reciprocating steps, christine. we don t know the steps. that is the hard work that president trump faces if and when he sits down with kim jong-un. will ripley. thank you. russia further aligning itself with syria. in the next two weeks, the kremlin says it will arm the assad regime will the sophisticated air defense systems. a move could heighten the air war over syria. last week, the syrians accidentally shot down a russian military plane killing 15 troops. the kremlin blaming israel for the incident. cnn s fred pleitgen is joining us live from moscow. among the blame game, fred, john bolton calls this significant escalation by the russians. what they are doing. good morning. reporter: good morning. he says he blames iranians for all of this to put another country in the mix. the reason why john bolton said that is the israeli war planes in the area were targets pro iranian places down in the part
the judge remaining defiant in the sexual assault allegations that threaten his nomination. i ll not let false accusations drive us out of the process. we re looking for a fair process where i can be heard and defend my integrity and my life long record of promoting dignity and equality for women, starting with the women who knew me when i was 14 years old. i m not going anywhere. the washington post reports that president trump called mitch mcconnell on saturday demanding he call a vote on the kavanaugh nomination. one official telling cnn the president has been pushing for a more offense oriented approach defending his nominee, especially after a second kavanaugh accuser surfaced in the new yorker story. the allegation from debby
battle saying the cohen raid was improper and the things that were seized wouldn t even be able to be used legally in any way, shape or form. but then, of course, there is grumbling we are hearing from the west wing today from white house staffers upset they were caught flat-footed in all of this. with that, giuliani was unapologetic. he said the president is his client and he doesn t talk to the white house staff. on that, let s head straight to cnn s kaitlyn collins at the white house who has been doing some excellent reporting on this topic. kaitlyn, fill us in on what you re hearing from your sources. reporter: well, dana, imagine you re someone who works in this white house and for the last few months, you ve been maintaining very strictly the president did not know anything about this payment, did not have any communication with michael cohen about this, backing up with the president himself said less than a month ago, i should note, on air force i, he didn t know where that pa
after president trump became president. let s talk to cnn military and diplomatic retired rear admiral john kirby. jeff zeleny, let me start with you. rudy giuliani, one of the things he said this morning was these three prisoners were going to be released today. does he know something we don t know? what are i hearing from your sources there about the timing of this? reporter: dana, that is the great question here. there is a sense they do believe, u.s. officials do believe there will be a release. the ones we have been speaking to all morning long say they re not sure exactly when that will be. but i can tell you, you know, the whole reason this is happening, of course, is because of those broader discussions under way between a summit with the u.s. president and the north korean leader. but there is frustration here at the white house about why rudy giuliani, the president s outside lawyer who does not have a security clearance, is the one talking about this. you get the sense tha
undermine mueller as his investigation ramps up and give trump cover should be remove mueller. as to mccabe he is a critical person and runs the day-to-day operations of the fbi and he was also a key person overseeing the hillary clinton investigation. her use of a private email serve every and just this past week, he spent over 16 hours on the hill before congress testifying before three congressional committees about the clinton and russia variatioinvestigations. we have done reporting on that and we learned he backed up some of what the former fbi director said about his conversations with the president. he was also questioned extensively about his role in the hillary clinton investigation. let s talk to cnn political commentator errol louis and nathan gonzalez.