Push forward on the Gop Health Care plan, but rather ramp up the attack on the media. The fake media is trying to silence us. But we will not let them. Reporter President Trump escalating his ongoing war against the press. Tweeting out this doctored video of himself pummeling a man with an edited cnn logo over his face. The video drawing sharp widespread condemnation. Incitement to violence. It is very disturbing. There is nothing light hearted about it whatsoever. We need to protect freedom of the press. There is a responsibility on the part of everyone including the president of the United States. Reporter Homeland Security adviser thomas bossert, first shown the video on abc, insisting the president is not inciting violence. I think that no one would perceive that as a threat. I hope they dont. I do think hes beaten up in a way on cable platforms that he has a right to respond to. Reporter the president tweeting a barrage of antimedia attacks over the holiday weekend. And defending his use of social media as modern day president ial. Trump even unleashing a verbal tirade at an event meant to honor americas veterans ahead of the fourth of july. The fake media tried to stop us from going to the white house. But im president and theyre not. Reporter this with the white house already on defense for the president s crude attacks on two msnbc hosts last week. The president in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence, if anything, quite the contrary. Reporter cnn responding directly to the president s latest attack, it is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly Sarah Huckabee sanders lied when she said the president had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with vladimir putin, dealing with north korea, and working on his Health Care Bill, hes involved in juvenile behavior, far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He this start doing his. Health and Human Services secretary tom price insisting that the president s tweeting doesnt detract from the health care battle. The fact of the matter is he can do more than one thing at a time. Reporter but some republicans saying the behavior could have serious consequences. People are begging the president not to do this, he ought to stop doing it. There is an important distinction to draw between bad stories or crappy coverage and the right that citizens have to argue about that and complain about that. And trying to weaponize distrust. This is going to be a critically important and busy week for the president as north korea continues to provoke and the president putting in calls to the leaders of south korea, japan and china. On wednesday, hell travel to europe for the g20 summit and also have a face to face meeting with russian president vladimir putin. John, alisyn . Suzanne, thank you very much for all of that background. Lets discuss it with our panel, david drugger, cnn political analyst and correspondent for the washington examiner, jeff mason for reuters and the president of the White House Correspondents Association, and carun demergon. Lets talk about what the president is doing here with retweeting things like this and continuing, even es ska lating his battle with the media. I read you said he believes that fighting with the press furthers his political agenda. How is that going . Is that working . Well, his legislative agenda and his political agenda should be the same, but i think theyre two different things. I think from the president s point of view, these are the kinds of attacks that worked for him to establish himself as a republican leader. We often talk, alisyn, about how attacking the media, trying to undermine the media furthers his connection to his very loyal base and keeps them immune from criticism of the president because if you cant trust the coverage, then there is never any reason to doubt. But i want to ask you about the math there. Lets give them 35 . Thats what the Approval Rating, the base is now. So can he move forward and get things done with just 35 of the country, 65 of the country doesnt like this . Well, no, he cant. But what i was getting to was the fact that there is a broader republican universe out there that although they are not always pleased with the president s behavior, and method of attack, believes that hes right about us, believes hes right about the press and i think that in a way, this helps him maintain a connection and his support among the broader republican electorate who although they wish he might go about these attacks in a different way, tend to agree with him that the media is out to get him and then they too then doubt a lot of the Critical Coverage that i think actually as ive been part of this coverage from time to time has actually been pretty fair and pretty on point, even though Many Republican voters dont think so. So i think that satisfies the president s political agenda in terms of his 2020 reelection and his legislative agenda is another matter, i think he could be using his support among republicans in the bully pulpit to further that if he did things differently. But the president obviously has a different view. Well get to that in a second. Using the bully pulpit almost exclusively to talk about the media, not to talk about health care, russia, syria th. This is what hes chosen to talk about. Jeff, youre on the front lines of this discussion, there are people who look at what the president is doing here, saying what hes doing is trying to create a situation where there is no truth, correct . If you create a situation where there is no truth, there are no facts in play, then you can operate almost with impunity. Well, thats an interesting theory. I dont know if thats his intention with his tweets against the media. I think that there is an actual deep seeded dislike with President Trump and with many of his advisers at the white house for the media and that this is just his way of getting back at it and, yes, it is distracting, no doubt, from his legislative agenda. I think it was interesting to see last week some republican lawmakers from his own party criticizing him for doing that with regard to the attacks on msnbc. But whether or not thats a broad strategy, more theoretically or whether it is just really who President Trump is, i think it is a different question. Im just not ready to give up yet on the spirit that everyone in congress espoused after the Steve Scalise shooting. And everybody told us on our air, and seemed really genuine and really heart felt, we have to tone it down, it has gotten the rhetoric has gotten too hot, too hateful, too offensive. Youre in the halls of congress all the time. How is this tweet helpful . It is not. To the credit of the members of congress coming out and condemning it, that shows you the disconnect between members of congress after that tragic event and the president who spoke about wanting to improve the discourse but didnt sustain that very well for more than a few maybe a day, if even a day at that point. You know, i just wanted to go back to the point you made before, though, about there being no truth here and facts not mattering. Thats certainly been a feature we have discussed about the trump operations since his Campaign Days with the question about alternative facts, but it is also a feature of, you know, more strong men World Leaders than the american than the american political system is normally used to because we have so many checks and balances here. That full control of the message, full control over what people think truth is and isnt is a classic feature of of people in control of countries like russia and places like that. It is part of just, you know, solidifying your brand, solidifying your support and your base and hoping that that extends beyond that as you become more influential and this point too, it is it is controlling the conversation, were not talking about the Health Care Bill, were not even talking about what you just raised, that the discourse in washington, d. C. In a way that extends outside the president s twitter account. Hes the center of the conversation. Ben sass said one thing the president seems to be doing here is weaponize distrust. What is happening here is something at a deeper level. The president says this is part of the new media strategy, sort of the modern reality here. Let me read you, he says, my use of social media is not president ial, it is modern day president ial. Make America Great again. Jeff mason, you know, one of the things that people learned about, if the media doesnt like what the president is doing here, stop covering him the same way. Youre the president of the White House Correspondents Association, if the white house wont hold on camera briefings, stop going, if the president is going to do this, stop covering it. What is the right way to handle it . Well, i guess from the perspective of the White House Correspondents Association, were going to continue to push for what journalists need. And journalists need the ability to do their jobs and that includes being able to ask questions of the press secretary, of his deputy, and of other senior officials and of the president himself. So that is important whether youre a television journalist, or print journalist or radio journalist. Those are just values that are critical to us to be able to do our jobs and that are protected by the first amendment. In terms of how specifically individual news organizations and individual reporters choose to cover the news, you know, thats not the job of the White House Correspondents Association to tell. But we absolutely support the right of them to do those jobs and will continue advocating with the white house for that ability. Karun, to you, i know you have all sorts of new reporting on where we are with the Health Care Plan that is coming out of the senate, what is the latest . The latest is that it is in a period of being rediscussed. They did not have the votes to be able to do things on the schedule that Mitch Mcconnell put out, which was hoping for the end of last week before they went into the break. Now theyre talking about trying to make changes to make the medicaid cuts less severe, to try to keep the cuts to make sure that fewer people fall off of their Health Insurance to try to address funding for opioid abuse and addiction. All of these things are under discussion. We dont know what the final package will look like. You have the president s surrogates saying hes working the phones to try to build support, but support to a bill that is not finalized. You have more republicans speaking freely about, you know what, if this isnt going to work, maybe in the next week after we get back, maybe we try doing a repeal first and then replacing it, you have the moderate republicans now saying, you know what, maybe we should go back to the other bills out there that doesnt look like what the senate bill looks like now. You have a whole bunch of stuff flying around in the air. They have to nail it down by the time we get back to d. C. Next week and the weeks time, or there is just going to be more chaos and more chaos leads to more splintering and more splintering leads to not having 50 votes to pass that bill. More chaos along the lines, going back to the point whether or not the president is using his bully pulpit in a way to advance the legislative agenda here, are they helping push Forward Health care, which is supposed to be one of the signature items . Correct. This is where republicans have been critical. Republicans on capitol hill, they were telling me that, look, the president has a unique connection to his loyal base and he can get attention in ways that other president s couldnt. And if he used the bully pulpit to further the health care agenda, he might be able to create votes for this Health Care Bill and either through pressure or through creating political space, for some of these republicans to take a risk on this bill. And this is one area and it is why ive always felt they would get to a bill one way or the other, well see if that happens, this is one area where if trump cannot make this happen, this does become a problem for republicans in 2018 because this would be a major failed promise, number one, that republicans and the president promised on and they control all levels of government. Bit the other thing were dealing with now is problems with the Health Care System and regardless of who republicans or democrats want to blame, it is a problem and republicans are in control and voters are going to expect them to fix it. So this is something that the president will be blamed for, if it doesnt get done and it would behoove him and his party to get this thing done. And if he can use his powers of attention, if you will, to further the Health Care Bill, rather than attacking the media, his party and his agenda would be in a much better place, especially with tax reform upcoming. Panel, thank you very much for all of those insights. We have not heard much from gop leaders since the president s controversial tweet this weekend. But we will ask republican congressman scott taylor for his thoughts when he joins us next. Whoooo. Looking for a hotel that fits. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over 200 sites to find you the hotel you want at the lowest price. 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Well, a type of response from the administration following President Trumps latest tweet, which included a video clip showing him wrestling and punching someone with the cnn logo super imposed on their head. The white house is talking about voter fraud, not from russia, meddling, but americans. Let us join be joined by scott taylor of virginia. Good morning, congressman. Good morning, alisyn, how are you . Im doing well. Lets talk about this tweet, the president retweeted this wrestle mania stuff of him punching somebody with a cnn logo on their. It appears the origin of the video was from the reddit account of somebody with just sickening antisemitic and racist rants on their account. What is your response to this . Well, i dont know anything about what you just said in terms of whose account it was or anything like that. I have no idea. I have been critical of the president s tweets before. I think that but if i could give objective advice to you, i think youre getting played, man. I think every time he does this, you guys overreact, i say you guys, the media in general, you overreact and play into his hands. Ironically cnn reported on him learning politics from the World Wrestling federation of 2015. And now youre, like, my gosh, hes inciting violence. I dont think any american, most americans, excuse me, certainly some, most americans out there believe hes inciting violence from wwf clip. Right, so here you are, hold on a second, i watched your segments and you keep talking about this. There is tons of news out there. Lets talk about real issues. Yeah. We have been told these are official president ial statements. Is the twitter account of potus an official statement or not . I know there are two accounts there. One that is it is from the official president of the United States account, is this a president ial statement . Listen, as i said to you, i would prefer the president not make some of these tweets. Ive been critical on cnn as well too. I just think that this plays right you guys are playing right into his hands. You overreact. And hes able to hes able to use that politically. And i just think you guys, you got to start reporting on news. This is not really news. I hear you. I get it. I share your feelings sometimes. What is confusing is when the president of the United States focuses on this. Ill show you how many tweets hes put out that are media attacks, 94 versus 29 on the military and what is happening with our veterans. Where is his focus . Well, i think thats interesting. If you look at the Media Coverage and i didnt come here to defend the president. But you ask im asking your opinion . Im going to tell you. You look at your focus, and the medias focus, it is all attacking the president. It has been that way for a couple of years. You mentioned the 35 were responding today to his attacks on cnn. Were responding to his attacks on punching cnn, congressman. I understand what youre saying. What i will tell you is i can tell you definitely without a doubt there is a lot of focus on the va, there is a lot of focus on veterans. There is a lot of focus on foreign policy. You should cover that too. You should cover that too. Youre falling into a trip by im actually just giving you objective advice, youre falling into a trip by covering tweets all the time. There is a lot of news out there. There is a lot of focus on health care. A lot of focus on veterans. A lot of focus on the south china sea. There is a lot of news out there to cover. Why isnt the president talking about that . He is talking about it. I see it i see him talking about it. Were working wi