public session before the house. he will also have what we believe is a closed door session probably about the russia investigation with adam schiff and company. but what might america learn when michael cohen testifies before the public and the cameras? well, they have tried to attack cohen for a long time now saying that he is not credible and that he is a confessed liar basically. i think from the public side we ll have a chance to eyeball him, see what he has to say, to hear what his version of events are. and really sort of judge his credibility. that is why you want a live witness, you want to look him in the face. and so we ll get that for the first time and not have to read what he had to say off of court documents or snippets from a particular interview somewhere. i think that it will be significant to hear about the transfer of the money. remember the president denied that onner a for air force one president. clearly we now know cohen has implicated him in some federal elec
office. that would be an impeachable offense. reporter: the white house has continued to attack cohen s credibili credibili credibility claiming he shouldn t serve as a reliable witness. and quickly, while i have you here, you have new information about the search to replace john kelly as white house chief of staff. what are you hearing? reporter: that s right. sources tell cnn that nick ayers, the chief of staff to vice president mike pence is no longer the leading contender to take over kelly s job. sources tell our colleague kaitlyn collins that there was a disagreement between trump and ayers about how long he would hold that position, ayers wanted it until the spring until the president could find a permanent replacement for john kelly who will be leaving by the end of the year and the president wanted a two year commitment from ayers. so ayers will now be leaving the administration. so we are looking at stwo vaca y
senior white house staff? well, look, andrea, we re waiting to see if they re going to add a briefing to the schedule today. and that will sort of give us our first real glimpse. i anticipate they ll echo what we heard from rudy giuliani, which is that they re going to try to attack cohen s credibility. they ll downplay paul manafort s role in the campaign. that s something that we ve seen from this president, from this white house, despite the fact that he did serve on the campaign for about five months, including three as campaign chair during that critical time of the republican national convention. so that is my anticipation. again, andrea, we hope we hear from them today. kristen welker. and jeff mason, harry litman, and chuck rosenberg, thank you to all. for the latest on whether paul manafort is talking to the mueller people, katy tur will interview michael cohen s lawyer lanny davis. coming up here, deal or no