Machine. Bombshell new reports could put the former National Security adviser in serious legal jeopardy. You cannot lie to the fbi. Its a felony. The whole russian thing is a ruse. It cant be both fake news and an illegal leak. Your honor, i did not kill that man. The real criminal is whoever filmed my strangling him. Im really not a bad person, by the way. What is going on with this guy, almost like on a couch explaining his problem to his shrink. Donald trump rants and raves at the press. An airing of grievances. Im actually having a very good time. Festiveus. Ive got a lot of problems. Now youre going to hear about them. Youre dishonest home. This administration is like a really intense Haunted House where every door that you think is an exit is a door to a scarier room. How do i get out of this place . I wet my pants three rooms ago. Good evening. Earlier this week, the white house said it determined Michael Flynn lied to the administration and that cost him his job as National Security adviser. Tonight Officials SayMichael Flynn lied to the fbi. That could cost him a lot more than a job. It could land you in jail. Here is the new reporting from the Washington Post, that flynn denied to fbi agents that he discussed sanctions against russia with that countrys ambassador before President Trump took office, contradicting the contents of intercepted communications collected by intelligence agencies. This is a potential bombshell report. The post cites officials currently in government and former officials for this allegations, which means some people very close to the action think flynn lied to the fbi. And we know people at the Trump White House think he lied to them. We dont know if this is true. Flynn could argue his discussions with russia was basically misunderstood or his attempt to explain it to the fbi was more incomplete than deceitful. This is a story, though, about an investigation. So it helps to think like an investigator. That means obsessing over the original question. Is there an illicit link between the trump world and the kremlin . Thats what the fbi was confronting flynn about. And that was before any of this lying stuff arose. Tonights report notes top officials who reviewed flynns phone call with russia thought it might be illegal because he suggested the kremlin could expect a reprieve from the sanctions. Just stop on that for a second. That means that, in other words, flynn may have been undermining active u. S. Security policy in violation of federal law. The fbi was bearing down on that because it could be a crime. This is a point that seemed to escape President Trump today, because he casually mentioned he was fine with it. Reporter i just want to clarify an important point. Sure. Reporter did you direct mike flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian Ambassador . No, i didnt. Reporter prior to your inauguration. No, i didnt. Reporter and would you have fired him if the information hadnt leaked out . No, i fired him because of what he said to mike pence, very simple. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts. It certainly would have been okay with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if i thought he wasnt doing it. I didnt direct him but i would have directed him because thats his job. Thats his job. It would be easy right now to have the impression this whole story is about lying. The president and many observers keep talking about what flynn said about what he did, not what he allegedly did. But the fbi got involved before any of that alleged lying. They got involved because they had a suspicion that flynn may have committed a crime by helping russia before he was even on the job. Today the president said the actions werent wrong, what was wrong was just the leaking. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves in this room, were given that information. Because that was classified information. It was given illegally. Thats the real problem. There are reports of apparently illegal leaks. But it is a real problem if there are secret links to the russians or criminal collusion with them. And there will be a cloud over the Trump Administration until and unless the president releases his entire tax returns so that all potential russian connections can be vetted out in the open. Joining me now for more is navid jamali, author of how to catch a russian spy. Jack rice, both a criminal defense attorney and a former agent with the cia. And rick wilson, republican strategist a writer for e daily beast. Jack, whats most concerning for you in what weve learned here tonight . A couple of different things. You cant have two u. S. Governments running at the same time. Thats one piece of this. The other piece is, is there a mole in the white house . More importantly for mike flynn, did he lie to the fbi . If he did, if im prosecuting this guy, he may have some very serious problems. What would be the crime exactly . Well, i think about perjury on the one side potential, but certainly obstruction on the other. Thats one of the things you get here. Because if you have tapes and you have spoke of information about what it is hes saying, i have seen this so many times, when you have cops and you have potential perpetrators in a room and these guys start to back away from something, and they dont know exactly what it is that the police or the bureau has, they start to explain something away, and if the bureau is smart, they simply say, tell me more, and tell me more, and tell me a little bit more. And ive watched this happen so many times as a former prosecutor. And certainly on the defense side, as i see my guys go to prison. This is going to be a very interesting couple of weeks, months, maybe years. Naveed, whats your interpretation of whats going on inside the fbi based on whats leaking out . I think that theyre very concerned. I mean, you know, look, the counterintelligence world is very, very small. I think that there is a real concern if there is something here, this wont go forward. Ari, just take one quick step back. The thing that bothered me here, weve heard all of this. What i still dont understand is what is President Trumps russia policy . I have yet to hear. He says he wants to negotiate with them but he has yet to say what he wants to negotiate for and what he wants in exchange. That seems like a pretty big what is going on here. And i think it would set the context as to perhaps what is going on especially with his conversations with flynn and the russians. I dont understand what were purportedly going to negotiate with the russians for. Right. Youre speaking to the policy question. As to the linkage question, it was another thing donald trump ducked today. As a trump observer, rick, i would like you to listen to this common tactic weve seen, he acts like something has been answered but avoids answering it because theres so much about russia he wont address. Reporter youre not aware of any contacts during the course of the election . How many times do i have to answer this question . Reporter can you just say yes or no on it . Yeah, i know you have to get up and ask a question, its so important. Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with russia. Havent made a phone call to russia in years. Dont speak to people from russia. Not that i wouldnt, i just have nobody to speak to. I have nothing to do with russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that i deal with does. Rick, there was a lot of words there. But what he didnt say there and what Trump Officials have really failed to say is an accounting of what contact there was, because the leaks show there was some, and what it was about, and where it stopped. He didnt do any of that there. It would be interesting for donald trump to do two things. First, to reveal his taxes. And second, to reveal a list of the llcs and other corporations and the complex shell of businesses that surround every donald trump project, including the many things hes tried to kick off in russia, including the relationships hes had with people like felix sater and other folks tied back to russian banks, russian interests, the bay rock situation. All those things theyve done everything they can to obscure the paper trail. Naveed asked what is Donald Trumps objective with russia, hes doing everything he can to be Vladimir Putins bff. Hes much more critical of american agencies and american Intelligence Officers than he is of Vladimir Putin, a guy who murders political dissidents. Naveed . I couldnt agree more. This is what bothers me. Were focusing all the way down on the micro. We need to figure out what the macro question here is. What is this policy . Because the policy sets the table that answers all the other questions. Look, if the policy is to cozy up with the russians because theres this ideological belief that the russians are going to help us fight radical islam, which is what President Trump said on the campaign trail, then that is a policy. But what is it . What is he hoping to get in exchange . I think rick is right, theres something very untoward here. The fact that the policy is so secretive is just a glaring red flag here. But naveed, you may be collapsing two separate issues. Number one is whether they want but naveed, you may be collapsing two separate issues. Number one is whether they want to change the relations with a given country for a given set of reasons, and people can debate whether thats a good idea or not. The other question, the cloud, is whether theres collusion, carrots, sticks, rewards or blackmail, being brought to bear on either the president or his associates before and during this administration. Thats what the questions are about. In other words, he could have a policy that you disagree with, right, but the question is, does the fbi have the ability to get to the bottom of the corruption question. Look, that assumes theres corruption. It does assume theres corruption. It says, can the fbi do what the public system has not been able to do . Because we dont have a federal law on taxes. Im not presupposing the answer. Im asking you as someone who has worked with the fbi, reporting through comey up to jeff sessions, do you think they can get this job done . Yes. That is the question. Comey is a big what if. He doesnt have a tremendous amount of credibility amongst the rank and file in the fbi, that i can tell you. The question of legality, the logan act, ill defer to you. I will say, having worked in counterintelligence and looked at espionage and how its prosecuted, its a very difficult thing to prosecute. You have to show intent. It is not an easy thing. I agree, i think there is something untoward. There is shing that is repugnant here. Whether it rises to the level of something thats prosecutable is a totally separate question. You take morality out of it. As a lawyer, you understand this. We have a classified angle, we dont want to disclose sources and methods. So i think there should be an independent investigation to look at this. The question of did he talk about sanctions, this is a binary one. The transcripts will say he either talked about sanctions or he didnt, yes or no. Simple. And did he lie about it. Rick, you wanted to get in . There are two equally frightening prospects here. Number one is that donald trump is compromised by the russians in some way, whether financially or personally or in some other capacity or he owes money to folks that are tied back to the russian government. Or option two is hes ideologically comfortable with the kind of person Vladimir Putin is, a guy who invades foreign countries, kills journalists, shoots down civilian airliners. I go back and forth on which is more concerning, that hes willing to abandon every American Value to ally with putin or that the russians have something on him that theyre holding over his head. Jack, the other big takeaway, if donald trump was writing the subhead to his memoir here, he may have stumbled across the line today, which is, the leaks are real, the news is fake. Take a listen. Its an illegal process. The press should be ashamed of themselves. More importantly, the people that gave out the information to the press should be ashamed of themselves. Ive gone to all of the folks in charge of the various agencies, and were ive actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. The leaks are real. You know what they said, you saw it. And the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake. Because so much of the news is fake. Jack . It is extraordinary. And by the way, if we look back at what we were just talking about, i would agree that espionage is very difficult to prosecute. But obstruction and perjury are not. This is something right. That the bureau and justices really pivot. You need to leverage that with a mike flynn. He needs to be subpoenaed by multiple different agencies and multiple different panels within congress. And then start to drive that up the line and say, okay, who knew what, when did they know it, i hate to get trite about it, but you work your way up to see just how high this goes. By the way, its fascinating that when trump actually says, i dont know anybody who talks to the russians, my response would be, mike flynn did that. The one you fired, remember that . It is true there is a lot of leaking going on. Donald trump has been obviously selective in what he doesnt like and has been irresponsible in his factual claims, but we want to be clear and factual here. It is true there are a bunch of things that are being leaked that would be classified or unauthorized leaks. Thats big frustration in agencies particularly if it undermines statecraft or things that should be private like calls between him and heads of ate. Is this more than the ordinary do you think thats a problematic piece of this separate from what donald trump is saying . It always has to be looked at. But my experience is weve seen more of this come out of the hill than the intelligence community. All of us had to be polygraphed. What we found was, it would usually be dropped from a congressmans office, from a senate office, but it wasnt coming from the intelligence side. All right. Naveed jamali and rick wilson, thank you. Jack stays with us. Coming up, the navy s. E. A. L. Who was Donald Trumps choice to replace mike flynn turned him down tonight. Later, donald trump trashing the courts even as he surrenders to them. A new filing will break down trump talk versus action, coming up. And the other thing, chaos. Theres zero chaos. This is a finetuned machine. Zero chaos. But there are consequences of the appearances of chaos. Donald trump losing his top choice to replace mike flynn, thats next. First and foremost, are we tied with the right folks . Are we getting them what we need . I think we want to be very deliberate. That is bob harward, a former navy s. E. A. L. With experience in iraq and afghanistan, who rose to representing the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff toe National Counterterrorism center. Hes the kind of military man sought out in republican administrations. His credentials led President Trump to offer him the now open job of National Security adviser. Tonight, as you may have heard, we can report harwards answer. Harward said no. Cyed to the presi keep my name out your mouth, because he h doubts about the president s approach to National Security. He declined, reportedly, partly because he told flynns deputy, k. T. Mcfarland, that she could stay on the National Security council. Harward didnt want flynns people running that council and didnt want to be set up to fight with those people or fail because of them. He already served on the National Security staff under george w. Bush with a portfolio of strategy and defense. Under trump, we should note, the National Security council has been in some reported turmoil. The New York Times saying Council Staff members get up in the morning, read President Trumps twitter posts and struggle to make policy to fit them, most kept in the dark about what trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls. Nsc staff reportedly became so frustrated, get this, at a recent meeting they debated feeding suggested twitter posts to the president so the councils staff would have greater influence. Joining me now is eugene robinson, Pulitzer Prize winning opinion writer for the Washington Post as well as howard dean, former chairman of the Democratic National committee and former governor, and former cia official jack rice back with us. Governor dean, what do you make of this . A, i think theyre very disorganized. B, the National Security council is supposed to be advising the president on policy. The problem with this white house is the president makes the policy sometimes in the company of people who have no policy experience whatsoever like steve bannon and steve miller and then tells people who know a hell of a lot mo about government d security what their policy has to be. This is an iossible situation. It cant go on. Gene robinson, this is a big job that someone like mr. Harward would normally want and take, we can tell that from his military trajectory. Donald trump did convince a lot of people out there that what he did in business would translate, that you would get good people to take big jobs. Here he was on the campaign trail on that point. These are the best people. And me. Weve got the best people. Were going to deliver. Were going to deliver. Were going to get the best people in the world. Gene robinson, we know that this was who he thought was the best person in the world for the job because he offered it to him. Yeah, but he didnt want the job. And i think the reason is fairly obvious. He saw a situation, i believe, in which he wouldnt have the sort of authority and autonomy that he would need. He wouldnt be able to do the job to the best of his capabilities, he thought, i believe. And so admiral harward said no. I mean, if this is a finetuned machine, as President Trump said today, i wonder what kind of machine it is. I suggest in my column tomorrow maybe its one of those crash test simulators where they do the car safety tests. Thats kind of what this administration feels like right now. Who is the crash test dummy, the people in the white house or everyone in the country . I wasnt going to go there. You know, everybody its your analogy, gene. Well done. The vice admiral says, since retiring ive had the opportunity to address financial and family issues that would have been challenging in this position. Like all service members, i couldnt make that commitment. That was his official statement but theres so much more. What do you make of the unofficial part . It seems clear to me the admiral doesnt want to step into something thats dysfunctional. To follow gene, if this is a finelytuned machine, the white house is running like a 72 pinto right now. I would be concerned, i would be hesitant too. Governor . Unsafe at any speed, i think that was the corvair. Thats a ralph nader quote. Ralph nader is right about this one. I actually teach this stuff. We do a National Security council simulation. The National Security adviser, i was pretty sure flynn wasnt going to be a very good one anyway. The job of the National Security adviser is to coordinate policy among several people who have enormous amount of experience from ambassadors, from the defense, intelligence agencies, and then to bring the president in and make recommendations to the president , who then decides. This administration doesnt work like that. Trump makes his decision before he knows what the facts are, then hes backing and filling. What kind of position does that leave the secretary of defense in, or the secretary of state, or all the intelligence agencies . The intelligence agencies know a whole lot more about whats going on in the world than donald trump and donald trump is not interested in hearing from them. Gene, doesnt that go to the problem here with experience . Its one thing to run an outsider campaign, weve seen that many times in history. Its another to suggest that somehow youre going to do expert jobs without expertise. And so if some of the experts dont want to take on the job because they can see how its running, is that scary . Its scary and were seeing the results fairly regularly with this administration. Its been less than a month but we saw for example the executive order, the travel and refugee ban, which was incompetently drafted, it was incompetently written and done in such a way that it was immediately struck down and still hasnt taken effect. So now apparently theyre going back and trying to draftne that will pass muster. Again, youve got a lot of people in key positions who dont know how theyre going to do what theyre supposed to do. To my knowledge theres really no process, nobody really in charge at the white house. Youve got all these different power centers. You know, bannon and miller over here, priebus over here, Jared Kushner over here. And, you know, how is this going to work . Its not going to work very well unless they streamline it somehow. So jack, what is the alternative to the leaking which we were discussing earlier in the hour and the general criticism . Is there anything else appropriate that these folks in the intelligence and security wings can do to try to push this administration to be more responsible if thats their view or concern . Well, its frustrating at all getout when you contemplate, these are people who put their lives on the line regularly. Theyre trying to get information to the president so he can make the right decision. But the fear for those in the trenches right now is that what were seeing from the white house is, there are people wearing ignorance as a badge of honor. And thats not what were about. This is about giving them everything they can so they can make the right decisions. If they dont want to hear it because it doesnt fit their world view, look, the truth is the truth, this isnt fake news, they should start reading it. Jack rice, we appreciate you joining us. Coming up, there are reporters that want to correct the record on Donald Trumps press conference. Thats next. I never get phone calls from the media. How do they write a story like that in the wall street journal without asking me . Or how do they write a story in the New York Times and put it on the front page . Gene robinson, howard dean, back with us to look at that bizarre press conference. Gene, ill start with one of the most bizarre and factfree moments, donald trump talking about his outrage about the congressional black caucus. I actually thought i had a meeting with congressman cummings. He was all excited. And then he said, oh, i cant move, it might be bad for me politically, i cant have that meeting. I was all set to have the meeting. We called him and called him. He was all set. I spoke to him on the phone. I hear he wanted that meeting with you as well. He wanted it. But we called, called, they cant make a meeting with him. Every day i walk in and said, i would like to meet with him, because i do want to sol the problem. But he probably was told by schumer or somebody like that, some other lightweight, he was probably told, he was probably told, dont meet with trump, its bad politics. And thats part of the problem in this country. Gene, during the clip there, we put the counterarguments at the bottom of the screen so everyone can see in realtime that all of this is disputed by congressman cummings. Go ahead. Yeah, congressman cummings said this is fantasy, i have no idea what hes talking about. Actually my favorite moment came a minute later when he sort of persisted with april ryan who was asking the question, and she said, you know, would you meet with the cbc, the congressional black caucus. He seemed a little blank. Then she said, congressional black caucus. He said, sure, i would meet with them, are they your friends . Will you set up the meeting . As if she were his scheduler and all black people know each other. It was very, very weird. Yeah, and i mean yeah, it was inept even for him, and the idea, beyond the obvious offense, that the White House Press conference is a place for him to improvise this instead of have a plan or facts. Yeah, i didnt know whether to laugh or cry. I finally laughed. Governor . I dont think its funny. I mean, i know Elijah Cummings really well. There are not a lot ofeople in washington who i respect, because i think a lot of them cut corners. Elijah cummings is a truth teller, one of the most honest, decent people ive ever met. If he said its a lie, its a lie plain and simple. Its a scary moment for the president of the United States to make this stuff up and spending 60 seconds spinning this to major media organizations, what the hell is going on in that place . I want to get both of you on this exchange he had with jim acosta from cnn. Theres been a lot of drama there. Again, its part of trumps approach, is to make it all about the conversation and not the underlying substance. But take a look at this. You said that the leaks are real but the news is fake. I guess i dont understand. It seems theres a disconnect there. If the information coming from those leaks is real, then how can the stories be fake . The reporting is fake. I just want to ask jim, heres the thing. The public, they read newspapers, they see television, they watch. They dont know if its true or false. Because theyre not involved. Im involved. Ive been involved with this stuff all my life. But im involved. So i know when youre telling the truth or when youre not. Governor, the main problem with that is the big news is him firing the National Security adviser based on corroborated information that was published in the press. The entire thing was a response to the reporting. Right. Heres the thing that trump does that drives me nuts. And why he does it, i dont understand. Okay, so hes disputing the press. Fine. Other people have disputed the press. He has to add, and ive been involved with all this stuff all my life. That is totally untrue. He knows nothing about National Security. Whatever he knows about it now, hes learned over the course of his president ial campaign, and evidently it isnt very much. Why does he feel compelled to add Something Like that which is so blatantly not true . You might be able to get away with that with the people who adore you but not in washington where people know what the hell is going on. Gene, i think governor dean is having a woody allen moment, this is craziness. Donald trump was elected partly because he doesnt know anything about washington. Yeah, right. But theres like not knowing anything about washington and then being donald trump. Thats like a different level. And look, this utter logical inconsistency, and granted, there is nothing new about donald trump and logical inconsistency, but if the leaks are dangerous and terrible because the information, real information is being leaked, then its not fake news. It cant be both genuine and fake at the same time. And yet it is in Donald Trumps lexicon, within seconds, in the same sentence. That doesnt make sense to anybody. Even to trumpbase. Youve got to pick one or the other. That goes to why some of it is clever like a fox, because the goal is not to make sense but to be so confusing so we dont know which end is up. Thank you, governor and gene. Donald Trumps Administration is doing something very different than what he claimed at the podium. Ill explain. See you in court. It was a week ago today the president tweeted that all caps proclamation after he lost the appeal of a ruling that temporarily blocked the travel ban. Later that night donald trump doubled down. Thanks, guys. Sir, do you think this has undercut the early days of your presidency . No. Its a decision that well win, in my opinion, very easily. And today donald trump continued his tough talk. We had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. But we are appealing that. Thats not true. The Trump Administration is not appealing that decision up to the supreme court. And then donald trump announced a related plan. Were issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country. So well be going along the one path and hopefully winning that at the same time we will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people. Okay. And then the president gave away the game, because it turns out this new order will backtrack from the original order in direct response to that court which ruled against it. The new order is going to be very much tailored to the what i consider to be a very bad decision. Were tailoring it now to the decision. We have some of the best lawyers in the country working on it. Heres whats interesting. At the very time trump was talking tough at the podium today, his lawyers quietly filed a brief saying not only are they not appealing the court order further but theyre backing down. They say the ruling against trump had multiple errors that would warrant another hearing, but theyre not asking for that because instead the president ll issue that new superseding executive order. Superseding is a fancy way of saying trump will withdraw the original travel ban. Everybody knows the rule on the playground is no takebacks. Its not cool to just change your mind. But courts not only allow takebacks, they encourage it if something might be illegal. And tonight the ninth circuit ruled that it will not hold another hearing on this case. So while donald trump put on a big show defending his travel ban at the podium today, his lawyers basically said under oath theyll take it back, theyre trying to fix the problems in the travel ban that were exposed in that court hearing. Trump said, see you in court, like it was some kind of taunt. But it looks like the courts have a response of their own. We see you, donald. Why is Donald Trumps message so at odds with this related . Thats next. Stay with us. Ive heard 80 . I find that hard to believe. Thats just a number i heard, that theyre overturned 80 of the time. Why should Americans Trust you when youre misrepresenting the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake. Governor howard dean is back with us to talk about more of this tension. I was setting up in the last segment how the Trump Administration is clearly backtracking on the executive order. We can confirm that based on our reporting and the filing. While donald trump goes up there and says the opposite. The problem here, this is what i really worry about, when he became president or was elected, you know, in terms of domestic policy, hes going to say what hes going to say, he has his views, were going to fight out the things we disagree with. Foreign policy is much different. And putin, i can guarantee you, is measuring everything that donald trump does. What hes measuring about donald trump is, this is a guy whos going to keep his word and be tough or is this a guy i can run over . So far the verdict is he can be run over thats very dangerous for the ited states. Stay with me. Were joined by a russianamerican journalist, author of the man without a face the unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin. Shes been writing and thinking about how some of this applies in the trump era. Thanks for joining us. I wonder if you can tell our audience a little bit about your view of how this type of political strategy tries to erode the truth itself. Im sorry, actually i dont know what youre talking about. What kind of political strategy . We had some technical difficulties, we were trying to get a feed up on the video and we lost that. Masha, today donald trump was up on the podium saying hes defending the travel ban, he said see you in court on twitter. He made a big show of telling everyone hes defending this thing but it turns out theyre backtracking and theyre now going to issue a new order to replace it. I was wondering based on your writing and some of the analysis youve done, how do you view this sort of strategy, when there is sort of one message that out in the open is easily disproven and yet hes sticking to it . Well, actually we dont know if its easily disproven. Well see what kind of new executive order he comes up with. What we do know about the old executive order is that it hadnt been drafted in the traditional way these things were drafted. It was clearly a miss, it was contradictory. In addition to the apparent constitution problems with it, it was just a mess. So i think theyre probably going to try to draft a better order rather than defend this messy one in court. I think hes probably telling the truth when he says hes not backing off his strategy. You know, i think that hes actually being sort of unusually consistent on the travel ban. Its with other stuff that hes producing a really disturbing cacophony. One way to think about it is his message is that of attacking the judges and saying were going to appeal this and fight it all the way. I take your point, they certainly are pursuing similar immigration goals in the long run. I guess maybe im old fashioned, but typically you dont say about a lawsuit, were going to appeal this all the way up, and the next week reverse that. I guess he doesnt care whether his defense of this ban matches reality. Oh, absolutely, youre right about that. This is governing by any means necessary. And he doesnt see, because the point is to win, you know, procedure be dammed, norms be damned. He doesnt see anything unusual about the fact that hes reversing strategy, because, you know, in his world, its always a zero sum game. And its always sort of winner takes all. So as long as he can find a single winning strategy, there is no consistency. And you wrote in a very widelyread piece that institutions will not save you, that it took putin a year to take over the russian media, four years to dismantle the judiciary system, which means they depend on the good faith of all actors to fulfill their rpose and uphold the constitution. So what do you advise people watching at home tonight and who are worried about all this . Well, i think what we have seen with the travel ban actually, more than with other things hes done, were seeing the unique strength of american society, which is that it has the strongest Civil Society ever in the history of the world. Its certainly much stronger than russias Civil Society but also Even Stronger and more robust than the Civil Societies of european countries, because it is utterly independent from the state, because it is wellfunded. We saw Civil Society come out in full force in response to the travel ban. The entire spectrum from protesters to professional Civil Society, which is lawyers. I dont think this is a guarantee. I dont think ultimately he is hell bent on breaking every norm and tradition to pursue his agenda by any means necessary. There is no guarantee we can resist it. But our biggest hope is Civil Society. Masha, i dont mean to be trite when i say you have overcome a lot more than technical difficulties, but i appreciate you dealing with ours on our end and joining us on the phone tonight, and you as well, governor dean. Coming up, a day without immigrants. Well talk to the owner of a famous dc restaurant that closed its doors in solidarity. Thousands of people across the country were rallying for a day without immigrant. And theres more activism this weekend. I will actually be covering a lot of it, including interviewing Russell Simmons who is organizing a rally sunday in new york. This is part of our sunday prime time coverage, 6 00 to 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Well answer your questions on air if you email me. Thanks for watching and see you sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. We are workers. We are not criminals. We are in the fields. We produce. We distribute. And then we buy the product. We are an essentially part of this economy. Today businesses shut down national wide. This was in support of the protest movement a day without immigrants. It shows how the economy might lag without the participation of immigrant workers, many of whom are here unlawfully. Some very popular restaurants joining the resistance. Our guest is an Award Winning chef who pulled his restaurant out of the trump hotel in washington. If you live in washington, you know busboys and poets, a hub for activists since 2005. President obama famously visited it last year, meeting with former inmates. Joining us live with the founder and owner of busboys and poets and an immigrant from iraq. I know were looking at you inside your shop, tell us about what it would normally be like right now and why its different. Wl, its empty right now. And the reason why is because this is a day without immigrants. Its a strike that we joined. The employees approached me and said theyre going to do this strike to highlight the plight of immigrants. And me being an immigrant as well, i said i need to join that strike with you. An empty restaurant, all week long, we have six locations and closed all of them for the day. Thats putting your money down. Why was that so important for you to do . I think we are living at a time where sitting on the sidelines is simply not an option anymore. Were seeing lots of stuff happening. Theres a lot of very heated rhetoric. There is a lot of fearmongering. We need to stand in solidarity with all of our community, including our immigrant community, and say we will not put up with this. This is not a time to sit on the sidelines. The monetary costs pale in comparison to the other costs if we sit on the sideline. Its really important not to just address this as an issue of undocumented immigrants. I think this is an issue of all immigrants. Im an immigrant. Ive been here over 50 years. I still find this red rick to be very, very offensive. And for some people who have just moved here, even moved here legally and have been here legally, its still a scary time. As we see these executive orders come out willynilly, they create all kinds of chaos and havoc and people get in situations they have absolutely no control over or knowledge of. So these are times that are not very comfortable. Theyre very unsettling for a lot of people. And certainly, if youre not born in this country, i have an american passport but it says i was born in iraq. I am worried about traveling abroad now, not knowing what might happen when i come back, even though im an american citizen. My wife, who is an iranianamerican, she moved here over 35 years ago, is an american, has lived here all this time, still feels uncomfortable having to go back to iran to visit her family during the iranian new year which is coming up in march. The white house really said confusion over green cards was not a big deal. You seem to be suggesting that for a lot of people, that level of question about whether they can even get in and out of the country when as you say, theyre legal, is really severe. Well, as we have seen, tens of thousands of people were stranded in airports. These are people that are living in very fragile communities and fragile situations where they have to travel across lots of hardships to get here. And when they get here, to have this, even if its a day, 24 hours, not knowing whats going to happen to you, its a very scary thing. Also, extremely costly. You know, for those people that have to work their entire life to save every penny to be able to travel here, they dont have the option of checking into a Four Seasons Hotel for the day, not knowing whats going to happen to them the next day or the day after or maybe a year later. Right. So its not an option. I think its very irresponsible. Andy shallal, thank you for sharing with us what youre doing. Real leaks fake news, russia for 77 minutes today the world watched a president ial news conferences unique in american history. President trump pressed on whether campaign had ties to russia. His response to that plus defense of mike flynn. Taking aim as familiar target, the commander in chief denies white house is in chaos. 11th begins now. Good evening. From head quarter here in new york. 117 minutes our country went