Isnt celebrating either. Hes leaving, too. How do we get here with one tweet from the president , once again, rocking the globe. President trump calling for a full and rapid withdrawal of forces in syria. The news, stunning allies and those in his own party. Obama made this decision, republicans would be all over him. Its hard to imagine any president would wake up and make this decision. Colossal in my mind, a grave error. Again, on the heels of trumps syria decision. James mattis heads for the door n. A clear rebuke of the president , his resignation letter, evidence of a stunning divide because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours and other subjects. I believe it is right for me to sit down from my position. A House Republican who supports President Trump says of mattis departure, quote, the wheels may be coming off. And now one of President Trumps worst nightmares a reality. Wall street suffers its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. Today we learned the president has begun polling advisers about whether he has the Legal Authority to fire the chairman of the federal reserve. The chief of staff, who was supposed to clean up the mess, john kelly, is out. Trumps original secretary of state, who was seen as the adult in the room, rex tillerson, already gone. The president told the world tillerson, his pick, was lazy as hell and dumb as a rock. The attorney general, President Trump again, says Jeff Sessions should be ashamed of himself. And we just learned the man who was supposed to be his replacement President Trump has been lashing out at him for not doing enough to protect him from robert mueller, as though thats the attorney generals job. Perhaps the president was emboldened in that belief because we learned whitaker rejected the advice of an ethics adviser who said he should recuse himself. A white house in chaos and a Government Shutdown. A wall americans were told they would never have to pay for in the first place. Welcome to President Trumps america. The president and first lady will be in the Nations Capital for christmas. That is a change in plans. The trump family intended to be together at maralago for the holiday. The first lady had already left for florida. Why did they decide to have christmas in washington . Reporter ana, just moments ago the white house announced this change of plans from the president that due to the Government Shutdown the president will be remaining in washington, and First Lady Melania Trump who traveled down yesterday to West Palm Beach will actually be returning to washington to spend the holidays here with her husband and obviously the optics of the president going on vacation in West Palm Beach during a shutdown of his own making would not have been good. We should note, by the way, secret service is one of many government agencies, nine of them, that are not funded due to this partial Government Shutdown. The president is still not signaling publicly what he might be willing to consider in terms of a deal that might reopen the government and restore some sense of stability to washington. White house officials are saying that the president still expects to receive that 5 billion number but its clear at this point that hes not going to get anything close to that from the senate where he needs at least ten democrats to come to his side to start the process of reopening the government. He had a lunch with conservative allies like congressman mark meadows, senator lindsey graham, those who agree with the strategy of shutting down the government. Mitch mcconnell said the logjam will persist until the president is able to huddle with Senate Democrats who are the ones needed now to get negotiations kick started again. This caps off a chaotic week for the president as you just ticked through everything plaguing this white house. This is before the era of divided government that we are hurtling towards very fast when democrats come into power in january the president will be facing this kind of legislative stalemate and much more and the president doing so with many vacancies throughout his west wing and cabinet. This could be a very difficult time for the president in the weeks ahead, ana. Sarah westwood, thank you. One person the shutdown will not affect special counsel robert mueller. His investigation will continue unimpeded. And theres new reporting he might be interested in. Cnn learned President Trump lashed out at his new acting attorney general whitaker in the last few weeks wanting to know why more wasnt done to control prosecutors from bringing hush money charges that implicated the president. Whitaker is who President Trump personally appointed to oversee mueller. Trump passed over other highranking officials when he made the pick. Though an ethics official said theres at least an appearance of a conflict of interest and would suggest whitaker recuse himself from the probe, whitaker isnt planning to do that. Laura jarrett has more on that. Reporter new details on Matt Whitakers role in overseeing the russia investigation. After he rejected the advice of Justice Department ethics officials who said he should step aside. Whitaker, who has never been briefed on the Mueller Investigation, is expected to start getting updates now that he isnt recusing himself. However, whitaker was given a headsup. The President Trumps former Attorney Michael Cohen would plead guilty before it was publicly announced. Meanwhile, Rod Rosenstein promised the investigation would continue to be managed properly. Weve continued to manage the investigation as we have in the past, and its being handled appropriately. Reporter rosensteins office will manage the special counsel investigation daytoday, but whitaker can block any significant steps mueller wants to take for now. An investigation whitaker long criticized before joining the Justice Department. The attorney general doesnt fire bob mueller but reduces the budget so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt. Reporter even echos President Trumps words saying the special counsel investigation could become a, quote, witchhunt in a cnn oped last year. Whitakers decision not to recuse himself explained in a letter sent to lawmakers saying an ethics official told whitakers staff he should recuse himself from supervision of the special counsel investigation because it was their view that a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts likely would question the impartiality of the acting attorney general. That appearance of a conflict not enough to convince whitaker to recuse. The Justice Department outlining his reasons in the same letter saying, ethics officials could find no personal or financial interest that would require recusal that whitaker had not made comments about the investigation since rejoining doj to work for Jeff Sessions and whitaker thought mueller was a good man and would only go after legitimate targets. He was my first choice from day one. Reporter the administration now about to face similar issues with bill barr who is also a mueller critic. Under president george h. W. Bush writing in an unsolicited memo in june calling the special counsels object vux of justice investigation, quote, fatally misconceived with potentially disastrous implications for the presidency saying the firing of james comey was squarely within the power of the president. I find that very troubling as well, but we see this constant pattern. Reporter democrats crying foul on the president s choices. It appears that the number one qualification donald trump is looking for in an attorney general is someone that will try to undermine the Mueller Investigation. Reporter laura jarrett, cnn, washington. With us now president ial historian and trump biographer and author of the truth about trump. We know trump was upset. Jeff sessions recused himself from the russia probe. The New York Times reported the president erupted in anger in front of numerous officials saying he needed his attorney sxwren to protect him. Mr. Trump said he had expected his top Law Enforcement official to safeguard him the way he believed robert f. Kennedy as attorney general had done for his brother and holder had done for barack obama. Tim, is that what an attorney general is supposed to do . Who thats supposed to be . Well, to use the rfk example is amusing. Rfk was john f. Kennedys brother and there was no doubt a closeness between them many people criticized and that led to laws about nepotism. Its surprising but not at all unusual for the president to try to desperately find an example that would legitimate him having a protector. Michael, why do you think trump has this idea that this is what an attorney general is supposed to do . Its a fantasy that suits his need right now. He doesnt have a true grasp of history and he doesnt locate himself in a continuum of American Life so i dont think he thinks back to what previous president s really were about, and i dont think he thinks forward more than a few days to consider the trouble that hes making for himself. So, for him, the fantasy of attorney general that would stand up for him no matter what, what he would call the roy cone of attorney generals. He was a person ultimately driven out of his law practice by his wrongdoing is something pleasing to his ego. It has nothing to do with how the government functions. It is hard to understate how chaotic of a week this has been. Weve seen republicans, long loyal to President Trump, use expletives in reacting to whats happening. Tim, help us understand this moment. This moment is the culmination of many moments and i asked myself, i, having studied the nixon years, i was hopeful that republicans would do now what they did in 73 and 74. The biggest and best bulwarks against nixons abuses of power then were republicans. There were republicans in government and in congress. I had naively hoped that i would see, or we would see, the same kind of spine in the republicans of today. But i dont see it in their dna. I think the Republican Party of today is fundamentally different from the Republican Party of the 70s. In the 90s there was a shift. And so the folks there now dont understand that there are moments when you have to think constitutionally, when you have to think about nation over party. Its really sad. So when i hear about republicans who are unhappy and using f bombs they have only themselves to blame at this moment. General mattis quit this week we know because he was the last general trump had installed around himself. He felt like he wasnt being listened to. General kelly is leaving next month. General mcmaster is already gone. Michael, you and i talked about trump appointing these generals in the first place, why he loves generals. You pointed out he went to a military school. Why do you think hes pushing them away . Theres a real irony. The military is the ultimate team and donald trump is not a team player. Hes never been a team player and now he should be on what would be team america or team usa defending our values, promoting our interests around the world in a consistent fashion. But as all these generals have discovered this is a person who is not on the team. Hes off on his own. Hes not even the captain of the team. Hes exhibiting no real leadership. Hes impulsively doing things. Theres a problem here with a president who is not based in the same reality the rest of us occupy, and he cant get anyone to play along with him because no one understands the game. Earlier i spoke with the woman who has worked for five defense secretaries, both republicans and democrats. I asked her about these relationships between the president and his defense secretary and if they typically follow a my way or the highway dynamic. Here is what she said. No. Traditionally you have a dialogue. One would outline a number of different options and the pros and cons. Indeed at the end of the day it is the president s choice and the appointee that is the secretary of defense or secretary of state has to decide can they go along with this or not . And i think what weve seen over the last few days is that secretary mattis saw he could not go along. Tim, can you think of a time when a president and his defense secretary really butted heads like this . Oh, yes, i can. But they didnt do it publicly and thats the difference. Mel laird wanted america to get out of vietnam faster than Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger wanted. He was a former he member of congress. He played nixon. And the reason we got out of vietnam as fast as we did, wasnt fast enough, but as fast as we did was this man. He did it behind the scenes, and he didnt do it publicly because he wanted to succeed. We have had president s fire secretaries of state i mean secretaries of defense. Harry truman did it. He fired louis johnson. Barack obama pretty much fired chuck hagel. But what we havent seen before is a secretary of state go public and say that the american president , our president , is not committed to collective security, is not committed to allies. Is not committed to nato. And that his vision for American Defense is not the vision of defense that every postworld war ii secretary of defense has tried to implement. And thats astounding. There have been 26 of them. This is the first time a secretary defense has ever said to the world that we have a president who doesnt understand allies. The former editor of the New York Times said he believes mattis letter as hes leaving is going to go down in the history books. Do you agree . Its one of the great state documents of the United States and its a challenge to national security, members of congress. Republicans or democrats. They have a chance starting in january to use subpoena power, to ask questions of the Trump National security team. What is your strategy . Where are you going . Okay, pull out of syria. What happens when iran takes control . Okay, pull out of afghanistan, what happens when the taliban starts to assist islamists again . There have to be these questions. There has to be a use of subpoenas. There has to be a willingness to step up and say even though congress is not number one in making Foreign Policy, it has a role to play and lets see it do it. Great to have both of you with us. Thank you especially on a holiday weekend. Really appreciate it. With the Government Shutdown likely to last past christmas, a departing congressman is slamming the members of his own party he says are beholden to rightwing media figures. He joins us next live here in the cnn newsroom. About paying s you dont want . The paying. And whats the best part about getting things you do want for free . Free stuff. Thats why verizon now comes with six months of free apple music. I like music. I like popcorn. How dare you vo but the latest iphone, get iphone xr on us. Verizon. And just like you, the further into winter we go, the heavier i get. And while your pants struggle to support the heavier you, your roof struggles to support the heavier me. [laughter] whoo. [crash] and your cutrate insurance might not pay for this. So get allstate, you could save money and be better protected from mayhem like me. Mayhem is everywhere. So get an allstate agent. 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