census and now it seems to be that is the route they are going to take after all of this and this fight over the last few days. kaitlan collins at the white house for us. let s chew over all of this. earlier today, a lot of people thought president trump was going to try to insert this question through executive action and there were many commentators saying, this was going to prompt a serious legitimate constitutional crisis. are you surprised that the president seems to be backing off that plan? i am surprised and i don t believe it. and i won t believe it until i see it, actually. this was going to be a constitutional crisis, because the president would be acting in direct defiance of the u.s. supreme court decision, just two weeks ago. the idea that the president of the united states by executive order could go around and circumvent what the supreme court, the highest judiciary body of our land, has to say is an outrageous statement of affairs with where we are in our country r
washington bureau chief for usa today and glen kirschner is a former federal prosecutor. thanks to all of you for being with us. susan, let me start with you. the president and his attorney general for this matter at this press conference today very clearly did not want this to look like he was backing down, but this is a president who was saying he was going to fight through the courts to get this question on the census next year. he now says that s not going to happen. and what he says is going to happen instead, basically all these agencies, all these departments coordinating is something that the census bureau had already recommended as an alternative to putting this on the census next year. so just saying it s not a cave does not make it not a cave. just the attorney general saying congratulations, mr. president, does not make it a congratulatory moment. and the executive order is not at all clear that it s necessary to have a new executive order to give publicly available data
humiliated the u.s. president by rebuffing president trump attempts to try to get talks going between the iranian government and the leadership and the trump administration and the iranians essentially are saying that if this conflict, they are not going to be the ones who are going to be backing down, pamela. fred pleitgen from tehran. i want to bring in cnn national analyst bren sind grad. where do we go from here, what is the path forward? this is one of the choose your own adventure moments. we have two options. and they could be complementary. they can a call a truce and option b. is escalation and including the militarization of the strait and the movement of more assets to the region which increases the risk of direct confrontation.
and nation s capitol resuming normal operations for the first time in 35 days as members of congress try to avoid another shutdown, the clock ticking 20 days before another shutdown deadline, the president threatening to declare a national emergency if a border deadline deal is not met by february 15th. and the president backing down without getting any funding for a border wall. here are the senators with the daunting task of finding a bill the president will support and house speaker nancy pelosi, the democratic speaker emerging as the clear victor in the stalemate with some warning democrats may be declaring victory too soon and 800,000 workers still on the line, vowing to pay back as soon as possible those two paychecks
interesting. indeed. welcome to viewers around the world and the u.s. i m natalie allen. i m george howell. newsroom starts now. 4:01 on the u.s. east coast. thanks for being with us. two major stories to tell you about this hour. first, the 35-day government shutdown, finally, it s over. u.s. president backing down, reopening federal agencies, but getting nothing in return. a trump adviser calls it, quote, a humiliating loss. also on friday, roger stone arrested by the fbi at his florida home. he s been charged with obstruction, making false statements and witness tampering