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tv   CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin  CNN  March 13, 2017 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT

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top of the hour, you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. happening right now, a first for the trump administration. 52 days in, the president is scheduled to hold his very first meeting with his cabinet. we'll bring that to you as soon as we have it. in the meantime, just a little while ago, the white house dodged repeated questions about today's big deadline. the deadline being this, the house intelligence committee is demanding to see by today any evidence of president trump's baseless claim that he was wiretapped during the campaign
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under former president obama. now, remember, president trump tweeting the accusation a little more than a week ago, right, that was on that saturday morning. so here is what white house press secretary sean spicer said about today's deadline. >> what i'm saying is, the request that was made from the house was to the department of justice. i think that that's an appropriate question to ask them. what i'm telling you is, from a white house perspective, there is no question that there have been an abundance of reports regarding surveillance and other type of activities that occurred during the 2016 election. >> reporter: that leads us to believe that the president's only evidence are these reports. >> that leads you to believe that. i'm saying to you -- right, and i'm saying to you is that what we made clear on that sunday was that the house and senate intelligence committees have the means, the process, and the access to go in and look at the entirety of the evidence that's being presented to them and make a determination that they can report back to us. >> reporter: this is a tweet from the president. doesn't the president have an
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obligation -- >> he does. and we've made it very clear that we expect the house and the senate intelligence committees to do their job. >> all right. let's begin with jim acosta at the white house for us, our senior white house correspondent there. jim, i mean, where to begin? >> reporter: right. >> you want to begin on wiretapping and those questions? >> reporter: sure. >> what happens if there's no evidence out today from doj? >> reporter: and i'm hearing from a source on capitol hill that the house intelligence committee has not received any information from the trump administration as of yet. of course that could change by the end of the day. and the question i think in terms of what we saw during this white house press briefing today, was this a walkback that you saw occur at the podium today or was this just more walking around in circles, trying to explain what the president was tweeting about, when he said that president obama wiretapped him over at trump tower? sean spicer at one point said he doesn't really think president
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obama went and tapped his phone personally. but he goes on to say he doesn't think there's any question that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election, that is a widely reported activity that occurred back then, unquote. brooke, it is not widely reported that there was surveillance activity going on at trump tower or regarding then-candidate donald trump during the election. there were questions about contacts between the trump campaign and the russians but we weren't out there on a daily basis saying, is president trump being bugged, as he been sir veiled and so on. that wasn't talked about during the election. there was an about the bit of today. at the same time we're being spun a little bit in that briefing room, surprise, surprise. and i think the moral of the story here, the bottom line is they have not provided the evidence to back up the president's claim. >> they're referring to the justice department on this, just so i'm crystal clear. >> reporter: that's right.
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what we're expecting to see by the end of today if it in fact happens is the justice department on behalf of the trump administration will provide something to the house intelligence committee. that is what the house intelligence committee is expecting. so they can begin that part of the investigation. of course they're looking into all these other things about contacts between the russians and associates and aides for then-candidate donald trump during the campaign. but in the context of that investigation, they're expected to look into these wiretapping allegations. as of yet at this moment they have not received any information over at the house from the trump administration on this, brooke. >> okay. jim acosta, thank you, from the white house. now to a new dimension in the wiretap story, this comes from the president's senior counselor, kellyanne conway, she is now, speaking of walking back, she's walking back initial comments suggesting the president may have been subjected to even wider surveillance, perhaps through tvs or even microwaves. first, you will hear from kellyanne conway, and then you'll hear her explain what she meant when she was on this
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morning on "new day" talking to chris cuomo. >> there are many ways to surveil over here now, unfortunately. >> do you believe -- >> there was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, through their -- certainly through their television sets. any number of different ways. microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. so we know that that is just a fact of modern life. >> sure. >> it was about surveillance generally. >> he didn't ask you generally, though. that's just true in the transcript. you may have answered it generally, but you were asked specifically. >> chris, i'm not inspector gadget. i don't believe people are using the microwave to spy on the trump campaign. however, i'm not in the job of having evidence. that's what investigations are for. >> you answered to a specific question about this. it seemed to be an effective way of putting more doubt on a situation. that's what it came across as. that's why i wanted to talk to you about it. >> maybe to you and maybe to other people who don't
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necessarily want donald trump to be the president. to other people, they see it as what it was, talking about news articles and surveillance generally. >> joining me now, annie lowery, who writes about economic policy for "the atlantic," kevin sheridan, served as senior adviser for mitt romney's campaign, and a former chief of staff for ex-senator max baucus. so great to have you all on. and we'll get to numbers and cbo and that kind of thing in a minute. first, on wiretaps, kevin, to you, and i saw you shaking your head, listening to the "what am i, inspector gadget" sound bite from kellyanne conway. but what do republicans do if and when the doj has no evidence today on deadline today to present to these intel committees? >> look, both the house and the nat intel committees are looking at this, and that's where the investigation should be. they shouldn't really say anything until they get more information. and, you know -- >> what if they don't get more information? >> if the administration has information that he was actually referring to and it wasn't just
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from news reports, which we've heard, it really just was news reports, from what we've heard so far, they'll get to the bottom of it. there may be something there. there usually is a kernel of truth with what donald trump is talking about. whether or not it's a microwave spying on anyone. >> kellyanne conway, a senior adviser, speaking for the president there, and to hear what she's saying, isn't it a tad mind-boggling? it's kind of ridiculous. >> yeah, i would let the congressional committees do their investigations and if the justice department has any information, they should turn it over to them. this talk about microwaves and cameras is probably not helpful. >> on the cbo's numbers, we were supposed to this afternoon or early this evening get information about how much this republican health care plan is going to cost and how many people will lose coverage. this is what sean spicer said. >> reporter: when he says something, can we trust that it's real? >> yes. >> reporter: or should we assume
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that it's phony? how can we believe it's real when you just told us it was phony when -- >> i did not tell you that, period of time. >> reporter: on friday, the president said, you didn't, the president said the numbers were phony then but they're very real now. >> i think there's a -- >> reporter: later he'll say -- >> hold on. the difference is the president was talking then and now about job creation. the number of jobs. the issue that he brought up in the quote that you're talking about was the percentage of people who were unemployed. and there is no question that no matter how you look at this, whether he's talking about 4.7 or 4.8 or whatever the number is, that number fluctuates by how people calculate who is in the workforce. peter, let me answer the question. you're not. let me answer it. the bottom line is the percentage of people unemployed varies widely by who you're asking and the way you do the analysis of who is actually in the work force. the number of people who are working and receiving a paycheck is a number that we can look at. secondly, when you're asking about the validity of the cbo,
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again, i'll refer you to the cbo itself. the number they issued that would be insured in 2016 was 26 million people. the actual number is 10 -- excuse me, 24 million. the actual number is 10.4. that's not a question of our credibility. it's a question of theirs. >> reporter: can you say affirmatively that whenever the president says something, we can trust it to be real? >> if he's not joking, of course. every time he speaks authoritatively, that he speaks, he's speaking as president of the united states. >> reporter: and that more than 3 million americans voted illegally -- >> and he believes that. >> reporter: -- was he joking? >> what's the strategy, do you think, in discrediting the cbo before the actual numbers come out? >> what he was referencing there with the cbo number on the coverage of the aca being incorrect had a lot to do with the fact that there was that surprise supreme court ruling that said the states could choose whether to expand medicaid coverage to anybody up
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to 138% of the poverty line or not. a number of states chose not to do so, including texas, which has the highest number of uninsured folks. that's where the discrepancy has come from. the cbo has since changed its numbers. you've seen from the white house a tendency to discredit institutions and cast numbers and pick numbers that are favorable to them. >> you're nodding, i see you out of the corner of my eye. why? >> because it's critical to have the congressional budget office around. like any business that has to do planning, you need independent experts to look at what the effect of a certain proposal or an initiative will be. it's how responsible people do business. it's how responsible people in government do government. >> but he's telling the truth when he says that the estimates were off on obamacare, right? >> i mean, no, not completely, because the numbers he's citing for coverage are wrong. there are more than 20 million people that have gotten coverage through obamacare. half of them got it through
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medicaid and half of them get it through exchanges. and yes, the cbo projections weren't perfect, but they're very good. and, you know, just because -- look, we have a snowstorm coming to new york city tomorrow. it would be irresponsible for people who run airlines not to be checking with the weather forecasters and to be making plans based on how much snow we're supposed to get. we may get 18 inches of snow, we may get 20 inches of snow, and both are being predicted. what the cbo just like the weatherman does, is provide a ballpark so you can judge your future course of action based on facts that are researched. >> this is kind of a big deal. this is not about how many layers you need to put on in a snowstorm. this is about how many people, based upon how expensive this thing is, kevin, how many people will be losing coverage. it goes against the campaign promise of donald trump, saying you will not lose coverage. >> if that's the metric, it's telling an incomplete story.
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>> complete the story. >> of course it could be fewer because republicans have long said we're not going to mandate health insurance. >> right. >> what they're going to do is make access and affordability and quality the priorities. and so where you have people with insurance cards like sean spicer was saying today, they may not have any options in their county, one surer with bad plans and high deductibles and high premiums, that's hardly insurance, that's hardly anything, that's nothing to be happy about, if the cbo were to come out with those numbers. what we need to do is look at the whole picture. paul ryan is making that case. congressional republicans will have to continue making that case. it's one thing to get 218 in the house and 50 in the senate. they're two different things. they'll have to come together. i think with the president's leadership we'll get that. >> we should be able to get the cbo numbers by this evening. sean spicer made mention that mulvaney was claiming that obama somehow manipulated the jobs numbers. did you catch that?
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>> yeah, absolutely. this is something that trump himself said during the campaign. there's absolutely no evidence that the nonpartisan staffers at the bureau of labor statistics are manipulating the jobs numbers. absolutely none. it is true that they put out surveys that have some margin of error. it's true that they put out a number of different unemployment numbers that refer to different segments of the population and whether they're looking for work. but these statistical agencies, the bls, the cbo, their credibility is not in question. it's just that the white house quite astonishingly is arguing that they are. >> if anything, isn't the head of the cbo pointed appointed by price? >> that's exactly right, the head of the cbo was appointed by secretary price and paul ryan. the cbo also looks like whether or not premiums are expected to go up, in addition to coverage and cost of this plan.
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is it going to increase the deficit. those will be important things for people to judge this plan on. >> john and kevin, thank you. annie, thank you very much. a quick programming note for us, this wednesday night, speaking of health care, we have health and human services secretary tom price taking your questions on health care in a live cnn town hall. dana bash and wolf blitzer will be moderating that. that is wednesday night, 9:00 eastern here on cnn. coming up, republican congressman steve king doubling down on his controversial tweet where he said, and i quote, "we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." my next guest is taking issue with those words and says she is ready to challenge the congressman again for his seat in iowa. it's our little differences,
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the snowstorm about to bear down on the northeast has seen president trump's meeting with germany's angela merkel postponed, they'll meet on friday instead. this is a politician that the president once accused of, quote unquote, ruining germany, okay? but the diplomatic meeting that everyone is talking about as well is happening next month, the president meeting with the president of china for the very first time, not at the white house, rather farther south, he will be hosting president xi jinping at his sprawling mar-a-lago estate in florida. let's talk to fareed zakaria, host of "fareed zakaria gps." when we talk about china and how he's railed on china on trade and the south china sea, what do you expect to come out of that meeting? >> it will be very interesting,
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because round one went to xi jinping. if you remember, trump began his vice presidency during the transition, he said he was going to reach out to taiwan, he did reach out to taiwan, and he said, why should we not have relations with them, until i can resolve trade deals with china. the implications being he was going to use taiwan as leverage to force the chinese to do better on trade. xi jinping responded to that by essentially freezing all contact with the united states. he told all his ambassadors, all the foreign ministry, don't deal with them on anything, whether it's north korea, whether it's iran sanctions, whether it's u.n. peacekeeping, nothing, until we get clarity on whether donald trump will personally affirm the one china policy, which is what the chinese want to hear, that taiwan is essentially part of china. well, trump had to buckle. trump had to cave. and he called xi jinping, affirmed the one china policy. so i think xi jinping goes into
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this meeting feeling pretty good. round one clearly went to him. >> moving from that to russia, you have a documentary that's airing this evening. let me just play a clip. vladimir putin, "the most powerful man in the world." take a look. >> the country quickly fell in love with vladimir putin. the number one song in russia was called "a man like putin." >> he's just very -- he's full man, you see. >> but the biggest surprise? america also loved vladimir putin. >> i was able to get a sense of his soul.
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>> even hollywood fell for the new russian president. >> so you talked to putin's long time aide and spokesman dmitry peskov. what did he say to you about your doc? >> well, he obviously hasn't seen it. he made some comments to the press in saying, russia is always -- we assume this will be negative except we know fareed zakaria, he's been to russia many times, he knows the country, he's met vladimir putin, so we're hoping for the best or something like that. look, i think it's a fair and balanced documentary, to coin a phrase. the most -- >> actually let me interrupt you. we've got the pictures -- we'll come back to that in a second, fareed -- pictures of president trump's first cabinet meeting. let's listen in. >> proud to welcome everyone to our first official cabinet meeting.
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i want to begin by updating the public on the severe weather situation. i've been receiving the latest information on the blizzard forecast. and i think we're in very good shape. we're prepared. everybody in government is fully prepared and ready. and the entire northeast, it seems, is under a very severe winter storm warning. so let's hope it's not going to be as bad as some people are predicting. usually it isn't. chancellor merkel and i have just spoken and she's going to be postponing the trip until friday. she'll be coming on friday. and we look forward to that. that will be a very good visit. i've spoken with my homeland security adviser. we've spoken with the acting fema administrator and instructed him to make certain that the federal government is ready to provide assistance to the states that need federal help. fema and the federal government are ready to assist.
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they are literally waiting by the phones and ready to go. everyone should listen to their state or local officials who will be providing regular storm updates. take that advice very seriously. this cabinet is here to serve and protect the american people and that's what we're doing. even more so than anybody would understand. folks in this room have done an amazing job, whether it's security or anything else. i want to thank general mattis. i want to thank -- who is now secretary mattis. i want to thank general kelly who is now secretary kelly. they have done outstanding work. you see what's happening, all you have to do is just watch, big difference. unfortunately not all of our cabinet members could join us. we have four empty seats, which is a terrible thing, because the senate democrats are continuing to obstruct the confirmation of
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our nominees who are at the department of labor, the department of agriculture, the director of national intelligence, and the united states trade representative, somebody i want very badly. we're in the midst of getting going, wilbur, and they won't approve somebody that's highly qualified, everybody understands that. the main victim of this partisan obstruction is the american public. in spite all of this, we've assembled a great team and already made historic progress in delivering results. we're rolling back job-crushing regulations at a faster clip than ever before by far. and we're seeing companies like exxon, walmart, intel, ford, fiat-chrysler and so many others, announcing that they will keep and create tens of thousands of jobs in the united
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states. many, many companies are not moving now, which is normally they would have been out here a long time ago. they're not moving. they understand there will be consequences. if they move, that's fine. but there will be consequences. it's not going to be so easy. they won't fire our people and move and think they're going to ship their jobs back here and we won't be doing anything about it. the first two job reports that have come out since my inauguration, we've already added nearly half a million new jobs. right after this meeting, we'll be signing a new executive order to begin the process of reorganizing the executive branch to make it less wasteful and more productive. we're also working closely with the house and senate republicans to repeal and replace obamacare. obamacare all of a sudden, the last couple of weeks, it's getting a false rep, that maybe it's okay. it's not okay, it's a disaster, and people understand that. it's failed.
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and it's imploding. if we let it go for another rear, it will totally implode. i've told the republicans, why don't we let it go for another year and everybody will understand how bad it is. but that would be the wrong thing for the american people. the house plan will expand choice, lower costs, and insure health care access for all when negotiating with everybody. it's a big, fat, beautiful negotiation. hopefully we'll come up with something that's going to be really terrific. i want to thank paul ryan and everybody, mitch, everybody. we're all working around the clock, and i think ultimately the big beneficiary will be the american people. we'll end up with a really great health care plan. we're also going to send congress a budget request that will include one of the largest increases to defense spending in our history. and general slash secretary mattis is extremely upset about that.
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and it will be fully paid for, okay? fully paid for. and i saved a lot of money on those jets, didn't i? did i do a good job? more than $725 million. he's very happy with me. in the first full month of my administration following the issuance of my executive orders, illegal immigration on our southern border fell by an unprecedented 40%. i want to congratulate general kelly. at the same time, i have issued a presidential memorandum directing the department of state and the department of homeland security to undertake immediate steps to enhance our vetting process, so we're further enhancing our vetting process. we want people in our country who love our country and have the potential to love our country and our people. that's who we want. my administration will work every day to serve and protect our great citizens and we will not rest until the job is done. so this is our first cabinet
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meeting. i hope this is going to be a historic cabinet meeting, historic in the sense that we're going to do a fantastic job for the american people, for our country and the future of our country. thank you all very much. we'll see you later. thank you. >> we'll just take a moment and stay on these pictures as long as we can and marinate on the moment. fareed zakaria has been gracious enough to hang around. looking at all these cabinet members, touting, again, the jobs numbers, this executive order he's going to be signing, reorganizing the executive branch, talking about the big, fat, beautiful negotiation on health care, the numbers are down on the border of undocumented immigrants crossing over. it's the first time he's met with his cabinet. what did you think? >> well, at one level you notice he's not quite used to this format, he was reading a lot from a script. normally trump likes to riff, he likes to just speak what's on his mind and he clearly had been
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told, these points, these facts you want to get across. there was inevitably some vintage trump, what he calls in his own book truthful hyperbole. i was struck by the reality that you have in that room the two administrations, as it were. you've got all these really serious, sober people from mattis at defense, tillerson at state, kelly at homeland security, his economic team, gary cohn, bright, serious guys. then there is the reality tv show of donald trump who couldn't stop himself from attacking the democrats, pointing out that in his view he had done more by far than anybody had done up to this point. so i think this is going to be the drama of the administration. there is going to be serious people doing serious work and then there will be, you know, what trump seems to be doing is kind of running a never-ending
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campaign. this is very unusual, a first cabinet meeting of the president essentially back in campaign mode, talking about touting his accomplishments, how it's much better than anybody has ever done before. i think -- >> saving money on the planes, on the jets. >> exactly. you're never going to get the reality tv star to -- there you go. >> there you go. just a reminder, we'll be watching fareed's documentary tonight, "vladimir putin: the most powerful man in the world," tonight on 9:00 p.m. eastern. manu raju, you're watching the deadline clock ticking for the doj to provide house and senate intelligence committees with evidence of donald trump's
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wiretapping claims. >> reporter: that's right, we don't know if they'll provide any evidence of the claim that the president made on that early saturday morning tweet nine days ago, saying he had been wiretapped and spied on by former president barack obama. i talked to both the house intelligence committee members, sources on the committee in the last half hour, they still have not heard back from the justice department. the justice department itself is not commenting yet on whether they will in fact respond this afternoon. and of course, brooke, this comes after sean spicer said at his briefing today, had said he's not going to respond about whether they will respond, pointing to the justice department. so we don't know exactly what they will say or when they will say it. but the members are waiting for that key piece of information. we do expect on the health care issue some estimate from the congressional budget office, probably within -- it could be within the next hour, we really are expecting a lot of anticipation of that number. and republicans are bracing for
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a very bad report. it will show that their health care legislation will not go as far as current health policies in covering americans. that's one reason why you're hearing a lot of pushback from possible for the cbo to make an estimate accurately, given the complexity of the proposal. so that on the cbo side, the estimate, we expect that sometime today. department of justice response, uncertain as of yet, but that will get a the coming days and hours. >> we'll look for you in that cbo reported today, thank you, and also from the doj. coming up here on cnn, republican congressman steve king doubling down on his controversial tweet where he tweeted, "we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." my next guest takes issues with the congressman's words and she says she's ready to challenge him for his seat in congress.
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welcome back. you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. iowa republican congressman steve king is facing all kinds of backlash now after this tweet which critics are calling a racist attack on foreigners and immigrants, referencing far right dutch politician geert wilders, congressman king tweeted this over the weekend, quote, wilders understands culture and demographics are our destiny, we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies. republicans, including speaker ryan, have denounced his words. but here is congressman king on cnn this morning defending his views. >> we've aborted 60 million babies in this country since 1973. we'll have to replace that void
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with somebody else's babies. that's that push to bring in much illegal immigration into america, living in enclave, refusing to assimilate into the american culture and civilization. some embrace it, yes. but many are two and three generations living in enclave pushing back and resisting against the assimilation. >> let me bring in kim weaver, an iowa democrat who ran against steve king and lost. so kim, thank you so much for coming on. before we get to what this may main for you as far as maybe giving it a go again, your reaction when you first read the tweet. >> well, you know, i've kind of gotten used to him saying some pretty obnoxious things. as the great-granddaughter of someone else's baby that came from norway, i was pretty offended myself. and we're actually celebrating a holiday on friday, st. patrick's day, that a lot of people have brought into this culture.
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at one point irish immigrants weren't welcomed here. it was a completely ridiculous statement. and unfortunately, those of us in the fourth district and in the country are starting to get used to those things that he says. however, as disgusting as the things he says, we have to realize he also constantly supports legislation that will actually hurt the people of his district. and that's why i'm looking at another run. as an example, his attempt to appeal to no more hungry kids will affect one in four students in our district. his support to repeal the aca will reflect 11,000 families that are on the aca, in addition to people that would benefit from the medicaid expansion or traditional medicaid. >> staying on his comments, you know, it's your point, he's made other controversial comments in the past. this is a man who has gone to
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congress in 2002. he was elected, he was reelected. you know the good people of iowa and there are a lot of people who keep saying yes to him at the ballot box and clearly agree or don't find a problem with some of what he's saying. because they keep electing him. >> right. what we're finding is a lot of people, believe it or not, are not as plugged into certain news media outlets and the really don't hear what he's saying. a lot of the older demographic are not on twitter, they're basically on fox news, they read their local newspapers, where there just isn't information about what he's doing. it's like, congressman king is having a town hall. but they don't talk about the things he's saying. now there's a lot of people rising up, as an example, i've got $54,000 in donations in just the last two days. and over 5,000 new twitter followers. so there's a lot of people who are starting to wake up about
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what he's saying. and they're saying no. we are not this way. this is not iowa. this is not our country. these are not our values. >> so you're going to give it a go again and try it one more time? >> if i can get the support. i've said i need to raise $100,000 by september 1st. i never volunteers in every county. so you can follow me me, @kimweaveria on twitter. it's all low dollar donors, i'm not getting the big bucks. i'm getting real people who care about real issues. >> all right, kim weaver, good luck. we shall see, we'll follow it. he's been around a while, but good luck. thank you so much. >> i'm ready to go. thank you. >> thank you. coming up on cnn, all kinds of new questions out of ferguson, missouri surrounding the deadly police shooting of michael brown. this filmmaker is now defending
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previously unreleased video that he argues is proof of what really happened hours before that deadly encounter. moments ago, the prosecutor slammed him. your insurance company
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you'll see what a fair price is, and you can connect with a truecar certified dealer. now you're even smarter. this is truecar. st. louis county's top prosecutor are slamming the new documentary that raises questions about the 2014 police shooting death of michael brown, calling it multiple times "pathetic." a filmmaker revealed this new video at the south by southwest festival in his documentary, "stranger fruit." it appears to show brown inside the ferguson market and liquor store, the same store he was accused of robbing a couple of hours later. the filmmaker claims the video shows michael brown giving a
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small bag of marijuana to store employees then receiving cigarillos in return for surmise negotiated deal. he says it was filmed sometime after 1:00 a.m., several hours before brown apparently returned to the convenience store, and later that day, around 11:52 a.m., police responded to a call of a robbery at a convenience store. moments later, officer darren wilson encounters michael brown, an altercation occurs, and brown is shot and killed. let me first play you the short clip of some of the commentary from this documentary. >> i couldn't believe what i had read. michael was in the store the night before he died. at st. louis county, saw the videotape, and they didn't tell us. >> there was some type of exchange for one thing for another, that these people know each other well enough that this is the relationship that they have. >> in response to this video and this documentary, the attorney for the store says the video is
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manipulated and does not tell the whole story. here is his statement, quote, i can now confirm that the uncut video shows the clerks throwing bag back to mike brown, the filmmaker edited it out. as i mentioned, we heard just a little bit ago from the top cop in st. louis county about the video. here he was. >> over the weekend there was a pretty pathetic attempt at a video production regarding the fatal shooting of michael brown in ferguson. that was released at a fair somewhere in texas, i believe. contained in that was a very poorly edited snippet of a security video taken from the store in ferguson. it was clearly an attempt to distort this and to turn it into something it isn't, to get back to another big lie. let's talk about all this
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with areva martin. civil rights attorney and legal analyst. nice to see you. i talked to this filmmaker and we'll play some of that in a second. first your reaction to the prosecutor's comments about the quote-unquote pathetic film. should we dismiss the new video altogether? >> i think we have to deal with what appears to be really different stories. i watched the filmmaker yesterday on cnn when he was first interviewed about his new documentary. i also watched your interview. and we have two completely different stories. we have the filmmaker saying this video was available at all points but yet it was buried by the st. louis police department. we have the prosecutor saying, no, this video was provided to the family and to investigators. it was provided to the federal investigators, so it's nothing new here. we also have the lawyer for the store saying the video has been distorted, it's been edited in a way to tell a story consistent with the documentary.
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so we have these really conflicting stories about this whole videotape. i think the most important point for me, brooke, when i look at this is the narrative i think that the filmmaker is trying to suggest. what he is really trying to say it, you all were told, you all being the public, that michael brown robbed this convenience store. i want you to know that's not true. i want you to know michael brown did not strong-arm rob the store for cigars. he was painted in a negative light when in fact what happened was a negotiation for cigars in exchange for marijuana. according to this film maker this is common practice in this neighborhood at this store. >> let me play a little bit of my interview. jason pollock sitting alongside michael brown sr. >> you guys issued several sunshine requests to the ferguson police. you were given not what you asked for. you were given half a video. you asked for the videos, and
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you were not given them. i don't know if that's a law break right there, but this seems like suppression of evidence. this seems like legitimate new evidence. i don't know if the grand jury saw this video. we definitely didn't see it. the world didn't see it, which shows that they were trying to trick us. >> i mean, that interview went on for 11 minutes. he levelled serious allegations against the police department, as you outlined. it's like two totally different stories. what's the truth is what i am asking. i am looking at this father sitting there, watching pictures of his son two and a half years later on loop in the news. dos th does this affect his civil case, areva? >> even though the filmmaker wouldn't let michael brown sr. comment too much on the civil case, clearly there will be discussion, conversation, probably discovery about this videotape as it relates to the civil. we don't know if the videotape has been provided to the family, to the family's attorneys.
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again, that's what is in dispute. i think we have to look at the videotape from the issue of trust. what this videotape says to me and the narrative that's being projected by the filmmaker is that we can't trust the police department. there was a video out there, and when they showed us the tape about michael brown robbing the store, they didn't show us this earlier videotape. so i think a lot of this could be cleared up if we could get a statement from the prosecution that really, you know, tells us, was the video available and was it, you know, provided to the family and to the public. >> yep. we don't know. i was trying to ask when it was provided to the family. i don't know the answer to that. it sounded like to me from the prosecutor that it was available all along. there needs to be more clarity. areva martin, thank you very much. coming up next, snow. a snowstorm closing in and forcing president trump to delay his meeting with the german chancellor tomorrow. all of this as millions of people in the northeast prepare
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for millions of baby boomers there's a virus out there. a virus that's serious, like hiv, but it hasn't been talked about much. a virus that's been almost forgotten. it's hepatitis c. one in 30 boomers has hep c, yet most don't even know it. that's because hep c can hide in your body silently for years, even decades, without symptoms
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this week washington, d.c., was supposed to start celebrating its annual cherry blossom festival. might be with a douse of snow. washington and much of the northeast are about to get clobbered with a major winter storm. tom, i can take it. >> can you? okay. >> let's hope the cherry blossom trees survive. heavy amounts of snow, it will snap those branches. we have worse concerns. everybody just wants to know
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what's going to fall in my back yard or my street. let's break this european model down. begins tonight after midnight in washington, d.c. warmer air is moving in. that keeps it a couple inches of slosh to the south. a foot in baltimore. philadelphia, how about 19.5. new york city. 19.5. everything in pink is a foot, brooke. the darker areas are more than 2 feet. you go up toward boston. 19.2. we have a lot of problems here. we have already had about, i would say, 1500 flights canceled. this will go down in the record books. greatest snowfall one day for march new york city 16.5, 1888. that will go down most likely in the books. 2 inches in chicago, the first show they have had since the 17th of december. all in pink, winter storm watches. something you don't see very often. 25 million in blizzard warnings, that now has been extended into
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the hudson area. that means trees will come down. could have thousands without power. have enough food for three days because the storm hasn't even developed yet. it develops tonight, moves up as a classic nor'easter. coastal storm flooding. a lot of problems. will lose power and have about 5,000 cancelations, brooke. >> snow boot day tomorrow to say the least. tom sater. i'm brooke baldwin. "the lead" starts right now. kellyanne conway says she is not inspector gadget. this news cast will self-destruct in 60 minutes. "the lead" starts now. deadline day for the white house to provide proof that president trump did not make up that claim that president obama tapped his phone. could a microwave oven end up on the capitol steps before the day is done? health care reality check. what's the cost for you? what's the cost politically? republicans bracing for the budget estimate on their plan to replace obamacare. plus,