she is cooperating with federal prosecutors. asking then candidate donald trump a question at a campaign event in 2015 that now looks more curious in 2018's light. her appearance in court is one of several events this week that could shed new light on the russia investigation. today michael flynn will ask a judge for no jail time in his sentencing memo. we could learn more about what he offered. plus, there is a hearing in paul manafort's federal case as prosecutors will lay out the lies they say torpedoed his plea deal. tomorrow michael cohen will learn his sentence. >> it is like a russian advent calendar. there is a new sentencing memo or an investigation going on. >> that is the service we provide. cnn politics reporter and editor

at large chris cillizza and knee yeah ma lee ka henderson. let's start with the david bossie news. of course he wants somebody who knows how to navigate their way through an impeachment hearing. >> somebody who knows washington, somebody he knows. and david bossie was someone who was left behind. he was always on the outside of the white house looking in. still very much in contact with the trump circle, certainly with corey lewandowski who he wrote a book with and someone still in touch with the president as well. you have a feeling this is a president who initially went with establishment picks in a lot of these slots, right? reince priebus at first and then nick ayers. now he's going with someone who he's more in line with. >> wait. wait. wait a second. wait a second.

>> if i told -- >> if you said david bossie was being rumored as chief of staff for the white house, what would you have said? >> i would have said that's as likely as donald trump becoming president of the united states. are you crazy? he worked for dan burton, the chairman of the house oversight committee who famously shot a wat watermelon to recreate the suicide of vince foster. it was crazy town. dan burton got rid of david bossie. that's how crazy he was in those days. he was accused of altering transcripts that the committee released. these were fringe figures of fringe figures. and the idea that the white house chief of staff is going to someone that far from even the

conservative mainstream, forget the mainstream mainstream, is just a sign of, you know, how donald trump is directing his presidency. >> i would just add, look at the candidates who have either expressed interest or we think donald trump is interested in since nick ayers. matt whitaker, we know his background. mark meadows? i mean, i watched the interview with you, john, in the last hour. >> great question. >> really nailed it. >> he was doing everything he could say to say this guy has no history of working together. he's built his entire political legacy on sort of taking the ball and go home politics and now bossie. i mean, those are the three people that are the most trumpy. nick ayers ran tim polente's ill fated presidential campaign.

it's not a trump figure at all. so this idea that that would be the person -- these are much more in the line of let trump -- i don't know what this wouldn't be different than what it's been in the last few years, but let trump be trump, right? bossie would absolutely 100% do that. this is who brought the citizen's united case. this is the reason we have the campaign finance system we have. mark meadows is the head of a group of house conservatives that drove john boehner out of the spokership and led paul ryan to walk away as well. >> i think you're making the case perfectly. >> this is my point. this is why i think those two make a ton of sense, as does matt whitaker. fiercely loyal to donald trump. we know he likes that. i think these three make a lot of since given what we know about donald trump and how he wants to govern. >> let's wait to see if there is an announcement today about chief of staff.

but in the meantime, the big announcement that was, you know, not made verbally from robert mueller but was in the sentencing memo. was that michael cohen says he was directed by donald trump to commit the campaign finance laws, jeffrey, of the hush money to the two women who say they had affairs with donald trump. oren hatch was asked about this revelation, north oren hatch. here is his response. >> i don't think he was involved in crimes. but even then, you know, you can make anything a crime under the current laws if you want to. you can blow it way out of proportion. you can do a lot of things. >> can you make anything a crime, jeffrey toobin? oren hatch saying, i don't really see anything there. >> he is on his way out of the senate has become the most loyal

of the most loyal. he's an interesting test case because, you know, he used to be, while always conservative someone who valued making deals. he worked hard with ted kennedy. he has moved where the republican party has moved, to be in complete loyalty to donald trump. this is the dominant ideology of the republican party today. it's not about ideology. it is about donald trump and whatever he does is fine. that is true and will be true as long as the republican party's voters continue to be as lined up behind trump as they are. they are still lined up that way, and you see almost no dissent among elected republican officials about anything donald trump has done. >> nia, do you see that budging at all? >> probably not. you have heard echoes of this from other people like rand paul saying this is a paperwork

error. other people saying obama did this as well, even though that's not true at all. >> that was a paperwork error, the obama one. >> yeah. exactly a paperwork error. >> there are a lot of campaign finance violations that are like, well, this was wrongly reported. this is not that. this is six figures of money paid out according to federal prosecutors directed and coordinated by the president of the united states to keep two women who alleged affairs silent in the end run of a campaign. >> that's exactly right. that's the big difference. if you flash back to the clinton impeachment, obviously you had democrats lining up fiercely behind bill clinton saying he lied under oath, but it was just lying about sex. it's fine. you had some polling come out around that time as well that basically said that -- >> i don't think you should be calling me old like that. you know? >> old man toobin remembers.

>> well, oren hatch was there. he didn't like moral turpitude. >> dramatic reading of oren hatch 1999. committing crimes of moral turpitude go to the moral. >> politicians always, you know, change their views somewhat cased on the prevailing political currents. but this is really so extraordinary. remember or ring hatch is a member of the church, deeply offended by bill clinton's behavior in the presidency. he is not offended by donald

trump's relationships with stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. it is just a reflection of how much the republican party has changed. >> well, that's gotten the notice of 44 senators, former senators. 32 of them democrats, 10 republicans, 2 independents who are calling on their current senate colleagues to stop doing this. and they say, they write in "the washington post", these 44, it is our shared view we are entering a dangerous period and we feel an obligation to speak up about serious challenges to the rule of law, the constitution, our governing institutions and our national security. they don't like that senators are saying big whoop. >> on top of that, jim acosta reporting about trump being worried about impeachment. that's working the referees in advance of the possibility that a democratic house does impeach donald trump after a mueller report and then it would go to the senate.

obviously, you need two-thirds from the senate essentially saying we don't know what the mueller report is going to find. but it doesn't look great. if it is something that really makes clear he has done these things, let's not make this a partisan fight. i would put my two cents in with nia that i think it is more likely than not to remain a relatively partisan fight because, and we saw this time and again in the last two years, the republican party base is going to be with donald trump. and these politicians, guess what they like? still having jobs. they're worried about losing primaries. >> he likes the policies. he does it. >> policies -- i understand that. but there has to be and or ring hatch has called on this before. there has to be a right and wrong outside of politically good and politically bad. when you say i don't really care if he broke the law because in

my mind those laws aren't a big deal, that's a slippery slope. >> george conway's point where he said i'm increasingly optimistic that we could do better. there has got to be someone who has these same policiepolicies, conservative, who won't be accused of various crimes. >> but the voters don't agree with george conway. they like donald trump. they are much more in line with what orrin hatch said. i think it's telling they can only get a handful of former republican senators to basically call on, you know, senators to stand up to donald trump. >> by the way, my reading of george conway wasn't that he thinks he could do better in terms of getting a better president. he thinks he could get rid of this president before 2021. he was saying with the new information coming out, he thinks impeach. was more likely. that was my reading of it. >> my reading is there's got to be a different vessel for all the things he likes, all the

different policies he likes. >> maybe we're both right. we have a new poll out today which shows that the president's approval rating is at 39%. so most voters aren't approving. >> republicans, yeah. >> 85% among republicans. if we can, i don't want to lose sight of another major development in this broad scope, this broad span of things having to do with russia, with is this operative inside the united states has agreed to plead guilty for failing to register as a foreign agent. she's been held in custody for a long time now, apparently with ties to russian intelligence. it makes us remember this moment from 2015 when she was just miraculously at an event with donald trump and asked a key question. let's listen. >> do you want to continue the politics of sanctions that damage both economy? or do you have any other ideas?

>> i believe i would get along very nicely with putin, okay? and i mean where we have the strength. i don't think you need the sanctions. i think we that we would get along very, very well. i really believe that. >> you find all of this, jeffrey, to be quite interesting. >> oh, it is so fascinating because this was the first time that donald trump ever expressed his view that sanctions should be lifted. this is the precise team, as we now know, he was negotiating with the russian government to try to build trump tower in moscow. so he needed vladimir putin's approv approval. so he's offering. it seems to me a perfect example of his using his presidential campaign to advance his business interest. the putin plea raises all sorts of interest questioning about what were her contacts with the people in the conservative movement or his campaign.

how did money change hands? who was giving her orders? who was she in contact with? fascinating series of questions. she has now agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, turn over all her electronics and was she -- was that question planted? did she have any contact with the trump campaign? all of it very interesting. yet another example of contacts between russians and people in the conservative movement on the eve of the election. >> there is just -- you showed the graphic earlier, the 16 people. i feel like you have to keep showing that because it is like let's go and put the graphic up that hillary clinton -- i mean, what you are talking about, 16 people including his eldest daughter, his eldest son, jared kushner, the campaign chairman, the campaign manager. >> these are senior people. >> and there is just a lot of them.

all that doesn't add up to definite collusion, definite obstruction. but my gosh, it is not normal. >> thank you for sharing your morning with us. >> and thank you, john. where are we going next? >> i think we will do something really, really interesting. we will do something very fascinating. i don't want to spoil it. i don't want to spoil it by telling people what we're going to do next. just come back, and it's going to be really great. get somethi. brian! thomas! yeah. hey! hey, uh, quick question. do you like paying for things you don't need? no. and do you want to get things you love for free? who wouldn't? exactly! right. that's why verizon decided that everyone in the family should get the unlimited they want, without paying for things they don't. and why it now comes with six months free apple music. dad, apple music. he gets it. this guy gets it. (vo) this holiday, get the gift you want. the music you love, on the network you deserve. switch now and get $300 off our best phones.

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president trump is annoyed about his struggles to find a new chief of staff. several names are being floated this morning, but some of them have already said no thanks. so what will president trump's next pick tell us about the role of the chief of staff in this white house? joining us now is former white house chief of staff under president clinton. thanks so much for being here. >> nice to be with you this morning. >> okay. so what do you think the chief responsibility of the chief of staff is? >> well, andy card, who was chief of staff to president bush likes to say taking care of president. i think it's fair to say each chief of staff has to adapt his style or one day her style to the president and to the passage of the presidency. i think that's what we're seeing here with president trump.

at the end of the day, the chief of staff has to have a respectful relationship, an ability to communicate and there must be a level of trust between the president and the chief of staff. to date president trump has not achieved that, at least not for sustained periods of time with his two chiefs of staff. the next one will have to do that. >> fair. let me put up some of the names in consideration. congressman mark meadows of north carolina, who is known as an arch conservative. u.s. trade representative. chris cristie. that's an interesting pick. obviously he goes way back with donald trump, but not the kids. meaning ivanka and jared might not be fans. matt whitaker, the acting attorney general. and david bossie who may be the favorite pick because he knows how to navigate through an impeachment. so is one of the roles of chief

of staff kind of chief protector of the president? >> well, the chief of staff position has been called the chief javelin catcher, the buffer of first line of defense. you've got to focus on domestic, international and political activities. so it's very, very demanding, obviously. i think the speculation, so to speak, has started. each of those individuals have different backgrounds. i think this particular passage is important in any presidency because there are passages in a presidency, and they have certain demands, person unique periods of stress, challenges and opportunities. i think in this case the chief of staff would be well served to have political skills because you are moving toward the re-election, certainly to have some ability to navigate washington. you are going to have a lot of oversight from the

democratically controlled house, so some experience dealing with the congress. those will be key factors. but you have also got to have hopefully some breadth in terms of international relations as well. >> why do you think president trump is having a hard time filling this position? >> that's almost a self-answering question, i think. but it's a difficult position. i think obviously the plan was for nick ayers to take the position. that seems to be the case, and that's thrown the white house off stride. there wasn't a clear plan b in place when he somewhat unexpectedly it seems decided not to do it. so i think the president wants to make a thoughtful decision, but he has to move quickly here. a lot of people are saying i'm just not sure i want to serve in this white house, work for this president all things considered. that's a favor consideration on anybody that's thinking about doing this job. i think most chiefs of staff before they accept the job do. it's a demanding responsibility

and an important one for sure. >> did president clinton have to convince you to take the job? >> we had to have an extended discussion about it. >> what were your reservations? >> from a personal standpoint, our younger son was finishing his senior year in high school, so there was family considerations with both of our sons, as well as business considerations. but at the end of the day, you have to have a compatibility with the president. in my case, i worked with governor clinton, helped to establish the new democratic movement. it is hard to not accept the request of a president who is asking you to help him and support him. >> so you went to kindergarden with president clinton. i guess that's my question to you. what type of person do you think president trump should put into this position? should it be a lifelong loyalist?

should it be somebody who can tell the truth to the president? should it be somebody who will be able to reach across the aisle? should it be somebody who could protect him? >> i think you named some of the characteristics, actually. there has to be compatible. there has to be a common political philosophy. there has to be loyal tichlt ty. at the end of the day, there has to be a level of trust and an ability to communicate if that chief of staff is going to serve the president well. >> so whoever it is, what is your advice to the next chief of staff? >> well, i think recognize first of all there is some things you can change and some things you can't. i don't think this president is going to change a lot. and i would try, if i were considering this or advising the chief of staff, but to have as clear an understanding with president trump as you could going into the job.

>> we really appreciate your expertise in this matter. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> what's that laugh? it was almost as if his thought bubble was giant handle of jack daniels or something along those lines. >> yes. he may have cleaned it up for the broadcast for us. >> so the president insists the hush money payments made by michael cohen were simple, private transactions. but prosecutors say the president directed the illegal payments that violated campaign finance law is a felony. our legal experts weigh in next. -we're in a small room. what?! -welcome. -[ gasps ] a bigger room?! -how many of you use car insurance?

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president trump says the hush money payments his former lawyer michael cohen made to mr. -- to mr. trump's alleged mistress amount to something more than simple private transactions. but federal prosecutor see them as breaking the law. joining us now, gentlemen, i will stay out of this discussion

because i'm mostly interested in your perfectives on this. the southern district of new york took a guilty plea from michael cohen. michael cohen pleaded guilty to a felony campaign finance violation and the southern district said in doing so he acted in coordination and at the direction of individual one who is president trump. we have had lawyers come on here and say were president trump not the president, he would be charged with a felony. is that true? >> no. i don't buy that. and we're in the context of a campaign here, and there is precede precedent. it's the john edwards precedent. look, this sort of situation for which the money was paid is an embarrassing topic to be covered and a campaign provides pressure on the other side, for the other side to extract such payments. that doesn't change the fact

that it is a personal matter and that we have an example in the not too distant past where this was not prosecuted. and it would be completely untenable now -- >> hang on a second. i just want to stop you. it was absolutely prosecuted. it was absolutely prosecuted. he was not found guilty, but it was prosecuted to a great extent. >> okay. well, you're correct. i sit corrected. but the outcome is what matters, is that it is not a convictable offense. and to go in a different direction to achieve a different outcome, if that were to happen, with a candidate, then candidate of the other party would destroy the appearance of justice, not to mention justice itself. absolutely destroy the notion of the rule of law in consistent application in the law. >> jeffrey? >> completely disagree. and the edwards example, as you

point out, it was prosecuted, which was a much, much weaker case. more than a year before the election. here you have transactions. on the eve of the election to cover up an extremely political damaging material because the election is happening. the relationship such as they were with mcdougal and stormy daniels were years before the presidential election. but then out of all time, to make these expenditures, it's right on the eve of the election because donald trump recognized this was an embarrassing politically toxic subject for him. he wanted to cover it up, so he paid the money to cover it up to help him win the presidency, which he did. so, i mean, it is a total political expenditure, and i do think that if donald trump had not been president of the united states and thus immune from

being criminally prosecuted, he would be a co-defendant in the michael cohen case. >> ken, the fact that the president lied about it in public for so long, does that play into it? >> prosecutors may think so, but anything that is this personally controversial, i don't think that's terribly surprising. people don't go wandering around admitting that. look, john edwards didn't win his party's nomination, but he was in a hotly contested ultimately three-way contest for the nomination. and he was a meaningful contender in that race. and unlike anything related to the stories for then candidate donald trump, john edwards, of course, had a child come out of his relationship. and that's -- that rather tied him down. that created evidence of the truth of the underlying story, which is still disputed by the

president in his personal case. so jeffrey's point about timing i don't think is well founded because it was during a primary, so it wasn't near november. so what? it was still very much in the mind of john edwards and very much a part of preparing and successfully executing his campaign for his party's nominee for president. there is no difference from a legal standpoint between the general election and the primary contest and so forth. it was still the same pressure, the pressure of an election, that forced the action to be taken. >> one of the problems with having this kind of debate is that neither of us has access to all the evidence in the case. you know, what if michael cohen -- >> true. >> -- has evidence that he and trump talked about the fact that this was because of the campaign? i mean, the problem with this

conversation is the southern district has evidence that prompted them to say that these payments were made at the direction of donald trump. i don't know what that evidence is. i don't think the southern district is lying about that they have this evidence. and i think that would be the most determinate in the prosecutorial decision, as it always is, which is what's the evidence in the case? and we have a piece of it but not all of it. >> two points. >> go ahead, ken. >> you have two points. one, we're always speculating here. we're asked to speculate. >> it's cable news, ken. >> that's one of the weaknesses of these discussions. >> that's exactly right, jeffrey. >> let me get to the second point. i only had two. >> okay. >> the second point is that the political motivation, the pressure of the campaign, can be part, even a part large, of the motivation of the individuals

involved without converting this to a pure campaign undertaking. there is still massively the personal element that's related to this. and that's overriding, and that's decisive. and it certainly was, i believe in the edwards matter, and it would be in this one. >> very quickly, ken, why didn't michael cohen plead guilty to it and why did the southern district prosecute it if, as you say, it is a nothing? >> well, michael cohen is making a deal. this is part of a bigger deal. we don't know the terms of that deal either. though, it is not looking very good for michael cohen. and michael cohen has not shown himself to be a very good lawyer. and i don't imagine he's making good decisions for himself. it was very unwise just on the question of this issue to plead guilty, but there is a lot more going on for michael cohen, and he may have traded it for other

considerations. >> i always like these disagreements. >> you are both good lawyers. enjoy the conversation. thank you. >> all right. thank you, john. a powerful tech boss opens up about his secret struggle. >> i went to a dark place. and, you know, people didn't see that when i came into work. >> more of our cnn exclusive next. george woke up in pain. but he has plans today. so he took aleve this morning.

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one of the top bosses at lyft says the company says to make its services better than owning a car. john zimmer is also opening up about a secret personal battle that he's been going through. cnn's lori joins us. >> john zimmer is an interesting guy. he studied hospitality and not engineering. he talks a lot about empathy as a core value. i spoke to him about the future of self-driving cars and also he gets can did about his personal struggles with entrepreneurship. >> what do you say to the lyft

driver that says i'm concerned i'm going to become irrelevant. >> i would say i don't believe that's the case and i will make sure i do everything possible to make sure that's not the case. i believe we will have a proposition for lyft that is better than owning a car and the majority of platforms. i don't see a time we need less drivers. we as a company will do everything possible to make sure that if there was that extreme of a transition, which again i don't believe to be true, then we would be responsible enough. >> is there a moment you can go back to that you failed as a leader. >> stuff that happened that people didn't see, i mean, i think it was in a funk for several months. four or five years ago, uber has 30 times as much cash as you. i went to a dark place. >> what does a dark place look like? >> i was depressed.

and i didn't know what to do and i was -- it was foggy. and i didn't necessarily take action and focus on what i could control. i got, you know, overwhelmed with the things i couldn't control. again, i think that's normal, and i have learned a lot from it. i was slower to lead, i think, in that moment because i had to get myself right. >> a lot of people in silicon valley have talked to me about depression or feeling because, i think a lot of the same traits that make you incredible and great are also linked to the stuff that could be a little darker. so during that time, how did you take care of yourself? i'm sure it was lonely, too. who do you get to talk to? you're at the top of the company. >> so my wife has been incredible and my co-founder logan. so, you know, he's often more reserved and more quiet. he's extremely steady. >> it's cool to be on the other

side talking about it when the fog is cleared. what is your advice to folks going through the fog. >> it goes back to one of the reasons we want to build this is like community. i think it's been overused and oversold in kind of businesses. we're here to connect people. i want to be careful about how i talk about it. but that's what matters the most, being able to give or receive care from other human beings. and i think in today's world with so many distractions and so much information being thrown at us it is easy to get distracted and sucked in versus, you know, go outside, get some fresh air, take a walk in nature. talk in person to your friends. some of the most basic principals of being human are the best ways, i think, for me at least, to get out of that fog. >> certainly good advice. he's one of many founders beginning to open up more about

the dark stuff, about depression, about mental health, you know. and also, by the way, at a time when lyft is prepping to go public. an honest moment from a leader who always talked about putting humanity first. that's something we need to talk a lot about. >> i promised i would find it compelling, and i was right. >> great. thanks. there are dozens of former senators from both parties. they have united to send a warning to current lawmakers. one of those joins me next. whoooo. with tripadvisor, finding your perfect hotel at the lowest price... is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates... and see all the hotels for your stay! tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to show you the lowest prices... so you can get the best deal on the right hotel for you.

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there's no excuse for what [ grunting ]you. it's a hate crime. based on a true story... i created a world where i can heal. of a man who turned tragedy into triumph. i have hope, and that's something they can't take away from me. woo! a bipartisan group of 44 former senators have issued an extraordinary warning to current senators. in a washington post op-ed, say they we are at an inflection

point. they say, quote, we are entering a dangerous period. one of those former senators joins us now on the phone. good morning, senator. >> good morning. good morning. here we are out in the wild west early in the morning. >> thank you for getting up so early for us. i want to put up a graphic of all the 44 senators that signed on to this cautionary letter in which, as i said, you all make the point we're entering into a dangerous period. what do you mean, exactly? >> well, you can see what's happened. you can see the bitterness that goes on. you see the fact that if they're a democrat, you just ignore them or if they're a republican, you ignore them. it is obvious to the american public that the senator, where i used to work -- i was the assistant leader of the senate. i worked for a very noted

progressive and wendle ford of kentucky, a thoughtful, moderate democrat. those are the people i worked with. and in the judiciary committee, we worked with ted kennedy and joe biden while strom thurman was the chairman. this is nuts. >> there are i believe 32 democrats, 10 republicans, 2 independents. tell me the back story. how did you all come together to write this warning? who reached out to whom? >> well, chuck paigel and chris dodd perhaps were a generating force in it and contacted me, sent me a copy of it. i said, sounds good to me, sign me up. there will be others who will come aboard. i feel quite sure they did it in a short period of time. i didn't know what their

timetable was, but once approved it, i didn't care what they did with it. i don't know that there is anything sinister in it. when you look at a body you loved, where you worked where you visited, laughed together and ate lunch together. they had a private dining room that was, you know, separated into democrat and republican. that's gone. they don't -- nobody would go in and sit with anybody on the other side. you go over and talk. you know, we integrated. we talked to each other. that dining room, i was surprised a few years ago, it is just a storage room. >> that is really a testament. yeah, senator. there is a loss of that comradery. that dining room, i think, does tell you something about where we are, as does this exchange. i want to play it for you with

one of your former colleagues, orrin hatch, the senator of course still in the senate and our manu raju who asked him about the revelations that came forward this week. primarily that michael cohen said he was directed by donald trump to commit campaign finance laws. so i just want to play for you orrin hatch's response to that. listen to this. >> the democrats will do anything to hurt this president, anything. and what happened before he was elected president, you know, is one thing. but since he's been elected, the economy has done well. our country is moving ahead. we're in better shape than we were before. i think we ought to judge him on that basis. >> i mean the u.s. attorney is making these allegations. >> do you think he's a republican? >> well, he's been appointed by the president.

>> okay. but i don't care. all i can say is he's doing a good job as president. >> i don't know if you could hear that, senator. but basically what orrin hatch said was he doesn't care. that's a quote. he said i don't care about the revelations that have come from mueller. what is your response to that. >> well, i don't want to get into that kind of stuff. i can tell you one thing that would solve everything. now, you want to hear this. every u.s. senator who goes to the judiciary committee should have a full fbi investigation from birth until they go on the committee. that will take care of a lot of this crap. >> how would that take care of it? >> because you don't go back into the life beyond. when i was on 18, i was on federal probation for shooting mailbox. whatever happened to all these guys who are always whining and

moaning they want a piece of everybody. let it play out. i care deeply for joe biden. i loved them all, and i got along with them all and we made it work. if you want to pick old scabs, you better pick a new guy to go on the show. >> which is the old scab. >> now we have to watch a movie on gary hart. if that ain't picking an old scab, you tell me what it is. i worked with him. we worked on nuclear regulation matters. we were good. we were friends. picking an old scab. good. go back and pick an old scab. confirmation, go back and look into professor hill and clarence thomas. why don't you leave people alone and go find some new work? >> well, i thought i was asking you about whether or not your senate colleagues who were currently in the senate should say things like they don't care about what revelations are

coming out? >> that's none of my business. you call me to ask me questions about me. i can answer those. >> i understand. but i thought that your letter was don't let party stand above principal. >> got it. you got it. you're right. >> senator, we appreciate your perspective on all of this. thank you. >> great. you bet. bye-bye. >> bye. key developments in the president's search for a new chief of staff happening this morning. a front runner says he will lunch with the president. that's next. >> excited for that.

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all right. top of the hour. good morning, everyone. i'm poppy harlow. >> and i'm jim sciutto. the possibility of impeachment is now weighing on the president himself. that's still several weeks away. and even a single week like this one could peel back many layers of the russia probe. today alone there is a hearing for paul manafort trying to expose the lies that manafort told repeatedly involving his contacts with russians. at any moment michael flynn will ask a judge for no jail time in line with what mueller said he deserves. this because of his cooperation. >> as the court drama continues, a new cnn poll this morning