rebounds. thursday san antonio hosts game one of the finals. we know you'll be watching. we're glad you're here to share some time with us. jake tapper is in for john king for "inside politics." that starts right now. hillary clinton readies her roll-out with a friendly lunch and a series of strategic leaks. >> choices is at the core of what kind of people we want to be and what kind of countries we want to have. >> also the political fallout from the veterans affairs scandal former general eric shinseki will be gone, but will the failures of the va system continue to haunt democrats. plus the big primary week ahead

be the tea party's last hope? i'm jake tapper in for john king. thanks for sharing your sunday with us. with us, molly ball of the atlantic, politico's manu raju, npr's shin ski and margaret toll live. hillary clinton's new book comes out in ten days. perhaps you've heard about it oovps. we've already been treated to a roll-out. first came the mother's day excerpt in "vogue" magazine. and then an audio of the former secretary reading her author's note. >> everything i have done and seen has convinced me that america remains the indispensable nation. >> next came a facebook video. we can see her as well as hear her. then a surprise launch with an admirer. no, not this one, someone else, at his place. >> i always admired her.

as soon as she got here, she couldn't have been more effective, more loyal. and since that time we've become really, really good friends. >> finally on friday in the shadow of a big competing story about eric shinseki's resignation as secretary of veterans affairs, the book's chapter of benghazi leaks. >> i will not be a part of a political slug fest. it's unworthy of our great country. those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me. molly, is that going to work? >> yes and no. i think the other crucial thing she says in this excerpt that was leaked is that there are not unanswered questions. there are answers nobody is listening to. we learned this week, also, she's agreed to a lengthy interview on fox news. i think she wants to show that she can take anything they can throw at her. she's making the case this is

all a political thing and not an attack that has substance. will that work? i don't know. >> take it back to the whole campaign going on here for want of a better word, this has been very carefully calibrated, everything dropped in drift. we don't know where your colleague, maggie haberman got this chapter from, it's strategically placed on a friday when there's also competing big news. >> that's right. plus, she'll eventually have to go on all the networks, asked about benghazi. get her side of the story out there first before she's asked on the news, asked by reporters what happened. this is a clear pr effort by her to try to stay -- punch back and say that republicans have been bashing her for the past several weeks. she's probably going to have to come before the select committee in the house right now that's investigating this matter, get her story outside, get her story out first before they start

asking her questions, both in the press and on the hill. >> she says she's not going to be part of a political slugfest. obviously she is. in the end you have to ask the question, what is there that's going to stick to hillary clinton a couple years from now? and that's the time frame we're talking about here. i was thinking about george bush's famous 16 words. there were 16 words in a speech that people were able to identify that they felt was a lie, leading up to the iraq war. you can argue about that and argue about that endlessly. i'm not sure there are 16 equivalent words for hillary clinton in this scandal. there are quotes that are damaging, but is there something that she did that people can capture the public's imagine with two years from now in the facts? i don't know. >> this is ultimately hillary trying to set the narrative and the pace for her own story. we've seen karl rove come out of the gate a couple times in the past few weeks, old and scary, can you think for yourself. this is her saying i'm not going to talk about it unless i want

to talk about it. by the way, why have lunch with president obama this time? i'm going to control the pictures that get tweeted, not the white house. >> what's also interesting about that lunch, president obama did this interview with kelly and michael and lavished her with praise. >> he's been laying the groundwork for quite some time. you remember at the correspondents dinner he was putting joe biden off to the side and anointing her as his successor. >> there was a delightful article in politico magazine, it was a profile of vice president biden and poignant details with him wanting to make exploratory views into a campaign and the white house reeling him in. >> joe biden wants to be seen as the most qualified person in the field right now. it's interesting you see all of

his senate colleagues. he was a senator for three decades. numerous friendships on the hill. but those senate democrats are all lining up behind hillary right now. so is the white house, so is the president. >> before we get to 2016, of course we have to get to 2014, the midterm elections. a couple weeks ago i had lunch with a top democrat who told me that eric shinseki could not still be in the administration by november. if he was, it would cost democrats the senate. he's obviously gone now. how much do you think there will be a lingering effect of the va scandal? obviously there are two components here, the actual problem with getting care to veterans and political ramifications of this. we all can agree on the getting the care to veterans part. but where are the politics going, do you think? >> it's clear the republicans believe there is political mileage out of this or they wouldn't be airing ads.

you the crossroads committees and other republican candidates airing ads on the scandal, tieing vulnerable democrats to the president, to the scandal, and all the political science on this is clear, that when the president looks bad, candidates from his party do worse. to the extent this lingers or reenforces a pre-existing idea about obama that he is ineffective or he is weak or not running a competent administration, that is the perception that republicans are going to continue to hammer, and i think that's why you had john boehner say the president is not off the hook no matter what happened to his cabinet. >> we have the sound bite. speaker boehner who never called for shinseki to resign. on friday he seemed to be blaming president obama and not shinseki. >> general shinseki has dedicated his life to our country and we thank him for his

service. his resignation, though, does not absolve the president of his responsibility to step in and make things right for our veterans. business as usual cannot continue. >> putting this right on the doorstep of president obama. >> that's right. what's interesting is that democrats actually are ready to have an argument over veterans health care. now that the accountability issue is sort of taken off the table that shinseki has stepped aside, they feel like if there's an argument right now about providing health care to veterans. they have a better argument funding va medical centers. that's something that republicans are not necessarily for. they want to see this going into the private sector where veterans have access to private medical care. that's the debate they hope happens. the issue is there may be other issues to drop in this. democrats are not united over whether there should be legislation in order to allow for more va senior officials to be fired and demoted. >> stay with us. up next, what may be the tea party's last stand and a u.s. senate race defined by tweets

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this tuesday. these pieces are tweets from a contest teach in the mississippi mud. >> it's a race tailor-made for the tea party, aimed at long time republican senator thad cochran. he's been in the senate a long time. how long you ask? just follow the tweets launched by supporters of tea party challenger chris mcdonnell. more on him in a moment. back to senator cochran, the tea party calls him a big spender. heresy. he's well traveled. could that mean he's out of touch with the homes back home? all this is run-of-the-mill dirty politics. here is where it gets interesting, a conservative blogger is arrested, breaking into a nursing home to photograph cochran's wife suffering from dementia. the argument is the reason he took pictures was to feed questions about cochran and long-time aide kay weber who has traveled extensively with the senator on the taxpayer dime.

cochran's campaign calls it part of her job and suggests the blooder was put up to his deeds by tea party opponent chris mcdaniel. was he? >> our campaign had absolutely no connection with that whatsoever. >> you personally, when did you find out about the break-in? >> we're going to focus on his record right now. >> i'm sure they will. manu, what do you make of all this? >> i think cochran is going to narrowly escape. it's going to be close. they've effectively used this against chris mcdonald as you saw for that interview, it was hard for him to explain what happened with that arrest. overall, this is another example of tea party forces having a tough time knocking down the establishment this cycle. they forced these guys to run to the right in a lot of their positions on the right. they're having a hard time with easily the most vulnerable candidate right now, thad cochran, a guy not prepared for his re-election, really didn't

do a lot, started running late. it seems like he's going to win. if he does, it will be because of that incident. >> in many ways you can argue the tea party has already won. even if candidates like mcdonnell don't win, they are successful in shifting the party to the right. >> it's interesting that the tea party groups you talk to have to say what you said, our candidates are losing but we're forcing our ideas on the other side. part of that equation is their candidates are losing. you do have to ask, if lawmakers once elected or re-elected like thad cochran if he is re-elected are going to be quite as fearful as the tea party because their power was threatening people with the primary challenge. if that threat is broken, i think that might make a difference on the margins. the republican party is conservative. people will vote in a conservative way. there may be more room for people to make compromises when they feel it's necessary. >> margaret, the establishment really was prepared this time, the republican establishment in a way they weren't last time. >> that's right. part of this is in this specific

case, this is just such a deeply personal issue tweak cochran and his family and it's not really right for picking off. when you look at 2010 and the 2010 elections, everyone caught the tea party by surprise. nobody was sure what to do, we saw obama get re-elected. what you see now is a movement towards 2016. you see boehner and mcconnell both says, enough is enough. you see a lot of republican business people and establishment leaders saying we need to figure out how to position ourselves for 2016. >> we also have the iowa senate race, jody ernst managed to get both the establishment and the tea party on board. those are the candidates that are strong not just in the primary but potentially for the general election. >> i think the real news of 2014 is the rise of these sort of fusion candidates. joanie ernest endorsed by sarah palin and mitt romney. that tells you all you need to know about the backing she's managed to assemble. someone like ben sachs in nebraska, tom tillis in north

carolina, even though he had a couple of opponents, clearly had the support of a lot of conservatives. think we might see that in georgia if jack kingston makes it out of the runoff as well. you do see a party increasingly consolidated under a conservative bat banner, but also the establishment managing to bring these unruly forces into the tent in the name of party unity, in the name of trying to win a national election again base that's what they're going to need. >> part of that is spending money in primaries. the tea party forces have been effective in past election cycles because a lot of the establishment types weren't spending money. the chamber of commerce wasn't going in and propping up their candidates the way they did in idaho with mike simpson, the way they did with jack kingston in georgia. this time they are spending money to prop up the people they think are the most electable and going after those outside groups on the right, do spend a lot of money like the club for growth, senate conservatives fund in a

very aggressive way. that's been the big shift in this election cycle. we'll see if it pays dividends in november. next, tomorrow's news today. our reporters preview the big political stories that are just around the corner. they're cloudy.

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lots of goings and comings in the obama administration of note, especially for the washington press corps. white house press secretary jay

carney is moving on. >> in mid life you don't often make a whole new set of friends, not just friends but people you would fight by and for under any circumstance. that's certainly what i have been lucky enough to get over these past five and a half years. it's been a privilege and it continues to be a privilege. every day in here with you has been a privilege. >> every day? >> more often than not people say you have the hardest job or you have one of the hardest jobs. i'm not saying it's easy every day, but i love it. it's an important interaction that takes place here. it's not always pretty. it could certainly be better, but it's -- to be a part of it is an honor and a joy for me. and no matter how tough the briefing is, i walk out of here

having been glad to stand here. >> every sunday we ask our great reporters to share something from their notebooks. first i want a few words to describe the departing white house press secretary jay carney who just on friday announced he was leaving. >> it's not a total surprise because it is a gruelling thankless job that no one wants to stay in for longer than several years. probably ready to move on. >> he said it had been a very fulfilling job. i can't believe anyone would admit it's fulfilling to deal with the media. impressed he could do it with a straight face. >> why friday? >> the advantage of dumping it on a friday, on a busy friday with a lot of other stuff going on, he will not get the same amount of coverage for not replacing jay with a woman. a lot of speculation on whether this would be a finally female press secretary under obama. it will not be. it will be a trusted loyal member, but not a woman.

this makes something that won't get enough attention. >> another white men. people thought jen saki at the state department. >> president obama likes his bros. >> he does. josh ernest is pretty well liked. i covered him before he was with obama in iowa, as obama mentioned, he was actually with the short-lived presidential campaign of tom vilsack. >> of course, one of obama's top aides, dan pfeiffer with the short-lived presidential campaign of evan bayh. >> deep cut. >> i had to reach into the recesses. let's go into the reporters' notebooks. >> next week the theme for president obama will be all about putin. we'll see him in poland and brussels and france, of course. every stop is tailored to tweak this relationship with russia, show president putin about how strong u.s. alliances are with

nato allies and then in normandy to show this is what the u.s. and russia could do when they were on the same side together. >> this past week was about veterans affairs. we've been doing reporting on another agency, customs and border protection, the border patrol. there have been a lot of questions about the border patrol shooting unarmed people, including mexicans, americans being searched by the border patrol and transparency, some of the same questions being asked about the va, who knows what's going on. it's described as a very is secretive agency. the president has appointed new homeland security leadership. they have promised more transparency. they gave a tiny bit on friday. there's a lot of questions left to answer. >> you've done great reporting from the border at npr. >> it's fashionable on the campaign trail for republican candidates to say i'm not going to support mitch mcconnell as leader orion if i'll support him because maybe he won't run.

mcconnell has been going behind the scenes to lock down support from people who don't necessarily support him. one example, ben sasse. he had a cool relationship with mitch mcconnell because of sasse's support in nebraska. after sasse won his primary, he was on the phone with mitch mcconnell and he had lunch with senate republicans right before they left for their recess. another example of how he's locking down support and will have the support to become majority leader if he wins his re-election and republicans take the majority. >> for all this talk about how the tea party is dieing out in the senate primaries, the tea party is alive and well and living in texas, it turns out. in the texas run-off that happened this past week, the conservative candidate won by a wide margin for lieutenant governor taking out poor old david due hurs is it, the same guy that lost to ted cruz, the attorney general race,

agriculture commissioner race all won to the point where some texas republicans are worrying that the demographics pose an inevitability. turning texas blue may be coming faster than they thought. these are candidates so conservative particularly on issues like immigration. >> interesting. it might help hasten the democrats. >> dan patrick, the lieutenant governor candidate has called it an invasion. a long history of republicans in texas like rick perry and george w. bush calling for a more liberal position on immigration. that's not what these candidates are talking about. >> i talked to security experts this week and they shared the same concern, syria attracting jihadists from every nation. they worry the next terror attack on american interests will come from someone involved in syria's instability, many mentioned the group ice sis. that's it for inside politics. john king will be back next

sunday. "state of the union" with candy crowley starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com the u.s. soldier they did not leave behind and the guantanamo bay detainees they let go. today the u.s. and the taliban agree to a prisoner swap. five taliban terrorists for the release of the only american p.o.w. in the afghan war. >> he wasn't forgotten by his country because the united states of america does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind. >> bringing home sergeant bergdahl with president obama's national security adviser, susan rice. then reaction from a panel of seasoned experts, retired marine corps general and former national security adviser jim