time that jim comey has been able to speak expansively in his own words with his own documents as backup. >> yeah. guy, great to have you. thank you so much. a lot to look forward on. we'll also continue to cover the breaking news out of paris france where there was an attack on a police officer this morning. police there at notre-dame have the situation under control, but more details are coming in. thank you for joining us. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. busy day in washington but we'll get to that in a moment because we're following breaking news in paris where police shot a man who tried to attack officers with a hammer at the notre-dame cathedral. the situation is now under control. one police officer and the attacker both wounded. hundreds of people were inside the cathedral at the time. officers made them raise their hands above their heads as a safety precaution. authorityin

authorities have warned people to stay clear of the area and french prosecutors have opened what they describe as an an tie-terror inquiry but have not said if this is a terror-related attack. terror under a state of emergency since the terror attacks back in 2015. they've since had increased presence on the streets. melissa bell joins me live. she is in london. what do we know happened at that ca treed drthedral? >> this is another type of attack we've seen in paris with tragic regularity. we've seen now an attacker take on security forces, specifically this time wielding nothing more sophisticated than a hammer. he was shot by police and you're seeing those images that have been coming to us from outside notre-dame, an incredibly busy part of paris, one of those

moum mou mou monuments that visited the most by tourists. and defended by increased numbers of military personnel and women we've had on the streets of paris ever since the state of emergency was introduced in the wake of the november 13th attacks back in 2015. you'll remember then that 130 people had been killed and remarkably coordinated attacks by well-armed gun men, the whole thing launched from syria. this time and more recently we've been seeing are much cruder attacks on military and security personnel more generally. this appears to have been the case once again today. crucially perhaps the man who carried out today's attack was shot by policemen after attacking them with the hammer but not killed so no doubt we will get much more information with any luck about what his motivations were. but the fact that the french authorities have opened this anti-terror investigation does believe it was terror-related. i can think of no other example

when they've decided this inquiry and decided it was not terror related. they clearly have some reason to believe this man was acting in the name of islamist extremism. there is every indication that was once again sadly the case. >> and as you noted, we're waiting for the interior ministry spokesman to give us details. help our viewers, obviously the cathedral is an iconic site in paris. most familiar with from past news stories, some of them hopefully a lot more favorable than this one. help our viewers understand the site, its importance and at the time of day the number of people likely to be there. >> it is one of those parts of paris that tends to be packed, not only with parisians, but many of the tourists on a day like today. very centrally located in paris on a small island surrounded by two branches of the river. it is one of those locations where there's been an increased

presence. once again those security forces specifically attacked. you can imagine the sense of panic from those tourists, many of whom orthopedic o blbliged t stay inside the cathedral. you imagine the panic as the sound of sun shots of them taking down the assailant was heard. there would have been a lot of people and police struggled to get them away from the area where this man was fairly quickly. this all happened really within the last course of an hour and a half. this security probation has been very fast. again, this man was armed only with a hammer. i mentioned a moment ago we've seen these series of attacks. we've also seen, if you look at the last four attacks, including today's attacks that were targeting monuments or places in paris that are particularly well known and heaviliy guarded as a stage of emergency. in february it was the louvre

museum where a man took on military personnel military personnel. in march it was the airport in france just outside paris . in april a man took on a police van. once again paris iconic monuments attacked and the police guarding it specifically taken on. >> melissa bell helping us get the latest on this attack. we'll come back as developments warrant. kyle richards is visiting paris from the bay area of california. a very popular tour sift site. he and his wife outside when the attack went down. he spoke a few moments ago with cnn kate baldwin. >> we were walking in the notre-dame plaza. my wife and i were trying to get back on our tour bus and we just heard two gunshots, so we grabbed each other and ran. then i shot a video probably about 30 feet from where i

actually was where we just saw probably five police -- french police officers surrounding a guy on the ground. all we saw was blood on his legs that they shot him. i don't know exactly. we didn't see anything before that. i guess he was attacking someone with a hammer and they shot him. so i shot the video and then we started walking and then the pli pl police officers decided to clear the plaza and it sounded pretty urgent from the french that we could hear. we saw more police officers come in and they went around a bush that was by a tree and they saw a guy in there i'm guessing because they all started pointing their guns at someone. my wife and i crossed the street and got a better view. they were still pointing their guns. we got on the bus quickly and that's when i shot the other video of all the cop cars coming in and the s.w.a.t. team getting

their gear on to go into the plaza. that's when they started yelling at us to get off the bus and go up the street kind of away from notre-dame and clear out the entire area. >> let's get a little perspective. mike baker joins us from new york bureau. we also have tom fuentes in fair fax, virginia. tom, let me start with you. if viewers are hearing one guy with a hammer haelallegedly run at or attacking the police, one insin instinct might be a terrible event. i think the other instinct is this is the new face of what we're seeing more and more sadly, isn't it? >> if the motivation is on behalf of whether it's isis, al qaeda, some form of terrorist ideology and he's going to hit you with a hammer, that's a terrorist act. and the fact that it's not an ak

47, if you're the recipient of that hammer on top of your head it's terrorism to you and it could be many other people. the french in these earlier attacks that we saw during some of the other incidents, we saw many, many french police officers who were gunned down because they weren't even armed including the woman officer that was directing traffic. so if you take out a hammer and start going after people, there might not even be enough police officers in the area to prevent loss of life to the tourists and other people in that area around the cathedral. >> an excellent point by tom there. in this case the state of emergency is in place. there is high visibility. as you can see the quick response by the authorities. oddly enough f you're tryi, if to make a statement, you pick an iconic place to launch an attack, right? >> absolutely. there's a reasoning behind all of these. and the important point is, and tom referred to it, is that it doesn't matter how

unsophisticated the attack is. it doesn't matter if the explosive device doesn't detonate. from the extremist point of view it's successful. it capture its our attention. it creates a sense of instability and panic. so we don't want to get lost in the idea that this is a small attack or this is an unsophisticated attack or one lone individual. they all serve the same purpose from the extremist point of view. >> mike and tom, stand by. we're getting a press briefing from the french interior ministry. let's listen in. >> defen >>. >> translator: we will discuss whether we should continue the state -- the emergency -- state of emergency and what we need to do to continue addressing this type of situation. what we know today, that it was someone who was -- who we

believe to be an algerian student with an identity card, so we have to check the authenticity of this card. that is all that we know at this point. he was armed with a hammer. we also found on him knives, kitchen knives, so it's literally with basic tools that he came to attack the forces of order to make it -- to undertake this attack. so we've gone from very sophisticated terrorism, so now we're at a point where we have this basic terrorism using whatever tools or instruments they can find. when we see what happened in the

united kingdom, we can only be but concerned. yesterday i was speaking to the british home minister and yes, so we are concerned about the level of threat in europe and next thursday we're going to have a summit of interior ministers of europe and one of the first subjects we will be addressing is the coordination of intelligence services in this fight against terrorism. there have been no other -- there have been -- there's been no other news or claims or actions, but obviously in the days to come the interrogations that will take place by the republic prosecutor will give us more news. the man who attacked today was on his own. from what we understand, there

was nobody else. he was not working in conjunction with anybody. the policeman is okay. he is in a stable condition. his injuries are not too serious. so obviously this attack could have been far more serious if his colleague had not reacted so quickly. thank you. >> that's the french interior minister briefing reporters on an attack. he said it was an algerian student who attacked police with a hammer. said he also had kitchen knives. mike and tom are still with me. mike, i want to come back to you first. at the beginning of the press conference, the interior minister said the attacker as he was attacking the police said "this is for syria." what does that tell you? >> it speaks to motivation, also the fact that he's an algerian

student. so this is all part and parcel of the investigation that has to take place. and they move with remarkable speed nowadays in part because whether it's in france or it's in germany or here in the u.s. or uk, the authorities have a great deal of experience in these things now. >> tom, you heard the interior minister laying out this case. he said the victim will be -- the attacker excuse me, will be interrogated but he also said homeland security ministers are planning to meet soon to discuss how to better coordinate their intelligence to deal with these terrorist threats. how big is that challenge? if we go back 15 years, the coordination was about an al qaeda terrorist group that was trying to launch massive large scale attacks, fly airplanes into building. now the concern is more about in london three guys in a van who cause mayhem and then jump out and start stabbing people.

in this case one man sitting outside a noted religious and tourism site and attacking the police. >> john, i was personally involved for years in the matter of coordinating intelligence, especially in the aftermath of 9/11. this is at a point where it's hard to coordinate any further. if somebody radicalizes themselves at a person level, doesn't share that information with anybody else, takes a weapon that you can buy at any store or cutlery shop or, you know, home supply store, and goes out and starts attacking people, that's unpreventable. that's the flarank part of it. it can't be prevented if you can't read people's minds to know that they're going to do it. and in these interrogations, and i've been involved in many of these over the years, zndoesn't mean the person's going to tell you the truth or the person knows in his own mind what the final straw was to cause them to go out and start wielding a

hammer or a knife, something along those lines, because it can be so spontaneous. it's not like going to the trouble of acquiring a weapon, acquiring the bullets, learning how to use it or even more sophisticated making a bomb or having people help you make a bomb. to take a hammer or a knife and go out and start bashing police officers, that's nothing. that takes no skill set whatsoever. it takes no advanced preparation other than five minutes to put that in your backpack and go out on the street. >> and mike baker, to that point, in terms of intelligence gathering, we've heard in the wake of the london attack, for example, theresa may saying we have to be much more aggressive she says not only in confronting the fact that there's extremism, but maybe in the cyber world. are there steps that you think governments can take or conversations, especially democratic governments would have to have like we had post 9/11 about increased cyber surveillance or is something like this almost unpreventable? >> well, certain types of attacks are, you know, almost

impossible to pick up on. but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking at other measures to capture the more coordinated or types of attacks that have more individuals and there are some communications that go on prior to the attack. so the problem is that with theresa may saying enough is enough or here in the u.s. the president saying we've got to stop being politically correct, all those things are good and they make us strong and tough in the face of an attack. the reality is the next step is laws have to be revised. if you're going to go that route, if we're going to be more aggressive in our surveillance or how we can open and maintain investigation, how we can maintain monitoring or the things we can do in cyberspace, all those will require very serious discussion, changes in government, changes in laws that will have to be done in order to allow law enforcement in the intel community to have a wider playing field. and again, in my experience, we've been talking about this and doing this for a long time, the problem is typically we have

a short attention span. so we have this attack or everybody's on board with more security. they're willing to give up something on the privacy side. that doesn't last very long. or in fact, if you do get far down the road and you start to make some changes, then pretty soon the out cry is you've gone too far, you're approaching a police state. >> if i could add to that. even if we pass the laws, it takes about two years and we decide we don't want those laws, we don't want the government collecting meta date a, we don' want them getting into the phone. we start losing the pressure to keep it up but we want to reverse it if nothing happens for a year or two. this is why it's so difficult politically. we typically don't sustain the imperative to continue the policies after one of these events. >> that is absolutely correct. >> tom, mike, appreciate the sharp smart insights. you're washing the cathedral of

notre-dame. attacked police with a hammer. that student, believed to be a student, is in the hospital as well as the officer. that investigation continues. we'll bring you the latest developments as the news warrants. back to politics here in the united states. progress on the president's agenda held up by the man who sits in the oval office. the president's anger and how it's gumming up washington already prone to -- er and how i gumming up washington already prone to -- aer and how it's gumming up washington already prone to -- ner and how it's gumming up washington already prone to -- ger and how it's gumming up washington already prone to --

i'm only in my 60's. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you.

call now and find out about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, it helps pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. to me, relationships matter. i've been with my doctor for 12 years. now i know i'll be able to stick with him. [ male announcer ] with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. plus, there are no networks, and virtually no referrals needed. so don't wait. call now and request this free decision guide to help you better understand medicare... and which aarp medicare supplement plan might be best for you. there's a wide range to choose from. we love to travel - and there's so much more to see. so we found a plan that can travel with us. anywhere in the country.

[ male announcer ] join the millions of people who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an organization serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. remember, all medicare supplement insurance plans help cover what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now - and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. dearthere's no other way to say this. it's over. i've found a permanent escape from monotony. together, we are perfectly balanced. our senses awake. our hearts racing as one. i know this is sudden, but they say...if you love something

set it free. see you around, giulia these make cleaning between myi love easy.sy. gum brand for healthy gums. soft picks, proxabrush cleaners, flossers. gum brand. algeri . the oval office impulse and anger that even trump allies say keeps getting in the way of progress. he's mad at the london mayor,

mad at the attorney general and mad at the news media. >> he gets criticized by the media all day. and two weeks later he is pruovn right. it happens again. we're going to keep calm and carry on. maybe we have to keep calm and doing something. i think that's what he's trying to say and he's been proven right. >> part of that was about the president's war on twitter with the london mayor. like father like son that is taking the mayor out of context. julie pace, jonathan martin, michael bender, and maggie haberman of the "new york times." he tweeted this. big meeting today with republican leaders concerning tax cuts and health care. we're all pushing hard. must get it right. but it doesn't take long for the president to shift back to attack mode. the fake msm, mainstream media is working so hard trying to get

me not to use social media. they hate that i can get the honest and unfiltered message out. we don't hate the unfiltered donald trump. i promise you. this a day after he's attacking his justice department. what is it? what is the constant anger, lashing out? what's the right term? including in a fab roulous stor jeff sessions is the gold standard of trump loyalist. he was his link to the anti-immigration populace base and now first it was reince priebus, then it was steve bannon, then it was sean spicer. now he's lashing out at his attorney general. he's mad at him. >> he's actually been quite angry at him. been angriest at him more than any of the people you mentioned. this all goes back to what in the president's mind is the original sin by jeff sessions of doing what every legal scholar in the world thought was the right thing to do which was

recusing himself from any russia probe. the president was not aware of it ahead of time. he felt blind sided. he saw not just a concession. it was the way as i have been told, the way he understands it or sees it, it's some acknowledgement that there could be something when there isn't something there according to the president. this constant state of being angry that you describe, this is also a constant state that we saw in the campaign. it has shifted targets. but at a certain point he is going to have to get to the business of wracking up accomplishments. i understand russia is a distraction, but the president is a distraction to himself too. and his son's point, and i think his son a pretty good spokesman, but his thing about we want someone to do something on terror, the president said he would have a plan within 30 days to defeat isis. the president has not put forward a plan. >> he just tweets got to get tough, got to get smart. >> which is fine, but at a certain point you have to go

beyond that. >> at a certain point he's president of the united states and if the attacks keeps happening, even if they're overseas, the question becomes what does the world do. i want to read a line from your piece. he's fumed for months over mr. sessions to recuse himself. in mr. trump's view they said it was that recusal that eventually led to the appointment of a special counsel who took over the investigation t.. it's because jeff sessions followed the advice of almost legal scholar, you cannot be a part of this. >> he didn't talk about the meetings with the russian ambassador. >> he didn't disclose meetings with the russian ambassador. maybe a part of this investigation, some of the meetings were looked at, does the president ever look in the mirror and think maybe i'm the reason there's a special counsel? >> do you generally ask questions that you know the answer to? >> asked and answered. >> but it is stunning. and michael, the editorial board

of your newspaper, generally the "wall street journal" generally on the side of republican administrations, but increasingly frustrated with this one. if this pattern continues, he may find it running with no one but his family and the breitbart staff. interesting dig. mark it all down the most effective opponent of the trump presidency and donald j. trump t.'s hard to argue with that last sentence. >> it is hard to argue with that. you asked earlier what makes trump do this. it's a sign of weakness. we did a little reporting around the same time. when sessions recused himself was early march, right around the time when the same justice department wanted to water down the muslim ban, the travel ban. he sees this as weakness. and this weakness is -- seems to go beyond loyalty to, you know, to the president. so that -- he can't get past that sort of -- that signal of

weakness and then lashes out for months after. >> the problem for him right now is he's in a whole different ball game right now. when you are talking about an fbi investigation. when you're talking about a special prosecutor and pretty robust, at least with one senate committee, pretty robust congressional investigation, it doesn't matter if you are talking about loyalty, if you see this as a sign of weakness. you are now in a pretty fraught legal game. he hasn't seemed to understand that yet. no one on his team can really get him to internalize that at this point. >> it's not the media this wants him to stop tweeting. >> it's most of his own staff but he is enabled by some on his staff or supported, maybe that's the wrong word, he's the boss, the ceo of the united states government, but social media director, in all this criticism, he's tweeting about the travel ban and undermining his legal case, in a twitter war with the london mayeor.

the day after a terrorist attack. tweet the out these metrics last night to prove we're right. 13 billion impressions in the last year. 18 million retweets, 14 million clicks, 44 million minutes, video views. okay. there's a lot of traffic on twitter and it is an effective way to communicate. however, he's got an approval rating somewhere around 37% and he has increasingly growing list of republicans, people in his own party saying we can't get anything done because of this. >> i recall the last president who said scoreboard as they say in sports, when you're winning, and that was barack obama who told eric cantor i won. guess what happened to barack obama in 2010? he had a heck of a rebuke in the first midterm elections. what happens is the candidate the year before has trouble accommodating -- coming to terms with the fact that they are now governing. they're not in the campaign anymore. this is not the first time this has happened in this country, but obviously it's much more

profound in this case with trump. he is having difficulty accepting the fact that he has to have a different voice. he has to have an inside voice now. he's the president of the united states. and he can't do that. >> but he can do it for a time. >> falls off the wagon, maggie. >> i'm not going there with you. we saw him during the campaign. he was able when necessary to sort of drill down and do what you had to do. then it reaches a point where he just can't do it anymore. i think that is what is so perplexing to the newcomers in his orbit. the people that have been with him for a while are used to this pattern. for those who are new there, you start to see people trying to make modifications, like h.r. mcmaster insisting that the president did something he didn't do in europe which is recommit to article five of nato. the president didn't do that. you're now reaching the point where you're seeing people trying to sort of almost isolate him off on his own and act as if there's a government going on without him and that's

complicated. >> it's complicated and sends mixed signals. it's confusing to everybody, not only reporters in washington, lawmakers. an interesting point. dan scavino was celebrating. kellyanne conway saying stop paying attention to what he says. angus king sides with the democrats, but here's his take. >> this is a significant problem. for the administration to say don't mind what this man is saying, wizard of oz, don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain, that doesn't pass the straight face test. >> if you're mitch mcconnell, speaker paul ryan, the committee chairs in congress, for a long time you said this is kind of cute, this is amusing. now it's june and we are nowhere. >> it's not going to pass.

this is how trump likes to communicate. everyone just needs to accept that. we also have to treat what he says on twitter as the words of the president of the united states. we can't dismiss them. in part we can't dismiss them because that's really how we're hearing from the president. he did not hold a press conference on that foreign trip. >> where is the intervention on capitol hill? let's be honest. if they're tired of it, why aren't they going down to the white house today and say mr. president, put down that phone? >> he has a dinner tonight and we will see. you know that -- now you're doing what i did answering a question that you already know the answer to. people have asked before including very high level people and they've been unsuccessful. >> no senate plan on health care this year. which is it? good question and good luck getting a reliable answer. ♪

track your pack. set a curfew, or two. make dinner-time device free. [ music stops ] [ music plays again ] a smarter way to wifi is awesome. introducing xfinity xfi. amazing speed, coverage and control. change the way you wifi.

xfinity. the future of awesome. welcome back. more on the president's agenda now. this is day 137 of the trump presidency. obamacare remains the law of the land. there is no white house tax reform bill. and the administration's outline of its tax reform idea system at odds with the house speaker's plan. the president is holding several infrastructure related events, but his own aides say a detailed plan is weeks if not maybe months away. yet this from the white house point man with congress. mark short. i think the president is very effective in driving our message in congress. he may not have a conventional style, but many of his efforts are extremely helpful to us in getting our legislation accomplished. arkansas tom cotton, an important trump ally in

congress. listen here. he sees things a little differently. >> i think the president could be more focused and disciplined about staying on his agenda. i communicated that publicly as well as privately to him. but donald trump is going to do well he's focused on things like jobs, wages, and security. to the extent that he's focused on all of the, you know, hair and fire wild-eyed allegations and drama around these inquiries, he's going to do less well. >> this gets back to the discipline and focus point we were discussing earlier. tom cotton has been a loyal soldier for this president and this administration. more of them are starting to speak more publicly. as he said i tried privately. that tells you something about republicans, a, worried about their president, and b, looking at a calendar and worrying about their party. >> the republicans who are up in 2018 are the first ones that are going to feel the impact. it won't be trump. he's not on the ballot for three more years at this point. they know they're going have to

have to plain explain to voters there is no health care, no infrastructure spending, they'll have to answer. also are reluctant to walk a plank for someone who maybe has a 35% approval rating. they're in a bit of a bind. either way it's not looking good for the president. >> where are we? here's a key member of the republican leadership. i still think in the end there's a reason we have to get to 50. we have to havea voteone way or the other. if we don't pass something and we get into '18, so a member of the leadership saying we're going to have a vote. lindsey graham saying i just don't think we put it together among ourselves. i always believed let obamacare collapse which it will and challenge to fix it. that's been my route. then another saying i don't think we'll have another obamacare plan ready for a vote in the senate this year.

which is it? >> all of the above. what lindsey graham is very similar to what you heard the president say over and over which is let's let it collapse and it will be on the democrats. that's really hard to sell when you are the governing majority. i think there are people like tom cotton who you have seen has had to take something of a calculated road on the issue of obamacare because a lot of people in his state like it. you have a lot of senators like that. it's complicated as you all know for republicans who have campaigned for cycle after cycle on repealing obamacare and making it better. so there is where i think you see this road because the reality of changing it is it's not really going to get that much better. that is what people will tell you privately. republicans will tell you privately they are being candid about what they are looking at. that is why i think you are seeing this. >> a little bit of fool's gold. republicans on their own can't do hardly anything in congress. something bipartisan is going to be hard to understand. at some point they're going to

have to plain to their voter whose saw the rose garden ceremony after it passed the house, i thought obamacare was done, i saw the marine band serenading the president in the east room at the start of infrastructure week. what do you mean there's no infrastructure bill? >> the problem with these shows -- >> right. they put on this show and it has been a trump promise since he announced his candidacy. then it became repeal and replace obamacare. if the republicans can't figure it out in the senate or even if they can in the senate, the democrats say we could just fix obamacare. >> if the republicans will set aside this partisan gun at your head kind of approach, we stand ready if they're willing to do that to work cooperatively with them. >> what is more likely head sbog a midterm election year where getting out your base is the most primportant thing?

the president stops tweeting or the republicans abandon appeal and just fix obamacare? >> they're not going to agree to keep obamacare and do bipartisan effect with democrats nor are democrats going to step up. >> they're not going to do it either. >> but that said, i think the comments that you just flashed on the screen was so telling. this is the number three ranking republican. this is not somebody who's a maverick. he is someone who's in those meetings. the fact that he's saying we might have to come back to it, oh my gosh, that is so -- >> he also said we'll have a vote either way. >> that signals to me that mitch mcconnell is now of the mind let's bring this to the floor for a vote and if we pass it we go to conference and if we don't pass it, we move on. i really think that that's what is now the approach. >> i don't know they can just wash their hands of what has been their central organizing principle in the last four or five elections, but we shall see. it's a brand new washington.

>> tax cuts are the holy grail for the republican party. >> washington bracing for what james comey might say when he testifies. some republicans are arguing most of the country isn't as interested.

welcome back. the ground rules for the giant washington event coming up thursday now much more clear. james comey will testify before the senate intelligence committee and the former fib director has the okay from the special counsel bob mueller to talk candidly. >> they've talked. i understand that the special counsel has not fenced him off in any way, shape, or form from the items he intends to talk about. >> that's right. those items intend to talk about are what? >> well, it's about russia's involvement in our 2016 election which is the investigation and that does lead into the

possibility of collusion. >> the chairman there say the possibility of collusion. after a few days of nonanswers, the white house now also on the record. >> in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the senate intelligence committee, president trump will not assert executive privilege regarding james comey's scheduled testimony. >> and you can't think of a day with more potential importance for this presidency than the former fbi director being questioned about did the president, in fact, ask for a loyalty pledge over dinner. did the president, in fact, clear the oval office and keep just you there and ask you to shut down the michael flynn investigation? >> yes, i think the potential for comey testifying under oath in his own voice about what happened is going to be pretty powerful. how durable it is i don't know. what exactly we learn i don't know. there's obviously some guardrails around what he is

allowed to talk about. one question that i do wonder about is does he get asked about the president's repeated claim that comey told him he's not under investigation. i do wonder what gets said there and i wonder, you know, is that an answer that may have changed over the course of time? but i think that it is obviously going to be riveting, whatever he says. my big question, frankly, is less what -- as much what comey says as how the president handles this. that's my big question mark. >> and when you see sarah huckabee sanders saying we're not going to invoke executive privilege, they sort of danced around that. it would have been a huge political risk. they realized that would have been nuts. it would have sent the wrong signal or they don't think this is going to be as damaging as others think? they're hoping it won't be as damaging. they don't know. there's a lot of uncertainty about what comey is going to say. i think the driving factor in

not invoking executive privilege was the optics. it just looks like you are scared of what comey is going to say. a lot of people on the outside, trump supporters, want to be involved in an effort to support him on thursday. they are looking for guidance from the white house. how can we help. how can we be there. they're not getting there. there's no movement to setting up the russia war room. they're leaving themselves a bit defenseless. >> what happened with that? david bossie was going to come in. they came in. they've had discussions with the president. they're around now more than they have been. they've been around throughout the administration but around now more. some people say the president just wants his lawyer to deal wi with it. others say government salary, government ethics rules, i'm not doing that. >> i think it's tough to get people who are loyal to the president to join the administration at this phase. you don't know which direction this is going to go. i think this came down to a lack

of decision making. it was unclear whether this should be housed inside, outside. there was talk it should go to the rnc. as they often do in the west wing tie themselves up in knots in the decision making process. >> a big question about this toochlt t. the main lawyer right now, mark kasowitz, wants to have this all funneled through him. and that's understandable. as the lawyer, that's part of the whole concern here. that is a tough herd of cats to sort of get in one line. so i think that was part of the challenge. i also had the sense from a couple people i talked to that the president himself hadn't bought in. >> the political communications questions is a pressing one right now. as far as team around kasowitz, no one is really participating in these congressional inquiries, right? it's going to be a while before they need appellate taeattorney that have been named. they do have time to figure that out. the point is still a good one that this has been a decision making process. >> is it fair to say one of the

biggest tests, you mentioned a very important test how does the white house react. what's the republican conversation next week? a lot of republicans want to focus on the leaks. they're going to say to director comey if he was going to obstruct you, why didn't you come tell us. i don't think it will be in the face defense of the president if he had these conversations. what the republicans say after comey is going to tell me a lot about where they think this ship is going. >> it will be the first vast indication of just how durable the congressional gop loyalty is to trump. for the first time you're not just going to have a story in seemingly adversarial newspaper. you're going to have a live, a former law man up there under oath saying these things. that i think is going to be harder for the republicans on the hill to zpldismiss as the product of some story or some article which they often like to do. it makes it harder. we will see who is actually on team trump and who is looking for an off ramp. >> for whatever jim comey's mistakes over the years and there are some, but he's a

credible law man, skilled trained with a republican pedigree: up next, trump's tweets making a splash across the pond.

welcome back. theresa may siding with lob don's mayor in the trans atlantic twitter war. >> is doing a good job and it's wrong to say anything else. he is doing a good job. >> distance from president trump was not her initial instinct. remember back in january when may visited the white house? >> president trump's victory achieved in defiance of all the pundits in the polls, but in the hopes and isconspira-- >> things have soured since. >> i will be making clear to

president trump today that intelligence that he shieared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure. >> now trump's attacks to the london mayor have called for sail ba scale back for trump's visit later this year. unpredictable environment, about you she clearly has gone from coming to washington then going to that republican retreat where you heard her sing the praises of trump in his wow what a victory to woah. >> she came into office. she was riding this waive of populism, the same wave trump had. now you see that across europe, not just in france and in germany, but also in the uk. trump is increasingly unpopular. for as much as the white house heralded that trip that he made it's hard to overstate how difficult that trip was and how

leaders are really recoiling from him. she's facing election. the fact that he went after a mayor whose city was just attacked, just the optics, london, in the uk, which is involved or ally, the optics are -- >> think about the attack this country suffered on september 11th, 2001. you try to imagine anyone going after rudy giuliani at the time. and distorting his words. i think to julie's point, this is a thing a lot of people worried about who opposed donald trump. given his isolationist talk at times and he would argue he's not and he would frankly argue both sides of the position a lot of the time, but given what he was saying, given the unpredictability of it and given you would privately hear in the last couple months aides to foreign leaders saying they're concerned about what his tweets would be, exactly what we're seeing, you reach the concern in this sort of post world war ii order, other countries aren't going to want to deal with the united states.

that's what we're moving toward. >> theresa may has gone 20 points up to single digits now. some of it is her own problems with security there. some of it is the trump stuff. it's hard to come up with a list of politicians or political operatives who are better off after cozying up to trump. the body count behind trump is pretty lengthy. wee now in a position where -- we're now in a world where the mayor of london, 25th largest city in the world, considers it beneath him to respond to a statement from the president of the united states. >> jeremy corbin, the labor opponent of theresa may, is seizing on what trump has said. he sees an opening here. >> making a referendum. >> may call this election a snap election because she thought it was an opportunity to pick up a lot of seats. now you have somebody, jeremy corb corbin with a real opportunity to become the next prime minister of the uk.

>> we'll keep an eye on this. thursday's vote, big day in washington. big vote in the uk. nice tree. see if you can bring it in next week. be back after a quick break. wolf blitzer in the chair. we danced in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen.man. when i first got on ancestry i was really surprised that i wasn't finding all of these germans in my tree. i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. the big surprise was we're not german at all. 52% of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com. there's nothing more important than your health. so if you're on medicare or will be soon,

you may want more than parts a and b here's why. medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. you might want to consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like any medicare supplement insurance plan, these help pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and, these plans let you choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. you could stay with the doctor or specialist you trust... or go with someone new. you're not stuck in a network... because there aren't any. so don't wait. call now to request your free decision guide and find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. there's a range to choose from,

depending on your needs and your budget. rates are competitive. and they're the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. like any of these types of plans, they let you apply whenever you want. there's no enrollment window... no waiting to apply. so call now. remember, medicare supplement plans help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. you'll be able to choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. whether you're on medicare now or turning 65 soon, it's a good time to get your ducks in a row. duck: quack! call to request your free decision guide now. because the time to think about tomorrow is today.

. hello i'm wolf blitzer t.'s 1:00 p.m. here in washington. 6:00 in london. 7:00 p.m. in paris. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. we begin with breaking news from paris. prosecutors have now opened an anti-terror investigation after a man wielding a hammer at the notre-dame cathedral. amid chaos, people inside the cathedral forced to put their hands up as police officers swarmed the area. we'll go live to paris in just a moment.