cnn news not with abby phillip starts right now. comments from the president that made his own staffers go yikes. that's tonight on news night. ♪ ♪ ♪ good evening, i'm abby philip in new york. tonight, what you might call the law of political suspects. every action has it's equal, opposite reaction. president joe biden has now essentially confirmed that he is running for one race, and or bronzer, because of one man and one man only. donald trump. those remarks came at and off camera fund-raiser in boston, and they are jaw-dropping, if only for their clarity and their simplicity. if trump wasn't running, he says, i'm not sure i'd be running. but we can't let him win. the biden campaign was caught off guard, according to sources. yikes, was how one top campaign adviser reacted when he learned what biden had said. now, that remarks are short to create some headaches in the days ahead and to renew some conversations that are ongoing about president biden's age. moments ago, trump himself tried to turn biden's admission to his own advantage. >> when i ran for president four years ago, i said it's a battle for the soul of america. and we still are. >> the comments today to echo 2020. you can say the parallels with his 2024 campaign announcement. >> when i ran for president four years ago, i said we are in a battle for the soul of america. and we still are. >> but the context here is far different. biden is now 81 years old, not sympathy seven. and he has long since discarded this promise. >> look, i view myself as a bridge. not as anything else. there is an entire generation of leaders standing behind me. they are the future of this country. >> a bridge but to law? to himself? well, it's something democrats say they do not want. and it's a big reason why the presidents age and his health, and his mental competency, are questions that come with all of this. also tonight, the standard bearer of a famous political family says she might run for the exact same reason as joe biden. liz cheney, the former republican congresswoman who lorries that donald trump might never leave if he wins again, set down for an interview with our own anderson cooper. and she would not roll up joining the 2024 field if she thinks it accomplishes one mission. and that is not been trump. >> if you are to determine that your candidacy it would take more votes away from trump than it would from biden, what could be a catalyst to get into the race? >> i'm going to look at this over the next couple of months through the lens of how to we stop donald trump, and on some level it's not about me, it's not about what i'm going to do or not do. i look at it very much from the perspective of right now, absolutely, keep our eye on the goal of stopping him. right now, and in this election cycle, i'll do whatever i have to do to make sure donald trump is not elected. >> and doesn't comport joins me now. anderson, it was really striking how liz cheney really went after her former republican colleagues. let's take a listen to what she had to say. >> this group of elected republicans can't be counted on to defend the constitution. and it's a very sad thing for me to say. it's a very dangerous place for the country to be. but that's what we have seen based on the actions of the last several years. >> and she of course knows this from personal experience, because she was there. and they basically abandoned her. and she watched then participate basically in, you know, parts of the things that lit up to january 6th. what do you make of how she thinks about not just the trump of it all but the republican party? >> that's one of the things that was so extraordinary about what she has written. the idea that the republicans in the house, the body that she served in until very recently, cannot be trusted. she's talking particular if an election is so close it ends up being determined in the house. i find it stunning that liz cheney who spent her career in the house, who's been a die hard republican for so long, comes from a very conservative family, is saying something so strong. it's kind of remarkable. >> and there is also, you know, now the speaker of the house is an election denier. mike johnson. >> she writes extensively about him in the book, it's fascinating. she obviously wrote the book before johnson was named speaker. but you had a lot of interaction with him. she was telling me, people who were involved in the book court like, why are you spending so much time talking about mike johnson? now it's very prescient she did include him in the book. but she really does view him as somebody who portrayed himself is a contradiction scholar, who's making specious constitutional arguments. and putting out an amicus brief that also, some members of congress failed, has an implicit threat that president trump would be looking at all the members who went along with him. >> do you get the sense that she thinks it's a lost cause, that the republican party is a wholly owned sub dearie of donald trump? now >> this iteration of the republican party, it does seem she thinks it is beyond salvaging. i think she has talked about thinking of a third party run or the creation of another sort of party. i'm not sure, obviously, i think there is a lot for her to figure out on that. there's a lot of obstacles. >> she talked about what would happen if donald trump were reelected to a second term. listen to what she said. >> what it means if the president of the united states woman for the rulings of our courts, and that's absolutely what he said he will do. he's gone to war with that rule of law. and a president who won't enforce the law creates a situation where things just unravel. and he will have people around him who, you know, it will help him do it. >> just a couple days ago, i was talking to john bolton, who is, to be clear, no fan of donald trump. and he thought that language was pretty alarmist. and i've actually heard that from several pretty anti trump republicans. they think that she's gone a little too far and how she talks about this. she is not moved by that at all. she's doubling down, it seems. >> there is no doubt about it. she seems to very much believe that the guard rails of democracy, that not only are they not as secure as many of us like to believe they were or before the trump administration, but also that the former president has learned from the mistakes he made and things he wasn't able to do before. and would not make the same mistakes, that, essentially the people around him have learned from the mistakes of the first administration. >> you mentioned the third-party, run that you get the same that she's keeping that option open but, more likely, less likely to go that route? >> i don't have any real insight on that. i think, look, i don't think she wants to do anything that would help donald trump become that next president. is she saying that in order to get attention from people in order to -- when you're out with the book? and she's making other headlines? i'm not sure. but, look. a third party run for her, if, i think that would be a difficult calculation. >> certainly would be. anderson, thanks so much for joining us on that. and you can check out anderson's podcast, about brace, for an interesting interview with president biden and you can't listen to all there is first thing tomorrow morning on apple podcasts, spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. at a fox town hall tonight, the former president refused to say something very important. sean hannity tried to give donald trump and out, to put to pit the stories about a second term and what it would look like, and whether there is a specter of authoritarianism or fascism. trump refused to say no. >> do you have any plans whatsoever if reelected president, to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people? >> you mean like they're using it right now? [laughter] in the history of our country -- [applause] -- what's happened to us has never happened before. over nonsense, over nothing, made up charges. >> i want to go back to this one issue, because media has been focused on this and attacking you. under no circumstances, you are promising america tonight, you would never abuse of power as retribution against anybody. >> except for day one. >> joining me now is tim alberta, stuff writer for the atlantic and also the author of the new, book the kingdom, the power, and that glory, american evangelicals and an age of extremism. tim, thanks for staying up for us. perfect person for this particular moment. as always. but that from the trump town hole is pretty extraordinary. i mean, once again hannity is almost like leaving a horse to water and asking him to drink and he won't do it. why won't he simply say the answer is no? >> you know what it reminds me of. the last time we saw trump pull something like this was just before the 2020 election, when he was repeatedly asked, will you accept the results of the election if you lose? and he refused to say. and after, what he refused to accept the results of the election. so it is not just a rhetorical game. the audience was laughing. this could be a signal of what is to come. >> it's almost like we should start taking it seriously. avon a couple of, i think it was 36 hours or so, a couple of days after the election, i believe it was november 5th. trump gave a speech from the white house where he basically said we are 11 and a banana republic, you can't trust our elections anymore, it's been stolen from me, you, that, people need to do something about this. and i remember being horrified and fearful at that point of what was going to happen and everybody would shorten it off. it is, this is what he says, this is his stick. hold on, there are tens of millions of people who voted for this man and who believe him when he says these things. so it seems as though just as with your example he was almost private people for how he might behave in the aftermath of that election, is now pregnant people yet again to say, yeah, i might just pursuit the authoritarian style of governing and maybe people won't really have a problem with that. >> you kind of touched on this in your book. you talked about cal thomas, who plays a pretty important role in the rise of martin evangelicalism. he sent this to you about evangelical christians. he said, you can't have a legitimate conversation with these people who are all in on trump because if you find any flaw on him, even flows that are demonstrably, either excuse it or attack you. does that, what he's describing there, make you or him lori that that's a recipe for authoritarianism? >> especially, abby, yes. it makes me worry and i think especially when you take the elements of authoritarianism but you inject the religious zealotry, that religious justification. not from trump himself, but from this base, the conservative right wing white evangelicals, whom he has cultivated over the past eight years. and these are folks that, if you look at january six, at some of the religious imagery around the siege of the capital, if you look at the language he deploys when he's in front of explicitly evangelical audiences, talking about him, giving paid part to christianity, wanting to take on christianity's enemies and the culture, this is loaded language. and you don't have to look far to see just overseas in ukraine, russia's invasion was loaded with this sort of religious rhetoric and trump, in some ways, as barr went from that same playbook. i wanna play for you something trump said over the weekend. listen. >> i think if you had a real election in, jesus came down and god came down i'm gonna be the scorekeeper here i think, we when there, we'd win an illinois and we'd win in new york. >> our evangelicals comfortable with that? invoking god and jesus in his quest to claim that he deserves to win everywhere? >> if you had asked me that question just a few years ago abby, i would've said no, of course not. i think we have to recognize how dramatically the paradigm has shifted here. how donald trump has re-written the rules. inside the modern evangelical movement. in many ways what trump has effectively done is he has conditioned evangelical christians in this cross country, at least the millions of them who are loyal to him and to the mega movement to expect that sort of regret. to expect that antagonism, and anything short of that on doesn't pass muster. if you watch mike pence, he would go in front of evangelical audience and talk about civility, decency and he would get booed. he >> would be booed off the stage -- >> it seems like we've lived through and the very condensed period of time almost a whole say remaking of that alliance between evangelical movement and republican party, and trump is obviously it makes you wonder if there is has been a break, between evangelicalism and its religious origins. now a trump that has sort of made it and not necessarily about all the volumes of kirstjen, but about other things about, his personality and who he is as a person. >> there was some fascinating research done during trump's president that showed that there was an uptick in and why conservatives who are self identify of evangelical ethan simultaneously the number of white conservative who were attending church was going down. there is an identification phenomenon where for many of these folks, evangelical, is now a cultural political, tribal label that is basically hollowed out of a spiritual meaning, it doesn't just service to the gospel of jesus christ, and for those of us who believe in that gospel and feel that we have a responsibility to evangelize, to take that gospel to the nation and share the new of jesus, it is hard to do that when everyone political label to the term itself. >> tim alberta, thank you so much for joining us. everyone pick up this book, the kingdom, the power and the glory. available right now. thank you so much. >> thanks abby. >> next chris wallace joins me on biden's surprising remarks about running against donald trump, plus, the new speaker says he is blurring the faces of the january 6th footage so that the rioters won't be prosecuted. >> is vladimir putin winning his deadly war in the ukraine? why a shouting match tonight at the classified senate briefing may have the answer to that question. just a few moments ago reporters asked the president about it his -- that donald trump is the sole reason for running. >> [inaudible] i >> expect so well, if he is running i have to run. >> [inaudible] no not now. >> i have to run he says. as we pointed out at the top of the show donald trump responded to joe biden comments just in the last hour. >> if trump wasn't running, i am not sure i would be running he said at a campaign event today. how do you react to that? well >> i think somebody gave him a talking point that with sound. the person they don't want to run against is us, it's not me it's us, because it is a movement. the likes of which this country has never seen before. >> joining me now is cnn-acre chris wallace, chris, i want to start with this new comment from president biden. he told democratic donors today, that he wasn't confident that he would be seeking another term in the white house if former president trump was not in the race. here's what he said, he said, quote if trump wasn't running i'm not sure i would be running. and added the democrats cannot let trump win. it's really astonishing but perhaps with what he said in the past. how do you think this comment plays, now that he is on the ballot? and just before the election get some to gear? >> i think it would play a lot better if he was actually leading donald trump in the polls. in fact, there are number polls that show him dead even or even trailing trump. i know that was argument in 2020, he was the one democrat who could defeat donald trump. and he did. you have to give him that credit, but there is an awful lot of people who think he might be the one democrat who could lose to donald trump. with a lot of other people out there, none of whom are going to take on joe biden in the democratic primary because he's the incumbent president, but a gavin newsom, governor whitmer of when michigan, pritzker of illinois. i just think it's a harder case to make when there is so much doubt about him, and the idea, he's basically saying i'm the only thing that protects the country from a donald trump second term. i think there are a lot of people who question that. >> isn't it kind of an acknowledgment himself, that age is a factor here. he would be doing something else, he would be retired himself if it wasn't for trump. >> i didn't think about it that way, but i suppose that is true. generally speaking, a first term president is held bent on seeking ascend can term. the fact that he is saying if it weren't for trump i'd be out, it does rage the age question i'm sure not the way he intended it to. >> as all of this is happening, we have former congressman liz cheney out there, saying she has not close the door as running as a third party candidate. obviously she is clear, she wants to stop trump from being president, but the cheney run would actually help trump? or her him? >> i think it's very much up in the air whether or not it would hurt trump, which is obviously what she would want to do. now look les cheney has a book out, she's trying to get promotion for the book. comments like this are good for moving the merchandise, but my initial reaction when i heard that she was thinking of a second, there is not a chance in the world that she can win. she doesn't have support in the democratic party, she doesn't have adequate support in the republican party. the only reason for her to run is to think that she would be able to hurt and perhaps prevent donald trump from winning. i don't think that's at all certain. >> meanwhile over on capitol hill the new house speaker mike johnson, he is trying to re-write essentially what happened on january 6th by releasing these tapes, and also saying when he releases the tapes of the january 6th footage he's gonna blur the faces of the january six rioters to protect them. is this him playing to an important audience of one for the republican, i am so astonished by this idea of explicit-ing protecting riders from accountability? what do you make of that? >> the january 6th tapes have been an interesting political litmus test. first you had then speaker kevin mccarthy give them exclusively to tucker carlson. he then proceeded to rewrite history and say that the tape show that this was i think in his words, a tourist event. perhaps but not necessarily the strangest thing tucker has ever said, but now in essence this is even more astonishing that the speaker of the house, second in line to the presidency, is saying i want to put these tapes out and let everyone have them but i'm gonna blurred the faces of people. why would he blurred the faces? because they are guilty. because they have done something wrong. he specifically said i don't want the fbi, or the justice department going after them. if they did nothing wrong, then they have nothing to fear. if they did something wrong, than the fbi or the justice department should be going after them. >> i think that that is the basic premise of the rule of law here. last thing before you go chris. the republicans in the house are still making this effort to impeach president biden, speaker mike johnson says, he does have the votes. meanwhile, newt gingrich the former house speaker issued this warning to republicans. >> republican, do you want to guarantee a primary upon voting against, this doesn't impeach him. the simply gives congress additional power to force the white house to reveal documents and to force people to comment testify. >> that statement probably isn't surprising if you know new gingrich, at the same time we have a basic question of where is the evidence? and the latest from james comer about payments from hunter biden to his father turned out to be car peanuts from hunter biden to joe biden. seems like they're just simply having a hard time coming up with this evidence. can they still move forward in spite of? that >> will look, it's a question of votes if they've got 218 votes they can approve impeachment inquiry, and as gingrich is saying this is simply to investigate. i know the impeachment particularly the first one of president trump was controversial over the issue of his phone call, his perfect phone call with zelenskyy whether or not he was gonna condition usa and whether or not resiliency gauze gonna investigate joe biden. at least there was of their there. at this point, a lot of people have problems with hunter biden trading on his father's name. there was a recent poll a third of americans including a third of democrats think what joe biden did, in allowing hunter to use his name, his brand was on as a cult. but in terms of something that would qualify is a high crime and misdemeanor, as i say there's no there there. we haven't seen it yet. i'm looking forward anxiously to see if they're able to come up with something but so far and, it's been several years of investigating. they haven't come up with anything that would rise to that level. >> nobody is asking everyone to endorse hunter biden's behavior, question is, what was joe biden's conduct that would warrant an impeachment? that is where they come up short. chris wallace always good to have you on. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you abby. >> and next, a shouting match erupting tonight in a classified senate briefing, as republicans hold ukraine hated hostage. is this music to vladimir putin's ears? a provocative question tonight is vladimir putin winning his deadly war? i want to start this conversation with a claim from the senate majority leader. >> ronald reagan would be rolling in his grave, rolling in his grave, if he saw his own party let lula vladimir putin rolled through europe. >> that observation comes as an inflection point for america's place in the world, and up for debate is the notion that the past century of the united states jumping into coal built conflicts for better or for worst is over. the new house speaker says no more money for ukraine unless the border crisis also addressed. when you take a step back and you realize the ukraine could be on the slow road to collapse, the white house warns that funds for the war out on the verge of running out completely. the chief of nato warns to brace for bad news as ukraine's counteroffensive sputters. moscow is now adding more troops to its million man army. member of zelenskyy's inner circle privately doubting that this war is winnable. in fact, many people believe the ukrainian president is growing more delusional. tonight in washington post shouting match erupted during a classified senate hearing over ukraine. apparently some senate republicans began to shout a pentagon officials for refusing to address the border. so vladimir putin's goal was to let this war continue until the west simply loses interest, it appears to be working. stanislav kutcher is a journalist and former russian tv host, stanislav i was asking you earlier is putin winning? >> putin original plan was to either win the war, in five days, or to drag west, ukraine, and america into a quagmire that he and the population are able to a stand, while his opponents in the west would get tired exhausted more quickly. yes, that is exactly what is happening at the moment. i can't say he's winning the war, again his original plan was to win in five days. but his second plan, is definitely working now. >> meanwhile, in russia, look, it's not as if russia is not taken significant casualties as this drags on. inside of russia, what is your sense of how this is playing for putin? can he politically, withstand a drawn out quagmire, as you call it, in ukraine? >> politically he can withstand absolutely anything and everything. as long as he is president. solely because he is a dictator right now. his elites are totally completely depended on him. any ideas of a coup d'état, a military coup, it is all out of the question especially now that mr. prigozhin is somewhere in a parallel world. as far as the population of russia is concerned, again, unfortunately, too many people are under of the propaganda. number two, too many russians strongly believe even those who anishinaabe were against this criminal war, many of them now believe that the whole world is against us, the west is against dust. so we have to suffer anyway, so the only way to us is somehow win. then we come to what it means to win the more, neither putin nor -- the military minister neither of them has ever defined victory, what victory means. some say it's a plague, a russian flag in kyiv. i've heard people say, we've got to be in poland somewhere, or even in washington d.c.? >> they can define it how ever they won at the end of the day. >> one more thing, in a poker analogy, putin and micheletti had a very small stack. but he was threatening everyone to flip the table over, and somehow the other players at the table believed he might do so. he was wearing them down, and now it seems like he has. he may in fact have the biggest stack, of course this analogy is a very imperfect. because in poker you have to play by the rules. where as putin does not. >> definitely does, not stanislav kutcher thank you for joining us tonight. and next, jake tapper joins me on the democratic congressman now backtracking on our comments about the sexual violence committed by hamas.s. president biden tonight announcing, sexual hustle by hamas. saying quote, hamas terrorists inflict as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible, the world can't just look away at what is going on. it is on all of us to forcibly condemn the sexual violence of hamas terrorists without of quiver keyshawn. >> for more on this i want to bring in cnn's jake tapper who aired a really powerful report on the sexual violence perpetrated by hamas on october 7th, and in some ways really put this issue on the map for the world. jake, thank you for being here. what do you make of biden making these comments today, the timing of it all? >> i was told last week by some of his top aides, that the president would be saying something publicly about it because it was something that hamas had done, that the white house had not yet commented on, that the president and not yet commented on. i think the reason he did it today was because yesterday there had been that event that session at the united nations that the israeli mission to the u.n. had hosted with hillary clinton and cheryl sandberg, senator gillibrand and others, in which there was featured public testimony witness testimony, the head of the police and is israel talking about witness testimony. and so the president felt compelled to say something about houma's did, the crimes that they committed on israeli women and girls, on october 7th. >> so these remarks are also coming, just after democratic congressman, camilla jamiyah paul faced submission amount a backlash for her response to these sexual has assault by hamas listen to what she told it about. >> is horrific, sexual salt is horrific, i think that it happens in war situations, terrorist organizations like hamas obviously, are using these as tools. however, i think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against palestinians. 15,000 palestinians have been killed in israeli airstrikes, three quarters of whom are women and children. >> that was sunday, today is tuesday tonight, jayapal issued a statement about the backlash to those comments saying that she unequivocal condemns hamas's use of as an active war. what did you make of the fact that that statement had to be put out? and that it came when it did two days later? >> >> i think first of all, a lot of progressive have a difficult time expressing any sympathy for anything that israel or israelis went through because it then puts them in a position where they feel that, they are then somehow complicit in whatever benjamin netanyahu, the prime minister, is doing in retaliation for the terrorist attacks. obviously, that is not the case. there are israelis who are victims of what happened october 7th who might be in disagreement with what netanyahu and the idf are doing, that doesn't make them any less victims of october 7th. when madeleine albright the secretary of state really put as a weapon of more on the map during the wars and yugoslavia, and rwanda, and the democratic republic of congo. there wasn't a lot of pushback about well, does that mean that you are there for taking the side of this faction in the war, or that faction of the war? but because there is unfortunately a lot of animus towards israel this does come up. i would else like to point out, and there is a lot of criticism from the u.s. about how israel's raging this war. one of the main reasons that there are so many civilian deaths, there is a lot critiques about the idf as i said. one of the main resistance, hamas hides was in the civilian population of gaza. it's not like hamas has a military base and israel could hit that but instead they are hitting the civilian population. hamas hides under and within the population of gaza. >> but jake, one of the things, i've heard and seen people on the left the same people who are advocates of the me too movement, the same people who say believe women, who say there is no proof that these happened. there is no evidence, this is propaganda. that is the part that i am not understanding. policing people won't believe what seems to be pretty widespread evidence that these things happened. >> the same people that were pretty willing to believe some shoddy reporting about brett kavanaugh, are now willing not willing to listen to eyewitness testimony, police testimony. some pretty grisly videos that moss put out there, that speaks them fairly disgusting truths about what they perpetrated on women. i think that there have been some issues in the i don't know where, these people are misinformed, whether it's in the educational system or where. when you see people tearing down posters of children, because they think it is propaganda that justifies what goes on in gaza. they can't just look at the face of a baby and say that's a kidney baby and that is tragic. somewhere, along the line these people have been convinced there is no humanity in that face of that child. i can't explain why that is, certainly we have seen throughout history without sorts of minority groups, african americans, latinos, muslims, immigrants, now, we have seen the dehumanization and it is very sad to see playing out. it is very uncomfortable to see it playing out. it is frankly uncomfortable to see one minority group to it to another minority group. because we are all humans, when we are talking about civilians it is always sad. when we are talking about children it is always tragic. i cannot explain it, except to say someone taught these people that these people on the posters that these women who are, that these children who were kidnapped, someone taught them that they are not human. that they are not deserving of sympathy or empathy, i cannot explain it but it makes me very sad. >> it is all very sad. thank you jake for joining us tonight. you can catch the lead tomorrow afternoon at four pm eastern time. >> next, a year-long blockade and tonight, almost. tonight tommy tuberville's blockade has broken, 400 plus service members when they get their stars. the alabama center causes failed protest a drop. but, a dozen would be four star generals are on hold tonight. the white house says the tuberville's gambit was all pointless, except for maybe to gin up fear about the military 's readiness, and loading, and lots of low the from his colleagues. >> is there an objection? senator from alabama. >> it's about the right to life it. these are some in the the most important things in the world to me, and so, mister president i object. >> there is not one standard or in here that could not find a reason to object to administration policy, in the military, none of us. we can all find something. >> senator from alabama, eject. >> senator from alabama, i object. >> my colleague from alabama is 100 percent wrong. >> with that madam president, i object. >> senator from alabama. >> i object. i object. >> -- one marine expeditionary force, i object i object. >> this is the best of america. this is the best of america and these men and women have been serving and sacrificing honorably for literally decades. >> i object. i object. i object object i object. >> nine deployments, 13 real world operations, he is a warrior. >> i object. >> we say another one bites the dust. >> i object, i object i object. >> we are gonna look back at this episode and be stunned if. at what a national security suicide mission this became. >> i object i object object object object object object, i object, i object. now >> they're like wait, why am i stop? why are they going after my career? something i have nothing to do? it is wrong. we all know it is wrong. >> with that objection that is it for us, for laura coatess liveve starts right afafter this break.k.