to have material on trump. they did not verify it. they just said it was important enough to include as context in the briefing for the president and president-elect. that is exactly what they said. joining to us discuss this is political reporter eugene scott. thank you for being with us. we saw the news conference yesterday. donald trump would not confirm that he was given this information by intelligence officials. last night with anderson cooper, kellyanne conway would not either. i m trying to figure out from you what you said about what is true and what is not. you cannot you cannot take issue with any specific that we reported. i have yet to hear you say specifically that is not true. it s not true. it s not true that those were in the briefing documents? here s what is true. it is not true that was in the briefing documents? you have no evidence of it other than unnamed sources. that s what true. they would not have access to
no avail. and trump s nominee for secretary of state with a tough day before the foreign affairs committee. which republican senator could hold the key to the nomination? 5:00. welcome to early start. i m christine romans. i m john berman. it is thursday, january 12th. this must have been one heck of a phone call with president-elect donald trump and the director of national intelligence james clapper. he placed the call after the round of insults and accusations hurled at the president-elect. cnn reported that officials gave mr. trump a two-page summary that claims russia had compromising information about donald trump. buzzfeed released the 35-page dossier, something cnn did not do because it could not be confirmed. without the central fact of the
conclusion. part of our obligation is to ensure policymakers are provided with the fullest picture of any matters that may affect national security. the last line shows cnn was accurate and donald trump received the two-page summary about the russian alleged compromising information. all of this as the volcano erupted. we start with jim acosta. that is appropriate. jim magma, who has the latest from new york. reporter: john and christine, donald trump lashed out at the media over reports that the russian government may have compromising information on the president-elect. at the conference, trump blasted it as fake news. the president-elect appeared to accept the u.s. intelligence community finding that russia unleashed a hacking operation intend to harm hillary clinton.
i think it was russia, but we also get hacked by other countries and people. i can say that when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn t make a big deal out of that. reporter: trump took on other topics, defending the business to be braplaced in a trust to b run by his sons. he vowed once again to build a wall on the border. something mexico says it will never pay for. thank you, jim. top level intelligence officials held a closed door briefing to discuss the latest on russian hacking of the 2016 election. how is this being received by the kremlin? let s bring in correspondent clarissa ward live this morning in moscow. good morning, clarissa.
size of trump s assets so this plan works. one of the questions is trump s business empire is his name and brand. everything he does sort of brings the attraction of the brand. the ethics advisor will be a trump employee. will be hired by the trump corporation. he said if foreign governments choose to stay at the hotels, he will give profits to the u.s. treasury. the profits. not the revenue. who knows if he gets a tax deduction. there is a lot to discusses about all this. we have one of the primary political minds joining us. eugene scott. what makes this simple salad the best simple salad ever?