hi there i'm brooke baldwin breaking news on cnn beginning with this border wall blowup, president trump has confirmed he will not meet with the president of mexico. this is what mr. trump just told republican lawmakers moments ago during their annual retreat. >> i've said many times that the

american people will not pay for the wall. and i've made that clear to the government of mexico. the president of mexico and myself have agreed to cancel our planned meeting scheduled for next week. unless mexico is going to treat the united states fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless and i want to go a different route. we have no choice. >> that was mr. trump. let's go straight to mexico city to layla santiago, can you tell us more what the president was thinking and if in fact this was a mutual decision? >> reporter: i can tell you that the mexican president is not backing down from his stance either. he too is saying we're not paying for the wall either. let me back up to explain how we got to where we are right now. yesterday a group of senators

called for the president to cancel this meeting after president trump announced that he would be signing the executive orders to move forward with this wall as the foreign minister and the economic minister from mexico were on their way to washington d.c. so then president posted i don't believe in walls i'm certainly not paying for a wall but i can offer you some friendship and i also want to add that the foreign minister said look, you want to build this wall, that's fine, that is your right, asking us to pay for it that's a different story and that's where they draw the line, so it's been this development hour-by-hour by hour this morning president trump tweeted saying that they're not going to pay for this wall, we shouldn't meet and that's when president bpena nieo

kan cancelled the meeting. -- he sort of egged him son saying we got to stand our ground so it wasn't a group of senators, this country was sort of calling on him to protect mexico's interest and maybe also reinstill some dignity for the people of mexico in this new relationship. >> it's important to hear the mexico side of things and mexico's response. thank you so much in mexico city, this dustup comes as senate republican leaders say building the wall may cost up to $15 billion and a surprise endorsement from the most budget conscious republican in congress paul ryan saying yes in deed

congress will foot the bill. jeremy is at the white house for us, let's talk about what the president had to say a while ago and let's get into the practicality of this $15 billion wall. how does he move forward with this? >> reporter: the first thing he had do was get congressional republicans on board and he does have to do that yet. paul ryan, and mitch mcconnell getting behind this border idea which republicans have moved away from in recent years with mcconnell and ryan really being quite hesitant and fully supporting the wall during the primary campaign and even into the general election, so clearly president trump has the republicans on board, what he needs to do is this is all hinging on the fact that he can get mexico to pay back the

united states for building the wall. now the meeting has been cancelled and president trump issuing sort of a veiled threat if we can't have a meeting of the minds then we may have to go a different route, it's unclear what that is, he signalled if he could not come to an agreement that they could get it other ways, whether with holding trade or others, but for now this seems to be the first roadblock to trying to get mexico to pay for the wall something of course they have very firmly resisted. >> thank you jeremy at the white house. let me bring in miguel -- the ambassador to the united states, mr. ambassador thank you for your times, i know you are at tufts now. >> thank you, brooke. >> you were -- i mean you were

president pena nieto chief pollster, have known the man for three decades, i understand here you have president trump saying this meeting was cancelled this was mutual that it would be fruitless. >> okay, i hear you laugh but it would be fruitless for the mexican president to come. why are you laughing, mr. ambassador? >> because mr. trump was suspecting the mexican government to pay for his silly wall he is completely wrong. on top of that, the wall is just a pr strategy of him because not really function that could perform as you well know but of course the negative impact what he's doing to the mexican relation, that's a real thing, the wall is not a real thing but the damage that he's doing with the relation is very real. >> the damage is important to talk about but so is context mr.

ambassador, i want to bring our viewers's attention to it was a big day on the campaign trail last year, when mr. trump accepted the invitation to mexico city. they met and there were some kind words afterward. >> mr. president i want to thank you, it's been a tremendous honor and i call you a friend. thank you. >> fast forward to now, the wall he says will be built in a couple of months and says mexico will reimburse. such a contrast in tone. is this just politics, mr. ambassador. >> after that visit he said that a couple of hours in phoenix he said mexicans do not know that i will build the wall and they will pay for it, they don't know

but they will, so he was really playing tricks and games and that's not a way to conduct himself as a president. >> you can't play tricks and mexico is so important to the united states, how do these two leaders maintain their diplomatic dance from this moment forward? >> well, you have the professional diplomats, i understand the career diplomats at the white house just re-signed a projection of what trump is doing a few hours ago and certainly the peso and investment mexican economy may get the heat but on the same side of the coin mexico is kind

of finding an enemy that is unifying the country around president pena nieto, you know his popularity has been damaged since mr. trump's visit to mexico. if you remember mexicans acted negatively to it. >> i remember. i want to hop over to our republican congressman -- good to see you. >> good to see you. >> so it's no secret. >> how is it going? >> it's a busy day these days in the world. it's no secret, congressman that you have been critical of mr. trump in the past but when it comes to this faceoff with mexico we were just chatting about did the president do the right thing about essentially tweeting the president of mexico this ultimatum?

>> look, i'm not a fan of tweets as an instrument of foreign policy so i'm a little uncomfortable with that but recognized that each new president has a way of doing things and twitter is going to be president trump's thing, i don't think that's the best way of doing it but in terms of strategy i really believe when all the dust settles, it is frankly posturing on both sides. they have to posture when it comes to nafta, i think there's going to be something where both sides get a little something out of it and we maintain our very important alliance with mexico and canada at the end of the day. >> we'll see if mexico is reimbursing, that's something they clearly don't see eye to eye on but senator mcconnell is saying it will cost somewhere in the ballpark of 12 to $15 billion but doesn't say how congress is supposed to pay for

it it's supposed to be already existing funds but are you okay going with your constituents and saying you're footing the bill? >> yeah, so i actually see the issue of immigration so i'm for comprehensive immigration reform but part of the reason we haven't been able to move forward is because a lot of americans believe the government has failed including the border itself. i'm a guard pilot so i'm flown the border. it's the same with national defense same as raising an army air force or navy, it's going to be important but where i'm going to be a dog i'm going to say beyond building a wall and a fence what are are we going do with the 15 million people here illegally, we're not going to deport them all >> congressman, i hear all this, but the question is money coming

out of your constituents' pockets are you okay asking for that for the wall? >> i am. they voted largely for donald trump even with my he is tsitan. we're going to find out -- i don't know how the whole mexico thing is going to work out, that's up to the president to articulate. >> the whole mexico thing. >> yeah, right. so i think it will be articulated but that's where we're going to end up at the end of the day i think it's what people want us to do. >> you have speaker paul ryan who is famous for pinching pennies he's agreeing to funding this thing right off the bat at 15 billion, does that surprise you? >> no, i can't speak for him. >> you know the man. >> i do. i do, but i can't speak for him

and obviously that's for him, but when it comes to defending the country things like that republicans have been very clear that's one of the very first roles of the federal government as well as building infrastructure which i'm a supporter of donald trump's plan of building infrastructure, obviously we're in a huge debt and deficit, we're going to have to figure out how to reform, how government works entitlemented for younger people like myself not current seniors and do what we have to do to rebuild our military and fix the immigration system once and for all so it works. >> i should have said off the bat thank you so much for your service to our country, i know exactly who you are. there are reports the president is considering reopening these black sites overseas and consider reintroducing things like waterboarding, this is when hee he was talking to david muir.

>> i have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence and asked them to question, does it work? does torture work? and the answer was yes. i will rely on pompeo and mattis and my group. and if they don't want to do it that's fine. if they do want to do, then i will work for that end. i want to do everything within the bounds of what you're allowed to do legally, but do i feel it works? absolutely, i feel it works. >> quickly congressman here is what speaker paul ryan said. >> torture is not legal, and we agree with it not being legal. >> you look at what mr. trump said. he appears to be open to enhanced interrogation methods, you juxtaposed that, and have

heard from very high posts in his cabinet. it's not a united message. do you have an issue with that? >> i do. i do. look, this has been from inauguration i think the president has done a lot of good things but has derailed his message off arguments about crowd sizes, this kind of thing. i've said on torture and i hope this is really where the president is i've only heard what you have seen, but i hope in extreme circumstances when we have thousands of americans lives and we know a bomb is going to go off in an hour an we need to find out where it is we need to have tools in our pockets. i've been through interrogation techniques, not waterboarding, but it's not most effective, the most effective is getting people in your confidence an getting them to spill the beans, but at the end of the day i don't think we can rule it out entirely

because we never know what we don't know, we're going to be very clear this is not something we're going to revert to and we have a huge role and huge say. >> thank you for hanging tight for us in philadelphia. >> you bet. >> next here, republicans used to really criticize president obama for all the executive actions, remember that? how do they feel about president trumps actions? and just fired top officials at the state department. we have the back story. i'm brooke baldwin and this is c cnn's special live coverage.

we're back to our breaking news i'm brooke baldwin, these are pictures of a while ago of president in philadelphia at this big republican retreat. he said he and mexican's president agreed to cancel the meeting over the back and forth of building the wall and who will be reimbursed for it. this is in philadelphia at the annual retreat. the relationship is interesting, both sides have been divided on a number of issues, including

mr. trump's baseless claims of massive in the millions of voter fraud. we also learned he will sign an executive order calling for an investigation into that despite what republicans and beyond are saying, let me bring in jamie gengle is here, and david becker, executive director and cofounder for the center of election invasion and research so we can talk about some of these numbers that the president has referenced. mary catherine let me begin with the big mexico news and the wall and president trump saying it was a mutual decision to cancel this meeting for now but this wall according to senator mcconnell is like $15 billion right? that's the price tag. and of all people, it's mr. penny pincher house speaker paul ryan who says cool, fine let's

do it. >> i think it remains to be seen he'll say we'll pay for this in other ways because republicans like to do this, that's part of what republicans are okay with spending on on but the tweeting -- everybody has an opinion on the tweeting, i think my least favorite part is where the words of the president matter more than they do in domestic disputes than fights with tv stars or whatever, the interesting thing about trump though is that chaos served him throughout the election and made him president and he does seem to come on top of things tootoo me look unwise and immature and i have been proven wrong and so i'm open minded about that. >> as we all should be and you just brought up twitter and president trump said okay, if he doesn't show up then the next

step was president pena nieto not maybe that was cover for the u.s. president, jamie, we heard him going through all these executive actions and he's been very productive in the first couple of days. in all they have signed a, how realistic are they, b using dana bash's term twilight zone for all the republicans on obama, pot-kettle here? >> i would say in his head paul ryan is counting to ten over an over an over again. look, what i'm hearing is the republicans are going to give him some room to run right now. >> okay. >> he did win. >> yeah. >> on the other hand, tea partiers, paul ryan, fiscal conservatives, $15 billion for a

wall that was theoretically supposed to be paid for by mexico, but in trump's words they are really worried about it. they have a case of the jitters about it. >> the republicans have worry about it? >> absolutely, this is infrastructure spending, republicans say he's going to make that deal with the democrats. these are not traditional republican fiscal conservatives, it's show me the money time, where are we going to get all of this and they're really worried about the deficit down the road an what that's going to be. that said, for now, they're going let him run for it. >> what about how republicans were furious with president obama and granted he unsigned what the former president did but still. >> this is donald trump being donald trump and just the way he did during the campaign and mary catherine just said this, he gets away with things that other people don't get away with.

so again, i think we're going to see a split, there's privately how republicans feel about it and for you everyone is being quiet. >> i want to ask you about all these totally baseless allegations for the voter fraud where he wasn't, you conducted the pew poll study. here is what the president told abc's david muir. >> when you say in your opinion millions of illegal votes, that is something extremely fundamental to a fair and free election. >> sure sure sure. >> you say you're going to launch an investigation. >> sure. >> it has been debunked. -- >> really then why did he write the report. >> he said there's no evidence

of voter fraud. >> excuse me, why did he write the report? i always talk about the reporters that grovel when it's something that you want to hear but not necessarily that what millions of people want to hear. >> so you're going to launch an investigation? >> a we're going to launch the investigation. >> i want to hear in your own words what your report found and what it didn't find? >> so the report that i directed when i was at pew was released in february of 2012 and at the time of the release and said all the way through during the past five years, the report was about the inefficiencies created by voter lists and voter records that can't be kept up mainly because of life events that occur in people's life when they move and die and it's very difficult to get that information so they can process a change in the voter record.

we're seeing this with the treasure secretary nominee and steve bannon and others, it's not fraud when they have registration in two places, it's just that they moved and there's no way to know about it and nothing in the report addresses voter fraud. there's a big difference between the administrative inefficienty so is having a voter record out of date to the federal crime of casting a ballot illegally and we know the first thing happens very often but through multiple studies that have been done including studies done by the bush department of justice, investigative emfforts done by republicans and democrats secretary of states have done a wonderful job on this, but it happens exceedingly rare. >> how about the answer to the groveling according to the president you know how he characterized you, david?

>> you know, i can't speak for the president obviously, i certainly didn't send him the report an nobody that i know of that was associated with the report asked him or anyone else to site it for any particular reason. i think the important thing here is there's a piece of nonpartisan affect, it's improved things like online voter registration and data sharing that states are doing across the country so that's a very positive thing and certainly the only consideration i have here and i think everyone else associated with this research would agree went to make that the research is accurately portrayed and obviously he seems to be mistaken about what the use of that study is. >> thank you. david becker, mary catherine hamm and david gengle. >> four top state officials are

out. fired by the trump administration. what we are learning about the back story in this very delicate transition time, also from waterboarding, is the administration considering how the cia operates and will those in the field listen to the orders, we'll talk to who actually blue the whistle on interrogation tactics, up next. take one.

directv now. stream all your entertainment! anywhere! anytime! can we lose the 'all'. there's no cbs and we don't have a ton of sports. anywhere, any... let's lose the 'anywhere, anytime' too. you can't download on-the-go, there's no dvr, yada yada yada. stream some stuff! somewhere! sometimes! you totally nailed that buddy. simple. don't let directv now limit your entertainment. only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. just an absolutely stunning news out of the state department what is being described as the white house cleaning house, just

learning four top state house officials have been fired by the trump administration according to two senior striadministratio officials, this comes after patrick kennedy who served asinifor nine years, as the under sk secretary and worked there more than 40 years. >> elise, starting with you, what happened? tell me the back story? >> reporter: brooke, we're talking about four officials with a combined 150 years of institutional knowledge at the state department. pat kennedy, long serving under secretary of management is kind of a controversial figure, he was involved in handling the ben g -- benghazi attacks and

criticized for mishandling hillary clinton's e-mail server, we're talking about michelle bond and assistant secretary for counsel counselor affairs, gentry smith who handles the office of foreign missions embassies here in the u.s. it's very common for officials both political appointsees to submit their resignation after a new president that's required by law but normally what happens is that these officials are asked to stay on until their successor is confirmed an that was true for many of the officials who served under the bush and clinton and obama administrations. it is true and josh has a piece about this this morning in the "washington post" is that there is a lot of anxiety at the state department about the incoming trump administration, there are a lot of foreign service

officials who are resigning an don't want to stay in this administration, but in this particular bureau, the bureau that handles the safety of u.s. citizens overseas, u.s. consulates overseas and running and safety of u.s. personnel and facilities abroad this leaves a real gaping hole 150 years of institutional knowledge out the door before rex tillerson even takes office brooke. >> so with the perfect setup, elise, josh your interpretation of this and does trump have a team ready to swoop in and fill these positions? >> i agree with everything elise just said. we've both been hearing over the last weeks a lot of concern inside the state department about what the new trump administration means for the career services all over the world thousands of diplomatic posts representing our country

so when these four officials left the building or resigned yesterday people didn't know was this their decision or the trump administration's decision and elise's excellent reporting showed that it was the trump administration's decision to let them go and what that tells us is that they're not only cleaning house in the political realm. going through the entire works of the federal government. >> but do they have successors? >> reporter: they don't have successors yet, acting people who can step in and sort of keep the train running, but one of rex tillerson's jobs assuming he's confirmed by the full senate will be to find people to run the state department and foreign policy and that's huge huge task. >> yep, yep, josh and elise thank you very much. elise with all the reporting. president trump says he thinks maybe torture works, next we

will talk to a cia whistle blower who exposed the use of waterboarding, we'll get his response to the president's words and spike lee drops plans to use a singer's music, she joins me live to respond. don't miss this.

president trump says he's under the impression that torture works and he wants to quote fight fire with fire to counter terrorism. >> president obama says do not torture, will you say that.

>> i have great respect for general mattis who i was a little surprised says he's not for torture, but i have spoken to others in intelligence and they are big believers in example waterboarding because they say i had does work. >> let's remind everyone these enhanc enhanc enhance enter -- enhanced terrorism techniques are illegal. >> we want to talk about the thing the very thing that you shined this light on is the very thing that the president is apparently is considering. >> i'm very disappointed by that. i believe like many americans that we had this debate a decade ago the passage of the maeamendt

in 2015 i thought put this behind us so i'm disappointed this issue has popped up again. >> the intention chief was wi-- intelligence chief was with me and what's the issue for you? >> i think that the issue is is it moral, ethical and legal. we know that it is illegal. it's frankly been illegal since 1946. we executed japanese soldiers who waterboarded american prisoners after world war ii, just because the bush white house in the early part of the last decade decided that it was legal didn't necessarily make it so and that question was settled finally in 2015 with mccain-feinstein but is it moral and ethical?

the inspector general says it is not the american psychological institute says it is not. the national council of churches says it's not. i say it's not. >> on top of apparently this report that the trump is reconsidering the black sites overseas where said brutal interrogations of these terrorism suspects were carried out in the early 2000, other reports, that the cia director and mike pompeo were blindsided by this. what really happens at these black sites? >> under the bush separation terrible things happened at these black sites the bush administration called them enhanced interrogation techniques, many of us called them torture techniques, but that's not necessarily what needs to happen. in the event that these black

sites are reopened and president trump could reopen them with the stroke of a pen cia officers would have to care them out according to the letter of the law and what is delineated in the field manual is what is perm permitt permitted. the cia is affect an extraordinary rendition and send them to third countries where they actually do torture. >> depending on what could change last question that these men and women in the field would comply. >> oh, i'm confident they will not comply, we know from the senatoru senate torture report went back to -- which is a career ending move, and some actually resigned. i think if ordered to carry out

torture program today would simply walk away or refuse to do it. >> thank you very much. more on president trump and the president of mexico called mutually calling off the meeting for this meeting over the border wall. also backlash erupts after this grammy award winning singer performs at the inauguration and spike lee now says he won't use her music. she joins me to respond. and they're absolutely right. they say that it's hot...

when really, it's scorching. and while some may say the desert is desolate... we prefer secluded. what is the desert? it's absolutely what you need right now. absolutely scottsdale.

. the sunday marks the annual screen actors guild awards. casey affleck is up for best actor, but plenty of opportunities for up sets, you can watch it live on our sister stations, tbs and tnt. >> coming up chris -- chrisette michele joins me live after the backlash she got after performing live at the inauguration.

chris chrisette michele is hitting back after the backlash she received for performing at the trump inauguration. ♪ all things are working for my good, guess what, he is intentional and he is never failing ♪ >> she lost fans, she lost followers, even a potential gig

with film maker spike lee, he spo posted on instagram, i was thinking about using her music in "she's gotta have it." chrisette michele is with me now. she just finished a track called "no political generalioius." >> thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. >> why did you perform? >> the democrats don't receiven s -- even see us there. i saw him on tv and thought he doesn't know me. >> because of what spike lee

said, what would you say? >> you were supposed to mentor me through this moment, taught us art for change, this is what this is for, i wore a -- skirt on the stage of the inaugural ball, were you not paying attention? and that's my response to that. >> that's your response? >> that's it. if we're artists supposed to be people who shake the world with our art then we have to stand an stage and be uncomfortable. i was so excited to show who we are and what we've got to show on that stage. >> we talked about jennifer holiday and other people who received such hate that they pulled out. >> barack obama received such hate and ran again, so i'm going to keep running just like he did. at the end of the day everybody is going to get hate for what they believe in. and black twitter is not the entire black america so i refuse to make 6,000 comments the voice

of black america. >> india rea gave you love. >> i love india. >> my mom an dad and brothers were super supportive but you have those petrified of politics because you can't mix religion and politicpolitics. >> first of all i sang a gospel song. >> what would you say to trump if you were to meet him. >> this is what we look like. at the end of the day he has constituents, folks in the cabinet, people not there anymore as news just told us. i want him to know what we have to say, what we think. my goal with all of this is to bring the story of the black girl who has a baby in his own

welfare with the white girl in south dakota dak withat has her story, if i have a coin a phrase "no political genius" and create a tv show myself so our voice can be heard as a whole i don't mind being in the gap. >> thank you so much. thank you so much chrisette. >> up next donald trump says the meeting with mexico's president is off after he said mexico will be reimbursing the u.s. for building the wall but did the president cancel the meeting first? back in a moment.

and they're absolutely right. they say that it's hot... when really, it's scorching. and while some may say the desert is desolate... we prefer secluded.

what is the desert? it's absolutely what you need right now. absolutely scottsdale. top of the hour you're watching cnn thank you so much for being with me i'm brooke baldw baldwin, breaking news president trump is facing his first big showdown, the border wall, the mexican leader insists their nation will not be paying for. president trump just confirmed he will not be meeting with the president of mexico who by the way minutes earlier tweeted he cancelled his meeting to t