful times for passengers and for crew. i think american airlines, if they continue on the path that they ve chosen, they re going to make another statement closing this matter, concluding the investigation and talking about perhaps what they re going to be doing with regard to training, maybe empowering staff on the planes to make more decisions for themselves. airports and airlines are very rigid places, but i think you might get better employee morale if, say, they were empowered to accept a stroller on the plane, make life better for the passengers themselves. i m not certain this individual exactly was coming to the aid of this other passenger. he was more interested in shaking his finger at the flight attendant, but be that as it may, it s incumbent upon the airline staff to restore order, to restore calm and be in charge and that s not what they did. all right. it s just a tense time in airlines right now. that s for sure. and as a traveler, too, it can be intense. jason maloney, thanks for joining us. good to have you on. now a new cnn series, soundtracks, music that defines history. take a look. i m in a new york state of mind the music and the artists post-9/11 are reflective of the emotions we feel. we re not going anywhere. we played for an audience of police and firemen, rescue workers. they needed a boost. some folks like to get away i put a fireman s helmet on the piano to help me concentrate because if i didn t have that i might have just lost it. a new york state of mind it is an anthem for new york city. i didn t think of that when i wrote it. the events that transfired defined the music and made it bigger than it was intended to be. the music will always remind us that it is possible. somebody has to put emotions into words. thursday at 10:00 on cnn. nit, nitrites or artificial preservatives. now it s good for us all. like introverts. extroverts. 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my colleague dana bash spoke with homeland security secretary john kelly about that very question. watch. let s start with the border wall with mexico and how it relates to keeping the government open. if congress doesn t send president trump a government funding bill by midnight on friday, the government will run out of money and a shutdown would begin. will the president go to the mat and insist on the wall? dana, i think it goes without saying that the president has been pretty straightforward about his desire and the need for a border wall, so i would suspect he ll do the right thing for sure but i would suspect he will be insist enter on the funding. so there you heard secretary kelly making it sound as though the president would insist on border wall funding. the president didn t sound quite so definitive in an interview with the associated press. he said i want the border wall. my base definitely wants the border wall. but when asked if he would sign legislation that does not include money for the border wall, the president said i just don t know yet. so to use one of the president s favorite turns of phrase we ll have to see what happens with the border wall issue next week. ana? athena jones reporting. back with us now former democratic party chairman and from washington, d.c., former south carolina lieutenant governor andre bauer. house speaker paul ryan today got fellow republicans on a conference call, talked about the spending deadline, the chances of a health care vote which sounds slim. listen to what one congressman told us about this apparently 15-minute paul ryan conference call and i m quoting. they were short on details and didn t take any questions because they said they had to assume the call was being recorded by somebody and it would get leaked. it was so content free it was embarrassing. so, andre, what was the point of this call? i don t know. i guess it was to get the bullets out at least what they want to address next week. i would say they need to address if they think they have leaks they need to address those because i guess circling back around more than anything it shows you there are so many different groups within the republican party now, and that s why they have problems with health care, getting it passed, a bunch of different groups, some are extremely conservative, some are more moderate. there s no real conformity right now around unified mission. and so they have problems within their own party. that s part of growing and being having success in the last election. but he as the leader has to come around and bring those folks how do you govern? well, right now he s not doing what he needs to be doing. i shouldn t say that. he s not having the success that he should be having given the number of people that he has. so somehow he has to have a prayer meeting and get these folks together and say, look, here are the common things that we all believe in. let s work on those first. things like health care, let s hammer it out longer and not be in such a hurry to pass such a major piece of legislation. i think that was flawed from the start way back from when they first did that to put a time frame that it had to be done by april was wrong, premature, and they should have started out of the gate with something easier. scott, your reaction? yeah. andre, you can say that, he s not doing what he s supposed to do. some would call that a freudian slip. the reality is this is a gop party that is out of control. the republicans, you have a businessman who is the president of the united states, has a lot of goals and objectives, doesn t know how to achieve them, and now you re doing conference calls whereby pronouncements by the gop but there s no substantive discussion about it. the problem is his 100 days is coming up. he wants to do tax reform, health care reform because he s promised that to his voters. at the same time he has to get a funding budget through where he s going to insist on the border wall. maybe not the. maybe he does, maybe he doesn t. the reality is those are three big legislative packages that he would like to get done in one week and washington just doesn t work that way. welcome to washington, d.c., donald trump. you asked for it, you got it. andre, does this seem familiar to you how the last health care bill was handled? a rushed deadline and a caucus that seems to be in the dark. it s all happening at this level of just one leader from this caucus talk iing to one leader from that caucus, making deals that the rest of their group may or may not like? you know, from the outside looking in, it seems to me they need to slow down, pump the brakes, find one piece of legislation they want to work on and get that done. having so many irons in the fire right now when there are major pieces of legislation is wrong. i served one in the house and one in the senate and two as lieutenant governor. when we picked pieces of legislation we wanted as a caucus we went after that hard and heavy. to be so splintered when you have such major pieces that are divisive i think they re taking on too much. so, scott, the thing is here, you have health care. you talked about taxes as well. these are issues that affect every single american. so i don t want to let democrats off the hook here. at what point do democrats take the reins and try to be proactive in coming up with some solutions with their republican colleagues? well, i think that s very important. i think the democrats are prepared and willing and able to do that. the problem is i don t think that the republicans who have the house, senate and white house have done enough outreach or any outreach on these major issues where they have major differences. the missing component to health care and tax reform and infrastructure and a lot of these issues that the trump white house wants to get done is that there s not been outreach to the democrats. now the democrats want to fix obamacare. the republicans want to repair they want to repeal it. if they move off repealing it we could probably have a dialogue about fixing it. but they re obsessed with eliminating obamacare. and so it gets tough to cut a deal when there s a wall between two parties, they are nonstarters and no one is bending or blinking, if you will. now the reality is that maybe the democrats and republicans can get together on this funding bill, maybe we can do something with obamacare if there s outreach to the democrats and we try to repair it and maybe we could even get some discussions about jobs and infrastructure. but you have to do it one at a time. you need some adults in the room. you need real leadership. right now this is a rudderless ship. and, quite frankly, democrat or republican, this is an american issue now and an american lead er ship crisis headed up by donald trump. it s got to get fixed. i ve heard you both talk about the importance of lead leadership. andre, how big of a problem is it for president trump, this lack of progress on a signature campaign promise to repeal and replace obamacare? keep in mind he s taken on a lot. this is not quite the first 100 days, and he s trying to upright the ship. it s not just that he took on democrats. he took on republicans, too. there s a lot of folks within the body he s trying to work with now that were adamantly against him. never trumpers. he s now having to try to work with these folks. he wanted to drain the swamp. there s a lot of folks i hope he pushes for term limits. i think that s the most major piece of legislation that can change our country is to make she is folks not make it a career and a lifetime to go up a couple terms and then step out. the moderate democrats need to reach over the line, too, and work with these folks because health care is an american issue, it s not a partisan issue. we have to get past this whether it s called obamacare. we know folks need help, to bring costs down. i m hoping at some point in time whether it s in the president, the republicans, the democrats in the house and senate, they ll work together. you didn t see that in the senate just last week on the most fair and reasonable supreme court justice when they were obstructionists instead of passing a guy that should overwhelmingly have been confirmed. you re going to see go back to merrick garland. don t rewrite history. we could talk about this back and forth, but we have to leave it there for now. andre bauer and scott bolden. thank you both. up next, is congress leaving all the tough decisions on health care to the states? we re going to dig into what we have been learning now about the obamacare repeal and replace, what the legislation that they ve been working on over the break may end up coming up when they do have a vote. we ll talk more about it next in the cnn newsroom. me from joy. .not allergies. flonase allergy relief helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. it s an allergy nasal spray that works beyond the nose. flonase. yeah, i just saved a whole lot of money by swhuh.ing to geico. we should take a closer look at geico. you know, geico insures way more than cars. boats, motorcycles. even rvs! geico insures rvs? what s an rv? uh, the thing we ve been stuck on for five years! wait, i m not a real moose?? we ve been over this, jeff. we re stickers! i m not a real moose? give him some space. deep breaths, jeff. what s a sticker?!? take a closer look at geico. great savings. and a whole lot more. he s a nascar champion who s she s a world-class swimmer who s stared down the best in her sport. but for both of them, the most challenging opponent was. pe blood clots in my lung. it was really scary. a dvt in my leg. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. my doctor and i choose xarelto® xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner. .that s proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. here s how xarelto works. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least six blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective. .targeting just one critical factor, interacting with less of your body s natural blood-clotting function. don t stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor as this may increase risk of blood clots. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. if you ve had spinal anesthesia, watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle-related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures and before starting xarelto® about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. you ve got to learn all you can. .to help protect yourself from dvt and pe blood clots. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. there s more to know. blue moon is brewed mwith valencia orange peel, for a taste that shines brighter. . president trump and some republican lawmakers are making noise about a potential new healthcare plan. yet a short time ago we learned hoepds for a potential vote next week seem to be fizzling out. let s talk more about this with washington examiner we heard some rumblings about this potential republican plan that might allow states to opt out of comprehensive coverage including for those with preexisting conditions. now part of this would be the idea of requiring states to attest that the waiver s goal is to reduce the cost of the healthcare oirn crease the number of insured. but isn t this just massing the buck to the states forcing them to make a decision that congress doesn t want to make? well, in some sense, yes. i mean, basically the idea of it is that if you flashback to last month when everything fell apart and speaker ryan was forced to pull the vote, the stumbling block was that there were conservatives who wanted more regulatory relief from obamacare because of the regulations that drive up premiums. and they felt like the legislation didn t do enough to lower premiums. however, if more regulations were taken away, speaker ryan would have lost more votes from moderates. so there is a sort of impasse. so what they re sort of have the out lines of is this idea where conservative the conservatives coming home to more conservative states can say, look, i got more regulatory relief, we re going to bring down premiums by getting out of all of these obamacare regulations whereas people from north eastern more moderate to liberal districts could come home and say, look, we kept all of these regulatory protections intact. and that s what the idea is, but there are a lot of details to be worked out about this. so it s allowing the moderates to have what they want and the more conservatives who don t want the regulations to have what they want, but i m not seeing how this is helping the average american. especially those who need healthcare more than more than the average american, especially those with preexisting conditions, older people who might have more more illnesses or, you know, issues as they age. how are they being protected by doing this rollback in regulations? well, the idea is that basically healthcare is about a series of tradeoffs and obamacare put a lot of regulations in place but they had offsetting effects. the reason why insurance has zoomed up and the premiums are unaffordable to people that don t qualify for subsidies, the reason why insurers are dropping out of the markets and many people are left with one insurer in their county is because of obamacare s regulations. and that s the problem with a lot of it, and this is why it s very difficult to get any healthcare bill through by either party. right. so why not repair instead of repeal? why not repair instead of repeal? well, i think there s two reasons. one, is that republicans ran one, on this for since 2010 they ve been saying that they re going repeal obamacare and i think they have an obligation to their voters to follow through on it. and two is that obamacare is not working. it hasn t worked, it s expanded coverage because if you spend trillions of dollars on something it s going to expand coverage. it s driven up premiums, it s limited choices. it meant that insureds have had a narrow network so that you have fewer choices of doctors and hospitals. it s created a lot of problems and it s not working as it is. and all that democrats wanted to talk about is to subsidize it more. and that s their only solution. we ve got to drop it, thank you so much, philip kline. got to have you back once we know more about the plan. we appreciate your time. bill o reilly officially off the air at fox news and the late night shows jumped on the chance to send him off. and i really look forward to his next book, killing time at home. just like the people every business is different. but every one of those businesses will need legal help as they age and grow. whether it be with customer contracts, agreements to lease a space or protecting your work. legalzoom s network of attorneys can help you, every step of the way. so you can focus on what you do and we ll handle the legal stuff that comes up along the way. legalzoom. legal help is here. from talk show zbloefts international business machines o reilly has traded the no spin zone for the no job zone one car teenist young a gone groping sign on o reilly s door. bill o reilly was fired today. talk show audiences. fox news fired bill o reilly. seemed delighted. bill o reilly is out of fox. god bless you and everybody in the room, god bless us all. the host of the view then reminisced about the time they walked off the set after arguing with o reilly he sure had a way with words. well say you re a cocaine dealer and you kind of look like one a little bit. as do you. you look like a cocaine user. my mind, i think of you as a goon. i didn t hear a word she said, i was looking at the james brown wig. hey, bill, how you like my wig now? read one tweet. like magic, poof, bill o reilly disappeared. posters outside fox say nobody moves this man. his name vanished from a show mockingly compared to stall len, air rush being out com rads who fell from grace. steven colonel bear resurrected hiss pundit. you failed bill o reilly. all he ever did was have your back and if you re a woman, have a go at the front too. cut his mike cut his mike. cut his mike off. and then rubbed it in. unlike bill o reilly, we ll be right back. they did a mash up of vin diesel and o reilly s infamous outtack. whatever if is it s not right on the teleprompter, whatever that is i ve never seen that. we ll do it live, okay. we should both go watch in honor of a loud host, a
commencements since becoming president. it comes after the white house fallout of the sudden dismissal of james comey during the fbi investigation into possible ties between the trump administration or rather trump campaign, i should say and russia. now this is as four candidates prepare to interview today for the fbi director job. we have a team of political reporters and analysts standing by here. let s begin with cnn washington correspondent ryan nobles who is at the commencement. you see him there on the left. what are you hearing from the crowd there? i understand there s about 7,000 students and families who will be watching. what are they saying? what do they expect? reporter: well, this is expected to be a pretty friendly crowd for the president. this is a group of people and voters in particular that generally supported him during the election and, of course, here at liberty university their president jerry falwell jr. a very influential evangelical leader that allowed the thank you. right there on the right-hand side of your screen we see from moments ago the president as he arrives taking some steps down to the waiting car and on his way to liberty university. as the president prepares to speak there in lynchburg, some waiting to hear from him are still conflicted over their support for the president. let s go to another part of the city there, lynchburg, another cnn correspondent spoke with a family that is mixed on their support. not all of them supported him, the president. reporter: hey guys, good morning. there seems to be, many constituents in the heart of the bible belt who are not sure what to make about president trump s recent tweets and behavior. what we did find the president still enjoys the benefit of doubt from many of those in the heart of the bible belt and we found that was at play under one family s roof. they call it the white house of lynchburg. the white family tackles everything at the dinner table from projects to politics behind the controversial firing of fbi director james comey. those who are, which is the majority here, those who are pro trump voted for trump, i think something like this doesn t, isn t going to shake them one bit. reporter: larry white and his wife kathy are raising their family in lynchburg, in the center of virginia but leaning right more than 50% of the city voted for donald trump. we all basically have the same world view. a christian world view. but when it gets into politics there s certainly going to be some variation. reporter: the whites are highly conservative but also conflicted when it comes to their views on president trump. i didn t actually vote for him. reporter: 23-year-old ana white is one of the few in her family who didn t cast a vote for president trump. recent trump tweets have reassured her of her decision. her president trump voting family members still stand by their choice. i don t think there will be any one time oh, okay shouldn t have voted for him, he was not the her joy thought he was. like he wasn t a hero to begin with. you didn t vote for him thinking avenues hero. i have trust issues with the former president. and the president before that. so the idea of trusting this president, or not trusting is not new. reporter: this is the kind of dialogue you ll find at the white s dinner table. intense. we get very intense and passionate. there s a lot of us so it s hard to talk at the dinner table. reporter: this weekend it s trump s turn to talk in lynchburg a place that welcomed him as a candidate and now as president. this part of virginia is home to some of trump s steadfast supporters as the city republican vice chair. he was part of the reagan revolution. it s important for people to come to lynchburg, meet voters, meet people and see what it s all about. reporter: over 100 days into trump s presidency griffin and fellow republicans seem unphased by the controversy swirling over the white house. i want to support the job he s doing. i want him to be a good representation of america. i love this country reporter: the white s faith in president trump is being tested but their faith in the office is unshakeable. a feeling shared by many in this brass buckle of the bible belt. and the white will be in the audience waiting to hear president trump speak. the comey termination has dominated the conversation at the dinner table. people here say they are questioning the timing. others felt it was the right thing to do. there was a consensus with one question among the white family and that is president trump should stop tweeting. thank you. let s bring in our panel to discuss. cnn commentator, cnn political analyst, cnn presidential historian and former clinton campaign media director. welcome to all. we re just a few minutes away from the president speaking today. first to you, adams, our presidential historian. this president first choice here liberty university. the significance and what you expect to hear from him? first of all i m always interested when the president use as prayer address. i m interested in the themes he focus on. we re going to see some shift if any in his message. i m also going to be looking for statements by the president president likes to interact with the audience. maybe he ll say some things off the cuff that s not in his prepared remarks. it would be interesting if he were to refer to the last week and talked about how he understands leadership. be interesting if he talked about rule of law. and it would also be important if he doesn t refer at all to the controversy of the last week. so, i ll be listening intently. ron, what do you anticipate we ll hear? are we going to hear something that will make news today? are we going to hear a message of unity as we have gotten word that at least it will in part be something along those lines and how will he do that? i ll be surprised if he addresses the issues that are front and raised by his dismissal of the fbi director. evangelical christians are a corner stone of the republican coalition based on issues, you know, especially when conservative christian movement started it was often described as values voters. it s hard to see how donald trump with everything that s swirled around him in the campaign was an example of values, you know, defined in that way. it was more about issue position and particularly the appointment of a fifth republican justice on the supreme court which has been his biggest policy achievement so far. he won 80% of white evangelical christians. this is right at the corner stone of the coalition and i think he ll be talking about the policy positions that kind of connect him to those voters. i think that will be the principle message i think today because as i say, it is not really a values connection, it s a policy connection and that was made very clear in this campaign. you see on the stage the president there arriving to his, his left, your right on the screen. this is jerry falwell jr. head of liberty university there. as we watch here live pictures, the president preparing for the commencement address his first commencement as president of the united states, not all of these students are supportive of the president. during the campaign we know there were protests today. but during the campaign there was a petition online and a letter liberty united against trump. i want to read just a portion of this to give us maybe some color about some of those in opposition. because our president has led the world to believe that liberty university supports donald trump, we students must take it upon ourselves to make clear that donald trump is absolutely opposed to what we believe and does not have our support. we re not proclaiming our opposition to donald trump out of bitterness but out of a desire to regain the integrity of our school. they go on to say we don t want to champion donald trump we want only to champion for christ. so, the narrative that this is in full an audience that is friendly to the president, maybe not 100% accurate. i think that s true. i think that certainly if you re an evangelical who believes that lying is against what the bible teaches, if you believe that committing egregious acts of sexual assault against women by groping them that s against what the bible teaches then you re going to be in opposition to donald trump and i think that, you know, the students who wrote that certainly were concerned about a number of different things he said during the campaign whether they be racist or sexist and i think that coming out against donald trump shows that they believe in the tenets of the bible and what it teaches and they have integrity in that regard. don t go anywhere. we see them putting hand to heart. most likely saying the pledge of allegiance. we ll be right back as we have word from the president as he was on air force one on his way to make his commencement speech. we ll play that for you after the break. stay 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with the power vested in people you re looking here at the liberty university commencement as it gets under way. the president not in your screen there but shortly as he delivers the first commencement speech to liberty university. the first extended appearance we ll see from him after the firing of fbi director, now former africa director james comey. this comes during that period, the question now was the firing of james comey directly related to the fbi investigation into russia s immediate knowledge to the 2016 election? here s what the president said a few moments ago on air force one on comey s replacement. watch this. do you think you might make a decision or an announcement? these are outstanding people that are very well known. highest level. before the trip next week important,ly? even that is possible. our panel is back with us now. let s start with andre. we didn t get you last time. just now potentially days away, andre, from the announcement of the next potential fbi director. that s exciting. you know, i have my own favorite but whom ever is i think it starts a fresh start to a new presidency. many people were concerned about the former fbi director s different ties and allegiances. so part of it in the administration is cleaning it. and keep in mind part of donald trump s big sale to the american people he was draining the swamp. i m a firm believer in term limits not only for members of the united states congress and senate but so many of these agency heads. it needs turn over from time to time. if you look at the list of people who are being considered these are fresh faces from outside of washington. let s put up the four faces if we can. go ahead, andre. well, my hope is that we do get somebody that has a nonpartisan background. but outside of that it s time for some turnover in so many of these different positions not just fbi director. i know when i was a state senator i got rid of the magistrates and put new ones in. people elected me over the person that had been there for a long time and i came in with a different idea and different approach to government. there were some growing pains but that s part of continuing this wonderful electoral system we have and if people didn t like that they didn t have to vote for me next time as they can with donald trump. i want to ask you, adams, we had some reporting from cnn here from some senior white house officials that there s a sense of dejection that most were caught offguard by the decision to fire james comey and even vice president mike pence was rattled by the events this week. what do you make of that characterization of the morale in the white house this early on in the presidency? well, this president seems to be winging it a lot of the time. and the decision to remove the director of the fbi at a time when the fbi is under take an investigation of the 2016 campaign creates at the very least leaving aside legal and political issues. terrible optics. and the president normally works with his inner team, i mean previous presidents, republican or democrat would have worked with their team to come up with a communication strategy, a messaging strategy to prepare the american people, to explain why such a potentially controversial decision was made. and, obviously, it didn t happen in this case. we saw that with the scrambling, the fact the explanation of why comey was fired changed and the president himself upset or undermined the white house s explanation. i don t know whether the morale was high or low. i wouldn t be surprised if it was low. what i think will be interesting to watch is the extent to which the white house team can be consistent over the next little while. has the president learned anything from this? will he? can he learn from this? the impression that the united states, the american people got last week was a country that was led by a white house that is in disarray. and if the morale is low there, it s not surprising to me at all. let me come to you, ron from the air force one there we heard from the president that it could be potentially a few days which means we go from firing of james comey to now the path to confirming the next fbi director. is washington ready to pick the next guy or woman without knowing how or why the previous fbi director was let go? i think your question answers itself. there are many, many questions to be answered about how the previous person was let go. i can t andre s point kind of misses the central issue here is that whatever the other motivations, other justifications were for removing james comey, the president fired the senior law enforcement official overseeing the investigation of whether his campaign was colluding with the russians in an effort the destabilize the 2016 election. that s the core issue. that hangs over whoever comes into the job. whoever he points no matter how independent, no matter how well-respected is coming in to office with the knowledge that the president fired their predecessor while they were pursuing this investigation and to tim s point acknowledge that that was part of his thinking in the interview with lester holt after sending out the white house or allowing or encouraging the white house staff to go out with a completely different story that they undermine and made not true from the beginning. that s there. that s part of this legacy going forward, no matter who steps into this job they know their predecessor was removed by the president while they were investigating. now, we ve had legal scholars today in the newspaper debating whether that amounts to an obstruction of justice depending on the mine set of the president. all of that is a very serious cloud over this next appointment and the idea that we re going to turn the page and move on to the merits of another person without fully investigating here i think is kind of unlikely. a lot of people think this investigation can t move forward without hearing from comey himself. and we re getting word from the new york times reporting this morning that comey does want to testify, but he wants to do so publicly. let s listen to senator mark warner here from last night talking about james comey and testifying. we just heard from the director that he s not able to make it tuesday. it s my hope we can find a time, i think it s really important that the congress and more broadly the american people hear director comey s side of the story. what do you make of the news this morning that comey wants to testify, he wants to do it publicly. do you think that will happen? i do think it will happen. i think eventually we ll see director comey take an oath and testify before the congress in an open hearing because i think that he believes in transparency and in some points in history, you know, it was to a fault i think that he s been criticized for the way he handled the e-mail investigation and almost trying too hard to appear transparent in that regard so i think it s important that he testified in front of congress under oath because we do need to get to the bottom of not only the hacking but now this new issue that s been raised this week which is why the president would all of a sudden in the middle of a ten year term now what was mentioned earlier is that there should be term limits. there are. there s a reason why there s a ten year term for fbi director. they are supposed to be apolitical. be able to go across more than one administration so they are not partisan. the fact that the president in his own words admits he fired director comey because of the russian investigation into his own campaign we need to know more about that specifically and also ensure that the investigation continues in earnest in the fbi and senate and house and i don t know how we do that without a special prosecutor. i think that this process actually has been too politicized. i do hope we hear from information director jim comey. stay with us. you see on your screen now this is jerry falwell jr. president of liberty university. we re just minutes away from hearing from president trump, his first commencement address as president of the united states. we ll take a quick break and we ll be right back. ponent was.. pe blood clots in my lung. it was really scary. a dvt in my leg. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. my doctor and i choose xarelto® xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner. .that s proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. here s how xarelto works. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least six blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective. .targeting just one critical factor, interacting with less of your body s natural blood-clotting function. don t stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor as this may 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and muddle no more®. when they thought they should westart saving for retirement.le then we asked some older people when they actually did start saving. this gap between when we should start saving and when we actually do is one of the reasons why too many of us aren t prepared for retirement. just start as early as you can. it s going to pay off in the future. if we all start saving a little more today, we ll all be better prepared tomorrow. prudential. bring your challenges. that can camp out in between our teeth, if we ll let it. use gum® brand. soft-picks®. proxabrush® cleaners. flossers and dental floss. gum® brand. go to xfinity.com/myaccount jerry falwell jr. president of liberty university, another president, president of the united states will speak in just a moment there at the university. it s his first commencement speech since taking office. and coming after a tumultuous week for the white house. they ve been dealing with the fallout from the sudden firing of fbi director koem. the president spoke about finding a replacement for him on air force one a little bit earlier. let sist end to this. do you think you might make a decision before saturday? these are outstanding people that are very well known. highest level. we could make a fast decision. before the trip next week possibly even that is possible. i think the process will be quick because almost all of them are very well known. they ve been vetted over their lifetime essentially but very well known, highly respected, really talented people and that s what we want for the fbi. i ll see you over at the school. have a good time. thank you very much, mr. president. hearing from the president as opposed to one of the surrogates whom we ve heard a lot from. let s play sean spicer at yesterday s daily briefing there at the white house. i m going to play this for our panel as we welcome them back in. again, let s listen to sean spicer, a bit of sound, a match up from yesterday s briefing. i m not aware. i haven t spoken to him about it about the reason. identify not asked him about the deputy identify not asked him about general lew i don t go through the list of employees and ask him. so identify not asked him specifically about that. the number of times yesterday, ti adamt we heard se say i don t know, but more than we ve heard in the past. how has the president s, i guess, 180 on how he came to the decision to fire james comey affected that relationship potentially between the president and his communications director, the press secretary, deputy press secretary? well, i don t know about their personal relationship but i ll say this, which is that the white house communications director, or director of communications, his job or her job sometimes is to support the president and clean up the president s messes if that s required. i think the problem last week and this gets back to something ron said is deeper than that. the president just didn t change the rationale the public rationale for firing comey. the way he explained himself put himself in joe jeopardy. i m not saying yet legal jeopardy but he actually he actually deepened suspicions that he did this because he was worried about the direction that the russian investigation was going. i m not saying that was the reason he did it. but the way in which he explained himself. and the letter that he sent to mr. comey. both of these are tell tale, and give you a sense that s what motivated him. if that s what motivated him there will be enormous pressure on whoever he selects. let s listen here to the president of the united states, his first commencement speech. [ applause ] thank you very much, everybody. and congratulations to the class of 2017. that s some achievements. [ applause ] this is your day and you ve earned every minute of it. and i m thrilled to be back at liberty university. i ve been here, this is now my third time. and we love setting records. right? we always set records. we have to set records. we have no choice. it s been a little over a year since i ve spoken on your beautiful campus, and so much as changed. right here the class of 2017 dressed in cap and gown, graduating to a totally brilliant future. and here i am standing before you as president of the united states, so i m guessing there are some people here today who thought that either one of those things either one would really require major help from god. do we agree? [ laughter ] [ applause ] and we got it. [ applause ] but here we are celebrating together on this very joyous occasion, and there s no place in the world i rather be to give my first commencement address as president than here with my wonderful friends at liberty university. [ applause ] and i accept this invitation a long time ago. i said to jerry that i would be there. and when i say something, i mean it. [ applause ] i want to thank president jerry falwell and his incredible wife becky. stand up, becky. for their kind words. their steadfast support. and their really wonderful friendship. let me also extend our appreciation to the entire falwell family, trey, sara, leslie and caroline. thank you for everything you do to make this university so exceptional. truly one of the great schools. most importantly to our new graduate, each of you should take immense pride in what you have achieved. there s another group of amazing people we want to celebrate today. and they are the ones who have made this journey possible for you, and you know who that is? nobody. you forgot already. you re going to go out and do whatever you re going to do. some of you will make a lot of money. some will be even happier doing other things. they are your parents and grandparents. don t forget them. [ applause ] you haven t for got them have you? never ever forget them. they are great. especially this weekend let s make sure we give a really extra special thanks to the moms. [ applause ] don t forget our moms. because graduates today is your day. today is your day. but in all of this excitement don t forget that tomorrow is mother s day. right? i had a great mother. she s looking down now. but i had a great mother. i always loved mother s day. we re also deeply honored to be joined by some of the nearly 6,000 service members, military veterans and military spouses who are receiving their diplomas today. would you please stand. please stand. [ applause ] wow. [ applause ] that s great. thank you very much. great job. we re profoundly grateful over tory single one of you sacrificed to keep us safe and to protect god s precious gift of freedom. it is truly a testament to this university and to the values that you embrace that your graduating class includes so many patriots who have served our country in uniform. thank you very much. to the class of 2017, today you end one chapter but you are about to begin the greatest adventure of your life. just think for a moment of how blessed you are to be here today at this great, great university. living in this amazing country, surrounded by people who you love and care about so much. then ask yourself, with all of those blessings, and all of the blessings that you ve been given, what will you give back to this country and, indeed, to the world? what imprint will you leave in the sands of history? what will future americans say we did in our brief time right here on earth? did we take risks? did we dare to defy expectations? did we challenge accepted wisdom and take on established systems? i think die, but we all did. and we re all doing it. or did we just go along with convention, swim downstream so easily with the current and just give in because it was the easy way, it was the traditional way, or it was the accepted way? remember this, nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy. following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right, and they know what is right, but they don t have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it. it s called the road less traveled. i know that each of you will be a warrior for the truth. will be a warrior for our country. and for your family. i know that each of you will do what is right, not what is the easy way, and that you will be true to yourself and your country and your believes. in my short time in washington, i ve seen firsthand how the system is broken. a small group of failed voices who think they know everything and understand everyone, want to tell everybody else how to live and what to do and how to think. but you aren t going to let other people tell you what you believe, especially when you know that you re right. [ applause ] and those of you graduating here today, who have given half a million hours of charity, last year alone, unbelievable amount of work and charity and few universities or colleges can claim anything even close, we don t need a lecture from washington on how to lead our lives. i m standing here looking at the next generation of american leaders. there may very well be a president or two in our midst. anybody think they are going to be president, raise your hand? [ applause ] in your hearts are inscribed the ovals of service, sacrifice and devotion. now you must go forth into the world and turn your hopes and dreams into action. america has always been the land of dreams, because america is a nation of true believers. when the pilgrims landed at plymouth, they prayed. when the founders wrote the declaration of independence, they invoked our creator four times because in america we don t worship government, we worship god. [ applause ] that is why our elected officials put their hands on the bible and say, so help me god. as they take the oath of office. it is why our currency proudly declares in god we trust. and it s why we proudly proclaim that we are one nation under god. every time we say the pledge of allegiance. [ applause ] the story of america is the story of an adventure that began with deep faith, big dreams, and humble beginnings. that is also the story of liberty university. when i think about the visionary founder of this great institution, reverend jerry falwell sr., i can only imagine how excited he would be if he could see all of this and all of you today and how proud he would be of his son and of his family. in just two days we will mark the tenth anniversary of reverend falwell s passing. i juiced to love watching him on television, hearing him preach. he was a very special man. he would be so proud not just at what you ve achieved, but of the young men and women of character that you ve all become. and, jerry, i know your dad is looking down on you right now, and he is proud. he is very proud. [ applause ] so congratulations on a great job, jerry. [ applause ] reverend falwell s life is a testament of the power of faith to change the world, inspiring legacy that we see all around us in this great stadium, this is a beautiful stadium, and it is packed. i m so happy about that. i said how are you going to fill up a place like that. it is packed, jerry. [ laughter ] it is a beautiful campus. it s a world class university for evangelical christians and i want to thank you because boy did you come out and vote, those of you that are old enough. in other words, your parents. [ cheers and applause ] boy oh, boy you voted. you voted. no doubt many people told him his vision was impossible. and i am sure they continue to say that so long after he started at the beginning with just 154 students. but the fact is no one has ever achieved anything significant without a chorus of critics standing on the sidelines explaining why it can t to be done. nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic, because they are people that can t get the job done, but the future belongs to the dreamers. not to the critics. the future belongs to the people who follow their heart no matter what the critics say. because they truly believe in their vision. at liberty your leaders knew from the very beginning that a strong athletic program would help this campus grow so that this school might transform more lives. that is why a crucial part of reverend falwell s vision for making liberty a world class institution was having a world class football team. much like the great teams of notre dame. great school. great place. in fact, vice president mike pence is there today. doing a fabulous job as he always does. [ applause ] a few years ago the new york times even roa story on the great ambitions of the liberty flames. that story prompted a long time president of another school to write a letter to jerry. it s a letter that reverend falwell would have been very, very pleased to read. jerry tells me that letter now hangs in the wall in the boardroom of your great university. it came from the late father theodore hesper who was the beloved president of the university of notre dame, 35 years ago. like this school s founder, he was a truly kind-hearted man, of very, very deep faith. in the letter the father recounted recount ed notre dame s own rise to a football powerhouse and he wrote something so amazing and generous, he wrote i think that you are on that same trajectory now and i want to wish you all the best and encourage you from the start, and from being able to start very small and arriving in the big time. thanks to hard work, great faith and incredible devotion those dreams have come true. as of february of this year, the liberty flames are playing in the fbs, the highest level of competition in ncaa football. [ applause ] don t clap. that could be tough. don t clap. that could be tough. i m a little worried. i don t want to look at some of the scores here. swrerry, are you su jerry are you know what you re doing here. those other players are big and strong and fast. from the most humble roots you ve become a powerhouse in bothation and sports and just wait until the world hears the football teams you ll be playing on your schedule starting next season. president falwell gave me a list of some of those schools, the ones you ll be playing in 2018. would you like me to read the names, just came out? would you like hear them? i m a little bit concerned. [ laughter ] u-mass. virginia. auburn. jerry, are you sure you know what you re doing? [ laughter ] jerry, auburn. i don t know about that, jerry. this could be trouble, jerry. rutgers. old dominion. brigham young. army. i might be at that game. who am i supposed to root for? tell me. that s a tough one, jerry. i don t know, jerry. i ll have to think about that one, jerry. buffalo. troy. virginia tech. oh, no, jerry, ole miss. and wake forest. those are really top schools. maybe in four or five years. maybe you ll build it up. the success of your athletic program arriving on the big stage should be a reminder to every new graduate of just what you can achieve when you start small, pursue a big vision and never ever quit. you never quit. if i give you one message to hold in your hearts today, it s this. never ever give up. there will be times in your life you ll want to quit, you ll want to go home. you ll want to go home, perhaps to that wonderful mother that s sitting back there watching you and saying mom, i can t do it. i can t do it. just never quit. go back home and tell mom, dad, i can do it. i can do it. i will do it. i ll be successful. i ve seen so many brilliant people, they gave up in life. they were totally brilliant. they were top of their class. they were the best students. they were the best of everything. they gave up. i ve seen others who really didn t have that talent or that ability and they are among the most successful people today in the world because they never quit and they never gave up. so just remember that, never stop fighting for what you believe in and for the people who care about you. carry yourself with dignity and pride. demand the best from yourself. and be totally unafraid to challenge entrenched interests and failed power structures. does that sound familiar, by the way? the more people tell you it s not possible, that it can t to be done, the more you should be absolutely determined to prove them wrong. treat the word impossible as nothing more than motivation. relish the opportunity to be the outsider. embr embrace that label. being an outside serrefine. embrace that label. because it s the outsiders who change the world and make a real and lasting difference. the more that a broken system tells you that you re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead. you must keep pushing forward. and always have the courage to be yourself. most importantly, you have to do what you love. you have to do what you love. i ve seen so many people, they are forced through lots of reasons, sometimes including family to go down a path that they don t want to go down. to go down a path that leads them to something that they don t love. that they don t enjoy. you have to do what you love, or you most likely won t be very successful at it. so do what you love. i want to recognize a friend who is here with us today, who can serve as an inspiration to us all. someone who doesn t know the meaning of the word quit. real champion. a true, true champion. both on the field, off the field, he s a hall of fame quarterback for the buffalo bills, really a good friend of mine, amazing guy, jim kelly. where s jim? he s here some place. stand up jim. [ applause ] what a great man. [ applause ] jim kelly. he was tough. jim, do you have any idea how much money you would be making today? they would hit jim, it was like tackling a linebacker. they would hit jim and keep going down the field. he was much more than a quarterback. he had tremendous heart and he knew how to win. jim is tough and his toughest fight of all was that he beat cancer not once but twice. [ applause ] and i saw him and his incredible wife as they were in a very low moment, jill. very, very low moment. and it was amazing the way they fought. it didn t look good. i would have said maybe, maybe it s not going to happen. but there was always that hope because of jim and jim s heart. but i want to just say it s great to have you here today, jim, and these people are big, big fans. if you can get a young version of jim kelly, you ll be beating a lot of teams, jerry. so, interestingly, though, i said i wonder what jim is doing here. his daughter erin crosses the goal line to you and today with you. so erin, stand up. where are you, erin? where is erin? congratulations erin. congratulations. graduating from liberty. [ applause ] great choice. thank you. liberty university is a place where they really have true champions. and you have a simple creed that you live by, to be really champions for christ. whether you re called to be a missionary overseas, to shepherd a church or to be a leader in your community, you are living witness of the gospel message of faith, hope and love. and i must tell you i m so proud as your president to have helped you along over the past short period of time. i said i was going to do it and, jerry, i did it. a lot of people are very happy with what s taking place, especially last week. we did some very important signings. [ applause ] right, james? very important signings. america is better when people put their faith into action. as long as i am your president, no one is ever going to stop you from practicing your faith, or from preaching what s in your heart. [ cheers and applause ] we will always stands up the right for all americans to pray to god and to follow his teachings. america is beginning a new chapter. today each of you begins a new chapter as well. when your story goes from here, it will be defined by your vision, your perseverance, and your grit. that s a word jim kelly knows very well, your grit. in this i m reminded of another man you know very well. and who has joined us here today. his name is george rogers. liberty university cfo and vice president for a quarter of a century. during world war ii, george spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war. he saw many of his fellow soldiers die during the death march. he was the victim of starvation and torture as a prisoner of war. when he was finally set free he weighed just 85 pounds and was told he would not live past the age of 40. today george is 98 years old. [ applause ] great. [ applause ]