kelly, in a way is standing up. it was on the record. general kelly is okay with this at least he did overnight. the retired marine corps general going public and maybe even it is that he wants to get this defended lieutenant colonel alexander vindman who was fired message out there to what i think is the biggest headline, after testifying in the his defense of colonel vindman. impeachment investigation. general kelly overnight said of implying he believes it was vindman, quote, he did exactly vindman's duty to speak out. what we teach them to do from and then the words he chose to cradle to grave. use what the president did on we teach them, don't follow an the phone call with zelensky. illegal order. he called it an illegal order. and if you're ever given one, you'll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an that word choice jumps out, doesn't it, peter? illegal order and then you'll tell your boss. >> well, what he said is he much more on what kelly had to say about his former boss, the believes actually that vindman, president, in just a moment. in his mind, vindman thought it to be an illegal order. and many democrats and this is something vindman observers are wondering if this perceived as an illegal order. is just the beginning of and that's the way vindman chose president trump's retribution to act. tour. so it's something that he was, the president has freely as we said in the story, he was admitted he learned none of the lessons his republican allies describing how vindman might were hoping for when they have received that as an illegal acquitted him. former trump aide steve bannon order. vindman was concerned about a change in policy, too. is warning americans that we better get used to it, end ukrainian policy. kelly made clear he thought that's what this was. quote. cnn learned more career federal but our policy had been to support ukraine in their fight prosecutors may resign in the wake of this. against russia and that this four of them abruptly quit the amounted to a shift in policy. roger stone case after bill barr >> let me read what he said -- requested a reduction in stone's i'm going to read what he said prison sentence for lying to about north korea also. you said in addition to getting congress and witness tampering. into what i think is probably >> much more on general kelly the most sensitive issue for the speaking out. joining us by phone is peter president which is the peace nicholas, white house reporter for the atlantic. he was there for john kelly meeting. he said he'll never give his event last night which was in nuclear weapons up, talking new can, explain what this about kim jong-un. event was, why you were there president trump tried, what's one way to put it. and the circumstances. but it didn't work. i'm an optimist but also a >> well, it was a regular realist and i never thought kim would do anything other than speaking appearance. john kelly has been delivering play us for a while and he did some speeches without much that fairly effectively. fanfare or publicity i don't think the president will necessarily. and an eventnterested like that general kelly is saying the president got played by kim jong-un. >> well, i think that's right. i think the president feels personal diplomacy can make inroads with kim jong-un and he could persuade him to relinquish his nuclear program. kelly is saying that kim jong-un is his relevance comes down to having nuclear weapons. he's never going to do it. and, in fact, that by waiting, by playing out this card of personal diplomacy, maybe gave kim jong-un some more time to continue with the program. >> so the fact of this event, peter, again, speaking out about policy, the trump administration policy and also the president himself and impeachment, where does this tell you about where general kelly is at this moment and what more we might hear from him less than a year to go until the 2020 election? >> it looks like he's going to continue to give public speeches. he's going to continue to speak out. i don't get a sense that he's necessarily looking to thrust himself in front of the cameras and become a player in the campaign. that's really not my sense of how he wants to handle this. but he does have strong views about public service, about his -- what happened in the trump administration during his tenure. and he's forthright about that. so i do think that partisans, people will latch on to what they want to about this. but i do think that kelly had a front row seat there at trump's side for over a year, and he understands trump and how trump governs better than anyone. so i think it's important to listen to him. important to -- i don't think he's looking necessarily to make an enemy of president trump but it looks like he had real concerns, too, that he wants to express. >> no doubt. there were protesters there last night and people who note the consistency of john kelly's positions might be in question, given that he worked in the white house and didn't make these concerns public, but be that as it may, it is interesting to hear from him now. we did hear him say a few weeks ago he believed john bolton in terms of the impeachment investigation. peter, a reporter in the right place at the right time. i think you knew there was going to be news there. >> john kelly is someone to watch. thank you for having me. we have cnn political analyst david gregory and jen psalke, the former white house communications director under president obama. in terms of communications of what john kelly is trying to do. he's not just talking about lieutenant colonel vindman, although it's very interesting what he's saying. also president trump he believes is being played by north korea. he talks about what he saw with vladimir putin and that relationship. he talked about immigration and he said that immigrants are, quote, overwhelmingly good people. that's such a different message, obviously, from what we heard when he was in the white house. and i assume that president trump's supporters are too dug in at this point to really listen or hear him. but do you think that that message will have any impact on republicans in congress coming from general kelly? >> i wish it would. i think that's probably unlikely at this point. but what i heard from general kelly, of course the defense of vindman was important to hear from somebody who served in the military for as long as he has, and i hope we hear that from others. but beyond that, he portrayed donald trump, intentionally or not, as somebody who is pretty naive. perhaps isn't up to the task. who relied on his own relationships or development of relationships to try to do diplomacy, and that's not how it works. anybody who has worked in national security, whether for republican or democrat, would certainly echo. but that's the piece i think that may not sit very well with donald trump moving forward because he wants to portray himself as the only one who can make the big deals globally. >> what's the responsibility of a general kelly, of a general mattis, of a john bolton. of the republicans in the senate who will whisper behind closed doors? we always hear, oh, they'll admit behind closed doors the president's actions or his behavior unacceptable. but what's their public responsibility as you see it? >> well, i think it's going to be a question of their personal integrity. and i think it's interesting that general kelly's offering these comments. he's not hiding it. he's not necessarily going out of his way to be on the record. john bolton evidently will share some things in his book. and, you know, as for republicans, they're simply too scared politically to go against the president. i think this question of personal integrity is important because he's operating with a fog machine. he takes his grievances against his perceived enemies. and sometimes he's got, you know, legitimate complaints about people, but then what he does is uses the fog machine to create this fog, to create a new narrative that's at odds with the facts. and so what general kelly is doing is saying, wait a minute. let's not demonize colonel vindman for doing what we train folks in the not do. not to follow what he deemed to be an illegal order. so it's an important moment of standing up for someone and trying to push back against that. it seems very little in the context of what's going on right now. but it's something. >> jen, let's move on to what's happening in the department of justice with attorney general bill barr. we've heard from so many people involved in the judicial system that are really worried by what this looks like and what they're seeing. this is attorney general bill barr stepping in to, it appears, protect and give leniency to president trump's pal, roger stone, over the advice of his own prosecutors. and what that means goi republi congress trying to make sense of this, trying to explain what their position is going to be on this. but, obviously, we all have the record of things they said in the past when they thought that there was some sort of too close a relationship between the president and the department of justice. >> you know, that's exactly right, alisyn. and i remember from being in the white house for eight years when you had high level department of justice officials come into the building, i would put myself against the wall and try not to interact with them because there's such a history of separation, of what doj is working on. the cases they're working on, and the political wing of the white house. presidents have had imperfections, but this is a pattern. i will say as we learn more about this from reporting by cnn and others, it's not just that barr stepped in here in the sentencing guidelines. he was setting up this sort of web in advance. jesse lieu was nominated for a position at treasury, not just so that, you know, because steve mnuchin wanted to have her on board but to get her out of the way at a time when barr knew that the prosecutors in that office would be setting sentencing guidelines. and in addition, we've seen also tucker carlson weigh in. there's an entire web that's been built up behind the scenes we've seen thanks to reporting. that's extremely concerning because it's against any precedent of the past. and that's why we're seeing a lot of alarm within prosecutors offices and within the department of justice. >> there's indications and reporting that the jesse lu nomination was pulled this week because they didn't want her to have to testify at a confirmation hearing, under oath, about what she saw or what she believed. david gregory, you are well sourced in the washington legal community and also in the institutions down there. so i want to know what you're hearing about the level of concern over what is being seen this week, not just in the justice department, but overall, the level of concern and why exactly. >> well, i think the concern is so heightened because what you're seeing is another example, not just of the corruption of the justice department, but also an attack on the judiciary. this is a co-equal branch of government. the chief justice of the united states, john roberts, has already rebuked the president once for attacking judges as political judges because of who appointed them. and the president has done it again by attacking judge jackson in this case. so that's what i think is a big level of concern. and i think that, again, the republican standard on this, where you have republicans in the case of john cornyn who loretta lynch, then attorney general, and former president clinton, while hillary clinton was being investigated. that was totally inappropriate and the perception of corruption was there. and they were rightly criticized for that. but now, cornyn says, well, what is there to be critical of what the president has done? so the new standard is obviously hypocrisy. and it is to say, well, if in the end the judge still has the final say, that's all that really matters. what came before that shouldn't matter as long as the judge still has the final say. that's the new standard coming from senate republicans. >> we hope the judge still has the final say. we'll see what judge amy berman jackson has to say about this. >> no relation. >> what will congress do to rein in the president? we will speak to a democratic senator, next. ♪ we only come out at night ♪ ♪ i walk alone ♪ i'll pretend to know the way ♪ ♪ we only come out at night ♪ ♪ we only come out at night ♪ wean air force veteran made of doing what's right,. not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it - with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ win her heart with a valentine that's anything but ordinary. now save 20 to 50% on all fashion jewelry. every kiss begins with kay. on all fashiseaonly abreva cany to help sget rid of it in... ...as little as 2 1/2 days when used at the first sign. abreva starts to work immediately to block the virus and protect healthy cells. abreva acts on it. so you can too. tthe bad news? ouyour patience might not.ay. depend® fit-flex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. because, perfect or not, life's better when you're in it. be there with depend®. this morning, some senate republicans insist the justice department's intervention to revise the sentencing recommendation for longtime trump friend and adviser roger stone, that it has nothing to do with president trump or his tweets defending stone. here's how those senators are spinning it. >> we've got real concerns about overzealous prosecution, if i thought he'd done something that had changed the outcome inappropriately. i'd be the first to say. >> first amendment rights, too. >> you really believe the president did not -- his view of this did not influence the justice department in any way? >> any reason not to believe that. >> joining us is mazie hirono. thanks for being with us this morning. what's your message to your republican colleagues in the senate who do not seem to be concerned with the president's statements regarding roger stone. >> these are republican senators, except for one, mitt romney, who did not hold this president accountable knowing full well that they are unleashing this president to do whatever he wants because he already believed he could do whatever he wanted to do under article 2. now he feels that the senate republicans, the ones who did not vote to convict him, have given him the green light to do whatever he wants, and he's already doing that with a vengeance. and as far as i'm concerned, he has already compromised the top levels of the department of justice. and i think we should be more than concerned. we should be very afraid that the president will use the justice department and his handmaiden, bill barr, to go after his political -- what the president considers his political enemies. so that's what's happening. and to watch my republican colleagues continue to twist themselves into a pretzel as they lend more cover to this president and, frankly, for themselves, is really showing the american people how bankrupt the republican party is. >> let me ask you this. the president was just impeached and acquitted. it's the biggest weapon that exists in the constitution to rein in a president. he was impeached but then he was acquitted. what more can you do about it now? >> i call it an acquittal based on a rigged trial so i think the american people know that a trial without witnesses and documents is not a real trial. so there's that. and then we keep being asked. we, democrats, keep being asked, what are you going to do about it? i think republicans should be asked every day from election, especially the senate republicans, they unleashed this president. what are you going to do to put some reins on this president? as far as what am i going to do? the democrats will continue to, and i will continue to focus on what this president is doing. his vindictiveness. his going after all his so-called political enemies. his continuing attacks on immigrants. his attacks on health care. now he's got this huge budget that is cutting medicare, medicaid and social security. the republicans have said it's now up to the american people. my job, as far as i am concerned, is to let the american people know exactly what this president is doing because he's screwing them over. >> you called for the attorney general william barr to resign a long time ago. he didn't. however it is within the power of congress, the house of representatives to impeach a member of the cabinet. would you like to see an impeachment investigation or impeachment proceedings against william barr? >> i think that if the house can focus on what's going on with this administration, how lawless it is, they will be doing a service. but, let's face it. they can go through an impeachment. it was important for the house to go through the impeachment and to impeach the president because it all starts from the top. as far as i'm concerned, the rock starts from the top. so the american people are going to get to decide in only about nine months who they want. and if they want a president who will continue to behave in a way that is lawless, then that's what we have. but i'm going to do everything i can, and i know my colleagues, the democratic colleagues will do everything we can to let the american people know what the facts are so that they can make a good decisions too who they want running this country. >> in the case of roger stone, jeffrey toobin who was critical of the president's comments on it and the move from the justice department did note that he believed that the sentencing guidelines put forward by the prosecutors were very high. president trump has claimed that he did not order the justice department to change those guidelines. do either of those issues matter to you or how much do they matter? >> of course it matters because the president doesn't have to order anything. he just makes decisions and announces his decisions by tweet. everybody knows that is how the president gets his points across and what he wants done across. for anybody to sort of say, oh, well, he didn't really say those words. it's totally diluted. and so the fact that the president said what he said regarding roger stone already lends, really, it's a huge cloud on whatever the justice department is doing, particularly bill barr who auditioned for this job and he put his thumb on the mueller report in a very disingenuous and basically, he lied. so this is why i called for bill b barr to resign back then. this is going to continue. it's only going to get worse. we have a lawless president, and we have people in congress, particularly the republican senators, who will continue to cover for him because covering for him is covering for themselves. i'm waiting for them to wake up from this horrible dream and start doing their jobs the way they're supposed to. >> senator mazie hirono, we appreciate you being with us this morning. >> aloha. coronavirus fears have 11 members of one family quarantined aboard a cruise ship day after day. >> what do you tell your children about why you guys are sitting there for this long? >> we say there's like this invisible monster called the coronavirus and we can't go outside. >> oh, my gosh. can you imagine being these kids on that cruise ship? we take you aboard, next. the supplements... the veggies... the water. but i still have recurring constipation, belly pain, straining and bloating. my doctor said i could have a real medical condition called ibs-c. for my recurring constipation and belly pain from ibs-c... i said "yes" to linzess. linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation. linzess is not a laxative. it works differently. it helps relieve belly pain and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. do not give to children less than six. and it should not be given to children six to less than 18. it may harm them. do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain. especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea. sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach area pain and swelling. i'm doing it all. and i said "yes" to linzess. ask your doctor about linzess. ♪ ♪ i need all the breaks, that i can get. at liberty butchumal- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ and my side super soft? yes. with the sleep number 360 smart bed, on sale now, you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. can it help me fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. so, you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. and now, during the ultimate sleep number event, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 36 months. ends monday there are 44 new cases of coronavirus on the quarantined cruise ship in japan. that makes a total of 219 confirmed cases on that ship alone. will ripley has been all over this story. he spoke with a father quarantined on board with ten family members, including seven young children. will join us now. i have to say, being on board a cruise ship with seven young children, hard enough. even if not quarantined for fears of this virus, will. >> i mean, imagine. and they're all under the age of 8. to be on this ship, trying to keep kids occupied. this is one of the angles we've been curious about. how do you keep the kids happy? how do you keep them not from going stir crazy. they took some home video to show us exactly what this quarantine, now in its second week, is like. >> one, two, three. go! >> reporter: this is what a cruise is supposed to be like. parents with young children on the "diamond princess," this only happens for about an hour. every few days. all those other hours are spent like this. waiting for the daily delivery of fresh toys, coloring books, crayons, colorful beads. >> i have this bracelet and also this one. >> reporter: arts and crafts can keep the kids busy for hours. every morning, local jet skiers try to boost morale. every evening, book beds become trampolines. >> being trapped in this cabin it makes you realize you should appreciate life, little moments, little detail of life. harvey is a young dad who asked us not to use his last name. he's on the quarantined cruise ship with his entire family. >> there's 11 of us and then five kids. >> reporter: the youngest, 3. the oldest, 8. >> what do you tell your children about why you guys are sitting there for this long? >> we say there's like this invisible monster called the coronavirus and we can't go outside. >> reporter: that invisible monster may have the parents more spooked than their kids. nobody in harvey's family is showing any symptoms of novel coronavirus. he thinks they should all be tested anyway. >> the numbers are kind of strange to me. i'm also worried because even though i trust my own health, i don't want to be like an invisible carrier. >> reporter: the japanese government has only tested a few hundred people out of more than 3,000 on the "diamond princess." many are asking, why not test everyone at once? japan can only process around 300 test kits per day. the nation expects to more than triple its capacity by early next week. one day before the end of the quarantine. the question many are asking, is it too little, too late? >> if we are worried that we might be carrying, then it will affect our daily life. that's one of the major concerns. we don't want to be carrying it. we don't want to pred it to the communities. >> reporter: harvey worries what happen when they go back home to hong kong. could he and his children be stigmatized and pass it to their family and friends. peace of mind can only come if everyone on board is tested, and if the test comes back negative. we know that there are more than 400 americans on that ship. many of them with young children who will be returning home and they're being told they won't to have face another quarantine period but most of those people will not have been tested. you can understand why that makes some uneasy, even as the japanese government insists if they don't show symptoms by the end of the 14 days, it should be safe for them to finally get off that ship. >> what a remarkable look you have given to us of what daily life with kids on that ship is like right now. and every parent around the country who is trying to come up with things to do with their kids and young kids today should be so grateful that they're not in that predicament. meanwhile, here's this story. new york state is with the trump administration over the global entry program that lets travelers get through airports faster. but this is part of a bigger beef that president trump has with his home state. governor andrew cuomo joins us next to talk about it. we all use it in different ways. 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(laughter) (vo) that's why verizon has plans to mix and match starting at just $35. and one of our best phones when you buy one. the network more people rely on, gives you more. not drinking water?ties? we've all committed skin sins! new neutrogena® bright boost... kick-starts dull, tired skin with neoglucosamine... a gentle, non-acid amino sugar exfoliant that works within the surface and boosts cell turnover by 10x. for brighter, wide-awake skin. bright boost. pair with illuminating serum for 3x the brightening power. neutrogena® new york governor andrew cuomo will meet with president trump in a few hours to deal with the recent ban on new yorkers from the trusted travel program that's called global entry. but it seems like there's a bigger beef here. joining us now is the governor of new york, andrew cuomo. good morning, governor. >> good morning, alisyn. >> governor, is this really about banning new yorkers from the global entry program, or is this the continuation of some beef that president trump has with you and the city of new york and the state of new york? is this somehow retaliation for something? >> yes, it is bigger than that, alisyn. it's -- the president's administration disagrees fundamentally with the way we treat undocumented people who in the state of new york have the right to apply for a driver's license because we want people who are on our roads to know how to drive and be licensed. we believe that's in the state interest to keep our people safe. they disagree with this. they want to make political hay out of it. the department of homeland security, which is supposed to be about security, by the way, actually did a memo that said we should punish the states that don't comply with their policy on undocumented people. it's new york, new jersey, california, it's king county in washington. and they're going to punish, quote/unquote, those states. that's what their memo says. and then they turn around and say we're kicking you out of this traveler program because we don't have the information. i said to the acting secretary, i will give you whatever information you want on the enrollees for the trusted traveler program. but it's not rational. it's extortion. >> the acting deputy secretary, ken cuccinelli, says this is the fault of new york and how you're handling it. let me play for you what he said. >> the issue here is that we're having a problem with the state of new york. we're not changing how the programs are run. new york has decided not to cooperate. and i would note that those databases are critical for public safety. >> so he says this is about public safety. i know that you say that today, when you go to this meeting with the president, you plan to call their plbluff somehow. so what is your plan? >> i'm going to say, if your apparent rationale is i won't cooperate, new york state won't cooperate with the trusted traveler program, we will give you whatever information you want from the dmv database, from the motor vehicle database for the trusted traveler program. i'm cooperating. will you now stop doing what you're doing, which is gratuitous and retaliatory? i believe they're going to say no because there's a memo leaked from the department of homeland security which they agree is a memo from the agency which says we need to punish these states. this is what happens when an administration believes they are above the law. there are no rules. it's all politics. it's all self-serving. they can do whatever they want with immunity. period. and i want to make sure the president knows the situation. >> just explain to me, there has not been much love lost between you and president trump. you've criticized him. he's criticized you. he pulled up stakes from his longtime city. i mean, obviously, i remember, you remember when he was around new york city and now he wants nothing to do with new york. he's moved to florida. given all of that backdrop, i'm curious, how is this meeting going to go between you and he? >> it's not personal. and it shouldn't be personal. it's about the principle. he moved to florida because he believes he's politically viable in florida, and he's not politically viable in new york. and they are absolutist in their self-interest. he moved to florida so he can say to florida, look, i'm a resident. you should vote for me. leave new york because he believes he can't win here anyway because we're a democratic state. and if it's a democratic state, then abuse them and use them as a political pinata because it doesn't cost you anything politically. i want to make sure the president knows that his department of homeland security is extorting other governments. they said they're going to punish governments that don't get in line with their dictate. they're hurting hundreds of thousands of people who get kicked out of this trusted traveler program which actually, alisyn, makes security worse because what the trusted traveler program did was prescreened people so at the border you didn't have to waste a lot of time going through their background. why would you jeopardize homeland security, hurt people gratuitously just to play politics? >> all right. >> it has to stop at one point. >> well, we will see what happens after your meeting with president trump today. governor andrew cuomo, great to see you. thanks for being here. >> be on the lookout. bolo. be on the lookout for imposters and remember, identity theft is a problem. there's only one real cuomo. >> i was wondering where we were going with that, but now i see. thank you very much to the real mccoy. thank you. >> that took a turn. that took a turn right there. >> i knew he was cautioning me about something very important. >> it is very important. we all know. all right. we've heard two democratic senators on the show call out their republican colleagues saying that these republicans in the senate are involved in something of a cover-up now. allowing the president to abuse his power before their very eyes. so what will be done about it? that's next. we made usaa insurance for members like kate. a former army medic, made of the flexibility to handle whatever monday has in store and tackle four things at once. so when her car got hit, she didn't worry. she simply filed a claim on her usaa app and said... i got this. usaa insurance is made the way kate needs it - easy. she can even pick her payment plan so it's easy on her budget and her life. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa ♪ we only come out at night ♪ ♪ we only come out at night ♪ i walk alone ♪ i'll pretend to know the way ♪ ♪ we only come out at night ♪ ♪ we only come out at night ♪ not drinking water?ties? 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>> i think they're two separate things. but i wish the president watched cnn to hear me say he's not helping roger by commenting about this matter. and it's up to judge jackson. she didn't ask for his advice. i hope she's fair and gives roger a light sentence. he's no threat to society. >> ax, we heard from democratic senators today and some people on our show who keep saying, well, if republican senators let the president keep doing this, if they stand by and watch him fire people who are involved in the impeachment investigation, then we'll be in a real place. and i keep wondering why they're using the word if. it's no longer a question of if. it's happened. it continues to happen. what's to stop him? >> no, look, i did an "ax files" podcast with adam schiff yesterday. he said so long as there's this cultive personality and republican members of congress are unwilling to challenge the president, there's a limit to what the congress can do in terms of oversight. and reining him in. but i want to make one point on the roger stone case. first of all, charlie, they do get twitter at the justice department and i'm sure they saw his words on this. secondly, i don't think this really is about the sentence that stone gets. i think the president is laying the predicate to pardon roger stone and he wants to sully that sentence so to justify that pardon that will probably come after the election. but the overall impact of everything that's happened in the last week, you know, the handling of witnesses to the impeachment trial, the suggestion at the pentagon that vindman be disciplined. the institutional damage that's being done is really severe. >> i want to play some sound from rush limbaugh on his show yesterday and remind you both that limbaugh was just presented with the presidential medal of freedom. he was talking about south bend mayor pete buttigieg who won the most delegates out new hampshire and this is what rush chose to talk about yesterday. >> then there's the mayor pete. 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of south bend. loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage and they're saying, okay, how is this going to -- 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage next to mr. man, donald trump. >> charlie, i do wonder what this feels like now that he has received the presidential medal of freedom before the entire congress to hear comments like this from rush limbaugh. >> well, it's too bad. i wish he had not said that. unfortunately, we don't have a code of conduct or speech for former winners of the presidential medal of freedom, but as i said about president trump and roger stone, roger is not helping the president by making these kinds of tasteless comments. >> it does make you wonder what they think about mayor pete as an opponent because, you know, you can read it as, well, he's on their radar screen. and they're going after him. so, you know, if i'm sitting over in pete's headquarters, i'm sort of thinking, well, we're getting their attention. >> i want to play a clip from a project that you're both connected to. and that is this cnn special series coming up "race for the white house." this one focuses on the 2008 race which is obama against mccain, something you both know a lot about. watch this. >> in hillary clinton's office is a photograph of the obama family. a gift from the freshman senator from illinois. >> people call me alabama or yo mama, but the name is obama. >> barack obama really wasn't on our radar as a candidate in early 2006. i think the general feeling was he just got to the senate. there's no way he's going to run for president. that would be pretty, you know, audacious. >> i got a call from senator obama in the spring of 2006, and he said just had the most peculiar meeting. he said harry reid and chuck schumer called me in. >> senators harry reid and chuck schumer, top democratic dogs on the hill. >> and harry said, you ought to think about running for president. >> isn't this interesting to revisit it right now, david? >> you know, i got to see the whole film last night. it was really quite emotional to be thrown back to that time and that race. these two larger than life figures, really three, if you include hillary clinton, but john mccain and barack obama and, yeah, it seems like a long time ago now. but it's just 12 years ago. and the whole spirit of that was quite different than what we're seeing today. >> charlie, quickly. flashbacks for you? >> it's a great documentary. i recommend it to your viewers. it does remind us that people of integrity and stature can disagree civilly and have a good campaign. i was reminded we lost. >> that's what always happens when you have these reunions in campaigns. someone doesn't quite look it as much but we're thrilled to have you both here. it's always so interesting to talk about history like this. charlie black, david axelrod, thank you. axe has a podcast with adam schiff. and do not miss "race for the white house." it premieres this sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. >> okay. fantastic. thank you all for joining us. see you tomorrow. be stronger... with nicorette coated ice mint. layered with flavor. it's the first and only coated nicotine lozenge. for an amazing taste... ...that outlasts your craving. nicorette ice mint. it's an honor to for tell you thatste... ...that o[ applause ] craving. thank you. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. i love you! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ and my side super soft? yes. with the sleep number 360 smart bed, on sale now, you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. can it help me fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. so, you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. and now, during the ultimate sleep number event, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 36 months. ends monday all right. good morning, everyone. i'm poppy harlow. >> i'm jim sciutto. the president's former chief of staff and retired marine general john kelly has called the president's demand that ukraine investigate the bidens a, quote, illegal order. that's right. kelly, in public, defending lieutenant colonel alexander vindman and his decision to report that controversial demand and phone call to his higher ups. >> it's remarkable he chose these words and said this now. it was first reported by "the atlantic." kelly told an audience that army officer vindman who was repeatedly targeted by the president and mocked and then removed from the white house, did exactly what he was taught to do. to report, quote, an illegal order and kelly did not stop there. >> also the justice department is roiled today. this

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