regime accomplish anything? growing urgency for the last four boys and their coach out of a flooded cave in thailand before the water rises even higher. why is the effort on pause right now? i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. the breaking news this hour, sources telling cnn president trump selected the nominee for the supreme court and a process is now under way to get that person and the family to the white house for the president s announcement less than four hours from now. we ll talk about that, much more with senator jeff flake of the judiciary and foreign relations committees and our correspondents, specialists and analysts also standing by. first, let s get straight to our chief white house correspondent gym acosta. what are you picking up over there about the president s supreme court pick? reporter: as you said,
political. but right now it does not look like it was the personal. right. of course, brian, i think just to be honest, look. thanks to sarah sanders for coming out with a tweet the way she did. that s a good thing. yes. but this the facts are also the facts. who knows what the motive is here? the tone from this administration ers of disdain, disgust, disrespect is just the way things are now, right? we have people accosting our gym acosta at trump rallies. that is not coming from nowhere. the reality for journalists in america today, especially journalists covering politics, that is you re going to get threats. you re going to get threats, usually electronically, via e-mail or phone. sometimes full-blown death threats. other cases more generic messages. we ve seen a sharp rise in actual physical assaults against journalists. these don t happen every day but they re happening more than they did five years ago.
i spoke to a source who was in touch with white house officials who was aware of the message and talking points they view what happened today as a distraction. it s an incredible takeaway. it may be delusional to view this as a distraction. as we can tell, the disstraks is only getting bigger and bigger. gym acosta at the white house. senator ed marquis is joining us, he s a democrat on the foreign relations committee. is there evidence now, do you think this is hard evidence of collusion? i think in the papadopoulos case, it s clear that he was trying to, through an intermediary, get information that russian officials may have had on hillary clinton. and if that s the case, then what we have here is some contact between someone inside of the trump campaign with a russian who said that he had
hearings. thanks very much. the trump white house is pushing back tonight against any suggestion that its covering up for michael flynn. let s go to our senior white house correspondent gym acosta. you asked sean spicer about this today. reporter: yes. white house officials are offering up a new information on the vetting of michael flynn pointing out the retired general had a security clearance review last year during the obama administration. i asked white house press secretary sean spicer why flynn did not have an additional review before coming into the trump administration earlier this year. spicer said that would not be necessary comparing the security clearance process for flynn to that of white house reporters who receive their entry passes renewed every couple of years and spicer pushed back on that attack from congressman cummins. the white house is engaged in a cover-up. here s what he had to say. congressman cummins accuses this white house of a cover-up.
donald trump is the type of person who will be changed by the oval office. i think he s shown who he is. throughout his term as a candidate when he ran for office and during the transition. he s on twitter every day. he s attacking vanity fair and saturday night live. he s attacking reporters and union bosses and anyone who disagrees with him. he s a thin-skinned very troubled person. and i don t think he s going to be any different as president of the united states. i think he s the president elect of the united states and with reason. last night i had the opportunity to be in hershey at that rally that gym acosta was just talking about.jim acosta was just talkig about. and i can tell you he was himself and the people in that room, about 12,000 people, that is exactly what they want to see. that is why he is president in the first place. do i think he s got a sober understanding of what goes on in