Hes a great gentleman. I this i hell go down as truly a great secretary of state. I will say this about rand paul. Hes never let me down. Rand paul is a very special guy as far as im concerned. Hes never let me down. And i dont think hell let us down again. If you remember, he voted for health care and he did us a big favor. It was somebody else that voted against it that hurt us. So have i a lot of confidence in rand, but i also have a great deal of confidence in mike pompeo. I think mike pompeo will go down as one of the great secretaries of state. By the way, he just left north korea, had a great meeting with kim jong un and got along with him really well, really great and hes that kind of a guy. Hes very smart but he gets along with people. So i think that mike will be in good shape. Well see what happens. A lot of people are predicting other things but i have a feeling its going to work out very well and i think our country really needs him. Hes going to be a great leader. Thank you very. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much. Okay, elise. Ive got you now. Two notes. I was going to ask you about the meeting with kim jong un. Its noteworthy the president is talking about this secret meeting which his cia head, goes to north korea, bheemeets with jong un, he needs the confirmation from the committee and one of the no votes is from rand paul. You hear the president saying he hasnt let me down in the past. Theres that. And, number two, with the Prime Minister of japan the news emerges in the last 48 hours that pompeo pops over to north korea, im wondering if japan feels at all sidelined. Would they have any say when kim is in the room with trump . Lets unpack the pompeo stuff first, brooke. One of the reasons that rand paul says he doesnt want to vote for mike pompeo is because a lot of his previous record which is considered kind of hawkish. He supported a President Trump that was elected on promising to get the u. S. Out of entitlements abroad. Rand paul is not interested in u. S. Military overseas, was against the iraq war, is against any kind of military action really. So he at the confirmation hearing was saying to mike pompeo i think youre going to be taking trump away from those instincts and into war. So its interesting that were talking about mike pompeo going to north korea and trying to enact diplomacy with north korea. This is a man that about a year ago was suggesting maybe there should be regime change in north korea. So now hes going to be the secretary of state if confirmed, he will be the top diplomat and the idea that hes the one navigating this, i think what the president was trying to say to rand paul is this is what i want as my top diplomat and i hope you wont let me down. On the japan issue, Prime Minister abe is really one of the leaders who has really formed the claosest bond with President Trump and has fonda way to talk found a way to talk to him in a way that he feels comfortable with and it comes at an interesting time, the japanese are very hesitant, not only because theyve been left out of the loop but theyre afraid the u. S. Will make a deal with north korea at their expense. So theyre going to be talking about that, talking about trade but the north korea issue hangs in the balance. Im pretty sure that the japanese did not know about it or i would expect that it leaked, it would have leaked from the japanese side. But theyre obviously going to be talking about it and john bolton, who met with his japanese intel counterpart last week will have a large part in those discussions as well. Elise laffit, you set me up perfectly for my next conversation. Rick santorum, former republican senator from pennsylvania and paul beg labegala, who once ser the white house. Up hea you heard, boom, rand paul hasnt let me down. Whats rand pauls rally back . I always stammer when i talk about rand paul because hes just a little different there and what im used to. Look, i have a lot of respect for him. He cuts his own path. And so the fact that he hasnt let the president down is frankly quite remarkable to me so far. And maybe he wont let him down. Maybe this whole olive branch and sending pompeo to north korea was very much directed at rand paul because this is the kind of thing that rand paul would like to see done, which is a deescalation of hostilities, america playing less of a pronounced role in the world. And pompeo arguably, someone who i agree with very much on foreign policy, has been much more of a hardliner. Pompeo showed he has these skills, too, and he works for the president and not the other way around and hopefully this will be a signal to paul and something he can vote for. I thought rick could be the secretary of state. Thats such a diplomatic answer. I do think theres a real problem. Donald trump, hes really a thirdparty candidate. Hes held together in Uneasy Coalition with the establishment republicans. Senator paul represents a lot of folks all across the country who have that same view. Conservatives who believe that we should disengage, as the president promised the other day, were going to disengage from syria and the next day hes lobbing missiles. Its really hard to know where hes going to land and a known a lot of conservatives who are very upset about the president hiring john bolton. Hes going to have to decide, do you want to be in tpp or not . Hes had both positions in the last ten days. Do you want to be in syria or not . Well see if he guess pompeo. If he doesnt, its going to be because of folks like rand paul. Rand paul has said no. I dont know if theyll have the numbers. Do you think that the notion heres the president and Prime Minister abe down in maralago and we know this secret meeting happened about a month ago and it gets leaked and it gets out there in the last 24 or so hours. Do you think that the north korea meeting was leaked because of all this drama over pompeo and whether or not he gets the nod . First i think pompeo is going to get confirmed whether he has a positive vote in committee. As you know that, doesnt stop the nomination from moving forward. The nomination can still go forward and i think hell have the votes on the floor to pass. Mike pompeo is going to be the next secretary of state. I understand how the president would like to see a positive vote in committee and thats something that is important. Whether it was leaked, i dont know. Leaks are so prevalent in this white house, its hard for me to imagine wh imagine. I think the timing was good from my perspective if you want to try to properly influence senator paul. I want to get to james comey and the president s attack on the former fbi director. The president tweeted this this morning slippery james comey the worst fbi director in history was not fired because of the phony russia investigation where, by the way, there im becoming numb to the fact that the president of america is saying a private citizen should be in jail. That is not okay. That is not normal. Lets back up two steps. Kaitlin, i think we should go back to the original sound where the president sat with lester holt and said one thing and now hes saying another. Reporter the president has essentially debunked his own tweet with his own words. The white house maintained for roughly 48 hours or so that he was only fired by President Trump because of this memo written by the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein and the attorney general jeff sessions. That was it. It had nothing to do with the russia investigation. And then the president threw cold water on that just two days later when during this interview with lester holt he said this but regardless of recommendation i was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a madeup story, its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. Reporter so you see there in the president s own words, regardless of that recommendation, i was going to fire him. Brooke, its not just that interview clip. The president met with russians officials in the oval office the day after he met with james comey and in that meeting he called james comey a, quote, nut job and told them it released great pressure off him to fire him because of the russia investigation. It may make you wonder why is the president bringing this up nearly a year after he fired james comey. The special Counsel Robert Mueller is interested in discussing the firing of james comey and the events of firing james comey with the president if he ever does interview him. Brooke . Thank you. This is a president who has said he has one of the greatest memories of all time. Did he forget his own words or is he hoping that we did . I cant defend the tweet on obvious grounds. I mean, he definitely contradicted himself. Ive said this many times, that the president would do much better if the president tweeted less about these types of personal things and quit started focusing more on the policies that he is trying to promote. Hes got a very important meeting today with the japanese Prime Minister, were engaged in a host of other important things hes not talking about. The problem is that the very reason why he fired comey is precisely what this whole Mueller Investigation is looking at when it comes to obstruction of justice, paul begala. Absolutely. And kaitlin, as always, is spot on. This is what our president told our adversaries in russia, he said, quote, i just fired the head of the fbi. He was crazy. A real nut job. I faced great pressure because of russia. Thats taken off. Im not under investigation. He fired comey to corruptly obstruct justice. Now is he going to go back to his original story which is nonsense that he fired comey because comey was too mean to hillary. Id have fired comey for that. You think donald trump is upset because comey swung the election to him or because he was under investigation . Senator, youre shaking your head. The president has a right to fire anybody. The idea that the president by firing somebody obstructed justice. The president can fire anybody he wants. He didnt obstruct justice because things have continued to move forward hang on a second, senator. Isnt there a difference between firing him based upon the grounds that Rod Rosenstein laid out in a memo and firing him because he wanted this whole russia thing to go away . First off, he can fire him for whatever reason he wants or no reason at all and thats not obstructing justice. The fact of the matter is the president has cooperated with the special counsel. Legal experts would disagree. If the president fires the head of the fbi because he doesnt like his tie or because he was rude to melania, thats fine. If he fires him with the intent to stop an investigation, thats obstruction of justice. He does not have the right. He can sign o r veto any bill h wants. But if he sign as bill because i give a million bucks to sign it, thats not already. By his own admission, his reason for firing comey was to stop the investigation. I think the president can fire someone for any reason he wants, including he didnt like the way he conducted the investigation, he thought this was a bogus investigation. If you look at reality, no collusion has ever been proven. Lets leave it up to the investigators, gentlemen. Paul begala, rick santorum, thank you very much. James comey is sitting for an interview with jake tapper tomorrow. Coming up, well break down where a meeting between the president and kim could actually take place around the world. And well take you live out to this plane engine to show you whats believed to have happened in that deadly southwest emergency landing. Stay with us. At crowne plaza, we know Business Travel isnt just business. Theres this. A bit of this. Why not . Your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. Hey grandpa. Hey, kid. Really good to see you. You too. You tell grandma you were going fishing again . Maybe. vo the best things in life keep going. Thats why i got a subaru, too. Love is out there. Find it in a subaru crosstrek. The president has just confirmed a secret meeting between mike pompeo and kim jong un, tweeting he met with kim jong un last week, meeting went very smoothly and a Good Relationship was formed, summit being worked out now. Soon after the white house did to clarify the meeting did actually take place over easter weekend, not last week. This is happening as the president whittles down the locations of his own meeting with kim, sflotifloating the id there may be a meeting or may not be a meeting at all. We have not picked a sight yet. We have picked five sites where it potential will is going to be. Well see what happens. Well either have a very good meeting or we wont have a very good meeting or maybe we wont even have a meeting at all depending on whats going in. But i think that theres a great chance to solve a world problem. Lets go to retired rear admiral kirby now. Admiral, walk me through potential locations. He said five locations. We dont know exactly what location but we can take some educated guesses. Its probably not going to be in the u. S. Or to north korea. China and russia would love Nothing Better than to mediate a discussion between the u. S. And north korea, but i dont know that thats going to be real viable either, again for that reason, that we dont want to give them more influence in helping solve this problem right now. Likewise, i dont think its likely kim jong un will want to go to japan or south korea. It leaves us with the dmz and panmunjom. These are neutral sites. But president moon of south korea is meeting with kim jong un in a couple of weeks in panmunjom. Not sure trump will want to duplicate that venue. Theres singapore and bangkok. Both china and the u. S. Have ebbs there. But take a look at ulaanbaatar in mongolia. Id keep an eye on that in terms of a regional location. But what about europe . There are lots of places in europe. Too many to name that could host a meeting of this stature. Many sites, many cities that have a long history of diplomatic relations and meetings of this kind. Id keep an eye on stockholm. Stockholm might be a real attractive option here but theres plenty of others. If im a betting man, id bet on a thirdparty neutral site in the region or in europe. Moments ago the u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Nikki haley told reporters her relationship with President Trump is, in a word, perfect. Well discuss what could be happening behind the scenes. Your brain changes as you get older. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. And taking cared abof the boys. E zach talk to me. Its for the house. I got a job. Its okay. Dad took care of us. With just eight little words, the u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Nikki haley is fighting back and standing up for herself against this white house. Sunday Ambassador Haley said the u. S. Would level new sanctions against russia. The very next day for the Chemical Weapons Program in syria. She said this on the sunday shows. The New York Times reporting that the president got angry when he was watching and saw those interviews and started yelling at his tv. When those sanctions were never enforced, the white house pointed the finger at nikki haley. She got ahead of the curve. Shes done a great job, shes a very effective ambassador. There might have been some momentary confusion about that. Ambassador haley fired back, quote, with all due respect, i dont get confused. Larry kudlow has also apologized and called Ambassador Haley to say their plans had changed and she wasnt looped in. Asked about her relationship with the president she said, quote, its perfect. With me is andre bower and he ran against nikki haley back in 2010 for the governors seat. I want to start with just you know her quite well, very well. Knowing her, tell me what you think of her and also in the context of what were talking about. So you viewers dont think im Somebody Just not getting along with her. For the last three years, ive never said anything bad as i have been employed with yall for three years. But on this i disagree with her. She could have easily just let it go. But instead she fired back. She could have said there was miscommunication. But instead she went back on the president. At the end of the day shes an appointee. Hang on, hang on, hang on. They admitted to keeping her out of the loop on sanctions on russia no, kudlow took one for the team to let her go. They boxed her out. I know very well that kudlow went ahead and tried to smooth this over and he said very complementary things about her but she took the shot because shes not a team player. If you remember obamas last state of the state, she was the one that spoke on behalf of the Republican Party and she even took the shot against our nominee then. When she was sitting on tv monday morning, do you think she was just confused . Because theres been a void in the secretary of states office, shes been able to fill a void and kind of go out on her own as far as policy on a lot of things. You think she sat there on tv and went out on her own and freelanced on what she thinks the administration would do the next day on sanctions . This isnt the first time they disagree. Yes or no, do you think she freelanc freelanced . I think its quite possible. I know shes played the bully at the u. N. When weve tried to make friend with some of our allies. Shes tough on russia. Its good for tv, its great if youre running a primary, especially a primary for the president. Larry kudlow has apologized. He did admit and it was just larry kudlow saying she was left out of the loop. Im wondering, too, and i was talking about elise laffit who has covered her and she brought up a great point. I wonder if larry kudlow would have thrown her under the bus he said she was ahead of the curve on the russian sanctions and im wondering would he have said that to a man . Im wondering was larry kudlow mansplaining . He said nice things about her. He threw her under the bus. He said she was ahead of the curve. He was the one who backed down and took the blame. He took the blame. So throwing her under the bus i dont think is at all what happened. Do you think he would have said a man was ahead of the curve . I think in politics too often the media likes to say it because somebody is a woman not in the