In florida, and next door in georgia as well. We begin this hour with Cnns Kaitlan Collins at the white house. The question of the hour, can the White House Run very smoothly when the president is, quote, pissed at everyone. The idea the white house is running smoothly is not an assessment most people who work inside the west wing would agree with right now. They have been the ones describing the president s dark mood, which they say intensified in recent days since he returned from paris and a lot are fearing for their job security, unsure if theyre on stable footing with the president. Thats not only limited to the chief of staff, john kelly, but also the department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. When the president was asked about nielsens future, he didnt give a yes or no answer, but he pointed to how administrations make changes after the midterm elections saying after the midterms you make changes so im looking at things. He said i have a lot of options. He said
So we have learned in the last hour from these aides telling cnn, really today, not expected to accomplish much. Right. Really today, not expected to accomplish much at all. As you were talking about the republicans that are starting to break rank. Democrats see that as their strategy working. That really gives them incentive to stay exactly where they are and keep putting their pressure on. The republicans, the white house, President Trump, has given no indication hes willing to budge at all, and in fact, we have heard from various people within the administration, no wall, then theres no deal. They have been saying that over and over again. Were looking to 11 30 for this meeting. We have the gang of eight coming back here. Again, theyre having this meeting in the situation room. The white house trying to frame this as a National Security emergency down at the border. The democrats not really buying that at this point, but thats kind of the setup for all of this. Were now in day 14, p
Whistleblower. Lets start there. The president has said over and over, 34 separate times through sunday, that the whistleblower was highly inaccurate. And we know the whistleblower was quite accurate. It shows the three main allegations about that phone call with zelensky were correct. So this is up is down dishonesty. Trump is entirely incorrect here. And one thing that stuck out to me, and its par for the course when the president is concerned about something someone says when the president now wants to distance himself from anybody is now the person hes trying to distance himself from is the ambassador to the european union, Gordon Sondland, declaring here that he barely even knows the guy. Yeah. Weve seen him do this over and on every with various people who were once in his orbit. As soon as they get in trouble, hes never met them or accidents know them. With sondland, this was a sharp reversal than what he said in early october. He said sondland was a great american, was highly r
governor, do you think it s a mistake for former president trump to say he can turn around the country in six months. i said to tame the deep state, you need two terms. he s not going to be able to nix the deep state in six months. he had four years. he didn t make a dent in it, give me a break. doug hye is a republican strategist and former communications director for the rnc, and he is here with me on set. you know, we ve talked for a long time, you and i doug on this program about whether someone would actually come and take on trump. a lot of people doubted that it would be ron desantis, but seems to be amping things up. is this what taking trump on looks like? it does, and if we re having this conversation not three months ago but three weeks ago, there were a lot of people saying what is ron desantis waiting for. he was waiting to become a candidate. it s a very different thing when you re a candidate in theory and an actually announced candidate. desantis knows the nomin
in early key states. today, president trump is making stops in iowa while ron desantis is stumping in new hampshire and this as the race for the white house is set to grow yet again. former vice president mike pence and former new jersey governor chris christie and north dakota reporter doug bargum all set to formally jump in the race next week. joining me is correspondent vaughn hilliard joining me from iowa and doug hye, former rnc communications director. what does the day look like for trump in iowa? doug knows how this works here, jose and that is that it will take multiple stops from these candidates. for donald trump, today s day, he will be taking part in the conservative breakfast in des moines and this will be his first stop in the morning and he will then go mid-afternoon and he ll be meeting with what the campaign says are faith leaders and this afternoon he s taping a televised town hall with sean