good evening, i'm ali velshi sitting in for lawrence o'donnell. we have a very good "last word" for you. trump's tangled web. from russia collusion, to the president's tortured relationship with the truth. we'll look at it all over the course of this hour. the day began as a growing web of deceit between president and shifting stories between the president and rudy giuliani to clean up rudy giuliani's now-infamous fox news appearances. you'll remember he revealed that the president reimbursed michael cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment. there are new details that just broke within the last half an hour about when the president learned of that payment to stormy daniels. according to the "new york times" president trump knew about a six-figure payment that michael d. cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard air force one in april, according to two people familiar with the
arrangement. the "times" reports it is not immediately clear exactly when the president learned of the payment that michael cohen made in october of 2016. but, quote, three people close to the matter said mr. trump knew mr. cohen had succeeded in keeping the allegations from coming public at the time the president denied it. also breaking, new developments from "the wall street journal" about michael cohen's growing access to cash during the presidential campaign. the "journal" reports, "michael cohen gained access to as much as $774,000 through two financial transactions during the campaign as he sought to fix problems for his boss, public records show. those transactions could factor into a broad investigation of mr. cohen's business affairs being conducted by manhattan federal prosecutors and the federal bureau of investigation." according to the "wall street journal," in february of 2016,
cohen nearly doubled the amount he could use on a bank credit lined tied to his manhattan apartment. increasing his ability to borrow by $245,000, three months earlier he gained access to another $529,000 through a new mortgage that he and his wife co-signed on a condominium owned by her parents at trump world tower. it isn't clear whether michael cohen used these sources of cash to settle problems for trump. but sources tell "the wall street journal" federal prosecutors and the fbi are examining whether michael cohen committed bank fraud by making false statements, inflating the value of his assets to obtain loans or misstating the purpose of his loan. michael cohen said he used his home equity line of credit to make the $130,000 hush money payment to stormy daniels. in an interview with "the
washington post" this week, rudy giuliani said the president had reimbursed michael cohen for the stormy daniels payment and indicated that trump had reimbursed cohen for other matters as well. quote, he was paid by donald trump's personal funds and he was paid out of personal funds which covered that and possibly a few other things, you know, would be considered incidental. the repayments took place over a period of time, probably in 2017, probably all paid back by the end of 2017, that and probably a few other situations that might have been considered campaign expenses. giuliani also said this week that cohen resolved other problems similarly for trump. he didn't specify what they were or the source of funds that were used. joining us is one of the "wall street journal" reporters who broke tonight's story, michael rothfeld, thank you for being it us. thank you for your reporting on this. what's the implication here. michael cohen ended up taking $774,000 combined in home equity
loans in the month before the election? >> that's right, ali. so the question is, what prosecutors are looking at is whether any laws are broken in terms of how michael cohen may have gotten access to cash during this period to use to help solve problems for president trump to keep things quiet, such as the stormy daniels payment. or were any misrepresentations made, as you said, in his -- in his applications to banks or statements to banks or in terms of what kind of campaign finance laws may have been violated. what we found was that -- well, first of all in november 2015, michael cohen's in-laws refinanced an apartment and took $529,000 out of the equity from the apartment. and he co-signed the loan for that.
slush fund that might have been used to fix problems? >> yes, rudy said stormy daniels wasn't the only thing he solved for president trump, there were a few other things he got repaid for after the election through a retainer, $35,000 a month. so the information is conflicting and people are changing their stories but by and by, as the federal investigation is going on, we are learning more about what happened, and i think within some short period of time we probably will find out even a lot more about what actually happened. >> thanks for your reporting, michael rothfeld from "the wall street journal." the breaking news keeps coming. "the washington post" just posted a new story, giuliani tries to clarify repayment to stormy daniels. in it the "times" reports that after rudy giuliani's media tour this week, some trump advisers said they fear that giuliani may have waived his right to assert that his conversations with the
president are private, and that government or private lawyers pursuing lawsuits could now seek to interview him. joining us are jonathan alter political analyst and columnist for "the daily beast." keira raumman, "boston globe," the point for federal studies. and jennifer rodgers, executive director of the center for advancement of public integrity for columbia high school. thanks to all of you. a lot to digest. jennifer, let me start with you. going back to michael cohen may be establishing a slush fund or bringing in money he may have used to pay things off for donald trump, in the state of new york that's not actually legal. lawyers can't go around settling things for clients with their own personal money. >> it's not a crime but it's an ethical violation. if you're a lawyer in new york state, you'll get in trouble with the bar for doing that sort of thing, it's clearly prohibited. that's a problem for michael cohen to the extent his law practice goes.
>> you and i were talking about this beforehand. a lot of this stuff starts to weave itself into a narrative that a lot of people already believe. there are a lot of people don't believe donald trump could not have known. this guy's a skinflint of legendary note. he didn't pay people small amounts of money, there's no real way hundreds of thousands of dollars could be paid on his behalf without him knowing. >> you're right. and we have this week confirmation of things that many people already believe to be true. looking back a week ago. we have the forbes 400 saying donald trump inflated his wealth wildly, pretended to be worth $500 million when he was only worth about $5 million. we have his doctor saying, i never wrote that letter saying he would be the most healthy person to serve as president, trump dictated me. we knew that by the tone of what it said. and now we have giuliani saying the president knew and he paid that back which is contrary to what the president said before, just last month, and then he
confirmed it on twitter yesterday, appeared to walk it back today. but you have a situation where your credibility is lost if you're constantly changing your story. >> what is this about, jonathan, it's chaos, but the whole thing is perplexing. giuliani was brought in, in theory not just as a political adviser, but to be the president's lawyer, to try and bring some resolution to this issue of whether the president is going to sit down with robert mueller or be subpoenaed to talk to robert mueller. this doesn't look like the way you solve a problem. >> to say that rudy giuliani is rusty would be underestimating the situation. he hasn't been a prosecutor in more than 30 years. he's been in politics and he has really no experience with this kind of white collar defense at this level and showed it in the first couple of days and ticked off his client as you can tell from the president's comments. what's concerning to me is when people say, oh, i'm not
surprised, i knew that about trump, i knew he wrote that letter for the doctor, i knew he grossly inflated his wealth, i knew he was a liar about stormy daniels -- it has the net effect of normalizing trump, which has been the great challenge is to not just take it for granted that the president of the united states is a confirmed liar. that shouldn't be a dog bites man story. >> right. >> we should continue to have a sense of outrage about this, but sustaining that outrage over a four-year period is going to be very hard. >> i want to remind everybody that after everything indira laid out about what donald trump said and rudy giuliani said, trump this morning said to reporters that giuliani needs to get his facts straight. let's listen to this in the president's words. >> i'll tell you what, rudy is a great guy but he just started a day ago.
but he really has his heart into it, he's working hard, he's learning the subject matter. and he's going to be issuing a statement, too, but he is a great guy. he started yesterday. he'll get his facts straight. he's a great guy. i will tell you this, i will tell you this, when rudy made the statement, rudy's great, but rudy had just started and he wasn't totally familiar with everything. >> and as the president said, rudy giuliani did release a statement this afternoon. here's part of it. the part about the campaign and the funds. he said, first, there is no campaign violation the payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president's family. it would not have been done in any event -- goof been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not. second, my references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president's knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters. rudy giuliani in the same
interview in which he said this wasn't a campaign violation said, can you imagine if this had come out right before the election? the implication again to what everybody else in the country thinks rudy giuliani said that was the case. now he's walking that back. if you're a prosecutor in this thing, this is too easy. >> it's interesting. so if the prosecutors are looking into this, if they want to make this campaign violation count, they will look at these things, they will have them in the arsenal for inconsistent statements and so on and they know what the defense is going to be. what they're going to do is make the case with the facts, not all these statements. look at exactly what happened, how the money was obtain the, who paid whom when, who knew what based on communications among the witnesses. they don't build this case with nonsense of the back and forth going around and they have these to have a little fun with. with the inconsistencies. >> michael avenatti, this is a civil case, but he's having some fun with it.
>> oh, for sure. >> he's enjoying the fact that everybody who needles either rudy giuliani or the president gets something out of it. >> i talked to michael avenatti today about this, and the thing that you have behind you, trump's tangled web is, of course, a reference to him quoting sir walter scott on twitter saying what a tangled web we weave. he is saying this is about deception. he said he and his client, stormy daniels are leaning back and enjoying this. they describe giuliani as dazed and confused, and the deeper they go into it, the better it makes ms. daniels' case or ms. stephanie clifford, her real name. it's not just the potential campaign finance violations, potential ethics violations. it's also potential false statements and potential obstruction of justice. let's not forget one of the most important things rudy giuliani said in that sean hannity interview, he said the president fired james comey because he refused to say that trump was not the target of the
investigation. >> right. >> that goes right back to obstruction of justice. >> the latter part of that line oh what a tangled web we weave is, "when we practice to deceive." these guys aren't practicing much. it seems more like the keystone kops, except it's the keystone kriminals. they didn't get the memo on how to lie. so this is what we've seen unfold this week. they also had some very good news this week. there's a judge in the paul manafort case, judge ellis, who essentially rebuked mueller and his team and said they were out to hurt the president. we don't know whether that's an indication -- >> which way he'll -- >> of which way he'll move, whether he might throw the case out or do something else that would be unfavorable to the government. this is a story that's not going to be all bad news for the president. he had good polls too. >> i'll talk about that a bit.
he was very quick to quote judge ellis when he got to the nra. this all happened early this morning. i wanted to go back to you jennifer, on the legality of it. it doesn't seem like they've all practiced it. giuliani overnight to nbc news described his conversation with donald trump about the cohen reimbursements, i don't know why he's talking about this stuff to the news media, in an interview with nbc news giuliani insisted he only shared the details to daniels -- of the payment to daniels with trump about a week ago. i don't think the president realized he paid him back for that specific thing until we his legal team made him aware of the paperwork. he said the president responded oh, my goodness that's what it was for. >> "oh my goodness" doesn't sound like the president to me. maybe rudy is paraphrasing. >> why are we hearing these conversations?
>> nowadays lawyers play multiple roles. they're often pr people, spokespeople, the rest of it. just because you're sharing a conversation with your client doesn't mean you're waiving privilege for all reasons. it may be something they decided the lawyer is going to be the spokesperson, there are good reasons for not having the client speak all the time. it doesn't mean that privilege is waived but why they decided as a strategic matter that these are things that should shared is beyond me. >> to jonathan's point it doesn't seem to be in order. the narrative is not clear. it seems to change so much. >> it's very incoherent. it's not the communications strategy you would want. >> part of me wonders whether that's the goal. thanks s ts to you guys, stick around. i want to bring in "washington post" editor ruth marcus and our msnbc contributors. thank you, ruth. ruth, what do you make of these developments.
the idea that rudy giuliani has put on the table for scrutiny exactly how this all went down between the president, michael cohen, and stormy daniels. i don't know that he helped the president's cause much. >> that's a very restrained way of describing the premiere of the giuliani story. i mean, when the president is out there cleaning up after his lawyer, that kind of has things a little bit backwards. i think there's two different questions here. one is the public relations aspect to the question and one is the legal aspect. as a public relations matter, these constantly shifting stories and unraveling tales and the "new york times" story that says the president had known for months about the payment to stormy daniels, duh -- it's a great story, congratulations to my friends at the "new york times" but that's the only narrative that really makes any sense.
but question whether people in the public who aren't already completely exasperated with the president's relationship with the truth are going to be moved by any of this. as a legal matter it's less completely clear to me the implications of this go -- make donald trump and the people around him life worse -- materially worse than they were before all of these allegations. there's, you know, a conspiracy case, there's questions about michael cohen's handling of client funds and bank statements and things like that. all of this is a big, big mess, but i'm not sure it makes the legal mess that much messier. >> eugene, let's just think about, for those of us trying to piece this story together, you've got the president saying what he's saying, vis-a-vis or at least in opposition to what
michael avenotti and stormy daniels are saying about these statements, then you have giuliani contradicting the president, the president contradicting him. but then michael cohen, i don't know why he's talking either. talked to donny deutsch. donny deutsch went on "morning joe" to describe it. let's listen to that conversation. that was this morning. >> i spoke with michael cohen yesterday and he doesn't know what rudy giuliani is talking about. he said there are two people that know what happened, myself and the president. you'll be hearing my side of the story. he was obviously very frustrated what came out yesterday. >> okay, "my side of the story," that's what i want to get clear. is the president trying to keep michael cohen from telling my side of the story? who's on whose side right now? >> this is just a wild guess. i would guess that michael cohen probably knows things that donald trump doesn't want made public, right? doesn't want him to tell. now, i don't know what those things are. i don't know if they have to do
with stormy daniels or other things, whatever. there could be things about the stormy daniels affair that cohen knows and trump knows and trump doesn't want to get out. you know, but -- and i think michael cohen, through donny deutsch, was kind of reminding everybody, i'm over here, i have a story to tell too. meanwhile, you have the extraordinary situation as ruth alluded to, the president essentially devising his own legal communication strategy. at times not even bothering to let his lawyers know what this is. certainly not cueing in his new lawyer, rudy giuliani, as to exactly what the script is supposed to be. this is -- you know, this is a -- he has a -- he's representing himself. so he has a fool for a client. this is ridiculous and he will only get himself in more trouble, not less trouble, by
continuing this way, i think. >> jennifer rogers, as a federal prosecutor, what do you make of the idea that maybe michael cohen was, you know, facing the pressure from federal prosecutors and maybe deciding he was going to cooperate, and that somehow this was a signal. the idea that donald trump paid michael cohen back was meant to say michael cohen didn't do something of his own accord that was illegal so don't flip on us. does that make sense? >> it's hard to say. the decision to cooperate is personal to each person, it depends on your personal situation, your family situation, the time you're facing. whether you can do that time. the relationship against the person you'd expect to cooperate against. it's a personal factor. i have no idea what's going on in his head. for him being willing to say that guy doesn't know what he's saying here shows frustration. the fact he's speaking out shows he's not happy with staying quiet. and letting the chips fall where they may. whether he flips will depend on
a lot of things. we'll find out when we see the charges against him. that will be the big moment for him. >> the judge in california, in a separate case, declined to act there because he said he expected at some point in the near future, michael cohen will be indicted. how do you see it playing? >> i don't think giuliani helped his client. when he came on board, he was going to have this case wrapped up in two weeks. right? that was the promise. >> correct, he said that. >> the whole mueller thing was going to go away in two weeks. not only has that not happened, he's taken the president in deeper. he said off the wall things, like comparing the fbi to nazi stormtroopers in the mueller case. this is shocking coming from the mayor of new york post 9/11, a federal prosecutor, all of these things, to hear him, an ally of law enforcement, calling the fbi stormtroopers? i don't think that plays well. and the things he's done has given more ammunition to the
side against donald trump. we saw citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington file their own complaint to the doj. and the office of government ethics demanding an investigation based on everything that he said, just in a fox news interview in one fox news interview. so far, he has not been helping the president's case. unless there's some strange strategy we don't understand. >> to pick up on indira's point, mayor giuliani said something that has not gotten a lot of notice to fox, he suggested that robert mueller did not have the authority to subpoena the president. and that is really a remarkable assertion if they decide to go down that road, because after the criminal case against president nixon, the subpoena was for tapes not for his testimony, certainly back in the day when ken starr subpoenaed bill clinton, there was not a
question about whether u.s. versus nixon and whether the case in which the supreme court, the paula jones case said the president could be civilly sued, there was not a real question about the ability of the prosecutor to subpoena a president. >> right. >> the ability to indict the president is something different. so if either -- i don't know if giuliani was with the program on that, whether that signals, you know, the potential for long, drawn-out litigation with the special counsel on that subject or whether this was just another one of his off the cuff, unauthorized remarks, but it's pretty interesting. >> you bring up a good point there. we've seen subpoenas to jefferson for documents, to nixon for tapes, to clinton for testimony. back in 1974 when nixon was asked to present himself i think u.s. district court for washington that went to the supreme court and was resolved within three months.
nixon resigned so it made the point moot. but the fact is while we never tested the idea of a subpoena of a sitting president makes it to the supreme court and results in testimony, not a lot of lawyers i talked to said it can't happen. we seem to have a bit of history that suggests it can. >> watergate special prosecutor leon jaworski, replaced archibald cox, he had the tapes. so he didn't push the point of subpoenaing president nixon. he had enough evidence with the tapes. and they knew it months before nixon resigned. jimmy carter testified twice in two cases when he was president. so it's likely if this went to the supreme court that the supreme court would say, yes, the president is not above the law, he must respond to a subpoena. the question is what would happen then? i think the best predictions are that the president of the united states would take the fifth. >> eugene, he can take the fifth, agree to a sitdown where his lawyers are going to be present.
i think most people agree donald trump going in front of a grand jury without his lawyers near him is going to be disastrous for donald trump. >> no i'll keep saying it. everybody in this country deserves a lawyer, donald trump may not believe that, but he deserves a lawyer. if i were one of his lawyers, if he had to sit down with an interview with mueller, i would tell him to take the fifth because he's just a loose cannon. is a very sort of minimalist way of saying what donald trump is. just off the cuff. and he can only dig himself a deeper and deeper hole, including all sorts of stuff that mueller doesn't know about. it would be, i think, a disaster. even worse than the political disaster of a sitting president sitting down for an interview and taking the fifth to everything. >> it's worth noting, mueller
knows a lot so the president talking off the cuff and contradicting what mueller already knows to be true could get the president in a lot of hot water. everybody please stay with us. p mfsht caught up in the tangled web. but it was still all about donald trump and his impeach. next. how john kelly went from reportedly calling the president an idiot to this. >> everything is going phenomenally well.
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president trump's tangled web includes every twist and turn in the russian collusion probe this week. rudy giuliani is supposed to help decide whether the president will sit down for an interview with robert mueller and his investigators while the president and members of his inner circle smear the department of justice and smear the mueller team. and today in federal court a judge overseeing the case against paul manafort in the eastern district of virginia seemed to boost trump's case. manafort's attorneys are trying to get the charges of bank fraud dismissed arguing mueller overstepped the bounds of the russia investigation. judge ellis, appointed by president reagan, said he thinks the special counsel wants to squeeze manafort for information that quote would reflect on mr. trump or lead to his impeachment. ellis then opined that the person people do not want a special counsel with unfettered power. by the time president trump landed in dallas to speak at the nra convention, he read the news and used it on stage.
>> just when i'm walking on the stage, a highly respected judge in virginia made statements, it says, "wall street journal," it says, judge questions mueller's authority to prosecute manafort. judge t.s. ellis, who is really something very special, i hear, from many standpoints, he's a respected person, suggested the charges before the u.s. district court for the eastern district of virginia were just part of the mueller team's designs to pressure mr. manafort into giving up information on president donald trump or others in the campaign. i've been saying that for a long time. it's a witch hunt. >> we've got room at the table for one more. pull up a chair ken dilanian. intelligence and national security reporter for nbc news. because he was at that court hearing today. ken, this is interesting. i think what our viewers are
going to be curious about, was this a judge who was opining or was he really talking about how he might rule in this? >> that's the big question. a lot of legal observers i talked to think it's more opining. judge ellis was trying to make a point today and it was really interesting. representing robert mueller was michael dreeben, one of the most accomplished appellate lawyers in the country, appeared more than 100 times before the u.s. supreme court. he barely got a word out before judge ellis started firing sharp questions, raising questions about how these bank fraud and tax fraud charges against paul manafort could possibly relate to russia collusion. everything you said there, unfettered power, raising questions about the $10 million budget. this is a judge with qualms of a special counsel with an unlimited budget rooting around and going after the president. that said, it doesn't mean he's going to grant paul manafort's motion to dismiss the charges,
which is a real long shot legal experts say. it's possible, it's conceivable he may say this exceeds your mandate and this is a case properly handled by the u.s. attorney in virginia in the eastern district. >> i want to go to ruth marcus on this. ruth, donald trump, whether or not the argument that judge ellis put forward that americans don't want a special prosecutor with unfettered powers, donald trump went to work trying to denigrate the mueller team. listen to what he said at the nra. >> in all fairness, bob mueller worked for obama for eight years. you look at the statements that were made. if you take a look, as an example, at the rod rosenstein letter to me prior to the firing of james comey -- just read it. >> the president spoke three times today, that was before the nra. he was doing a lot of talking. but the point is the president
continues with the narrative of mueller as democrat errand-doer. in fact, bob mueller is a republican who worked in the bush administration as well. >> right. he said witch hunt multiple times in multiple appearances today. i want to say one thing about his comments about judge ellis. what i love about the president's view of the judiciary, i'm being sarcastic there, is that his view of a judge depends on whether the judge rules for him or against him. if you rule against him you're a so-called judge and a disgraceful judge. and if you rule for him you're the second coming of oliver wendell holmes. lewis brandeis. all rolled together. so what is the president going to say about judge ellis if, as ken suggests, he allows the charges to go ahead? it strikes me the worst that can happen in the mueller case is the manafort charges
are transferred to the eastern district of virginia, which handles those and can help squeeze manafort in some way and cause trouble for the president just as the cohen investigation can cause trouble for the president, even though that's being handled by the southern district. on the president's comments about mueller, and i think he's really, really ramped it up over the last several days, they're just -- i'm going to use a favorite trump word, they're just disgraceful. mueller is a republican, there are democrats on his staff but they're all seasoned professional prosecutors and there's no reason or basis to question their legitimacy or bias. >> i want to make a point, judge ellis was in no way impugning the mueller investigation, he was not saying it was a witch hunt that it's not well founded. and i am pretty certain that he did not anticipate how his comments would reverberate around the political world today, how they would be used by
the president of the united states to discredit the investigation. he was making a legal argument to a legal community about the special counsel and about a particular lawsuit, he was not arguing this was a witch hunt. >> jennifer rodgers, as somebody who's spent time in courtrooms what do you make of what judge ellis was saying? it would be hard to think anything you wouldn't say about donald trump wouldn't be reverberated around the world. was he doing what judges sometimes do, chastising an enthusiastic prosecution and warning them against overstepping their realm? >> they do sometimes do that, judges. i've been in courtrooms where the judge has complained about policy of the u.s. attorney's office, i'm seeing too many cases like this i don't like the way the office is handle that. it's often to be honest judges who used to be in the office, so they're picking a bit at policies of their old place of employment. in this case it's surprising that the judge wouldn't understand the play this was going to get and how it was going to be used. i think he said it with a
purpose. >> enough of a purpose if you were one of those lawyers, usa versus manafort, one of the federal prosecutors work, that scare you? >> i don't think he's going to dismiss the case. some of the general comments he made don't go to the issue of whether there's a jurisdictional problem here. the motion is a jurisdictional motion. having read the papers, i think he will not dismiss it. but i do think he made those comments understanding that there was -- that they were going to be heard and that they would be used at least for some reason. >> so judge ellis is -- he turns 78 in a couple weeks. he's been on senior status for more than 10 years. he basically retired years ago. and one thing that he did not mention is that rod rosenstein signed off on this. this is -- the mueller team didn't just expand the scope of its investigation on its own. the person -- the deputy attorney general gave them permission to do so. so it's a little hard to see what the judge's legal reasoning would be to say that they had
overstepped their bounds since that's the job of that deputy attorney general. >> i want to say it's not just judge ellis and this particular point here. there's more to the manafort investigation that has come out this week. first of all, we know the ukraine has stopped cooperating with the manafort investigation once the u.s. offered and decided to sell weapons to ukraine. that is very significant. we also know now the mueller team has questioned a russian billionaire who was on the sanctions list. they don't seem to be particularly interested in him specifically but possible in his ties to manafort. so this is more than judge ellis, let's be honest, i don't think any of us believe that donald trump had heard of judge ellis before these clips were handed to him and he suddenly called him very special and very great. as ruth said it's about are you on his side or not on his side. it's not about the legal understanding here. but let's not forget the manafort investigation has a bigger picture. and with this russian billionaire, with the ukrainians suddenly stopping, there's a lot
more that we're still waiting to hear some other shoes drop. >> indira, thank you so much, ken dilanian, jennifer rodgers, thank you. coming up, donald trump may have lavished praise on his chief of staff in front of the cameras but new reporting says behind the scenes, trump is relying less and less on john kelly and taking matters into his own hands. every tv doctor knows nothing's more important than a good bedside manner. i don't know how to say this.
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our friday night look at trump's tangled web continues and perhaps no area is more tangled than trying to follow the trump administration employment chart. look at how rachel's wall has grown over the course of the trump presidency, trying to keep track of everyone fired. look at that wall. when the boss donald trump praises you it's not necessarily a good thing. here he is today. >> i want to just tell you something, general kelly is doing a fantastic job. there has been such false reporting about our relationship. we have a great relationship. he's doing a great job as chief of staff. i could not be more happy. so i just want to tell you that. >> now in march it was trump's legal team that was doing a great job. he tweeted, the failing "new york times" purposefully wrote a false story stating i am unhappy with my legal team on the russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help me out. wrong. i'm very happy with my lawyers.
they are doing a great job. well, we all know how that turned out. john dowd and ty cobb are out, donald trump hired the lawyer that he said he wouldn't hire, emmet flood. and today donald trump said white house chief of staff john kelly is doing a great job praising him after a week in which nbc broke the bombshell news that kelly referred to trump as, quote, an idiot multiple times. the "new york times" have added yesterday that kelly and trump have "grown tired and irritated with each other." and politico reported that kelly has been marginalized by the white house staff and the president, according to ten sources. despite private tensions, john kelly is willing to publicly flatter the man he reportedly thinks is an idiot. here he is giving john kelly a chance to publicly declare his admiration for the president. >> the "new york times" times has falsely reported, i just wanted to tell you that. general you may have something to say. >> it's a privilege to work for
a president who's gotten the economy going, we're about to have a breakthrough on north korea, the jobs report today, everything is going phenomenally well, attacking the opioid crisis. it's nothing less than brilliant what's been accomplished in 15 months, i believe. >> what happens now to the man who called the president an idiot? that's next. liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. don't worry - i know what a lug wrench is, dad. is this a lug wrench? maybe? you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.
>> it's nothing less than brilliant what's been accomplished in 15 months, i believe. >> we are back with our panel, ruth marcus, eugene robinson, and jonathan alter. ruth, help me unpack the nothing less than brilliant. there is no white house communications director. the president, we don't see his chief of staff with him all that often. we saw him today. the president very clearly didn't tell the white house press secretary about giuliani's plans. emmet flood, the lawyer that the president has now hired who represented bill clinton in his impeachment didn't know that giuliani was going on tv, but it's brilliant. >> nothing less than brilliant. >> nothing less than brilliant. >> is there something more than brilliant? i'm going for a really highbrow literary reference here, and i'm going to say this is the cat in the hat presidency. you may recall the cat in the hat comes back. the cat takes a bath in the tub, and he leaves a pink ring. and as they try to clean it up, it just spreads and spreads and stains everything.
president trump's messes -- i'm glad you liked it. president trump's messes end up staining everything, and they spread, and everybody who associates with him, i can't think of a single exception except for maybe the defense secretary, james mattis. everybody who is associated with donald trump ends up having his or her reputation diminished as a result and, hence general kelly exhibit "a" today. >> eugene, neil cavuto, on fox, i think said, that stink, mr. president, is your swamp. even though in conservative circles are starting to think this is too crazy to continue. >> well, it's too crazy to continue. look, cavuto, you know, was referring to all the swampishness, the very deep and getting deeper water that's around this administration. you look at the pruitt situation at epa. it's like a new scandal every
day, the latest being the reports that scott pruitt came into the office and gathered the staff and said here are some places around the world i'd really like to see, so find me reasons to go there. so that's how he works out his travel on the public dime. that's okay in trump world apparently if, when you appear with the president, you do what john kelly just did, which is flatter him with praise that would, you know, embarrass kim jong-un. i mean, you know, dear leader-style praise, and that's the sort of price of staying in the administration and having power in the administration. >> yeah. >> and beyond that, you can do what you want. >> we've seen it in cabinet meetings before. but, in fact, to the scott pruitt point, this is remarkable what eugene was talking about. evidence that scott pruitt had a list of exotic destinations he wanted to travel to and informed staff he wanted them to find
reasons for him to go to those places. but scott pruitt and mick mulvaney and others in the government are doing exactly what donald trump wants them to do. they are dismantling regulations. the stock market, though weak recently, has been strong. the jobs numbers are still pretty good, and this north korea meeting, if it happens, is going to be an accomplishment. the fact is the president still seems to think he's doing well. in fact, he had a bluster and a confidence about him today that i hadn't seen in a while. >> well, unemployment is down to levels we haven't seen since 2000. so he can say to his people, to his base, i am delivering for you in certain ways. >> notwithstanding those are continuations of policies we've seen for years. >> right. but, you know, i think that ruth was too kind to him with the cat in the hat reference. i mean donald trump makes the cat in the hat look like abraham lincoln with his tophat, you know.
this is a toxic waste dump, and i think that comey, who was wrong in a lot of areas, had it right that it's, you know, a forest fire. so the best that we can hope for is to start planning for what we do after, whether it's three years or, you know, seven years or whatever. but we need to start figuring out how we restore our democracy after the damage that's being done. and literally on a daily basis. and the first thing are these midterm elections. so i'm struck by how there's really not enough focus yet on how we remedy this at the polling place. >> thank you, jonathan alter, ruth marcus, and eugene robinson. thanks to the three of you. tonight's "last word" is next.p. [ drum roll ] ...emily lapier from ames, iowa. this is emily's third nomination and first win.
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>> phillip brucker said that the north korea breakthrough potential upped the stakes on the mike pompphaoeubmike pompeo. they may be playing with the one opening we have with north korea. do you agree or disagree with rucker in. >> heidi heitcamp got on or board with his confirmation. it will be close. there's some sense there is an issue where if you oppose pompeo you open yourself up to attacks. is and some of these red states is not supporting the president on foreign policy during this key moment. a lot of people -- a lot of democrats were forced on thursday to grudgingly acknowledge sort of admiration or respect for pompeo going to meet with kim jong-un over easter. it didn't move a lot of their votes. as you saw a bunch of the democrats on the senate foreign realizes committee, they still had to reiterate their
opposition is. >> anna palmer from politico, what do you think is is the story of the week? >> i think one of the most interesting stories is u.n. ambassador nikki haley asserting herself and said, no, i wasn't confused, i believed the policy would strengthen u.s. sanctions against russia. it really matters in terms of her solidifying her position and saying i'm not going to be beat around by this white house as many of the other principles and cabinet secretaries have been. >> nikki haley had quite the week, this controversy aside, she determined a public profile that is exceptional in public politics. do you agree with that, anna? >> yeah. she has continued to elevate herself as a serious player and the ability to be close to the trump white house but also on on the world stage be a real effective voice for this country. and i think you already started to hear this talk of, you know,
capabilities persist, the pentagon has said. and then you've got isis. in syria it looked like a victory kind of was on the cusp of taking place. now we are seeing a resergens. >> hope, let me ask you a question. did we get any knowledge on of whether or not the s-400 was used, whether or not the russian system actually engaged any of our missiles? what's your reporting on that? >> so russia is sort of using this as a marketing opportunity for the s-400, f-35 killer missile. the pentagon, though, that be unequivocal. russian defenses were not employed. and syrian defenses were in effective. 6th single one of the weapons reached their target. >> what do you think is the story of the week? >> i agree with james, north korea is the biggest story of the week. i'm going to take ape different tact, though. we touched on heidi heitcamp. it is app example of congress
and the white house and republicans trying to put some of these democratic incumbents on defense here. heidi heitcamp supporting pompeo's nomination. a few other democrats have not come on out yet and supported her. joe donnelly, joe manchin and others. republicans are trying to tighten the excuse on these folks and put them on defense ahead of 2018. i think that's a big story. but pompeo going to north korea i think will really elevate him. we're going to wait to see what happens on that if they actually end up going straight to a floor vote without him passing through committee. that will be a big question. it is a tightening of the screws on the 2018 candidates. you haven't seen foreign policy become a big campaign issue this year. we're starting to see a little bit of it. >> al, i can't imagine a democrat up for reelection wanting to spike the north korean opportunity.
i think there will be a lot more votes than heidi heitcamp. the president said rand has always been with me more. he voted for john kerry in the foreign relations committee. does rand paul pass to get to the floor without any fill pwuflter nonsense that chuck schumer has been muttering about? >> i'm not sure. i'm very is skeptical to think he will. he didn't hold up the omnibus negotiations or the final passage of the bill. that was a shift intact for him. usually he is someone who doesn't even up caring about these types of things and will do what he wants. i would be surprised if he votes for pompeo to move him to the floor. but, you know, it wouldn't totally surprise me, but it would surprise me. >> let me play a clip if i can of the president talking about russia with prime minister abe. >> as far as the investigation,
nobody has ever been more transparent than i have instructed our lawyers, be totally transparent. as far as the two gentlemen you told me about, they've been saying i'm going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months. and they're still here. >> james, they're still here. he is talking about mr. mueller, mr. rosenstein and the russian investigation. do they go anywhere this week? what's your reporting on that? >> well, i think trump has sort of backed off a little bit from last week. he is more concerned about the michael co hen raid of his lawyer's office than he is about what mueller is doing right now. hiring routedy giuliani as part of his legal defense team. giuliani saying i think we can wrap this up in a couple of weeks. giuliani touting his long relationship with mueller and the president saying he can be a broker in some ways. people are still on edge.
the president could move against rosenstein. he wouldn't get directly against mueller. you could see a scenario where jeff sessions left. whoever replaces him through the vacancies act would end up there. rosenstein assured trump that he is not a target of mueller's investigation and that that assuaged some of the president's concerns. nationally, i think a lot of liberals are still very on edge. there was a report from pittsburgh that the pittsburgh police department is preparing for potential riots in the streets. >> al weaver, very quick. what to you? do you hear about any changes at the department of justice? the president seemed to indicate no, that's not going to happen. what are you hearing? >> i'm not hearing anything on that end. there is nervous senators up on capitol hill.
tillis, graham have legislation out. that will help protect mueller. i don't see that going anywhere. mitch mccouple threw cold water on that this week. it remains status quo. >> all right. i'll be back with the panel on the most important person not named trump this week. stay with us. your hair is so soft! did you use head and shoulders two in one? i did mom. wanna try it? yes. it intensely moisturizes your hair and scalp and keeps you flake free. manolo?
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time for our feature most important person not named trump. for me it is senator joe is mansion. we need one democrat other than heidi heitcamp to say i'm voting for mike pompeo so we can put this silliness behind us. it is far too important for the democrats to be playing partisan politics. who for you is the most important person not named trump? >> i think it is robert mueller. all eyes continuing to focus on where is his investigation going. by he default, rudy giuliani is my number two pick. trump picking him as his lawyer was certainly a wild card this week. >> it has been a bad look for law enforcement with the james comey book tour going off the rails. and andrew muck cabccabe.
>> it's stunning at a time in politics where there is rare lu a void of the back and forth partisanship and bickering, robert mueller, throughout this entire investigation, has stayed sigh and i think, because of that, has been able to be a figure that is above the fray. doesn't punch below his weight here. and i think that gives him even more standing with the american public and particularly with senators with trump potentially trying to move him. >> i agree. i continue to hope the president does nothing with the special counsel. hope speck, who do you think? >> i have an off capitol hill pick. mine is tammie jo schultz who piloted southwest flight 1380. everyone has heard her directing ground control as she brings the flight in, tphefbgs of of steel. she was one of the navy's first ever fighter pilots in the 1980s. she is starting this
conversation about the possibilities for women in that field. still just 2.4% in naval aviation. >> is and martha mcsally running. a-10 pilot. another one of these extraordinary female aviators. al weaver, who is yours? >> i'm going to cheat the rules and take two. kevin mccarthy and nancy pelosi. two california lawmakers who are both at the top of the caucuses outside of paul ryan. they are both leading with a myriad of questions surrounding them. the questions surround can he get to the 218 if the republicans hold the house in november. both he and pelosi have sharks swarming. the freedom caucus, they are looking into what they should do on this end. and seven months between now and
then. for pelosi, you know, it's all a matter of will she stay or will she go in november. you have steny hoyer possibly moving up the ladder a little bit. i'm going to take those two. >> it's interesting. jim jordan is sitting there wondering if my name comes up. the ohio congressman expected to challenge muck kaerbgt. mccarthy the clear front-runner at this point. >> i go michael cohen. he is a big question mark. not just personal attorney. we found out who his other clients were. open public speculation. the lawyer who has worked for trump for years, who negotiated both of his divorces, jay goldberg told the president in a phone call a week ago he should be careful when talking to cohen because cohen could be wearing a
wire. he wouldn't be willing to do hard jail time to protect trump. cohen is under investigation by the feds separate and apart from the mueller probe for wire fraud, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations. so he potentially has real legal liability there. he probably knows a lot. what exactly, we can't know. that is a big question mark. that's something that really is keeping trump up at night. >> if michael cohen flips, as has been speculated is and gossiped, he could say anything and become the key witness against anyone. of course people will be awake at night. i want to close by playing one more trump bit with prime minister abe. he strikes at charges of collusion with this defense. >> there's been nobody tougher on russia than president donald trump. between building up the military, between creating tremendous vast amounts of oil, we raised billions and billions
extra in nato. there has been nobody tougher than me. >> nobody tougher than trump. james hohmann, does that work? >> nikki haley announced on the sunday shows there were going to be new sanctions. trump didn't want those. they walked them back. and i think hawks feel like trump could be a lot tougher. i don't think it works on on capitol hill. it works with the base who doesn't care deeply about this issue. >> hope, 700 billion this year. 720 billion next year. a huge tkfpbgs bill. does he have a point here, he is tougher on russia than president obama was? >> we have seen him expel russian diplomats, impose lines of sanctions. there are things he has done.
he really laid down the gauntlet the other day. we haven't seen him take further action. the ball is in his court on this one. >> when we come back, we will talk to my panel. and the safey for "most parallel parallel parking job" goes to... [ drum roll ] ...emily lapier from ames, iowa. this is emily's third nomination and first win. um...so, just...wow!
um, first of all, to my fellow nominees, it is an honor sharing the road with you. and of course, to the progressive snapshot app for giving good drivers the discounts -- no, i have to say it -- for giving good drivers the discounts they deserve. safe driving! for giving good drivers the discounts they deserve. fthere's flonase sensimist.f up around pets. it relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist.
and loss of appetite. alice calls it her new normal because a lot has changed, but a lot hasn't. ask your doctor about ibrance. the #1 prescribed fda-approved oral combination treatment for hr+/her2- mbc. i begin my week with "the capitalist comeback." the longtime ceo of carl's jr., then hardy's. he didn't make it to labor but he will make it with a best seller. it is a terrific book. anna, what do you recommend this
week? >> i'm a little bit different than typical books. lindy west and" shrill." this is a book about body shaming. a woman's voyage to self is acceptance and patrols on the internet. it is a powerful read that you can get a lot from. >> did you podcast this? >> i do a women's podcast every week for politico and i did one that will be launching soon, the first plus-size native clothing company that is -- that was started on this finding clothes that actually fit people that are made for people or that are plus-sized. >> that is terrific. hope? >> i just finished fight like a girl which was just are leased this month. she was the commander of the only unit in the marine corps.
that trains female marines. they are trained separately. she said separate is not equal. and that affects the outcome. she was ultimately fired from her position in 2015 because her higher-ups didn't like her leadership. but she raised rifle qualification scores significantly. they got rid on of things, chairs only set out for women after long hikes and not for men. it started this huge conversation about what it means to be equal. >> terrific selection. james hohmann? >> revolution of rocket kennedy. it opens with jfk's assassination, goes through rfk's. the 50th anniversary in june is. it tracks how he evolved and moved from an establishment figure to taking on lbj in the frontal assault way on on vietnam. such a tumultuous time. >> al weaver, how about yours?
>> well, in honor of april and baseball season, i have one "where nobody knows your name" by john finestein. it's about life in the minor leagues. he follows players who are has-beens, future stars, anonymous, and absolute nobodies in aaa. it is timely because the omnibus there was a measure passed taking away minimum wage rights from minor league players. >> he always delivers the goods. the indians took on the brewers. thank you james, anna, hope, and al. thanks all of you for your books. thanks all of you for watching. buy the books we talk about. keep the authors going. keep the conversation going on msnbc.com/hugh-hewitt.
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through the b.s. i don't know if there's been any. wants to cut through the b.s., get the answers to the questions about how long this is going to go on and this is what was most interesting to me. one of my sources says to me, he's going to find out if we have to fight and where this leads. they seem to think that rudy giuliani will be the one to be able to do that where nobody else was able to do that before. >> in some interviews today he talked about his prior relationship with robert mueller. it's not clear to me how a prior relationship with mueller would impact an on going investigation. >> and he told that in his interview that they do have a prior relationship. i think i should remind people that john dab the lawyer that quit also had a prior relationship with mueller. giuliani did work with mueller after 9/11 of course.
but i think that whole we have a relationship and we get along can be overdone because a lot of people worked with mueller over the years. >> he also said i think when she pushed him on a time frame he said a couple of weeks. does it seem to you that giuliani is going to be on the legal team for long-term? >> no it doesn't. there's some sense that giuliani is going to go in there and say okay put all your cards on the table here. let us know what's going on. let us know what we have to do and that the mueller team is going to answer all of his questions. >> do we know how this came out? who approached him? because obviously rudy giuliani is a friend of theth. spoke out when few people after the "access hollywood" would speak out rudy giuliani went out on all the programs that day. >> we know they're good friends.
he recently visited for example. we don't know if it was discussed then. we do know at one point he was being discussed as attorney general, if you'll recall, secretary of state and i'm wondering if he joins this legal team whether he could ever become the attorney general because he might be conflicted because he represented the president. but they're friends obviously and what we do know is that the president is reaching back to people he feels comfortable with at this point. >> right. thank you very much. turning now to the other looming investigation involving another of the president's lawyers that have been recording that the president is fixated on the criminal investigation of michael cohen. theth said he is not a target in that investigation. so what more do we know about what rosenstein said to the president? >> well, we know that this is the result of to some extent the
president's anger about that michael cohen raid that occurred early part of last week. that set the president off. came over to the white house and the deputy attorney general and basically told the president in this meeting that was attended by other officials closer to the president that listen, he's not a target of the michael cohen portion of this investigation. now i'm told by a source familiar with this conversation that this was not any kind of assurance about the overall mueller investigation and that is because the president received that kind of assurance in the past, but of course ander so anderson, any legal expert will tell you those kind of assurances only go so far. they only work for what has been uncovered at that stage of the investigation. but my understanding as we're talking to the source earlier today is that the deputy attorney general did tell the president just recently and we believe this meeting happened late last week that he is not a target of that michael cohen investigation. >> do we have any information about how the president reacted
to that or has subsequently reacted? >> well, we know he continues to be unnerved by the michael cohen probe. obviously michael cohen is a long friend of the president. has been his attorney for a long time. has been described piano others as a fixer for the president. and my colleague was reporting earlier today that the president has been consumed by this and i am also hearing that from other sources that this is something that he fixates on almost every day but anderson i will tell you i did talk to a source familiar with this, these conversations that go on inside the white house about this and this source said earlier today that the legal team with the president at this point is not concerned that michael cohen is going to turn against the president and start singing like a canary. one of the phrases we have been hearing this week. at this point they expect michael cohen to do what he has to do in this investigation but he's not going to be a cooperating witness against the
president. of course that's how they view things right now. they can't see into the future and know what is the unknown but they're trying to convey that they don't think that should be a concern at this point but the president from what we're told is still very, very upset and furious that that probe has been washed and that those took place. the question is at this point what happens in the future to michael cohen? what kind of information is uncovered? what kind of case could be brought against him and could that case, perhaps, convince michael cohen to become a cooperating witness against the president. people are not concerned that's not going to happen at this point. >> thank you. first of all, this notion of rudy giuliani being able to come in in the short-term and fix this, essentially get this to come to a conclusion in a couple
of weeks. what do you make of that idea? >> pretty arrogant to believe he would be in a position to do so. even if he has a personal relationship with mueller this is business and come pait's key. the president of the united states has not had competent council that can expedite it. it's slow because it has to be thorough and although most people are used to the idea of having immediate gratification in the news and perhaps a television program and law and order and an hour and have it wrapped up but when it comes to federal prosecution of this magnitude and investigation of this magnitude it will take tile to flush out all the details. so come in and say let me expedite this process that i can feel like i'm not a target is an odd thing to think. >> david, certainly understanding why the president's team would want to do that. would you think giuliani is the person that can do that? >> sure. he's not only a close friend and
confidant of the president but an incredibly capable individual in his own right. former prosecutor and mayor and he has a force of personality. a personal relationship with director mueller and i think he's going to try to nudge this along to a certain extent. >> but is an investigation like this something that can be negotiated away? >> i don't know if it's negotiated away. you can try to cut through the weeds here a little bit. whether the president is going to answer written interrogatories, whether he's going to testify, what that's going to look like, that can be expedited by having somebody with a force of personality like mayor giuliani on the team. >> they have been discussing this for months and they were already, the legal team, that morning of the raid on cohen's office was all ready to make a proposal to mueller about the president testifying and then there was the raid of his office and home et cetera and they pulled back. they had a meeting and they pulled back so they're already at a point now where things were moving along.
>> and that point -- that may have changed dramatically, right? that morning things may have changed and mayor giuliani may have been brought in to piece it together again. >> there's whether or not the president will testify willingly and by the way it's not up to him ultimately. they could always subpoena him. >> which he could fight. >> he could fight. he could plead the fifth. they could try to get him to compel him. no president has ever been attempted to be compelled or held in contempt for that reason. he has that option but the idea of expediting the overall investigation to a conclusion is a very separate issue. one is about details. >> there's a political backdrop to this. there's upcoming elections this fall that are very important and director mueller is very sensitive to that. just like this afternoon we heard director comey, he's not political but he's political and director mueller doesn't want
this hanging over as a cloud over the elections so that there's a reason that anybody can blame what happens in the fall on him. >> a lot of people looking into the mueller investigation, if robert mueller is trying to figure out intent. if they're looking at obstruction of justice, intent is critical in a lot of the president's actions and for that you would think they would have to actually interview the president. >> that's their point i think. they would like to interview him. the point from the white house is we have given you over a million documents from everybody that's talked to the president and that the president of course keeps no notes and does no e-mails. so you have all of this information. the lawyers, i don't think, muell mueller's team, i don't think they're going to buy that but they do understand there's different rules for a president than there are for you and me. >> does it make sense that rosenstein would say to the president, we think at the end of last week, that he is not t you know, the subject of a
criminal investigation in terms of the cohen raid. >> it's possible. it's possible and the reason i say that is because it hasn't actually changed the ultimate objective. he could become a target at any time. all it takes is a piece of evidence to do so. i'm not saying that's going to be the case here but they have been investigating michael cohen specifically for a number of months. >> so it's good news for the president. >> it's good news for the president. >> if that is an accurate report then it tells you that at this point in the investigation after months of reading his e-mails and stuff -- >> it's a great sign for the president of the united states. there's still so much unknown about why they're after him. what they're investigating. >> back to anderson's point about the obstruction charge. you're talking about the president's man here if that's what they're hanging their hat on i think they should move on.
>> on the cohen thing, what i don't understand, i'm not a lawyer, is why would rosenstein volunteer that to the president. he was not asked? is it to save his job? that's a possibility? >> a requirement. >> or is it something that he would do because he knew that the president was concerned about it and he shouldn't be. >> i'm not going to say he's a guy that's going to get rolled here. he's a person who is a great character, high integrity. >> so why would you do it? >> i don't know. i think politics seeps into every phase of our government now. the three separate branches are becoming, you know, the judiciary used to be kind of independent. we hope it remains that way but the executive branch and investigative functions now seem to be points higher lliticized. >> they said they're not going to follow along with the president's immigration pledge. that's number one but number two
there may be a nonclinical reason here and it may be that because there was a department of justice rule and discussion about guidelines about searching an attorney's office, maybe he was trying to explain to him that he was not after him as a target because he is the client of this person, which would have raised questions about the attorney-client privilege being at issue here. perhaps he is simply telling him this does not implicate or make your attorney client privilege any less because we're not after him about what concerns you. that may be a nonpolitical way to try to say this is not an issue for you. >> and separate from the mueller investigation. >> separate. >> if he sign aued off on the r. >> and perhaps he felt the need to explain that to a president that's very upset about it. >> as you said good news for theth, it's still, if i was the president i would still be concerned if my attorney that allegedly only had three clients, one of those clients saying i was never a client.
the other one seemed to have a short-term need for a hush agreement, the president is his longest term client. you know, if i had that relationship with a friend or attorney who was under investigation i would still be nervous. >> and the key here is what you said, friend or attorney. because what he was to donald trump is going to be key in what's going to make him nervous. is michael cohen somebody that works for him and is an attorney or somebody that happens to have a law degree. that does not attach the attorney-client privilege. if most of their interactions were about business or not confidential or somebody else in the room or things that did not attach to privilege then you're asking the same question that president trump is probably asking, were you acting as my friend or my lawyer. if it was my friend i have a lot of information now that could be disclosed and making me or people a member of the trump organization very vulnerable. >> i didn't mean to interrupt you but i'm sure that most of those conversations probably weaved in and out of privilege and nonprivilege.
recorded conversations with other people, with third parties, who knows what is in those conversations. reasons for the president to be concerned. >> the president came out on air force one and said michael cohen is my attorney. talk to my attorney. so that's sort of pretty cut and dry. >> thank you very much. up next, breaking news on the new pecking order in the west wing of the white house. two new senior staffers getting the green light to bypass chief of staff john kelly and the justice department gives congress memos written by fired fbi director james comey about his most controversial conversations with president trump. and that more. the full interview coming up in this hour. ♪ ♪
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though the president hasn't told them that they're reporting directly to him, that is certainly the sense of functionality in the west wing that they are reporting to the president and not the chief of staff john kelly which makes that interesting now they have been on the rise for the last few days. we saw that obviously there with his scuffle with the united nations ambassador nick kkki ha. some saw that as a sign of his a asendance. she does outrank him being a cabinet member and then he is asserting his authority by hiring and firing and clearinghouse with the national security in particular one aid in particular that homeless security adviser that recently left the white house and i'm told by sources that when he told him he was dismissing him, he was stunned and said he wanted to speak to the chief of staff john kelly but bolton made
clear this is his decision to make and not john kelly's. >> what does this mean for kelly's future or lack there of in the west wing? >> well, that's the question. what does it do to his standing in the west wing? because whenever he became chief of staff everyone was reporting directly to him including ivanka trump and jared kushner and now we're seeing the change and they're reporting that john kelly is what aids see as a downward slide in the west wing because he used to hold staff meetings three times a week. now he only does them once a week. he used to travel with the president on every trip and now he does not do that and he used to have a toe in every decision but we're seeing people be able to overrule john kelly by getting rid of staffers like the deputy national security adviser who john kelly wanted to keep in the administration but bolton has dismissed him. it does raise a lot of questions about how much longer john kelly
will be in this administration. >> fascinating. another development tonight the justice department has handed over to congress the james comey memos. they detail conversations in the months before he was fired. our justice reporter joins us now with more. now that they have been sent to capitol hill, we're waiting to see if members of congress released them can you explain why they're demanding these documents? >> sure. the memos provide an incredible glimpse into james comey's mind set leading up to his firing back last year and many of these issues are in dispute. for instance the loyalty pledge and allegation that president trump asked him to essentially let go of the investigation into former national security adviser michael flynn. now members of congress had seen some of the memos in redacted form but recently demanded they be unclassified and unredacted
in full. the justice department official, steven boyd in charge of legislative affairs explains it this way. in light of the unusual events occurring since the previous limited disclosure the department has consulted the relevant parties and concluded that the release of the memorandum to congress at this time would not adversely impact any on going investigation or other confidentiality interests of the executive branch but he goes on to explain, anderson, this is an unusual move. >> did the special council's office object at all to the doj releasing it? >> no, in fact, i'm told according to a source familiar that the justice department in fact consulted with the special council's office and mueller did not have any objection which is is interesting considering earlier this year cnn and other news outlets tried to sue in court to get access to the comey memos and a federal judge
blocked it saying they were part of the on going investigation at mueller's request. >> thank you very much. jake tapper asked comey what he thought about congress seeing his memos. you'll hear what he said coming up later this hour. next the attempt by the president's supporters to smear mueller and james comey reaches an absurd place. we're keeping him honest, ahead. surpri-- hold up. hold up. we got a laggy video call here. you need verizon, the best network for streaming. trade ya. okay, people, that's a reset. let's take it back from "surpri--" (avo) get $300 off the samsung galaxy s9+.
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bombing at the time we had a terrorist attack in boston. this was a man that failed time and time and time again to protect american citizens. >> james comey was not the head of the fbi at the time of the boston marathon bombing. the bombing was in april. he didn't become fbi director until september. comey wasn't even in the fbi at the time. he was a private citizen. andrea mitchell the next day. >> i want to ask you about something you said on fox yesterday. you said jim comey failed to protect americans during the boston marathon since he was fbi director. the fact is he was not fbi director for another five months. >> as you know, jim comey served as the head of the boston office of the fbi at a period of time that i think mr. mueller served as the u. s. attorney in the state of massachusetts. >> but not during the boston marathon. >> not during the boston marathon but jim comey was responsible, i belief and we can go back and check for the
whitey bulger disaster. he was the head of fbi -- >> whitey bulger had nothing to do with the boston bombing. there was no admission that he said something untrue. no apology. just moving along and decided to bring in the boston crime boss whitey bulger that had nothing to do with the boston bombing. he is attempting to grab at another straw saying comey was the head of the boston office at the time of the case. he was never the head of the boston fbi office. there's no record of him working in that office at all. now you might wonder where did whitey bulger come into all of this? why are we even talking about him? seems as though this may have started with this on a radio show earlier this month. not about comey but about special council robert mueller. >> i don't think he cares
whether he hurts democrats or republicans but he's partisan. east a zealot. he kept people in prison for many years in order to protect the cover on whitey bulger as an fbi informer. >> two of them died in prison. two others along with the families of the dead men sued the government for $100 million. the now retired federal judge that presided over the case writes in the new york times i can say that mr. mueller who worked in the united states attorney's office in boston from 1982 to 1988 including a brief stint as the acting head of the office had no involvement in that case. he was never even mentioned. as the judge goes on to point out a former mayor of springfield massachusetts that served on the massachusetts parole board in the 1980s saw a letter from mueller opposing the release of one of the prisoners but no such letter has ever been found something the boston globe reveals and afterwards he never
repeated the allegation but further investigation seems warranted. by then the genie was out of the bottle and the president's supporters took it and ran with it. you know what that means, enter sean hannity. >> robert mueller was the u.s. attorney in charge while these men were rotting in prison. while certain agents in the fbi under mueller covered up the truth. four men went to jail. he was -- mueller was involved in the case. >> we're going to go to crime families. let's look at the mueller crime family during mueller's time as a federal prosecutor in boston, four men wrongfully imprisoned for decades, framed by an fbi informant and notorious ganger whitey bulger while he looked the other way. >> when you're not interested in facts you can blame folks for anything. but they might do a better job of checking their dates and getting their story straight. joining me is shelly murphy.
co-author of whitey bulger, america's most wanted gangster and the manhunt that brought him to justice. does it make sense to you that he is spreading this idea that jim comey was head of the fbi at the time of the boston bombing? >> yeah, i mean, it's just sirly not true. the boston marathon bombings happened before comey became director of the fbi. so to try to connect comey to the marathon bombings is just simply not true. >> and the mueller part of this, i mean, the whitey bulger saga is complicated. can you explain to people about it why this allegation is just without merit? >> well, you know whitey bulger was one of the most notorious organized crime figures from this area. he was able to get away with murders for years because he was an fbi informant but from 1975 to 1990.
he fled boston just before '95, before his indictment. he was on the run for more than 16 years and there's just nothing in this long saga that connects mueller to white whitey bulger. mueller was in the u.s. attorney's office in boston from 1982 to 1988 but he did not prosecute organized crime cases. he was an informant for the fbi and there were cases that the fbi was building against the new england mafia at the time but they were under a different prosecutorial unit and i also might add that the whitey bulger story is a never ending saga in boston. congressional hearings, wrongful death suits, criminal trials, numerous hearings dating all the way back to the late 90s. i've covered all of them and not once has mueller's name surfaced in connection with those. >> and the four people that were
in prison for all of that time, two of them who died there, were able to finally sue and get money back once they were out. but mueller had, as far as you know, as far as your reporting is and the judge in the case said this as well, mueller had nothing to do with that either? >> no, and that's a case that i covered also. i went back and looked through all the old files and that was a terrible case. you had four men, wrongfully convicted in this 1965 slaying. two of them died in prison. the other two spent more than 30 years in prison and it was when the whitey bulger saga erupted. when it was revealed that he had a corrupt relationship with the fbi that there were these -- there was an investigation launched and it was a justice department task force in 2000 that found these old documents, hidden documents in the fbi files that indicated that these guys had been framed for a murder that they didn't commit.
and that is how this case sort of erupted. so back in the 80s when mueller was in the u.s. attorney's office in boston and there were people that were writing letters, prosecutors, fbi agents, urging the state parole board not to commute the sentences of these guys but we were unable to find any letters that mueller wrote. you know, asking that they be released but i think also you need to understand that at that point in time, some of the prosecutors that were writing letters there's no evidence that they knew that these men were innocent. so, you know, that really, you know, the story sort of evolved years later. >> the idea that comey had any involvement with the boston fbi office and with whitey bulger again is just not true. >> well that is just -- i can't imagine where that came from. it sort of seems to have been pulled out of thin air because comey never worked in the fbi's boston office and i can't understand why somebody would --
where this could even have come from. it's nonsense frankly. >> i appreciate your time and your reporting. thank you for being with us. >> thank you, bye. >> up next an inspector general sends it's report to federal prosecutors for potential criminal charges. what his legal team is saying about that when we continue. and the safey for "most parallel parallel parking job" goes to... [ drum roll ] ...emily lapier from ames, iowa. this is emily's third nomination and first win. um...so, just...wow! um, first of all, to my fellow nominees, it is an honor sharing the road with you. and of course, to the progressive snapshot app for giving good drivers the discounts --
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to look at is decide whether they should further investigate andy mccabe potentially lying to investigators as you know in the report the scathing report that came out last week it said that andy mccabe had mislead and had lied to investigators and his former boss james comey on four different occasions including three times under oath. this is something that andy mccabe has denied. he never mislead investigators. they never mislead james comey but so basically now this is in the hands of the d.c. u.s. attorney's office to determine whether it should pursue criminal charges. >> what's mccabe saying in response? >> so his attorney came out with a statement to this saying although we believe the referral is unjustified the standard for a referral is very low. we already met with staff members from the u.s. attorney's office. we're confident that unless there's inappropriate pressure from high levels of the
administration the u.s. attorney's office will conclude that it should decline to prosecute. as you know, anderson, mccabe and his team said all along that they feel like mccabe has been unfairly targeted because he's the key witness in the comey obstruction of justice probe and they believe as mccabe himself said that he didn't do anything wrong and again just to reiterate just because there's a criminal referral that doesn't mean that there will be criminal charges at the end of this. >> comey weighed in on this referral in that interview with jake tapper. what did he say? >> he did. it's interesting because james comey was the one that brought andy mccabe on board as his deputy director. they had a close working relationship and now months later after this there's this i.g. report saying his deputy mislead investigators. here's what he told jake about that. >> how do you feel about your former deputy, according to the inspector general lying? lying to you.
lying to investigators. for a leak that the inspector general said was only motivated to preserve his own reputation having nothing to do with the fbi and the public's right to know. >> conflicted. i like hm as a person. even good people do things they shouldn't do. i read the report. i'm not the decision maker in the case. it's accountability mechanisms working and they should work because it's not acceptable in the fbi or the justice department for people to lack candor. it's something that we take really seriously. >> one of the exampled in the report is that mccabe claimed that he told james comey, his boss that he was going to authorize a disclosure, that he had authorized a disclosure of information to a wall street journal reporter about the clinton foundation. comey claimed that wasn't the case. mccabe never told him that. so that was one of the four examples there. president trump no surprised here weighed in on all of this tweeting today anderson, james comey just threw andrew mccabe
under the bus. it's a disaster for both of them. getting a little, lot of their own medicine. so you can interpret that tweet how you want. >> thank you very much. more breaking news tonight, the president will not be attending the funeral of former first lady barbara bush. first lady melania trump will attend the memorial service on behalf of the first family to avoid disruptions of added security and out of respect for the bush family and those attending the service president trump will not attend. we asked what out of respect to the family. we know four former presidents would be there. the white house did not give a clarification. up next you'll see the full interview with jim comey. here's some of what he had to say about andrew mccabe. >> given that the i.g.'s report has interactions it had with me and other senior executives i
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clinton foundation. if they ultimately bring a case against andrew mccabe would you be a witness for the prosecution? >> potentially. i could well be a witness. >> you express a lot of horror in the book when public officials and even celebrities lie to investigators whether martha stewart. >> yeah. >> so i would assume that you would be upset at andrew mccabe. i haven't heard you criticize him the same way you criticize others. so far it's the accountability of the mechanisms working because it's a department committed to the truth. so it's working. i don't know whether there's a
criminal referral or what will happen but that's part of accountability and examination of what the consequences will be. for a leak that the inspector general said was only motivated to preserve his own reputation having nothing to do with the fbi or the public's right to know. >> conflicted. i like him very much as a person but sometimes even good people do things they shouldn't do. have read the report. i'm not the judge in the case. i'm not the discipline -- decision maker in the case. it is accountability mechanisms working and they should work because it's not acceptable in the fbi or the justice department for people to lack candor. it's something that we take really seriously. >> the justice department is also expected today to begin the process of letting congress see your memos detailing your interactions with president trump. is that the right decision to let congress see them. >> i don't know. i don't know what considerations the department has taken into
account. it's fine by me. >> you don't care? >> i don't care. i don't have any views on it. i'll totally fine with transparency. i have tried to be transparent throughout this and i think what folks will see if they get to see the memos is i have been consistent since the very beginning right after my encounters with president trump and i'm consistent but i don't know how many of that group. >> one of them is of the classified one obviously from when you told president trump in trump tower about what was in that two-page annex of the steele dossier. what were the other classified ones be about? >> well, i can't answer that if they're classified.
>> you can't say the subject of them? terrorism. >> a number of conversations i had related to our investigative responsibilities and that i considered classified at the time. if i go beyond that i'm breaking the seal on them. >> we are just learning that bloomberg news is reporting that rod rosenstein said he is not a target of the russia probe. that the point in the investigation what might that mean telling the president he's not a target? >> i don't know what it means. it's a fairly standard part of any investigation. trying to decide whether a person you're encountering is a witness, subject or target. target is someone on whom the investigation, grand jury has evidence sufficient to charge. witness is nothing to do with the exposure and i don't know the context of the deputy attorney general did that but that's the general framework. >> the president obviously had a lot of words in response to you.
he called you a liar and a leaker. our reporting say that is a republican sneaking with the president says that the feels he weathered your book tour. has he come out unscathed? >> i have no idea. it's not about the president. i hope to be part of a conversation. president trump figures in that part of the stories i'm trying to tell to illustrate ethical leadership. it is not about him. i haven't thought about it in terms of whether he is weathering it or not weathering it. >> i read the book. it is about your time as a u.s. attorney, your childhood and a lot in there about president trump, especially in terms of leadership and examples of how not to be a leader and an example of someone that's a bully and you talk throughout the book about how you hate
bullies. >> i couldn't write about ethical leadership without the it is an important part of the book and not a book about donald trump and i hope very much it's useful long into the future beyond trump presidency. you call him morally unfit and the presidency a forest fire. do you think the nation would be better off if hillary clinton had won? >> i can't answer that. that's something that hypothetical is too hard to try to go back in time and -- >> it's hard to imagine how you don't think the nation is better off if hillary clinton had won. >> i don't think about it in about it in those terms, jake. the question is adhering to our values? i think the first thing to do is not get numb to it.
calling for the jailing of private citizens, don't shrug. that is not okay or normal. >> the -- it's interesting that you won't go as far as to say that hillary clinton would be -- the nation would be better off if hillary were president because you have called for the nation to respond to the challenge of trump in your view by voting. presumably by voting against what he represents. is that not a fair interpretation? >> i actually think of as -- maybe it's the same thing but i think of it in terms of voting for something else which is the core values of this country which are more important than any policy dispute. i don't care whether people find in it a republican or democrat or neither. it is important that the leaders reflect the values because that's all we are. >> so you have spent decades building a reputation for being evidence based, for being nonpartisan. the fbi is an organization that is supposed to be evidence based and nonpartisan. do you worry that by painting this stark portrait of president trump and suggesting that the american people should vote for
something other than the lack of values that he represents in your construct that you are sullying both the brand of comey and the brand of the fbi? >> yeah, i don't think so. i certainly hope not. because i'm not criticizing president trump because he's a republican or because he has a certain view on taxes or immigration or anything else. i'm criticizing him on the grounds of values which is at the center of the fbi and something that should be the center of all of our evaluations of our leaders so i get that it's relevant to politics but i see it as something actually more important than partisan politics >> something you said to me in one of the interviews stood out. quote, if you've been investigating something for a year and you don't have a general intelligence of where it will end up you should be fired. you wrote something similar in the book. exonerating hillary clinton of criminal behavior. before you had even interviewed her. let's apply that same standard to the mueller investigation. you oversaw the russia investigation for almost ten
months. did you, do you have a general sense of how that investigation is going to end up? >> in some respects i did at the time but not completely. i suspect that the team that's investigating it now has a general sense. i have no idea what that is but again it's a general feeling on the current course and speed to end up in this direction or that direction. >> where did you think it was going to end up? did you think it would end up with people around president trump being found guilty of conspireing, aiding and abetting with russians? >> i can't say. i've left it out of the book for reasons that should be obvious. i can't talk about classified information or sensitive investigative details so i'm not going to say. >> but your sense of where the investigation was headed is not classified. it is just your impression. obviously, the investigation continued since then. why won't you say? people want to know. you have left the impression that there's something there in your interviews. you have said when asked do the russians have something on president trump?
he's said the word spy 17 times since last friday. adam schiff who was at the second meeting said he heard no evidence of a spy in the campaign today. >> there is no evidence to support any allegation that the fbi or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols. >> well, cnn's chief political correspondent dana bash joins us now. she's got new reporting on rudy giuliani's takes on the briefings today. i know you talked to giuliani about emmitt flood and how he ended up in the briefings. what did he say? >> that's right. i talked to him a couple of times tonight before coming on. i did ask him if emmitt went to these meetings at the behest of the president or maybe under orders of the president? he says he hasn't told him the answer is yes, but rudy giuliani tells me he assumes that was the reason why flood went, because
the president, his client, and the person who emmitt flood now works for inside the white house wanted him to be there. now, anderson, you mentioned the context of this, of why this is even a story. in the beginning but i can tell you as someone who's covered capitol hill for many, many years, the protocol for most if not all so-called gang of eight meetings, when the intelligence community or the law enforcement community is briefing the top intelligence lawmakers and leadership about issues like this, the white house isn't there. and that's even under the most benign circumstances. this adds a layer of the fact that the white house, meaning the president, is part of the investigation that they're talking about, which makes it so unbelievably unprecedented. >> right, the idea that the president or what rudy giuliani believes, that the president would have told the presidential attorney, flood, to go along with john kelly and address both
investigation of the facts, which is what gang of eight investigations is supposed to be. >> and this is too rich. i mean if you look at the underlying allegation here, that the fbi sent someone into a scenario in order to gather information inappropriately, i think that's what you saw today. like when you take a conflicted party like the president's lawyer who was hired to refute these allegations of russian collusion, he's obviously going to report back. i spent the better part of today giving the white house the benefit of the doubt. i described this as a perception problem. they don't understand this just looks bad to send someone in. but rudy giuliani to come out and say this is strategy, we're going to learn what he said and incorporate that into the investigation that's the definition of inappropriateness. >> flood was brought in for a possible impeachment fight was there for at least the beginning of the briefing today as far as we know. >> look, we've seen so many examples of the norms being
shattered, and this is a pretty explosive example, i think. and the reason is because, as i said, this isn't just about kind of the protocols which were not followed in that -- they had to fight, they the democrats, and even some republicans had to fight for the democratic leaders and the lead democrats from the intelligence committees even to be briefed in the first place. this time yesterday we rurnt sure that was going to happen. then when it happened the fact that it included somebody from the white house, whether or not he gave a statement at the top or he sat for the briefing it's sort of not even relevant. it is unbelievably, really unprecedented. and this is again not just in covering it, this is from talking from people who have been involved in these kinds of briefings for years who have said they've never seen anything like it. >> jeff, i also don't understand
the rationale they're giving that he was there to express the president's desire for transparency. that just seems -- >> also at this late stage in the investigation, they know what the president's position in transparency is. this investigation has been going on a long time. this looks what rudy giuliani said it was, which was an information gathering and advocacy mission by the president's chief of staff and his lawyer about something, a factual matter that congress is looking into. but that's not where they're supposed to be. it's a congressional investigation, and it is as dana keeps pointing out, the gang of eight, four democrats, four republicans, four from the house, four from the senate. it's a formal process that is meant to be neutral in its political orientation. and to have the president's lawyer in there is just wildly inappropriate. >> jeff, what impact do you think it has on chris ray of the
fbi, dana coats, the fbi. >> for any officer of the government who's charged with running a human source their job is going to become harder to help convince someone to come to their side. you likely went into that meeting with eight members of congress who again are known to be a little loose lipped, knowing that anything you said in that meeting could make it to the air waves. that's an unusual place to be in. but i think it's interesting when you look at what may have happened. i think it's safe to assume there wasn't some giant revelation of impropriety on the part of the fbi. and i think the reason we know that is we didn't see chairman nunes tripping over the microphones racing to his colleagues to tell us what he learned. >> and all of this is from adam schiff so far. >> right, and that's not much
except that he indicated that there was nothing to suggest that there were nefarious spies as the president and his aides are suggesting. >> and nunlz and gowdy reportedly didn't see the documents, they wanted, right? >> right. and that's a whole other issue, that this is not over politically when it comes to the pre-'s allies on capitol hill. everybody from mark meadows to others who kind of started the ball rolling demanding from the doj that they get to see information about this, they weren't satisfied with the briefings that were set up in the first place. so you're right, the fact that they seem to have gotten even less access than they thought that they would means that the sort of drum beat is going to continue from capitol hill. >> dana's making an important point here because this conflict as she says is not resolved between the house republicans in
the white house on one side and the justice department on the other is perhaps an attempt to force rod rosenstein to resign in protest or to fire him, which is something that the white house has been itching to do for a long time. so the fact that this crisis isn't over is very significant. >> thanks to everybody. a lot more ahead including more breaking news. we're learning not only did the president turn down a meeting with kim jong-un, his team also said no back enjanuary to robert mueller. more details on that. also north korea's reaction after the plug is pulled on the summit. we're live in north korea ahead. allergies with sinus congestion and pressure? you won't find relief here. go to the pharmacy counter for powerful claritin-d. while the leading allergy spray relieves 6 symptoms... claritin-d relieves 8, including sinus congestion and pressure. claritin-d relieves more. ♪ ♪
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with dell small businessout your technology advisors you get the one-on-one partnership you need to grow your business. the dell vostro 15 laptop. contact a dell advisor today. there is more breaking news on the russia investigation to tell you about. not about the briefings that happened today but a meeting that almost happened back in january between the president and special counsel mueller. now, tonight we're learning more about how it might have played out and why it ultimately did not. our chief political analyst gloria borger and evan perez broke the story. this is the first time we've heard of any possible date for an interview between the president and mueller. what happened? >> well, there was a meeting in early to mid-january, and it was a very different time from the time dana bash was talking about just earlier. because it was a time when the president's legal team actually wanted to get this all over with
and have the president sit down. so there was a meeting with mueller. he suggested let's get the president on january 27th and laid out 16 subjects, and the president's legal team listened to it. they met among themselves later on, and they were even thinking oh, maybe we can have this at kac camp david, might be a good place, we could do this on a saturday. and then after thinking about it, and there was some disagreement among the president's lawyers. but the lead of the president's team john dowd on january 29th sent mueller a letter, a 20-page letter which one source says the president read and approved saying there's no way we are going to do this both for constitutional issues, and we believe that you have all the information that you need from the millions of documents that we've handed over to you. >> and right around that time the president was actually sounding sort of enthusiastic about talking to special
counsel. >> he was. on january 24th when reporters asked him, and here's the quote, i'm looking forward to it actually. that he would have liked to have an interview, but and i think he probably was telling the truth at at that time. i think after the michael cohen i've been told the president said, no way, i'm not going to do it. and you've seen them ratcheting up their attack on mueller and his team and the investigators since that point. >> i also understand you have reporting about meetings between the president's legal team and mueller that happened two months later in march. >> right. so, you know, after this happened in january there was kind of a lull. because the mueller team and the trump team were on very different places. so they had a meeting on march 5th and another one on march 12th. but at the march 5th meeting, i'm told by a source, mueller reiterated that he needed to see the president, he needed to talk to the president because he
needed to know his intent before making certain decisions in his presidency. and of course we know what that refers to, is the firing of james comey. and at this point mueller has not changed his mind, and the trump team remains pretty entrenched about not having the president testify as you keep hearing publicly from giuliani. >> gloria, thanks very much. more legal aid now. john dean. he has seen these things from the inside. he was white house counsel to president nixon. what does it say the president was even one time closer to sitting down with robert mueller? >> not only his legal team in terms of the personnel has changed and been a revolving door but the strategy has changed. so at one point with a different set of players it sounds like they were negotiating and they
were perhaps had one set of constitutional concerns and now maybe there's a different set of constitutional concerns. so the legal strategy, the legal analysis and then the actual approach in dealing with the special counsel's office just constantly seems influx. >> and john, certainly things are not what they were back in january to say the least. a lot has happened since then including the raid on michael cohen's office. what do you think the odds are of the president sitting down to an interview without a fight at this point? >> i think there will be a fight. i don't think its his option either, anderson. i think what we're witnessing is very trumpian. where he is on all sides and all moods at different times and different stages of his thinking. and i think it's only going to be resolved as it has been with other presidents who had to appear, the threat of the subpoena will bring him to a decision very quickly. and i'm not sure he can win in court. i think indeed the law favors
the special counsel and the supreme court. i looked at the number of precedent setting instances where ken starr went to the supreme court and how quickly he got those rulings, for example, on the protective privilege for secret service testifying. he broke that privilege and did it very quickly. so these things can happen faster rather than slow. >> i wonder what you think about that, because the argument the president's legal team is making is because they believe mueller is following the justice department guidelines and that a sitting president can't be indicted, that the president can't be subpoenaed for something which is an unindictable offense. >> there is no specific case on point about whether or not a sitting president has to appear before a grand jury to give oral testimony. so there's document cases, but
there's not something on the specific issue. so it could be litigated. it seems like the president's team is leaning towards trying to drag this out and leaning towards perhaps forcing the special counsel's office to make that decision to serve a subpoena and fight it out in court. the irony is that the longer they drag this out, they increase the chances that the president will do more things that could add to the obstruction case. so the longer this drags out he could fire more people. he could sort of verbally or through twitter intimidate witnesses. he could do other things in terms of his coordination with congress, trying to unearth things about the investigation that have the tendency to disrupt it. so there is actually i think a jeopardy in them dragging this out as well. >> john, cnn reported this week that the president's legal team, they're trying to narrow the scope on any possible interview to russia related matters. no questions on possible obstruction of justice. can you see any possible
situation in which the special counsel agrees to that? >> it's an interesting argument that they would have no ability to restrict what happened before he became president and then have an ability to restrict under an executive privilege theory once he became president. it's never been litigated as we've just noted. i don't think it'll play either. i think that once they get it in there they're not going to agree to the questions. we've seen the breadth of the proposed topics they want to discuss, as gloria's reporting showed earlier today. and they're all over it, and trump is not going to be able to control that. >> john dean, just curious given that you lived through watergate, what do you make of the president's efforts to tag this using the term "spygate" clearly having a reference towards watergate and basically saying if it's true it's the biggest political story ever.
>> well, it seems he's taken -- got his hands on the fog machine that rudy giuliani has been handling. and he's just trying to put smoke out there, and it's not going to hold up. i think the briefing today pretty well showed this was standard operating procedure by the fbi, and if anything the fbi was protecting him and not spying on him but rather being cautious in how they proceeded, trying to see if these people even knew they were dealing with potential russian infiltration of some kind. so the spyigate doesn't work for me at all. coming up north korea has just reacted to the president calling off the summit with kim jong-un. there's been a lot of question marks and anxiety what they might say given the stakes. a rare live report from inside north korea as well. how do you win at business? stay at laquinta. where we're changing with contemporary make-overs. then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab.
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have this long planned meeting. therefore please let this letter serve to represent that the singapore summit for the of both parties that the meeting not take place. can you plain how this summit fell apart. >> reporter: a senior white house official says it was canceled after a series of breaken praur broken promises and odd judgment calls on the part of the north koreans. the things started to sour last week. they were essentially stood up by the north korean, they never showed up. they said that a number of inquiries they sent to north korea went unanswered. so that was a big red flag also came at a time when north korea had a change in tone. they released a statement last week for criticizing the u.s. asking korea to disarm and pull out of the summit. and then you had a statement
from kim last night from north korea calling the vice president a political dummy and threatening nuclear war. so you had all of that on top of the fact that kim jong-un had been a little bit skittish, showing some skittishness about flying to singapore. there was still a big distance on certain issue. so there was growing skepticism up until this point. but it really all culminated with that statement from north korea which led to this letter the president sent to kim jong-un today. i'm told that the administration had been expecting a response from north korea through national security channels. they knew there would be a response to mike pence's statements he made on fox news talking about the libya model. but when they received that statement from north korea threatening nuclear war, that is when the president met with his national security team, and the prevailing option on the table last night was just pull out of the summit. the president wanted to sleep on it, and that letter was sent this morning.
>> while the president did threaten military action this morning, he did leave it open for the summit to happen. >> that's right. in a letter he sent to kim jong-un on one hand he's boasting about the military prowess in the united states, and on the other hand he's inviting kim jong-un to call him or write to him. the president has signaled that he still wants this summit to happen even if it doesn't happen on june 12th as originally planned. i white house officials today what would it take for the summit to be back on track, and basically said the administration would need to see the opposite of what it has seen from north korea this past week for it to happen. >> even as the summit was being called off north korea was taking steps to scale back its nuclear program, destroying nuclear test sites. will ripply joins us now from north korea. first of all, when the news broke that president trump was pulling out of the summit you were actually the one to break the news to north korean
officials there. how did they react? how did that play out? >> reporter: we were on the train riding back from the nuclear test site, and it was late at night. we were actually getting ready to go to bed when i got the phone call. and look, it was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. they didn't give me a response but they immediately got up and got on the phone and i assume were relaying the message up to the office of kim jong-un. i assumed we were the first ones to tell the message to the north koreans. when they came out with this more measured diplomatic response it shows the north koreans still want these talks to move forward despite some of the rhetoric in recent days. >> what were you able to see today? >> reporter: we were on the ground for more than nine hours. it was surprising. it took us more than 15 hours to get there, and they showed us each of the tunnels north korea has used to give up six nuclear
tests. they opened up the doors. we could see they were rigged with explosives as far as the eye could see. then we moved up to the ravine and watched them blow up the tunnels one by one. it was pretty dramatic images, but it was hard to know exactly what we were seeing, like how deep the explosions went, for example. >> there's no way, i guess, to verify the north korean claims that the tunnels are permanently unusable. >> reporter: that's right. because we didn't have any nuclear weapons experts in the group. they were not invited in. it was only journalists. and north koreans said, look, you've seen it with your own eyes. and our point was we saw explosions, but we don't know how it looks. could bulldozers go in and open it up tomorrow or is it really permanently -- there is some
skepticism from people because experts weren't invited it was really this step towards denuclearization with the north korea's claim it was. but for them to blow it up and then a couple minutes latthe sut was canceled, it was really a surreal moment. much more ahead on this. we're going to talk about the north korean response to the president's letter and what could happen next. sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. [park announcer] all military members stand and be recognized. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform.
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korea? >> look, it's really interesting because those are the very words that the north korean vice minister who i met back in 2008 over the same kind of issue, he used those words. and he said those words were in response to as he called it a resistance to the u.s. as he said unacceptable and disgraceful attempt to pressure north korea into unilateral disarmament ahead of the summit. so that's obviously how they're seeing what was going on. and i've spoke to u.s. officials who have also been on this. and they said, look, frankly the cart was put in front of the horse from the beginning. that there were no parameters. the actual technical work had not been done to decide what were the red lines, what were the negotiations, what was the step by step process. so not enough work had been done
to have a summit between two leaders, between the president of the united states and the leader of north korea. >> do you think that played a big role? i mean in the administration, this was -- usually summits are started from the bottom up. there's a lot of groundwork that's done, a lot of meetings, weeks, months, if not years in some cases and the two leaders meet and shake hands and sign something. do you think it was partly that there were a lot of details to work out? >> certainly. we were not prepared to have this summit just a few weeks away. but i have to say i think kim jong-un was actually not planning to cancel the meeting by this statement that was made by his other deputy. they were actually trying to signal to washington they were very displeased about all this talk about libya which is nightmare scenario with libya. they didn't appreciate this talk, they weren't going to cave
to u.s. pressure. but i think they wanted this meeting, which is why north korea released a statement which is very measured, tempered and disciplined for north korean standards. so i think that message didn't come across to washington. we just thought they were being very aggressive. but north koreans were trying to send a signal and it was just lost in translation, the whole thing was. >> max, you tweeted about how president trump canceled the summit with quote, the kind of letter he would have written to a high school crush with whom he was breaking up. i take it you're not impressed with his style of diplomacy? >> this is just the latest episode of trump-style diplomacy. this comes after a few days of his attempts to reach a trade deal with china also crashed and burned. and he had to kind of admit that he hadn't achieved anything. he hadn't achieved $200 billion in reductions of the u.s. china trade deficit. and you see what happened in the case of north korea. he rushed into the summit with
no preparation without any kind of groundwork you need to lay for such an undertaking. and he hyped up expectation tuesday the ceiling. a month ago he said north korea was -- the white house was mintsi minting coins and all of a sudden over the last week or two things spiralled downward and they said, wait a second the north koreans are not actually going to denuclearize. so they rushed into the summit with high expectations and now has kind of backed out of it, which i think is the right thing to do at this point. but it just shows the same style he used in business, which by the way led him to six corporate bankruptcy, he's now applying to the business of the united states. >> do you see a scenario in which the summit does take place
whether it's on the original date or a later date some time this summer? >> look, it's hard to imagine it happening on the original date. but, again, many diplomats, people who have been working this issue for a long time, especially on the u.s. side, they do see both sides want to have a summit. it was clear from president trump's body language that he's pretty disappointed because of this and he also wanted this sort of historic summit and all the things that they've been saying that he wanted to take away from it. so it might happen some time down the line, but it's clear a huge amount of proper work needs to be done. however, there's also a bit of a problem brewing because what president trump has done similar to dissing his european allies at the last minute on iran. remember macron of france came to the united states, trying to persuade him that diplomacy was the right way to go with iran and to keep the deal. and the minute he's on a plane
back to france the president pulls out of that deal, similar with the south korean president who was in washington a couple of days ago basically as a u.s. official told me betting the farm on this diplomacy and being the intermediary, only to land back in seoul and find this whole rug has been pulled out from under him. so we're being told it's possible that the chinese may now step in and be the main mediators if you like. otherwise this may have given china a much bigger role than it might have had had if just been going between the u.s. and north and south korea. so we'll wait to see what happens. >> is this a win for kim jong-un even if the summit never happens simply by being legitimized by a sitting president and having a sitting president reach out to me and call me, that's something the north korean leadership has wanted for quite a while. >> no, absolutely.
and since the olympics and agreeing to meet with him, now kim jong-un has had a makeover and now he's had this statement. and he has actually loosened or weakened political will for sanctions when it comes to china. and he also put a wedge between u.s. and south korean alliances as christiane was just talking about. south korea was completely just floored by this, by trump just scrapping the meeting. when president moon was here he was assured this meeting would take place. kim has gained a lot here without even sitting down with president trump. >> what we're seeing, anderson, is better evidence that trump is better at breaking deals than making deals. he's pulled out the paris
climate accord, most recently the iran nuclear deal. he says he's the world's greatest deal maker. there's no evidence of that so far. is he going to negotiate a deal with iran? there doesn't seem to be a plan deal after pulling out of the iran nuclear deal, and now he negotiated those high hopes and maybe the summit will still take place at some point, but he's not living up to his hype as a deal maker. >> that's the thing about a summit between the dictator of north korea and the president of the united states, that would be perhaps in future administrations a reward for some sort of behavior change and action on the part of north korea, which it's sort of done backwards. >> it's backwards. and trump consistency shows his contempt for established norms and established way of doing things. he trusts his gut. he doesn't want to listen to advisers, read briefing players. clearly the evidence of his presidency he shows that's not the case. he's not reaching these great
deals. i've got to get a break in. more breaking news involving the russia investigation, this time involving roger stone who details about why specifically the mueller team is interested in him. money managers are pretty much the same. all but while some push high commission investment products, fisher investments avoids them. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management. . . . ♪ ♪
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eight people called in, at least one with direct knowledge of his financial information, others dealing with social media, still others were associates of roger stone's when he was working on donald trump's presidential campaign. at a minimum, there's a lot of interest from mueller's team about roger stone, his finances and communications, which, of course, our experts say should be worrisome for roger stone. >> and is this connected to reported links between stone and wikileaks founder over the e-mail? >> he got a lot of scrutiny because during the 2016 presidential campaign he sent out tweets, made public statements that looked pretty pressy and made it look like he was essentially predicting what wikileaks was about to do next. stone denied he had any foreknowledge wikileaks would release hacked e-mails related to john podesta, who was then a clinton campaign staffer, but that certainly drew a lot of public scrutiny. we know mueller has been asking about that as well and may have put him on the radar in the
first place. >> what has stone said about all of this? >> stone has denied he had anything to do with the russian collusion, and he and his allies now believe essentially this is a witch-hunt to try to pin him on anything and bring down a long-time ally of the president. i will read a portion of the statement stone gave me where he said the special counsel now seems to be combing through every molecule of my existence including my personal life and business affairs to conjure up some offense to charge me with, either to silence me or induce me to testify against the president. stone insists he will never turn against for the president. as for the special counsel's team, they're not commenting. >> thanks very much. a lot more ahead including the briefing on the hill about the investigation. also, north korea responds to president trump calling off the summit. first, a preview of the cnn original series "1968," a special two-night event starting this sun at 9:00 p.m. eastern. take a look. ♪
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the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it. breaking news tonight. fall-out from the decision to send the president's lawyer to a pair of classified congressional
government to get her 7-year-old son. she told us, as a mother, you must fight to get your child back. you think if they anticipated it, do you think it would be that complicated? >> no, not at all. >> reporter: jody goodwin represents 100 migrant parents. >> they didn't think this through in which way to match up which parents. >> liz, i want to start with you because the department of homeland security doesn't answer the questions of the families and advocates like the ones that spoke to gabe gutierrez there. they are asking the government to provide. what is your sense of how the administration is trying to fix this blunder? >> the fact sheet is the first time the government has told people how many of the young children that they took from their parents have actually been reunited. and the number is 522.
bad policy and then there's, you know, this. this is a situation where there are folks like steven miller, they own this. and there's really no other way to look at it. i mean, i think that comparison is fair. because you look at these images, and this is -- this is self-inflicted bad policy. but it's tough, dara, to talk about this through the lens of politics when there are children separated from their parents. and it's very unclear just whether or not the new policy is going to correct it. so this is something that quite frankly when i talked to sources up on capitol hill in the republican party, they are begging the administration to address in some policy problem. >> and still so many unanswered questions there.
i want to go back to what president trump said yesterday about this being a winning issue for the republicans. "the new york times" came out with a story today. the reporter writes, their resilience suggests a level of unity among republicans that could help mitt at a time mr. trump's low overall approval rating. liz, will the level of steadfast support be enough? >> yeah, i think it's president that the people are buying it. that's why we saw him back off the policy, something we never see the president do, right? and this week we saw him take a step back, write the hasty executive order to stay, is it a
step back from the humanitarian crisis that he himself created, will now everyone move on and forget about it because the news cycle is going to move on? but it was not a good week for him politically. >> meanwhile, the democrats are using the chilling audio from children separated from their parents as a way to shame president trump. this was backed by congressman bill stire. and kevin, is it too early to tell if this helps democrats regain control in november? >> dara, from the political standpoint, this is clearly mobilized activists on all sides. most notably in the democratic party. as you mentioned, republicans have dug in and are still behind
this president, but many folks in the evangelical community were urging the president to reconsider. when you have the son of late billy graham urge iing with a sy and talking about changing course on this. ivanka trump is urging the president to reconsider this. this is by no means something universal considered by republicans at all. and, in fact, i think to your point, sara, and to "the new york times," that's the article point. you have republicans coming out to say they didn't want separation from their children. and steve king in rural iowa
feels the tough immigration policy is something they don't want to back off from. that's why you have the comprehensive immigration reform pass before the midterms. and that's also why the president tweeted on thursday, hey, wait a minute, don't get to immigration until after the midterm elections. seeing him campaign yesterday in areas, someone seeing president trump return from the last presidential siblcycle, seeing together campaigning speaks to the climate we're headed into, where does the claim go from here with immigration? >> steve miller had a whole slate of things he wanted to roll out on immigration.
they are focusing on the court agreement that says children can only be held in contention for 20 days with their family and then have to be released. it has a lot of questions on how children should be dealt with while they go through immigration proceedings. but i don't think you'll see the white house back off on that. they are trying to get house republicans to accomplish that for them. i don't know how much steven miller is going to be in the driver seat after this -- >> he's not. >> we'll see when we talk to sarah huckabee sanders. stay tuned for that. and a senator who described
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add an ipad to select packages for just $5 a month for 24 months. upgrade online now. a new report today as the trump administration continues to receive criticism for the immigration policy. hundreds of migrant children remain separated from their parents including 23 children in texas. the "el paso times" is arriving that seven girls have arrived at a shelter. cal, good morning to you. tell us what is going on in the tent city. >> reporter: dara, after a long week, finally clarification about what exactly is happening in the tent city behind me. that clarification coming from senator tom udahl who finally
got into the tents where they are housing unaccompanied minors. he said between 250 and 260 kids are being held in that camp between the ages of 14 to 18. he did share a little bit of news, we have been talking about the girls' condition. >> reporter: what are the conditions like? >> first of all, we're out in the desert. it's hot. so if they're playing soccer, they're playing on a soccer field where temperatures are hot way out in the sun. i believe yesterday it was 108. when you get inside, it's completely air-conditioned. and my uptsinderstanding is then move it to whatever temperature the kids want, they are getting three meals a day and all the
things you would expect. the real trauma is being separated from your parents. >> reporter: senator udall thinks the president should come here to visit the site for himself. he's stressed that he thinks there's been a complete breakdown of trust between the federal government and the people, not to mention the media, because we have been unable to visit the sites by and large specifically the one behind me. one of the things most disturbing about what he said, the plan for reunification, the question on everyone's minds, when will the kids be back with their families? he asked an official inside the camp to be back their parents. he told me he was, quote, told to call them in a week. that tells them how disorganized they are.
confusion is occurring. and kelly cobiella is live in riyadh, saudi arabia. kelly, how have women been reacting to this? >> reporter: it really was a celebration. one minute after midnight, daughters, mothers, sisters, taking a victory lap of sorts going to the local labor places
license, hit the road and head to work. >> sounds like a celebration there. thank you, kelly. next, why the white house press secretary sarah sanders was asked to leave a virginia restaurant. and why a tweet about it is raising ethics questions. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management. is not a marathon. it's a series of smart choices. and when you replace one meal or snack a day with glucerna made with carbsteady to help minimize blood sugar spikes you can really feel it. glucerna. everyday progress.
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points since january. new reaction from the owner of a restaurant in virginia who asked sarah huckabee sanders to leave yesterday. owner stephanie wilkinson tells "the washington post" that she pulled sarah huckabee sanders outside and said, i explained that the restaurant would like to uphold standards such as honestly and compassion and cooperation. i'd like to ask you to leave. sander's response was immediate, she said, that's fine, i'll go. >> this is a situation, no, i don't think that sarah sanders is going to be losing her job over tweeting about this
incident. and look, this is such an illustration for where we are at culturally in the political rhetoric dialogue of our country right now. and it has clearly sparked a national conversation. you've got folks on the left agreeing with this. folks on the right disagreeing with this. and look, this is a moment of where we are at. and i don't anticipate this will stop any time soon. >> and before i let you two go, liz, cory lewandowski flew with the president yesterday to las vegas. and this is in reaction to a girl with down syndrome being separated from her mother at the border. liz, is he concerned about the outcome of this? >> no, i don't think they are worried about this. they don't think that cory
lewandowski made fun of a 10-year-old girl with down syndrome. >> what is your take, kevin? >> i think that he's remained entrenched with the political apparatus. >> the political climate has certainly sobered us up. >> what a week. >> what a week. we were talking about sarah sanders, but the same thing happened to kirsten nielson and it's going on. kevin, real quick, what is next week like? >> well, on my radar, the king of abdullah, jordan, will be at the white house. this immigration issue is very much on the minds of american in america as well as the world.
>> thanks, kevin cirilli. great to have you on this morning. that will do it for me, i'm dara brown. at the top of the hour, "politics nation." and "your business" is up next. dear future us,
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ke teamwork, attention to detail, and customer service are critical to business success. like the ones we teach here, every day. in washington today, the spotlight is squarely on the president's legal troubles. >> the president trying to explain away troubling statements from his new lawyer rudy giuliani. >> when did the president know about that hush money payment to stormy daniels? >> this was a very bad week for the trump team. >> he's exposed president trump to possible prosecution for two crimes. >> as far as i'm concerned, it's a nothing burger. >> giuliani tries to clean up a potential mess he made for his clients. >> the president doesn't age knowledge meeting stormy daniels, correct? >> gee, i'm not involved in the daniels thing so i don't know. in terms of what you mean by met her. >> so the president does deny
any sexual relationship with stormy daniels? >> he has. as i said, i'm not involved in that. right now i'm at the point where i'm learning. >> i want to make sure, george, did that interview just happen? >> when did the president find out michael cohen made this payment? >> that i don't know. >> president trump apparently misled the american people on air force one in april when he denied knowing anything about this payment stormy daniels. >> first of all, that is on an airplane in the middle of an important trip. >> when the president said no on air force one, he was talking about he didn't know when the payment occurred. >> it's a train wreck. >> it is possible a porn star could take down a president if the president is not cautious. >> welcome to "kasie d.c." i'm kasie hunt. we are live from washington every sunday night from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern. tonight we began with the kasie dvr for a change. and the mad cap cycle of rudy junian i's own making.
the "the new york times" is reporting president trump knew about that $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actress stormy daniels months before denying any knowledge of it to reporters aboard air force one in early april. that is according to two people familiar with the arrangement. we should point out that the president's outside legal counsel would not comment on the times story. meanwhile giuliani confirmed on wednesday the president reimbursed his attorney michael cohen for that payment. that was a comment that stunned many of the president's own advisors and led to more than one clarification. that wasn't confusing or anything. and when you separate it all out, it doesn't really become any clearer. >> that money was not campaign money. sorry, i'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. it's not campaign money. >> imagine if that came out on october 15th, 2016.
>> sure. >> in the middle of the last debate with hillary clinton. cohen made it go away. he did his job. >> even if it was for campaign purposes, to save his family, to save embarrassment, it's not a campaign donation. >> as far as i know, an outstanding agreement, michael cohen makes payments like this, he gets paid for them sometimes, whether it's business or personal. >> oh, boy. i want to welcome in my panel, pulitzer winning bureau chief philip rucker. political reporter for "the new york times" ken vogel. michael schmidt. julia ainsley. joining the conversation from birmingham, alabama, former u.s. attorney joyce vance. thank you all for being here this evening to try and sort through exactly what the heck happened over the course of the last week. phil rucker, can you start with an overview of where we are at
the white house right now? what does the president think of the job giuliani is doing, is there solid footing or is there distance between them? >> this has been going on five or six days now. the president did say friday he thought rudy giuliani needed to get his facts straight. felt confident he would. my colleague bob costa talked to rudy giuliani this afternoon after the interviews this morning. he spent the day with the president at the golf course in virginia, the president feels good about it and they're in a comfortable place. it is totally separate from the white house. the white house senior staff have no idea what rude si doing. they're not booking his interviews. they're not strategizing over his talking basis points. this is very much a rogue operation the president's personal attorney is doing. >> ken vogel, the switch that i seem to sense, we had the president on friday saying rudy giuliani needs to get his facts
straight. mid week he seemed certain michael cohen had been reimbursed for this. by sunday he's on abc saying well, sometimes this happens, sometimes kind of. is that an example of him getting his facts straight or confusing the issue? >> not at all. he's doing a really bad job. you talk to all the republican finance campaign attorneys, even those sympathetic to trump. there is a lot of ambiguity. a lot of questions. the one thing everyone agrees rudy giuliani has no idea what campaign finance implications there might be here. the fact he admitted trump reimbursed the payment is significant because it speaks to truthfulness. the degree to which his subsequent explanations about what the purpose was or when trump knew, the significance of those may be a bit overstated. it really doesn't matter what rudy giuliani is saying. it matters what the intent was of these payments when they were made and who knew about them at the time that they were made.
rudy giuliani says he doesn't know about that. he's just speaking out of turn to some extent. there could be additional light shed on this because there were documents seized from michael cohen's hotel and office by the fbi that could answer these questions. but as of right now just a bunch of speculation who knew what when. >> joyce vance, could i get to you weigh in here? is this potentially overstated? what are the real rubber meets the road legal implications of julie kind of changing his story? >> the president can't be held accountable for giuliani's statement in court, so it's not like these statements become evidence that's used against the president at some point. but the problem is the constantly shifting stories and the president's response to them which could at the end of the day help mueller, other prosecutors or congress refine a case against him. >> michael schmidt, could i get you to weigh in on that? if you're bob mueller, what are you taking away from the events of the last week? >> in all the things that came
up, the one thing we didn't talk about is the new explanation he provided for why comey was fired. >> oh, gosh, you're right. >> in the midst of the fox interview, he says, by the way, the reason that comey was fired is because he wouldn't say that trump was not under investigation. that under cuts everything that the white house has said about that. but what it does do is it echos what comey says in the memos. comey laying out. and while i now the stormy daniels thing is more salacious, that may actually cut more to the question of obstruction. >> and it's -- would you say that it's a little bit close tore what trump told lester holt where he said the russia investigation, julia, was involved, this russia thing. >> right. >> so, to michael's point, is rudy giuliani coming closer to that than -- because they obviously reversed and said, no, no, it has nothing do with that. >> giuliani tried to say under
the president's powers he can fire whoever he wants. that wasn't under question. what was under question is intent. he really laid bare those intentions. the interview with lester holt trump said this russia thing had to go away, but it left a lot of ambiguity what exactly it was he had a problem with. it seems like james comey laid out t had to do with trump and russia. it wasn't that he was trying to protect how all of these other people who could be indicted who worked on his campaign. it was really him. he wanted to know that he would be saved by his owen fbi director. obviously that was something comey couldn't promise him. when the president wants giuliani to get his facts straight, i think it would be over that. it would also be over these payments to women. now we see him coming out today creating more damage saying there could be other payments, which i think is just more bread crumbs for all of us to go follow. >> right. we haven't even touched on that, the additional potential payments to other women. i mean, i feel like that opens an entire can of worms that -- how on earth does the president
still -- >> absolutely. so rudy giuliani said there could be other payments to women. he also seemed to discount this $130,000 payment to stormy daniels as, oh, it's not that much money. this is the kind of thing that happens all the time. >> if it had been millions, maybe it would be a big deal. >> to a lot of americans, it's a pretty extraordinary circumstance to payoff this adult film actress. so, giuliani is just talking about a different world that people can't relate to. >> i think we have the sound we were talking about rudy giuliani talking about additional payments. let's take a look. >> did michael cohen make payments to other women for the president? >> i have no knowledge of that, but i would think if it was necessary, yes. there were other things involved that had nothing to do with stormy daniels. >> i'm just going to skip over the part where we have to think about why it would be necessary to payoff additional women. but michael schmidt, what does this mean in the context of this investigation? do we -- we don't seem to know that there were necessarily any other payments, but that does
seem like more for mueller to dig into. >> well, one of the issues that the trump legal team has had and cohen's legal team is understanding what was actually in the documents that were taken from cohen's office. and i think that at least in the week or so after the raid in new york, the lawyers didn't feel like they were getting a fair idea from the clients about what actually is in these things. they were acknowledging that they were more concerned about the new york investigation than they were mueller's investigation because they had no idea what was actually in there. and simply the idea of the years and years of donald trump, you know, deals and such with his personal lawyer, nothing good could come out of it. now they have a better idea of it because the government has given them copies of it to examine. but obviously we don't know yet. >> right. let's talk for a second, too, ken, your colleagues at "the new york times" had a fascinating story, profile almost of michael cohen and his potential criminal
ties, ties to the russian mob, his taxi business that, you know, scaled onto -- into questionable loans for various real estate deals. i mean, this guy, i think there was somebody quoted in the story who came from a mainstream bank, i believe it was pnc who basically said, this is the kind of guy we wouldn't want to touch. and that yet this is the person who is defending donald trump. >> yeah, and it provides a real window into trump's world of real estate and business. this is a guy who, yes, he's involved in all these sort of disparate ventures, but the one thing that you cannot do is extricate them from trump. he has been in trump's world. and one of the closest people to donald trump on the business side personally on the legal size, for decades, and that is something that poses serious problems for trump, both in terms of questions about his loyalty ongoing and whether he might provide -- he might flip and provide information, and
also what they mayeda find about trump's business as they, the prosecutors and the fbi try to sort through cohen's businesses. >> something i think gets left out of the comments about payments to women. $130,000 is nothing to trump. for someone running for office is serious on its own. the fact other women came up that giuliani knows about, that says something about the relationship between giuliani and trump. giuliani and trump, they had paid these women off and never brought it up to trump's attention, that shows this is a recurring pattern. i mean, that shouldn't be the thing that his lawyer should be putting out there, talking about giuliani, saying this was a common thing. and he might not know about it. so, i think that while the money might seem like not that big of a deal, you would want to know about those allegations, even if they're baseless, especially if you're in politics and you're putting yourself out there in the public sphere. >> yeah, and, joyce vance, rudy
giuliani brought this up in the beginning because he wanted to argue this wasn't a violation of campaign finance law, regardless of how it was handled that wasn't the problem. did he get that right in your view? >> he got it wrong and he got it wrong in multiple ways. it was a lot like watching a ping-pong match where he was hitting the ball back and forth. and wildly hit ing it off the table and it would careen around the walls. the latest incarnation we heard was on fox with judge jeannine where he said it wasn't a donation because he was just trying to spare the family from disgrace. but even if it was a donation, it doesn't matter because he paid it back. and that's just not the law. this is made so close in time to the campaign, there is now a lot of evidence that the payment was made in an effort to influence the outcome of the election. and there's a lot of additional information to come out here. but the bottom line legally is that if it was willful and
knowingly made, this payment, in an effort to influence the election, it could well be into criminal territory as opposed to just an administrative campaign finance violation. >> ken vogel, do you agree with that? we've had conversations before on this show where you've sadie essentially if this has to do with the fec forget it, it's not going anywhere. >> if there is a willful and knowing violation that would be in the fec's purview. that would be a federal law enforcement matter to be handled by the d.o.j. and could carry criminal sanctions. i am skeptical where i find the case has been made, i think exaggerated to the degree where it's slam dunk. was it within proximity of the election and just because rudy giuliani says can you imagine if this came out in the last debate, that proves this payment was made to influence the election. there are pretty strict standards to show that's something -- legal standards that are required to be proven
to show something was made -- that a payment was made to influence a federal or any election. and i don't think that rudy saying that meets that standard. potentially, again, with the documents that were seized from michael cohen's office we might see something that gets close tore that standard. as of now i'm unconvinced. >> phil rucker -- yes, joyce, go ahead. >> if i could interject on that, i would agree it's far from a slam dunk. these sort of cases never are. one thing we know is the southern district of new york had probable cause to pursue this allegation of a campaign finance violation when they got the search warrant. so that tells us there was something there that let the judge proceed forward with this. far from a slam dunk, but definitely worth following up on. >> phil, i was going to ask you, right now more broadly as concerns michael cone, the case, how they're making these decisions. are they operating under the assumption that co-he enhen is cooperating with prosecutors?
>> they are operating under the fear he could cooperate with prosecutors. i don't think they've concluded he is cooperating. >> they are concerned that could end up happening ultimately and there is danger for the president in that circumstance. remember, the people -- the other lawyers trying to help advise the president on the russia matter, the advisors in the white house helping him manage the political fallout, don't know the full extent of what was seized in those raids on cohen's office and hotel room and place of living. and they don't know what kind of documents are there. they don't know what other women might have been paid off. they don't know what other financial arrangements there may be records for that the federal investigators now have. there is a lot of unknown and they are operating under a fear things could be very bad. >> very bad very quickly. it is sunday school tonight on "kasie d.c." we will have the parable of the house chaplain later on this hour. plus how the midterms could impact robert mueller. and did gina haas pel consider
withdrawal her bid for cia director as recently as this friday? jeremy bash just spoke with gina haspel herself. "kasie d.c." back after this. more? they've been saving folks money for over 75 years. a company you can trust. geico even helped us with homeowners insurance. more sounds great. gotta love more... right, honey? yeah! geico. expect great savings and a whole lot more. there areand the best.s... we like cage free, and which ones are more flavorful? only eggland's best. we prefer organic, and which have more vitamins and less saturated fat? only eggland's best. better taste, better nutrition, better eggs.
profiles still read personal attorney to president donald j. trump. meanwhile, the president and white house staff have sought to dismiss the special counsel's investigation as a witch hunt while also saying this about agreeing to an interview with robert mueller's team. >> i would love to speak, i would love to. nobody wants to speak more than me. in fact, against my lawyers because most lawyers say never speak with anything. i have to find that we're going to be treated fairly because everybody sees it now and it is a pure witch hunt. right now it's a pure witch hunt. why don't we have republicans looking also? why aren't we having republican people doing what all these democrats are doing? it is a very unfair thing. if i thought it was fair, i would override my lawyers. >> the question is which lawyer is he talking about? >> are you confident the president will not take the 5th in this case? >> oh, how could i ever be
confident of that? when i'm facing a situation with the president and all the other lawyers are, which every lawyer in america thinks he would be a fool to testify, i have a client who wants to testify. please, don't -- he said it yesterday. jay and i said to ourselves, my goodness, you know, i hope we get a chance to tell him the risks that he's taking. so he may testify. and we may actually work things out with bob mueller. >> also this week ty cobb announced his retirement. while the president has time and again accused the special counsel of leaking questions to "the new york times," cobb has publicly struck a more genial tone in hopes the president will do an interview with him. >> do you think bob mueller leaked the list or his team -- >> absolutely not. i have no doubt that he did not. >> who do you think did it? where would it come from? >> you know, i don't want to speculate on that. i think it's very difficult to see who, if anybody, benefits
from the leak of that other than people who have been trying to sabotage the possibility of an interview and/or generate chaos around here. >> joyce vance, it sounds to me like ty cobb is essentially accusing the other members of the legal team trying to convince the president via the press not to do an interview. >> it sure sounds that way. he comes up with the most plausible reason the list could have been leaked. what we take away from this, it's not actually mueller's questions written down and handed over to the president. it was really more a series of notes taken by trump's own lawyers and, therefore, it couldn't have been leaked by mueller's team even if they had a penchant for leaks, which we know that they don't. what you have to think about, this list leaking and the controversy that's come afterward and rudy giuliani coming onto the president's legal team with this bold
pronouncement, he would resolve everything with mueller, he would negotiate an end to the investigation in the next couple of weeks. and now here we are two weeks later and that's just not how it's playing out. this is yet again the legal team constantly shifting their stories with the president about how long it will take this to resolve. >> michael schmidt, this was your story about the questions about the mueller interview. where does this all stand now? i mean, it does seem as though the president seems to go back and forth on exactly what he wants to do here. >> well, the president thinks he can explain anything to anyone, and he can go in there to mueller and do that. i think that there are deep concerns that the president doesn't even have the ability to concentrate enough to prepare for it. this is an interview where even the slightest mistake can result in a huge problem. if we've seen anything about mueller so far that we know about his prosecution decisions, it's that they have no time for folks that were not forthcoming in their interviews and they
will bring them up and charge them with lying to federal authorities. the president puts himself in extremely difficult position, especially the president being someone who is not always great on the facts. and is someone -- >> to put it mildly perhaps. >> does not have a high rate of factualness. so, you now, these are very complicated things. the questions are getting into very -- what was the president thinking, what were his intentions. i didn't know -- i had a chance to sit with the president twice and he will go in so many different directions so quickly, i don't know if he can be disciplined enough to stay through extensive questioning. >> ken? >> the president's fear which is being fed both by some of the lawyers on the team who have a more confrontational approach than ty cobb, rudy giuliani we heard, jay sekulow, don mcgahn who have urged him to be more kaurk cautious in providing documents,
testimony to mueller's team. one of the concerns they and others who are trump allies who have been interviewed by mueller's team have is they are asking questions that are -- they already know the answers to as an effort to sort of trip them up. the so-called perjury trap we hear so much. we just heard michael caputo former campaign advisor to trump, former new york director of the campaign, and then paul manafort brought him in to trump tower during the campaign. he went in to mueller's team and described it as a proctology exam by a large hand doctor and essentially was signaling on tv they were trying to trip him up by asking questions they already knew the answer to and suggesting trump himself would find himself in similar peril being baited essentially to lie. >> julie ainsley, we were talking before the break about what happens if the president doesn't do the interview? >> right. >> and he has to get subpoenaed. >> right now we're all talking
about this over the interview. we know robert mueller has threaten today subpoena him in conversations with his lawyers, subpoena him to go before a grand jury. what it sounds like from what giuliani was sailing today he doesn't know. the president could decide not to comply with the subpoena for a grand jury. that would hut him in uncharted territory. there have been three presidents who have been subpoenaed in history. this goes back to thomas jefferson. he first declined to comply, then he did ultimately give over some documents. nixon, of course, was given a subpoena. he resigned before that ever came to a head. and then bill clinton was subpoenaed and did ultimately testify. if the president decides to run that all the way up and does not comply with the subpoena, we're looking at the supreme court having to weigh in. it could be a real constitutional crisisti, somethg we've never seen. let's not talk about the politics of what that would look like, what he's trying to hide if he refuses to testify. >> let's talk briefly about politics because there was a "wall street journal" story.
joyce vance, get to you weigh in on this. looking at facing the midterm elections that robert mueller has to start thinking about the timing of any decisions, announcements, indictments, things like that because of ramifications. clearly there would be democrats angry with that similar to what happened with james comey and hillary clinton before the 2016 election. what does mueller have to think about in this context? >> d.o.j. has a long-standing policy of ensuring that its investigations and prosecutions don't interfere with the political process. so, everything that jim comey did really flew in the face of that. that's why it was so controversial and that was the conduct that led deputy attorney general rosenstein to weigh in and say that he had grossly violated d.o.j. policy. i would expect mueller to be much more closely to the tra s traditional practice, not bringing any indictments any closer than 60 days to the
investigation. so, that gives him a hard stop for indictments, perhaps for sending a report up to the hill. we've seen him work at a quick pace. perhaps he's trying to meet that deadline. >> joyce vance, michael submit, did you both so much for your time tonight. i really appreciate it. just ahead, gina haspel was always going to face a difficult confirmation, but new reporting may make it even harder. we're back after this. but not before a little more rudy. >> the hillary clinton treatment is what i'm looking for. no under oath, only a q & a and we get the questions in advance and they write the report two weeks before. nice, nice, nice. poor little hillary, we have to be nice to her. r tonight in an unreasonably narrow fast food drive thru lane. but what a powerful life lesson. and don't worry i have everything handled. i already spoke to our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. which is so smart on your guy's part.
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first met with them at the white house on friday where she wanted to withdraw. it had to be a subsequent meeting where you have marc short and sarah sanders rushing to langley to say please stay in the game. i think this is an administration where they have had so many people drop out. they've had so much turnover. this is not something they need right now. so they needed to show that she had that support. but i think she was coming from a place of not just wanting to drag her own name through all of this, but the cia. she doesn't want to bring up the issue of water boarding again. they thought they had moved away from that and they don't want to get into a lot of the questions about their interrogation programs that will inevitably come up in any hearing on gina haspel. >> phil rucker, what was the kind of view, it seems like in some of the reporting we've been doing there was a sense the white house wasn't doing the work it needed to do in defending gina haspel around this particular issue. is that the sense you get from your sources? >> yeah, initially that's certainly the case. the white house was so focused on mike pompeo who faced iraqi
confirmation process for secretary of state. he was the top priority and they were sort of ignoring haspel for a while. now once pompeo got confirmed a little over a week ago the white house got into gear to help haspel. there was a messaging effort this past week to try to promote her nomination. they did a conference call at the white house. you've seen sarah sanders and other white house aides publicly touting her, first woman in cia history potentially and making a big push out of that. initially they were not doing the spade work required to smooth that process on the hill. >> right. look, there is a very narrow, ken vogel, window here. or narrow vote count for gina haspel for her nomination. rand paul has been opposed to these programs. he seemed opposed to pompeo until all of a sudden he wasn't any more. so that's a big question. john mccain missing from the senate. he's always been somebody who is a very prominent voice speaking out against these programs, but of course he's not in washington to vote on this.
what's the path here? >> it is important to note that this is not a partisan issue. this issue of enhanced interrogation tick 'niques which critics call torture, we've seen multiple raise concerns over the years when they happened, when they were first revealed. and subsequently they see it as a black mark, as do many democrats, on the cia, reamlly n the united states of america as a whole. you point out they can't afford to lose many republicans and there are already some suspects who might find this to be a tricky vote or might at least give them a hard time. and i think that, as to julia's point is really gina haspel's concern. obviously she wants to get confirmed or she wouldn't go through this process. it is more the ripping off, the reopening of the wound -- >> right. >> -- that was a real deeply divisive topic with the american intelligence community of enhanced interrogation.
>> and that likely to be the subject of the hearing if in fact it does go forward. jeremy bash just spoke with gina haspel. he's going to join us live at the top of our next hour. join us for that. thank you so much for your time. i really appreciate it. just ahead we have states of play. a super tuesday of trump state primaries. the great steve kornacki joins us in fears republicans could blow a big opportunity in west virginia. our money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with new car replacement, if your brand new car gets totaled, liberty mutual will pay the entire value plus depreciation. liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance. no one thought much of itm at all.l people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. they thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldn't that be cool? and that's why exxonmobil scientists think it's
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>> that's about as good as the polling gets in west virginia these days. four states that went for president trump all holding primaries on tuesday. joining me now, nbc news political reporter ali, polster and president of bellwether research, christine mathews. and msnbc's the great steve kornacki. steve, i want to start with you. i'm so excited to have the big board on "kasie d.c." what are we looking at on tuesday? >> well, we're looking at a lot. let's get the count down going, kasie. 48 hours from now we'll get a lot of results. you mentioned west virginia, four states with primaries on tuesday. let's start in west virginia. you just had trump there crowd sourcing the poll. this is the most recent poll we got out of this republican primary in west virginia. the key name here, the one getting most attention is don blankenship. very controversial. did time in prison because of that coal mining tragedy. coal mine that he owned. there is some reporting this weekend that blankenship in some private polling may be moving up, may have a chance to win.
of course, the republican establishment, they are trying to stop a mitch mcconnell, those folks, they think that's political suicide for republicans to nominate blankenship so we will see. look, on paper the winner of this primary has a golden opportunity because, of course, west virginia, this was the mother of all trump states in 2016. donald trump won west virginia by 42 points and yet it is represented by a democrat, joe manchin in the senate. mansion up for reelection. so republicans, this really at or near the top of their list when they talk about seats they think they can flip to hang onto that senate majority. a very vulnerable democrat there. we'll see if that, if blankenship does get competitive tuesday night, though, what would that do to scramble potentially the general election? that is a big question on tuesday. not the only state with that kind of dynamic, though, where you have a primary on tuesday. joe donley, democratic senator from indiana, he's up, republicans picking a nominee in a state that trump won by 19 points in 2016. so, again, on paper for
republicans, a big pickup opportunity. this is one of the big stories obviously on tuesday and really this year. republicans trying to hang onto the senate. what they'd like to do is knock off a couple of these. these are the ten, count them, ten democrats who are up this year in states that donald trump won. so, on paper, if republicans could pick off two, three of these, boy that senate majority becomes very difficult for democrats to break even if they got a good year nationally. so, these are the most vulnerable. the one thing we would add, though, is this. in a normal election year, all of these democratic senators you're seeing would be vulnerable in these states. but this dynamic, representing a state that was won by a president of the other party, then being up in a midterm election. this has been a favorable -- that wasn't supposed to happen. this has been a favorable combination, actually, for these vulnerable incumbents going back the last generation. call them senators in hostile states.
senators that have been up in mid terms in states that a president of the other party had just won, and yet look at this. you add these up. look at all those wins up there. the incumbents are 21 and 3 in this scenario. the donleys, the manchin's, the mck mccaskills. they are 21 and 3. when the tide moves against the white house it can prop up incumbents, kasie, who might otherwise be doomed. >> that is a fascinating point, steve. i love seeing it laid out that way. christine mathews, you've been nodding along as steve has been walking through all of this. what do you think are the most important things we should be watching for on tuesday night across the map, but also specifically in indiana where you've done a lot of work? >> right. so, there's been virtually no public polling done in indiana. so, we have no idea who is likely to win the primary. i think that at this point bron, the businessman looks like he has the momentum.
the chatter in the state is he is probably in the lead. >> and this, of course, just to give our viewers a little bit of context, the republican primary we thought was between two members of the house that got really nasty, and we had this third businessman come up out of nowhere. >> right. he spent the most money. he had some creative ads. he carried around cardboard cut outs basically saying they're interchangeable. they're creatures of d.c. and i'm the guy who is not. and the ads have been actually really creative and he spent the most money. he closed positive. his last tv spot was positive and he basically said, i'm not going to owe anything to anyone, which is kind of a trumpian line, you know. i'm an independent business guy. i'm not part of the inner circle, so i feel like he feels confident. he closed positive. todd rakita close ed in kind of a fighter fashion which is kind of how he has approached the whole primary. >> i'm interested to see if maybe the lesson we're going to take from that is it's not
enough just to run with the president, you have to actually be a candidate who is like the president in personality and approach. i want to, though, take a move back to west virginia because our allie batally was on the ground. >> reporter: republicans are licking their chops. >> joe manchin has not helped us in this stuff. >> reporter: in the waning days of republican primaries gop hopefuls are talking less about manchin. >> it is the pill pushers and patrick has represented those people for years and made millions. >> reporter: and more about each other. >> did your mom ever tell you a that you should wash your mouth out with soap with those lies? >> reporter: attorney general patrick morrissy and jenkins are locked in a nasty fight over coal jobs, opioids and who supported trump first. both have been accused of
stretching the truth. >> he refused to support trump over hillary. >> reporter: that ad earned jenkins criticism for doctoring a photo to look like moriy and hillary clinton. >> any man who would fake a handshake and photo shop that in and imply he was shaking hands with hillary clinton, that person is a liar. >> you know what, patrick morrissy has been mischaracterizing and photo shopping in pictures with hillary clinton buttons on me and things that just simply never existed. that ad represents exactly what patrick morrissy was doing. >> reporter: but a third figure also looms large in this race. >> i don't know any politician supporting me so that should tell you something. >> reporter: an insurgent candidate known best as the ceo of massey energy. don blankenship spent a year in prison after a coal mine explosion left 29 of his miners dead. >> it is incredible. they sent me to prison for a misdemeanor. it was clear from the beginning
to the end it was a fake prosecution. >> reporter: blankenship's 2.3 million in spending has been as much telling his side of the story as it's been about politics. does the time he spent in prison bother you at all? >> not really. no. >> doesn't bother me one bit. don blankenship was railroaded. >> reporter: mitch mcconnell to donald trump's own son don junior. he asked voters to not vote for blankenship. you think don junior is misled? >> they're all mislead. >> reporter: blankenship blames mcconnell who's ads have blanketed him. in response. >> mitch mcconnell has created millions of jobs for china people. his china people are given him tens of millions of dollars. i will beat and dismiss mitch. >> people are offended. >> they shouldn't be.
i'm a west virginia person. you're an nbc person. in order to have a racist statement, you have to mention a race or derogatory comment about a race. >> don tells it like it is. just like trump did. and that's why he's getting support in this state. >> absolutely unreal. republicans had thought that they had successfully pushed blankenship to the edges of this race and that they were going to end up with morrissy or jenkins, one of the two. i would argue it would be more generic republicans on the ballot. what did you find? do you think blankenship is having a late surge based on your reporting? >> it sounds that way. over the course of the past 48 hours, most of the folks that i've talked to on both sides of this race have said that it's pretty much a mess at this point and they think that's really because blankenship is seeing a surge, but jenkins is also seeing his support start sliding. a lot of that has to do with the fox debate that happened on tuesday in morgan town where jenkins and morrissy basically got on the stage and they tried to ignore blankenship and he was able to run the way he wanted to
run against mcconnell as the outsider, as the businessman. that worked. >> did you talk to any voters about joe manchin, the incumbent? do they seem to think as though he's still somebody that is of them, representing them, kind o celebrity in a way? or have they started to believe the president who said that manchin hasn't been helpful? >> i think you're hearing both of those things, i mean, if you talk to people who are still democrats in that state, a lot of the coal miners i talk to especially the union guy s believe manchin is somebody who can bring home the bacon and constituent services are going to win the day for them. i did find one woman at the blankenship event, undecided, registered republican, who voted for manchin several times before who said i don't like his stance anymore. he has gotten too far away against the president, against the things he used to run on and stand for here. she couldn't do it anymore. you're hearing it both ways. >> great reporting, ali. if they do manage to actually give this nomination to blankenship, i wouldn't want to be mitch mcconnell in that
particular case. steve kornacki, since we're doing the whiparound on the map, let's take a look at ohio, a key place on tuesday. >> ohio, too, a gubernatorial primary, dennis kucinich. could he pull off an upset in one race i want to highlight in ohio, the setup for the next big special election. it is in the 12th district of ohio. republican, he's resigned. special election, the primary, is this tuesday. on the republican side, house freedom caucus versus establishment dynamic. remember, this is the 12th district in ohio, not far from the 18th district in pennsylvania where democrats just pulled that big upset off. 18th in pennsylvania, trump had won that by 20 points, trump's margin in the 12th district of ohio was only 11. that one's coming in august. the special election, but the primary's tuesday. we're going to keep an eye on that, too kasie. >> steve, thanks so much. christine, last word to you, what do you think is something a dynamic you're seeing in your polling that's not being covered or you think we should be paying close attention to heading into
these midterms? >> oh, that's a great question. one of the things that i think is happening with these republican primaries, we're focusing a lot on who's going to win the republican primary. what they've had to do is go so trump, trumpier, trumpiest, that they're going to have trouble in the generals. one of the things i was thinking about in indiana, for example, with joe donnolly, on paper he looks somewhat vulnerable. i don't think in reality he is. he's got several key nuggets comining out of the primary he n work with. for example, all of them favor arming teachers. that's something that's going to be really, really difficult for whoever comes out of the primary to talk about with moms and teachers and suburban women into the general election. so i think some of these democrat incumbents who are in these deep red states like indiana and like ohio, i think they may be in better shape. >> or better shape than we think. that's a great point. steve kornacki, ali, thank you both so much for all that reporting. we will be watching you on tuesday night here on msnbc. as the results roll in.
christine matthews, thank you for your insights as well. "k.c. d.c." back right after this. for just $15.99. you can enjoy the classics you love, along with new creations like savory crab-topped shrimp, decadent parmesan truffle shrimp scampi, and creamy shrimp and lobster pasta. your perfect shrimp plate is just waiting to be discovered. but shrimp trios won't last, so get to red lobster today. and get your red lobster fix with our weekday lunch starting at $7.99.
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[ drum roll ] ...emily lapier from ames, iowa. this is emily's third nomination and first win. um...so, just...wow! um, first of all, to my fellow nominees, it is an honor sharing the road with you. and of course, to the progressive snapshot app for giving good drivers the discounts -- no, i have to say it -- for giving good drivers the discounts they deserve. safe driving! stormy? this is michael cohen. are you alone? >> yes. >> what are you wearing? >> excuse me? >> michael, i can take it from here. >> okay. as your attorney, i highly advise against you -- >> so, what up, girl?
>> hello, donald. >> come on, stormy. stop making such a big deal about this. everyone knows it's just an act. >> i work in adult films, we're not really known for our acting. >> that was "saturday night live" last night. and it comes as rudy giuliani tells nbc news peter alexander he plans on seizing on that cameo by stormy daniels and that it shows, quote, she and her lawyer do not have a meritorious claim. another hour of "k.c. d.c." just ahead, we're going to have an in-depth look at jina hapsel who reportedly asked to pull her nomination for cia director less than a week ahead of her confirmation hearing. plus an in-depth look at all of mitt romney's favorite types of meat. we're back after this. bill. well, that seems fair. we didn't use it. wish we got money back on gym memberships. get money back hilarious. with claim-free rewards. switching to allstate is worth it. i thought i was managing my moderate
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to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪ ♪ ♪ welcome to "kasie d.c." i'm kasie hunt. we are live every sunday from washington from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern. tonight, trump/putin, the sequel, the leadrs meet in helsinki. things get tricky ahead of the summit. later republican congressman ryan costello joins me live. he says his colleagues' conclusions on the russia investigation should be taken with a grain of salt. but just hours from now, president trump and president putin are set to meet.
things were always going to be a little awkward to begin with. and then came the indictments of a dozen russians laid out in forensic detail. it leaves a lot of questions, like whether holding those accountable will come up in their conversation. >> the russians who were indicted, would you ask putin to send them here? >> well, i might. i hadn't thought of that, but certainly i'll be asking about it. again, this was during the obama administration. >> presented with all of this new information, there is also the question of how hard the president will press vladimir putin on his government's role. >> i know you'll ask will we be talking about meddling, and i will absolutely bring that up. i don't think you'll have any, gee, i did it, i did it, you got me. there won't be a perry mason here, i don't think, but you never know what happens, right? >> jonathan swan of axios citing sources close to trump if and
when trump confronts putin tomorrow, it won't be with genuine seriousness or enthusiasm. the president no longer doubts the intelligence assessment. quote, he just can't get past a senior administration official told us, his voice trailing off, quote, that it's about his election. all of this while the president casually recasts who is a friend and who is a foe. >> who is your biggest competitor, your biggest foe globally right now? >> well, i think we have a lot of foes. i think the european union is a foe. what they do to us in trade. now, you wouldn't think of the european union, but they're a foe. russia's a foe in certain respects. china is a foe economically certainly they're a foe. but that doesn't mean they're bad. it doesn't mean anything. it means that they're competitors. they want to do well and we want to do well. >> i want to welcome in my panel. former chief of staff at cia and department of defense and msnbc national security analyst jeremy
bash. politics reporter for the daily beast and msnbc contributor betsy woodruff. the man who puts memo, nbc news national reporter mike. joining us from london, london school of economics brian class. and from helsinki finland, chief correspondent affairs, host andrea mitchell reports nbc, andrea mitchell. it's such an honor to have you here. thank you for staying up with us. >> thank you. absolutely. >> i have watched so many of these meetings, dozens of types of meetings with foreign leaders over the years. this seems like everything this president does, stunning in a way that is extraordinarily difficult to kind of understand and explain. what's your latest reporting going into this summit? and can you put it in some historical context? what do you think is important here and different than what you've seen before? >> sure. i think this is unique because we've never had a summit with a
kgb spy master, someone who has, you know, completely studied and examined donald trump, and a president who spent the weekend golfing and has not been preparing. there were no principal meetings, no planning for the summit, no deeply organized strategy sessions, what is the agenda, what are the goals, what do they want to get out of it. so, we could be surprised, they could come out and say we've made progress on nuclear weapons, that we're going to revive, expand, extend, start nuclear weapons agreement which expires after 2022. but will donald trump confront putin on the fact he's already busted out of one medium-range, the inf treaty by deploying a banned missile? unlikely. he doesn't know those kind of details. he hasn't been with his advisors. we've seen him all over the lot as he crisscrosses europe the last week. and it's really startling that he's going to be meeting one on one.
we're not going to have a record of this one on one meeting. and that is alarming to a lot of former advisors in both political parties who have worked so closely to plan a summit like this. this is even less planned and more impromptu than singapore was, and that's saying a lot. >> andrea, i mean, this is somebody -- vladimir putin has a history of being, as you point out, the former kgb official who does things to either flatter and try to embrace his host in a way that puts them off guard as he did with george w. bush, or tries to unsettle them as he did with angela merkel at times. do we have any indication that that's kind of where vladimir putin might be going with this? and the last time that they did talk, there seems to be some agreement on how to handle issues in syria that then quite frankly putin walked away from. it seems like the policy stakes could be very high. >> well, there are a lot of issues there, especially with syria, because the administration is planning really ramping up its very
aggressive posture on both sanctions and other activities against iran. they are keen to some big decisions on iran coming and they have already, as we reported over the weekend, told the top three european allies who were very concerned about the iran nuclear deal, about our withdrawal from the nuclear deal, there would be no waivers, no exceptions -- their companies are going to have to get out of tehran or risk not doing business with the united states, which is not a choice for them. they have to be able to trade-in dollars, deal with american banks. so, they have to get out of iran. this is going to squeeze iran. there are other steps that are being taken on the energy front to compensate for what may be -- what will be a drop in iranian oil exports if these other major european companies, france, britain and germany have to pull out. so there's a lot there. and this conversation about syria where vladimir putin has been working with iran gets
really complicated on the ground. is this a way of the u.s. backing out of syria, abandoning rebels, saying we're doing it because of iran, and somehow working with putin but not to undercut assad, to continue propping up his client, bashar al-assad? so, there's that. but primarily on the mueller front, every signal from everything the president has said in the last days, months, particularly since the indictment, is to blame the victim, blame the democrats for not defending themselves better, blame obama for saying it happened on his watch out of context and give putin and the kremlin a free ride. >> jeremy bash, to andrea's point on that, how do you think these two things interact, what you learned in the mueller investigation? obviously the president knew that this was going to happen going into it. he's going forward anyway. >> first on the summit, we're going to see unfold here in the next ten hours, this is the most
significant shift in the american foreign policy in the post world war ii era. i don't think we should under play that. first on the economic front, kasie, we are reordering our trade relationships around the world, preferring more unilateral, in some cases bilateral cases. ending the regime. more politically, undermining the nato alliance, undermining our historical alliances including with the u.k. and really embracing russia. this is a fundamental shift. so then west virginia e of course, the indictments that show definitively russian government officials comprehensively not just meddled in the election, but actually launched a very sophisticated cyberattack against the united states. and yes, it did occur during the obama administration. the trump campaign happened during the obama administration. but it is very clear, and i think you see this from the president's own words leading up to the summit, he doesn't take this seriously. he doesn't accept the intelligence and he will not in any way confront putin about t. >> when you learned this -- forgive me for putting you on
the spot. should the obama administration done more? they want it had to go public. they stepped back because mitch mcconnell wouldn't go along. >> the president thought hillary is going to win, this isn't going to matter. let's not get involved lest she win and we be accused in the election. the united states should have done a lot more. >> there is tonight this from "the new york times" saying, quote, the same russian military intelligence service now accused of disrupting the 2016 presidential election in america may also be responsible for the nerve agent attack in britain against a former russian spy -- an audacious poisoning that led to a geopolitical confrontation this spring between moscow and the west. quote, british investigators believe the march 4 attack on the former spy, sergey skripalal and his daughter yulia was most probably carried out by current or former agents of the service known as the g.r.u. who were sent to his home in southern england, according to one
british official, one a american official and one former american official familiar with the inquiry, all speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. nbc news has not verified the times reporting as this is all coming to us. betsy woodruff, pretty remarkable considering the president is leaving the u.k., having been there. this is a very physical manifestation of a, frankly, sweeping intelligence power that is systematically trying to undermine democracies across the globe. >> that's right. and the important context for this is none of this stuff happens without vladimir putin knowing about it. putin is critically close with the intelligence services, he's deeply involved with all these matters. it is unthinkable there would have been an operation like the one alleged to have happened against the skripals without putin knowing about it. unlikely the 2016 election meddling happened without putin knowing about it. what has the trump
administration tried to put putin on the spot? i don't think anyone is waiting with baited breath to see that happen. it puts it more to the forefront and more urjts. >> what is the view from london look like? this is a story you guys have been covering pretty closely. is there surprise? and what is kind of the orientation and the feeling -- are you exhausted having experienced a little of what we here in the u.s. experience every day having the president visit the u.k.? >> well, it was a remarksable visit. donald trump is politically toxic in the u.k. he has an 11% approval rating. that was the bombshell sun interview where he effectively tried to push theresa may's government off the cliff where she is already close to the edge. i think there was astonishment, bewhich wi bewhich wi b bewilderment. trump trashed nato, trashed the e.u. and trashed britain. those are all three things
vladimir putin very much wants to happen. for the last two decades he's been looking to drive a wedge into the core of the west, and donald trump has done this for him. something the soviet union couldn't accomplish, something putin couldn't accomplish. now trump is accomplishing it for him heading into helsinki. the british government is looking at this with trepidation and waiting to see what will come out of it and not too optimistic. >> on the eve of the president's meeting with vladimir putin, members of the trump administration and the president himself have sought to downplay expectations. >> it is a summit, i've heard it called a summit. it is a meeting. >> the russians have agreed it would be unstructured. we are not looking for concrete deliverables here. >> no state dinner, no joint statement. no deliverables that are going to be prepackaged. you don't know what's going to come out of this meeting. >> i don't expect anything. i'm going in with very low expectations. i think that getting along with russia is a good thing. but it's possible we won't.
>> you heard ambassador jon huntsman therein sifting tomorrow's meeting is not a, quote, summit but that didn't stop the president from sending out the tweets hours later no matter how well he does at the summit, the media won't give him any credit. andrea mitchell, what are your expectations inside this frame for this meeting? >> well, i think that they will come out and try to make some announcements perhaps on arms control. but we are all inevitably going to be focused on the indictments, on how he addresses it. it's a joint news conference. there will be two questions on either side. he can try to call on friendlier reporters. i'm really struck by the fact that going into this he again used the phrase on twitter, the press are enemies of the people. that is a stalinist phrase. and it goes against everything that the state department under both republicans and democrats have done for decades to project america's belief in a free press, america's belief in the
first amendment as american secretaries of state and presidents go to moscow or beijing or now erdogan's turkey. to any of these totalitarian regimes, they go in, hold press conferences, the new secretary of the state pompeo did, rex tillerson did not as a regular matter. emphasizing the importance of a free press. for him to use that phrase right out of josef stalin's book on the eve of a summit with vladimir putin is so deeply offensive to american values. it's quite remarkable. >> and, mike, to andrea's point, this is going to be something of of a stunning display. usually there has been this rule that you don't criticize the american president when he goes abroad, but also american presidents have a history of defending their own free press. you i know have covered carefully the russia investigation and have read through these indictments. what did you see in there that you think we should be paying attention to tomorrow? >> kasie, i'm going to send you
back to your 2012 romney rambler days because there was a moment that republicans are fond of bringing up in 2012 when of course obama on the hot mic was heard talking with president medvedev at the time, i'll have more flexibility after the election. romney pounced on that. this isness a moment for the american president to be holding his punches with the russian president. i think what we're seeing is exactly that. it's remarkable he's dispassionately speaking about the summit. there is not much he's expecting down playing his expectations. you know who is ready? he may have been basquing in the spotlight. that's vladimir putin. and this indictment from the mueller team on friday really carefully lays out their capabilities. and there is the need for the american president to respond to that forcefully to say this is unacceptable. what we heard from the president today doesn't sound like he's ready to deliver that message. >> it does seem like a remarkable signal. the detail, jeremy bash, that was in the indictment, it seems to -- almost as though they
intended to tell vladimir putin, hey, look, this is how much we know about what you've been doing. >> it showed the depth of intelligence collection about russian cyberattacks against the united states. but, look, the administration here is describing that as the seinfeld summit, the summit about nothing. and i think the reason -- >> i like that. >> the reason it is happening is because they have no idea. jon huntsman, the ambassador, john bolton the advisor, have no idea why we are having this summit. trump hasn't told them. it's a secret one on one meeting. this is not a summit with deliverables. there may be vague statements, i take andrea's points. it will be totally a more fuss, unenforceable. all we no is trump is going to walk out, declare victory, some important objective has been achieved, but we will never know. in fact, the administration itself has no idea what it wants to get out of this. >> betsy woodruff, is that essentially all this is, another media show? we've seen the reports in the wake of singapore, for example, that president trump said, oh, hey, looking there were more cameras here than at the oscars,
for example. is that all there that's here? >> i have no doubt that is the central idea for the coverage. it is as significant as what happens in that conversation. i think that is part of the reason the mueller indictment is such an important preface to this event. it is very much by design those were laid out at the granular level how much we know about russian hacking. counter espionage investigation is one of the most important deterrent steps investigators can take. it's called attribution. it's when you show here's how we figured out what happened. this is what we know. that's designed in an ideal world to deter future attacks, future hacks, future meddling. so on the one hand you have mueller and his team taking a shot across the bow at the russians saying we can name names. we've got individuals. we can zero in on who the alleged bad guys are. and at the same time you have trump gearing up for this summit about nothing, acting like it's not important all and the contrast couldn't be shafrper.
>> we are just getting started here. peter strzok reminds us why it's a bad idea to text, never text ever. why it's difficult for allies to decipher which president trump to believe. "kasie d.c." back after this. insurance that won't replace the full value of your new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement, we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ my mom washes the dishes... ...before she puts them in the dishwasher. so what does the dishwasher do? new cascade platinum does the work for you, prewashing and removing stuck-on foods, the first time. wow, that's clean! new cascade platinum.
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and allegedly killing journalists, today he put out this tweet. writing in part, quote, much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people. here's what happened when the two met just over a year ago. >> president trump reached out twice to shake president putin's hand, then as reporters started to leave, putin, leaning over to whisper something. a joke jabbing the journalists, asking if they're the ones who insulted president trump. >> the largest newspaper in finland put up 300 billboards along the route from the airport to the summit aimed at both leaders reading, quote, mr. president, welcome to the land of the free press. time and again on foreign soil, flanked by world leaders, the president has lashed out at the u.s. press. >> take questions from -- cnn is fake news. i don't take questions from cnn. john roberts of fox, let's go to
a real reporter. you can pick a reporter. baltic reporter. real news, not fake news. should i take one of the killer networks that treat me so badly, fake news? who are you without of curiosity? >> cnn. >> i figured, fake news, cnn, the worst. >> it wasn't until i became a politician that i realized how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be. they have been fake news for a long time. they've been covering me in a very, very dishonest way. do you have that also, by the way, mr. president? >> i want to make sure we're looking at this in the broad strokes with the idea of press freedom being one of the key indicators of democratic freedoms and how much any given country embraces the freedom of the people that it governs. and, andrea mitchell, you had mentioned this earlier. i have to say, previous white
houses of both political parties had track words of defending journalists who were traveling with them in foreign countries. there was an incident i remember with the chinese government in particular where the u.s. administration pushed back and insisted on access. is this something that is doing long-term irreparable damage to the perception of america as a leader on this? >> i think it is. and in particulate a time when you have hardline populist movements, far-right movements also being supported in one instance by an american ambassador in germany, very offensive to angela merkel and to a lot of people in the state department, foreign service officers, not at all criticized, of course, by this state department. back in the day i remember being in sudan in kartum with
condaleeza rice make sure we got in for a photo opportunity. when i was dragged out she demanded an opportunity before she would continue the trip with the foreign ministry when the leader let this happen in his version of the oval office. so, they have all been fierce defenders of a free press. far-right, center, doesn't matter who. that's why this is so bizarre, frankly. >> incredibly sharp contrast. as you pointed out earlier, stalinist rhetoric. let's go back to frankly what happened earlier this week, which has perhaps been lost in the news the last 48 hours. throughout his visits to brussels and the united kingdom last week, the president repeatedly said things he would either go on to completely whack back or at least soften. here he is talking about germany. >> germany is totally controlled by russia. germany as far as i'm concerned is captive to russia because it's getting so much of its energy from russia. so we're supposed to protect
germany, but they're getting their energy from russia. explain that. we have a very, very good relationship with the chancellor. we have a tremendous relationship with germany. we have had tremendous success and i congratulate you, tremendous success. >> and here's what he had to say about nato. >> in many countries -- tremendous amount of money for many years back where they're delinquent as far as i'm concerned because the united states has had to pay for them. >> the spirit they have, the amount of money they're willing to spend, the additional money that they will be putting up has been really, really amazing. >> and here he is talking about british prime minister theresa may, brexit and a possible u.s. u.k. trade deal. >> i would have done it much differently. i actually told theresa may how to do it, but she didn't agree -- she didn't listen to me. >> what did she say? >> she didn't listen.
no, i told her how to do it. that will be up to her to say. but i told her how to do it. she wanted to go a different route. >> so you would be prepared to walk away if they didn't give you the right terms? >> oh, absolutely. i think what's going on is very unfortunate. >> i didn't criticize the prime minister. i have a lot of respect for the prime minister. it's called fake news. we want to trade with the u.k. and the u.k. wants to trade with us. >> brian, which version of the u.s. president do european leaders think is telling the truth? >> the one where he insults them. and the problem is that these alliances take decades to build. they literally take decades to build the trust and they can be destroyed much more quickly. and donald trump is acting like a wrecking ball coming into these alliances and then standing over the rubble and saying, i didn't mean it, and getting back on air force one. and the problem is that the reverberations from these attacks are still rippling through u.k. politics.
theresa may had to give an interview today trying to clean up some of trump's comments. and she said that what trump told her to do was to sue the european union, which is a nonsensical thing that just betrays how little he knows about international affairs and bre brexit. and so it's a punch line already. the damage has been done. it's exacerbating internal did he virgin islands in german-- i u.k. he's trying to save face. it doesn't go away. that's why relations are at the worst point they've been, certainly the iraq war if not the end of the cold war in the early '90s. >> andrea mitchell, we have talked so many times on so many issues with this president about whether there is a change to a norm or a rule or a law or, you name it, some piece of our system that will be irreparable on the other side. and for the most part, people have at least many members of
congress who i talked to every day argue, hey, our system is resilient. this, too, shall pass. we will get through this. in your view, what would you say is the scope of the damage that was done to the american/european alliances over the course of the last week? and is it reparable? >> i think it is reparable, but as brian said, it's now really becoming part of the unpredictability is becoming part of their expectations about u.s. policy. so we are no longer involved in climate change talks. we are no longer involved in population and women's health issues. we have left all sorts of u.n. panels. now, they need reforms, perhaps, but reforming from inside is always a lot more effective than being on the outside looking in. the tpp is perhaps the most profound thing where we got out. therefore, all of the changes
that had been won by american negotiators are waived and tpp goes forward and china is the big winner because our asian friends and allies and economic competitors are all dealing with each other and with china, and not with the united states. there is a lot china has done, you know, badly in terms of intellectual property and other egregious trade practices, but we're not in the game in the way we're negotiating. and nafta is perhaps the best example where, aside from the other european and china tariffs that he's imposed, nafta, we walked away from a really improved deal with both mexico and canada, and now i don't know where that goes. but i don't think they're going to be able to negotiate bilateral agreements that are at all advantageous as nafta was to many sectors of the american economy. >> andrea mitchell, thank you so much for staying up till 2:30 in the morning. i hope you can get a little bit of rest ahead of your busy day
tomorrow. >> my pleasure, good to be with you. >> coming up, robert mueller's indictments against 12 russians came one day after fbi agent peter strzok testified on capitol hill. we'll dig into the politics and partisanship surrounding the russia probe up next. we're back after this. of the y. [music playing] (vo) progress is in the pursuit. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during summer of audi sales event. i receive travel rewards. going new places. (oh!) going out for a bite. going anytime. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com
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order. >> you're out of order. >> i'll show you out of order. you don't know what out of order is, mr. trash. >> i and the other men and women of the fbi every day take our personal beliefs and set those aside in vigorous pursuit of the truth. >> i want the truth. >> you can't handle the truth. >> you've embarrassed yourself and i can't help but wonder when i see you looking there with a little smirk -- >> wipe that smirk off your face. the doctor's deposition will be part of this record. >> this hearing is not even meritorious of an investigation by ace ventura pet detective. >> swoosh, and that's the game. nothing further, your honor. >> oh, man. so -- >> wipe that smirk off your face. >> you sat and watched all, how many hours? >> 9 hours 41 minutes. >> there you go. >> counting. >> right. none of us were at the time.
>> 60 rounds of questions. >> endless, the whole thing was endless, and made for television as our producer very expertly showed our audience. did we learn anything new? >> so, he testified behind closed doors for 11 hours, but they wanted to do it in public. and they did it for nine hours 41 minutes. what republicans are after and sources have told me in terms of what the larger investigation is about is they believe, and they think there is evidence to support it, that politics infected the original decision to open up the counter intelligence investigation against the trump campaign. but you wouldn't know it from the questions they asked. they all asked questions about the text messages which are hard to defend and peter strzok tried to apologize for them. i thought a democratic staffer had an interesting point. they all want to be part of the highlight reel there is one they're targeting, the president of the united states. whether they did themselves any
favors in terms of the public, i don't know that's the case. they tried not to defend peter strzok because his conduct is not defensible. but to call attention to what is a show trial and an attempt to undermine the mueller probe. >> they did defend him at times when it was personal. >> the purple heart. >> betsy, what was your take? >> there was one important new moment in the hearing that kind of got buried in the nine-hour marathon, and that is strzok, my understanding, is the first fbi official to say on the record in his official capacity that the steele dossier, which republicans have made a central part of their attack on the mueller investigation, confidential much substantiated dossier, what he said was the steele dossier was not a predicate for the opening of the mueller probe. the house intelligence committee's report that came out said george papadopoulos was the reason they opened the probe. but even the hpse investigation run by devin nunes close ally of the white house, even they
didn't go so far as ruling out any role the dossier had in opening this investigation. so for strzok to say that, it's actually a new piece of information that if anything is good for mueller to be out there. >> the important thing is strzok hasn't been involved in the investigation for more than a year. so you can't indict or attack the mueller investigation as it stands today by talking about someone who was involved a year before. and now after friday we have a grand total of 32 indictments, five criminal convictions, people sitting in prison at this hour or facing significant prison time for their relationships with the russian federation. i think the mueller investigation is professional. it's nonpartisan. it's out of the press limelight and i think it is proceeding very well. >> mike, what's the next piece of this? i mean, the committee spoke to lisa page behind closed doors. we may learn new information from her testimony? >> they are going to continue talking to her tomorrow. it was a friday, get away friday as you know on the hill. only so many people wanted to
stay around and talk with her. they're going to continue the conversation tomorrow. what some republicans coming out of the interview with her on friday were saying -- they were very critical earlier of her this week because there was back and forth whether she would appear. she was credible, mark meadows one of the strongest critics of her and strzok was saying. we'll find out what they said -- she was willing to answer questions peter strzok was not able to. in terms of the larger investigation, devin nunes is, even though his own committee put out a report saying the origins were this papadopoulos moment, he's been referring witness after witness to the judiciary and the oversight committees because he's not convinced. he thinks there was a deep state plot within the state department, within members of the obama campaign to get this investigation before the fbi to undermine the trump campaign. >> one of the points that strzok made -- we had talked through this on the set at different points throughout covering the story. betsy, he said that, look, i couldn't have done this by
myself, right? you want to think that this entire probe is politically motivated? yes, i sent texts that now i regret. the reality is there was an entire system that was built around me. i couldn't have launched this by myself. >> one of the conspiracy theories we've heard from some corners on the right about the mueller probe is peter strzok as an individual is sort of the key to the kingdom. he was this puppet master. he was involved in everything. and slowly as we learn more and more about the investigation, that conspiracy theory has just fell apart. one thing i can tell you, when peter strzok went in for his behind closed door interview a couple weeks ago, republicans pressed him whether or not he was involved in drafting and moving forward the fisa application that set up the surveillance of carter page. >> right. >> peter strzok said, nope, wasn't me. that's not a question that came up publicly because they didn't want to hear peter strzok once again reiterate he wasn't secretly controlling this entire probe. >> jeremy bash, betsy woodruff, mike, thank you for a great discussion at the top of the show. just ahead republican
congressman ryan costello. we're going to talk about a fascinating tidbit buried in the wave of mueller investigation. now members of the house wonder fft person is one of their own colleagues. we're back after this. no? do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts? $1.50 futures contracts? what about a dedicated service team of trading specialists? did you say yes? good, then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. looks like we have a couple seconds left. let's do some card twirling twirling cards e*trade. the original place to invest online.
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it is an honor sharing the road with you. and of course, to the progressive snapshot app for giving good drivers the discounts -- no, i have to say it -- for giving good drivers the discounts they deserve. safe driving! the indictments handed down by special counsel robert mueller on friday revealed a great deal of new information including allegations surrounding a person running for congress in 2016. mueller's team alleges a congressional candidate reached out to russian agents in search of dirt on his or her opponent. the russians allegedly complied with that request and passed along damaging material. but we still don't know the name of that candidate, nor the race in which they participated. joining me now on set is republican congressman ryan costello of pennsylvania. congressman t' good to see you as always. i want to start with the question about who this person might be. you were on some of the initial lists of possibilities.
>> right. >> and you have emphatically denied it was you. >> i can do that again right here. >> please, go right ahead. >> it was not me. the statement that i wanted my press secretary to put out, she was unwilling to put out because it was something, no, but she didn't want to do that one. we went with absolutely no. >> you left the word that started with f off. is that what happened? >> exactly right. >> good to know. why did you take the stand you did in the way you handled information from the russians in your campaign? >> it's just a bad look, and i think that it's a slippery slope. if you start allowing people outside the realm of your political operation to somehow -- you don't know if the information is legitimate, number one. and number two, in the instance of it being a foreign entity, i think there is probably some criminality associated with that. >> do you think that the nrcc should make a commitment to do what you did in your race, and to not fund ads that are reliant on information that we know was hacked by foreign power?
>> i was surprised that that commitment wasn't made. my understanding is the nuance there is what if they already have that information? and by that i mean in my case, the information that i think was out there against my then opponent was stuff that you could find on a public database. if you can find something on a public database, somebody didn't pay their mortgage, a dui, whatever the case may be, that's fair game. but i think if you're going to -- in the case where like the podesta e-mail, if you're going to have a foreign entity go and crack open a political operation's e-mail system, that should not be used. it should be easy to make that commitment. >> essentially the argument is it was out in the public domain. the press is writing about it, et cetera. what you're saying is you should take a step back. would you call on the committee to take a step back? >> again, it depends upon what the information is. if we're talking about e-mails that were hacked, i don't think you should take hacked e-mails from someone's political operation and use them in
television ads. again f you're talking about -- otherwise available information, i don't see an issue with that. >> so, you have said of the mueller indictments more broadly that some of what your republican colleagues have had to say about the content should be taken with a grain of salt. what did you mean by that? >> because they're flying off the -- listen, rosenstein should not be impeached. that's ridiculous. this is not a witch hunt. i think actually the indictments that just came out demonstrate the validity of the investigation itself. russia is interfering in elections across the globe. i was in a bipartisan delegation last week, italy, bosnia. that's just two countries to name where russia is actively engaged in trying to press their political view amongst certain candidates in the campaign realm. i think that is a very serious issue and someone said this, and they were spot on. i think it was rosenstein. this isn't about even what the russians did to help donald trump. this is about -- because it's
going to be someone else next time. this is about russia seeking to impact our democracy and the integrity of our election process. >> so why won't more republican members in your auguste body -- >> is it auguste? there are people who do feel it is a legitimate investigation. and, you know, the circus that went on last week was just that, it was a circus. i think that most people feel that this is a legitimate investigation. it should proceed to its logical conclusion, whatever that is. i would also note at this point in time there hasn't been a demonstration that there has been american participation in what russia was doing to influence the election. that to me, what's the crux of what needs to be demonstrated or else the investigation should come to a close, whether or not there was any active participation -- >> the collusion question. >> yeah. >> take me sort of behind the
scenes of your conference in the wake of that strzok hearing. i mean, did you take that as one of our earlier panelists suggested, people were posturing to make it on reel on fox news to be seen by the president, is that your view of it? >> i think that's most people's view of it. let's be real here. >> clearly not the participants. >> i think they were all booked that night. i'm sure they got a lot of retweets for 30 seconds there. that's what some people do and democrats i think probably did it on the other side. but that's what that was. there was nothing terribly probative about that hearing at all. >> do you think that republicans are going to lose control of the house of representatives as of today? >> i think it's going to be close. i think that the democrat candidates are putting up some very big quarterly numbers. you still have to go race by race. and in the suburban districts you have a lot of talented incumbents, barbara come stock, mike -- >> virginia and colorado. >> yep. it's still going to come down to
the one on one match up. i do think the winds are blowing at republicans. we all know that. trump is not popular in a lot of these competitive suburban districts. so -- >> why is his approval rating so high, then? he a you ha >> you have to look district by district. if you were to look at a suburban district in pennsylvania, it would not be high. in his defense as a politician, republicans are all-in. they feel promises made promises kept. the issue they have is college educated republican women, number one, and independent voters. independent voters are not aligning themselves with the trump agenda right now. so as a republican you have to be an independent check and balance as an institutionalist on the presidency when you disagree. but still proffer why the economy is strong, why we are keeping america safe, issues of that sort where you can align policy wise with the president. >> congressman ryan costello, always appreciate your perspective. >> good to be with you. >> when we come back, signs the
swamp has not yet been drained in washington. as we go to break, congressman trey gowdy. >> public hearings are a circus, margaret. that's why i don't like to do them. # need a change of scenery? the kayak explore tool shows you the places you can fly on your budget. so you can be confident you're getting the most bang for your buck. alo-ha. kayak. search one and done.
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s . president trump pledged to drain the swamp when he came to washington. b federal watch dog says ross could have violated conflict of interest laws because he continued to own certain financial aspects. ro in order to maintain trust, he says he will sell them all. and scott pruitt may no longer lead the epa, despite his resignations earlier this month.
and remember former press secretary tom price, the ig's office will release a report on friday saying that price embessled more than $350,000. only one complied with all federal travel requirements, price has since apologizes and replace close to 6,000, but authorities say he should pay the same fund. plus, bill abouter joining me live, we'll talk to him but how the only way too watch what pugh turn is going after is his money. plus how much do you twaelz
remember about the last trump putin meeting, we'll just say the past the pro log.
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have to worry about the sentencing guidelines. >> so i hear you on that. let me bounce this to you, garber, because where's the there there? there is no case. i get the sentencing guidelines, but we don't even have charges. so what is there to flip on, and what would he have to flip with? >> yeah. so here's the problem. i've represented a lot of folks under investigation, and the problem is before you even get to the sentencing guidelines, there's the investigation. i mean think of michael cohen. think of being him and having your office raided, reading about yourself every day in the newspaper, having your career taken away from you, everything, and potentially losing your livelihood, everything, everything, everything. and that, that notion alone, focuses the mind. >> all right. and many of us in the media, we talk to michael cohen. i certainly do. this has been difficult for him, but we still don't know what the case is about, so we really don't know where the sympathies should lie. another point for you, jeffrey,
on how real the flipping could be. if prosecutors believe that he knows something that's so valuable that it would overwhelm whatever they have on him, whatever that is, why hasn't mueller asked to talk to him? >> well, we don't know that he hasn't. i mean, you know, there's a lot we don't know about this investigation. what degree -- now, he is under investigation now from the fortunately prosecutors in manhattan, the southern district of new york. >> right. >> they're the people who got the search warrant. but if there is a cooperation agreement, whether it's immunity -- >> then it's with everybody. >> exactly. you can't pick and choose once you've agreed to cooperate. so, you know, you make a very fair point here, which is we don't know what, if any, crime he will be charged with. but, look, they got a search warrant to search his offices. they didn't pick his name out of the phone book. i mean they got a search warrant for a lawyer's office. that's very unusual.
that usually requires a very substantial showing of probable cause or even more. so you could even tell in cohen's interview with stephanopoulos, he knows he's at tremendous risk here. that's why the change in tone, i think. >> you know, counselor garber, you're representing donald trump. michael cohen is hanging out there in the wind. do you allow him to be isolated the way they have apparently done to him? do you not pay his fees, leave him out there, nobody talks to him. lets him get beat up in the media. there's nothing subtle about what's going on here with cohen. are you surprised by how they're playing this on team trump? >> so but here's the difficulty. the time to make that decision was probably earlier. the concern i'd have now, if i were on team trump, is making a move now to pardon him, making a move now to pay his fees. >> what about pay his bills and
say, look, this is an extension of what he was doing for me, i'm going to pay his bills. >> i'm not even sure that's ethical at this point. remember, he is a position to -- i mean cohen is in a position to cooperate against trump. if trump starts paying his legal fees, i mean i think guy petrillo, the lawyer, might not even -- >> but all of this supposedly extends from what's going on. and how do you know petrillo is not going to accept it? he wants to get paid, doesn't he? >> he does, but there are certainly ethical obligations on lawyers that you can't be paid essentially to fail to cooperate against someone. >> garber, do you agree? >> yeah, well, that's sort of my point. if what he's being paid for -- his fees are being paid for, you know, for his legal defense, as you say, chris, arising out of his activities with the trump organization, that's one thing. but if he's being paid to not cooperate, to not talk, that becomes problematic. and if i were representing
trump, i'd probably tell him, look, you should assume that right now, right now michael cohen is cooperating. so you shouldn't be talking to anybody about -- >> we know he's been cooperating, right? everybody who asks him for stuff, he produces it. we're talking about something else. we're talking about him working with prosecutors on a -- >> but that's what cooperation is. i don't think we know that michael cohen is cooperating. he had his office searched. he didn't have any choice in that. but is he meeting with prosecutors? is he telling him the full story of his relationship with donald trump, all of his business dealings including in the taxi industry? i don't think we know whether cohen is doing that. >> we don't, but let me say the fact that he had his office searched doesn't mean he's not cooperating. i've represented cooperators who still have their offices searched. if i were on team trump, i would be very careful. if you were a prosecutor or agent right now, this would be a pretty interesting dangle. you'd want to dangle this out
and see how team trump reacts to it. >> it's also weird that they don't have anybody talking to him. assuming that that's true, to just leave him out there, all right, you guys have convinced me. you don't want to pay his legal bills. i believe you guys. two against one. but to have nobody talking to him, nobody telling him it's going to be okay. very odd in the world of politics. very odd in trump world as well, jeffrey. and it's going to be an interesting play here because michael cohen feels forgotten clearly. >> he does feel forgotten, but this is why lawyers tell everyone involved to shut up, because if trump were to start talking to cohen, that could be used against trump later on. >> it doesn't have to be him. >> well, or someone -- >> it could be you. it could be someone who knows both, who is a liaison. >> i understand that, but that could be spun perhaps persuasively as an attempt to influence his testimony, and that, i think, is something that the trump team would certainly want to avoid. i don't even understand why
cohen did this interview with george stephanopoulos. i think he would have been better off just keeping his mouth shut. this is why lawyers tell people, keep your mouth shut. >> but what does it tell us that he did decide to speak. >> that he's freaking out. >> when you leave somebody out there, it should not be unusual to any of you watching us three good looking gentlemen watching tonight, that he's going to choose his family over somebody who used to be his best friend. good to have you both. welcome to the show. >> good to be here. you know who else might have something to say about this? the one and only anthony scaramucci. a lot to talk to him about. look at him there. good to have him on the show. let's get some insight into what the president is thinking on some very key things going on in our government. right back with anthony, next. ballpark. ue [park announcer] all military members stand and be recognized. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform.
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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. dates, deals, done! tripadvisor. visit tripadvisor.com all right. it is a big week for president trump. he's deciding on a supreme court nominee. he's gearing up for a summit with vladimir putin, and he's taking a lot of criticism from democrats for separating families at the border. we have former white house communications director anthony scaramucci, close to the president, understands his thinking and the policy plays. good to have you, especially on a week where no one is around, it seems, anthony. >> happy fourth of july, chris. >> good to have you. >> it's good to be here. >> so help me understand a couple of things here. first the michael cohen situation. what do you think's going on
with cohen talking to the media and putting out these none too subtle hints that he will take care of himself? >> well, listen, i see it a little bit differently, and i did talk to michael this morning because i wanted to get some clarification from him, and i knew i was coming on your show. so let's go over the different layers of what he says. on the first layer, him saying that he's loyal to his family and his country is not incongruous with him also being loyal to the president, who happens to still be a close friend of michael cohen's. so i think there's a little bit of an exaggeration going on in the media right now where that's a warning shot, indication, and all that other stuff. i think that's very consistent. second layer has to do with the fbi. michael said right after the raid, i think he tweeted it out that he was, you know, treated well by the fbi, and they about very, very professional to him. >> right. >> and so, again, people are saying that that's against the president. i actually don't think so. the president's been very clear
that there's a very thin layer of people inside the fbi that he feels weaponized that agency. but he really loves the rank and file, and he loves law enforcement. >> it's a mixed message, but i agree with you that i don't think that that's what's playing here. it seems that cohen is taking opportunities. >> yeah. >> to speak to the media that seem very purposeful. >> well, i think, again, i think jeff made mention earlier. do you talk to the media or not talk to the media when you're under the potential of investigation? most lawyers would say no, but i think in this case, i think michael's trying to signal to people that he really doesn't feel that he did anything wrong, and he's trying to signal to people frankly that he's not a villain in the case. and so it's 12 1/2 weeks, chris, since that raid on his family's residence and his hotel room, et cetera. so let's see what happens. when paul manafort had his problem, i think it was eight or nine weeks later they rendered
an indictment. >> right. >> so i think once we know what that indictment is, then you and i can sit down and discuss what the potential -- >> much better because right now we're talking about him flipping, and i agree. i get the speculation, especially with all these reports coming out with friends of his who say he might. there aren't any charges. so we'll hold on this one until -- >> a person that's had a 12-year very -- a person had a 12-year very close relationship with then mr. trump. i think the threshold standard here of, quote, unquote, flipping is very high. and the last point i want to make is if the president did anything wrong, and i take the president at his word, there's nothing to flip over, chris. >> that we don't know, and certainly he's allowed michael cohen to feel very isolated and underfunded for his own defense. those were calculations. we'll see how they come back. >> well, i don't like that strategy. i agree with you on that. >> i can understand why you don't like it. let me ask you about a couple other things while i have you
because i know time is short tonight. second, why would the white house deny the request to lower the flags for the victims of the "capital gazette" newspaper mass murder? why do that? >> yeah. you know, it's a tough one, chris. i'm not -- >> really? you don't think it's a no-brainer. >> i don't know what the protocol standard -- well, i certainly would do it. >> right? >> but there might be some pushback as it relates to the military and when the flags get lowered and -- >> no, there's no protocol. they did it after vegas. they did it after parkland. they did it for barbara bush. i'm not criticizing any of these moves, but he could have done it. >> again, i'm not here to apologize for the white house. i certainly would have done it. it just seems like when the stuff goes straight up to the president, it gets done properly. and so my question would be to the people inside the white house, does the president know that because he's a very compassionate guy. you know, he switched the policy on the separation of the children once he got his arms around it. >> he started the policy of the
separation of the children. and then he put out an executive order that was fugazi as a $5 rolex. he didn't fix anything. >> okay. we're going to push back on each other now. he actually did not start that policy. it started under the george w. bush administration. >> no, not like this, anthony. >> it was partially prosecuted during the obama -- >> he did zero tolerance. >> hold on a second. >> he told sessions to do it. he liked it. >> chris, read my op-ed. >> i did. >> read my op-ed today in the "usa today." it's very declarative. it explains exactly how it got started, and you got to give him credit for reversing it. let's stipulate that he did promulgate it to use your words. give him credit for recognizing that he was wrong and making the reversal. >> he never said he was wrong. >> i think it's very good of the president -- well, he said it by his actions, didn't he? he reversed the policy. >> no. you would say it. that's what a man does in a situation like that. that's what a leader does, man or woman. he didn't do it.
he said he fixed it with an executive order that didn't fix it. they're still separated. it's still a mess. >> he -- he changed it, and we've got to put the families back together. the first lady's been down to the border twice. i agree with you that it's a problem. i agree with you that it's the wrong policy. >> is it going to beat him in november? quinnipiac poll comes out and says immigration has now taken over the economy in terms of what will drive people's votes. he had high ground on this with enforcement. then he crushed those kids. >> i agree. i agree with that, and i -- >> he handed it to the democrats with this one move. >> well, i think he's going to fix it. there's a long time -- you're from a political family. there's a long time to go here between now and november. >> i got warm blood pumping through my heart. that's how i understand this. you don't have to understand politics for this, anthony. it was an insensitive, inhumane move, and even trump had to back off.
he didn't apologize like a normal leader would, but he had to back off. >> as surprising as it might be to your viewers, you and i are actually agreeing on this. you're just agreeing with me. you don't want to give the guy any credit for switching the policy. >> yeah, i don't. not when you start it. it doesn't work like that in terms of accountability. but, anthony, you know what does count? you coming on fourth of july week even though your about five steps from my house in southampton. go stop over there. >> i'm happy to be here and i feel bad that you're not, chris. >> i've got to do my job. thank you for helping me do it. this quinnipiac poll. this is very unusual for immigration to be this high. i know there's a flash point right now. who knows if it sustains? but what is the democrat play here? abolish i.c.e.? this growing, rallying cry for democrats. are they bailing trump out on the immigration issue? we're going to have a great debate about that. what do you say? next.
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12-year-old leah telling her emotional story at one of the nationwide protests to keep undocumented families together this weekend. >> i.c.e. wants to take my mom away from me. i don't like to live with this fear. it's scary. i can't sleep. i can't study. i am stressed. i am afraid that they will take my mom away while she is at work, out driving, or at home. i don't understand why this administration won't support mothers who just want a better life for their children. >> now, kids like that could be the face of trump's trouble come november, all right? yet what are we seeing from the democrats when it comes to this issue? abolish i.c.e. that is the making of a great debate, and we have two great debaters. nina turner and rick santorum. thank you to both of you. i know this weekend -- this week
is tough for people. thank you for making the time. appreciate it. all right. so let's deal with what we just saw in the quinnipiac poll. i've never seen anything like this before. the economy losing to immigration heading into the midterms. what does that tell us, rick? that tells us trump really went wrong with what he did with the kids. and now he's created an issue for himself. how serious do you think it is? >> you know, look, i think he handled the situation poorly, but, look, i think there's a deeper issue here, and that is that donald trump is standing up for working men and women when it comes to making sure that we're not bringing people into this country in large enough numbers to undermine the low-skilled workers that we have in this country, who are, as nina will talk about, are struggling right now, are not seeing their wages going up and their quality of life increasing. so if trump continues to hit on those themes, which he does -- he doesn't stay on them as well
as he should. but if he continues to stay on those themes with respect to immigration and that that's the focal point of his immigration policy, i think he's going to be fine. >> here's the rub. one we see in the polls he's not. you can't just hide in the base in the midterms. he's got to widen that tent if he can. 60%, nina, are saying we don't like what happened down there. you have a two-pronged argument coming back at him. one is this isn't true about the low skilled work easy. these people coming across, they're not taking your jobs. that's not your problem. but we are taking their kids and that is a problem for you. is that a tough sell? is it a good play for democrats to play on this issue? >> i mean just to hear the little girl -- i call them babies. i mean that's exactly what they are. >> she's only 12. >> they're young children. even today mothers are writing letters to their children. we're traumatizing children in america in the 21st century, and that should not be the case. the president, as you were talking to scaramucci, the president started this.
he should be ashamed of himself, but he's not. this is about a moral imperative in this country that this president is failing. and so whether it's to abolish i.c.e. -- my concern is that we need to abolish president trump at the ballot box starting this year, next year, headed into 2020. >> you said the "a" word. are you about abolishing i.c.e., nina? i just want to get you on record. do you like that play by the democrats, abolish i.c.e.? >> i know why people are saying abolish i.c.e., but my concern is with this president, he will just replace that function with something else. we need to be about abolishing the trump administration at the ballot box starting this year with the midterm elections, into next year, and into 2020. >> but are you worried that you're bailing him out? you've got him in a bad place on immigration. he screwed up. he did something that is inhumane and indecent, and people are calling him out for it of all kinds of political stripes except for one concentrated aspect of his base.
then, not since roseanne barr said what she said, only to be followed by samantha bee, who somehow wound up doubling down on dumb, have we seen the democrats help trump in a moment of need because abolish i.c.e. plays right into you're about open borders. you're not about law enforcement. you're about letting anybody come in here even if they're killers and drug dealers. why make this play? >> yeah, and that's not the case. we should stay focused. the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth position here should be about those children and reuniting those children with their parents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents. that is the most compelling argument that the democrats have, and that is what is tapping, i believe, into that poll that you showed. it's about what is happening to children and what do we stand for in the 21st century as americans. >> but that's why -- hold on, nina, i here your case. let's bounce it back to rick. that's why trump is loving this abolish i.c.e. stuff. that is creating a division
within the democratic party. i am exaggerating for effect how resonant and deep it is within the party right now, but there are big names, rick, who are coming out and saying maybe the most helpful thing to donald trump's ears. >> i think what nina is saying is de facto abolish. what nina is saying is anybody that comes over to this country illegally and crashes the border and comes in with a child is going to be a catch and release program, which means that we have no borders. >> no, i didn't say that. >> no, that's what you said. >> i did not say that. don't put words in my mouth, senator, because i don't put words in your mouth. i never said that. what i'm saying is this country has a moral -- >> hold on. i can't hear anything. wait. if you didn't say it, nina, then what is your position? if it's not catch and release, what are you saying so rick can respond with accuracy? what is it? >> first of all, chris, he has some nerve trying to put words in my mouth. he needs to listen to what i'm saying and make his point instead of trying to control what i'm saying. >> he's listening now. >> i'm all ears, nina.
>> this is the point is that this country -- we should not be separating children from their parents. keep them together. let the process work, but keep them together. stop traumatizing these children. that has nothing to do with -- we definitely need to make sure that we keep criminals out, but your party keeps overlaying that every single person that's trying to get into this country is a criminal. it is about black and brown folks in this country that you guys continue to label as criminals, and we're sick of it. it's wrong. it's absolutely wrong. >> again, you're -- >> don't put words in my mouth. >> well, you just put words in the republican mouth, which is somehow that has to do with race, and it has nothing to do with race. >> oh, it has everything to do with race. >> it's about protecting our borders. i disagree with you. >> that's fine. >> a country has a right to have borders, and what you said is that children and their parents should be kept together. well, as you know, there's a law that says you can only keep a child in detention with a family for 20 days. now, the democrats have not been
willing to change that law. there are ample opportunities for the democrats in the house and senate to support an effort to do exactly what you want, but they're not. >> neither are your guys. >> i'm not letting the congress off the hook. >> but you guys aren't changing it either. republicans aren't changing it. you control everything. >> but we should. >> but you're not. why aren't you? >> no, we don't control everything. >> you control everything. >> we don't control everything. >> you control, the house, the senate, and the presidency, and now the supreme court. you control everything. >> to do what the president asked was just to change that law, requires 60 votes, which means ten democrats have to join republicans. from what i understand, that's not there to pass that kind of bill. the reality is republicans would love to fix this problem, and democrats don't want to fix the problem because they believe their great political advantage to keeping the problem as bad as it is. >> last word to you, nina turner. >> it's really a shame that the
republicans control both houses of congress and the presidency and all of a sudden they want to make this the democrats' problem. the president started this zero tolerance policy, and he can fix it. if he wants the congress to fix it -- >> not by design. >> they did it. >> not with any -- [ overlapping voices ] >> two wrongs don't make a right. >> hold on. scale matters when you're dealing with humanity. this isn't an aba cuss. we're not talking about bean counting. when you don't have judges and you don't have accommodations, you knew what you were doing. you did it anyway. that's his problem. we see it in the polls. we'll see where it leads. rick santorum, appreciate it. nina turner, as always, thank you. north korea no longer a threat, so relax. that's what president trump told you, right? u.s. intelligence says otherwise. we have the experts. we have the information. we need to talk about the implications, next. dear great-great-grandfather,
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administration official, at least one of the president's own intelligence agencies believe that kim jong-un has zero intention of fully denuclearizing. okay. so why do we see this and say this? satellite images suggesting that north korea is making progress on a ballistic missile site. so how does all this jibe with the president's claim that there is no longer a nuclear threat from north korea? let's discuss. ambassador nicholas burns, a former u.s. ambassador to nato and cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd. the threat's over, phil. you heard it. i heard it. what was the president doing there? >> i mean he's talking to the american people, but if you look at what his spokesman on this, mike pompeo, has said, we've got a long way to go on this. look, chris, we've been involved in nonproliferation before. let's look at saddam hussein. the president gets off the plane after five hours of conversation with kim jong-un and what's left on the table?
first, are you certain of intent? what is kim jong-un thinking? i'm not. second, the more complicated, intricate problem. i want a declaration of every facility where they've tested, developed, stored a nuclear weapon or nuclear material. >> right. >> i want to know every engineer, every scientist. i want to see every document. so the president gets off the plane. there's no way he can get off the plane having an indication that the north koreans are going to give us a signal within five hours of whether they're going to comply with the agreement. >> he said. he said the threat's over. >> well, he doesn't know what he's talking about. if you're going to do this kind of nonproliferation agreement, you've got to have the detail on all this stuff that's going to take years. >> nick, the other side of it is, look, this is what north korea is about. everybody knows this who knows anything. we expected this. don't make a big deal out of it. it doesn't mean trump is wrong, that the threat is gone. this is just the process. do you accept that argument? >> i really don't. i think i agree with phil.
it didn't make any sense for the president to say that there's no longer a nuclear threat. there's been no change to the north korea nuclear program. it's still a threat. so, chris, this puts the onus on secretary pompeo. he's going to make a difficult trip this week to pyongyang. he needs a couple of things. he needs a complete accounting of the entire nuclear program of north korea because we've got to know what they're not reporting. this is a test to see if they're cheating and lying. and secondly, and john bolton talked about this two days ago, there has to be a specific schedule to dismantle all of north korea's nuclear program. bolton says it should be done in a year. that's lightning quick in these matters. mike pompeo told congress 2 1/2 years. wide gap in the administration on expectations. and the signals they're sending. and if the north koreans balk on this, we're going to have to put a sanctions regime back together again. that gets back to president trump's statement. it didn't make sense to say there was no threat because then china and russia started trading
against with north korea. >> it made perfect sense because he wanted #winning. then bolton comes out and says we have our eyes wide open. those are consistent statements but trump usually gets the benefit of hyperbole, which why more and more i believe he is the luckiest man in the history of presidents. let's look at it this way to both of you gentlemen. the chance of success, knowing what we know from the summit, knowing what we know from this intelligence report, phil mudd, what is the chance of success here with getting nukes off the korean plate? >> okay. let's make sure we have our question clear. you say nukes off the plate. my question is do you mean all nukes or some nukes? >> no. it's got to be all. >> okay. >> the administration says it. everybody says it. nukes are all or none. you have to have it all off. >> 10% to 20% at best. >> short-term or long-term? >> i'm talking about long-term that we sit back in three or four years and say this was a tremendous success. 10% to 20%. i'm not saying that's a bad
choice. i'm saying 10% to 20%. >> nick? >> i think it's 5% to 10%. i think the probability of this is quite low. that singapore summit was basically a short meeting with a photo opp, remarkably thin on substance, and it just doesn't stand to reason that north korea would give up its nuclear weapons for us. that's its insurance policy. the chinese don't appear to be pushing the north koreans and they have the most influence. >> wow. so the president after the singapore summit says the threat is over, and phil mudd, you don't even get him over the mendoza line, and nick burns, you say that he's only got a 5% to 10% chance of success. so then what are we looking at here in terms of the optimism, phil? what could come out of this in some type of time frame during this presidency that will be worth it? >> the singapore summit was not the story. the boring part of this, the diplomatic part of this, the part that ambassador burns would have been involved with, is the real story. the questions pompeo has to
answer, the big question, can we really confirm that what we think of denuclearization is the same thing that the north koreans think of? and then you get into the tough pieces. what if they declare ten sites and we say actually we think there are 12 sites that are significant. what if they start stepping back from nuclear weapons and destroy some, and in two years we say you've only destroyed 80% of what we think is there? the devil is in the details, and that's not what the president is strong at. this is where mike pompeo really has to earn a paycheck. also, finally, where he has to talk to the american people if the president tries to snow us. >> and he needs friends, right? so you need china, maybe even russia, and that tees up heading to helsinki for the putin/trump meeting. we of course will be there, and we'll be talking about all of this a lot more. nick burns, phil mudd, thank you very much. >> thank you. all right. so we follow stories here on "cuomo prime time" even when they're out of the headlines because that's part of the mandate of the show. one of the mothers involved in
what's happening down there on the border has had a desperate journey to reunite with her kids, three of them, after they were taken from her at the border. her lawyer is back. there is a big development, next. sinto booking a hotel. with expedia's add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. add-on advantage. sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. [park announcer] all military members stand and be recognized. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. no matter where or when you served, t-mobile stands ready to serve you. that's why we're providing half off family lines to all military. rewards me basically aeverywhere.om
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imagine being separated from your kid in a foreign country for weeks at a time. no word if you're going to get them back. that's the situation for mar yell la gonzalez, living that kind of nightmare. there are hundreds of other families in the same boat, thousands of kids who have been separated. we don't know if they're going to be reunited. and, yes, the families came across the border in violation of the law. but that's not the end of the analysis. it's the beginning. we see that reflected in polls now about how you feel about this issue, but you don't need polls. you just need a pulse. so one of the good things that this mom has going for her is a good lawyer, and that's our next guest. this woman, yeni, got out on bond. she was driven from arizona to somewhere else. she was making her way to new york to find her kids. the attorney working on the case, jose javier orochena. it is good to have you. >> thank you very much.
>> we told you we would have you back and follow it, and we are. to remind people, how were her kids taken? >> from what i understand, her kids were taken two days inside what's called the icebox. that's the processing center where all people crossing the border are taken. she was taken there. two days later, she was told, your kids are going to be removed from you, and she promised her son -- she asked her son to promise that he would remember the uncle's phone number. >> so you couldn't find the cases. you start going through the system. they start kicking you all different types of ways with procedures and protocols, which you give them best reckoning of saying they just don't know what they're doing. i won't say it's malice, but they just don't know. have you changed your opinion? >> i believe that the -- at least the cayuga center, i think they have done right by these kids, my client's'. i don't know about any other clients. these kids, i was able finally,
largely in part to your show and the pressure the media was able to put on them -- i finally got to see them, and i got to talk to them one-on-one. they left me in a room alone with them, and i was very grateful for the opportunity to speak with them. the kids looked healthy, and i showed mom what they looked like, and mom was even able to say, they look a little fatter, which is good for her. she was very happy. the eldest boy got to go see the statue of liberty. i'm very grateful for that. but what's it going to take to >> she's getting to go to see her kids. she's not getting her kids back? >> unfortunately, reunification tomorrow morning at 9:00 only means that she's going to be allowed to visit with her children. it doesn't mean she gets to walk out -- >> why not? >> now the kids have entered the foster care system, and now there's a long list of requirements that cayuga and hhs and the office of refugee and
reset elment have put on it. such as verifying where the children are going the address where they're going. whether or not the sponsor has a job to support these children. whether or not the sponsor is of legal status or a citizen. >> so she's not going to get a job, she can't get hired right now. she's not legal in the country and she probably doesn't know where she's going to stay. i know there's been a volunteer effort for people to help her. she has a lot of strikes against her. >> no status, no job. no apartment that is under her name. . i don't know if the administration is prepared for this. we don't know. this is a gray area where no one knows what's going to happen. >> you could get the mother out on bond. you then find out they're hiking the bond for familyies now you
have over a dozen clients from that one center of moms that are all in the same situation? >> right. she had me promise that i would sit down with -- while i was waiting for her. she asked me to sit down with other mothers in a similar if not worse situation about some of them have not had a day in court, have not been offered a bond. some have offered twice the bond that yenni paid. she paid 7,500. i don't mean her directly. she doesn't have that money. moms throughout the country have donated 10, $20. i'm in awe of these women and several other people what they come and say, i don't have the money to spare, but i felt obligated to donate to release this mother, because it's wrong. and i saw your earlier interviews and how everyone agrees it's wrong, fine, now, let's fix it. >> we're not seeing anything get done yet.
except that executive order which isn't worth the paper on my desk. as you get your updates, bring them back. >> thank you. >> in the hours after that deadly shooting on the number down in annapolis. i know everything happened so fast. president trump defended the journalists, remember that? why did the white house refuse a request to honor them by lowering flags.
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another layer of shame on all lay makers for not doing something to stop the shootings. so why did this happen? is there a broet toe kohl that would make it weird to respect the dead journalists? >> no, the las vegas shooting, the parkland shooting? maybe not enough people? no, it's not it either. the announcement of first lady laura bush. and billy graham. important people, but it wasn't about big numbers of people. why would the mayor of annapolis say he was turned down with a no-brainer request. now, i'm afraid i know the answer. and it's because president trump doesn't like the media. i know that sounds extraordinarily petty and callous, but more facts. trump is the man who mocked john mccain for being captured during vietnam. in fact, he allowed her to stay
at a job, and still attacks mccain with his thumbs down swipes about the senator's vote on an insurance bill. a bill that would have taken insurance from more people. >> trump unfortunately is entire when i capable of disrespecting people no matter their predicament. if it suits him or his interests. look, look at what's happening on the boarder. kids ripped from their families, still not returned. despite promises to fix it all. yes, trump did say he respects journalists after the mass murder, but why would you believe that? why would you believe he's not lying again. i don't have time to play all the attacks on the media, you know the truth. and now you know even if they get murdered, the president won't respect the media
there's super eater mickey suto. she fell short of her record from last year. have a very happy fourth. i'm trace gallagher in for shepard smith. see you back here tomorrow. charles payne next on "your world." >> as we celebrate the red, white and blue, we're keeping an eye on your green and how washington is battling over it right now. hello. i'm charles payne in for neil cavuto. happy fourth of july, this is a special edition of "your world." fox on top of what could be an over-the-top trade fight and every day americans could be paying for it. president trump isn't backing down from tariffs against canada and china. those countries are taking aim at some u.s. products and that's not good news. but here's what is. the tax cuts. who will win out? let's ask lindsey and jonas.
in do think will resonate the most? the tax cuts or the trade war? >> i think tax cuts will override the day in the end. the trade wars are not real right now. they're on the horizon. we see them coming. i still say it's about of the president negotiating hard. we're coming from a position of strength. we have the economy on our back. let's see what we can get done. >> we have a position of strength but we're running up against the hard deadlines including friday when we launch $34 billion in additional tariffs against china. they'll retaliate. so they will become real. the question is, i know trump supporters believe in him and he's trying to do the right thing. overwhelmingly they say they're okay. but we heard this last week from toyota saying camry may cost you $1,800 more. the beer cans we're drinking, 24 cents more. we know from the tariffs that happened from canadian lumber, the average price of a home has
gone up $9,000 since january of last year. when we get real impact on main street, how will that change the dynamics? >> they're saying right now they're going to withstand some of the pain and they're okay with it because they see the greater good and the end goal. it's really going to start to hit where it hurts. you're seeing numbers right now, soy beat and wheat chops. the prices have declineded by 10% in june. that hurts the farmers. they're okay with it now but it will come home to roost when the crops come around. >> i want you to listen to an exchange between fbn's blake burman and sarah sanders. it's on what the trade battle means for every day americans. roll the tape. >> is the united states winning this battle and if so how? >> again, the president is focused not only the short term but the long-term. he wants to make sure we're doing things to help protect american workers and protect
american industry. he's going keep pushing to make sure we have good trade deals. we've been in trade deficits with every country across the globe for years and the president wants to make sure that doesn't continue. >> what is the long-term? the folks impacted by this and they just hear, well, we're in it for the long-term, is that weeks, months, years? how long is the long-term? >> we're not setting a timetable. there's a lot of different negotiations going on. >> jonas, your thoughts? >> low prices by themselves are not necessarily the greatest time in the world. if china ripped off every movie and sold them for 10 cents in chain, that would be one thing. but it's more about making movies and tv shows. you know intellectual properties protected, which raises prices. you don't want to be just like
every one said we're anxious, we're nervous and worried about the tariffs despite the fact that they're doing very well. >> well, again, the president tried major tariffs was 1930 under hoover. the economy was weak then. this is a strong economy. if we're in a weak economy or recession and you pull this tariff nonsense, it would be bad. i'm not saying it's good now. but if you're going to have this fight and fix these problems, this have the time to do it even though again, it could go very wrong. >> a little night and day. 20,000 tariff items and a global recession after the stock market crash after the biggest one in history. guys, thank you. >> very different. >> while you're enjoying the blue waves here this summer, the democrats hope one in november. if they continue to make a hard left, well that might leave them high and dry.
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>> she's looking at herself on television right now. are you feel something can you put it into words? >> no. >> neil: everybody is taking a new look at the democratic party after alexandria cortez taking down joe crawly in a primary battle and taking that party on a hard left turn heading into the mid-terms. what does this mean for a potential blue wave? let's ask shelby and patrice here and robin. robin, end with you, begin with you. does this alter the blue wave, give it extra octane or maybe makes it fizzle a little bit? >> it's interesting.
she wasn't the candidate that the dnc was pushing. we wanted the incumbent. they've been pushing moderate candidates but the country is self-correcting and going with more progressive candidates. that's not the party. that's just the country, the americans themselves. >> so what is the message to the party? the guy in pennsylvania, he pushed back a lot about nancy pelosi. crowley was supposed to take over. certainly there's something going on within your party. >> yes. the message to the dnc is to pay attention. they didn't with hillary clinton and bernie sanders. so you know, basically the democratic party needs to listen more to the young voters and to the progressives. probably get a more progressive stance. >> patrice, they can pay attention but they don't want to
give up their ideology and their power and despite the fact that they think the party of young people, you have these 70 and 80-year-olds running it and down want to abandon ship. >> i call it the revenge of bernie sanders. it's remarkable that a hard left candidate won. but how do you reach out to the independents that probably won't feel that democratic socialism or whatever she calls it is the right way to move forward particularly with the optimism in this country right now. democrats will move on negativity and fear versus the president and the republicans running on optimism and hope and what can you can gain. >> we don't hear about the blue wave to the degree we did two months ago. but this does add in new element to it. talk to us about the numbers and where we stand in the probabilities of the house going to the democrats. >> the house -- democrats need
enthusiastic, republicans are, too and they boosted turnout as well. both parties are nominated. >> robin, shelby brings up this great point. it's an overarching theme in the democratic party. we saw maxine waters really go after leadership, chuck schumer and nancy pelosi, because they sort of drew a line in the sand when she suggested it was okay to get in people's faces that work for president trump and to harass them. but there's an overarching issue, too. we need to see where this is taking us. >> it's concerning. donald trump ushered out the era of political correctness. i get it. he treats politics like a knife fight and democrats are treating it like a garden party. i understand -- >> those are dangerous metaphors. when you talk about -- he never pulled a knife on anyone. >> no, but he said -- remember -- >> he's not politically correct.
he never interrupted anyone's dinner. look at these image of pam bondi. those are scary things. part of the problem and you can tell me, it works when we justify these things. do we make them worse? >> i don't like it. i do not like it. but when he said that the second amendment people might take care of hillary clinton, i think right there that was a crisis. when he disparages us and say we want to welcome in ms-13 and welcome in gang members and terrorists, you know, we have a problem on our hand. >> patrice? your thoughts. >> both sides have erred. it's totally irresponsible for what maxine waters was doing in terms of inciting fear and inciting harassment. will we see this continue? it's going to start to wane off. we saw scott pruitt get accosted by a woman. i don't think we will see that
continue. hopefully we don't. what you don't want to see happen is someone take it too far and turn violent. we saw what happened. we almost lost a member of congress a year ago because someone was so unhinged over politics that they were willing to take violent means to get their point across. >> thank you all very much. forget the fireworks tonight. are we looking at major ones as president trump and president putin get ready to meet? we're days away from a supreme court show down as the president announces his pick to replace anthony kennedy. will democrats protest no matter who it is? s riding sweep. call one today. are you in good hands?
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trump will go to finland for a summit with vladimir putin. so what can be expected to come out of this big meet something the heritage foundations peter brooks thinks president trump needs to be very careful when dealing with putin. peter, state your case. >> the fact is, there's so many issues. anywhere from cyber to syria, to spying, to afghanistan. ukraine. there's a lot of things. we need to keep our expectations modest. a staffer working hard to put this together, two weeks before it actually -- before it actually happens? of course, putin is somebody that will try to get somebody for russia as well. we're getting signals from the trump administration that they may focus on syria and iran's involvement there. putin has a lot of influence over iran. but because they have cloud with the al-assad regime, they can
have clout and an influence with the iranians. the concern is that the iranians are setting up for a long-term presence in syria and that will be against our interests. >> charles: and canada thought it would be okay for russia to get involved in nation building. but having said that, i've read, peter, from russia's vantage point, everything except crimea is on the table. if that's true what do we extract from them? what are the key take aways? >> they have met before in small meetings. the g-20. they met at apac in the pacific. they've had phone calls. this is a first in a series of meetings like north korea. if everything is important,
nothing is important, right? the president needs to prioritize. the signals and iran expansion in the middle east, that will be at the top. the russians said we're not talking about the ukraine. there's the insurgency in the ukraine that may come up as opposed to crimea. you know, what about cyber meddling in elections? we have significant elections coming up. the russians are supporting the taliban in afghanistan. as you know, we've been fighting the taliban for quite some time. they also have clout with north korea. >> charles: sure. >> they're a permanent member of the u.n. security council. we have to take a step at a time with russia. >> charles: mike pompeo going back to north korea to meet with kim jong-un on thursday. where are we there?
there's reports that since the signing, north korea starting -- restarting their nuclear ambitions. what are we trying to get accomplished here? we're not sure how to grade that meaning and where we're going. >> we talked about it. that was the first step. singapore was the first step. you know, we came back, evaluated what we learned and put together a plan. i think that's what mike pompeo is bringing. one are the asks. what sort of things do we want. what are the north koreans willing to do. we're hearing the intelligence reports which are alarming, but this could be part of north korea's negotiating strategy. they're pushing back as well, this is a second phase. many phases going forward. we'll have to see what secretary pompeo comes back with after his meeting, which are critical. they're not the end of the meetings in my estimation. >> peter, thank you. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me.
>> charles: holiday drivers taking a hit at the pump as they hit the roads. is any relief in sight? are these protesters seeking independence for illegal immigrants from ice putting all americans in danger? we're on it. [ drum roll ] ...emily lapier from ames, iowa. this is emily's third nomination and first win. um...so, just...wow! um, first of all, to my fellow nominees, it is an honor sharing the road with you. and of course, to the progressive snapshot app for giving good drivers the discounts -- no, i have to say it -- for giving good drivers the discounts they deserve. safe driving!
and that's why we'll always drive a subaru. >> i'm jon scott. here's some of the stories making headlines today. jim jordan is speaking out about claims that he knew about sexual abuse allegations about a teen doctor at the ohio state
university where he was once an assistant coach. jordan told reporters at a fourth of july event that the things that some former athletes claim he knew are not true. a wild fire burning in southern colorado has destroyed more than 100 homes. the spring fire has burned nearly 100,000 acres making at this time third largest wild fire in state history. it's 5% contained. and here in our nation's capitol, we're expecting to see the president and the first lady within the hour as they host a picnic for military families on the white house lawn this evening. we'll have the president's remarks when they happen. join us at 6:00 p.m. eastern for "special report." >> charles: hitting the road this july fourth weekend, hold on to your wallet. gas prices up nearly 30% from a years ago. jeff flock hitting the streets of chicago to see how folks are
dealing with it. jeff? >> just outside chicago, in fact, charles. we're -- looks like $3.19 a gallon. as you point out, you look at that two-year chart over the past two years, we've seen an erratic up and down. largely an increase in gas prices. as you point out, 60 cents higher this fourth of july than it was last fourth of july. despite that, we've got a lot of people on the roads. take a look at the numbers. an all-time report for independence day holiday. 47 million people traveling on the roads and the air and boats and trains. if you put them together, most of them traveling by car. i'll tell you, the run up in gas prices, geo political in a lot of ways. also, we talked about potential increase in the federal gas tax.
well, the states, even though the federal government has increased the gas tax, the states have been doing it. seven states increased their state gas tax. oklahoma leading the way with a 3 cent increase. they already have gas taxes and they're raising the tax as a means of generating revenue. some people think we ought to race the federal gas tax to fund infrastructure. states, meanwhile, are already doing it. so happy independence day! good news is, we got the money to pay for it. that's the good news. people have jobs. economy is doing well. >> charles: that is the good news. be safe, buddy. thanks a lot. so with oil prices already up about 22% so far this year, what can drivers expect going
forward? let's ask phil flynn. crude oil is acting weird. feels like they were supposed to -- they were going to increase production. opec was going to lowter price. it's been sky rocketing. >> it has been. i'll tell you what, it's sky rocketing mainly because of good things. the global economy has been on fire. you mentioned the manufacturing data that we saw this week. it was incredible. the u.s. economy, if you measure it in miles per gallon, is doing better than it has in many years. that's reflected in high prices. not everybody likes the prices going up. gasoline prices. president trump, of course, is very upset about this. he tweeted to opec, hey, you have to do something about this. saudi arabia has agreed to do something about it. the question is can they do enough to really stem what has been an incredible demand-driven rally. >> charles: to your point, we had this conversation about president trump meeting vladimir putin. some think one of the key
issues, can russia produce more oil? the magic number is north of $3 a gallon that has political consequences. >> it does. president trump is very sensitive to that. when he talks to mr. putin, he said you've been conspiring, colluding, not with us but with opec, you know, to get prices up. it's time that you take the pressure off right now. i think he's going to have a lot of wiggle room with russia. russia definitely doesn't want to see the economy slow down because of the spike in price. the problem is that if you get russia to raise production, saudi arabia to raise production, who will you get to raise products next? right now the global capacity is very tight. >> charles: real quick before i let you go. the industry has been self-correcting because of america's new might and their ability to turn on the spigots or open the rigs quickly. wouldn't that curb the price no
matter demand? >> right now there's infrastructure issues. we have to get donald trump to approving more pipelines in texas, new mexico and north dakota. the problem is our u.s. producers are producing so much, the infrastructure can't keep up. you can produce a lot of oil. if you can't get to it the gas tank, doesn't do any good. >> thanks, bill. >> charles: so from the busy roads to the jam packed airports, the tsa screening nearly 2.7 million passengers last friday before the holiday. that's the second busiest day on record. those numbers could swell to 28 million by the end of if we can end. to claudia cowan with the latest. claudia? >> charles, if you're traveling by air this summer, you'll be joined by a record number of fellow flyers. in fact, u.s. airlines are expecting the busiest sumner the history of u.s. air travel with
an estimated 245 million passengers taking to the skies. 2.68 million people every day passing through the airports through the end of august. travel forecasters with the trade group airlines for america say a strong economy and historically low air fares are fuelling the surge. there's a lot of good deals out there. in fact, adjusting for inflation, the average trip air fare cost less than 2010. to handle the passengers, airlines have added 116,000 extra seats to their summer schedules. more people means longer lines at security and longer waits. now tsa has added new rules about the carry-on bags. any electronic device needs to go in a bin. materials that can clutter bags and obstruct images like thick
business, dense foods like chocolate bears and ground coffee or baby powder. >> any containers of powder over 12 ounces will not be allowed for the checkpoint, a 12-ounce container is about the size of a soda can. so in powders that cannot be resolved by the x-rays may be subject to additional screening. >> bottom line, keep your carry-on bags organized. with the anticipated record crowds this summer, you might want to pack some patients with the sunscreen. charles? >> charles: thanks, claudia. five days until president trump makes his next pick for the supreme court. democrats are lining up against him. are everyday workers going to be supporting the president on this one? i woke up in memphis and told... (harmonica interrupts) ...and told people about geico... (harmonica interrupts) how they could save 15% or more by... (harmonica interrupts)
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court stinks. >> the truth is, we have to face a reality that we might lose some of the most precious ideals of our country. >> what did you say? did you speak out? did you speak from your heart? now is the moment to fight. >> we're right and they are wrong and we must fight every single step of the way. >> charles: as neil would say, put those democrat senators down as a maybe on the president's next pick for the supreme court. monday, the president will make the pick. could set up the court for more pro business decisions like what we saw last week striking down mandatory public union dues for nonunion workers. jenna ask here with us. the janice decision is ringing loudly. a massive blow to democrats and a lot of people thinking the next pick could make the supreme court a very pro business supreme court. what are your thoughts? >> yeah, i think that pro
business also means in the context of constitutional law. pro business is pro family and pro individual. remember, the first principle of conservatism is the contusion provides specific limited liberties and freedoms. you mentioned the janice decision that protected the individual from having to pay in to union fees, that they disagreed with the union stance. so if different workers want to enter into collective bargaining agreements, they're free to do so. the government can't compel them. so for a conservative supreme court, then ultimately what that means for the individual worker and also individual workers make up individual businesses as well as small business owners, then that means that the government is going to stand for much more limited regulation. that's a good thing for every american and every family. >> charles: so we know -- we
played sound from key senators and key members of the democratic party, that there will be major push back no matter who the nominee is. you have to wonder because for president trump's vantage point, all of the potential candidates have been vetted already. we know there's a list and who the names are. they're starting to get whittled down here. you have to wonder, what the ultimate argument will be to sort of push back on this nominee whoever it might be? >> right. especially with some of the nominees that have already gone through a very recent senate confirmation hearing like amy barrett and allison eid and justice willett. what will the democrats be pushing pack on? this shows they have used the court for 50 and 60 years to push their agenda and political
ideology through the court and now that the majority is going to be conservative meaning in the context of constitutional law, protecting and conserving the constitution and limited powers of the federal government, now they're pushing back, this is showing their angst is all about the fact that they can't push their social agenda and they can't push their business agenda with having the government have so many powers. so i think that regardless of who the nominee is, we as conservatives can be very encouraged. >> charles: and i guess where they thought the court would go, the constitution is a living evolving document and a reflection of society. that works out very well for progressives and democrats. now the idea is to get back to perhaps the idea of the framers. what they intended the constitution to be. ultimately that will win here, isn't it? >> yeah, i think so as well.
also, the constitution isn't about what george washington or alexander hamilton would have thought about our policy preferences today. that's not what they meant. what we mean is understanding that the constitution is a rule book. it's the supreme law of the land. if we're playing a class match, for example, then where we move and strategize the individual pieces, that's politics and policy. we all have to play by the same rule book and for judges to fairly call those moves and say no, i'm sorry, government, you can't move the knight over here, then that is really what the original intent is. we're talking about powers. we're not talking about politics. i'm really excited to see the court revert back to staying in its lane and staying within the margins of the u.s. constitution. >> thanks, jenna. appreciate it. >> thanks, charles. >> charles: someone here has a pless single for democrats that want to put ice on ice. do it and you put all americans at risk.
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border. the larger issue to abolish ice is ludicrous. they have two major important functions. one it's the investigative arm of the department of homeland security. as such, it investigates the criminal organizations that smuggle people and things into and out of the united states. i mean, they make about -- more than 30,000 criminal arrests a year of people -- members of these organizations that bring bad stuff and people into our country. of course, the part of ice that everyone focuses on lately is the immigration enforcement responsibility. if you did not have ice, who is detaining people like criminal aliens or people who are here illegally and who is removing them from the country? you can't just say abolish an agency. you have to have a plan. why would you want to abolish ice? >> charles: proponents are saying that ice, in addition to
ripping children from the arms of their parents are also going to people's homes, people that may have come here illegally but have been here a decade, two decades, have kids, have their own children and knocking down doors and dragging people out of their homes and wrecking havoc on otherwise law-abiding people that live here although they're not legal citizens and that somehow it has to stop. ice is somehow carrying this out. >> so what ice is doing, they're enforcing the laws enacted by congress. i find it very ironic that you have senators and representatives criticizing ice for doing the job and enforcing the laws that have been enacted by them. if they want to change it, they need to change the laws. people in law enforcement are perfectly happy just enforcing the laws that they're charged to enforce. if you change the laws, they won't enforce the laws because they don't exist. the reality here is that the
politicses on the left realize the majority of americans support strong border security and immigration enforcement, so they don't want to put forth the bill to change the laws. because they know it's a political loser for them. so they created ice as, you know, the common enemy that they can rally against, a governmental boogie man and calling for its abolishment. >> charles: and it's growing. some of the names that to your point should know better and probably do know the role of ice and what they're saying and what they're supporting is a mischaracterization of key figures in the law enforcement community. before i let you go, is there any way to counter this narrative. i feel bad for the men and women that work the borders. it's a tough job. feels like vietnam vets that came home. the appreciation for the risk that is taking us to do this job
is starting to fade in this country. >> yeah, so what i say to my former brothers and sisters at ice, keep your head up. this is a vocal minority, this is politics. keep in mind, poll after poll shows the american people support you and your mission.keep doing your job. you're keeping this country safe. you're saving lives every day and the majority of the american people are grateful for it. happy fourth of july. >> charles: thanks for being here and doing the show today. >> thank you. >> charles: a group supporting america's finest by supporting their children. your insurance rates skyrocket after a scratch so small you could fix it with a pen. how about using that pen to sign up for new insurance instead? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪
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to raise money for the cause. a u.s. marine veteran, travis mcveigh and the founder and ceo of true legal usa. his company sells products made in the united states. tell us about what you're doing and how this works. >> the honor to serve as a guard. i met david and we shared the same mission and vision to help american veterans and their families. gold star families made the biggest sacrifice. we donate 10% of profits to the foundation. >> charles: how old is the company? >> vodka outsells all the other spirit companies. >> charles: a no-brainer. >> the story of tito's. they've done phenomenally well. i chose a product. if you want to support american
made products, choose heroes vodka. >> true ego i started three years back -- true eagle. we, as far as children getting scholarships, it's crazy. people who served in the armed forces in afghanistan, they need all the help they can get. we are trying to do our part and originally we give back to an organization for veteran job employment and training. and now are focusing helping the families of our bravest. >> charles: how does the child of that who wants to go to college, how do they learn about these programs? >> the website foldedflag.org,
it's a great program. and i am not a hero. that's what i named my company. my friends who gave their life for this country are heroes. if i can find a way to serve again, our biggest struggle is the transition of veterans. >> charles: even though the unemployment rate has gotten better, we see the homeless crisis. suicide rates. there are some major issues we can't forget about. the stories are starting to fade from the mainstream media and front page of the newspapers. >> we have another collaboration in the works. the suicide rate is 22 a day, and that's growing. it's close to 30 suicides a day
for veterans. speak to weed out a about the distribution in the alcohol business. it's critical. it's hard to break into the markets. >> our website gives a list of states vary in. if you want to support american-made products and support a veteran owned busines business, ask for heroes vodka. tito's has been around 20 years. the companies doing great, another american-made company. there is room for another vodka. >> charles: tito's is a great story but this is a better story in the sense of air trying to help people who serve the nation and their children. >> i'm not a veteran. i have family that did serve. i am first generation born american. there's a burning desire and need to do something.
it captures his, um... like, tragic sadness. and he had so much humour and so much positivity and so much love to give people. brahms, for me, isjust one of the most heartbreaking, um... expressions of that complex human emotion that i�*ve ever come across. when did you first play brahms�* violin concerto? i came to brahms�* violin concerto pretty late, actually. it was probably, um...about seven years ago. um...so i got through all my teenage years without playing that violin concerto. it was one, alongside beethoven, that was really hyped up to be something that you shouldn�*t really attack or address until you�*re, i don�*t know, 60 years old. not quite, but, you know, mature to a certain degree. it has a kind of patience and gravitas and drama and, um. . . maturity to it that i think is probably better, um...