do have a way to contact folks. >> do wonder what we did without them. >> i would use it for gps. >> mush that away. >> we hope you made some great memories today. thanks for being here with us this weekend. >> it was a pleasure. "inside politics" with john king, it starts right now. >> the president of the united states! >> a big night. >> everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. every problem can be solved. >> but a celebration cut short. >> i have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. >> democrats are feisty. >> what are the republicans afraid of? this goes right to the republicans in congress to their doorstep. >> and it's crunch time for big policy fights. >> let me make you a promise. the obamacare nightmare is about

to end. >> "inside politics," the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thanks for sharing your sunday morning. president trump is mad, and he is lashing out. in a stunning series of tweets saturday morning, mr. trump accused his predecessor, president obama, of wire tapping the phones at trump tower during last year's campaign. the president offered no evidence nor have his aides since the remarkable tweet storm. it's described by a mix of aides, advisers and friends and angry and very frustrated after a week that started well. remember his big speech to tuesday and then spiraled out of control. acknowledged meetings with russian ambassadors after months and his team denying any such contacts and, of course, there was this. >> i have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or

future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president. united states. i feel like that i am -- i should not be involved in investigating a campaign i had a role in. >> that recusal happened just not long after the president said he didn't think it was necessary. with us to their the reporting and their insights this sunday, julie pace of the associated pace, "new york times" report remember jonathan martin, perry bacon of 538.com and mary katherine ham of "the federalist." let's go through the tweets yesterday morning before the sun rose. the president was up, and he started with this one, of:35 a.m., terrible. just found out that obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism. then 19 minutes later, 15 minutes later, 14 minutes later, new math there, is it legal for a sitting president to be wire tapping a race for president prior to an a election turned down by court earlier. a new lurn. remember the turned down by court earlier.

we'll come back to this and how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process? this is nixon watergate. bad or sick guy. we've been asking his aides in the 24 hours since to explain this to us. is the president getting this at some aides about a talk radio program by mark levine, is that where the president is getting the information or does the president who has access to the most sensitive intelligence, does he know about a wiretap during the campaign? we do know the fbi is looking into alleged contacts between some trump associates and the russians, these are public documents, there was an intelligence finding and they went to the court and got it. which is it? >> that's a great question and if someone from the white house could give us a call and answer that question we would appreciate it. i'm not sure the president fully understood the door he was opening in doing this if he was just getting the information from breitbart or other conservative media because this has been one of the major questions surrounding this fbi

investigation it was the fbi, or were intelligence agencies actually accessing communication that the trump campaign had with the russians? if the president is the aware that happened or whether ordered by obama or what happened during the obama administration he's essentially given the hill, the investigative committees there and the intelligence agency an opening to share some of that information publicly which they have been reluctant to do so far. >> they have been reluctant. one of two things. either he has access to some information that there is such a wiretap, but, again, a president cannot order that. a president cannot personally wake up and say i'm mad hat jonathan. tap his phones. that would be illegal. he would need the fbi director, the attorney general and a whole lot of technical people involved in that who somehow decided not to share that information, unlikely, but there could be a legal one. but you asked the white house and now they say, sean spicer says the white house counsel is reviewing what options are available to us. is that just spin so that they don't say the president was just winging it because they were all surprised by this. they say they found out about

this from reading it on twitter. not part of a plan. is that spin, or can they actually -- can the white house counsel now go and find some documentation and then -- if there is documentation, that would be a confirmation by the white house that the obama administration justice department went to court and made the case that there was enough probable cause to have a wiretap. >> well, it's funny you ask that question because yesterday a senior white house official said that don mcgann, who is white house counsel was going to try to facea order. there was enormous blowback to that and then hours later a second white house official said, well, no, we're going to try to figure out what is going on here, but we went have him go and search for a fisa warrant. why is that? because the white house counsel can't go to doj and demand a fisa order. that's not how it works. that would be breaking enormous precedent in terms of, you know,

separation of powers. so that is the ongoing question is are the white house aides basically trying to clean up/make trump feel good, by pretending that they will get to the bottom of this when actually they are just trying to figure out how to pretend like they are for his sake, or are they actually doing some kind of an internal investigation to actually figure out what happened last year in this investigation? >> a lot of conflicting information on certain information, because, again, the president went to florida. most of his senior staff stayed behind. we know that on friday before he left there were a number of very tense conversations, including i'm told the president of the united states himself venting where are all the leaks coming from and why do we keep getting in our own way and we had a great speech to congress and jeff sessions and when the president was on the aircraft carrier, he said he didn't think jeff sessions needed to recuse himself. >> he was very angry about that. >> angry about that, so the question is where is this coming from. i want to show you a screen grab of breitbart, the conservative

radio host mark levine had a program the other day where levine makes the case there's a deep state, if you watch the show "scandal," that a deep state is obstructing trump and obama is in cahoots with it and this is the same guy that said obama is an illegitimate muslim sleeper cell and now he's-ins cahoots in a deep state to undermine trump. >> i think he probably saw this story somewhere and did not have inside information that we have seen. >> that's my sense, too, yeah. >> there is is sort of sketchy reporting are on the idea of some sort of fisa warrant, two different versions, one that maybe named some trump associates and a broader one approved later because the first one was rejected. so there may be some there there, but it does not equal obama wire tapping trump tower. it may not even actually be

related to physically trump tower, but i do think we're going to because of this tweet have to ask some people what exactly was there? >> the tweets do seem to have an obvious strategy of this is an issue he can't get past, the russian connection so let me make it a political issue and say it's obama's fault and play it on him and and the danger is he made a bunch of substive claims in the tweets that as far as i can he can't really defend and it's also a problem when the president of the united states is introducing facts that were not -- he basically all but accused the former president of a crime, like getting involved in doj investigations, and we saw the obama staff say no, we did not do this so trump has had a claim against a former president who is very popular while trump is not and right now trump has very little evidence of this point. >> some people roll their eyes and say it's trump being trump, pointing out these things on twitter and trump is the president of the united states and he's accusing his predecessor of committing a crime, the way he read, turned down by court earlier which is gets me back to what he's

picking up the breitbart reporting and senator ben sass, a reason can, called this a warping crisis of president trust and you have a president referencing mccarthyism, et cetera and lindsey graham, frequently a credit imof trump and he chooses his words very carefully and he says now that the current president has put this out there about the former president raising such serious allegations congress better get to work. >> if it is true, illegally, it would be the biggest political scandal since watergate. if the former president of the united states was able to obtain a warrant lawfully to monitor trump's campaign for violating law, that would be the biggest scandal since watergate. i'm very worried that our president is suggesting that the former president has done something illegally.

>> yeah, i mean, trump was trying to sort of muddy waters here on this issue and, you know, divert attention away from jeff sessions and russia and focus more on obama what he's unwittingly done is give more impetus to ben sass and lindsey gram to say nothing of democrats in congress to investigate this. well, if president trump was worried about this issue, well, now we're going to get to the bottom of this, so it just gives them on the hill cover to push this more aggressively. >> and trump has benefited so far from the fact that the fbi, james comby in particular, has been incredibly reluctant to say anything publicly about what's happening behind the zones with their own investigation but where he'll have a problem i think is when this does move to the hill because you'll have house and senate committees investigating this, democrats on those committees and we're going to be far more willing to talk publicly about what comes up and he's not going to be able to control that. >> there's a bit of a precedent for comey coming out. and to sass' point it's larger

than the daily politics of this. i do think there is a giant public trust problem here and often in the news cycle it feels like you're sitting at the madhatter's table and there's nonsense coming from every single direction and we're all trying to parse it and that's a really deeper issue than the daily politics. >> that's right. before we take a break we'll come back to the details of the russia stuff and the investigation later on in the program and this happens at a time when you talk to people in the last 48 hours. they say -- i've talked to a close friend of his who says he's hot. his team keeps getting in their own way and he's also mad about the leaks which he thinks are coming from career people and obama holdovers and he's hot which is one of the reasons why he's lashing out. what's going on inside the white house? >> it's really a tough environment right now. what you've seen happen with the president is every time he sees that a story is out of control and turns to his team and blames them for lose control. that's his main focus right now. he doesn't understand why they couldn't ahead why they couldn't get ahead of the mike flynn and doesn't understand why they

couldn't control the jeff sessions thing and why sessions recused himself. they follow directions sometimes only to follow out that that's not actually what the president wanted and in a white house where you're dealing with a lot of incoming but also trying to have a proactive agenda, i think they have basically are at a point where they are stuck right now. >> one point. lindsey graham, senior senator, used the term watergate twice in that clip. it's important to note, it looks like we're in a moment where republicans are very nervous about a burgeoning scandal. >> see how that plays out and if nothing else an opening from the president to ask more questions. the president put this on the table and we'll ask more questions. when it comes to election year contacts no means yes. that in a few minutes and a trump agenda progress report as the president nears the 50-day mark but first every sunday politicians say the darnedest thing. this sunday was an "snl" shout-out to jeff sessions a l.a. forrest gump. >> i wish i could go back to the white house and see mr. trump.

i miss him and democrats want me to resign. i've just got to prove to everybody that i don't have any ties to the russians whatsoever. >> this meeting never happened. >> i wouldn't remember it anyway. ♪

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...better than a manual, and my hygienist says it does. but... ...they're not all the same. turns out, they're really... ...different. who knew? i had no idea. so, she said look for... ...one that's shaped like a dental tool with a round... ...brush head. go pro with oral-b. oral-b's rounded brush head surrounds each tooth to... ...gently remove more plaque and... ...oral-b crossaction is clinically proven to... ...remove more plaque than sonicare diamondclean. my mouth feels so clean. i'll only use an oral-b! the #1 brand used by dentists worldwide. oral-b. brush like a pro. welcome back. president trump hit the 50-day mark in the week ahead and there are giant policy tests looming. take two of his controversial travel ban just one of them. >> we cannot allow a beachhead

of terrorism to form inside america. we cannot allow our nation to become a sanctuary for extremists. that is why my administration has been working on an improved vetting procedure. >> we're told that new travel ban could come as early as tomorrow and then within days republicans begin to plan action on an obamacare replacement plan, even though there are giant internal gop differences over the details. >> we're all working off the same piece of paper and plan so we're in sync, the house, the senate and the trump administration because this law is collapsing. >> in sync on the goals, not necessarily on the details. let's start with the travel ban proposal which we're told could come as early as tomorrow. the administration has said since the judges blocked this, that this was urgent and had to be done and then they themselves undermined that argument a bit being careful. they want to get it right and i'm told the homeland security secretary general kelly wants to be clear. let make sure we're clear and getting it right is better than

getting it fast. how do we expect it to be different than the same? >> first of all, the secretary was involved. he was nominally involved before and the key is what are the details? last time there were all stories of people who went to harvard and doctors and all these people who had been in america already and they were being blocked from going in. i wonder if the details of the actual travel ban will be different to where it's only basically if you've not been in the u.s. that said we'll have a lot of lawsuits against because a lot of people feel like he campaigned on a muslim ban. this is a muslim ban and aclu and groups like that are going to fight this, but i do think it will be administered in a more coherent way because the homeland security secretary is involved and has been planning this for a while. general kelly was with trump yesterday. >> the homela. >> it's how they presented it to the public. when the president signed the

first up, he did it late on a friday night and the actual order didn't come out for a couple of hours and there was no sales pitch and they were stuck with a really negative and emotional coverage of people trying to get into the country and being blocked so they are talking about not only having the president sign this and having it be more thoroughly vetted internally and also trying to set actual policy to the public which is pretty basic things that you tend to do in white houses but something that this white house is still trying to get their hands around. >> they have been different in that regard because in part they were trying to move fast. . he wants to be seen as a man of action and to his credit what he's been doing is keeping i did dealt and the problem with rushing it falls off the wayside. i want to put up on screen, we're almost to the halfway mark of the first 100 days, some people think it's a fair place to judge, others think it's too premature. the president wants to get done the travel ban, on hold waiting for the second version and obamacare, a couple of very big next couple of weeks and there's

some concern about the pricetation but the president wants to move forward on the wall and infrastructure, the president said in the speech he wants to spend a trillion dollars, a mix of public and private, and as he moves forward, the details of these issues, fascinating debates ahead. >> the biggest issue is tax reform. for pokes like paul ryan this is a long running fantasy that they think now is coming true. what i don't understand -- i've heard a lot of this talk over the last few days in washington is why trump did not come out of the gates and do infrastructure first where you would get a bipartisan vote, big early victory and trump with the hard hat and the shovel and the ribbon cutting and the whole nine yards, would it have been keynesian, not so conservative, sure. >> he is keynesian and not conservative. >> so you jam your own party and squeeze democrats. it's a win and bannon by the way

was talking about this after the election. what happened to that? instead now, the entire conversation, if it's not about russia and controversy at the white house and feuds, it's all about, well, what's going to be the obamacare replacement? that's going to be the biggest policy question in the first six months of his presidency and instead of getting a big win. john, i think it's mob that he can go through the first year of his presidency and not sign one major piece of legislation. >> boy, if that happens he's off the rails because the republicans have promise and a the argument from a lot of conservatives is we sent president obama and obamacare repeal and we had the votes to send it to him, why haven't we done this already. >> and obamacare, part of the reason they are doing that, instead of infrastructure, was a bigger promise and then on the travel ban. >> republicans. >> on the travel ban part it's important not to overlook the fact that the system is work here when i see the freaking out on my facebook page and among friends about the collapse of the republic imminently, the court said no, we go back and we do it again.

that's how the system is work so applauding the president for that. but it matters that you do things well, and if you want to move quickly, you do this well the first time and then you move on from it and do the next thing and now we're stuck doing the other thing again and then doing obamacare later in the week. that siha busy week. >> jonathan, i thought the list of '93 was don't do health care first, it's really hard and challenging. and trump was elected on the economy, people thought he would bring jobs back and after the speech and on friday he's talking about school vouchers, a big issue but not necessarily at the top of mind for most americans, would i argue. >> it is an interesting point if you look atting experience of the obama administration, both on the issue which is complicated and all democratic votes and on observing abe it will be all republican votes and is that the way you wanted to start and the people on the hill said that's what you've got to do. hang tight and sit tight, he called it a ruse and for months scoff at talk anyone close to

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welcome back, as the candidate, as president-elect and as president the answer from team donald trump has been consistent. >> how many times do i have to answer this question? russia is a ruse. i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge no person that i deal with does. >> was there any contact in any way between trump or his associates and the kremlin or cutouts? >> of course not. why would there be any contacts between the campaign? >> trying to ascertain is at what point -- how many people have to say that there's nothing there before you realize there's nothing there? >> but we now know on this question, no, at least sometimes means yes. let's look at some key dates in the spy novel that just simply won't get away. back in april 2016 as a candidate, then candidate donald trump delivered a major foreign policy guest. as a major vip guest in the

front row, the russian ambassador. in july donald trump is officially to become the republican nominee and we know senator sessions met with the russian ambassador at the convention. it should be noted that event that he met him at was organized by the obama state department, yes, it was. also in this several time frame. out at the campaign and meet with the russian ambassador. on the surface nothing wrong with that, but for months they said no contacts. what democrats get curious about this is july 19thth and 20th here, democrats say a-ha, it was july 22ndnd when the first wikileaks release of the dnc e-mails happened. that's what democrats say. now we move forward to september. a little bit later in the campaign, and we know senator sessions has now disclosed he had a second meeting with the russian ambassador and this one at his senate office. he said it was just about senate business, his job on the armed services committee and now we move forward to october, the first wikileaks release of the john podesta e-mails. democrats say this is why they are suspicious of all of this.

they want to ask some questions and now we know the election happened. president-elect trump and in december in the transition the first national security adviser, general michael flynn who had to resign had several contacts with the russian ambassador, one of them a trump tower meeting with the son-in-law, jared kushner and that was involved after months and months did asking did you have any contacts with the russians and the trump campaign said these were courtesy calls and nothing bad happened and democrats like nancy pelosi don't buy it. >> what do the russians have on donald trump that he would do that and i don't know who knew what in all of this but it's important to find out and we must have that investigation. the very idea that the top cop would go to his colleagues in the senate and withhold the truth. this is not an unsophisticated person. this is a prosecutor and he knows it's there.

>> let me put one on the table. the russian president is doing his job. the russian ambassador said he might just be the aren't of the united states and i need to get them to know these people and he has a bunch of meetings with these people and they talk about ukraine and sanctions and talk about whatever, absolutely nothing wrong with that. the russian ambassador is earning his pay. why then, why then do they just answer no when you ask for months did you have contacts and did you have meetings? why not just sayyaf, sure and if the german ambassador called we might have met with that, too. >> that's why it's so confounding and there's actually nothing wrong with any of the meetings and there's nothing wrong with mike flynn talking to the russian ambassador during the transition and really probably nothing wrong with him talking about what the trump administration was going to do once they took office. but the fact that you have two major figures, put aside the carter pages and two major figures in trump's campaign and

trump's administration, jeff sessions and mike flynn who have both given misleading answers publicly and privately about their contacts with the same russian ambassador is just confounding that that happened, and while the -- while the trump administration will continue to say that there was nothing wrong with those contacts i do think we need to get an answer as to why people felt there needed to be answers on the contacts. >> this is politics 101. once you realize people are asking these questions, get it out. jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, a key adviser to him was in one of these meetings. they say it was coffee. ambassador requested the meeting and had a quick courtesy call, absolutely nothing wrong with it. why didn't someone say early on, whether we like it or not, don't like to answer reporter questions, somebody put together a list of every contact we had. >> put it out and get it out. >> not just every contact and every contact with every contact you talked with and if you isolate the russian stuff then it looks weirder than having routine meetings with other people. >> look, i think the white house feels under siege and partly for good reasons.

there is as leaked campaign going on here that is intended to make them look very bad so i think that that might be part of this. >> i agree with you 100%, don't mean to interrupt and they couldn't leak information about these meetings if the trump campaign got ahead of them and released all these meetings, and this is a lesson to any of you watching at home. don't call the intelligence community nazis. >> yeah, but it's a problem that's like -- it's a problem if they are doing this and not doing what their actual jobs are which is to keep things secret so i think this is part of this hand part of the defensiveness about this and if they had the goods they would leak that. they would leak they in fairious angle here and they have not seen that. >> that's a good point. >> and i'm not going to pretend that sessions though i think he made a mistake though recusal is a right decision though not resignation. him meeting at a heritage foundation state department foundation gathering of many of the ambassadors is a problem and it's obviously innocent and talking about in a way that sounds like it's not i think is not good. >> and he's in trouble for that

and had to recuse himself and during his confirmation hearing this question came up. >> and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and i didn't have -- i did not have communications with the russians. >> that -- that was his problem. i did not have any communication with the russians and he said he took it in a context in a campaign role and did not have any meetings with the campaign role. the one at the convention is an iffy one and the reap why republicans are nervous about this. they know senator sessions is and was rejected for a federal judgeship once and they wonder why didn't he at least after the fact correct the record correct the record and say i did have a

couple of meetings in my capacity as a senator. >> ryan cillizza says we have something like a cover-up but not really a crime in the sense that we don't know -- we have lots of lies and misleading statements. we don't really know what the thing -- we think they are covering up something and we can't really tell. it could be possible that trump wants to have a different vancouver our relationship with russia which is what julie wrote about today very well in fact and that's what this is about and could be something much worse. the "new york times" story suggests that the obama white house believes that the russians colluded with the trump campaign on the wire tapping and -- and -- on the election campaign, i'm sorry. much more serious and the problem is -- trump needs to sort of address and say, is okay, we had some context and give a reason why because now we're all wondering what's going on. he hasn't given a coherent story and that would address the issue. >> so the questions continue. you have a very good point. there are people leaking things that are damaging to the administration and the president has every reason to be upset and the problem for the president is when you say no for months, the

actions of his own aides are undermining him, they are undermining him, whether it's well-intended, don't like answering the questions. one of my favorite comments from this week, senator angus king and the whole point on say no, say no, find out no turns yes and here's what happens. >> the denials remind me of observe won ken by in the first "star wars" where he says these aren't the droids you're looking for and they go on by. you've got to -- you know, we've just got to continue to follow this, and it's -- it's in the interest of the -- of the president and the people around him to get this all out. it's the drip, drip that's really going to be damaging. >> and it's extraordinary because, like perry says, it's the drip, drip, about contacts and meetings that may be totally innocent.

it's just the lack of being up front about it that -- that creates this problem for trump. look, there may have been something going on with the russians, as trump would put it, or maybe -- or maybe there wasn't at all. but -- but it's now the second week in march almost and instead of just handling this stuff forthrightly trump is battling day in and day out these leaks that are coming up because his own folks won't say up front what actually happened and i think they won't say that because they don't want to give oxygen to it but ironically by not being up front they are creating more oxygen because putting out a huge list like ma mary katherine suggested of every meeting of every ambassador of every country would be an a-27 but when it's a leak from senior folks. >> so you're saying he should practice his jedi mind jerk. >> not the droids you are looking for. >> and the combination of the unanswered questions and the

drip, drip, drip part, why if it's nothing did they not get it out himself and now the president is treating the president wire tapped him will add speed. next, the president speaks to congress and the week that could have been. when i was a navy seal, i trained as hard as i could to stay alive. i have more than 30 pieces of shrapnel still in my leg. but i still push myself to the limit. if it weren't for my tempur-pedic, i wouldn't be able to sleep on my left side at all. my unit put in a special request to get one and i realized that tempur-pedic was exponentially better than anything else. it gave me a huge performance advantage, it still does. tempur-pedic. this sleep is power.

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welcome back. not sure if you feel this way at home, but to me this seems like it was a lot longer than just five days ago. >> ryan's legacy is etched into eternity. thank you. [ applause ] >> that powerful moment, very powerful moment, was tuesday night in a well-received speech to congress in which the president also closed by saying this. >> the time for small thinking

is over. the time for trivial fights is behind us. >> people asked right after the speech which was very well received, very well received inside the building. even democrats privately saying the president did a good job. american people reacted very well if you looked at the polls, but a lot of people did ask how long would that la, the time for trivial fights is over and in addition to the very serious fight is -- fights being trivial and now schwarzenegger did not resign from "the apprentice" he was fired. is that a trivial fight. >> he's been doing that for a long time. he likes to tweet. likes to tweet about ratings. wasn't going to change after

tuesday. the minute tuesday was over, once the sessions came out in "the post" and at the end of the day, the basketweave moment of like he can sort of have an agenda and lead the conversation was over the moment we got back to russia so i think that moment was squandered, not necessarily -- the tweets were not great yesterday but also the real driving event of the week was the sessions news and the recusal. >> the most fundamental element as julie knows well is he wants to be respected and taken seriously and he covered that like nothing else. >> that covers the next night and the next day. and he was taken seriously and he was tweeted at the president and drove the conversation and he goes back to his questions about russia, that's why he's so furious because he got this legitimacy conferred on him and had it snatched away.

>> he felt what it was like to have washington approve of him and he liked that feeling, it's understandable, but it's interesting to look how the white house came out of that speech. and it was a strategy was to essentially sit back and bask in it for a whole day. they did nothing the day after instead of after they could have gone out there. >> they know he likes good reviews though. they thought it would help him and maybe teach him a lesson about staying on track and discipline >> but they did nothing to build off that to use his momentum. what they came off that speech and moved forward quickly hon health care or tax reform and tried to build their policy agenda around the policy speech. >> and instead he was on the "uss gerald ford," hit the road, get a good stage. >> what's the message? >> he wants to talk about military spending and went down below on the deck and facing all these questions about jeff sessions and goes on the record and says he doesn't think jeff

needs to recuse himself and isn't the president supposed to know his attorney general is about to recuse himself. >> one would think. he d have a good night on tuesday and did blow it up later in the week and i fully expected that going through the week but there's a strange thing that happens with him you said to what end, and i think that's the big question. what does legislation move forward and when do you actually sign something, but, on the other hand, his bad numbers and bad news cycles don't have as much impact on his support as they would on other police atic and he has to eventually put that to work getting something through congress, i think, or else it's going to run out on him >> you mentioned the point earlier he likes to be liked and respected. he's calling the president, the former president obama accusing them of nixonian conduct and the mccarthyism and it wasn't that long ago that he had a very

different view. >> it's a very strange phenomenon. we get along and he likes me and i like him. >> how do you know he likes you? >> i can feel it. >> what's changed? >> i think it will be interesting going forward. presidents sometimes talk privately. current presidents and former presidents, and during the transition there was a lot of communication between obama and trump, and i think obama felt like he was able to shape at least the way trump was thinking about matters in realtime. i think it will be fascinating to see if there continues to be some behind-the-scenes conversation between these two. >> i have to guess if you're president obama and you've been accused of illegally wiretapping somebody, president obama probably thinks the next move is up to president trump. >> obama might start tweeting about state of the union ratings. >> crowd size. >> now, now, now. very northern week for the president. looking for the travel ban and action on obamacare and reporters share from the notebook, a man who you've never

heard of but a man who has a critical role in the replacing of obamacare debate. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ sfx: engine revving ♪ (silence) ♪

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>> jason: welcome back. we surround our table with reporters, not pundits for a reason and we ask them to share a nugget or two from their notebook. >> there's an interesting policy debate on russia happening in the white house on the sidelines of all of these revelations about trump advisers meeting with the russian ambassador. the president has started to signal to some of his team and as well as some allies that the moment may not be right for the kind of grand bargain he's talking about with thrash would involve the islamic state, the ukraine and arms control. there's some reasons for this that are pretty legit. one is russias violations of an imf treaty and more voices that are skeptical of russia and the fact that this conversation is happening underscores how intense the political pressure around trump is getting and he's recognizing that to go forward with some kind of grand bargain

with putin at this moment would real be a huge risk for his presidency. >> perhaps timing is not right. jonathan in. >> eyebrows were raised here in florida when rick scott, the governor of florida, took the job of vice chair of the rr ga. why is that a big idea? that's the chair of the rgr in 2018, a group that oversees governors races for the gop. that will take him off the field against bill nelson who is the incumbent senator in florida in 2018. why does that matter? because the gop here in washington and in florida was counting on the very wealthy governor scott to self-fund his own race against bill nelson in 2018 hand now there are questions, is he committed to running for the senate? if he's not committed that opens up as a huge state, a very competitive race and a very expensive state. >> very expensive. republicans are counting on that one, perry. >> a person who watch this week and the next couple of weeks is the head of the congressional budget office.

the cbo determines that it hasn't been told a score and they determine how the health insurance bill worked, the health appeal bill and how much will it cost and will his impact be on everyone else than score is going to be a big deal because if the score comes back and it's really bad it suggests this appeal will insure less people or cost less money or raise costs. that's going to make it much harder for paul ryan and mitch mcconnell to get the bill through congress. >> one of the persons who has a lot of impact. >> mary katherine. >> keeping an eye on special elections is a bit of a clue as to where the resist movement might go. the head of the rnc was talking about holding it in delaware and they are 0 for 4 trying to flip seats in blue states, hillary won two in delaware, virginia and delaware. the resist movement has not turned into something that's flipping seats even in the

special election. >> reemps non-optimal news. >> that's a new term. >> to what degree all the anti-trump energy on left translates into day-to-day politics. massachusetts senator elizabeth warren, usually a darling dry its ire when she cast a vote for ben carson as housing secretary and warren flipped and was among those in the full senate investigate no. a being loer term test in the eighth congressional district. 15-year incumbent steven lynch is one of the few democrats back in the day to vote against the affordable care act and recently said the media is too tough on president trump and is facing a challenge from a video game designer and lynch is being warned to take the challenge seriously. that's it for "inside politics."

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bombshell, president trump's shocking and evidence-free claim that president obama had trump tower wiretapped before the election. >> i think that president obama is behind it. >> will the white house ever produce any evidence for the president's claim? >> and what has the fbi discovered? marco rubio is one of the senators leading the probe, and he'll be here next. plus, more russia revelations. >> i should not be involved in investigating a campaign i had a role in. >> attorney general jeff sessions under fire for not being forthcoming with congress about his meetings with the russian ambassador, but president trump and the kremlin call it it a witch-hunt. top democratic leader nancy pelosi is here to respond in an