[Cuomo:] President Trump has said surprisingly little about Michael Flynn. In fact, the last time he was asked on Friday aboard Air Force One, here's what he said.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] I don't know about it. I haven't seen it. What report is that?
[Question:] There are a number of
[Trump:] I haven't seen
[Question:] "The Washington Post" is reporting that he talked to the ambassador of Russia before you were inaugurated about sanctions. That he tried to
[Trump:] Look, I haven't'seen that. I'll look at that.
[Cuomo:] All right. So the president, who watches more TV and reads more articles than any of his predecessors in all likelihood, didn't know about something that was all over the media for days. OK, let's get "The Bottom Line" with senior congressional correspondent for "The Washington Examiner," David Drucker. The president will get multiple chances to answer questions about it today. He has been ducking this. The White House has been spinning in gross fashion. One of his advisers this morning refusing to answer questions about who knew what and when about this situation, saying, we can't get information about who knew. That's not going to cut it.
[David Drucker, Sr. Congressional Corr., "washington Examiner":] No, it's not, and I think that the president really does need to talk about this because the essentially firing the national security adviser is such a big deal, the position is so important. We know from news reports I know from talking to people in Washington that the National Security Council has been dysfunctional. Michael Flynn was not able to get one of his top deputies confirmed. And the president has really not spoken about any of this. And, Chris, as you mentioned, we know he watches the news. We know that political organizations that run ads that want to reach the president monitor the television shows that we know that he watches. So he had to know about this. I think the question is, how much did he believe and what did his subordinates in the administration tell him?
[Camerota:] Well, there you go, and therein lies the rub. We know that Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, did report to the White House Council at the end of last month. We don't know exactly what date, but a couple of weeks ago, what they had learned about this conversation between Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador and that they had discussed easing sanctions. So there are only two options and they're both bad. Either the White House Council kept it from the president and the vice president, or the president wasn't telling the truth when reporters asked him and he didn't move with alacrity when he learned to get rid of Michael Flynn.
[Drucker:] So those choices, Alisyn, are both possible. I I also say that it's a it's you know, it's amazing how difficult management of a White House can be for presidents and their underlings and they don't always do things that would appear to be logical. So when Sally Yates and others briefed aides to the president about this, the first thing they should have done was run it up the chain and figured out what was going on and briefed the president. That doesn't mean that that didn't that is necessarily what happened. I also think the other thing going on here, and I can't stress this enough is, I think that the administration and the president constantly attacking reporters for producing news that they believe is not real is something that they believe wholeheartedly. And so I think that unless we know exactly how and when the president was confronted by people he trusts and said this happened with Mr. Flynn, what do you want to do about it, it's hard to know exactly when he knew, what he knew.
[Camerota:] Yes.
[Drucker:] And we still don't actually know I mean, look, we still don't actually know what his reaction was. Did he talk to Michael Flynn? What does he want to do about it?
[Camerota:] Right.
[Drucker:] And who, as a consequence, is he going to bring in to set things right?
[Camerota:] Sure. Sure. And all of that will come out. But I just to be clear on what you're saying, you're saying that there's a third possibility, and that is that though Sally Yates told the White House Council, that it didn't make it up the chain because of disorganization basically?
[Drucker:] Yes. And I think what we've seen with this White House so far is a lot of chaotic management. All right, they haven't gotten their feed underneath them. I think the president and his team are still adjusting to what it means to run a government versus a business and a campaign.
[Cuomo:] David David, hold on a second. It's not making sense. You're right to give the benefit of the doubt in the absence of facts from the administration. People will criticize that suggestion. But if we don't know, you should give some deference to the unknown in this case. However, we do know. It cannot be true that the White House can be upset about this reporting in any real way because this is about their dissembling, their refusal to bring out facts that would have never come to light without journalists doing their job. They ducked this information. The White House Council, not passing it on, short of that person deciding to resign for malfeasance, right, because keeping material information about national security from the president of the United States would make no sense as someone who could stay in that job. So we'll wait on that. But they are not answering the questions this morning. That's what you do when a story is fake, as they love to say. You correct it.
[Drucker:] Right.
[Cuomo:] You say, well, here's the real answer. There's none of that. The president said he hadn't even heard of this story. That's almost impossible to believe. Kellyanne and other advisers are out there talking. Chris Collins, one of his surrogates, came on here this morning, the congressman, and suggested that the GOP leadership isn't talking about this because they're having Valentine's Day with their spouses
[Drucker:] Yes, well, that's that's ridiculous.
[Cuomo:] It is about fake, but not about the media. It's about fake responses in light of real questions.
[Drucker:] Well, I look, I agree with you in that regard. What I'm saying is that sometimes the logical answer in these cases is not always correct because I don't think that they know that one side knows what the other side is doing necessarily. There are a lot of fiefdoms in the White House.
[Camerota:] Yes.
[Drucker:] There's a lot of competition. And I don't think that they have figured out yet how to run things smoothly.
[Camerota:] David Drucker, thank you very much for "The Bottom Line."
[Cuomo:] Manafort, Flynn, both involved with Russia, both now out. CNN "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow and John Berman begins right after this break. A lot of news. A lot of questions. Stay with CNN.