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this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. 11:00 p.m. on the east coast. we're live with new developments tonight. president trump's hand picked fbi director throwing cold water on the timeline put out by the white house in the rob porter scandal. director christopher wray says the fbi repeatedly briefed the white house on its investigation, starting months earlier than the white house admitted. now the administration is changing the story and trying to shift blame to the little known personnel security office. which one official tells cnn doesn't actually have any power to make decisions. all this turmoil coming at a time when russia is gleefully doubling down on election meddling and targeting the midterms.

and the president of the united states, well, sources tell cnn he is still not convinced that russia meddled. he has not specifically directed the intelligence committee to fight back for our democracy. why would that be? that comes as we have breaking news. president trump's long-term personal lawyer michael cohen says he paid porn star stormy daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket. cohen says he was never reimbursed and says the trump campaign was never involved. stormy daniels once claimed she had an affair with donald trump. i want to bring in cnn white house reporter, caitlan collins, political commenter jack kingston and senior adviser to the trump campaign. and bakari sellers. ka

kate -- kaitlan, i'm going to start with you. what is the reporting tonight coming out of the white house about the chief of staff kelly. >> well there are a lot of questions about whether or not john kelly will last in this white house much longer. because obviously you have seen the reporting the last few days. the white house completely botched in re response to the fallout from the rob porter scandal, who is accused of beating two of his ex-wives we have seen the white house double do you want on the way the white house has handled this. telling "the wall street journal" journal he wouldn't change the way he respond. we saw the shifting narrative blown up by the fbi director christopher wray whenever he said the fbi completed the background check into porter months ago. so it certainly goes against what the white house has said, and we are seeing john kelly take a lot of heat, so there are indications, there are rumors the president has been quizzing people what they think about replacements for the chief of staff, so that's certainly something for people to keep their eye on, but there is no indication that john kelly will be out of the white house in the next 24 hours or so. >> jack kingston, do you think

chief of staff kelly should stay on? >> i think that he should try to stay on, but i think he has to show to the president where the breakdown was and he's got to come clean as to who knew what, particularly why he did not know at all, because it's not so much that, okay, i didn't know, he should have known. he needs to have a good explanation to the president and to the people of america that this is where it broke down. if you look at my whole record, i've been pretty solid, not just in the white house but in the military, and admit that this was botched. admit that this was a mistake so that he can move on, but i don't think he can get to there unless you say, listen, i'm sorry and it's on me. >> bakari, explain why you say john kelly has taken on the personality of the white house. >> well, i mean, i think if you just look at today, the question is, are we going to talk about russia? are we going to talk about the wife beater or are we going to

talk about the porn star? those three headlines are what emanates from the white house today. and the fact is i even give or gave general kelly the benefit of the doubt, saying he would bring some stability, he would bring some calm to the chaos, but instead of being the person who we thought he was, he instead has taken on the personality of his boss. what we've seen, we've all dl t throughout the campaign trail, we knew reince priebus, we knew sarah huckabee sanders, we knew kellyanne conway. those are three people we've known from doing tv with, having drinks with, known from being in the grime room. would be able to go to a job, have a calming personality and do it with some essence of common sense. that hasn't been the case. it seems whenever people touch the orb of donald trump, they become him. their character flaws are heightened. people have some allergy to the truth and are inalienable to tell the truth, and it's very disappointing for someone like john kelly, who no one can -- no

one can impugn his military record, but he damn sure is a bad chief of staff. >> you mentioned the porn star, so let's talk about that, kaitlan, because, you know, this admission from president trump's personal lawyer, michael cohen, that he paid a porn storm stormy daniels $130,000, he sid of his own money, that was shortly before the election. he's also saying that the president didn't know about it, the campaign didn't know about it, he did it on his own accord. >> yeah, that's quite interesting, don. that's not usual for an attorney like that to pay someone out of their own pocket without the promise of being repaid for something like that. especially an attorney, especially someone like michael cohen. he's claiming he paid this especially without the president's knowledge. that is what i think raises the most ow brows. during the heat of the election when his potential presidency is on the line saying he paid for

this out of his own pocket without telling the president, which is something that would be very unusual to believe. if you knew how that campaign worked, it was say very small nucleus, very small orbit around the president. they all knew what was going on. a very small orbit of people who had known the president for some time. it is quite surprising to learn that tonight, don. >> bakari, some people might not know, you're an attorney. do attorneys usually by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their own pocket without telling them about it? >> two things that people need to be paying attention to, the first is the new york bar association is going to have something to say about this, and i anticipate a complaint being filed against michael cohen first thing in the morning because as an attorney, you can't pay the bonds, you can't pay the fines, you can't pay the settlements out of your own pocket of our clients. that's improper. i do anticipate that happening. second, there is a question about laundering.

where did that money come from? why was that money paid? how was was it paid? when was it paid? there are questions he's going to have to answer. what he did was he went from being a solid attorney into the realm of criminality. not only does he has ethics issue which i anticipate are going to start as early as tomorrow morning with the new york bar association, but he's also going to have these serious criminal issues to deal with because people are going to want to know, what it looks like from the outside without knowing all the details, is this a horrible job of money laundering that he was attempting to do? >> you think he is alleging a crime of money laundering? by the way, he was not part of the campaign. barring that, you're saying that doesn't matter, as an attorney, he can't do what he has admitted to doing, you're saying? >> as an attorney ethically he can't admit to doing what he said he was doing with a client and paying a client's fines or settlements out of his own pocket and not being reimbursed.

that is one issue. there is a separate issue. people are going to want to know where he got the $130,000 to pay from. was it campaign dollars? was is a donation? was it any of those things. those are going to have to be answered. he left more unanswered questions. let me just point this out. >> let me get in here, bakari. >> let me point something out that people need to know for context. i think a lot of reporters missed this. this was not in furtherance of the campaign, this was actually a very personal payment. many people believe this was done to keep this coming out from his wife melania not to make sure he won president of the united states. even at this time, donald trump doesn't believe he was winning the presidency. >> go ahead, jack. >> let me say this. bakari's a lawyer and i'm not, but i do know michael cohen and i'm not sure if bakari does. >> i do. >> i know him to be a very smart guy and a very hardworking guy

and extremely close to the entire trump family. so i guess, number one, if he -- say -- if he's saying he paid it personally, he did pay it personally. he is a guy that has the means to pay something like that personally. number two, it was not a fine, it was not a judgement, not a legal matter to my knowledge. i don't want to say i know exactly where it was, it could have turned into maybe a legal matter. i don't think it was at that level, though, so i don't think he would be saying -- >> you think he just did it out of the goodness of his own heart, jack? >> i think he did it because of a long-term relationship with the family and part of his relationship with the family is somewhat to protect them from things. i just want to say this because, again, not a lawyer, don't know all the nuances, don't know all the laws of new york city, particularly new york, but michael cohen is a very smart guy, very dedicated lawyer and he would not come out with a statement like this -- >> i'm sure he would check into

whether there were ethics issues. maybe it's something he overlooked. wouldn't he know new york law, bakari. are you sure it's an ethics issue? >> michael cohen is a bulldog attorney. he's someone you want on your team. i know michael and can say that very truthfully. the fact is, though, if you were being sued, don, you're a friend of mine, i go out and receive a confidentiality statement from the person suing you or threatening to sue you and i pay that person out of my pocket, i'm giving you as a client something very tangible, i'm paying you. you can't do that. that is crossing an ethical line. the question of the connection to the campaign or the family or any of these other things, they raise questions of laundering. i'm not accusing him of that, but he has now put himself into the eye of criminality and he's going to have to answer those questions. i have no doubt it's unethical. everything they do is unethical. >> does the proximity to the election date, kaitlan, make a

difference in this case, do you think? >> that's a question a lot of people raised when this came up originally, that this payment had been made, this affair allegedly happened. don, it goes to show you what kind of white house we're operating under. this is not a scandal that went on for weeks. this is a 48-hour scandal in this white house. it goes to show you how many scandals this white house faces on a daily basis, this one with rob porter being the longest lasting, but the stormy daniels is something that the white house tried to brush under the rug. they couldn't answer these questions, really. they referred a lot of them back to the campaign. if that goes to show you anything, that this white house is drinking out of a firehouse. >> i have to go, i'm sorry. thank you very much, everyone. when we come back, in a major hearing today, the head of the fbi contradicts the white house on rob porter and the president's own security chiefs have a regulation on trump and russia. we're going to talk to the former head of the cia. that's next. my name is jeff sheldon,

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the fbi director testifying wrifr wray testing in front of the senate intelligence committee that 9 water owe handed over its final background investigation into rob porter in january. so why did the white house allow porter to continue serving until the accusations publicly surfaced? joining me in ambassador james woolsey, the former director of the cia. so good to have you on, sir. good evening to you. the fbi director testified that the bureau submitted information to the white house some four times regarding rob porter, starting in march of last year. is that an unusual number of times for the bureau to approach the white house? >> i don't know. i never had anything to do with granting of security clearances. i sometimes had to apply for one. but the mechanism and delays and so forth is something i didn't have to deal with.

>> it didn't take you a year or longer to get a security clearance? >> well my first security clearance came when i was a lieutenant in the army. that was a fairly straightforward process as i recall. >> so his -- the security clearance -- porter's security clearance brought to light the wider issue of dozens of other high level staffers, including jared kushner, who are currently working without interim security status. it's now over a year into the administration. how does that -- you said you're not sure about how that works. how does that sit with you that long someone doesn't have a permanent security clearance possibly seeing classified information and operating at the level that jared kushner is operating? >> well, the fbi used to conduct all the background investigations. but they've got a lot to do these days, to put it mildly. and contractors have gotten into doing the background investigations. and that sometimes has produced

confusion and delay. and it's one of those aspects of government, at least in my experience, that doesn't work very well. >> what contractors? because the fbi is saying they did the backgrounds. >> well probably they did. i have no knowledge of this particular case as all. but as a general proposition, contractors are frequently hired to do background investigations. >> the fbi is saying in march of went a partial report was submitted to the white house, in july of went, a final report schmitted to the white house. november of 2017 more information submitted to the white house based on follow up requests. and january of 2018, the fbi closed the file on the background investigation there. so the fbi is saying -- if you listen to christopher wray, they didn't say anything about outsourcing information. they gave us a timeline.

>> i -- i'm not saying they did in this case. i was describing in general the way the clearance process is sometimes slow. and i think that's having to get contractors in is sometimes indicative of how the process can get slowed down. >> i take your point, but some 60 to 70 people in this white house still don't have permanent security cleans, which is higher -- 30 to 40 i should say. it is 30 to 40. >> i don't know. >> higher than previous administrations. it's 30 to 40. >> i don't know where they stand what the process is. normally security clearances secret level clearances you can get with what's called an agency check, checking to see if you were ever arrested or had a criminal record and basics like that. takes a very short period of time. but you can only see classified information up to the level of secret. beyond that, for top secret and the rest you need a full background investigation. and that takes a great deal of time. >> james clapper was on earlier.

>> a friend of mine was recently going -- >> james clapper mentioned the same thing and explained that to us. i want to move on. i want to you weigh in because you would have knowledge of this. >> right. >> another big topic today is russia. all the intelligence chiefs at the congressional hearing were united in that russia has and keeps trying to disrupt elections. i want you to listen to this and get your reaction. watch this. >> we expect russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false flag personas and other means to influence and build on the wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the united states. there should be no doubt that russia perceived the past efforts were successful and views the 2018 u.s. midterm elections as a potential target for russian influence operations. >> so ambassador, how does the

intelligence community counter this threat when the president refuses to acknowledge the threat? >> well, whether the president gets personally involved or not, this requires a substantial amount of effort. the russians are never not interfering with their neighbors' elections and cultures and religions. they attack the catholic church. they are anti-semitic, all of these things are planned as part of what the russians call disinformation. and the spokesman, whoever that was, had a good take on it. that's the way they operate. and so i think it's really something that we have to spend a lot more time and effort on countering. and also, we don't just counter -- or shouldn't just be countering that kind of activity from the russians or any other country.

we need to find an effective way to retaliate without having to require bullets and so forth. we need to strategically, economically and otherwise find ways to undermine what they're doing and that's -- >> well, that's a good point. because today they made it clear the president hasn't directly told them to investigator try to figure out how to retaliate or counter russian interference, just an overall threat. >> well, one thing one could do is radically increase the level of and the effectiveness of the sanctions, which are relatively minor the way they're done now. one could give special credit to automobile producers to be able to -- for cars to be able to run on more than one fuel. and if they can run on two, then

you have a lot of increase in competition. >> i understand what you're saying. >> and that means oil gets lower in price and that's one of the things the russians would hate the most. >> what they testified to today was that the president has not directed them to do any of this. >> well, previous presidents i don't think have either. and this would be a learning experience for a lot of people i think in the administration, people perhaps who aren't familiar with some aspects of intelligence. and it would be a very good thing to get started on but it would be for much of the u.s. government and the intelligence community dealing with this information will be a relatively new undertaking. >> ambassador, thank you for your time. when we come back more on the warnings from the intelligence chiefs that russia is still attempting to interfere in the elections. the intel experts will break down the threat and the president's inaction, next.

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a stark warning from top intelligence and national security officials, russia is actively targeting our 2018 midterm elections. i want to talk about this with

cnn national security analyst, a former cia analyst and cnn global affairs analyst kimberly dozer. good evening to both of you. kim let's start with you. we have been hearing from the chiefs of all six intel agencies and they're unanimous. there should be no doubt that russia will continue the efforts to disrupt the u.s. elections. it's been a year since this assessment is first made. yet lawmakers still have to ask the question, why? >> well, i think everyone knows why russia is doing it. i also think it's instructive for the american public to hear that all of the intelligence chiefs back this assessment. but it is disturbing for their people carrying out the intelligence collection not to hear it from the commander in chief.

one, on the positive side, the people in the trenches get to do their jobs without too much interference from the president. but on the negative side, when you have a cia officer out in the field trying to get someone to, say, spy on the russian government for them, they'll say, well, your president doesn't seem to have my back on this. think of this the way the president thinks of the pentagon. he sort of leaves to mattis, leaves them be. but -- and he does the same with the cia and the other intelligence agencies. but that also means he hasn't declared that this is a crisis like isis and gathered together all the elements of u.s. national power to go after it. >> nada, virginia senator mark warner, the senate intelligence committee top democrat, warned the u.s. was not prepared to the handle to the russian threat to u.s. elections heading into mid-terms. watch this.

>> we had more than a year to get the act together and address the threat posed by russia and implement a strategy to deter further attacks. but i believe, unfortunately, we still don't have a comprehensive plan. >> is this true? is america more vulnerable than ever? >> you know, i think part of what he is talking about is what kim just said, where the whole government approach is missing. if we are looking at parts of the intelligence committee to go about identifying some of the issues that russia is actually implementing, some of the cyber threats, it has to be a whole of government approach. so i think part of what he is saying there is that this piece is missing. we need leadership from the white house to say, please go forward, protect our elections, work with state electoral officials. try to figure out how we can protect then not only the election itself, but dissuade

russia from actually trying to influence the public vote and the public opinion. >> is this threat not being taken seriously by the administration, kim? >> well, what i think is happening is the people beneath the oval office take it seriously. at the nsc, at the pentagon, cyber command, nsa, they're all seeing the threat every day, but the problem is one of the things that russia is able to do because you do see some clear blue water between the president's position and that of his national security team, is they're able to work that seam. they can keep trying to divide social media through bots, the ranks of support supporters who see anything related to the russia investigation or accusations of russian interference as a way to tar the trump administration and call it illegitimate. and that means russia can then keep targeting between those

factions and the people who believe that russian hacking is real. >> you said you believe the people below the oval office are calling it seriously. but the president is calling it a hoax. how did the intel community do it's job with confidence when the protective placement doesn't -- the president doesn't acknowledge this threat? >> well, exactly. you talk to -- it's as if you are dealing with two white houses. and you do kind of get that impression, that you talk to the national security people in the field, who are dealing with this many day in and day out, and they're frankly annoyed and sometimes completely flabbergasted with some of the things that come out of trump's tweets or some of the things that they hear after he has a meeting with a high-ranking official. but, look, you've got a president who was never deeply interested in foreign policy or foreign affairs, and has sort of let that side of operations go

on autopilot. sometimes that's good but sometimes that means you don't have the presidential sale to stop meddling. >> there was a requirement for president to impose new sanctions but so far the president avoided putting the sanctions into place. at this point, with -- with so many mixed messages coming from this administration, would sanctions actually work to deter the russians in any way? >> i think it's worth trying. i mean, at this point, even if we're talking about mixed messages between what the intelligence community leaders are saying on the hill and what is coming out of trump's tweets, we have to implement majors of deterrence. if we don't do that, russia's not going to take this seriously at all. like kim said, if there are two white houses making decisions here, we need to make it very clear that there is at least one, and that's also one that is actually interested in taking action against russia and using

the intelligence community and using our resources to implement these sanctions. otherwise i think what it's basically doing is saying, look, our backyard is open. go ahead, come right in. we're okay with it. the majority of america, i don't think, is okay with russia being involved. >> yeah. thank you both. i appreciate your time. when we come back, a fellow former marine calling on jen kelly to resign. he's going to join me next. i'm going to ask him to explain why he says kelly has betrayed the country's trust.

so in the wake of the rob porter scandal, press secretary sara sanders insisting that president trump has confidence in chief of staff john kelly. but others no longer do. an op-ed posted on cnn.com under the headline, "retired marine john kelly should resign." calls on kelly to step aside. written by national security analyst shawn turner himself who is a retired marine with 21 years of service and he joins me now. thank you for joining me, sir.

i really appreciate it. i want to read some of the piece, okay. >> okay. >> you say by all accounts kelly had some early success. however, he continues to find himself at the center of a steady stream of conservatives largely of his own doing. the situation has left many americans dismayed and disappointed with his performance, but perhaps none more so than those who know kelly best, his fellow marines. you serve in the marine corps two decades. tell us about marines why are they disappointed with kelly. >> well, i think, first of all, don, i should say i have an immense amount of respect for general kelly's military service. he served more than 40 years in the marine corps and earned a reputation as a strong leader. that's in no small part why he is where he is today. but for a long time marines have been watching him in this position. and as we watch him we have had to tie ourselves in knots trying to understand some of the decisions he made and some of the behavior he exhibited. as i say in the piece, you know, marines are a peculiar bunch.

we learn the set of values when we become marines and carry the values with us throughout our entire lives. it doesn't matter if john kelly is the head of dhs or the chief of staff, there is an expectation among his fellow marines that he is going to uphold those values. from the attack on the florida congresswoman that turned out to be erroneous. to the unsavory comments he made about daca recipients, to his most recent incident where there is a truth that general kelly knows that he has not shared with us. it's gotten to a point where i think it's in the best interests of not only the country but of john kelly and the marine corps for him to go ahead and step aside. >> what do you think happened here? is there something about working in this white house that you think changed him? >> you know, i've heard a lot of people who say that he has changed. i talked to a lot of people who worked with him. it's interesting because you

hear the same thing about mike flynn. you know, when general kelly was announced as the new chief of staff there was an expectation that as opposed to seeking to meet the bar that our politic willing discourse our political environment had sunk to, that he would raise that bar to the standards that marines are accustomed to holding to. he got in the environment and to the best i can tell as opposed to him influencing the environment, the environment influenced him. i think it's important, don, to say, look -- we don't always get it right. as marines we obviously don't always get it right. we make mistakes. we screw up. i think the difference here what's really bothering us is the fact that he clearly has screwed up and done things that are not in keeping with our values. but when we do that, what sets us apart is that we always know the right thing to do is to step forward and to speak up and say i screwed up. and that's the first step to, you know, getting on the road to redeeming yourself. and so far what he has done

instead is every time he made -- had one of the missteps he doubled down on it. that behavior is the kind of thing that just isn't consistent with our values. >> that is exactly what donald trump does as well. and you know, you mentioned, you said he never really takes responsibility for his own mistakes or even says i'm sorry, or i got that wrong, my apologies. you mentioned the time that california attacked congresswoman frederica wilson, trying to discredit her, saying she took money for the federal building. that was a lie. even after the video revealed the truth he refused to apologize. what was his motivation for that? >> i understand he had a history with her from one of his previous assigns where he was the head of southcom. but in terms of motivation, i think that he had some existing animus towards her, and when he made the decision, the really

unusual rare decision to come to the white house press briefing room and to basically try to discredit her, i think that what he was doing, and i mentioned in this in the article, is that he was leveraging that credibility that the american people bestow on him because he's a marine general. it's just -- it's unconscionable that he and his team wouldn't have taken time to look and see if his recollection of that event was accurate. so, you know, i think that, you know, he is a four-star marine general. and for him that means that people should believe him. that's something the american people give to military officers. but i think we have to be very careful about how we use that capital. >> i think anyone who has done rich research does not believe him because it's right there. the video speaks for itself. shawn turner, i appreciate it thank you so much. >> thanks don. when we come back, the president donating his fourth quarter salary to the department of trmgsz, but with all the

money his budget is taking away from americans, is his donation just a drop in the bucket? you won't see these folks at the post office they have businesses to run they have passions to pursue how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters ship packages all the amazing services of the post office right on your computer get a 4 week trial plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again

the president's budget plan calls for billions of dollars in new funds for the military, also

for the nation's deteriorating infrastructure. but big cuts to entitlement programs. let's discuss now. cnn political comment taters tara setmayer and symone sander here with me. also with me, a republican political consultant. hello all. >> good evening. >> hello. >> happy mardi gras and black history month. >> happy valentine's day. >> the president is promoting the infrastructure plan. and donating his fourth quarter salary to the department of transportation. is this a deflection from all the chaos? tara, you first. >> well, it's infrastructure week. we didn't say happy infrastructure week again. didn't they try this already once before? i forgot what blew up that weeks. infrastructure is out the window. look, the -- we all know that trump likes to do things with some pomp and circumstance, so i couldn't help but think today when they were presenting the

check and you had elaine chow show up during the press conference whenever sarah sanders doesn't want to take the heat and she knows it's coming. the check there and it reminded me of a game show. i don't know. it's just all very -- in a way. it's great he's donating his salary. that couple of hundred thousand dollars isn't going to make a damn bit of difference in the trillions they're spending on infrastructure. >> are you saying money doesn't buy you class? >> no, it doesn't. especially with this white house. but what is interesting is that the budget and the budget process, people have to understand, that's just a document. congress writes that legislation. the chance of that budget actually passing in its current form is absolutely zero. so it's just their proposals, but the fact that they're cutting medicare and medicaid is interesting, since the president promised he wouldn't do it. >> two amens.

go ahead. >> i mean, yeah, i think tara's right. what's so funny when you think about this, don, this is the only thing donald trump has been consistent with, giving his salary away. when you think about all the different things he talked about when he ran for president, i'm going to do this, i'm going to do that, most of the things he's fallen short of. as far as giving away his salary. it would take far more than $400,000 to change the topic on this. >> he's still giving away other people's money. it's taxpayers' money. >> that's true. >> are we sure that he gives it away? who is he giving it to? we don't because, well, because -- >> we don't see his tax returns. >> we don't have the receipts. >> yeah. we don't have the receipts. >> look, i think the interesting thing about, you know, yes, i think it's a good thing that the president is being consistent on at least something. so i know folks think i don't have anything nice to say about

donald trump. there you go. when it comes to the president's budget, yes, tara's right, it's congress that really decides the budget. our colleague van jones last night said this statement is a budget of values from the president. this budget balloons the deficit by like $7 trillion. what does it say when it was republicans who railed against obama for, you know, ballooning the deficit, who republicans were supposed to be the party of fiscal, you know, conservatives and, you know, you have your republican president introducing this budget that is everything but that. >> what would have happened if barack obama had introduced this budget? proposed this budget. >> don, if president obama introduced this budget, republicans would have gone berserk. >> morning our kids' futures. >> rand paul made a lot of good points when he was upholding the senate last week. talking about all of these different inconsistencies from republicans with statements that

we made years ago during the obama administration, we have forgotten about. we are no longer the party of fiscal conservatismship. >> michael, rand paul also voted for this republican budget. this republican tax plan. >> symone, i agree, it is a bit hypocritical of rand paul, but at least he made a point of saying, look, guys, it's either we're going to be the party of fiscal responsibility or we're going to be the party of waste. you can't have it both ways. right now, i think we're the party of waste. we're doing what we blamed democrats for doing eight years during the obama administration. >> that's for sure. that started under george w. bush under medicare part b when that was passed. that's where you saw the beginning of the fiscal conservative republicans really saying, what are we doing here? it was a consistent problem. then what happened under obama, where our deficit and debts were exploding, you know, the tea party was born. now, if anybody has any question whether the tea party is officially dead, it's dead now. if you have republicans that are

supportive of this kind of spending at these levels and talking about infrastructure projects, which often times become boondoggles, you can't kill the tea party off any more than this. it's going to be very interesting to see how the freedom caucus and some of the more budget hawks, are they really going to go along with this? if so, i mean, what does the republican party stand for anymore. >> absolutely not, tara. this is a midterm election cycle. i think there is no chance that republicans are going to go back to their congressional districts or states where the senators are going to have to face governors and legislators and tell them why they're supporting this outrageous budget. i don't expect to to go anywhere. >> hold on, symone, the president wants to scale back food stamps, replace them with a food box delivery program called america's harvest. in fiscal year 2019, president trump will propose cutting entitlement programs, $1.7 trillion including medicare and medicaid. a whopping $18 billion to

construct a southern border wall. people, please do your homework as it comes attoto a wall. border security and a wall are not the same thing. you can have border security without spending $18 billion for a wall and it's much more efficient, actually, more border agents, than building a wall people are going to climb over or dig under. symone, go. >> exactly, don. so what i think folks -- americans watching tonight should understand is that this budget that the trump administration, the trump white house has put forward, is just a continuation of what i -- this gop tax scam. this is literally a budget that robs, i said it last night and i'll say it again. >> ten seconds. >> jose and maria to pay, you know these tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. at the end of the day, the -- >> i got to go. >> the gop purported they're the party of everyday people. they're fighting for middle class folks, the little guy, and they're not. this budget is a statement of their values, and i hope people

are paying attention. >> all right. facts. i don't want people to think that i'm ending early and walking off the show. it's time to go. i've never ended early and never walked off a show. come on, now. put symone back up. say it with me, facts. >> come on now. i'm with you. happy black history month. >> happy valentine's day, everyone. hope you have a sweetheart. to you at home as well. good night. see you tomorrow.

day eight of the rob porter disaster, and the white house still can't get its timeline straight. white house chief of staff john kelly under increasing scrutiny as sources tell cnn he tried to cover up for porter. >> frankly, the united states is under attack. >> a stern warning from top u.s. intelligence officials. russia is already meddling in the midterm election. what they said about president trump's willingness