That President Trump wants to be impeached. With me hans nichols at the white house were and the political table team. Jake sherman and anna palmer, also with us. Hans, start with you. Walk us through this new reporting what democrats think the president wants out of this process . Reporter its clear listening to officials all morning they want some sort of negotiation but doesnt seem like theyre ready to put the president in front just yet and have them rejoin the conversation at a president ial level. The vibe all morning has basically been, well, of course, conversations will go on, or thats the feeling, most recently on usmca. The sentiment here is very real. Listen to how Sarah Sanders put it moments ago. The democrats have shown that theyre not capable of doing anything else. So far theyve been unwilling and, you know, able to sit down and solve any real problems. Its very hard to have a meeting where you accuse the president s the United States of a crime and then an hour later show up and act as if nothings happened. Reporter we havent had a chance to ask the president whether or not he wants to be impeached. Peter alexander is reporting thats what nancy pelosi is indicating. She thinks the president wants this. Fascinating to listen and get yore readout from policiy shortly as shes digested yesterday over the last 24 hours what she thinks her next steps is and how shes reading the president s behavior. Craig . Hans nichols, stand by if you can, sir. Mr. Sherman what would you expect that we would hear from Speaker Pelosi here any moment now . Congress has two responsibilities, legislating and oversight and theyre mot mutually exclusive. What shes going to say. The particular ed does think and part is a vibe as hans put it, that they cant do both. They can do both, because they did it under george bush, did it under barack obama. Thats kind of how government works. Let me land this spaceship back on planet earth a second. The president on sorry, tuesday night sent a letter to pelosi saying, he wasnt interested basically in a 2 trillion deal. He wanted to cut 1 trillion of spending to get a 2 trillion infrastructure deal and blew up these talks way before pelosi said he was involved in a coverup. I just the reality doesnt line up with what is coming out of the white house, but it was, would have been incredibly difficult to get a 2 trillion infrastructure deal anyway. Frankly, as we put it this morning, congress should take the lowest common denominator, get a quick budget deal, and retreat to corners, not anything big happening before the 2020 election. Anna, the trump pelosi relationship. Your colleagues at politico wrote, third time in barely six months, between the president , speaker and Chuck Schumer blew up in spectacular fashion. In each case trump handed pelosi a huge gift. A priceless unit helping unify the Democratic Caucus behind her at a crucial time. Anna, what is it about nancy pelosi that seems to really get under this president s skin . Its phenomenal, actually, when you think about it. He really does not know how to deal with her. Theres a respect and reverence the president has for pelosi, but every time theyve come up against a friction point, he has blinked and she comes back stronger. Before yesterdays meeting a lot of talk about impeachment and kind of her factoring where she wants to hold the line, doesnt want democrats to move too soon down that pathway. The president has given her one of the biggest gifts. All in alignment against trump making her very strong in the capitol and very sflong negotia strong isnt dealing with the president. Wont do business with democrats as long as the investigations continue. His declaration yesterday. What are republicans on the hill say about it . A lot of republicans are backing him up. He told us this back in september. On his mind a long time. Not willing to sit at the table with a party while investigating him. Something he thought about for an extremely long time, but has to do some business with them and republicans have to come along. By the way, republicans on capitol hill have no problem with working with democrats while investigating the president , because they understand the congress, for 200 years. Trump might be new to this but the country around a couple hundred years and congress has investigated and legislated. Its how the cookie crumbles. No president likes it, but congress always does it. I understand the president might think the not possible for him. Its been possible for many other president s before. This idea that the president may be trying to goad democrats into impeaching him, because he thinks, or his advisers think that might be a Winning Strategy going into 2020. What are folks on the hill saying about this idea, impeachment used as a strategy . Yeah, i mean two things are important. One, this president made impeachment very personal. He talks about this as an attack on him personally. He responds in terms of inquiries on twitter personally. Its not the white House Counsel or lawyers going back and forth, and i think democrats a long time have felt that he wants them to go down this path, because he thinks its a winning message for him out on the campaign trail to say, look, all democrats doing is a witchhunt. They just want to go after me and arent a responsible party. You see nancy pelosi trying very hard to pull back her rein for those calling for impeachment because they dont think its necessary. We talk to those who say if they go down this route democrats will lose the house in 2020. A lot of those folks advising nancy pelosi, i imagine, they probably remember what happened in the 90s when the party in power tried the very same thing. And describe this in the playbook as donald trump and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. This is how democrats in the room describe what went down yesterday. Orchestrated almost to oh, poor baby, point of view. Came in to the room and said that i said that he was engaged in a coverup and couldnt possibly, couldnt possibly engage in a conversation on infrastructure as long as we are investigating him. It was planned. When we got in the room, curtains were closed. There was no chair set for where he regularly sits. No doubt in my mind this was a, a show. Thats what happened this morning. It was very, very, very strange. You know, jake, as it went down yesterday, and the administration tried to assert this was spontaneous, what struck me was the fact they had a placard on the president s podium. Supposed to be a spur of the moment thing. Do they just keep those lying around . No. I would think not. I mean, it certainly seems not spontaneous and, frankly, as i mentioned before, the white house had laid the groundwork for blowing up this conversations before pelosi said anything about a coverup. They said that democrats needed to justify spending, that the president and democrats agreed on the week before. They said that they needed to find spending cuts. Something that the democrats would never go for, to do an infrastructure bill, and by the way, the president indicated aides beforehand something i kind of forgot to put in playbook he wanted democrats to stop the investigation before they negotiated, before they came to the white house. So this was not, it didnt appear to be a spontaneous thing. Podium set up, a placard, you noted. Seemed an ambush. Everything we could see publicly, seened it was a premeditated, preplanned thing to kind of lay the blame at democrats feet. We are, again, expecting Speaker Pelosi to take to that podium. Roughly 90 seconds from now. We saw a young lady, i assume is a congressional staffer come out and give the twominute warning about 60 seconds ago. Any moment now anna and jake, well go to that podium. Anna, quickly here. Again, this idea that the president wont do business with democrats. What does that what does that i mean, theres been virtually no ledgislating done but things the president has to work with congress on. Raising the debt limit. We have to budget talks, trying to do a Disaster Relief package right now. Things that are going to get done whether this president says hes not going to work with democrats or not. The bigger question to me, some of the other issues that are necessary but dont have a timeline where they have to get done. Infrastructure, for example. Anything else on the agenda, if he wants to be able to bring to, you know, voters, to say on trade for example, usmca, he needs to work with nancy pelosi. Thats just a fact. So while right now you have kind of yesterdays, him blowing it up in a very hollywood spectacular fashion, i just dont think its a tenable line for him to hold for very long. We should also mention representative james clyburn, assistant democratic leader, expected to join us here shortly after we hear from Speaker Pelosi, any moment now. Jake what would you ask the speaker, if you were in that room . I dont know what id ask her if, when i go down. One quick thing. The president is about compartmentalizing, taking bad things that are bothing you and still able to conduct the business of the country, which were seeing right now despite the president s insistence he would love to work with democrats, if they, when they won the majority, hes not been able to compartmentalize things that upset him, and the business of the country, which is going to really put in for a really long twoyear sense until the 2020 election. By the way, predicting now, seems like its all but over legislativewise. Were only a quarter into this congress and the president cannot separate these two things. Democrats are marching headstrong into a host of investigations and the president saying, stop them. Only ramping up these investigations. My question for pelosi in a roundabout way ill answer you, do you anticipate a budget deal . I mean, huge, steep budget cuts going into effect beginning of next year. Based on the president s behavior, do you believe youll be able to sit down and work with him to prevent billions of dollars of spending reductions aimed at the pentagon and domestic spending in january . A critical question will have impact on the economy, the country, something we need to get our minds wrapped around over the next couple months. Anna, also it seems as if based on two Court Decisions this week, and the state legislature here in new york, their vote yesterday, it would seem as if lawmakers are much closer to getting their hands on the president s finances than they were just a couple weeks ago. Well talk about that on the other side, anna. If you guys can stick around. Right now lets listen in to speaker nancy pelosi. Thank you for the delay. We had a little took a little longer on the floor. Than i had anticipated. But the floor was we go into memorial day weekend, which is such a beautiful time for us to remember, respect and honor, we honor the service and sacrifice of our heroes in uniform, and reaffirm our sacred duty to never forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. The service of our veterans reminds us mission to build a future worthy of their sacrifice. And we do so honoring the oath we take to support and defend the constitution and to protect the American People. Honoring that oath this week, the house passed nine bills to support veterans protecting their health benefits, Financial Security and taking action to end the crisis of veteran suicide. This week were also passing urgently needed fix for military families facing tax hikes under the gop tax scam. With the kiddie tax, republicans took half a billion dollars from working families and gave it to big corporations and the wealthy. Half a billion dollars. The kiddie tax. It is unacceptable surviving children of our Fallen Heroes who suffered so much are now forced to pay thousands of additional dollars in taxes on their benefits. They cannot be forced to sacrifice twice. As democrats take action to protect military families who are also hard at work to protect our workers in stark contrast to republicans special interest agenda. Today in the same legislation that contains the kiddie tax act, to tax fix, to fix what the republicans did in their tax scam, we are passing the secure act, passing strong measures to help workers have a secure retirement. And yesterday congressmans first act reversing administrations destruction of a Consumer Bureau, which, the Consumer Bureau returned nearly 12 billion to 30 million seniors, Service Members and veterans before being gutted by the Trump Administration. Also to honor our oath, were hoping to have disaster supplemental bill passed before we leave for the district road trip. That was our hope, what weve been working on into the wee hours last night. However, we had sent legislation Bipartisan Legislation passed in the house to the senate. It would be helpful for those in the disaster stricken areas if the senate would just pass the bills and send them on to the president. We passed a bill a while back, months ago, and then in light of other disasters that occurred in the spring, we then passed another bill that expanded the areas that were affected. Thats sitting over at the senate. They could well just pass it. And send it to the president. That would send such a beautiful message to those areas that are affected, and continue to be affected. You see whats happening in missouri as we gather here. What the problem is, its that the Trump Administration has put in conditions for border funding that are just totally unacceptable. Really dont have anything to do with what were trying to do for Disaster Assistance and we have not been able to find common ground. We understand our responsibility to protect our border, but what they are doing is just not right. And its important to note that in the ten years before this, not a single child died in custody of the border. Now, six children have died in the last several months. Six children have died in the last several months. Further honoring our oath means honoring our constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the president and the Trump Administration. That responsibility has been resoundingly affirmed again and again, making absolutely fair that the house has a responsibility to follow the facts, uncover the truth for the American People. Yesterdays Historical Bank concluded put simply the power of congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process, and in the majors case on monday the judge declared there can be little doubt that Congress Interest in the accuracy of the president s financial disclos e disclosures falls within the legislative sphere. But the president s priority is his personal political interests, not the public interest. Yesterday as you know democrats went to the white house prepared to offer the president the opportunity to launch an historic infrastructure initiative. We had met three weeks before. The idea that it was a good, positive meeting, about how we build the infrastructure of our country, roads, bridges, mass transit, broadband in rural areas and underserved urban areas as well. Water systems, both wastewater and safe, clean, drinking water, infrastructure for our satellites so that our Technology Works here. For all of these things we were optimistic. We also were hoping to are housing and school construction, as a further part of the conversation. But the question is, how is it paid for . The president was, the plan was, we agreed meeting three weeks ago the president was supposed to present his proposals at yesterdays meetings well, everyone it started sending signals he may not be ready or interested the night before he sent us a letter to Chuck Schumer and to me saying that he doesnt want to do infrap structure until we do the u. S. mexico canada if thats not the accurate, some call it nafta 2. 0, anyway, that trade agreement, and that was a strange juxtaposition, but nonetheless, the next day you know what happened. I think what happened, he said its because of coverup. I know that strikes a cord with him and hes afraid of coverup, but, afraid of being accused of coverup, but i really think that what, he knew the one Court Decision was getting into territory he did not want touch and they did not allow the mueller report, Mueller Investigation to go into the president s personal finances. So a major setback for him, and then must have known the Deutsche Bank decision would be consistent. In any event, against his presentation, he pulled a stunt. Now, i truly believe that the president has a bag of tricks and the white house has a bag of tricks that they save for serno cases. They dont necessarily apply to the occasion, but theyre a distraction, which is his master of distraction. We all agree on that. Thats something he does well. Distract from problems that he has. He changes, tries to change the subject. And while he tried to say its because i said coverup, weve been saying coverup for a while. And our meeting was wan we have anyway, so it had nothing to do with him. I think what really got to him, the court cases and the facts, that the house Democratic Caucus is not going to pass to impeachment and thats where he wants us to be. When he saw that was not happening, that, again, with the coverup, which he understands is true, just struck a cord. Its really sad. As i said to some of you yesterday, Thomas Jefferson, one of our, our third president , had the first infrastructure initiative. He taxed secretary of treasury, and i said that to secretary of the treasury yesterday, after the president left the room, that he tasked the treasure of the secretary to put a plan to follow the lewis and Clark Expedition to build into the infrastructure, erie canal, things like that, so important to our country in terms of commerce and mobility and the rest and 100 years later, teddy roosevelt, he initiated his his infrastructure plan, which was green. The es