brianna, thank you. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. shanks for sharing your day with us. more health care blow back for republican lawmakers back home. the house plan tinkers with obamacare but comes nowhere close to repealing it. >> in individual markets and your insurance coverage is current, nothing's going to change. >> more on that in a moment. plus former president obama extolls the virtues of fighting climate change just as the white house nears a decision about to walk away from the paris a accords. we begin with a question. what would you do if you were the boss and were told this about an employee in one of your most sensitive positions? >> we felt like it was critical that we get this information to the white house.

because in part because the vice president was unknowingly making false statements to the public and because we believed that general flynn was compromised with respect to the russians. >> with us to share reporting and insights abby phillip, jeff zeal knee and nia-malika henderson. that was sally yates and she raised a number of questions in her testimony before congress yesterday, this chief among them. >> to state the obvious, you don't want your national security adviser compromised with the russians. >> yates was acting attorney general when she and another high ranking justice department official delivered the warning to the white house. that was in february. but president trump waited 18 days to fire general michael flynn. and only then after "washington post" report detailing the blackmail concerns. why is the question the white house hasn't satisfactorily answered. did the president think yates was exaggerating the risk? did he already know flynn was lying and didn't think it was a

big deal? did loyalty to flynn blind him to the gravity of the situation? why? 18 days. why? >> those 18 days are going to be, you know, become a sub theme i think of this presidency in terms of inspecting everything that happened on that. it's clear now that this was not -- should not have been a surprise to the president. sean spicer will have to walk back these words among many others he's done because it's clear that everyone knew about this. we don't know though exactly what the president knew. this is one question i have on this. did his white house counsel tell him everything about this at that point? we don't know that exactly yet. he knew at least some basic parameters of it. were they hiding things from the president or did the president about this all along going forward? the president is unusually silent this week so far. >> you make a great point about the judgment of the president. why would you leave someone in a job for 18 days?

he had been warned before. president obama said don't hire this guy. as they try to shift blame to obama, he gave him a security clearance, why should we listen to sally yates, they had grudges. his own transition raised question questions about this. chris christie didn't want him to get the national security adviser job. >> you also had -- i mean, a lot of the information yesterday was not totally breaking news. it was interesting seeing sally yates say those things, but one new detail was that she was called back to the white house a second day after she initially briefed the white house counsel don mcgann about this. the question is sort of what happened inside the white house after that first meeting? conversations made between the president and his couple that required her to come back a second day from further questioning and further details. >> and she told congress that don mcgann asked her how mike flynn did in his interview with the fbi which is out of bounds. white house counsel should not be asking. that white house counsel asked

her for the underlying evidence about the investigations going forward which is out of bound for the white house counsel to be asking at the moment the acting attorney general of the united states. part of her testimony made crystal clear the president tries to say this was a hoax, there's nothing there. stirring this up because hillary clinton lost the election. if you listen to sally yates, she makes clear this ongoing fbi investigation of general flynn is serious. >> what was that underlying conduct and are you convinced that the former national security adviser was truthful in his testimony to the fbi in january 24? >> again, i hate to frustrate you again, but i think i'm going to have to. my knowledge of this underlying conduct is based on classified information. and so i can't reveal what that underlying conduct is. >> it's one of the many things we don't know. are there other conversations? we know conversations between general flynn and the russian ambassador are a big issue. what that seemed to suggest is there's more to this. >> people always seem to forget

there is an underlying fibi stil going on. it's not just about why michael flynn misled the vice president. it's also about something big thaer we doner that we don't know about. the other exchange that raised a lot of red flags in her testimony yesterday is when he basically questioned her why does the -- why does the justice department care about mike flynn's misstatements to the vice president? i think that -- >> why do you care if one white house official is lying to another white house official. >> that seems to kind of -- to jeff's point, what did don mcgann tell the president? he seemed to question the whole exercise in his conversations with sally yates, so it suggests that perhaps he didn't necessarily think that her raising this to him was important enough or that it was justified and maybe he didn't convey that fully to the president. we don't know that yet. but i think that exchange raised a lot of red flags for that exact reason. it suggested that he thought

that it was inappropriate in some way that she was there and wanted to know why. >> mike pence by the way, the vice president is on capitol hill, manu raju tweeting he walked into the leader mitch mcconnell's office and he wouldn't take questions lind see graham told manu raju, he wants his sub committee to investigate business relationships with russia. donald trump has said nothing, absolutely nothing when it comes to russia and business interests. listen here to james clapper when this question came up. >> general clapper, during your investigation of all things russia, did you ever find a situation where a trump business interest in russia gave you concern? >> not in the course of the preparation of the intelligence

community assessment. >> since? >> i'm sorry? >> at all? anytime. >> senator graham, i can't comment on that because that impacts the investigation. >> now, what does that tell us? the intelligence community assessment was the assessment published before the election where the intelligence community came forward and said i wanted to tell the american people, russia was meddling in the election and that they should have note of that. they did not get into some of the stuff that we learned later. what does jim clapper mean when he says i can't comment on that because it impacts the investigation. >> we don't know but it raised some red flags in the initial change. the follow-up with lindsey graham saying he can't touch that and now lindsey graham saying he's interested, that this sort of essentially raises to the level of wanting to investigate this further on democrats of course saying that's why we need to see donald trump's tax returns.

but that's the thing. it's sort of like reading tea leaves in a wind storm. you don't really know what's going on and what's going to come of this investigation. you had donald trump later tweet we haven't really seen him in public much, but in this hearing essentially saying this whole thing proves that this is a hoax and there's nothing there. no new information out of the yates hearing. >> we don't know where it leads, but there are a lot of new clues and red flags in that hearing. you're right the @tweet-- she s some very important new things. russia story is a new hoax. when will it end? we don't know the answers to collusion but both sally yates and james clapper made clear there's a reason to have an investigation into that question. clapper said the president keeps saying this almost didn't happen, it wasn't a big deal. listen to james clapper and the current director mike rogers,

the united states passed a heads up to france about the hack that we learned about in the final stages of their election and mike rogers saying. listen to him talk about the russian activity in our election. >> they must be congratulating themselves for having exceeded their wildest expectations with a minimal expenditure of resource. and i believe they you now emboldened to continue such activities both here and around the world and to do so more intensely intensely if there has ever been a call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very fo foundation of our democratic political system, this episode is it. >> when you listen to that, and again, his successor just said the russians are still doing it in france and then you look in the tweets or the words of the president of the united states, this is a russian, a state-sponsored act to interfere in the elections of western democracy including the united states. and the president just continues

to blow this off as if's nothing. what is the impact of that? if you're the current director of national intelligence, he's the former director, the president said in an interview i'll accept that it was russia or it could have been china or somebody else. now his own people are telling him this and he refuses to accept it. >> it is so puzzling to me. this is now a stipulated problem. republicans agree to it. democrats agree to it. they know it will happen in elections coming up. probably in 2018. >> so why is it primportant to e president to convince people this -- if you're doing that now, you have some thoughts about where we're going. >> no doubt. to me my big question has always been why hasn't he come out and said we will not have people interfere in our elections, we'll do an executive order of bipartisan commission. he loves doing the studies. there are a lot on the shelves. i don't know -- he's so reluctant to do it on this. the question here is if you have a republican senator, obviously

lindsey graham is not a fan of this administration but he says we need to look into thcis. this is something that's going to go on for a long time. >> democrats keep hinting there's stuff we don't know publicly. sometimes i think that's reckless and responsible. if it's there, prove it. are they doing that because of the president's approval ratings? that's another on the list of unanswered questions. next, america's longest war still raging and now president trump has to decide whether to risk more american lives in a big way. with type 2 diabetes a lower a1c is a lot about choices. but it can be hard sometimes, 'cause different sides of you struggle with which ones to make. well, what if you kept making good ones? then? you could love your numbers. discover once-daily invokana®, a pill used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar

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meetings. one, whether to pull the united states from a global climate change deal known as the paris accords. in italy this nudge from the former president, barack obama. >> for all the challenges that we face, this is the one that will define the contours of this century more dramatically perhaps than any other. no nation, whether it's large or small, rich or poor, will be immune from the impacts of climate change. >> big decision number two. whether to accept a pentagon recommendation to boost u.s. troop levels in afghanistan. sources telling cnn the options range from 1,500 more troops to as many as 5,000 more troops. to help train afghan forces but also to fight isis. and the taliban at times. >> there's plenty of work to do for all of us there and the actual tactical activities on the ground i don't want to go into details right now.

we owe a degree of confidentiality about our plans. but we will work it out to our nato allies and our best way forward. war sometimes doesn't give you all good options. it's the nature of war. it's not a good situation. >> understatement there from the defense secretary james mattis. nato secretary general was standing with him. nato is disposed to send more troops to afghanistan. that's part of the equation. this is i think one of the examples and you see this from any new president of how being president is very different than when you're in the private sector. here's a couple things donald trump tweeted back in 2012 and 2013. 84% of u.s. trooped wounded. time to get out of there. you believe the afghan war is our longest war. bring our troops home. rebill t rebi rebuild the u.s. make america great again. it's sobering to sit in the oval

office when they come to you with your recommendations. >> you cannot have it all here. you can't both pull the u.s. back from engagement in the world and also win in these seemingly intractable conflicts overseas. this is what trump faces right now is that he really doesn't want to be extending wars or engaging in sort of hand-to-hand combat overseas, but he also wants really badly to just win some of these conflicts and those are the terms that he's talking about -- talking to his pentagon officials about. right now he's facing that choice. i think he's going to end up having to decide some global ideas about how he wants to govern as a president. does he think it's important to just keep americans alive and out of conflict even if it means seeding some ground in foreign conflicts. >> he also hasn't talked a lot about afghanistan and his

approach. this is a moment for him to figure out what the strategy is dealing with afghanistan. he has made decisions to bomb places. he's bombed syria and we've had engagements elsewhere. this is a different type of decision. this is troops. this is putting troops on the ground in a conflict. >> and when you do it, when president obama came in saying we're going to get out and we largely got out of iraq but we didn't get out of afghanistan. and as this plays out, two of your colleagues in the washington past have a story about the internal debate within the administration. inside the white house those opposed to the plan have gun to refer to the strategy as mcmaster's war, reference to h.r. mcmaster. the general who once led anticorruption efforts in afghanistan and was -- is the driving force behind the new strategy at the white house. the new strategy being sir we have to increase troop levels. there's been some chat thater t

suddenly after being happy that the president upset but there's a sub plot of people saying this is steve bannon and the america first crowd somehow trying to suggest general mcmaster is out of favor. >> foreign policy like everything else is, you know, falls under a lot of this buzz saw that goes on inside the west wing. even though this is a matter of life and death of course. there are people with very, you know, strong views on. this steve bannon is one. of course, he will have different views than h.r. mcmaster. i'm told that that story was potentially slightly overstated in the sense that the president might not be thrilled with everything from mcmaster but still respects him greatly and at the end of the day he did say he would allow his generals, his military advisers to sort of make some of these decisions. so if he were to retreat and walk away, that would be pretty extraordinary. it would be a defining moem fme

for him. he's on record as we saw saying come home. but he's also said he'll be flexible. he needs flexibility as a badge of honor, not something the politicians shouldn't have. >> he's promised to defeat isis. >> he has and i think this is the biggest decision of his presidency, something that he controls. it's unlike health care. unlike tax reform. it's something that he's deciding, which is one of the reasons we're not seeing a lot of him this week. he's trying to decide this. >> i would say if you're debating whether to send more troops to afghanistan they should let everybody speak. they should air it out. what's interesting about this white house is how much of that spills out into the public and the rival factions. on the same topic is the decision about the paris accords. one of the remarkable things about that is we are told internally steve bannon wants out. we have seen publicly, which is remarkable, the head of the epa and rick perry on television during a debate inside the white

house to go on television and say we should withdraw. and if you -- again, if you believe these accounts and you talk to people inside the white house, jared kushner is more skeptical and ivanka trump is saying can we find a way to stay in if we change environmental policy at home. how is it going to end? >> we don't know. we saw president trump on his first 100 day there will be some sort of announcement on this in two weeks. sort of been teasing. of course he promised during his run that he would pull out of this agreement saying that it's sort of globalism and reducing american sovereign tee. the problem is they really gutted a lot of regulation that would lead to the united states meeting the agreements that they signed on to in terms of carbon admissions with this climate agreement. so it's a really tricky thing. now it's sort of a legal question whether or not they can still stay a part of it or reduce the actual carbon

admissions that they're saying we would agree to by 2025. it's very complicated in this new york faction versus the bannon faction. >> he's about to go overseas and he's going to be at the table with other players in this. >> there's a u.n. meeting going on to address some of this. the united states has had seven participants which is fewer than zimbabwe. france has 42 delegates at this meeting. so i think that is an indication of the white house commitment to the climate deal. we're not sending people to engage on this. whether we remain a part of it is sort of papering over like nia is saying, we're not committing to reducing. >> does this role back america's role in the world in term was climate change? >> i think that's an another the president would be somewhat sympathetic to. if we lose standing because of this, maybe it's not worth it. >> and his good friend the president of china, for now at

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welcome back. on the board here a map of the house of representatives. you see all those lienes? election 2018, 546 days away. that's 18 months. that's a long time. but politicians are always worried about the next election. as members of congress, as they worry, they pay a lot of attention to one machine here in washington. charlie cook of the cook political report who in the wake of the health care vote writes this. analysts who have watched congressional elections for a long time are seeing signs that 2018 could be a wave election that flips control of the house to the democrats. you want to know what a wave looks like? this is 2016. let's go back to the left big wave. this is the house of representatives. nancy pelosi is speaker. you see that blue? then they pass obamacare and the 2010 elections come. you want to see a wave.

look down there. look up here. look just about everywhere. look at the blue. see that red? that was the republican take overof the house. again, there's a huge difference between could be a wave and will be a wave. but the blow back that republican town hall system one of the reasons washington has a lot of wave buzz. >> in the individual market, your insurance coverage is current, is current, nothing's going to change. >> that's ron bloom in iowa at a town all. interestingly "the washington post" caught up to him and he said this. republicans are going around the country saying we're keeping our promise to repeal and replace obamacare. this is what the republican said. this is isn't repeal and replace. we probably changed 10, 20% of this bill is all. so he's getting grief from his constituents and then he's conceding we didn't really keep our promise.

>> he's in one of those districts that voted for obama in 2012 and voted for romney -- i'm sorry, mr. trump in 2016. so the reality here is he voted for it. it might be a vote that he regrets. and for what? because the senate is sure to change it which is going to put him in even more of a box. first and foremost we have to give him some applause for having a town hall because a lot do not and his is in a district that is very split. in eastern iowa a lot of working class folks there, blue collar workers. i'm not sure it worked out so well for them because there aren't good answers. what democrats have to do and they know is get recruiting right now. strong candidates. but a problem that hangs over them for this party is the gerrymandering issue, democrats we can say it again and again, we need to, because at the local level there simply are not in a strong position to take this over. this is not 2008. it just is not 2008.

>> the way these lines are drawn and you had so many republican governors after 2010, the last time they drew the lines, but the lines are favorable to republicans, much more so you go back to 2006 when jogeorge bush had the wave. you have candidates who aren't so good and the wave is so strong they get swept in anyway. >> the other issue with republicans is it hurts people who tend to show up in midterm elections, particularly older americans and it doesn't matter what way you look at it, they are probably going to end up with higher premiums and deductibles, some of them will end up in very tough situations for health care and that is really bad when you go to a midterm election because those are the people who are much more likely to show up and they also happen to not necessarily be the democrats best most reliable voters, but if they're angry

enough at republicans about the real policy implications of this vote, it could be quite bad for them. >> like donald trump's best con tet wen see, older americans. in the last 15 years, republican. the congressman is prescreening saying only people from his district can come to town halls. he walked out when he was asked will you take money only from your district. >> great follow-up question. >> the question now as this goes to the senate, senators saying starting over again. there's a republican working group in the senate that is all men if you look at it right now. there's a meeting under way right now. mike pence is up there. republican senator of west virginia just walked into the meeting and she said she was invited to come and talk about the medicaid issues which are huge in this conversation, huge in her state of west virginia. should the republican party, should leader mcconnell who we

know is going to consult susan collins. we know he knows he can't get a deal without the republican women of the senate. but should he for optics purposes have tinkered with the working group? it's done by leadership. >> for real purposes, right? i mean, you sort of want susan collins at the table. you want lisa at the table. they have pushed back and said i do have ideological diversity there, portman's probably more in line with collins. but my goodness, you need those people to buy into this bill, so why not make them a part of that original process so they can get by on the front end. because they could be deciding a vote in terms of whether or not -- >> the process answer is that these are the chairmen or the big leaders of the relevant committee. >> that's the other problem. and there are plenty of women senators, deb fisher from nebraska, a lot of others, it is just -- it's optically terrible. it feeds directly into what

happens last week in the rose garden. i bet that group suddenly looks different. >> you look at how the house bill went down. it didn't go down because of committee chairmen sort of fighting back . it went down because freedom caucus who were able to get a coalition together, in the senate when you have people like ted cruz and susan collins not in them -- >> and if you look at the issues that come over with the house bill and again the senate will look at it and do its own bill, but the pre-existing conditions, and the current problems with obamacare. the republicans are right there are problems with obamacare that exist. the five senators, susan collins, deb fisher, some of these rural areas where you have the bigger problems, but you also have the older populations. is this good or bad when pop culture becomes part of the conversation. jimmy kimmel shared a very

personal story about his young child on his program and now it's become the jimmy kimmel test. here's an update as he has one of the republican senators involved on the program. >> the jimmy kimmel test i think should be no family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they can't afford it. can that be the jimmy kimmel test? [ applause ] >> man, you're on the right track f. that's as close as we get, that works great in government. we've got to be able to pay for it and that's the challenge. >> i can think of way to pay for it is don't give a huge tax cut to millionaires like me and instead leave it how it is. [ applause ] >> it's an entertainment show, but it was a very personal story shared by jimmy kimmel and in that conversation he gets at several of the big policy questions. now that obamacare is in place and that president trump, a nontraditional republican campaigns on keeping a lot of

its most popular provisions, how do the republicans pay for it? and what do they keep? >> whenever these issues penetrate into pop culture, into people's living rooms, people's homes, that's a real -- that's like a wakeup call. it means that they need to get it right. i remember in the obama health care be dadebate when the websi went down and it spoofed on snl, it becomes the prevailing narrative about the bill. so yes, they need to deal with. that but yeah, bill cassidy is right. the pay for is important too. but the bill right now is structured to get republicans some -- a tax baseline that they can use for other priorities going down the road. i bet that the senate is going to probably have something to say about that. because ultimately it is bad politics, the repeal of the tax increase that they are putting in this bill is bad politics and it also may end up being bad

ols. >> >> we have to disrupt your health care to pay for tax reform is not -- >> they're arguing that you're going to still be okay. not much will change. and that trillion dollar system going to go somewhere. >> and for weeks and weeks and weeks, possibly months, possibly into next year, this is going to be the debate. i mean, it's sort of the template is still this house bill. the senate can say all they want to, oh, we're going to work on something differently. but in the minds of a lot of americans, it's this house bill. >> it the policy to the people out there that matters the most. mike pence and his working group are up on capitol hill today. when they come out, do they have any sense of a timeline? because most of the indications for leadership in the senate has been this is the senate. just chill. when we come back, a heads up. little more than that. no collusion? not so clear cut. mike flynn did not nothing

wrong? that's not accurate. the white house narrative collides with reality. lower a1ct about choices. but it can be hard sometimes, 'cause different sides of you struggle with which ones to make. well, what if you kept making good ones? then? you could love your numbers. discover once-daily invokana®, a pill used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. it's proven to lower a1c better than januvia®. invokana® works around the clock by sending some sugar out of your body through the process of urination. it's not for lowering systolic blood pressure or weight loss, but it may help with both. invokana® may cause dehydration, which could make you feel dizzy or weak when you stand up, so be sure to drink enough water. important side effects to know may include kidney problems,

genital yeast infections, changes in urination, or potentially serious urinary tract infections. as is risk of fracture, or increases in cholesterol or potassium. ketoacidosis is a serious condition, which can be life threatening. stop taking invokana® and call your doctor right away if you experience symptoms. or if you have an allergic reaction, with signs like rash, swelling, or difficulty breathing or swallowing. do not take if you have severe liver or kidney problems or are on dialysis. taking with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. the choice is yours. ♪ lower your blood sugar with invokana®. imagine loving your numbers. there's only one invokana®. ask your doctor about it by name.

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welcome back. when you're faced with conflicting information, which source do you trust often becomes the question. yesterday's testimony from the former acting attorney general and the former director of national intelligence put that question front and center here in washington. repeatedly. president trump paid attention to the hearing and tweet ted th reaction. director clapper reiterated what everybody and the fake news already knows. there is no evidence of collusion with russia and trump. but it was hardly so clear cut. >> my answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information so i can't answer that. >> well, i don't get that, because he just said he issued the report and he said he doesn't know of any. so what would you know that's not in the report? >> if i may -- are you asking

me? >> her. >> well, i think the director clapper also said that he was unaware of the fbi counter intelligence investigation. >> would it be fair to say that the counter intelligence investigation was not mature enough to come to his -- to get in the report? is that fair, mr. clapper? >> that's a possibility. >> that's one important point. listen here. the president back in february describing his take on the sally yates warning. >> as far as the general's concerned, when i first heard about it, i said huh, that doesn't sound wrong. my counsel came, don mcgann, white house counsel. and he told me, and i asked him, and he can speak very well for himself, he said he doesn't think anything is wrong. he really didn't think -- >> doesn't sound wrong, the president said. but mcgann listened yesterday.

yates repeatedly said her message to the white house was it was beyond wrong. >> the russians also knew about what general flynn had done and the russians also knew that general flynn had misled the vice president and others. not only did we believe that the russians knew this, but that they likely had proof of this information. and that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. >> you can't square these circles. what -- the testimony is very different from what the president and his team have repeatedly tried to say. they say this is clear cut. those two public servants say no, it isn't. >> to jeff's point earlier it's important for us to find out in some way what was the president actually told about what sally yates told don mcgann. that seems to be an increasingly

important question, because trump has, ever since that day, that press conference, defended michael flynn and repeatedly suggested that he did nothing wrong, even in the face of all of this talk about the risks of blackmail. there's that problem. i think in general on the collusion question, the folks who are looking at this situation fairly need to be more comfortable with the idea that we don't know what the answer to the collusion question is. it is not as the president says that there was no collusion. the answer is unsatisfyingly that we don't know. i think that's what james clapper and sally yates put out there was that there is no definitive yes or no answer to that right at this moment and even folks on the left i think need to be a little bit more comfortable. >> i think the democrats have gone beyond at least the public information and smft thinome of things they say. the president himself is a politician. i understand the idea that they

want to shape things in a favorable like. there's a difference between shaping things in a favorable light and saying things that are untrue. >> sean spicer said yesterday president trump did the right thing, he believes he did the right thing at that time and he stands by that decision to stick with flynn for those -- >> own days that included after being told he could be blackmailed by the russians and an hour long call with the russian president. >> put aside for a minute the russian collusion question, but you have sort of a mismanagement standpoint of the president keeping somebody despite repeated warnings from top officials that this guy's compromised. >> and part of his brand was he hires the best people. before you jump in i want to put in one example. "the washington post" story that sally yates had warned the white house, here's how the press secretary described it. >> the acting attorney general informed the white house counsel that they wanted to give, quote, a heads up to us on some

comments that may have seemed in conflict with what the -- he had sent the vice president out in particular. the white house counsel informed the president immediately. >> now, the immediately there is important to the question you raised early. the immediately if it's true matters there. again, gave us a heads up. sounds pretty casual. listen to sally yates. >> i had two in-person meetings and one phone call with the white house counsel about mr. flynn. we told them that we were giving them all of this information so that they could take action. the action that they deemed appropriate. i remember that mr. mcgann asked me whether or not general flynn should be fired and i told him that that really wasn't our call, that was up to them, but that we were giving them this information so that they could take action. >> that's not a heads up. a, it's a big deal when the attorney general goes to meet with the white house counsel about somebody on the white house staff who's under fib investigation. that is a big deal in its own

right. if you say nothing, just to even -- but the idea that, again, sean spicer is a political appointee, works for the president, but he says a heads up. it wasn't a heads up. this was a warning. >> in a major way her saying that some sort of action needed to be taken, they obviously didn't fire him for 18 days or accept his resignation. unclear of whether or not they did anything. did they bar him from meetings? did they bar him from briefings or anything? everyone talks sort of about loyalty and donald trump being loyal to people around him. he's also loyal to whatever set of information he has. he's not very curious in terms of finding, you know, out other information and processing that information. so this seems to be another of those instances. when president obama said listen, flynn, this might be a pr problem. >> i can see how he wouldn't accept that advice, although he did say we had great meetings. at that meeting he was locking arms. why did they invite her back to

the white house? the point you made earlier, they invited her back to the white house but by the evening she was fired because she refused to enforce the travel ban. to me, why did they invite her back? there are more questions here. it's okay right now to not have the answers. these things take a long time to develop. >> we don't have the investigative answers, but there are fundamental questions about judgment and answer style. we don't have the answer to get to the right conclusion about those, but those are additional questions put on the table as the investigations continue. everybody sit tight. we'll be right back.

welcome back. you probably remember from the last campaign president obama's favorite refrain. don't boo. vote. he would say it and say often. well, the retired president obama has a new catch line and when it comes to the voters, it's a whole lot harsher. >> people have a tendency to

blame politicians when things don't work, but as i always tell people, you get the politicians you deserve. and if you don't vote and you don't participate and you don't pay attention, then you'll get policies that don't reflect your interests. >> he certainly is correct to a degree as my dad used to say, if you don't vote don't -- i won't say the word at noontime here in the east. but from a former president, does that sound a little whiney blaming the voters? >> he's not over it clearly. he's clearly -- i mean, just rewind a little bit. i remember the weeks before the election. hearing obama talk to his supporters in some of the most frank and harsh terms that i think he'd ever used in his presidency. he was really putting everything out on the line. i think he's clearly still pretty upset about it. >> by saying things like that, he can continue the narrative that he was not to blame at all

for any of this or the trump presidency was not a reaction in any way to the obama presidency. it was to some degree. history will show that it was. so by him saying that, he's accurate actually in some respects, but again, it allows him not to take any responsibility. he he's unbuttoned. but history will show his presidency, you know, was linked to the trump presidency for a reason. >> it's also remarkable how much obama is out. it we saw him over the weekend getting pr getting the profile in courage award, giving a speech. he's out there quite a bit commenting on news of the day and on politics. >> and tom who's running for governor in virginia, he's got ads with obama complimenting him. it will be the test to see if it's the obama way and it f it actually works in virginia.

it didn't work last time. >> when you've been a two-term president and you're not going to be on the ballot again, that's when you can blame the voters. thanks for joining us "inside politics." just moments away from the white house press briefing. wolf blitzer keeping an eye on. that we'll bring it to you when it happens. you do all this research on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident.

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hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. 6:00 p.m. in london. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. happening this hour, the white house press briefing, sean spicer will brief reporters, take questions. among the likely topics many including the fate of health care. right now on capitol hill vice president mike pence and republican senators are behind closed doors considering the right path forward to try to achieve health care reform. there will also be many questions about the russia investigation. the national security agency director has a stark warning with possible russian election interference in the future. plus top republican senator lindsey graham now says he wants to investigate president trump's