hi, there of the i'm brooke baldwin. we're live in the nation's capital today. you're watching cnn. after a very public squabble over when, where and how he would give his second state of the union address, president trump will give it right where he was expected to in speaker nancy pelosi's house. the president is expected to make a plea for unity and bipartisanship while staring a divided congress right in the eye. the white house started campaign really zeroing in on an issue that affects so many of us, fixing the nation's crumbling bridges and roads. >> certainly i think you can expect that the president will talk about infrastructure. you'll hear the president talk about the opioid crisis in this

country. i'll leave some things left for the president to talk about. there are a number of policies that the democrats and republicans know need to be addressed. infrastructure is one of the easiest ones for us to look at. >> will the reaction of those in the room with him? for starters as we mentioned nancy pelosi will once again be center stage sitting right behind the president on that dais and the audience looking back, lawmakers who stand in stark contrast to this white house and its policies and a diverse group of democratic candidates ready to run against him. members of congress will be bringing guests, among them a transgender navy lieutenant commander, a student who survived the parkland shooting and a mother and daughter who were separated at the border last spring. let's start with our white house correspondent kaitlan collins looking ahead. we know the president won't speak for a number of hours, but the battle is already brewing between the president and senator chuck schumer.

so unity shmumty, i suppose. >> reporter: they don't believe the president's calls for unity are going to to much to bridge that gap between the democrats and the president that we've seen over the last several weeks especially with that bitter 35 day shutdown and even though they're saying, yes, the president will call for unity and yes he'll be optimistic, we can see what's really going to happen in washington over the next few days just by looking at the president's twitter feed. he was already blasting senator chuck schumer even though they've been saying it's a call for unity. schumer is already criticizing my state of the union speech even though hasn't seen it yet. he's just upset that he didn't win the senate, after spend ag a fortune. that tweet came just minutes after senator chuck schumer was making a floor speech today that was airing on c-span and this is what he had to say ahead of the president's state of the union

address tonight. >> the president will say the state of our union is strong, but the american people know the state of the trump administration is in chaos. >> reporter: and later on, brooke, chuck schumer said the president is going to be a hypocrite if he calls for unity tonight and the white house says the president is going to find -- going to try to find common ground as you heard sarah sanders there. the white house expects the president to lay out his case for a border wall, something our reporting shows the white house increasingly preparing themselves for the president to declare a national emergency and bypass congress even though that's not what democrats want and even some of the president's own party have been expressing scepticism in recent days about him doing that and the precedent that would set, brooke. >> more and more republicans coming out and they don't like the idea of this declaration either. thank you very much, kaitlan collins. when the president delivers his state of the union, he will face a vastly different room

than the ones he addressed last year. cnn's tom foreman looks at the new dynamics this president faces heading into tonight's speech. >> reporter: when president trump comes walking down that aisle, he is going to face a very different audience than he saw last year. back then, his republicans had firm control of the senate and the house but in the midterm elections, the democrats took the majority in the house and they brought in a lot more elected women, too. he'll be able to see all of that from his speaking position up here and he might feel it over his shoulder as well. republican speaker of the house paul ryan is out and in his place is democratic speaker of the house nancy pelosi who's shown she is willing and able to battle with trump over the budget and over his messaging and certainly over his plans for a wall on the mexican border. watch for her reactions throughout this. also watch this area down here. that's where the supreme court

is seated. president trump is already appointed two justices, their decisions in the past, their decisions in the future are of interest to every person in this chamber. also, watch over here. there's always a tension on the area where the first lady is seated. the white house traditionally uses this to bring guest in they want to honor or who somehow illustrate a point the president is going to make. now, bear in mind, the democrats can bring guests too, to draw attention to their concerns and they will on the subject of gun control. you can expect to see a survivor of the parkland school shooting in the audience out here. on the issue of immigration, you can expect to see a woman who tried to cross the border. she was separated from her child by u.s. agents and on the issue of the government shutdown, yeah, there will be some workers who were furloughed during that time. in short, when president trump looks out at this chamber, he is going to see far fewer people than last year who are ready to agree with him and many more who

are prepared to challenge his policies. brooke? >> tom, thank you for the preview. you are coverage starts at 8:00 eastern this evening right here on cnn. now to a federal investigation linked to the president that know it is not the russia probe and not coming from the special counsel's office. federal prosecutors in the southern district of new york have subpoenaed the trump inaugural committee and cnn has reviewed the document itself, which asks for a lot. all documents related to virtually every donor, every donation, every attendee at committee event and every piece of paper work related to legalities of an inaugural donation including the possibility of donations made by foreign nationals. it will comply to any request for information but insists the investigation has nothing to do with the president. >> i'm reading the same reports u this doesn't have anything to do with the white house and i

think the biggest focus and the thing that most american care about has nothing to do with the inning augustral and everything to do with what the path forward looks like. >> cnn's kara ski nal is with me now. myriad crimes potentially here. >> that's right. it covers the gamut, conspiracy against the u.s., looking at mail fraud, wire fraud. there are a couple that you can read a little bit through the subpoena what they're looking at. this issue of straw donors. was foreign money coming into the campaign hiding behind individuals and that's something the subpoena touches on. it wants to know these benefits that people had, photos ops, private meetings, small group meetings. is that a way there was an influence to curry idea of a conspiracy? you know, looking at were questions paid directly by donors. were any donors asked to bypass

the inauguration and pay the vendors and that could be the violation of campaign laws and finance laws. so that gives us the big landscape here and this was $100 million that was raised. it was doubled what obama had raised. there's been very little transparency on how the money's been spent. now we're seeing federal prosecutors here dig in and look into how is the money coming in, where was it coming in to and do we know even how it was all used and what came in exactly. >> they're looking at all of it. it could take months, possibly years. thank you very much. let's get some analysis from one of our favorites here, cnn contributor john dean who served as white house counsel to richard nixon is with me. john, welcome back. as kara was just reporting, prosecutors are investigating these handful of potential crimes, straw donors, false statements, mail fraud, wire

fraud to conspiracy against the u.s. i want to focus in on conspiracy, john. is that the most potentially damning and if so why? >> it could be if there was an effort to somehow collectively use this entity for nefarious purposes of getting money and favors from the middle east was where the target would be, that was certainly a very prominent contributor to the inauguration and as was just mentioned, over 100 million, 107 million broke all records for inaugural committees. >> they're looking into the paper work and the paper work with the paper work. how the sdny is looking for all of this related to, quote, the possibility of doan nations by foreign nationals. it's only a crime if it is done with the knowledge that the foreign contributions were

illegal, right? so why is the knowledge piece so significant? >> i've been thinking about that since this report first popped up and i talked at one time to jay willard marriott who ran richard nixon's two inauguration. i talked to him about the second. they knew every contributor who made even small contributions. they didn't know the anonymous that came in, but it's very likely that people knew exactly -- and that's why people make large contributions to inaugural committees is to curry favor and it depends on how it's done. since the trump organization and the campaign was so disorganized just like the white house would follow it, i wouldn't be surprised if they have violated laws here because it's very easy to do.

i don't recall any counsel being assigned directly to the inaugural committee. >> what about this lead prosecutor on this subpoena, tom mckay? he was also one of the leads in the michael cohen case, so even if and we don't know what's going on behind closed doors with the mueller investigation, but if it is winding down, what does this signal to you about the scrutiny that they will be facing from federal investigators in new york? >> it's not over in new york. there's a reason they call it the sovereign district of new york because they march to their own drummer. i, for example, can recall a conversation from the u.s. attorney from the southern district when i was white house counsel, whitney seymour north who said, we disagree with the department of justice and we want the white house to understand why this over the pentagon papers while they were going to dance to a different tune than the justice department. this is a long tradition that preceded nixon. it has followed nixon.

trump ace going to have a lot of trouble with this district up here. his business is up here, so they have also immunized one of his key finance people, mr. weisselberg for the cohen case and may be more. >> keeper of the keys of the kingdom perhaps. mr. dean, thank you. >> thank you, brooke. coming up next, the head of u.s. central command says he was not consulted about the decision to withdraw u.s. troops from syria before the president made that announcement. we're asking today how the heck is that even possible. also happening right now, eastern virginia medical school is having an investigation into the racist photo. and did the godfather of soul really die of natural causes? questions now being raised after this massive cnn investigation two years in the making into the death of james brown. you're watching cnn special

coverage here on the day of the state of the union. we're live in washington. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. the top u.s. general who oversees military operations in the middle east is revealing that he was not consulted on president trump's decision to pull troops out of syria. testifying before the senate armed services committee ahead of the u.s. central command, he said he was as surprised as anyone else by the president's decision. >> general, were you aware of the president's intention to order the withdraw of our troops from syria before that was publicly announced? >> i was not aware of the specific announcement. certainly we are aware that he

expressed a desire and intent in the past to depart iraq -- syria. >> you weren't consulted before that decision was announced? >> we were not. i was not consulted. >> president trump has received a lot of pushback from lawmakers including republicans about his plans to pull u.s. troops out of syria. a new pentagon report states that isis will likely move to regain territory if the u.s. withdraws. the general also testifying today that the fight against isis is not over. retired rear admiral john kirby is with me. how alarming is that? >> very. one, it means that the decision was completely uninformed by any military advice and counsel. it was just put out there without any strategic thought. commander-in-chief doesn't have to listen to his generals and the generals are sometimes wrong, at least you want that decision informed by military opinion and this wasn't. number two, it put those troops

at an disadvantage and in more danger. this isn't a policy decision that he announced on twitter like the transgender ban. this is an operational decision. he had troops in the field fulfilling a mission at high risk to themselves and to their partners and to pull the plug on that just inject the confusion and uncertainty on the ground that was inappropriate. >> how about, though, in addition to all of your points how flippantly the president said within the last couple of days of, okay, we'll pull them out and, you know, if isis, you know, worsens which is exactly what his intel leaders have been telling us, then we'll just put them back in. i've talked to you enough that the military doesn't switch off and on like like that. >> certainly they can amp up operations quickly if they need to but you shouldn't put them in that position. we take it for granted particularly with special operations. we see the end result, which is always dramatic and always very, very positive. we don't realize the scope of the planning and the resourcing and the effort that goes on

behind the scenes to get them to that point to the tip of the spear and so when he just very cavalierly says we'll just pull our troops out and we have very fast cargo planes, that's not the point. you want to be able to keep the pressure on the enemy to the point where they cannot recover, you can effect a sustainable defeat and a sustainable defeat is only possible with time and resources and planning in depth not in just spurius back and forth movement. >> is hearing all of this, wouldn't perhaps this explain the unilateral decision like this why general mattis would resign? >> he put it in his letter that it was a big reason why he decided to resign. there were other things building to it, but i think the syria decision was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. luckily, we've got -- folks like general votel still in the fight and trying to make this work. he said something very interesting today, votel, the decision was not time or conditions based.

in other words, he hasn't been given any direct orders about when or under what circumstances to remove those troops. it sounds like the pentagon has sort of been able to convince the president, let's not do this in a too rapid fashion or precipitous way. let's keep the pressure on isis. we'll see where it goes. >> that's significant that you heard that as well. admiral, thank you very much. now to this as the president gets ready to focus in on immigration in his state of the union address this evening. the trump organization firing more and more undocumented workers and that includes one woman who is planning to be there in person this evening. also actor liam nieceen for telling the story how he want contemplated racist revenge. see what happens when he was confronted about it on live morning tv. we'll be right back. did you ever notice that the very first bite

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we certainly expect the president will devote much of tonight's state of the union to illegal immigration but a new report is underscoring what some call major hypocrisy when it comes to how the trump family runs its business. it's fired at least 18 undocumented workers over the past two months according to "the washington post." these firings from at least five golf courses come after several outlets reported that some trump properties were employing undocumented immigrants. an immigrant from guatemala says she was trusted with cleaning trump's private residence in bedminster for five years. >> translator: i had access to enter his house, to clean it,

but he wasn't president yet. i entered, left and the boss gave me the keys. i entered to clean everything when they arrived in the summer. they were there a lot. they promised me that when he became president, you would be able to enter, but when he became president, they took away my access to enter his home. i was inside and they kicked me out saying i could no longer enter here. i asked for an explanation and they never gave it to me. >> eric trump who is along with his brother don junior running the organization, says, we have tens of thousands of employees across our properties and have very strict hiring practices. if any, employee submitted false documentation in an attempt to circumvent the law they will be terminated immediately. we take this issue very seriously. this is one of the reasons my father is fighting so hard for immigration reform and the sim

is broken. the firings now have the attention of congress. bob menendez called on federal workers to investigate after meeting with morales last week. >> the president who rails against immigrants but uses their labor to enrich himself and does so in a way and in an environment from what i understand listening to them that was hostile to them and that was threatening to them because, in fact, they held their very immigration status against them and i believe that any attempt to try to affect their status during this period of time could considered to be obstruction of justice at the end of the day. >> morales back in washington today. this evening she's attended her former boss's state of the union. bonnie watson coleman invited her. with me now is morales's

attorney. welcome, to you. >> thank you. >> you'll be going with her tonight to the house to hear the speech. can you just begin with what has she alleged how she was treated? >> she was there for about five years and what she is saying is that her supervisor physically assaulted her, threatened her constantly with deportation. she complained to management at the highest level, the general manager of the golf club, nothing was done and something that's very important, apparently the picture for her green card was taken inside of the club and then one of the drivers drove her to a nearby town to pick up these fake documents, documents that we have handed over to state authorities and this is the environment until she said enough is enough. >> what you're alleging that second piece of that, that would be a federal crime if true and i want to tell you what obviously the trump organization is saying, but does she have proof? what you're alleging is that the trump organization knew she had

no papers and that they helped fake them for her? >> yes. we have met with state investigators. i have sat down with the fbi. she is willing to continue to cooperate with authorities. >> does she have proof? >> she has proof. she has the documents. she has her testimony and this is what's important here, she's not the only person who says that this happened. we have sandra diaz. she also said that this was part of the environment there, that workers came in, documents were provided by people from inside and at this point i am now representing 25 workers in four different cities in the united states and what these workers are telling me is that during the season, the golf season in the northeast apparently ends in november and what they were telling me is that each club, half of the staff at each club was undocumented. >> so this is what the club is

denying those allegations, they say the former employees provided their own false paper work in a statement to cnn, trump organization would institute quote everify at all applicable properties and take swift action where necessary. she has proof not only in her false papers but the process of how she obtained her false papers? >> she has explained to authorities how this occurred. she will continue to cooperate. with regards to that statement, i want to say one thing. if this was one or two employees in a major cooperation, maybe you would think, maybe couple of them were able to get false documents, but we are talking about a golf club with 100 employees, no more, and apparently half of them were undocumented. each club. now we see that there are five clubs, so now we see a pattern and practice here and that is why we are calling for a federal -- complete and thorough investigation of federal authorities. this is a criminal conspiracy. >> thank you very much.

>> thank you. coming up next, the bombshell cnn investigation that's getting attention on capitol hill and around the world today. we exposed how weapons sent to war zones end up in the wrong hands and now a new call to end u.s. involvement in the war in yemen. one hour pickup order? got it. ran out of ink and i have a big meeting today. and 2 boxes of twizzlers... yeah, uh...for the team. the team? gooo team... order online pickup in an hour. and, now save big at the buy 2 get 1 free event. at office depot officemax. and, now save big at the buy 2 get 1 free event. t-mobile knows dancing is better when you include a partner. singing is better when you include a friend. and unlimited is better with a phone included. it's true. forty bucks with the other guys, doesn't include a phone.

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the united nations calls the war in yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis. thousands killed and millions displaced after four years of fighting after houthi rebels supported by iran and a saudi-led coalition backed by the united states. and now cnn has exclusive learned that some of those weapons sold directly to the saudis and to the uae are now in the hands of terrorists linked to al qaeda and others. nima elbagir offers up this upclose look. >> reporter: the influx of

weaponry is prolonging the conflict. on our way back from the front line, we spot what we've come in search of. it's absolutely incredible. we're driving past and it's like a grave yard of american military hardware and this is not under the control of coalition forces. this is in the command of militias. which is expressly forbidden by the arms sales agreement with the u.s. >> and that report was front and center during a capitol hill hearing where the head of the u.s. central command was questioned about these developments and what the defense department plans to do next. >> we have not authorized saudi arabia or the emirates to retransfer any of this equipment to other parties on the ground in yemen. i think we have to look more closely at the allegations in this particular situation to find out what happened. as we've seen in iraq in the

past where we saw our partners overrun, we have seen american equipment provided to them, lost in the course of a fight end up in the hands of our adversaries out there. >> and you heard general votel there mention how u.s. enemies have gained control of american made weapons in previous worz and that's just one reason chris murphy of connecticut says it is time for the u.s. to end its involvement in yemen. >> it's infuriating but, frankly not surprising. it's why many of us have been advocating for years for the united states to get out of this civil war inside yemen. our support for the saudis has been allowing them to intentionally kill civilians and now we find out fairly definitively that the weapons we've been given the saudis are ending up in very conservative, very radical sunni militias that mayened up using those weapons against the united states and

our allies. >> cnn's nima elbagir is with me from london and cedric layton. welcome to both of you, nima, extraordinary stuff. the defense department says it is aware of our reporting. they're digging deeper into the claims. what's the response from the saudis and the uae to this? >> reporter: the saudi-led coalition didn't respond to our request for comment. let me read to you he said they deny in no uncertain terms that we're in violation of any agreement. the giants brigade is a part of forces it was in the possession of the coalition but yemeni forces are under the supervision of the forces. you heard them saying that that's not the case, they have not been given authorization to transfer weapons to any of the parties under their supervision

in yemen. >> and colonel, also then listening to senator murphy on our air last hour, he's been critical of the u.s. involvement in some time. he wants out. this is what general votel said today about what the consequence of that would be. >> certainly, it is a very significant humanitarian disaster in yemen, but i do believe departing from our partners there removes the leverage that we have to continue to influence him which we think we have used in a positive manner and i think it further in dangers american in the region. >> further endangers american in the region, would you agree? >> i do agree because here's the problem. it's obviously awful that these weapons have gotten into the wrong hands and it's very clear from nima's report that this is exactly what is happened. it's not the first time this has happened but it's the most recent and it's one of the worst situations of this type, but if

you're not there, if you can't put your thumb on the people that are supposedly taking care of your interests, you're going to lose leverage, you're going to not be able to get things done the way you want things done and you're also going to open the door to iranian involvement. this is the real problem we have to deal with at this point. >> nima, to you on centcom, they say weapons have been obtained by u.s. enemies because they've been overrun. does that align with what you saw, your own reporting? >> reporter: no. no, these were weapons that were distributed by u.s. allies and they're not denying it. that is the real concern of many of the u.s. military sources that we're speaking to. this is not something that the united arab emmitts or saudi arabia are denying and that's what makes this so worrying that they are flouting the end user agreement violations and claiming that those end user agreement violations are not

what they are under international, not just when it comes to the u.s. sales agreement and that is really concerning to the colonel's point about what happens when you lose leverage. how much leverage do you have if your allies disregarding the law of your country? >> right. right. congress is trying once again to pass a war power that would end our involvement in yemen. >> i think this report will have a profound influence on that and the leverage is one of those really sticky issues and nima's point is very well taken. they're not following the rules. we are there, we're providing them with weapons, we're providing them with intelligence support, targeting support and they're not doing what we're asking them to do and what our law requires them to do and that is a real problem. so they'll be consequences for both saudi arabia and the united arab emirates and they won't be good consequences. what could happen as a result of

this is that in essence yemen could eventually be part of the iranian orbit. that would be very bad for saudi arabia, possibly bad for our interests as well, the problem is, if you're going to fight a war, you'll have to do it on moral grounds as much as you possibly can and that is something that these countries have violated. >> colonel, thank you. >> nima, bravo. keep digging. thank you very much. >> thanks. still ahead here on cnn. this picture says it all, the incredible turnover in president trump's cabinet all in this one photograph. we'll talk about last year's state of the union and see who is left standing. plus, a racist picture in one of their old yearbooks involving the now embattled governor of virginia. now this medical school not only delivering a message to the black community but admitting there are more troubling pictures in recent yearbooks. we have that coming up. sooner or later, we all sign up for medicare.

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eastern virginia medical school under fire for printing a racist photo in a 1984 yearbook speaking out that the photo is on the personal page of virginia sitting democratic governor ralph northam, shows two men, one in black face and the other dressed as a clansman. the governor is under mounting pressure to resign and the school has hired a former states attorney general to conduct an independent review. the school's president has just held a press conference where he apologized to the african-american community. >> we are acutely hurt by the

events that occurred, but it does not compare to the feelings of outrage and pain for our minority and african-american community here at evms, virginia, and around the nation. the emotional wounds they endure are enormous. i want to express my sincere apologies particularly to the african-american communities who are most injured from the pictures of the yearbooks and those pictures which have been circulated in the press over the last few days. i'm so sorry for the pain that has inflicted upon you. >> let's go to cnn's sara sidner. she's live there in norfolk. you have learned that there are even more racist photos in recent yearbooks from the same med school. >> reporter: so here's what we found, we have been looking through the yearbooks here at the evms library which is just

behind me right near where the president talked about what happened and the fact that he said that in 2013 someone came to him showed him a photo in the yearbook, he was upset by it and he said at that point he decided no more yearbooks for the medical staff at evms, that they are done with doing that because he's appalled at the picture's he's seen recently from the 1984 yearbook and appalled at the picture that came out in the 2013 yearbook. the picture we found in the 2013 yearbook found someone dressed up as a confederate soldier and confederate flag behind their picture. now we should talk a little bit about exactly how these pictures get into the yearbook. we have just spoken to a staff member from 1984 who was also a student here who was on the yearbook staff. he was a layout person. he helped put things in place and he said here's how he remembers the staff of the yearbook getting the pictures. we were sent the pictures or they were dropped off in a

sealed envelope by the students themselves. many of the pictures the students asked for them back because they were precious. they didn't have more than one. they had all sorts of things like their family members, grandparents sometimes. sometimes their children, depending on the student they would send in a group of pictures to the yearbook staff to be put on their personal page. i asked him this question, is it possible that someone may have switched up the pictures or someone did this on purpose and he responded -- here's what he told us. >> that is certainly possible, but the people, myself and the people i worked with, we took great pains to try and make sure that everything that the student submitted was kept together and to try and prevent the wrong pictures from going -- or the pictures from going on someone else's page. but it is possible that that

could have happened, but it's a low probability. >> reporter: so you heard there from dr. william elwood. he spoke at length to us. he said some of the stuff was done back then. no one on the yearbook staff flagged it. he wasn't sure if there was a faculty member involved. the president also answered a question about whether the faculty knew about this and he said he couldn't remember and each year was different. this particular student said, look, i know that the editorial looked over every single one of these pictures and nobody thought anything of. that was the scene now. fast-forward to 2013 and we've discovered another picture of confederate soldier put in garb into the yearbook in 2013. those are the pictures that the medical school president is likely referring to. he apologized not only to the community african-american community but also to the students who he said were greatly hurt by this. he says a lot more needs to be done and there's an independent

investigation being done, brooke. >> and the governor is still the governor until further notice. sara sidner, thank you very much. coming up next, federal prosecutors in new york putting a spotlight on president trump's inauguration and following the money trail. were crimes committed including conspiracy? and two years cnn investigation now raising questions about the death of james brown, the godfather of soul. why nearly a dozen people are calling for an investigation into his death? liberty mutual accident forgiveness means they won't hike your rates over one mistake. see, liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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what a difference a year makes when president trump

delivers his state of the union tonight, not only will he look out and have decidedly more democrats, but behind him speaker of the house nancy pelosi, of course, on the dais looking over his shoulder and the president's own cabinet there will be several new faces leading the president down the aisle tonight. zachary wolf is with us now and zack, more on this one photo. i know it's up on cnn.com for everyone to see the incredible year that was and now all these people are gone. >> that's right. we were getting ready for state of the union this year and we were looking at the photos from last year and it just struck us that eight members of the president's cabinet, these are people who will sit front and center, one will probably skip and be the so-called designated survivor but the rest of his team will be there to support him in the front row and the turnover since last year has been remarkable. there's john kelly, maybe his top staffer for a long time, his left and this is one of the themes. you see people going from inside of the cabinet to new jobs, work

mb director mick mulvaney is right there. he's moved over to that chief-of-staff job. nikki haley was u.s. ambassador to the united nations. they've taken that job out of the cabinet. they're waiting for heather naue nauert. she wouldn't go essentially. you've had couple of people leave because of scandals or internal investigations. those include epa director scott pruitt, ryan zinke also. a lot of this cabinet is still empty. and then another thing that i want to point out, there's been a lot of turnover in his national security staff. you have both his secretary of state rex tillerson who was replaced by mike pompeo, the cia director james mattis has had a deputy, patrick shanahan nominated to replace him. it's a remarkable turnover.

some researchers at brookings suggested that it's been about 65% of the president's cabinet. his turnover at least one time and that is more than george w. bush had in eight years, 65% and it's almost where the last two democratic presidents, they were just over 70% for their eight years. a lot of turnover and a lot of new faces for him tonight. >> a lot more women in that audience as well. jack wolf, thank you very much. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >> so we roll on. you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin live here in our nation's capital and we've got breaking news. cnn has learn that had in recent weeks federal prosecutors in new york have been trying to interview executives in the trump organization. it is another sign of the growing legal troubles that the president could face outside of the special counsel's investigation, the russia probe. let's go straight to cnn politics and