ooh, that's hot. ♪ you know, we could sell these. nah. ♪ we don't bake. ♪ opportunity. what we deliver by delivering. good evening. we are one house subpoena defied and two more issued since the last time we met. with that, a single question with as many legal, political and psychological dimensions to it as there are no bad metaphors to describe it. namely, how fast and how far will democrats push the impeachment process? now that calendar days are also campaign days, every new development affects and complicates how each player approaches that question. just as an example, there's what happened today. former white house counsel don

mcgahn defied a subpoena refusing to appear before the house judiciary committee. committee chairman and democratic jerry nadler subpoenaed the chief of staff as well as hope hicks. chairman nadler saying they were critical witnesses to what he calls president trump's obstruction of justice which he says is continuing. what the chairman did not do was amp up talk about impeachment. other democrats, junior and senior, are speaking out as our manu raju found out. >> it's time to move forward with impeachment inquiry? >> i do. we need to uphold the rule of law. >> reporter: he also spoke with adam schiff about whether his views on impeachment on being influenced by the administration's open refusal to cooperate, even if it means defying a lawful order of congress. >> i think the administration is certainly pushing the congress in that direction by obstructing

everything. >> reporter: are you changing your tune on that? >> i think the case gets stronger the more they stonewall the congress. >> house speaker pelosi believes otherwise and is ap posed to moving forward on impeachment, she also says her fellow democrats are with her on this. >> -- impeach the president from your caucus? >> no. >> that may be more a reflection of her political judgment than her assessment of the facts. whatever your view of the democrats of president trump or the prospects of impeaching another president, there are facts to contend with. the kind that have tripped up other presidents or ended up in articles of impeachment before driving one president out of office. president trump is facing a bigger body of damaging facts than most, no matter how much he downplays it which he does all the time. >> well, you can't impeach somebody that's doing a great job. that's the way i view it. we even talked about that today. i said why don't you use this for impeachment?

nancy said we're not looking to impeach you. i said that's good, nancy, that's good. you know what? you don't impeach people when they're doing a good job. you don't impeach people when there was no collusion. >> that was before the mueller report landed. he's kept it up ever since. as for the job he's doing, the majority of player cans don't approve of it. according to a new quinnipiac poll only 38% do, which is extraordinary when you think about how well the economy is doing. in any case, the president is also wrong that you can't be impeached without an underlying crime. here is republican lindsey graham explaining it during impeachment proceedings for president clinton. >> you don't even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic because impeachment is not about punishment. impeachment is about cleansing the office. impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.

>> fast forward to now, here is how libertarian congressman justin amash put it. under our constitution, the president shall be under impeachment for treason and bribery, for high crimes and misdemeanors is not defined, the context implies conduct that violates the public trust which covers a lot of ground. some with the president's footsteps all over it. if you think any of this is new, consider just a few items in articles of impeachment against richard nixon. see if they sound familiar. i'm condensing slightly for time. interfering or endeavoring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the department of justice and congressional committees. making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the united states into believing a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted. endeavoring to cause prospective defendants and individuals duly tried and convicted to expect favored treatment in return for their silence or false testimony or rewarding individuals for

their silence or false testimony. sound familiar? the point is not to pass judgment on this president, only to point out that this fight today isn't over nothing. similar allegations brought down one president and far fewer allegations nearly doomed another. more now on all this from our jim acosta who joins us from the white house. is this a fight the white house is looking to have, jim? >> reporter: they are looking to have this fight, anderson, quite frankly. they're willing to fight into the courts and as far as the supreme court, if necessary. when you saw that name card on the table earlier for don mcgahn, anderson, i think you could quite possibly see new once for hope hicks and annie donaldson, the former chief of staff to the former white house counsel don mcgahn. in the future, talking to sources inside the white house and outside the white house, they're all expecting the president to do the very same thing, to extend immunity to hope hicks and annie donaldson to prevent them from testifying in the same way that don mcgahn was prevented from testifying.

anderson, it goes beyond at least in the case of hope hicks, it goes beyond this idea that the executive branch has the right to protect the privilege to keep some of these officials from testifying. in the case of hope hicks, this is somebody who was very close to president trump and is seen as almost a daughter of the president inside the white house, despite the fact she doesn't work here anymore. there's very raw feelings about not letting those officials testify. >> politically, even if there are just steps towards impeachment by democrats, that's clearly something the president can use to focus on up through the election. >> reporter: that's right. there was a time, anderson -- i talked to sources not too long ago who said when the president was facing the prospect of a democratic-led process, he was concerned about the possibility

of being impeached. that's not the case anymore. there are some on his team who view that prospect as being an advantage to the president because they see it as something that could backfire against the democrats. that's why you're seeing nancy pelosi tread so cautiously on this. i talked to a senior democratic aide who said some of that is starting to change inside the democratic party, that many of the democrats are starting to feel like robert mueller, the special counsel, has a duty to testify on capitol hill. the question is, if robert mueller were to testify, how does that change the equation up on capitol hill in terms of the attitudes towards impeachment. anderson, when i asked the president about this yesterday in the rose garden as he was heading on the south lawn for a departure to a political rally, he was saying, listen, he has had the most transparent administration that we've seen in years. that's obviously not the case, but they have their talking points and they're willing to fight this impeachment battle

into the courts and into the next election. >> jim acosta, thanks very much. with us democratic congresswoman mary gay scanlon, vice chair of the house judiciary committee. before we get to impeachment, i want to ask you something about the house judiciary committee issuing the subpoena to hope hicks, don mcgahn's former aide as well, annie donaldson. you're the vice chair of that committee. do you have any indication they'll actually comply with the subpoena? >> so far we haven't had any of the witnesses tell us they're not willing to comply. it's only been when the president has gotten in the way and instructed people not to comply that we've had a problem. >> where do you stand right now in terms of impeachment? do you think president trump should be impeached? >> i'm not at he should be impeached. but i think it's reached a point where we have to open an impeachment inquiry. >> why open an impeachment inquiry if you don't want it to go all the way to impeachment? >> look, the impeachment inquiry is our opportunity to get the facts out, get the evidence out. the american people have not yet seen what's in the mueller report.

we've had the president and his henchmen stonewall and issue talking points that bear no relationship to what's in that report. the president has tried to hide the underlying evidence. we need to be able to show the american people the witnesses that led to mueller's on collusions that there was obstruction of justice or at least evidence of it that needed to be preserved for congress to look at, and we need to see the underlying evidence. >> folks on capitol hill are trying to do that now. they're trying to have hearings, trying to have witnesses. no one is showing up. why would somebody show up in impeachment hearings if they wouldn't show up under a subpoena or now? >> well, i think we need to make it plain to the president that this is what we're talking about now. volume one of the mueller report was about russian interference in our election. volume two was about the

president interfering with the investigation of that russian interference. volume three is the coverup. that's what he's doing right now. he's trying to cover up his misconduct. that warrants us having an impeachment inquiry. >> but what changed -- having an impeachment inquiry, does it give you any more power to actually get witnesses to show up? subpoena seems to be a pretty strong thing and they're ignoring subpoenas. >> subpoenas are a strong think. the average american knows they can't ignore a subpoena and neither can the president. he can't instruct the people that work for him or don't even work for him anymore to ignore a subpoena. when we go to court to enforce the subpoenas, as we will, the court looks at it as a balancing process. they look at the executive's rights and they look at the legislative, congress oversight rights.

depending on the issue, depending on the specific testimony that's at issue, the court balances the respective rights of the branches. but there is no executive immunity to cover up misconduct and particularly not so when congress is investigating presidential misconduct. >> so if you go to court under the umbrella of an impeachment proceeding, does that give you extra power in front of judges in any way? i basically just -- i'm not a lawyer. i don't understand why someone would be compelled to do something they're not currently compelled to do under the law which they're supposed to be doing. >> they are currently compelled to do something under the law. the breadth of the assertion of privilege or immunity that the president has made here is frankly ridiculous. there's no basis in the law. there may be specific issues, but he's gone way over his skis there. that goes to the fact that we now have a coverup in addition to the obstruction.

so it does raise the bar. we saw oh i think a lot of members saw a real shift in tone from their constituents over the past week, particularly the past weekend with the president instructing witnesses not to come to testify before congress when there's a subpoena and his continued obstruction, his stonewalling of the american people. >> speaker pelosi says there's no division within the democratic caucus on impeachment. it does seem like there certainly is -- there's a difference of opinion of whether you move for impeachment now or just try to go for hearings and gather evidence and show that to the american people. are you worried a at all about the effect moving toward impeachment or starting proceedings would have on the 2020 race on the republicans' ability to use that to rally their base, to deflect democrats from talking about tabletop issues which are important to voters? >> of course. we're all worried about that. we came here to do work for the

voters. today we passed a number of bills dealing with veterans. we've passed legislation to shore up the affordable care act. we're passing a lot of good legislation and we don't want to do this, but the president is undermining the rule of law. yes, it would be terrible if the fact of protecting the constitution by starting an impeachment inquiry somehow led to him being able to defy the law even more. of course that's a real fear. but you can't let political considerations get in the way of your duty and the truth, and that's the point we've reached. >> congresswoman mary gay scanlon, appreciate your time. thank you. breaking news on president trump's tax returns coming up. some fascinating stuff. new report on a secret irs memo that upends the entire white house rationale for withholding those returns from congress. also dr. ben carson, the housing and urban development secretary got dunked on today.

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this week has not been a good one for president trump's legal theories. it's only tuesday. on monday, a federal court rejected his lawyer's argument that congress has no oversight powers and therefore could not subpoena his financial records. tonight there's breaking news on another suspect theory, this involving president trump's actual tax returns. "the washington post" has new reporting on a draft memo out of the irs' chief counsel's office which directly contradicts legal theory underpinning treasury secretary steve mnuchin's refusal to hand over those returns. just a reminder, this is the reason secretary mnuchin gave

on may 6th, for why he wouldn't turn over the returns. i'm quoting. the committee's request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose. the department is therefore not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information. joining me is "washington post" policy reporter jeff stein who shares the byline on the story and shan wu former federal prosecutor. can you lay out your reporting on this? explain what the irs memo -- internal memo actually says. >> sure, and thank you very much for having me on. the key thing to understand here is treasury secretary steve mnuchin, as you said, said he cannot give over these documents, trump's tax returns, because the committee lacks basically a reason related to legislation and oversight to see the documents. this memo which was written in the fall and doesn't explicitly mention trump, this memo makes clear that is not legitimate grounds for denial in the view of whoever wrote it, in the view of this irs attorney. of course mnuchin is free to

override or disagree with his subordinates or people who work at the irs. it does for the first time speak to an extraordinary disagreement at the executive branch over a critical issue. >> the law is pretty clear. it says the irs shall turn over to the limited number of people who are authorized to receive. it doesn't give any qualifications of, well, they won't turn it over if they don't think there's a really good purpose for it. just to be clear, this was a draft memo. it was never actually signed, right? >> that's correct. the form we got it in, it was hard to verify because it said draft all over it. there's no date, no signature. we don't even know who it was addressed to. when we asked irs for comment, irs said it never forwarded the memo to treasury. mnuchin has said and treasury said in a statement that mnuchin never reviewed the memo.

there's a chance i guess that they were unaware of it and that's part of the reason that mnuchin denied the request. that said, a lot of legal experts have been pointing out for months the law seems clear here. and it's inconceivable that mnuchin wouldn't have read some of the disagreements. >> the irony is that -- actually, first of all, if there's no signature and date, how do you know it is from the irs' attorney or legal office? >> well, we were able to confirm when we reviewed the document with people close to it. when we went to the irs yesterday they confirmed in a statement that this memo did exist and it did originate in the office of the chief counsel. >> so, shan, it's pretty damning when someone in the office of the chief counsel of the irs writes a memo, even a draft memo saying you can't not hand over

the tax returns. it backs up pretty much what every legal expert has been saying about this? >> i think that's an easy assignment for that lawyer. the plain reading of the statute says, as they put it, there's no wiggle room for the treasury secretary. i don't think the treasury secretary or his staff wants to see that memo. now that it's out, they don't have any good legal arguments there. i don't think a judge is going to buy that argument. i think they'll presume there's a legitimate legislative purpose behind the law. that's what congress does. they have oversight. they also revealed the weakness of the real reasoning, they make the schizophrenic argument that the law doesn't apply, no legitimate legislative purpose. they also said if it does apply, if it's used correctly, then it's unconstitutional.

>> shan, if the president were to invoke executive privilege over tax returns that are from the last six years, could he do that? >> i don't think he could do that very successfully. that would be one of the weaker invocations of it. if you think about executive privilege, a little bit like a lawyer's attorney-client privilege, it's meant to give the president the benefit of recommendations, opinions from his aides to make decisions. >> it doesn't relate to everything that's happened in his past life before he was president. >> exactly. there's nothing opinionated or a recommendation in his tax returns. they're just his tax returns. >> it's fascinating. jeff stein, we'll see how this develops. appreciate your reporting from "the washington post." shan wu as well. what cnn is learning about robert mueller shying away from testifying publicly before congress. we'll get a hint on how he sees his public role now that his private job is done. joining us, two people with rare insight into the special counsel when we continue. last year, the department of veteran's affairs partnered with t-mobile for business. with va video connect, powered by t-mobile,

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no one has been hard tore get that special counsel robert mueller. he said nothing during his investigation, speaking only through indictments and later in his report. his public silence would make garbo an extrovert. the house judiciary wants to hear from him and wants the public to hear it as well. today cnn was the first to shed light on that. the special counsel's team has expressed the notion that mueller does not want to appear political after staying behind the scenes for so long. one option is to have him testify behind closed doors. sources say many options are being considered as they and the committee negotiate. mr. mueller's spokesman, as you might imagine, had no comment as usual. joining us is mueller biographer author of "the threat matrix: the fbi at war in the age of global terror." also with us former deputy assistant attorney general elliot williams. elliot, does robert mueller have an obligation to testify in public? does he owe it to the american people?

>> he certainly has an obligation if he's subpoenaed. that's not in the cards right now. does he oh it to the american people? clearly there's a factual dispute between him and the attorney general. given that factual dispute and the huge public interest in all this, yes, there's an interest or i think a public need to hear his testimony. i think congress, to some extent he owes it to congress but the american people as well. it's hard to speak of obligations. there's an enormous interest in doing so. i actually am quite confident they'll come to some agreement as to his testimony just because under normal circumstances they always come to an agreement on testimony. and i think they will. i think ultimately we will end up hearing from him. >> garrett, do you think if mueller wanted to testify publicly, that he would, there wouldn't be these back-and-forth negotiations right now? >> i think mueller made clear

since the beginning of this investigation he wants his work to speak for itself. he has had any number of opportunities over the course of this 22-month investigation to step forward into the public eye. it's worth remembering that of the three times that anyone did speak publicly about the special counsel's investigation, twice it was rod rosenstein announcing the indictments of the russian gru and russian internet research agency on mueller's behalf. the third time it was actually bill barr making the announcement that the report was going to be released publicly. mueller clearly could have spoken earlier and has chosen not to. >> elliot, it does seem, one option would be that he speaks behind closed doors. for democrats who want the public to learn as much as possible about what was in the mueller report since the majority of americans haven't read it, it would seem for him, for the democrats, they would

insist that he at least partially testify publicly. >> right. look, he does not want to appear political. this was an investigation into a president of the united states in a presidential campaign. that ship has sailed. there are going to be political consequences to this. you have to get beyond it. one such way that will happen is congress will have a huge interest in testimony being public. so i see why congress wants the testimony public. frankly, as a former doj official, i see why he wants to testify in private, given some of the law enforcement sensitivities. given all the factors, i just think this has to end in public testimony for the reasons we've talked about here. one, the huge public interest. number two, the nature of the conduct. and number three, we have a congress that could potentially preparing impeachment proceedings against a president of the united states and public testimony is going to be a necessary component of that.

>> garrett, i know you said you've read pretty much everything mueller has said and written. what is he like in public confrontations? is he given to rumination? >> he is not. i think anyone awaiting bob mueller unplugged at the capitol hill witness table is going to be disappointed. he's very prosecutorial in the way he answers questions, very lawyerly. he's never been particularly comfortable speaking before congress even though he's done it dozens and dozens of times. i think we forget that most people testifying before congress is not like jim comey, who are looking the go on and on at great length. >> elliot, the way the attorney general barr has shaped the narrative so far, for democrats, it certainly makes it even more important for mueller to testify. >> for the american people it makes more sense for mueller to testify, just because the public narrative around something with which there is an enormous

public interest and there's a clear factual dispute in public. was the attorney general candid and straightforward and frankly honest in the manner in which he summarized these findings or spun or presented these findings to the american people. this is something that can largely only be cleared up by mueller as a witness. for that reason, i that's tate to say he owes it to us, but this is a big deal and an important matter. it doesn't matter which side you're on. if you're only with the president of the united states or so on, but there's a clear distinction here and i do think we need to see public testimony on it. >> garrett, mueller's whole life has been public service. do you think he feels a duty to testify, an obligation? >> well, again, i think obligation is a very complicated word here. mueller has clearly said what he wanted to say in the document.

those words were carefully chosen, those 448 pages, very carefully vetted, carefully phrased. i think that he will certainly speak publicly if ordered to do so with a subpoena, he'll comply with any lawful order. i think he has made clear he is not going to go out of his way to testify, at the same time as elliot said, there's enormous public interest. this isn't a partisan political matter. there's a legitimate dispute between the facts that mueller presents and the story bill barr has told publicly. and we need that to be cleared up. the only way we can do that at this point is to hear mueller speaking in his own voice about his own investigation. >> garrett graff, elliot williams, thank you very much. housing and urban development secretary ben carson got in an unusual back-and-forth, a lot of it from the secretary's point of view centered around cookies. oreos to be specific. can you love wearing powerful sunscreen?

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it began as a serious discussion before the house financial services committee today. california freshman democrat katie porter was asking ben carson, housing and urban development secretary about real estate owned properties that fail to sell at foreclosure or auctions, known by acronym reo.

carson either misheard or seemed to have no idea what the acronym actually meant and what porter was referring to. take a look. >> why is fha -- to use a term i think we can both understand -- lousy at servicing mortgages. >> okay. i have not had any discussions about that particular issue, but i will look it up and find out what's going on. >> as you look it up, i'd also like you to get back to me if you don't mind to explain the disparity in reo rates. do you know what an reo is? >> an oreo? >> not an oreo. an reo. reo. >> real estate. >> what's "o" stand for? >> organization. >> owned. real estate owned. that's what happens when a property goes to foreclosure. we call it an reo. fha loans have higher reos, they go to foreclosure rather than loss mitigation than comparable loans at the gses.

>> so that actually happened. joining me cnn senior political analyst david gergen and chief political analyst gloria borger. gloria, this is the housing and urban development secretary. shouldn't he know what reo stands for? >> one would think he would. after two years, one would think he would have mastered all the acronyms of your agency. foreclosures are one-third of the agency's asset sales. so i'm old enough to remember when cabinet secretaries went before congress and they actually had mastered what they were going to be asked about or what they were going to talk about, and that clearly wasn't the case today. >> david, the president always talks about hiring the best and the brightest. these administration officials when they testify, does it seem like they have prepared for their testimony? >> often it does not. while i agree with everything

gloria just said, a piece of me is sympathetic to ben carson. i was on a university board with him about 20 years ago, and he was celebrated in much of the country because he came out of poverty in detroit. people told him when he was growing up, he would never amount to anything, he'd always be poor. he got his way through yale and medical school. he became the chief pediatric neurosurgeon at johns hopkins. he's not a slouch intellectually. there are many good things about ben carson. he's absolutely in the wrong job. hud is a bureaucracy that is much greater than most other -- >> it's an enormous bureaucracy that affects a lot of people's lives. >> exactly. exactly. should he be on top of it? i think in taking him to task here, we ought to understand the rest of him. >> i want to play you something else in the hearing in exchange

with democratic congresswoman ian nah presley. >> yes or no, if left unaddressed, this budget does not reflect the need, do you believe the substandard public housing conditions pose a risk to tenants' physical, mental and emotional health? >> you already know the answer to that. >> yes or no? >> you know the answer. >> yes or no? i know the answer. do you know the answer? yes or no? >> reclaiming my time. >> you don't get to do that. yes or no, do they deserve to live in these conditions because they're poor? would you let your grandmother live in public housing? yes or no. >> you know very well. >> would you let your grandmother live in public housing? under your watch and your helm would you allow your grandmother to live in public housing under these conditions? >> it would be very nice if you would stop acting -- >> you stated. >> gloria, what do you make of that exchange? >> he had to know he was going to go before this committee and

he was going to be asked these kinds of questions. and instead of just answering yes or no or saying let me explain where i'm coming from on this, he continued to evade. the more he refused to answer, the tougher she got. he, as a cabinet secretary, particularly going before a democratic committee, ought to be prepared for this. he was tough, but he needed to be able to defend his agency if that's what he wanted to do. and instead, he was just kind of lethargic and said, well, you know what the answer to that is and refused to sort of get out there and say let me explain my policies to you and why i believe they're right. >> david, is there a difference in -- is this kind of a trend of how people are now testifying, sort of, well, i'll answer the question i want to answer. i will claim executive privilege even though the president hasn't claimed it, i'll make it up and claim it myself?

is there something new going on, or has there always been pathetic testimony at times? >> that's a good question, anderson. my sense of it is that what we're seeing is something new and is an extension of the stonewalling policy that the administration has adopted, and that is increasingly in these hearings, people coming from the administration are showing a disdain for the questioners. did she start berating him? yes. i thought it was excessively harsh questioning. it's highly objectionable and unfortunate for the country that the breakdown between the congress and the presidency have descended to this level. >> secretary carson tried to make light of the oreo comment. he said oh-reo. enjoy post-hearing snacks. sending some your way. >> good try. i think it was a good try.

i'm sure she welcomed the cookies sent to her office. sometimes you can't laugh your way out of things. what he should have done and maybe in addition to the cookies, is send up some answers to her questions which he did not answer because he was not prepared to answer. i think she would have appreciated that a lot more. >> gloria borger, david gergen, thank you very much. who is leading the democratic field? one of the hopefuls is texas's beto o'rourke tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern. coming up, we'll take a look at o'rourke's campaign reboot and the new poll results. you've tried so many moisturizers... but one blows them all out of the water. hydro boost with hyaluronic acid to plump skin cells so it bounces back... neutrogena® and try our hydrating makeup.

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there's new polling out that shows former vice president biden continues to lap the field over his opponents for the democratic nomination. one of those rivals is texas congressman beto o'rourke. he'll be at a town hall with dana bash at 10:00 p.m. david chalian is in des moines where the town hall is taking place.

what's the latest polling showing, david? >> reporter: anderson, this brand new quinnipiac poll, you're right, lapping the field. biden up at 35%. then you've got sanders, warren, harris, buttigieg rounding out the top five. everyone below 5%. this is joe biden's race right now. it's what makes what the president said about him so interesting. why is he going after him? take a look at the president's approval rating. it's 38%. trump is clearly feeling the pressure in a state like pennsylvania with joe biden riding high right now and what is so fascinating anderson is if you ask the question about how americans think about the economy right now, look at the top two numbers, the excellent and the good. that's 71%. that is an 18-year high where 71% of americans are saying the economy is excellent or good. so it begs the question if the president is at 38% approval is it not the economy this time around?

>> as we mentioned the o'rourke town hall starts in about an hour. he's hoping to re-energize his campaign. >> no doubt about it. you remember all the anticipation that many democrats had about o'rourke entering this race in march. he did a huge amount of fund-raising. he was riding high in the polls. not a front runner but in the pack right near the front runner and he faded since then. this is a huge opportunity to get before a national audience and take questions on a whole range of topics and introduce himself as to why he thinks he's the best equipped. >> thank you very much. let's check in with chris and see what he is working on for "primetime." >> we had two different

democratic congresswomen on tonight with big proposals in terms of how to take the party forward and then going in totally different directions. one wants impeachment and the other wants a finding of the need to investigate that's voted on by the whole house. they don't know where they need to be and each new development that we'll cover on the show tonight, hope hicks coming out. the chief of staff for don mcgahn. the subpoena fight. it's just more weight that keeps them in the same place. what is the best argument for the democrats? what's the plus/minus, we'll take you through it tonight. >> i'm also fascinated by this "washington post" reporting on the memo from the legal counsel's office at the irs essentially saying you have to turnover his tax returns. >> i see a defense to that. the process is messy. there are a lot of opinions. we don't know who wrote this memo or how close it was to the end of the process. and you pointed out, it wasn't signed. this wasn't the official goal or plan but it's more proof that now another cabinet member, the

treasury secretary is once again covering for the president instead of playing the role for the american people. >> chris, i'll see you in a couple of minutes. about eight minutes from now. coming up, forget about what president trump might want from a russian czar. find out what a want to be republican czar wanted from the president. the saga of the supposedly best and brightest. next on the ridiculist. and get your interest rate right. so you can save big. get a no-fee personal loan up to $100k.

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time for the ridiculist. tonight it's another dispatch from the sister firm. republican kris kobach, the former vice chair of the voter fraud commission and also the former secretary of state and failed candidate is back in the news. he's putting his own spin on president kennedy's inaugural address. ask not what you can do for your country but how many private jets your country can put at your disposal. he's long been trying to squeeze on to the anti-immigration caboose of the trump train, and was up until today in the running to be the administration's immigration czar, which i'm going to say is not something subject to senate confirmation. most people, they give a list. they give their prospective employer a list of reasons why they should be hired. when i applied at cnn i was like, baby blues, will travel. got the job.

according to "the new york times," the list of ten conditions for accepting the job include a government jet at his disposal 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. a staff of seven people working directly for him and, number three, a meeting which the president tells the secretaries of defense, homeland security, agriculture, interior, commerce, and the attorney general that they will, and i quote, follow the directives of the czar without delay. he's going a little heavy on the tolstoy if you ask me. he wants oversight of basically half the president's cabinet up to and including his little $600 slippers. he wants to be the administration's chief television spokesman on all immigration matters and he wants a promise from president trump that he will be nominated to be secretary of homeland security no later than november 1st of this year. now at this point i'm starting to think that epa guy that drove

around all day looking for body lotion doesn't seem so bad, right? also why is he wanting a promise from president trump? i mean, you would think by now most people realize a promise from this president isn't worth the mcdonald's wrapper it's written on. anybody that has to end his sentences with believe me, can't be believed. believe me. by the way, his list is the non-showbiz version of a rider. it basically outlines the conditions for a performing artist's appearance and what they get in their dressing room. the problem is, kobach is not beyonce. she can have whatever she wants because she deserves it. also riders aren't taxpayer funded. if they were, trust me, when andy cohen and i do our stage show, there's a shameless plug, there would be a few more empty

tequila bottles in the dressing room. the private jet he wanted gassed up for a 2:00 a.m. trip to an offshore carl's junior. or for that matter any evidence of voter fraud on the ridiculist. >> i want to hand it over to chris. >> remove the glasses. >> do you want them? >> holy moly. it doesn't get any better than that. i agree. i'll talk to you later. thank you. i'm chris cuomo. welcome to "primetime." new fuel for the case of abuse of power against the president. breaking news, a secret irs memo contradicts the secretary of the treasury on whether or not the president has to hand over his tax returns. another abuse of power. will it sway democrats that they need to do more than they are now?