Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with in-depth reporting and investigations. courthouse in alexandrialexandr virginia, cnn s jessica schneider. so what did we learn today at the trial? anderson, we learned a lot. it was only the first day here, but this courtroom is definitely living up to its rocket docket reputation. they managed to whittle down this jury pool of 65 people down to 12 jurors plus four alternates, and then, of course, we heard the fiery opening statements here. in this, prosecutors shed some light on paul manafort s lavish lifestyle, and they did it by talking about his 30 hidden foreign bank accounts they say existed in three different countries. and they say that funded that lavish lifestyle that included seven different homes, ranging from virginia to manhattan, all the way to the hamptons on long island. they also talked about his $500,000 luxury clothing. they mentioned a $21,000 watch, and they even, yes, mentioned a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich. the prosecution here says that they have a witness list of 35 people that they plan to call, but this trial is really only expected to go three weeks. we saw just how fast this trial moved just in the first day here. so who knows. it could wrap up even sooner. but yes, 35 witnesses of the prosecution is expecting to call. anderson? i m amazed how fast it moved today. jessica schneider, thank you so much. we have new reporting now from cnn s jeff zeleny, more on the white house strategy for dealing with the trial. as you might have guessed from the top of the program, item one, distancing the president from paul manafort. we re also learning the president watched trial coverage on his way down to florida today. that s according to officials who spoke to jeff. and the president has asked staffers for regular updates as the prtrial proceeds. joining us is jeffrey toobin, a former federal prosecutor. so is jennifer rodgers. and jason miller is a former trump campaign senior adviser. so, jeff, the fact that it s day one and there s already been jury selection, opening statements and the first witness called, what does it tell you about how this trial is going to proceed? it s going to be two weeks rather than three weeks. i just have no doubt this trial will go faster than expected. that s how it always works in the eastern district of virginia. and it s a place where prosecutors win almost all the time. it is known as a very pro-prosecution jurisdiction, and given the facts of this case, i think manafort is just in a world of trouble. but jeff, the judges want prosecutors the steer clear of anything russia-related. is that i mean, is it the elephant in the room there for the jurors or, i mean, can they do that? you know, i have a lot of confidence in jurors in matters like this. i mean, the real problem for paul manafort here is there doesn t appear to be any evidence that he paid his taxes. i mean, he got all this money. it was stashed in these foreign bank accounts, and the taxes weren t paid. now, like most people who are accused of a crime with a cooperating witness, he s going try to put all the blame on the cooperating wutness. that is a standard strategy. it rarely works, but it sometimes does. and you know, but it s just going to be difficult to persuade the jury that somehow rick gates is responsible for the fact that paul manafort made millions upon millions of dollars and didn t pay his taxes. jennifer, do you agree that that defense strategy, trying to pin it all on rick gates, who is a cooperating witness, that s basically the kind of defense 101? it is. it is exactly. the problem here is that rick gates, of course, was not cooperating until after the charges were filed. so, they were prepared to proceed with this case without rick gates onboard. they have all the documentary evidence. like jeff just said, these are individual income taxes that paul manafort lied about, not to mention some properties on which there was mortgage fraud, had nothing to do with rick gates in the hamptons and in brooklyn. so, he s going to have a really hard time pinning all of this on rick gates, for sure. jason, the push from the president s allies arguing that paul manafort was basically nobody on the campaign, only worked there for four months, through the republican convention if it wasn t paul manafort. did paul manafort help prevent some of the brain damage if it had gone forward and there had been a floor fight and such things like that? of course. but was there any chance that president trump was going to get caught up at convention or he wasn t going to get through or anything like that? of course not. let s not go and blow it out of proportion. so, the role that he played was a relatively shorter amount of time, and i don t think we need to go and blow that out of proportion. but again, everything that s happening to paul manafort, those are paul manafort problems, those are not donald trump problems. it s harder to blow it out of proportion, jeff, if your title is chairman of the campaign. it seems like a pretty big time. absolutely. and remember what he s charged with. he is charged with taking millions upon millions of dollars from viktor yanukovych, who was the pro-putin politician in ukraine. so, it s not that this is completely unrelated to the whole russia situation. remember, too, that during the convention, they changed the platform toe make the ukrainian section more pro-putin. so, the entire thrust of the trump campaign, which the issue of a conspiracy with the russian interests, you know, remains the heart of the investigation. manafort s presence in the campaign is evidence of sympathy to putin in and of itself. so in that respect, it s not the criminal charges, but who paul manafort is, is highly relevant to this investigation. but jeffrey, if i could just jump in real quick, is there some sort of crime that you re accusing the president of? no. i m not, but you know, when you are asking why the president has this fixation with vladimir putin, which apparently continues to this day, and why vladimir putin was so desperate to see donald trump win and hillary clinton lose and why donald trump was asking russians to hack e-mails, which they did the same day, all of it is relevant evidence to what happened in this campaign. jennifer, i mean, at some point, rick gates himself will have to testify. do you think he ll find anything out about will we find anything out about the larger mueller investigation from that? you know, the one way that we could is that when a cooperator testifies, the defense is entitled to cross-examine him or her about all impeachment material. so, if rick gates did things during the campaign that were illegal or go to his credibility, then prosecutors could raise that and the defense could cross-examine on it. you know, it seems from some of the pretrial motions and litigation that the word russia, i guess one of the prosecutors said, probably won t even be uttered. so, it sounds like they don t have that kind of impeachment material they need to front and that manafort lawyers will cross on, so i m suspecting not, but if there is anything like that, that could be the context in which it would be raised. jason, president trump has said on more than one occasion about only hiring the best. if that s true, shouldn t the campaign have done its due diligence when it came the paul manafort and figured out if manafort had been operating above board or not? this is a pretty, you know, sleazy track record that the prosecutors certainly have laid out. well, absolutely. but there is no such thing as a time machine. and so, the fact of the matter is is that paul manafort was onboard for, as i said before, a relatively shorter amount of time, and he was not the person who ultimately was the campaign manager that took us across the finish line. that was kelly anne, as you know, along with steve bannon and a whole host of other folks who were onboard. but look, paul manafort, we primarily focused on the convention phase of this, did have a long track record of working with conventions and things like that. but i think one of the other things that i think kind of a little jumbled up in the media is that president trump and manafort weren t particularly close. i don t think that president trump really knew much all about paul manafort s background. these were not two men who would hang out, grab dinner or lunch or chat. but to the point the president constantly saying he hires the best, that seems to imply he knows who he s hiring. your argument seems to be, well, he didn t really know this guy even though he went on tv multiple times and talked about what a great guy he was. well, he got a mulligan in this one. but what s the one thing donald trump knew about paul manafort, which was that he worked for viktor yanukovych. that was basically his only client for years. and the fact that he worked for yanukovych, the pro-putin politician in ukraine, was good enough for donald trump. that tells you something in and of itself, no? but i think the one thing that president trump knew is that paul manafort had convention experience. in the 80s. in the 80s. 30 years ago. but it s been a long time since there was a real convention fight. keep in mind it had been literally decades since there was a real convention battle within republican party politics. that was something paul was able to speak to. he wasn t being brought on for any policy matters or any grand strategic vision. he is someone who was going to manage the convention. that was the value he was demonstrating at that particular time. all right, jason miller, jeff toobin, jennifer rodgers, thanks very much. up next, the president s trip to florida and his flight from any tough questions or any place he might encounter any tough questions. we re keeping him honest on that. as, breaking news in the fight over firearms that you can make at home with a special pri printer and the plans a court tonight just blocked from getting out. the legal battle and the role the white house played in this with 3-d printing guns ahead on ac 360. nourished hair. better color. keep it comin love. if you keep on eating, we ll keep it comin . all you can eat riblets and tenders at applebee s. now that s eatin good in the neighborhood. you shouldn t be rushed into 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. stadium pa : 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. to help prevent another stroke. so, i m doing all i can to stay in his life. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. chicken! that s right, chicken?! candace new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! well, it is july 31st and that gives us an opportunity to point something out. the white house has only held three press briefings all month. now, these things used to be common enough that they were actually called the daily white house press briefing, which meant daily. now you can call them nearly extinct, which makes what you re about to hear kind of odd. give a listen and ask yourself, does this sound like a promise? we re here. we re taking questions. we re doing everything we can to provide regular and constant information to the american people, and there is a responsibility by you guys to provide accurate information, and we re going to continue to try to work with you. well, she said that may 9th. that entire month, there were nine white house press briefings. in june, just five. this month, only three. so tell us what was that again? we re here. we re taking questions. we re doing everything we can to provide regular and constant information to the american people. everything they can do to provide regular and constant information. everything they can do. see, for a minute there, it sounded like sarah sanders was actually promising to provide regular and constant information to the american people. keeping them honest, we asked her why she promised the people one thing and is doing the polar opposite, but we simply haven t had the chance, because there have only been three briefings this month. if you d like to ask sarah sanders about her promise, take a number. if you d like to know what president trump thinks about michael cohen s allegations about the trump tower meeting, get in line. if you want to see the president challenged about why the white house lied about the president not being involved with wanting to buy karen mcdougal s silence after audiotape shows he actually was, sorry, you are out of luck. and the same goes for false and misleading statements like this one just yesterday. the president tweeting a highly respected federal judge today stated that the trump administration gets great credit for reuniting legal families. thank you, and please look at the previous administration s record. not good. the president neglected to point out that the judge admonished the administration for essentially making orphans out of kids. that s the beauty of the twitter machine. you can omit, you can rephrase, you can make stuff up. whatever you want, and no one can challenge you. last year anthony scaramucci, the new white house communications director for those ten glorious days, refused to commit to regular white house briefings. he s gone, but it sure looks like his idea is gaining traction at the white house today. president trump left for his trip to florida this afternoon without saying a word to reporters and in case you re wondering, that is par for the course. with the exception of his jount appearance alongside italy s prime minister yesterday, the president has refused to answer reporters questions 16 times in just the last six days. thank you, everybody, thank you. thanks, guys. thank you. mr. president, sir, is michael cohen lying? did michael cohen betray you? mr. president, did michael cohen betray you, sir? mr. president, why did you cancel the meeting with vladimir putin, sir? well, that s what we re seeing more and more of, unanswered questions and fewer chances to ask them. and in the meantime, the president reportedly is itching for more occasions like he just finished up at tonight, rallies where he can say whatever he wants and hear nothing in return but applause. our jim acosta is in tampa for us tonight, joining us now. so, this lack of transparency, is there any other reason they re doing this other than the fact they don t want to answer questions about, for instance, why the president lied and why the white house, why the campaign, i should say, lied, not knowing about karen mcdougal and ami and the deal? anderson, i think the only thing you can conclude, and you re going to hear some folks here, i think, letting their feelings be known at this rally here in tampa, about how they feel about cnn. but anderson, i think the honest answer to your question is that this white house is obviously hiding from the press. they re hiding the president from the press. they are hiding the press secretary from the press. that s the only conclusion you can come to when they ve only had five press briefings in the last month of june, and only three press briefings this month. i mean, that is historically at a very low level. now, one thing we should point out, anderson, at this rally tonight, the president went after what he calls fake news. he even talked about fake polls, even though he touted a poll that he said that he had seen saying he was the most popular republican president ever. it s hard to understand how you can have fake polls but also tout polls showing you being popular. but anderson, despite the president going after the press, he just hadn t given us opportunities to ask him very many questions. and i think there really is no other reasonable conclusion other than they just don t like the questions that are going to be asked right now. you know, i ve been trying to talk to white house aides about this, and one of the things you hear, and they ve said this before in the past is that, well, when the president has a speech or when he has an event, they tonight want to step on the message of the day. well, the president had a speech tonight, and so there was no press briefing today. it is possible they could have one tomorrow, anderson, but we just don t know at this point. yeah, i mean, so, there s no idea when the next one might be held? say that again? there is no idea, it s not a schedule when the next one might be held? you know, i think it is possible. i m pushing these earpieces in my ear just to hear you, anderson. i think it s possible they could hold one tomorrow, but aides are being very cagey about it. one thing they ll talk about as they have these off camera gaggles when the president is traveling down on air force one, and that sort of thing to various events. but as you and i both know, anderson, that s not the same as having an on-camera briefing with the press secretary coming into the briefing room. you know, we used to call them daily press briefings. they re barely weekly press briefings anymore. and i think, anderson, the only conclusion you can draw at this point is they just don t like the questions right now. and it s amazing, anderson. you re hearing some of the insults being hurled at us right now. i ve been talking to some of these folks this evening, even though they re being pretty negative towards us right now. i answered a bunch of questions from some of these trump supporters here about all sorts of things, a lot more questions than the president has taken from us in recent days, anderson. jim acosta, appreciate you being there. thanks, jim. i want to bring in two new voices. one from david axelrod with long white house experience managing the message. and carl bernstein, who has even longer experience holding presidents accountable, including this one, shares a byline on the michael cohen scoop. david, every white house certainly, look, has had their issues with the press. have you ever seen a white house that has had this many issues with the press? well, i ve never seen a white house who has had many, many issues, not just issues with the press, but every this is a precedent-shattering white house. and particularly when it comes to issues of transparency and disclosure, starting with the president s refusal to release his tax returns and running through a whole series of things. i think the important thing, though, here is beyond not answering questions about michael cohen and the probe which are uncomfortable, we ve also seen the practice suspended of briefing people, briefing the press when the president speaks to foreign leaders. we are only americans are only finding out what the president has said in their name from reports from foreign governments. it s two weeks later. we still don t know what was said between him and vladimir putin. i mean, there are fundamental things, bits of information that the american people deserve, and, you know, the bottom line is this president doesn t believe that he has any obligation to share that information with people. he calls the press the enemy of the people. he conflates his political interest with the public interest. and he thinks that reporting is a hostile act. yeah, the fact is, we re not even sure he has told his secretary of state or the secretary of defense exactly what was discussed with vladimir putin in that meeting. it s not clear from their own from, you know, pompeo s testimony, that he really has a fell readout from the president. carl, do you you fought with many white houses over the years trying to get your questions answered. nixon s press secretary had a famous adversarial relationship with the press. how would you compare then to now? i think it s far worse. the really great thing that s happening is is that news organizations from the washington post to the new york times to cnn to the ap to reuters are doing some of the greatest reporting that we have ever seen on a presidency. and the result is that the american people understand what the facts are. they can make up their own minds about it because of our reporting. the idea that somehow we would expect this president, this presidency, this administration to be anything like open or transparent or honest or truthful at this stage of the game is absurd on our part. and we re doing the right thing by doing our reporting. donald trump is the president of his base. he makes no attempt to be the president of all the people of this country. and part of appealing to his base is to make the conduct of the press the issue rather than the conduct of donald trump and his presidency. so that s where we are, and the great part of this, as opposed to the part that we ought to be terrified about, is that we re doing the reporting. and that s really why he is so upset, why he is so furious, why he is going to ground the way he is, because we have raised the questions about what is truthful, particularly about his relationship with putin, particularly about his relationship with michael cohen. we ve raised the questions. they re out there, and the people of this country know that they re out there. david, to carl s point, it s not just about making the press the enemy, it s making nfl players the enemy at times when it suits the president, or making, you know, undocumented immigrants the enemy, or whomever it may be to suit the president s needs at any given time. i want to ask you, though, about comparing to the obama administration. because kaitlan collins was barred last week from attending an event in the rose garden at the white house, didn t like questions she asked. obviously the white house has issues with cnn and their coverage. there are those who say, look at the obama administration. they didn t always give the same access to fox news as everyone else or the same number of interviews. to that, you say what? is that a fair comparison? i don t well, no, i don t think it s a fair comparison, because they never barred fox reporters from doing their jobs. i talked to fox news reporters all the time when i was in the white house. they asked questions at presidential press conferences and so on. i don t think it s look, as you pointed out at the beginning, every president is irritated at times by their coverage, but most presidents understand that that is part of the obligation of the job. that a free press is enshrined in the first amendment for a reason. but i just want to react to one thing that carl said. it s not just that he s using the press as a foil with his base. he is trying to impeach the media, so that when facts are reported that are inconvenient to him, he can dismiss them as political in nature. and that, to me, is a very insidious thing. that s really, you know, that is the stuff of autocratic states. and so, while i agree with carl that the reporting has been aggressive, it s been thorough, it s been critical, there still is concern about a president who doesn t really believe in a free press. and carl, it is not just the lack of press briefings. you know, the president himself still hasn t directly answered questions about why his campaign lied about their involvement in trying to buy karen mcdougal s rights the rights to her story from a.m.i., which the campaign claim they had no knowledge of, they knew nothing about the deal, nor has he answered any questions about your reporting that he allegedly knew about the trump tower meeting in advance. this president and this presidency and this white house has no interest in the truth, as we have known it in every other presidency. this president and this presidency has an interest only in its own propaganda, its own lies, its own version of events that have nothing to do with real existing information. you know, i went to jack kennedy s press conferences, starting with his third one. i was copy boy at the time. and if you were to go back and watch him and every successive president of the united states, including richard nixon, you would not see anything comparable to the lying, to the unavailability to being open and transparent, such as we have seen in this presidency. this presidency and this president is unique. we have never had anything like this in our history in terms of disinformation. yeah. misinformation, and an attempt to undermine the truth at every turn. not just in a criminal conspiracy like watergate, but about everything. carl bernstein. david axelrod, thank you so much. coming up, a federal judge makes a decision on the 3d printed guns that have been causing so much controversy. and after the president tweets, the white house and the nra have very similar statements about the undetectable and untraceable guns. the latest next. on the shelf. or even. out in the field. your mom knew she could always count on us. and your grandma did too. because for over 150 years, we ve been right by your side. advancing the health of the people, plants and pets you love. so, from all of us at bayer. thank you for trusting in us. then. and now. does your business internet provider promise a lot? let s see who delivers more. comcast business gives you gig-speed in more places. the others don t. we offer up to 6 hours of 4g wireless network backup. everyone else, no way. we let calls from any of your devices come from your business number. them, not so much. we let you keep an eye on your business from anywhere. the others? nope! get internet on our gig-speed network and add voice and tv for $34.90 more per month. call or go online today. olly. a federal judge in washington state has issued a temporary restraining order stopping the release of bueprints how to make a plastic gun with a 3-d printer. it s the latest development in a controversy that s gone on for years after a company in texas developed instructions on how to make a plastic gun with a 3d printer. court battle ensued when the company made the instructions available to be downloaded. multiple states attorneys general have moved to stop it. ours later, the white house deputy press secretary said this on air force one. in the united states, it s currently illegal to own or make a wholly plastic gun of any kind, including those made on a 3d printer. the administration supports the nearly two decade-old law and will continue to look at all options available to us to do what is necessary to protect americans while also supporting the first and second amend pts. so it strikes a lot of the same chords as the nra statement, which reads in part, quote, regardless of what a person may be able to publish on the internet, undetectable plastic guns have been illegal for 30 years. a federal law passed in 1988 crafted with the nra support makes it unlawful to manufacture, import, sell, shift, deliver, possess, transfer or receive are an undetectable firearm. joining me now is washington state attorney general bob ferguson, who just scored that court victory stopping release of the blueprints, at least temporarily. thanks for being with us. attorney general, the temporary restraining order that you ve been granted, what does it mean going forward in terms of the law here? yeah, in terms of the law thanks for having me on again, anderson. appreciate it. this is a nationwide ban. so, what it does, it takes us back to a period of time before the federal government flipped on their policy regarding these 3d ghost guns. what it means is, if anyone posts this information online, they re in violation of federal law and can suffer very serious consequences. so it makes it unlawful to post that information and make it available to the public. why did the government offer a settlement to allow these blueprints on the internet in the first place? do we know? wasn t it the state department that stepped in to prevent them from being posted online? that is a very good question, anderson. and truly, it s baffling to me and many others why the federal government made this decision. and just to be clear, to your point, there has been a court case going on texas in which the obama administration and the trump administration opposed this entity down in texas from making this information public. the state department filed declarations, talking about the national security risk and public safety risk of any process, no procedure, no nothing. they caved on a case they were winning and allowed this entity to go forward. it s truthfully breathtaking, and the risk to public safety is hard to overstate. yeah, cody wilson, the man who invented the first 3d printed gun, told cnn today that despite your suit, he has already uploaded plans for the ar-15 semiautomatic rifles have been downloaded more than 2,500 times. how concern ready you? and is there anything you can do than? once it s out there, it s out there, isn t it? so, i am very concerned about that. and every american who is be should be very concerned about that and the president of the united states should be very concerned about that. and he can put a stop to this right now. he should tell his attorneys to stand down in this litigation and allow us to declare victory in this case and move forward. so, yes, some folks have been able to access information, but obviously, anderson, if it s allowed to go forward for days, weeks, months, many more thousands of people would have access to it. we want to limit that damage and we re very thankful our judge here in seattle granted our request for a restraining order to shut this down nationwide. this notion from the white house and the nra that, quote, regardless of what a person may be able to publish on the internet, undetectable plastic guns have been illegal for 30 years. so that you say what? well, i d say, why are you fighting me in court then? we re going to court to go back to a time in which it was illegal to do this. the u.s. government was in court today saying no, the entity should be allowed to post this information. so once again, we have an administration, we have a white house where the left hand doesn t know what the right hand s doing. they re not communicating in concert with one another. there is nothing new about that, anderson. i ve been on your show many times and i ve now filed 32 lawsuits against this administration. in ten cases, we have decisions. i won all ten of them. one of the reasons i ve won all ten is because this administration can t keep their story straight. they re sloppy. and frankly, they re dangerous when it comes to public safety. and that s why i m so relieved judge lasnik took the action he did today. attorney general bob ferguson, good to have you on. thank you. president trump took to twitter, telling his followers there was no collusion with russia. this is, of course, a day after his private tv attorney, rudy giuliani, said the same thing. we re going toe have an examination of that just ahead. only imagine. d a peaceful night sleep without frequent heartburn waking him up. now that dream is a reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? 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a strategy of desperation, if a strategy at all. collusion outright may not be a crime in and of itself, but anderson, treason is a crime. collaborating and conspireing with a hostile foreign power against the united states is a crime. receiving material support, clandestine material support from a hostile foreign power is a crime. and we get to the people around trump. moneylaundering is a crime. tax fraud is a crime. lying under oath is a crime. so, there s plenty of crime to go around. but what trump and giuliani and all their paladins have been doing is doing their best to blind the american people, to overwhelm us with various forms of diversion and obscure data, to cloud the issue, to muddy the waters. pick your cliche. but for me, as someone who genuinely cares about this country and who doesn t give a damn about either political party, for me, there is one core question facing our country today. one paramount question, and that is, has the president of the united states committed treason against the united states, specifically, in service in t thrall of some sort to vladimir putin? i hope i m wrong. i hope it didn t happen. we ll see what robert mueller brings to the fore. but we must focus on that question and not be diverted by clownish antics, because trump is a brilliant entertainer. in a peculiar way, he may be history s greatest entertainer. he commands global headlines every single day, and we make a mistake of thinking about him as a politician or a leader when he is an entertainer. and by allowing ourselves to be constantly entertained, we lose sight of fundamental ethics, values and security of this nation. you talk about him as a propagandist and a very effective propagandist. yes. not only the simple catchphrases, but repeated time and time and time again so that they just become normalized. it s also part of it s not just about repeating phrases, it s also used as a diversion. yes. to take you off focusing, take the american people, the media, whomever, their eye off what s really happening, what really matters. yes. and anderson, consider what a brilliant move it is to attack the press as the enemy of the people. instead of having the spotlight on trump and his alleged misdeeds, on his daily misdeeds against this country, it turns against the press, the press as the enemy of the people. enemy of the people is a loaded term. it does go back to roman times. but in the modern era, the first person i can find who really used it is robespierre in the french revolution. as a student of russian affairs, it s the enemy of the people in russia. under stalin during the purges, if you were called an enemy of the people, it was a death sentence. and given all of trump s other ties, to russia and things russian and people associated with russia, it hardly seemed a coincidence that he calls our press the enemy of the people. and anderson, our press is not above criticism. sure. it s made of human beings. human beings are flawed. i have when i thought the press deserved it, i have criticized the press fiercely, but i hope constructively, because without a free press as our founding fathers recognized, democracy cannot function. lieutenant colonel ralph peters, always good to have you on. thank you. thank you. i want to check in with chris and see what he s working on for the top of the hour. chris? peters makes you gulp. talking about, you know, stalin. it s pretty yeah, and it s just weird that they re using the same phrase. so, tonight, we re going to take a little bit of a different tact on this issue about collusion not equaling a crime. i actually think that the media got out over its skis on this, and i think we re missing the forest for one tree, and i m going make the legal case today. and i think it s mostly common sense where you can start with where we re hearing from the trump legal team right now, but still wind up looking at a whole garden basket of potential criminal activity that stems from this. so we ll lay out the case. we re also going to take on the man who wants people to be able to make their own 3d guns at home. he is going to make the case to the audience as to why. and we are going to test it, my friend. chris, your screen getting bigger and bigger, your white board there? ah, yeah, it is, actually. i have two white boards. sometimes either that or you re shrinking. yes. i am i am slimming. i covet the board. kind of look alike. from here-down. from here up, much better. an capitol hill, the top officials were peppered with questions about the trump administration s separation of families at the border. one official said family separation was not part of the policy. coming up, i ll talk to a senator that was there. chicken?! chicken. chicken! that s right, candace new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. stadium pa : 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. you shouldn t be rushed into 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. ordinary stains say they 2 can do the job, s. but behr premium stain can weather any weather. behr premium semi-transparent stain and sealer, overall #1 rated, weathers it all. find our most advanced formula exclusively at the home depot. where we re changing withs? contemporary make-overs. then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. who has the upper hand now? start winning today. book now at lq.com. back pain can t win. now introducing aleve back and muscle pain. only aleve targets tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve back & muscle. all day strong. all day long. questions as a senate hearing today and those questions elicited some pretty remarkable answers. at one point, the head of enforcement or removal for immigration customs enforcement said the facilities where kids and parents were being kept were, quote, more like a summer camp. that s what he said. take a look at this exchange between senator richard blumenthal and an official at the department of health and human services, who acknowledged separating children from their parents was a bad thing. would i be correct in assuming that the answer to you was, in effect, that s the whole purpose of the policy, to inflict pain so as to deter asylum seekers from coming here, correct? no, sir. we were advised that family separation was not the policy. he had raised concerns about the policy there. well, that s interesting he was told that because here s attorney general jeff sessions on fox news talking about the policy. are you considering this a deterrent? i see the fact that no one was being prosecuted for this as a factor in a fivefold increase in four years in this count of illegal immigration. so, yes, hopefully people will get the message. it was intended there as a deterrent. jeff sessions said it. so did john kelly on camera. at the hearing was minnesota senator amy klobuchar. when he tried to get some clarification about the family separation policy, even he was told it was not the policy. i mean the standard answer from the government, how do you square that with the world actually seeing the separations as well as multiple members of the administration describing what they say as not a policy, as a deterrent. well, it s very clear when you listen to the leadership, the words you hear from the attorney general, from the chief of staff of the white house, that they did view this as a deterrent. but the problem is then they re using kids as a weapon. and i was at the border, and the families i met, some of whom had been reunited, all they wanted to do was to get back to their mom. a little 10-year-old boy and his mom, she had fled honduras as a victim of domestic violence. and then to have her child yanked away from her at the border, didn t know if she would ever see him again. and he said, well, i knew i d always see my mom again because she d find me. those are heartbreaking stories, and that s what we heard today at the hearing. and it s very clear to me that there were some people of good will at those front lines whether they were people that worked at the agencies, whether they were the like sister norma from catholic charities who runs the operations down there in mcallen, or the volunteers that came from all over america with good hearts to try to fix this. but it should never have happened in the first place. there s certainly been a lot of reports, stories about what the detention centers holding the kids were like. today we heard this other description from an i.c.e. official who said this. i want to play it for our viewers. i think the best way to describe them is to be more like a summer camp. these individuals have access to 24/7 food and water. they have educational opportunities. they have recreational opportunities, both structured as well as unstructured. i mean you ve talked about having been to the border. i m wondering what you make of that summer camp description. this is not what i heard from these families. one pair of siblings who were separated from each other, one went to florida. one went to texas. they described themselves as being cold. they described themselves as wanting to go and see their parents again. and you still, anderson, have 711 kids that have been separated from their parents. over 400 of them, they can t find their parents. you know what the difference is between summer camp and this? you go home to your parents after summer camp. there s also been reports of kidding being given psych oh tropeic drugs without a parent s permission. i don t think that happens at summer camp. no, it does not. did anyone ask that official if he would send his children to summer camp to that kind of a summer camp? those kinds of things were asked and we got some vague answers. there was one official from hhs, commander white, who clearly said that he told his superiors he was concerned about the psychological effect on these kids. and he also said, you know, this was a policy that we applied to unaccompanied minors. but these kids were accompanied. they weren t accompanied by their parents. this announcement from facebook today that they shut down a disinformation campaign that was targeting the midterm elections. you introduced legislation aimed at trying to prevent election interference this past fall. are you happy with how facebook handled this? i m glad they came forward and said what we believed is true and that is the russians are still trying to do this, or it looks like russian accounts because they re similar to what they had before the election. one of them had nearly 300,000 followers. these same kinds of ads that are trying to turn americans on each other from controversial issues, from immigration issues, and they re doing it again. that s why we have to pass this
Chris Cuomo asks the tough questions to newsmakers in Washington and around the world. 17 angry democrats. they take value in the number 17. a potential sign. i hope he didn t use that number for them. he doesn t always use the number 17. i don t see that as being intentional. but who knows these days? but he has their interest. so what are they doing now? well, they join in support of him and attacks of others. you saw what happened with jim acosta. if we go back to this video, when it gets to where jim was, you ll see there were a lot of those q people who were in front of him. they re even stalking stormy daniels attorney michael avenatti. why? why go after michael avenatti? because he s identified as one of trump s opponents. and they are now out to defend the presidential from their imagined array of opposition. and not a word from the white house about this. actually, that s not true. sarah sanders did say this today. unfortunately, it s now standard to abandon common sense ethical practices. this is a two-way street. we certainly support a free press. we certainly condemn violence against anybody. but we also ask that people act responsibly and report accurately and fairly. we certainly support freedom of the press. we also support freedom of speech, and we think that those things go hand in hand. what did she avoid? she avoided saying to people don t shout at a free press, don t be that ugly, don t be that hostile, don t threaten violence like that, be better than that, the trump supporters are better than that. she didn t say that. why? you decide. and what speech do they support at the white house? they support speech like when sanders justified the president calling the free press scum, right? a stain on america. the enemy of the people. they support all that as free speech. but they don t support free speech when they don t like it. that s when they disinvite journalists and they shrink away from interviews and they won t put their people out on shows like this. so what does all this tell us tonight? the tweets matter. they could have significance to investigators who are digging for proof of intent which the president seems all but too happy to supply. that could be dangerous. and so could feeding all these fringe groups that are finding comfort in a potential cause for action in trump s scorched earth attacks on american institutions. now, what is our job? it s to call it out, give the information to you, and let you make informed decisions. we are going to do that job no matter what the president encourages to stop us. in fact, i believe as deeply as anything that the president has made my job more important than ever. so what do you say? let s take a quick break and get back after it. let s do this job. we ve got a senator here tonight who is at the center of two of the biggest problems we face, the russia probe and those captured kids on the border. he sees big developments coming on both fronts. the democratic whip, senator dick durbin, next. fruits and veggies are essential to your health, transitions™ light under control™ rewards me basically aeverywhere.om transitions™ so why am i sliding into this ski lodge with my mini horse? because hotels.com lets me do me. sorry, the cold makes him a little horse. hotels.com. you do you and get rewarded. his people are saying no, use the word should, not must, it s not an order, it s just his opinion. the president s playing games with words here. we know exactly what his opinion is in the mueller probe. he s called it a witch hunt and many other names. it s time for mitch mcconnell to finally let us pass the bipartisan legislation that once and for all protects the special counsel and lets him finish his business. that said, the president does have the right to say he thinks that the probe is a joke and that it should end, right? he still has his first amendment rights as well, no? well, he certainly does, but when he starts trying to influence a man that he appointed as attorney general, it gets dangerously close to obstruction of justice. what is the line for you? can a president obstruct justice? and if so, what would you need to see? well, of course he can obstruct justice. and in this situation an investigation which may or may not find him culpable if he tries to stop it, if he tries to dismiss bob mueller before he s completed the investigation, all of these things i think are as they say prima facie evidence. what do you make of the notion that the law doesn t make it clear enough where a president is involved? because he has as the supreme court has held and i know you know this, almost absolute firing power. he can get rid of whomever he wants whenever he wants. in the absence of a law that says otherwise. and there is no statute that specifically does this. and coincidentally, his nominee for the supreme court, brett kavanaugh, has said he believes that a president should basically be immune from investigation and prosecution while in office. that is certainly a timely choice of a nominee. in absence of legislation he too kavanaugh argues as well because of the absence of a statute that says otherwise a president should be exempt. well, we can argue one way or the other. a statute would make it a lot clearer, but we re not going to get a statute through this republican congress and signed by this particular president. so let s say that mueller either doesn t find the sufficiency or doesn t believe he can charge and indict a sitting president, which seems to be the case. do you believe that what you see as potential obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense under the high crimes and misdemeanors nebulous standard? well, i m going to wait for mueller s conclusion. and i have a lot of faith in him. i ll stand by his conclusion. whether it exonerates the president or finds him guilty, or at least accuses him of being guilty of some misconduct. when it comes to the impeachment process i can just tell you i ve been through that with president clinton. this is a very high standard under our constitution. i do not consider it lightly. and should it go forward i would be sitting on the jury in the united states senate. isn t that one of the best arguments in favor of wrapping this up? if mueller doesn t have really heavy-duty ammunition against the president and impeachment is largely a political numbers game, why wouldn t he wrap it up? if he doesn t have something to actually indict and charge on and impeachment is all but impossible because of the numbers in congress right now, where is the progress in all of this? chris, let me tell you, i trust robert mueller. i ve known him for 20 years. i have worked with him when he headed the fbi. he s a consummate professional. he is handling this professionally. the reason he s getting battered in the press by the president s constant tweets calling it a witch hunt is because he believes that a good professional prosecutor doesn t try his case in the press. i m going to give him the timetable he needs to complete this. this is an historic undertaking. i want it done right. when it s all over, i want the american people to feel justice is being done. that s got to be the bar. people have to believe it s the truth. they have to believe that they understand the facts and the consequences. that should be everybody s priority. so in that vein i want to pivot with you because the judiciary committee that you re on is going to have a role when it comes to dealing with what is happening on our border right now. this reunification process is pleasing to one of the judges in the litigations. but it s still a low standard. we know there s not a plan. and most importantly we know from an hhs official now that they knew what would happen if they did this and they did it anyway. what does that tell you and what can you do about that? well, it tells me that this idea, forcibly removing children from their parents, was a humanitarian disaster from start to finish. there was callous disregard for these children even though we took them under our custodial care as a government. we did not keep records on their parents or the children. clearly no one was even thinking ahead to the possibility of reunifying them at some point. now, this judge in southern california set deadlines which our government has met partially but failed to meet in many respects. we have as of this week 711 children who have not been reunited. 91 of those children they say they just can t even identify who their parents might be. that is reckless disregard for the well-being of these children. someone ought to accept responsibility. and that s why i called for the resignation of the department of homeland security secretary, nielsen, this week. the criticism of that poll, though, or did garner a lot of headlines, is too low on the totem pole, senator. you know she s not calling the shots. she s doing what she s told to do. you have attorney general sessions out there saying that basically the point of this was deterrence. he s a big shot. you have the president who s been campaigning on this since the moment he came down those fateful stairs in one of his buildings. why go after her? the president will face his day of reckoning on this decision and so many others in due time under our constitution. as far as the attorney general is concerned i know exactly where he stands on this issue and so many others and he is culpable in the process. but she is the one who was the architect and engineered the process start to finish. she needs to accept personal responsibility for making a disastrous decision which reflects so badly on our country. senator grassley says it s on you, it s on congress, the system stinks and you haven t designed any better laws and you basically boxed in the executive and the law enforcement officials to have to make bad choices. my response to my friend chuck grassley is that five years i sat down with seven senators, four democrats, four republicans, all together, we put together a comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the united states senate with 65 votes. it didn t include his vote, i might add. but it passed and was sent to the republican house which even refused to consider it. we need comprehensive immigration reform. there is no evidence this president supports that. well, here s what we know. if nothing changes, the situation will stay the same. the courts can only do so much. and we re going to need legal action and we re going to need enforcement priorities, and you re going to be part of that equation. senator, thank you for joining us. we ll be talking about that again. you re always welcome on this show. thanks, chris. and with democrats like durbin and the republicans what they do will be weighed and measured in the midterm elections. fast approaching. less than 97 days now. president trump s already furiously campaigning. and someone else is getting back in the political game. president obama. who will be the biggest influence at the polls? 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let s see who delivers more. comcast business gives you gig-speed in more places. the others don t. we offer up to 6 hours of 4g wireless network backup. everyone else, no way. we let calls from any of your devices come from your business number. them, not so much. we let you keep an eye on your business from anywhere. the others? nope! get internet on our gig-speed network and add voice and tv for $34.90 more per month. call or go online today. the president repeated his threat today to shut down the government if he doesn t get the money for his border wall before the mid-terms. he even argues it would be good for the gop if there were a shutdown. what do you think? let s have a great debate with ana navarro and steve cortes. here is some of the sound of the president saying it today. he was on with rush limbaugh, who s celebrating 30 years in the business. here s what he said. here you are, suggesting that you d be willing to maybe you talk about shutting down the government if that s what it took to get this wall built. it s like pulling teeth. getting these guys to get it done is and you have no idea how tough i ve been. and i say hey, if you have a shutdown you have a shutdown. but whether it s before or after. but i actually think it s a great campaign issue. i think it would be great before. steve cortes, shutdown good. why? i totally agree. look, i think it s both good policy and good politics. good policy because the president ran on this as his signature issue. it is perhaps the foremost reason that he won the presidency, and it s a promise he made to the american people. in terms of policy, for weeks, chris, we ve been talking about the terrible situation we ve had down at the border particularly as it regards children and families entering illegally. guess what? a wall solves 95% of those problems at the border if we only have guarded accessible points of entry where we can control what happens down there. but secondly, and this is on the political side, i think quite frankly the republicans are in trouble. the democrats are clearly favored to take the house right now. history argues that. present polling argues that. one way, though, to crystallize the president s coalition, the deplorables, and get them excited that president trump is back on the ballot is to give the congress an up or down choice. the congress loves to equivocate and bloviate. we need to make it very simple for them. you either fund this wall that the american people voted for or we re going to shut government down. ana, what happens if there s a shutdown politically? first of all, the republicans take the blame. i mean, i m almost tempted to say great, go ahead, do a government shutdown because i think it will be so politically costly. it s impossible to think that anybody other than the republicans would take the blame when you have a republican house, a republican senate, and a republican president. look, i remember back when there was the entire shutdown debate and shutdown when obama was president. and it was the republicans who took the blame. so it s not a good look for a republican party that has the entire power and the entire package to not be able to function properly. also, chris, it s so look, donald trump likes to flex his muscle. right? he likes to do things that he can do on his own. he likes to impose tariffs. he likes to give out pardons. he likes to show that he is a powerful macho man that s got all this political power and policy power and can make changes and there s all these republicans in congress begging him and he s being the magnanimous guy. but listen, it is very cavalier i think for a very rich guy who spends so much time at his golf clubs and jetting around to his own properties to throw out the idea of a government shutdown so carelessly. the people who get hurt in a government shutdown are the government workers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck. the first ones that start getting furloughed are people like park rangers, people who are low on the totem pole, on the bureaucratic totem pole, and it inflicts a lot of pain on a lot of people in america including a lot of families. forgive me if i don t feel sorry for government workers. the five richest counties in america by income are all in the washington, d.c. metro area. there s a reason for that. it s because washington, d.c. and the establishment crony swamp has siphoned the wealth and prosperity of the american people for its own benefits and it s done that for decades. that s the reason donald trump was elected. and if the government non-essential services need to be shut down, it s already happened twice this year, it wasn t armageddon, if that needs to happen again so they can finally get it through their thick heads on capitol hill that the american people vote ford a wall and demand a wall steve. then that s what we need to do. steve, what did it cost nothing looks more like a swamp than donald trump s cabinet. okay? if you want to talk about people siphoning off money. do you think that park rangers who work around the country are making six figures? do you think they are making what betsy devos or wilbur ross make? on one day? they re not. and they re going to suffer. and they ve got to feed their families. so it s very cavalier and it s very nice, you know, to throw out the entire drain the swamp line and all of this stuff. but there s very real people. some of whom, by the way, are probably trump supporters. who are going to feel a lot of pain in their pocketbook. steve, what do you think the 2013 shutdown cost? i don t know the number. and neither does the president, i would guess. right? $20 billion. .3 percentage points in gross domestic product. federal government had to pay additional interest on payments that were late because of the shutdown. hundreds of patients were prevented from enrolling in clinical trials at the national institutes of health. $4 billion in tax refunds were delayed. you really think this comes for free? chris, do you think a porous border comes for free? do you think that s cheap? i think you re conflating two things. if you don t like one thing, why would you hurt me with something else? and the number i let go of before i wanted to wait for ana to speak first. 95%? why don t you say jiggagillion percent? because it s as accurate as saying 95%. you don t know at all what percentage difference a border wall would make on who comes across and what kind of problems we would have. you don t have any basis for that number that you said. what we know right now yeah. is that what we re doing isn t working. no, 95% better? that s like where is that coming from? yes, i believe that. oh, that s what you believe. oh, i m sorry. i didn t know that. it s not as though i just pulled it out of thin air. yeah, you did. look at where walls work. places like israel. like what, china? like the great wall of china? most of the drugs i m not talking about that. that we re worried about in this country come either from overseas shipments and the cartel, which i had the misfortune to spend all this time with doing this el chapo documentary. they did the majority of it through tunnels. you know, you guys make up this b.s. to make people think that the wall we re a wall away from no one ever getting in again. this isn t game of thrones, steve. why talk that nonsense? chris, it will not to mention that he s not going to by the way, you don t have to take my word for it. you can take my experts word for it. 95%. nobody says 95%. i was there with them. watching them. humanely deal with people who come across. dealing with body after body of desperate people trying to make it across because the process doesn t allow them in. they can t make it their legal way. nobody says 95%. that s not true. tom holman it s a waste. tom holman who is the former head of i.c.e., said again and again what a difference a border wall would make. the border patrol officers association nobody said 95%, period. ana, make your final point. obviously, that s my educated guess the final point is not only will it put 95% is not an educated guess. it s nonsense. it s hyperbole. yes, it is. ana, go ahead. why is your opinion more valid than my opinion? i ll tell you why in a second. go ahead. oh, jesus i m saying go ahead. not only will it put pain on the people of america, it will put a hell of a lot of pain on republicans who are in purple districts like the one i live in. that s the reason that a paul ryan and a mitch mcconnell don t want this to happen before the election or after the elections, because they are going to look like a bunch of dysfunctional boobs incapable of getting anything done and they are going to lose even more seats because people in ileana ros-lehtinen s district who are going to have vote for a new candidate, people in carlos corbello s district and so many purple districts are going to make someone pay for the dysfunction in washington. last word to you. and the reason that i get to check it that way is because the burden of proof is on you. you said the number. i don t have to justify it s wrong. you have to justify it s right. your opinion my number is wrong is no better than my 100%. because you have no basis for it. send me proof of 95%. you sending me a basis dinner s on me. i don t need a basis because i hope we find out because if we get the wall we ll find out. i hope we find out if i m right, not on my watch. we deal with facts here. you send me the number dinner s on me. i m saying i hope because i want the wall. everybody wants the border to be more secure. i m saying you don t have to lie about facts to get it. and i m out of time. ana, i ll always buy you dinner. steve, you have to prove the 95 first. robert mueller, let s turn to him. he has been scouring president trump s tweets for possible proof of a pattern, proof of intent. now, some will say oh, tweets, dismiss them. no. it s never been the case. they matter. now, did the president just hand him some damaging evidence? we re going to get back to our top story with a former senior aid to the president s campaign. michael caputo. you know a wall isn t going to be a 95% improvement to who comes across the border. come on. [upbeat music] now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller i m gonna follow the sun now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller i m gonna follow the sun transitions™ light under control™ so chances are, you ve seen us around the house. transitions™ or. around the yard. on the shelf. or even. out in the field. your mom knew she could always count on us. and your grandma did too. because for over 150 years, we ve been right by your side. advancing the health of the people, plants and pets you love. so, from all of us at bayer. thank you for trusting in us. then. and now. with tripadvisor, finding your perfect hotel at the lowest price. is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates. 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 i knew at that exact moment . i m beating this. my main focus was to find a team of doctors. it s not just picking a surgeon, it s picking the care team and feeling secure in where you are. visit cancercenter.com/breast chicken! that s right, chicken?! candace new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! obstruction versus opinion. let s dig into the president s tweets with michael caputo, former aide to the trump presidential campaign. always good to see you. thank you for joining us. hey, thanks for having me, chris. all right. so make the case. they re just opinions. they shouldn t really matter to anybody. why? i think words have consequences, words really do matter. that s why when the president used the word should instead of the word must i think anybody examining his tweets for evidence of obstruction will have just as much luck as they are having trying to find collusion on the campaign. it s not there. it s the president s opinion. he doesn t suspend his first amendment rights when he takes the oath of office. but it is different when he says something like that than if you or i do. would you agree with that? no, the word should has a meaning. for the president or for you, chris. it s should, not must. i understand the difference between the words. thank you for pointing it out, mr. strunk & white. what i m saying is this is one tweet that is one among many that has shown a clear intention by this president to want the probe ended. and when you look at the tweets as a suggestion of a state of mind of his intentions and you put it into context with the things that he has done, is it any surprise that the mueller investigators want to talk to the president about obstruction of justice? i m not surprised at all. i also won t be surprised if they ll find no proof of obstruction in his tweets just like they ve found zero proof of collusion in his campaign. you know what? all along, chris, i ve thought that the mueller investigation should, you know, work its way out and find its way to an end. but i m with the president now. this thing needs to be shut down. it s been two years. we know that paul manafort in a very questionable fisa warrant, were going on even before that investigation, even before paul was on the campaign. this has been going on long enough. there s zero proof of any collusion. we re not going to have any. and looking at his tweets for obstruction is not what this is about. this is about collusion on the campaign. we are not finding anything why of the sort and we re never going to find it. let s just step through this stuff a little bit. manafort is what it is. we have to see what they have. they re going to trial right now. so always there was a sufficiency met legally there. in terms of duration, by what standard is this too long? i can tell you as somebody who s been in and around many federal investigations, they take a long time. and sometimes they never end. so i don t know that duration is indicative of anything in this case. but then oh, the tweets, as if the tweets are somehow inconsequential how long is long enough, chris? i m saying all i know is we don t know that duration has a certain scale when it comes to investigations. they looked at clinton much longer than this is five years long enough, chris? is ten years long enough? did you complain about the length of the probe against bill clinton? no. why? you liked it. now you don t like it. looking back on that now now. of course you do now. sitting where i sit now i look back on it, i never supported the investigation of bill clinton over his personal life. and i think the special counsel law itself needs to be changed well, there is none now. people s lives being destroyed by this. we don t have that statute in place right now, which is why so much is unclear about what a president can and cannot do. but dismissing the tweets, michael, i don t get it. i ve always been a big buyer of the president s tweets. they are statements, official statements from the president of the united states. how he decides to speak, what language and forethought he decides to use is up to him. but they matter, michael. no doubt words matter, chris. and nobody knows that better than the president of the united states. i ll tell you what, if the president offends the delicate sensibilities of the liberal left no, it s about the truth. it s not about liberal it s about saying it s free speech what he says, he can give his opinion whenever he wants, this is america we heard from sarah sanders. but not when you re an official who he doesn t like. then you accuse him of politicizing a process, which is exactly what the president s doing. and you want to pull their clearances. so when he does it, the president, it s okay no, no. not at all, chris. it s just free speech. but whenever these intel guys do it, pull their clearances they re politicizing it, they re a disgrace. talk about a double standard. give me a break, michael. well, i ll tell you what. the same men who we are all on the trump side supporting we pull their clearances are the ones who were trying to stop the president from winning the election and then now people who were involved in the intelligence agencies, the intelligence community are trying to get rid of the president. these people who have these top secret security clearances should have them pulled because the administration is never going to ask their opinion on anything. anything. that is on at the end of the day the president s tweet says the word should, not must. i understand it says should. but it s about context lint in our navels here. hold on, i m not saying the tweet is dispositive of anything. i m saying it s suggestive of something and that s why they want to look at it. and if the president didn t tweet this way and were more careful with his words you and i would be spending more time personally and not professionally. i ve got to go. i m out of time. michael caputo i m wonder field goal you re going to buy me dinner too, chris. well, you say something as dumb as 95% safer if we build the wall you ll get the dinner too. because i m as tight as two coats of paint and i know i m not paying on that bet. but i ll always take you to dinner. you re a good man and be well. there were only three white house briefings last month. why? because they don t like dealing with the media and dealing with the tough questions. they prefer their rallies. but sarah sanders was at the podium today just in time to answer questions about her boss s eye-popping tweet. we re going to show you how that went and what it means to you, next. my car smells good. it s these new fresh-fx car air fresheners from armor all. each scent can create a different mood in my car. like tranquil skies. armor all, it s easy to smell good. we re going to have changes in our environment, and have a negative impact to hawaii s economy. verizon provided us a solution using smart sensors on their network that lets us collect near real time data on our power grid. 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(shelee) if we can create our own energy, we can take care of this beautiful place that i grew up in. let s bring in don lemon for a second here. i want to get his take on something. what do you have for me? he was on last night. he s a gamer. he supports the president. he brings it. hear something he said we ve been talking about the terrible situation we ve had at the border particularly as it regards children and families entering illegally. a wall solves 95% of the problems. you know where he gets that number? yes. well, i m glad you used your ear. because some people would say somewhere else. i was looking down as i was listening to that. trying to do a little bit of research here, one of the bigger problems where immigration is people who overstay their visas. in 2016, i think it was 629,000 people overstayed their visas. those countries are mostly european countries. this whole thing about the border is in crisis, there are a lot of europeans who are here illegally, they shouldn t be here. what s the point? we know we have problems they re going to have to deal with that with these calls to abolish iris and everything else our whole deal is because of instances like this. no personal disrespect to steve i understand what he s doing but they just throw stuff out there, and the president is the master of it, and then it becomes true because it feels right. if we can t get straight on the facts, we ll never get straight on what to do. that sort of behavior led to this whole qanon movement. conspiracy theorists, the president picks up on that they get riled up, and facts don t really matter any more. we ll be discussing that. why did the president change from 13 angry democrats to 17. 17 is the qanon number. he talks about the democrats on the mueller investigation mueller s a republican. i ll be watching you and i ll tee you up for that now and see you about it later. see you. be well, don. don t want you to forget about a story, black man left dead last month in florida. a new development part of our closing argument next. remember this video? it intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts on each side to keep you both comfortable. and snoring? how smart is that? smarter sleep. to help you lose your dad bod, train for that marathon, and wake up with the patience of a saint. the new sleep number 360 smart bed, from $999. smarter sleep will change your life. man: are unpredictable crohn s symptoms following you everywhere? it s time to take back control with stelara®. for adults with moderately to severely active crohn s disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission with dosing every 8 weeks. woman: stelara® may lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flu-like symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. some serious allergic reactions can occur. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. man: are you fed up with crohn s symptoms following you? talk to your doctor today, and learn how janssen can help you explore cost support options. remission can start with stelara®. cost support options. our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. (buzzer sound) holiday inn express. be the readiest. it didn t warrant an arrest. deadly violence doesn t have to be the last resort. and fairness under the law goes from light to dark as skin shade does the same. here are the basic facts. michael was upset that brittany parked in a disabled spot. her boyfriend came outside and this happened. you re going to see him a moment later, we don t know what was said. he s shot in the chest and dies from the wound. here s the pinellas county sheriff explaining his reasoning yesterday. my decision not to arrest, is because florida law creates a situation where someone is immune from arrest if their conduct is arguably within the parameters of stand your ground, look at the law, the law says the law enforcement may not arrest. look at florida statute 776.032. he s leaving out the part of the statute that says probable cause is still a standard for law enforcement like that sheriff. the burden of proof shifts to the prosecutor to show self-defense wasn t in play. of this law may be the crown jewel of the nra efforts. now you ve got two dozen states with some various form of this. but the bar for an arrest, that s the point i want you to get here, it didn t change, that s in the law too. there was probable cause the sheriff didn t think that that standard was met, why? the law is not color-blind, even with this ridiculously low standard. the system is still harder on blacks. the good news is, the state is new looking at this case, so should you here s why. everything about the situation is too casual. prosecutors have a higher burden, that s what the state law says, he s not the prosecutor. this assumption and standard that it s okay has to be examined. if we reach a point where a shove results in a gunshot death. it just so happens that the shooter is white and the victim is black, and the law makes it so easy to justify. so much so, that the sheriff doesn t think an arrest is worth it. is that justice defined as fairness under the law? is that who we want to be.
dropping. when you realize how big and how much of an effort now that the fbi is taking on in trying to sort of disrupt some of this. the american public has to have confidence in the voting process in this country, josh campbell, and you say seeing all of those intel chiefs was a great step. absolutely. we heard a lot of specifics here today. but there s also there symbolic effort which is so important for the american people to see. this united front. seeing the intelligence chiefs standing there and telling the american people we take this threat seriously. those of us who cover the intelligence community know they take it seriously but the public has to hear it. there are too many challenges they are focusing on. physical infrastructure security, the voting systems, ensuring confidence in those systems. but then also countering these foreign influence operation sway her can y herculean task. even if no vote is changed, if foreign adversaries can persuade the american people that their vote wasn t counted it will sow that kind of chaos that we saw in 2016. this is a great step today. but, it s great to see these intel chiefs and hear them come out and say from that podium the threat is real. adjudicati juxtapose that from sarah huckabee sanders and the president it s almost like you have two foreign policies and trump trumps his own administration. think back to helsinki and what the president said or didn t say. it seems incongruous to what we just heard. that s why this is so important. we ve seen mixed messages from the white house and the president himself. people are going to now look at that and then try to compare that to having these intelligence chiefs who spent their lives in public service working on these important issues standing there having the fbi director call out frush the podium of the white house and say they are a threat. again that continued confidence that the public needs to know. even if the white house will play politics with the issue they can find confidence in the intelligence community taking it seriously. gentlemen, thank you so much. with me now, the former attorney general under president george h. w. bush and the dean at belmont college of law and author of true faith and allegiance. a pleasure to have you on, sir. welcome. thank you. so seeing all those intelligence chiefs standing up there, despite what the president may say, do you see this as a turning point in efforts to battle election interference? well, let me be clear and i think to reassure your viewers, the intelligence community has been working diligently, even before this press conference in addressing this challenge by russia. this has been a very important challenge to the united states, to our system of government, to our way of life and so they ve been on the case, and i regret the fact it s taken so long for them to have this press conference but i m very confident that this is something that they ve been focused on for quite some time. i think part of the challenge we have here is we have the president who is not precise in terms of describing what he refers to when he talks about a witch-hunt. i would like to think he s only referring to this notion, this investigation that he somehow cooperated with russia in connection with the 2016 election, and that he s not referring to the actual investigation by the mueller team into russian meddling. it s the second thing which is v-very important and which i think today members of the intelligence community highlighting to american people they are focused on it and working against. you see it as the president not being precise. you, sir, with all of your experience inside of an administration, what do you make of this obvious divide between the president and his intelligence chiefs and due agree that it s playing into precisely what vladimir putin wants? well i think confusion and chaos and uncertainty and perhaps even fear is something that putin is driving towards and i think that in many ways he s achieving that. the divide, again, may relate solely to the fabricate that president trump is focused on whether or not this investigation is focused on collusion between the campaign and the russian government and for whatever reason he refuses to acknowledge the fact that a very important component of the mueller investigation is into election meddling by russia. sit second part which i think is vitally important and which is high liked today. stay with me sir, i have so much for you just about the president s attacks on his own i m all about my bed. this mattress is dangerously comfortable. when i get in, i literally say ahh. introducing the leesa mattress. a better place to sleep. the leesa mattress is designed to provide strong support, relieve pressure and optimize air flow to keep you cool. today is gonna be great. read our reviews then try the leesa mattress in your own home. order now and get $150 off, and free shipping, too. go to buyleesa.com today. you need this bed. [upbeat music] now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller i m gonna follow the sun now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller transitions™ light under control™ it starts out in the park, in my johnsonville commercial, and a family is grilling johnsonville brats. one of the kids asks, where are johnsonville brats made? and the mom says, johnsonville brats are made in the usa. all of a sudden, the fire department storms in, yelling, johnsonville brats are made in the usa! the teachers come. the mayor comes. you won t believe it: lady liberty shows up. she s going, johnsonville brats are made in the usa! we re back. you re watching cnn. i m brooke baldwin. special counsel robert mueller is offering the president a compromise. mueller suggesting he would cut the number of obstruction of justice questions. he wants the president to answer those questions in person. the president s lawyers offered written answers to obstruction questions. the trump legal team wanted the sit down interview limited to things that happened before he took office mainly related to the collusion piece of mueller s probe. this is happening just one day after the president said his attorney general should the end russia investigation. so back with me former attorney general alberto gonzales. and so mr. attorney general the president s tweet from yesterday. the white house says whoa, whoa, that was an opinion, not an order to the ag, that trump wrote the word should and not must. do you think it crossed a line? i m not sure that it did given the past statements by the president. everyone knows that s the president s opinion and he would like to see this ended and everyone knows the president has ways to end this investigation if he wanted to. one of the thing i worry about, quite honor festally, by the contact whining is it makes the president look weak the fact that he keeps saying this investigation should be over. rod rosenstein should end it. attorney general sessions should do something. the president is the head of the executive branch. all these individuals work within the executive branch as does the special counsel and to continue to complain about it, to me just makes the president look weak and it s very unfortunate. i think as a general matter it s unfortunate for the president to be speaking about his attorney general in this way, to be speaking about any investigation. i think he needs to allow the investigation to move forward. and if he does that, bob mueller will end the investigation and it will be over and we ll all know, you know, exactly what happened in connection with the 2016 presidential election. okay. so the president complaining and whining and we know he wants this thing to end. you were once the ag. put yourself in jeff sessions shoes. you read the president s tweet. what do you do? do you ignore the president? this is not the first time the president has made this kind of complaint against the attorney general either directly or indirectly. i m assuming the first time it happened jeff sessions had a private conversation with the president. they reached some kind of understanding. now jeff sessions is probably immune to it. as far as he s concerned he s carrying out the president s agenda and most critics and supporters of president trump believe this is probably one of the most effective cabinet members in carrying out president trump s agenda and so long as he s doing that jeff sessions is quite comfortable serving as the attorney general and taking these barbs. we ve had somebody reporting this week the president is worried the democrats could take back the house depending which way the mid-terms go and in the the end president s fate will be determined not by robert mueller but by members of congress. so with that in mind here is the president s attorney rudy giuliani. i have to say this, and i say this in my role not as a lawyer but as a concerned citizen and republican that this election is going to be about impeachment or no impeachment. he s right. i mean is he correct that anything mueller finds will ultimately be up to congress to sort of jurors in congress? well, i think there is a very serious question as to whether or not a president can even be prosecuted and that s certainly the position that the department of justice as far as that i understand, and there are limits in terms of even with how far you can go. that s why you see robert mueller negotiating trying to get an interview with the president, even if it s limited. so at the end of the day i think what you re likely to see here is robert mueller coming up with findings and even though he may not be able to prosecute the president and believes the president engaged in wrongdoing those findings will be provide to congress and then up to donetsk decide whether or not these crimes reach the level of impeachment. giuliani also said trump would be walking in to a perjury trap speak of this potential interview with mueller, walking into a perry trap if he agrees to do this interview in person. what would suggest to you hearing that. would that suggest his client that s something to hide or he s doing his job and has his client s back. it could mean the president has something to mean. i want could also mean the president is undisciplined and says things, you know, off the cuff you think and not thinking much about that. he s worried about that because obviously bob mueller and his team have interviewed a lot of people in connection with russian meddling. and so president trump may say something off the cuff. but, again, there s a serious question as to whether or not the president could even be indicted for perjury. but he, could, of course be subject to impeachment if robert mueller finds possible perjury and defierce his findings to congress. last question despite what we re hearing from trump s attorneys he says essentially bring it on, he wants to do this interview with the mueller team. what do you think that is? is this hubris? is that naivete. a smoke screen? i don t know president trump. he s so different from the president i served. i m not in a position to answer that question. who knows. who knows is right. alberto gonzales former u.s. attorney general. thank you for being on. coming up next paul manafort s landscaper on the scanned today testifying about nearly half a million dollars he got from an offshore bank account. details from this federal courthouse today. ahead president trump compares manafort to al capone. there s quite a few similarities between the mob boss and trump himself. you might take something for your heart. or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. chicken! that s right, chicken?! candace new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! it to your door for you to enjoy. sleep on it f hundred nights and love it! or you ll get a full refund. returns are free and easy. i love my leesa. today is gonna be great. read our reviews then try the leesa mattress in your own home. order now and get $150 off, and free shipping, too. go to buyleesa.com today. you need this bed. to the paul manafort trial day three. the trial of the president s former campaign chief sounding a bit like the lifestyles of rich and fap mouse. manafort facing 18 couldn t of tax evasion and a banking fraud. today landscaper testified he paid half a million dollars to maintain the grounds at one of manafort s seven homes. manafort s home in the hampton s has a massive upon, big waterfall and some massive red and white flower bed in the shape of an bed. an $18,000 ostrich coat. robert mueller s prosecutors fighting to show photos like these to the jury. so far this judge here, judge ellis saying no, that essentially being wealthy is not a crime. this shouldn t be about his lavish lifestyle. today manafort s long time bookkeeper took the stand testifying no, 14 times in a row, that she did not know about manafort s 14 offshore shell company bank accounts. also today mueller s star witness rick gates could testify we hear as early as tomorrow. gates is manafort s long time business part and a deputy in the trump campaign. on the topic of manafort, why is president trump using his name in the same sentence with notorious mobster al capone? he s done it several times. trump tweeting, looking back on history, who was treated worse, alfonso capone, legendary mob boss killer and public enemy number one or paul manafort political operative and reagan/dole arlington now serving solitary confinement although convicted of nothing. the fbi didn t think there was lining with paul manafort who really is a nice man. you look at what s going on with him. it s like al capone. daily beast special columnist michael daly with me. always a pleasure. thanks. why the heck do you think trump is comparing manafort to al capone? that s a question i ask myself. did you get an answer? even though capone grew up about six blocks away from where manafort has his broken stone. that s even crazy. does trump know that? no. that can t be. i thought he s saying that manafort success treated worse than al capone. right? now to me, if i was manafort, i would be thinking he s telling me he can pardon me. this is a reason for me to pardon me. if manafort gets convicted before he starts singing to anybody trump can say this is terrible, he s being treated worse than al capone i m going pardon him. you re the second person in 24 hours who said the same thing. something else came to me. you know, woodward, bob woodward the washington post kwauquote trump that power ultimately comes from. trump says i don t want to say the word then he says fear. al capone back in the day is quoted by his nephew as saying his organization was based on fear. and i don t know if trump knows that capone said that but trump could look at a guy like capone and he s dealt with a lot of like capone successors and all based on fear. talk about that. you paint this picture of donald trump and new york city in the 80s and, you know, this teamster was a john cody, mob connected teamster mob boss, everything came to a screeching halt except one place trump tower. every construction site was shut down and cody said so. so, all of a sudden trump could see the whole city, could see fear causing the entire city shut down except for him. so that s where he saw power. and it s kind of interesting that trump was at one point called to the organized crime strike force in brooklyn to answer questions about his relationship with cody. and the prosecutors are there. they got it figured he ll show up with five lawyers. no. trump arrives and walks alone down the hallway. no lawyers. i talked to one prosecutor who goes what? it s one thing if you grab some guy off the street that doesn t have two nickles. trump has got his whole life goes with lawyers. one time he doesn t go for a lawyer he goes to answer questions. he goes by himself and he sits down with a notably tough prosecutor and the thing that s really interesting is that he apparently did a really good job. he apparently answered the questions. he apparently didn t panic or perjure himself. he knew how to like always tell the truth but don t always be telling it. let s see how, you know, you talk about how fear is factoring into michael cohen s world and who knows how fear will factor into paul manafort s world. telling truth and nothing but the truth with regard to this president. michael daly thank you so much. next the first daughter ivanka trump taking the opposite view of her father on family separations, and also saying that the media is not the enemy of the people. we ll discuss why, though, she has stayed so quiet until now. led gears of his finances starting back in 2012 when he was rolling in cash from his clients in ukraine, making about $1.9 million in 2012 and then fast forward to 2016 when he was practically broke. he lost $1.1 million, he was $1.1 million in the hole. at one point he was in danger of losing his health insurance he was emailing asking for $120,000 so she could pay his bill including his property taxes. they really paint a picture, the bookkeeper does and prosecutors are painting a picture of paul manafort losing his golden goose which was the ukrainian government which had lost power in 2014 and then suddenly in early 2016 he s really practically broke and this is about the time that he decides to offer his services to candidate donald trump. as you remember he worked for donald trump s campaign practically for free. he didn t take a salary while he was working for the campaign. so the campaign and donald trump obviously is not a part of this trial, but this is what the prosecutors are trying to do is trying to show how paul manafort was manage the money and that he was using nefarious means to hide the fact he didn t have any money and to commit bank fraud and to hide money from the irs over the years. wow. so under this umbrella of this mueller investigation i got a separate piece of news just coming in to us that he really is continuing to push to interview this russian pop star who encouraged that trump tower meeting. this pop star may hold a lot of the answers? right. i think by now robert mueller has talked to almost everybody who was in that very key trump tower meeting in june of 2016. and now we learn that the father and son, the pop star in russia, who you mentioned was encouraging, was behind the idea of encouraging this meeting with donald trump jr. and robert mueller s team is still asking for an interview. apparently these negotiate nego have bern going on for well over a year. and we re told by his lawyer those negotiations are still ongoing. don t know if there s a deal or not. what this tells us the robert mueller investigation, obviously there s still some key pieces that they are trying to put together. we now know, obviously, that they are still trying to work on an interview with the president, but as far as that trump tower meeting which was a key part of this investigation, they really still want to talk to the two key figures, the two russian key figures who were a part of that, brooke. all right, evan perez thank you so much in alexandria. staying in washington here, ivanka trump the president s daughter and officially his special assistant breaking ranks today on the separation of immigrant children from their parents by her father s administration. that was a low point for me as well. i feel very strongly about that, and i am very vehemently against family separation. and the separation of parents and children. moments ago the white house was asked to respond to ivanka trump s statement that this was a low point. the president himself has stated that he doesn t like idea of family separation. i don t think anybody does. we also don t like idea of open borders, we don t like the idea of allowing people in our country if we don t know who they are, where they are going and why they are coming. the president wants to secure our borders which is why he asked congress to fix the law. we haven t been unclear about what our position is here. let s go to kate bennett our cnn white house reporter and a correspondent for new york magazine who has written extensionively about ivanka trump. kate, first to you. on this immigration policy, the policy is long done. separations between the parents and the children has already happened. so why didn t she speak up when this policy was actually being made? i think that s the mystery, brooke in her role as senior adviser and what we all thought when she went into the white house being the voice for women and children, the heart issues. the new york times reported back in june she did bring it up with her father at the time, but by contrast i just want to mention melania trump had already tweeted the tweet about governing with heart and booked her first trip to texas to the border to see it before we even heard from ivanka. i think she gets criticism with this complicit word and she has since the beginning of her father s administration for a number of reasons whether that s fair or unfair, this certainly bringing thunder and saying how vehemently she opposed it but there s no tangible evidence of that opposition. another reason why people question what she does behind-the-scenes and how influential she is with her father. i want to play one other clip and olivia i want to talk to you. ivanka trump says she doesn t believe that the media is the enemy of the people despite her father s insistence otherwise. first i have to ask you, do you think that we re the enemy of the people. sorry? we re the enemy of the people. no, i do not. [ laughter ] is that a view shared in your family. you re looking for me to elaborate? sure. no, i don t. i certainly i certainly have i can share my own personal perspective. i ve certainly received my fair share of recording on personally i know not to be fully accurate. so i ve had some, i have some sense sensitivity or concerns around people who feel targeted but no i do not feel that the media is the enemy of the people. first let s just say, thank you ivanka trump because that s something her father has not been able to say, sarah huckabee sanders has not been able to say when jim acosta was asking her to say it at the briefing a minute ago, but also she seemed so surprised or taken aback by the laughter in the audience. again i ask the question what has taken her so long to say this? there aren t that many opportunities for ivanka trump to be publicly asked questions like this. it s not as though she s on the talk circuit. she s not sitting down with magazines and newspapers all the time. she has a very controlled public persona. this is a pretty rare thing to see her in a setting like this being questioned by journalists rather than from someone like dr. oz. that s why i think we haven t gotten a response from her like this before. i don t know if we should thank her. i don t think the bar should be that low where people get praised for something that s obvious. but i do think this is probably a reason why she is not typically out there being questioned by journalists. when she s asked questions like this with an obvious answer for a sane human being she does sometimes, i guess, believe things that are in opposition to what her father believes and what the administration believes. but i don t think that she really did stand in opposition to what trump has said about the child separation policy. she said that she opposed it. as you know in the previous conversation there s no evidence of that, it s been a month since that policy ended. there s still i think 700 children who have not been reunited with their families. but her language on it was not actually that different from what trump himself said. so i think sarah huckabee sanders was trying to conflate a few things, as the white house has said previously that it was not their policy or not a policy at all whatever that means, but i think that even as she was saying she opposed it, she really didn t say anything that suggested that she did anything to change it. just lastly, i ve just been curious, kate, do you think that ivanka trump is laying the ground work for some sort of political future? i do. i don t think i don t have reporting on this but i talked to a number of people who know her, her ambitions are not secret. she wants to do everything. have a brand. be in the white house. be a working mom. be a pillar of society. i don t think it s beyond the realm of possibilities that these sort of safe as olivia said not doing a lot of interviews, answers, she s not wading too much into these issues meaning she might be lining herself up for something in the future. thank you both so much. thank you. coming up next the trump administration weighing in on an idea to stop screening at more than 150 smaller airports across the country. a lot of experts calling the idea dangerous, so we ll talk to a information tsa training specialist to get his take. we know a thing or two because we ve seen a thing or two. we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum so let s promote our summer travel deal on choicehotels.com like this. surfs up. earn a $50 gift card when you stay just twice this summer. or, badda book. badda boom. book now at choicehotels.com until i held her. managing my type 2 diabetes wasn t my top priority. i found my tresiba® reason. now i m doing more to lower my a1c. i take tresiba® once a day. tresiba® controls blood sugar for 24 hours for powerful a1c reduction. 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(giggles) get symbicort free at saveonsymbicort.com. if you can t afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. tasked with making sure none of us bring a shampoo bottle bigger than three ounces. tsa is considering stopping screenings. passengers luggage would be checked once they arrive at a major airport. and if you are wondering we have been doing this for so long why would this change? let s put those questions to a couple of experts. a cnn terrorism analyst and a former tsa training specialist. thank you so much. paul, we are so used to going through the machines and shampoo bottles and everything else. why would they want to change this? how would this be anything more than wanting to cut costs at quote lower risk airports? it is stunning that they are considering this. al qaeda and isis consider to see commercial aviation as a priority target. that includes 50 person passenger jets. isis has told supporters in the west attack any target big or small. if they were able to blow a 50-person passenger jet from the sky from one of the small airports where they are proposing to have no screening then you would have a lot of panic and big economic impact and very significant loss of life. they say that 9/11 was a failure of imagination to anticipate. we don t need a lot of imagination to see that without screening at these airports you could have greater opportunity to take control of an aircraft. of course, we saw what happened on 9/11. on 9/11 where some of these hijackers came from a small airport in maine on into boston on to reeking terror in this country. to you, paul, what is the alternative? if you take all of these screening devices away from the smaller airports what would we have instead? we don t know what that looks like yet. we are seeing a reduction in a move to save $115 million that impacts about 10,000 passengers a day. 115 million. so over the tsa budget of several billion dollars, it s a small amount of money. the challenge here is to see how much risk we are willing to take 17 years beyond 9/11. when we look at the risk overall we know that aviation is still a hot bed for attacks. we know that not just locally or nationally. we know that globally. it is interesting to see the tsa move to this position and even consider it. to me this looks like we are just so far beyond 9/11 that we are starting to beget the pain and anguish that was caused. i couldn t find this. can you give me another example other than saving money why the tsa would want to do this? no. this is pure risk. they are looking at the risk calculation and saying how much risk is in the smaller airports. these are the smaller airports that go to connecting flights. it s just looking at risks and saying there is a great reduction of risk there. let s reallocate that money and that staffing to higher risk airports. how would that not be telegraphing to the terrorists what airports would be vulnerable? last question. it would absolutely be telegraphing that very fact. al qaeda and isis have been doing a lot of r&d into laptop bombs and shoe bombs. if you don t have screening you don t need these sophisticated devices to bring down an aircraft. rudimentary explosives could be brought on board. it could just be an extremist inspired by isis who perhaps goes on to the internet and learns how to build these kind of bombs. there are investigations into jirj jihadi activity in all 50 states. if the vulnerability is there they will go after it. thank you so much for coming on. coming up next, it was a show of force at the white house. intelligence chiefs all warning that russia right this very moment is trying to attack the mid term slaekzs. they were also questioned on why the message from the president seems to be so different from what they put forth. we have those details ahead. it or neupogen (filgrastim). an incomplete dose could increase infection risk. ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems allergic reactions, kidney injuries and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. in patients with sickle cell disorders, serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. the most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. if you d rather be home, ask your doctor about neulasta onpro. pay no more than $25 per dose with copay card. i knew at that exact moment . i m beating this. my main focus was to find a team of doctors. it s not just picking a surgeon, it s picking the care team and feeling secure in where you are. visit cancercenter.com/breast our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. 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Laura Ingraham shines a spotlight on everyday Americans and examines how their lives are affected by politics at the federal, state and local level. midterms. that is the focus of tonight s angle. now you probably heard this, traditionally, parties in power loses seats in the midterm elections. according to the latest quinnipiac poll, there are some troubling signs for republicans. but all is not lost. check this out. you have to understand what is at stake, among independents, a group that trump won by four points, republicans face a 17-point deficit as of now versus the democrats. among white women, a group trump won by nine points in 2016, they are now preferring democratic candidates by a 14-point margin. among voters, 65 and older, they prefer dems by a 14-point margin. look, there is no doubt that the left is energized and they are craving for power. but if the democratic party gains majority, either house of congress, they will try to turn? let s remember, should nancy pelosi repossess the speaker s gavel, you can bet that she will mier the country in endless investigations of the trump administration, and plunge us into a daily impeachment drama. no doubt about it. tonight, i have four recommendations to keep all of this from happening. number one: the republicans should be out, day in and day out, selling the trump economy. go across your districts and remind people that for his administration, its promises made, promises kept. the republican congress helped him along the way. the president promise peace and prosperity and that is what he delivered. he promised to hold china accountable, make nato countries pay their fair share. renegotiate nafta. and that is what he is doing. republicans promised to cut taxes and rollback onerous job killing regulations. and they did that, too. now this is why the democrats keep talking about other issues, talking about things like mueller or michael cohen, michael avenatti, stormy. by the democrats do that? because they have zero answers. to trump s success. they have no alternative except to go to the tangential, unimportant issues. now the president, because he gets out or tell a story, he understands the value of touting the economy as he did tonight in florida. we are setting records like never before, since the election, we have added 3.7 million new jobs. we are in the longest positive job growth streak in history. the african-american unemployment rate has reached the lowest level in history! history! sorry about this, women. but the unemployment rate has elections and republicans grip? educate voters on what the democrats have become. the democrats, let s face it, have gone totally nuts. then i want to abolish i.c.e. they believe people should not be able to use things like normal gender pronouns, that is offensive to democrats. they prefer that i guess we go to war with russia rather than supporting trump s diplomatic overtures to russia. they want to sanctuary cities from sea to shining sea. one guy even wrote a column, a democrat, about how we should have no borders at all. at least they are honest. they have a world where where illegal immigrants are protected while our citizens become an afterthought. so on the campaign trail, emphasize how the democrats are on the margins. they are the fringe. they are the radicals. they threaten individual libert liberty. this is the party now of regulation and speech codes. it s a party that is intolerant of any view but their own. they want to turn our entire trump was having that fun tonight and telling those stories. i was shaking hands with policeman in new york city and the first one came up to me and said, mr. president, i want to thank you so much. i said, what did i do? he said, my 401(k) is up 44% and to my wife thinks i am for the first time a financial genius. she is giving him all the credi credit. she said, darling, i love you so much. and he said, yes, i am great financial wizard. laura: the audience is laughing and having fun. that is what politics is all about. making people s lives better. connecting with the electorate. personalizing the narrative. that is with the president did tonight. he is out explaining why his policies are working. highlighting the results and the benefits for particular reasons of the country. i hope he goes to places, by the way, that he lost in the general election, or the vote was kind of close. don t be deterred by the protesters or their resistance mentality from traveling to places like california, illinois, colorado, and go back to wisconsin, go to michigan. to win over independent voters, and even some democrats, the president and the republicans have to take the wind out of the resistance s sales. this is best done by focusing on your results and offering more solutions without the histrionics or the side issues that will just be used to caricature you later on. and finally, if the president wants to do something in congress before the midterms, hey, i would push for a middle-class tax cuts. i know they are considering another capital gains tax cut but how about another middle-class tax cuts? make what you already passed, and is working, permanent, and expand the cuts you have in place. that puts the democrats totally on the defensive and on the that would happen. as a political strategy i m talking about winning at november to prevent the impeachment of this president dash i think it is really risky. it s really risky. why is it really risky? because with suburban women, with the independent voters, that is not really where they are. results matter. making their lives better matters. and with the president on the wall 100%, but if you will takeg down the government, the time to do that, that was last march when the whole omnibus spending bill debate was going on. right? that was in the president had the good instinct, it was in the morning he voted on it, the good instinct to veto it. the republicans made him change his mind had not come he didn t veto it. that was a time to take the sand. now it is too close to the election, the midterm election. it would also convey a sense of chaos. that is not with those independent voters want to see. they want a happy warrior president. they want the economic success is touted. they want to know who the democrats really are. they wanted steady as she goes. mr. president, keep the focus on the economy, like you did tonight, and your party cannot lose. remind voters that without a g.o.p. congress, your booming economy isn t sure to unravel. and then when it does unravel, it is going to give way to daily impeachment warfare on capitol hill. as for you republicans, who still don t really fully embrace the president s record, i have to say this, frankly, you don t deserve to win. for the rest of you, make these midterms just the start of something phenomenal. and that the angle. joining me now for reaction as john summers, a democrat and former communication director fy leader harry reid, and dan bongino, and every tv contributor and author of the forthcoming book, spygate: the attempted sabotage of donald j. trump. great to see both of you. all right, john, take it away. where do you think i went wrong with my four steps to holding the house and senate and on boarding impeachment? speaker you had a lot of stuff in there. you also had some stuff that i don t disagree with. i think when we talk about with the president needs to do, first of all, he s got to improve his approval rating. they are abysmal right now. his approval ratings are currently lower than richard nixon s work at this point in his presidency. he s got to take some steps to improve his approval rating. i would love to see the happy warrior tweet overnight. it would be a welcome change, i think laura: he was having fun tonight, jon. did you watch the rally? that he was having a great time. he was having a great time in front of his base. but the base isn t what he s going to need to enact. it s great he s got i believe 88% approval rating among his base but that won t win over as you are saying, independence and other people. what he s got to do is go back, and republicans need to do this, and democrats need to do it, we all need to be focusing on the people who the hardworking families, who elected trump into office. a notice where he has lost sigh. one way he can do that is to provide farmers relief from this terrible trade war that he started. laura: terrible trade war that s working. republican members of congress are begging for relief. laura: of course they are. they are used to big money from big lobbying organizations that want to keep the globalist going. dan bongino. the end, you know the drill. these were some of their predictions for the november elections coming up that we ve been hearing on tv from the usual suspects. let s watch. you see the makings of a democratic majority. figure the democrats have to win 21 seats to take control. i think it is a better than even chance at this point that it s going to happen. there is definitely a blue wave coming and we ve got to get ready for it and stop lying to ourselves. you are plugged into a lot of republicans. were they releasing behind-the-scenes? speaker they are saying, get off the beach. laura: okay, dan. first of all, most of those people hate trim, were wrong about the election in 2016, but now they are giving out the advice. your reaction? laura, these are the same people who printed in the washington post that trump had approximately a 0% chance of winning. that was an actual headline. one of the bylines. why would you write something so absurd? he obviously didn t have a 0% chance of winning. he speaks more to your animosity toward the person then i does your political acumen. now i just want to address something john says. i am always kind of weirded out by this, when people say trump s should focus more on the middle class when he just was responsible largely for tax cut that has filtered down to the middle class and now we are seeing the numbers. i get this a lot when i debate with democrats. they try to prod you with emotion, but they lose all of the facts and data. we just had the employment cost index. 2.8%. barack obama hovered around 2.2 present this entire time! he s at 2.8! trump is only been in office two years! we ve just seen an explosive growth, even an income tax revenue toward the government. we ve seen 4.1% gdp! recovering from eight disastrous years of barack obama. i think the middle class gets donald trump and i think, jon, i respect your analysis, i think you are way off there. if anybody sent up with the middle class, it it is trump. it s bigger approval rating would be way higher. but it s not. the middle-class tax cuts that you are talking about, yeah, some of them do trickle down to the middle class mother majority of those tax cuts actually benefit laura: those of the people to take pay all the gases, jon. the billion-dollar tax cut is pushing for today for rich people. laura: for everyone who has investments. how many people are invested in the stock market? if you are smart, if you are interested in in the stock mar. it s important for the republicans to take the high road. i would go for a middle-class tax cuts. you agree with me, dan bongino? i would push even further for those families under $100,000 income with three or four kids. i would cut them further. let the democrats be told that. they would support the middle-class tax cut, not another tax cut that would laura: a win-won for the country. i would like to see a five or six percentage point cut in the metal brackets that would affect would affect middle-class married families, no doubt about it. notice that jon spins it again. they do this all the time. they say, it will trickle down to the middle class. no, the middle class got an actual tax cuts. i know if you are i don t know if you are unfamiliar with how the tax cut works. maybe you should take check the data. laura: we are out of time. i will say this. the president gets about 55% approval on the economy. we ll see. a lot more to get to. ron desantis up next. big rally tonight. what happened behind-the-scenes? will tell you. don t go away. at bayer, our roots run deep. so chances are, you ve seen us around the house. or. around the yard. on the shelf. or even. out in the field. your mom knew she could always count on us. and your grandma did too. because for over 150 years, we ve been right by your side. advancing the health of the people, plants and pets you love. so, from all of us at bayer. thank you for trusting in us. then. and now. laura: president trump headline a wild rally in tampa, florida, this evening. a lot of my friends were there. making a push for his agenda and throwing his support, full throated support, behind florida congressman ron desantis gubernatorial bid. we are restoring american strength and american pride. this may be, in fact it probably is, the greatest movement in the history of our country. but you keep it going, we need to elect more republicans. we need more votes. and we need to elect ron desantis as your governor. laura: you wonder how you get chosen to sit behind the president? i want to know. [laughs] joining us now with more as congressman ron desantis. what an amazing night, congressman. i know you were on cloud nine because somehow, last month, when i was down there, you were down 15 points, and now you are up 12 points. again, poles can change. i m not saying we are not getting too confident here. but that is like a 27-point spring. what could possibly account for that, congressman? look, we had the president has been behind me but was more public toward the end of june. we had a big debate on fox news, which showed the distinctions between the two candidates, which was very important, not just the fact that i am supported by president trump in my opponent was fighting trump during the election, but also on some of these substantive issues that you and i have discussed, things like e-verify, being tough on illegal immigration come a big distinction there. but tonight, i think was just taking it to another level. laura, that whole arena was filled with people. there were thousands of people waiting outside that couldn t get in. there was a lot of electricity. those folks are fired up, ready to go, and florida is going to i think we will do well in florida and the midterms this year. laura: a lot of people are talking about, because of the horrible natural disaster in puerto rico, and a lot of people are moving into florida from puerto rico, a horrible situation. they have failed to personally deal with registering to vote, some of them weren t, they were going to a registered democrat. do you have a strategy for dealing with that because i understand that the democrats are moving on that front? obviously moving past the primary. visiting congresswoman from puerto rico has endorsed me. she s a republican. jennifer gonzalez. she s a good friend. that community in central florida is receptive to pro-jobs, promote economic growth, pro-education message. so we can do it. governor rick scott, his approval rating amongst that community in central florida is, like, 70% because he s worked very hard. he managed the hurricane, aftermath as well, and the maria aftermath, when you had folks that were leaving part of regular come to florida. we need to compete everywhere. laura: you just came out with an ad that you are getting some flack for. a lot of us think it s pretty adorable. we have to play it. let s watch. ron loves playing with the kids. build the wall. he reads stories. it s bigger than mr. trump said, you re fired. i love that part for you he s teaching madison to talk. make america great again. people say ron is all trump but he is so much more. bigly. so good. laura: some people don t have any sense of humor. what is your reaction tonight to that ad? some people think it s kind of goofy. i have already endorsed you, full disclosure. i d discourse to five years ago when you weren t announced yet. but what about that? the response has been overwhelmingly positive because in this business, you have to be able to take a step back, poke fun at yourself, have fun at this, and part of what makes me i think effective is that i have a wife that is my best friend and best supporter, we have a family, that is very important to both of us. we wanted to let voters know about that. we wanted to do it in a way that is not the typical cookie-cutter add to that no one pays attention to. so people who were getting upset about it, they have no sense of humor. i think that some people, it is just, like, the trump derangement syndrome, it sets in so much that they lose the ability to reason and have a laugh at some of the stuff. laura: first of all, i think your wife should run in the future. i m already five steps ahead of you on that. she gave a heck of a speech tonight in the warm up, laura. laura: already heard about it. congressman, congrats. great night tonight. we really appreciate it. the final sprint to the midterms is on with 90 days to go can you believe it a critical question looms. how will bob mueller and the rush of probe impact voters, if at all? there is no sign of it wrapping up but will the surging economies sweep the investigation to the side of the ballot box? joining us now, the polling heroes. frank lance and doug schoen. great to be with you. doug schoen, your reaction, you heard the angle tonight, four pieces of advice as to how to avoid impeachment. as a democrat and a conservative centrist democrat, sort of where she would keep your opinions to yourself. the rant was exactly right. running on the economy, a middle-class tax cut, is the pro-growth message that the republicans need. if they get distracted shutting down the government over immigration, that is the stone cold loser. you asked about this benign investigation, trump s numbers have gone up, the republican numbers have gone up, as this investigation has carried on. i don t think that issue, frankly, is going to be relevant unless and until something demonstrative and definitive happens, which shows no signs of happening before the election. it could change. but as we sit here today, i think the democratic advantage has as much to do with 40 open republican seats, which are either open or retirements, than it does with any groundswell for the party. laura: frank? is a simple question. are you better off today than you were two years ago. so many americans are in the country is. laura: these independent suburban women, you talked about it, you put up the warning flag him i know it is easy for republicans to say, the pollsters were wrong last time, you can discount the pollsters. i think you do that at your own disadvantage this time around because the resistance is so powerful, they are mad that they were along last time i they want to prove themselves right this time. i agree with you 100%. the problem is some of the language is an effective way the words they are using on the way they presenting it doesn t work with women. there is a backlash because of exactly what you said. middle-class, low income, middle america women, republicans are to be much better job. one more thing. i actually think that it s not enough for them to say, you have 4.1% growth rate. nobody understands what that means. laura: personalize the story, correct? personalize it, and two years from now, the speaker nancy pelosi, i think they actually have to use her in the campaign. laura: you undo the gains that you made in the last two years. separate what you don t like about trump s tweets, undo it all. and then how are you doing? there is a new poll avenue, harris neil paul that came out just an hour ago or so, about mueller, going to your point. they believe the bias has spurred trump, the mueller, the way the fbi handled the investigation, and so that he demonstrates again that people don t think this process is fair. i don t think it ultimately has much of an impact in the november elections. i agree with you. i don t think it well. frank s point is an important one and one of the reasons why i think the democrats have a better than 50% chance to win the house. women, suburban, white voters, middle-class voters, on both coats are really reacting to th. laura: when they go to the country clubs, talking about suburban women, country clubs, to hang out, have coffee with their friends, is it that they are embarrassed, they feel embarrassed to say they support trump s results? they want to feel there is a way to support trump because he shows empathy or compassion on n issue? oh, he s good on this. how does he message them? you stay on the tax cuts, job report, everything that is economically based. on the end, that is what matters to more than them. some people will vote based on donald trump. this election, you won or lose based on whether they think they are income level will be better two years from now than it is today. laura: that story and the rally tonight, the 401(k), the firefighter. i want to do a whole hour with you guys. we ll get flack if we do that. thank you so much. the president using force to divide america. why is ruth bader ginsburg s groupies rejoicing? a lot more to get to. raymond arroyo next. if yor crohn s symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn t worked well enough, it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn s. entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. this condition has not been reported with entyvio. tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio. if your uc or crohn s treatment isn t working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach. if you way too often.e moves then you might have a common condition called dry mouth. which can be brought on by many things, like medication and medical conditions. biotène provides immediate, long lasting relief from dry mouth symptoms. it is clinically proven to soothe and moisturize a dry mouth. plus, it freshens breath. biotène. immediate and long lasting dry mouth symptom relief. laura: a supreme court justice refashioned into a pop culture superhero? well, a sports giant claims the president is dividing us. to explain further, in his special tuesday appearance what s going on? let s bring in fox news contributor, new york times best-selling author, raymond arroyo prayed over the weekend, supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg said she would s, she chose five years. why five years on the high court? 85, 86? 85. i noticed something cultural is happening with ruth bader ginsburg. i am out of the children store, a bookstore, and i m going through the rocks, they are not one, not two, not three, but four books about ruth bader ginsburg. i also noticed there are dolls. actual dolls. laura: dolls? and a new documentary that is called rbg. here s the glimpse. i ask no favor for our sex. all i ask of the brethren is that they take their feet off of our next. we welcome today just as ruth bader ginsburg. to become such an icon. would you mind signing this? i m 84 years old and everybody wants to take a picture with me. that is why you are rbg. when you come right down to it, the closest thing to a superhero i know. the closest thing to a superhero. gloria steinem sorry about that. that was truly a slip of the town. many on the left who were upset with ruth bader ginsburg, they that you should have retired when obama was still the president and now they say she is just holding on. i believe she is trying to give them a reason to rally during the midterms. now you have a reason to vote because ruth is going to hang on for another five more years. laura: i understand that people i saw this last night on twitter are offering up their organs, their internal organs, to keep her going. is that true? you see here with the barbells. the woman survived pancreatic cancer. laura: she s amazing. i actually have known her for almost 30 years. you will get another five years. laura: she s a delightful person. we will move on. basketball superstar lebron james just opened a brand-new, state-of-the-art school in his hometown of akron, ohio. during a media tour, he had this to say about the president. listen. this race thing has been taken over, and because i believe our president is trying to divide us. he s using sports to divide us. that is something i can t relate to. dividing us. look, he got to say right off the bat, lebron james, this is cool that he opened it akron is incredible. it s food, its stem and math, it is a fantastic school for at-risk kids. this comment, though, that the president is dividing people with sports, i think that goes too far. the president capitalized on what he saw and amplified it. laura: wise the president dividing people on sports? people kneel at the national anthem colin kaepernick did that. laura: the people in the stands reacted to that. trump spoke about it but the fans didn t like it. how was that the president look, when you are an athlete undo comment on politics, that is fine, you have every right to comment on politics, you are an american citizen. on i expect they re going to be half of the country that disagree with you. when you go to sport games, they just want to enjoy the sports rates because they want their movies, sports, films, free of politics. it should be uniting. lebron stands in stark contrast to this new dallas quarterback, dax prescott. he had this to say about the same controversy. watch this. i never protested during the anthem and i don t think it is a time where the writing to do so. the game of football has always brought me such a piece and it does the same for a lot of people. when you bring such controversy to the stadium, to the game, it takes away from the joy and the love that football brings a lot of people. the love and the peace that football brings. i think he is onto something. laura: i adore him. he s the new tim tebow. i love him. when i go to a game you just want to bond with one another and share with one another on. i don t want to think, he laura: redskins, redskins, redskins. forget the saints. who dat? laura: another celebrity was speaking out about her trip last night, kim kardashian. listen to the way that she handled jimmy kimmel s comment. like nothing bad to say about the president. you still have people on the list. i don t have any laura: she probably has something good to say but she is a parade to because hollywood will descend on her. call or a hater, racist. the president commuted the sentence of the woman laura: hand he just had a fantastic interview. he released her. i think what you are hearing from a kardashians and kanye before her, it is the struggle to come to terms with being fair to the good things the president is doing while disagreeing in the areas where you think he s wrong. laura: everyone can disagree, let s just be a little bit more polite. aren t you kind and sweet in your? laura: good for lebron to open the school. and raymond, we ll see you tomorrow. we just want you to shine in this beautiful studio. it is a pretty studio. laura: a house candidate, by the way, hurling a horrible slur at melania trump, and house majority leader kevin mccarthy wants him banned from twitter. what is that all about? 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(vo) ask your healthcare provider if ozempic® is right for you. can you imagine if someone said that about michelle obama, what they be doing tonight? now leader mccarthy is calling on twitter to suspend roberts. the congressman joins is now exclusively with more on that and other issues. congressman mccarthy, this is so low, but it s one of the many things the left has said about conservative women over the last few years that have gone on with impunity. no repercussions, no boycotts, they say it, they get away with it, and they are celebrated for it, congressman. exactly right. that is why he saying it. this is inappropriate on any platform to say about a first lady. this first lady, or any other first lady. and twitter is treating people much different way you look what they a a to conservatives. a shadow banned them. when you shadow banned them, everything you put up on twitter is invisible except you ourselves. you know what they did to the rnc chair, ronna mcdaniel? bate shadow banned her. congressman devin nunes, they shatter banned him him. they just said it was a an algorithm. there is not one of the 78 progressive liberal members who ever got shadow banned. going after conservative speech. laura: jack dorsey is a big liberal, who founded twitter. he s a big fan of barack obama. that is fine if he is a big liberal. he even apologized for eating at aaa. chick-fil-a. but here is an individual who said a speech, that in my belief, is hateful. it is not for long on that platform. he should suspend his account. he goes on to even speak more about the first lady, but he bans conservatives. laura: it wasn t he wasn t banned from twitter, correct? i learned about he got suspended. to be when i learned about this because i saw your retweet. not to get you into it. it was a response to something our friend charlie kirk of turning point usa had written. and this freak responds to his tweet and says the letter each word, i don t even know if that is paraded so stupid. something he would read or hear it some kind of lame, gross hip-hop thing. but if he said about michelle obama, what would be happening? this person would be shut down. they would be no opportunity for them to be on twitter again. listen to what he responded to charlie. charlie simply pointed out that our first lady is running a center lienor operation, where there are fewer people working there. he responds this way to her. but what goes farther, this is happening on social media in a lot of different places. remember what it googled her to the republicans in california a week before the primary. they said our philosophy was not nazism. remember what twitter continue to do were to republicans? shutter ban. this is got a step i go into the campaign. how many individuals are setting out there that want to have a communication or talk about a conservatives object get banned or their views are never being seen? but individuals can talk like this and they never got suspended? this is what is wrong. laura: the problem, congressman, when young people do basic searches for information, they do basic searches for capitalism, tax cuts, it is interesting to see what comes up on those searches. invariably, the most left wing, progressive, even socialist views, which are couched in the most beautiful terms, come up first. that is a problem when you have companies that get so big, their market cap is larger than most countries. and they have such an outside influence, it s a problem. is a major problem because we found facebook, prior to the last election, was suppressing conservative views that were go. it s exactly what you are talking about. they are only allowing other views to come forward. that is why they have to have a very clear policy, have to be held accountable. laura: is there anything you can do on the gretchen a level? we brought them in for a hearing. what i fundamentally believe is they have to stop the bias. ever since i came out with us, i have simply did a tweet, one time, of what i found has happen, stop the bias. it even happened to my own mice in the process. i was able to speak up for it. i am getting many people across the social media showing me what has happened to them. they don t have a voice. laura: code, we have to have the evidence. i did my opening angle, congressman, on four ways to avoid impeachment and avoid losses on my terms. i focused on the economy, and the focus has to be on economic growth and how pelosi will reverse the gains that have been made. at the same time, there is concern that we will have a risk of the government shutdown. now president trump said at his rally tonight that he is considering drastic measures if necessary to get the funding for the wall. he campaigned on the wall and congress hasn t delivered on the wall that he campaigned on and i believe the american people want this enforcement done. what is your read on this? what a government shutdown hurt republican chances in november? i think timing is everything. if you shut down in the 30th and you ve got 60 votes in a seven, the democrats would take advantage of that right before the election. let s be very clear, we have put money into the wall, we are currently building it, but we have to finish it. laura: $25 billion, congressman. we have a lot further to go operate in the house, it s not a problem. it s a senate and the rules of where we go. we have to pick the right timing. you are correct when it comes to the economy. think for one moment there s three entities you really want to watch and a selection. women, independence, and seniors. if you watch and you look at from all the democrat open seats, when it was a race between a woman versus a man, a woman won 78% of the time. what happens when this tax cut went through, 1 million new jobs. women in america, the unemployment for women, the lowest point it s been in 65 years. laura: congressman, don t women want things to calm down? women want things calm and peaceful, more happiness. i think trump has to be the happy warrior. he was happier warrior tonight. we want happy warrior trump. he is very charming i think it just makes people happy. we want that. do you agree with me on that or am i overstating it? i agree 100%. people rarely saw the president trump i always see. he is a happy warrior. he s a lot like when you watched ronald reagan, if you believe that his policies bring him more freedom, could liberty, you should be a happy conservative. laura: we know what happens if the democrats get control, it s going to be mired in investigation mania on capitol hill. it s all going to be undone. congressman, thank you for joining us exclusively tonight. we really appreciate it. up next, seven illegal mexican immigrants attempt a brazen robbery in texas but why do the local authorities not tell us about it initially? stay with us. including nasal congestion, which most pills don t. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist. laura: if viewer warning to all of our liberal viewers, you won t like the story because we have yet another example of crimes committed by illegal immigrants. brazen. this time is coming from the border town of mcallen texas. on saturday, masked men is termed a jewelry store in a botched robbery attempt. as you can see, the surveillance video, at least some of the men appeared to be armed. thankfully, authorities quickly took the man into custody. there were no injuries. according to customs and border protection, all seven of the suspects were in the country illegally. what a shocker. a fact that the local police neglected to disclose in their initial statement! joining me in every action, christopher comay spokesman for the national border patrol council. chris, i always find that it s like pulling teeth to get immigration status out of local authorities or reporters who are covering these stories. this was amazing. you have some background information in at least a few of these rappers. tell us. a couple of these individuals that a temper that robbery had been arrested in california in a smash and grab type operation, where i think ten people went into a store in the los angeles area and two of them ended up, t of the previous group. laura: chris, what i think american people get frustrated by is that these people coming to the country illegally, some of them get arrested for crimes, they do sometime, and then they are released into society because california is a sanctuary state. they are released into society, not related porta, some of them are both in and they come back over. they commit yet another crime. they do time here, we pay for three square meals a day, we pay for their incarceration, and then perhaps they ll be deported into mexico. how bad is it right now at the border and what in your mind has to be done immediately to stop this flow across the country? i think we need to be tougher on the prosecutions, tougher on the sentencings, and make it a real deterrent against coming over here. also we need more agents in the area, on the ground, however we managed to do that, it remains to be seen. but it needs to be done because right now, it is wide open out there. the american public deserves security along the border. laura: i have a friend of mine who actually used to work for me years ago, but he works in mcallen, texas, he loves the people of mcallen, but it is in some ways, it is the wild west, as a border town. is that accurate? it denies community, a great community. there are times when there is crime out here, there s a lot of home invasions usually, those are done those are within the drug community, guys fighting against each other. but it s just a matter of time before something breaks off. we have had cross-border violence for some time. unfortunately, the local authorities, whether it is the city or the county municipality, they don t want to admit that we are having over violence from mexico, and it is coming slowly but surely, increasingly has gotten worse, it s just that people are pretending it s not there. laura: the new president of mexico, it s not going to end. there is no more thruway from central america through mexico or mexico into united states. not going to happen anymore. chris, thank you for that insight. it s fascinating. we ll be right back. close at this hour. do not go anywhere. there. bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! so chances are, you ve seen us around the house. or. around the yard. on the shelf. or even. out in the field. your mom knew she could always count on us. and your grandma did too. because for over 150 years, we ve been right by your side. advancing the health of the people, plants and pets you love. so, from all of us at bayer. thank you for trusting in us. then. and now. shannon: by the way, our earlier guest made the point about trump s approval rating, s so low. trump s approval rating is at about 48%. okay? obama had about 46 percent at the same time in his presidency. don t be making those points on the show. there he is. he just got off the plane.
Commentary, newsmaker interviews and panel discussions. granddaughter, and you totally seem to have forgotten the overwhelming amount of violent rhetoric against president trump himself. what did you say during these moments? take a look. and with this kind of inspiration, i will go and take trump out tonight. yes! i have thought an awful lot of blowing up the white house. one with the last time an actor assassinated the president? [cheers and applause] i want to clarify, i m not an actor. i lie for a living. however, it s been a while. and maybe it s time. how dare he say the things he does? of course i want to punch him in the face. right. [cheers and applause] the press always asked me don t i wish i were debating him? no, i wish we were in high school and i could take him behind the gym? that s what i wish. sean: so where is the fear, the worry, the concern about all of this rhetoric against the president?t? now do you think what you just saw is a little bit worse than being heckled at a rally? because i do. but there s plenty of more examples of these crisis peddlers in the news media today doing whatever they can do every minute, hour, second of every day to discredit president trump and his supporters. the media in this country, they cannot stand the president s common sense conservative agenda. they can t stand that he s actually keeping his promises. they clearly don t like the trump tax cuts because that means it s less of an opportunity for democrats to get power back. his peace through strength policies with north korea, iran and elsewhere seems to scare them, ending the horrible iranian deal, this president is not bringing piles of cargo planes in cash and other currencies and giving them to mullahs in iran and also negotiating with foreign countries. he s trying to get better trade deals, he gets criticized for that. obviously the success is not something that s reported on often and, by the way, it seems that many in this country want this president to fail because if he fails, then that means democrats can get back in power. i even think if president trump cured cancer at this point, many in the media, many on the left p would still hate him. it s a prime reason why the media is so obsessed with mueller s partisan witch hunt. they want to see this president impeached. they have been trying toan attack his credibility since he s been elected. earlier today, the president s attorney rudy giuliani called for mueller to finally begin to wrap this up. watch this.si we believe the investigation should be brought to a close. we think they are at the end of it. they should render their report put up or shut up, what do you got. we have every reason to believe they don t have anything. no evidence of anything wrong. sean: today on twitter the president himself called on the attorney general jefff sessions to end this investigation. he tweeted out, this is a terrible situation. the attorney general jeff sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now before it continues to stain our country any further. bob mueller is totally conflicted and his 17 angry democrats that are doing hisbo dirty work are a disgrace to the u.s. and then the president continued, russian collusionol with the trump campaign, one of the most unsuccessful in history is a total hoax. the democrats, they actually paid for the phony, discredited dossier which was, along with comey, mccabe, stzruk, his lover, the lovely lisa page, used to begin the witch hunt.e very disgraceful. by the way the dossier is phony lies and fisa judges were lied to. many in the media are now saying president trump actually obstructed justice because he tweeted out his opposition to all that has happened with no evidence and criticizing what is a witch hunt. in other words, telling the truth. take a look. s he s basically sort of delegitimizing our system of government. maybe this is the beginning of a new saturday night massacre and one has to wonder whetheron mr. trump is feeling the pressure of the manafort trial. it looks like he may very well have obstructed justice in this particular case. that s why i find it particularly ironic that he seems to be continuing to try tt obstruct and end this case so publicly. they are starting to feel the collusion investigation closing in a little bit more. we are getting donald trump s most overt and obstructionist tweets to date. it s not a surprise. just around this little incident will be a strong mini case of obstruction. sean: crisis to crisis, feigned, phony moral outrage every second. just another example of what is groupthink in action. and it s the same reason the mainstream media has been telling you the trial of paul manafort on a 2005 tax case is the trial of 2 the century, andf course it is anything but. manafort worked for then candidate trump i think less than 100 days. the charges that he s now facing have nothing to do with trump, nothing. nothing to do with the campaign, zero. nothing to do with russia, zero. nothing about collusion. still, manafort is facing serious time in prison if convicted and the success rate by the way for federal cases is really high, 95, 98%. that means this is an uphill battle when the full force of the federal government is going after any american, in this case paul manafort. the judge overseeing the trial, t.s. ellis, he s not cutting the mueller team any slack and before manafort s proceeding even started, he accused mueller and his team imagine a judge saying this to the special counsel. this isn t about paul manafort. this isn t about a tax case. you want to tighten the screwsse on paul manafort. you want to make him sing and provide dirt against president trump or compose, meaning, what do i need to say to get out of trouble so you can prosecute or impeach donald trump. n this case is about a 2005 tax case. nothing to do with trump, nothing to do with russia, nothing to do with collusion and the only reason there is all oft this media coverage is because he worked for then candidate trump for less than 100 days and according to accounts from inside the courtroom, judge ellis even interrupted the team of prosecutors in their opening statement because paul manafort made money in his life and was living a lavish lifestyle, telling the jury, it s not a crime to be rich in america and telling them to move on. the judge also chastising the prosecution over the wordch oligarch and now one more blow for the special counsel, their star witness, rick gates. they are saying he may not testify now. by the way, what have they offered gates? they said last night killed 19 people, doesn t spend a day in jail because they used him to testify against john gotti sr. and they get him a home in the witness protection program in arizona.n are we not beginning to have a problem with the way theyon work this system? i have no idea what paul manafort did or didn t do in 2005 to 2007. i didn t know him. but i do know that this trial is only happening because robert mueller is desperate to get president trump. he wanted manafort to sing or compose. he s desperate to find something, anything on the president. it doesn t matter it seems what toll this is all taking on our country. and you talk about language, yol talk about the feeling of threats.al jim acosta, you are not the only one. the president of the united states not that long ago telling somebody to first get in people s faces and then you will send somebody to tear me up. did president trump ever say this about you? i will put mr. burgess up against sean hannity. he will tear him up. i need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. i want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are republican. i want you to argue with them and get in their face. sean: get in their face. worse than chanting fake news? tear up sean hannity? what about maxine waters says, follow him into the grocery store, wherever she said to follow people, or cory booker. joining us now, fox news national security strategist dr. sebastian gorka. author of the brand-new book, a best seller, the briefing. former white house pressss secretary, the worst job in america, now sarah sanders sadly has it. why anybody wants that job to deal with these people every day is beyond me. congrats, sean, on the book. their memories are short. because what happened to pam bondi and secretary nielsen, what happened to sarah sanders is recent, the things that have been said about the president s son are fairly recent and his granddaughter are recent. the things said about melania, ivanka and so many others that are close to the first family. i don t remember jim acosta as the great champion standing up for the first family or calling them would love to know ifmp he called them and said i m sohe sorry for what you ve been through. i m on a book tour right now. they love playing clips about me getting heckled and intimidated. they think it s funny and amusing. i would associate my comments with your opening monologue. we have a country that allows people to express themselves freely and that s what makes our country great. but at the same time, i agree with you. we need a free and fair press that is robust, but it should never, ever be under attack with intimidation or violence. if jim acosta has a problem with some of the ability of people to express themselves, he should look at his own unprofessional and disrespectful behavior. look in the mirror and wonder whether he s part of thesr problem. we should never be threatening anybody with violence. but it s interesting how he s only concerned with himself and his colleagues as opposed to the violence that has come against the right, people like myself, sarah, secretary nielsen, and others. i want to go out there and have a book to talk about, to exchange ideas with people. sean: we ve played what s happened to you. and they don t seem to worry about that sort of intimidation and that sort of disruption. it s only when it affects him. sean: did them acosta everhe call you about the heckling that you received?o, no, he was part of it. his unprofessional and disrespectful behavior is part of the problem. the way he treated the president the other day in that rose garden was disgraceful.e he owes the president an apology. it is not his question thatrd he is entitled to, it is the president to give it to him. and as much as people may not -n sean: let me be very clear. this is important because i ve had the same experience. every conservative i know has the same experience. i don t come on tv and whine that i have been heckled orr people have tried to physically get to me or that my life has been threatened and that i ve had people literally threatened my life, it has happened more often than i care to exist, it s wrong. but it s not the same as chanting fake news and cnn sucks and people have a right to freedom of speech whether it s against sean or me or dr. gorka, i m sureer you ve experienced it as well. ohave i ever. oh, have i ever. i have to give my colleague sean all the recognition. he was on the front line on the podium. but i was in the press briefing room. i would sneak in and from the back i would watch. and sean, jim acosta thinks it s his briefing room. he really thinks it s the jim acosta show. and it s not. it s the white house briefing room. he s got it backwards. two metrics, just two metrics for both of you and for the viewers. go back 20 years. go back 40 years and find for me when the white house press corps salivated over a republican president. you won t find it. you won t find it. sean: we will take it a step further and i said this and i will go back and pull the tape, many, many times when barack obama was president. we must keep our politicians safe and i m telling we are the highest rated show in cable thanks this audience. if i am there, i will be the first person to defend anybody in the press if anyone would dare to lay a hand on them but chanting you suck is not the same as violence. people have a right to speak in this country. it s not just the press, it s any american. no american should feel threatened to share their voicel and their opinion, no american. but republican politicians have never said harass the other party, get in their faces, it s only the left, it s only the democrats and they need to get a grip on their party before things get worse. sean: i challenged jim to maybe talk to those people that threw poor sarah sanders out of the restaurant and pam bondi and secretary nielsen and somebody at his network that had a severed head. i know she got fired, the president, that his 12-year-old son saw. let s start with ourselves. anyway, when we come back, we got a lot of breaking news. big news out of the white house about the back-and-forth between the trump the president s legal team, robert mueller, joe digenova is on fire, he s next, straight ahead. all the amazing services of the post office, right on your computer. get a 4 week trial plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/now and never go to the post office again. sean: a lot of back-and-forth today about robert mueller wanting to interview president trump. here with the very latest from the white house is our own kristin fisher, what s going on? for months, one of the biggest questions has been well president trump agree to sit we know that he has wanted to but that his legal team has been advising him against it and out tonight there is even more reason for his legal team to advise him against it because robert mueller is refusing to accept one of their key demands, to limit questioning during their face-to-face interview to matters of collusion. mueller wants to open it up to obstruction of justice among some other topics. earlier in the day the president described the ongoing investigation as a terrible situation and attorney general of jeff sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now. democrats like adam schiff say the statement was an attempt to obstruct justice hiding in plain sight but the white house says that the president wasn t ordering his attorney general to do anything. the president is stating his opinion. he s stating it clearly and he is certainly expressing the frustration that he has with the level of corruption that we have seen from people like jim comey, peter strzok, andrew mccabe.av the president s personal attorney rudy giuliani is telling fox news that his inclination is still to say no to an interview but that president trump wants him to continue talking to the special counsel, so tonight the negotiations about this potential interview with the special counsel continue. sean: thank you.nu joining us now with reaction, former u.s. attorney for the district of columbia, joe digenova. a quick note, he has done legal work for me. he showed up at my christmas party and he drank way too much. and i paid for the drinks. anyway, good to see you, my friend. i am very skeptical of any, any concession to this team of prosecutors that robert mueller has put together looking at what judge ellis said about what they re really doing in the manafort case. i don t trust them. there s no question that the mueller investigation is illegitimate in the sense that rod rosenstein should have never appointed mueller, who had a conflict of interest. he was interviewed for the fbi director and the next day he was appointed special counsel. rod rosenstein is either a witness or a coconspirator in obstruction because of the firing of james comey.de rosenstein should have never made the appointment. he shouldn t be involved. he approved one of the fisa warrants and more to come on that in the next few weeks, by the way, but here s the point. the president should not be interviewed by these people, his attorneys should obviously, and i know they will, do everything they can to advise him not to do an interview. this is an illegitimate investigation. it s a perjury trap even though the president cannot be indicted for anything. p the problem is this is an effort to use the grand jury process for impeachment purposes. that is an unconstitutional use of the grand jury and they should fight it.ur if the president refuses to testify and if bob mueller issues a subpoena, the president will win the supreme court. it s unacceptable to allow the president to waste his time and to play into this phony game that mueller is playing. it s outrageous. sean: under any circumstances the president has very good attorneys. we are both mutual friends of jay sekulow great attorney. sean: emmet flood is a rock star. we know what rudy giuliani is as a lawyer, what he was like as a prosecutor.ha he took down some of the toughest people in new york in the southern district of new york. the question is, i agree it s illegitimate. by the way, look at manafort. would paul manafort be on trial today if he didn t work for trump for 100 days on a 2005 tax case, nothing to do with russia? why isn t hillary indicted by this time when we know she committed numerous felonies? one of the great lessons from this entire affair is that there are two standards of justice now in the united states and they are both being applied by the fbi and the doj. if you are a democrat, you get a pass. if you are a republican, you don t. sean: do we have to accept that?ss no, we do not. i never thought i would hear myself say those words but i have never been more disgusted with my alma mater at the department of justice under rod rosenstein and the fbi under chris wray, two incompetent empty suits who care about one thing, their own future, their next job and what they have done to put this country through. rod rosenstein has put this country through over the last 18 months, may he rot in hell for it. it s disgusting. and what you just said, that they can sit there with a straight face, and say there is no reason to reopen the hillary case, as jeff sessions has said, is absolutely ludicrous and incompetent. sean: you have said on this program that before. you ve used the term dirty cop. i have this instinctive recoil for one reason. i had a family full of cops and my mom was a prison guard and my dad was a family court probation guy. two people were in the fbi. this is not rank and file. this is a dangerous chapter in our history. the street guys and gals are great, the rot is from the head of the fish in doj and fbi. sean: joe, thank you.ea when we come back, the king of talk radio, rush limbaugh, this very day literally started radio syndication on the airwaves. a mini monologue coming up and i want to explain what would life have been like for this country without rush on the air for 30 years? we will explain straight ahead. we will explain straight so, what are we gonna do? insurance. that s kind of what we do here. sean: 30 years ago today sean: 30 years ago today americans had few options for political commentary, the news of the day, journalism was decidedly one-sided. network news along with the print media, they were the kings of all information in america. that all changed 30 years ago this day, 1988. it changed forever. a man from a small town called cape girardeau, missouri, kicked off a brand-new national radio program. it gave a voice to the millions of conservatives in this country that have been ignored, impugned, their values diminished for so long. in doing so, he started what would now become a new media revolution in this country, one that radically would permanently alter the media landscape in america and, by the way, paved the way for people like me, laura ingraham, mark levin, and so many others. tonight we are celebrating 30 years of the rush limbaugh show. the pioneer of conservative talk radio. that s tonight s mini monologue. 30 years ago today, august 1st, 1988, the rush limbaugh show kicked off nationally on 56 radio stations around the country. the show was radically different from anything else on the airwaves at the time. now for decades all americans we were force-fed. we got our information, commentary, news, from the decidedly, one-sided, left-wing leaning, traditional mainstream media. but with a very clear, funny, fun, refreshing, informative, conservative perspective, rush filled a desperately needed voir in the country and gave voice to millions of us. rush is syndicated nationally on more than 600 of america s best radio stations, heard by more00 than 27 million people every week. and as it turns out, time flies when you re kind of spearheading an entire movement and an entire new genre of media. take a look. they said, what are you best at? and i said, probably being onre the radio. well, there s your answer. do what you are best at and you will at least be happy, regardless of how well you do it, so i decided to give radio one more chance. i m sure you all felt like you weren t going to ever amount to anything, i felt that way. the only difference between you and me is that i m up here and you are out there. and the only reason i m up here is because you are out there. you have rejuvenated my life and you have made me something i never even thought i could be and i have just one thing to say to you, a sincere and heartfelt thank you. sean: media was forever changed. here s the question i want too throw out tonight. what would america be like without rush, without talk radio? without rush on the air for the last 30 years. without a doubt, he has now had a massive impact, decade after decade, year in and year out. the doctor of democracy is the single most influential voice in the early 90s holding the corrupt clintons accountable, playing a vital role in the historic republican midterm resurgence. newt gingrich coming to power 1994. he pushed for america s tough response after 3,000 of our fellow americans were slaughtered on 9/11 2001. he was a leading voice for the tea party move me in 2010. he was one of the only people that were warning against obama s radical left-wing ideology, rightly predicting that those policies would fail. recently he has been a steadfast powerful voice for what is the working trump agenda, the conservative agenda and you seek the dividends every day. take a look. donald trump is like anybody else would be. he won the presidency. he won the presidency against all odds. i he resents deeply this idea that anybody helped him, particularly the russians. you people in the media are nuts if you think donald trump is going to go along with us. i that s not who he has. republicans and democrats, but it s basically people who are pro-government, pro-washington, who think government in washington is the center of the world. they will give occasional mentions of these things that you mentioned, these policies to placate voters, but going back to an original question you have here. they don t want trump to succeed. sean: on today the 30th anniversary of his syndication, he got a call from a pretty special surprise guest.ea let s listen in. rush, i just wanted to congratulate you on 30 years. this is your favorite president and i think you are fantastic and i heard about it and today is the big day. 30 years. i wanted to call personally and congratulate you. i am floored. i thought there was nothing anybody could do to surprise me today. i ve been preparing for anything. mr. president you are a very special man and you have people that love you.ny i m one of them. but you are a very, very special guy. what you do for this country, people have no idea how important your voice is. so i just wanted to personallyly make this one and i said i will even dial the number myself if i have to, but i just want to congratulate you, 30 years in that tough business is incredible. and you are stronger now than ever before.0 i thank you so much. it is such a thrill to hear from you. sean: my friend also referred to rush as the babe ruth of talk radio. he was right. during his call with rush today to present also brought up how often i call him the dean of talk radio. watch this. people don t realize what a great achievement 30 years is in that cutthroat business you happen to be in. you may not find that becauseat you are what make so good at what you do but it s a cutthroat business and for you to do this for 30 years is truly an amazing accomplishment and there s no voice like it and even your friend hannity agrees with that. he said there s nobody like this man, so i said i guess i thougha you two would be competitive. he said, no, he s the dean. he called you the dean. he was a guest host. he guest hosted for me when he first started. he s great and he s a big, tremendous fan of yours. they all are, everybody is.e so i just want to congratulate you, 30 years just do it for another 30 years. after that you can take it easy. okay? c i will do that. i will stay along as long as you do. okay, you have a deal. sean: that s a pretty goodlo deal. but it is a competitive business but people like myself, the great one mark levin, laura ingraham, and most people that work in talk radio, we all understand that he forged the path for all of us. here s the big question. i personally you think back the last 30 years, think about america today without rush s voice, that booming conservative voice, for 30 years.ic his unwavering commitment to conservative ideology, philosophy, frankly, his wonderful, warm sense of humor, his outrageous humor, his steadfast love of country. he has literally given thiss country insightful commentary decade after decade and it has changed the media landscape in this country forever. he led the way, forging a path. like earlier pioneers, like terry williams and bob grant, all these guys, some outrageous, controversial, some not. we get to do what we do today because he single-handedly opened up a whole new market place. he had the courage of hise convictions. he paved the way for a new media and a political revolution and the fact, for example, you are watching me right now is in part because of these great pioneers, courageously forging that path. the audacity to stand up versus the status quo. he took a lot of heat. he stood for honest conservative great american values. they have tried again and again to take him down and they takese it, just like they try to take mark, laura, me down whenever they can. but here they are, we are blessed and we are better off as a country. the media has some diversity because of his life s work. so rush, on behalf of me, mark, laura, conservatives everywhere, millions of us, thank you. congratulations. 30 great years of broadcast excellence. when we come back, rush limbaugh s brother, author, attorney, friend, david limbaugh and he has done legal work for me and went to a party with me. good grief, i have to say that every time.nd straight ahead. time. straight ahead. when my hot water heater failed, she was pregnant, in-laws were coming, a little bit of water, it really- it rocked our world. i had no idea the amount of damage that water could do. we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they were on it. it was unbelievable. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that s a privilege. we re the baker s and we re usaa members for life. usaa. get your insurance quote today. let s fly, let s fly away just say the words and we ll beat the birds down to acapulco bay it s perfect for a flying honeymoon they say come fly with me let s fly, let s fly away come fly with me let s fly, let s fly away chicken! that s right, chicken?! candace new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! i think what he did is validatea millions of conservatives who are sitting out in america were so frustrated wondering are they odd? they talk to people at the store, people in their walk of life who are the same as they are but they don t hear any of these ideas being articulated in the national media. finally rush broke through and gave them a voice.er and you mentioned you asked how america would have been different had he not burst on the scene.y i shudder to think what would have happened by now with the avalanche of media liberal propaganda in the universities and in the culture. rush has answered it back and he s given the voice to the rest of us. sean: you would know more than i would, it had to be hard at times because i see it anyone in this business now, me, laura, mark, rush. there is an industry where millions of dollars are being spent monitoring all of us in the hopes that we say one word, one phrase, one sentence to get us fired and attack our advertisers, get us off the air. whatever happened to the left believing in freedom of speech and expression of thought? is it that they are that intimidated? they don t believe in it. they haven t ever believed in it. and they mouth these ideas about tolerance and wanting us to get along and kumbaya harmony but the truth is when they hear someone disagreeing with them,m, especially someone articulate and popular and have a sense of humor and has the audacity to lampoon them in the national medium, they couldn t take it so they wanted to shut him down. they fund these organizations dedicated to destroying him and making things up about him. sean: they spent millions. now the same kinds of outlets have gone after you. sean: millions of dollars. they make things up, they exaggerate, they take things out of context and he has hads to single-handedly fight back these people as he has paved the way for thousands, literallyav thousands of other people whosa have been generated from his example. you are one of them, as you have said, and he has shown the way, but in the beginning it was lonely. he was out there and he was on talk radio and no one was there to defend him, no one was there to fund his defense of himself, but he has truly inspired so many people to speak up and to get in his medium and it s really been a wonderful thing. sean: interesting side note. thank you for joining us. when he started in 88, there were, like, 200 talk radio stations in the country. now there are thousands and it s the number one format in radio. amazing. thanks for being with us. joining us now, more reaction to our other top stories, mueller s witch hunt. the new york times i feeln sorry for judge jeanine because i m friends with you and last week she was number one on the new york times best seller list. this week it s you and she is two. the russia hoax, the illicit scheme to clear hillary clinton and blame donald trump. many congratulations. sara carter. let s go to the manafort trial today and you are both following it very closely, which wouldn t be happening. it has to do with russia. if this poor guy didn t work for trump for 100 days. it was not a good day for prosecutors. once again they were verbally spanked by the judge. and it just shows how devious and malevolent mueller s prosecutors are, trying to smear and convict paul manafort simply because he s wealthy. the judge would have none of it. he told them not in my court. it s not a crime to be rich. so they switched tactics and guilt by association because he did business with what they referred to as oligarchs and the judge stopped them and said, you can t use that term in myed courtroom. that connotes and conjures up criminality and corruption, but the biggest surprise today is the prosecutors indicated they are not going to call manafort s partner to the witness stand, rick gates, the star witness, the snitch who they now realize will be pilloried as a liar and a crook and an embezzler and bribed by the government for leniency. sean: this is the amazing thing. gates can t now be the witness. it seems like the prosecution is but they gave him a deal. this is what i was bringing up with gregg and you guys lastg night. if you are going to give sammy who committed 19 murders, no jail time and a house in arizona, i think you will say anything they want you to say. t i don t trust anybody that gets a deal. i don t trust anybody. that s right and that s why ellis was saying you want him tl compose you want him to come up with something, some kind of story that you can use against the president and that s not what we do here. and that s why he slammed them hard today. the prosecution. and you know something else, something that came up today that i think is really significant. we ve already seen a year of exposing the department of justice and the fbi, those high-level officials. we ve seen a culture ofhe corruption there and mueller now wants to question the president. on obstruction. sean: should they allow that? absolutely not! and let me say something else. if he wants to question the president on obstruction, he should also question rod rosenstein, who, by the way, wrote the letters to have comey fired. sean: last word because we are running out of time. why would he ever sit down? it s an illegitimate investigation. it s a total perjury trap and mueller is not really authorized to question a presidentot exercising his constitutional authority. that s forbidden. sean: congrats, gregg, again on the number one book. sara is writing a book we will tell you about soon. when we come back, tonight vice president pence receiving the remains of u.s. service members from the korean war. the president made that agreement in singapore.or ooh, heaven is a place on earth uhp. i didn t believe it. . i want to believe it. [ claps hands ] ooh i m not hearing the confidence. okay, hold the name your price tool. power of options based on your budget! and! we ll make heaven a place on earth yeah! oh, my angels! ooh, heaven is a place on earth [ sobs quietly ] new laptop with 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes start them off right. with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. save $200 on this dell laptop at office depot officemax. sean: vice president mike pence was at joint base pearl harbor to receive what we believed to be the remains of american service members killed during the korean war. the remains were returned as part of that historic agreement, last month between the president and the north korean leader, kim jong un. here is some of what the vice president had to say. we are gathered here at this honorable cary ceremony to receive 55 flag-draped cases, which we trust include the remains of american heroes that fell in the korean war. some have called the korean war the forgotten war. but today, we prove these heroes were never forgotten. today, our boys are coming home. sean: reminds us of the