Trump Answers Written Questions from Special Counsel; "Yellow Vests" Demand President Macron Lower Fuel Prices; U.K. Prime Minister May Moves Quickly to Fill Vacant Cabinet Posts.
VANIER: A key milestone in the Russia probe. President Trump said he's answered written questions from Robert Mueller. Those questions about possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump also said that he wrote the answers, not his lawyers. Our Kaitlan Collins reports from the White House.</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After 24 hours of Twitter silence about the Russia investigation, President Trump addressing it out loud today from the Oval Office.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There should have never been any Mueller investigation.</s>COLLINS: Announcing he's finished the written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller and even penned them himself.</s>TRUMP: I write the answers. My lawyers don't write answers. I write answers.</s>COLLINS: Trump met with his legal team nearly every day this week and despite his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, raising concerns about some of the questions...</s>TRUMP: No collusion.</s>COLLINS: -- Trump said he hasn't submitted them yet, but doesn't have any problems.</s>TRUMP: But they're not very difficult questions.</s>COLLINS: The president insisting he's not bothered by the Russia investigation, despite writing in all caps the day before that it is a witch hunt like no other in American history and has gone absolutely nuts.</s>TRUMP: I like to take everything personally, because you do better that way.</s>COLLINS: Trump suggesting investigators from the special counsel's office were setting him up to perjure himself.</s>TRUMP: Gee, was the weather sunny or was it rainy? He said it may have been a good day. It was rainy. Therefore, he told a lie. He perjured himself.</s>COLLINS: The back and forth with the special counsel coming as the president is weighing shaking up his own staff. Today, when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, standing over his shoulder, he said he's not done making changes yet.</s>TRUMP: I'm extremely happy. I'm very happy with almost all of my cabinet. And, you know, changes are made because they're always made, especially after midterms.</s>COLLINS: Sources say Trump has decided to remove Nielsen from her post, but he hasn't picked a replacement yet and there are questions in Washington about who wants to work in a White House engulfed in chaos. Now as the president continues to search for more people to bring into his administration while he's considering getting rid of some, we have learned from sources that the Florida attorney general Pam Bondi is scheduled to meet with Trump while he's in Florida next week for his Thanksgiving vacation, someone whose name has been floated for not only the attorney general post --</s>COLLINS: -- but also for Kirstjen Nielsen's job over at the Department of Homeland Security. While all this is going on, a senior administration official made a stunning remark to Jake Tapper earlier today, saying that there are people in this administration who are arsonists and people in this administration who are firefighters. And they said -- and I'm quoting this senior administration official now -- "The president is looking to get rid of the firefighters. The more he does, the faster his administration is going to burn down" -- Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.</s>VANIER: Also in Washington, also at the White House, CNN's Jim Acosta is back in the White House press corps. On Friday a judge ruled that the Trump administration must return his press credentials pending a full legal resolution of CNN's lawsuit. CNN launched an important case after the White House revoked Acosta's pass last week following a heated exchange with the president. Mr. Trump said the ruling is not a big deal. My colleague, CNN's chief White House correspondent, welcomed the interim decision.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I just want to say something very briefly and that is I want to thank all of my colleagues in the press who supported us this week. And I want to thank the judge for the decision he made today. And let's go back to work.</s>VANIER: Major roadways across France could be shut down this weekend and that's because protesters across the country are planning to block them. You can see them already. They're demanding French president Emmanuel Macron do something to lower the price of fuel. They call themselves Yellow Vests, part of the reflective gear that they're required to keep in their cars in case of emergency. CNN European affairs commentator, Dominic Thomas, is with us in the French capital. Dominic, is this only -- I know this is the official reason for the protest. Is this only about the price of fuel and fuel tax or is this also about the president, Emmanuel Macron?</s>DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Cyril, the two are inextricably linked. Of course, people are upset about the fuel prices. This is an opportunity to -- to launch a -- a national demonstration; interestingly enough, one that has been launched through social media, not through the traditional powers of the trade unions. But, of course, it is also an opportunity to indicate profound dissatisfaction with the ways in which Emmanuel Macron's reform measures are working out, now almost two years into his presidency. This is really a kind of barometer of where things stand on the French political landscape.</s>VANIER: Macron had promised an economic revival for France during his campaign. Did that materialize?</s>THOMAS: Well, the big problem is that Macron is facing -- and he's realizing this now as he is moving well into the presidency -- is that when he came to power, he came to power thanks to a movement. He does not have a political party as such with deep -- sort of position in French society and represented in local councils, departments, mayoral offices and so on. And the French system moves very slowly. The process of getting things through parliament, decrees and of change actually coming out and having demonstrable deliverables takes a very long time. Having said that, some of the measures that he has put into place that concern, tax cuts on the corporations and the super wealthy have come into place. This has further exacerbated tensions between those that are struggling in French society and the super elite that he is seen as really representing. So of course the rising cost of oil prices, of gas prices, petrol prices and so on has disproportionately impacted a section of the population that feels left behind by this presidency, a presidency that many supported, that many welcomed, the kind of change. But the change has not translated into the pocketbooks of the average French person.</s>VANIER: By the way, Dominic, as we speak, we see live pictures of the Yellow Vests blocking roads in France. For anybody unfamiliar with French protests, you see the car block? That's the exact point of the protest. Inflict some pain on people who use the roads and just people in general and try and block the country to make that statement. Dominic, protests in France, frequent. We've seen pictures like these before. Some are successful and they force the government to change course or change a policy. Others not. How do you predict that? How does that work?</s>THOMAS: Emmanuel Macron certainly has been unrelenting when it has come to trying to move forward and implement his measures. In fact, many would argue he's very disconnected from the voice of the people. He's not a very good listener. He has his ideas and he wants to go about implementing them. The interesting thing here is this is a national demonstration. This is going to take place not just in the main city, capital of Paris, but in all of --</s>THOMAS: -- the areas in what we may call the provinces, in the areas that have been so impacted by the question of rising oil prices. These are the areas in which the public infrastructure and transports and others develop when people rely on their vehicles to get around. Now of course, the French system relies on testing. The litmus test is when policies or decrees or changes are being enacted to see whether or not people will take to the street and there's a mechanism for doing this. In this particular case, the national nature of it and the amount of people that we're potentially going to see involved in this, the ways in which this is impacting so many people in French society, is likely to resonate with the French president. He'll have to take this seriously.</s>VANIER: Absolutely. The French president, the French presidency is only a few hundred meters away from where you are. No doubt Macron is sitting there and all of the information about everything that is going to happen today in France is going to be fed up to him. How many people are protesting? How much paralysis is there? And that's going to influence his decision-making. Dominic Thomas reporting to us live from our Paris bureau, thank you so much. British prime minister Theresa May is wasting no time rebuilding her fractured cabinet after the disastrous rollout of her Brexit plan. The terms of that agreement cost her two cabinet secretaries and five other officials. It was an embarrassing setback by any measure. CNN's Bianca Nobilo reports from London.</s>BIANCA NOBILO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A quieter, darker Westminster at the end of a tumultuous week. MPs have gone home to their constituencies to test the mood of their voters. So has the prime minister, after another round in her unusual media blitz.</s>THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: If there's no deal, I have said that E.U. citizens living here in the U.K. will continue to have their rights protected. I would expect other countries in the E.U. to do the same for U.K. citizens living in their country.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Order.</s>NOBILO (voice-over): After a week of resignations of being mauled in the Commons, Theresa May's mood is an Elsonian (ph) England expects, resilient, brilliantly determined. She appears to have stanched the bleeding with senior ministers rallying to her side Friday.</s>LIAM FOX, BRITISH INTERNATIONAL TRADE SECRETARY: For people, the greatest price that could be paid would be to have no Brexit at all. I think that would be a betrayal of the British people.</s>NOBILO (voice-over): Reinforcing the ranks, the prime minister has named a new Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, and brought another loyalist, Amber Rudd, back into the cabinet. But the rumbling among the hardcore Brexiteers on the Conservative backbenches threatens to mutate into revolt. The ink still drying on letters calling for a vote of no confidence.</s>NOBILO: And they cannot overlook that she doesn't have the numbers to pass her Brexit deal through the House of Commons. Dissent in the chamber has only grown louder as has the voices of protesters calling for a second referendum.</s>NOBILO (voice-over): The future of the prime minister and the complex Brexit deal unveiled this week is shrouded in uncertainty, as the clock ticks down to B-Day, March 29th, 2019 -- Bianca Nobilo, CNN, London.</s>VANIER: Thank you for watching. I'm Cyril Vanier. Stay with CNN.