American news. Listen, im going to cut to the bottom line right now and tell you that i do not know why secretary of state Rex Tillerson was abruptly fired today and neither do you and anybody who says they do know, well, were going to get as close as we can to that tonight. Right now, it is still a mystery. Nevertheless, he is out and so im going to do that awkward camera turn right now. So we can add the name of the secretary of state to the list of departures of senior officials from the Trump White House and the senior ranks of the trump administration. Just in the past couple weeks we have had to move my Camera Position so that we can show you this bigger wall so we could make room to add a third column here on this wall. We were two columns before. We had to add hope hicks as she resigned and josh raphael as he resigned from deputies communications director, the one that worked for jared and ivanka and jared and ivankas other friend, the guy trump put in charge as the office of i
President , because essentially Stormy Daniels and her lawyer, her lawyer Michael Avenatti, have been taunting the president , encouraging him to basically respond and, of course, television is his favorite medium. It is not just Stormy Daniels, but also Karen Mcdougal, that other playmate, who says she also had an affair with the president , that had been going on television telling their stories, their accounts of their relationships with the president , but publicly he has not responded yet, but the question now is how much longer can that silence last, john. Rob porter, the former staff secretary at the white house, he was pushed out after the reports of Domestic Abuse surfaced. Now the president s calling him. Why . Reporter thats right. Maggie haberman of the new york tim times is reporting that the president stayed in touch with rob porter when he met amid a nasty departure at the us whwhi house. We have now learned from the New York Times that the president has stayed in touch
Cnns abby phillip at the white house. We understand, abby, the secretary of state was informed of this on friday. Reporter thats right, tillerson was informed while he was traveling in africa according to sources. He was told by the president that the president wanted him gone. That coincided around the same time we were learning there were going to be negotiations, potentially a meeting with north korea. Senior Administration Official telling cnns Boris Sanchez that the president felt like with the north korea negotiations on the horizon it was a good time for a transition. This tillerson departure is something that we have been waiting for and perhaps expecting for several weeks now. Tillerson told people he might be only staying in the administration for about a year, and we were coming well up on that timeline. Beyond that we know there were persistent tensions between the president and his secretary of state. They didnt see eye to eye on issues both of temperament and policy. Till
festivals and premieres. just to give you a sense how rare it is for both the actors and writers to strike simultaneously, that last happened in 1960, and the president of the actors guild was ronald reagan. david? david: matt gutman tonight. thank you. now to former president trump, and the special counsel s investigation into january 6th. tonight, sources telling bc news that donald trump s son-in-law, jared kushner, has testified before the grand jury. and we have new reporting here on the line of questioning for kushner. let s get right to our chief washington correspondent jonathan karl tonight. and jon what have you learned? reporter: david, the special counsel is specifically trying to establish whether trump knew that he had lost the election and therefore knowingly committed illegal acts to try to overturn an election that he knew he lost. now, coming before the grand jury recently include not just jared kushner, but other top aides including hope hicks and johnny mcinte
special counsel jack smith will have questions about what was going on in mark meadows fireplace. we re also learning about another white house aide, johnny mcintee who talked to the committee about trump s reaction and his anger toward vice president mike pence. what did he say to the committee? that s exactly right. we know the former president was not pleased with his vice president when he refused to block the certification but it was interesting in the testimony to kind of watch the evolution. he said that he overheard the former president pressing his vice president to, quote, do the right thing and then when he didn t he turned fast on pence in conversations would say, effing pence, effing pence that and also in the transcripts we learned more and builds on what we already knew about the extent people were seeking pardons or the former president was trying to hand then out. he says that the former president thought about potential blanket pardons for people who participated