our services more reliable than ever. like technology that can update itself. an advanced fiber-network infrustructure. new, more reliable equipment for your home. and a new culture built around customer service. it all adds up to our most reliable network ever. one that keeps you connected to what matters most. welcome to "inside politics." john king is off. i'm dana bash. and three short weeks before the fourth of july recess and a month-long break in august. and just as senate majority

leader mitch mcconnell feared after listening to concerned constituents all week, an already slim prospect for the gop health care bill has only gotten slimmer. john mccain even went as far as to say it might be dead. much more on that this hour, but first, a fresh admission from donald trump jr. that he met with a kremlin dk connected lawyer last summer on hopes of getting dirt on hillary clinton. after giving two different accounts on that meeting in two days, the eldest son tweeted, obviously i'm the first person on the campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent. went nowhere but had to listen. don jr. took that 2016 meeting in trump tower alongside the now president's son-in-law jared kushner and then campaign chairman paul manafort. none of them disclosed it in public until this weekend, more than a year after it happened. on saturday after the news of the meeting first appeared in the "new york times," the

president's son issued this statement -- we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children that was active and popular with american families years ago, and was since ended by the russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time, and there was no follow-up. now, hours later, the "times" reported trump jr. was lured to the meeting with promise of information damping to his father's opponent. then a new statement saying later, i was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance i knew from the 2013 miss universe paget with information who might be helpful to the campaign. it quickly bane clear she had no meaningful information, then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of russian children and mentioned the mcnitschke act. today safe to say many members of congress have questions. >> i think we'll find out what happens in this meeting and learn a lot more about it and we should. >> if talking to the president's

team, then candidate trump teams, that contradicts what the president and his people have said. >> what concerns me is that this has reached the highest levels now. >> talking at a presidential level, i recommend someone talk to everybody who says they have information that makes a particular candidate, an opponent, unworthy of serving in the office. >> if they say this person has, this is a russian-connected person, and not ethnically russian, but kremlin russian, connected person, and they may have information, wouldn't that be a red plag to you? >> absolutely that's a red flag. >> a spokesman for the president's legal team says, i quote, the president was not aware and did not attend the meeting. and with that, i want to bring in our senior white house correspondent jeff zeleny. jeff, no mention of the president's meeting or the president's son's meeting in his tweets, but certainly people at the white house are forced to talk about it. >> dana, they are indeed. they are forced to talk about

this even though the president wants to talk about anything but this. the reality here is that the white house is going to be defending once again deflecting questions about this, but dana, to put it all in context for viewers. this is the first time that there's been a public indication, an acknowledgement. during the campaign, of a meeting, between the top officials of the trump campaign and someone inside the russian operative world here. kellyanne conway, senior counsel to the president was on cnn's "new day" this morning and pushing back. let's watch. >> you can't take a meeting that lasted 20 minutes, that is reported to have lasted 20 minutes, produced no information, it was, we're told, mainly about russian adoption, and spin that into some kind of tale and some type of evidentiary trail. >> so that is the view from the white house. i'm sure we'll hear more later this afternoon when sarah huckabee sanders holds an off-camera briefing in a couple hours or so.

the reality, as we heard the sound there from a variety of members of congress on both sides in the opening of the show here, this gives a new opening, a new sort of window to look into. so i would find it very difficult to believe that the president's oldest son would now not be answering a question from congressional committees, and this takes us into a whole new realm. the question, of course, is, did the president know about the meeting? his lawyer spokesman said he did not before the meeting but will be asking those questions to see if he knew about it after, and in the year since that meeting. this is a significant development here that will be lingering in this special counsel's case as well as we go forward with this. >> sure is. jeff zeleny, thank you for that report. here to weigh in with their reporting, margaret from bloom berg politics, cnn's manu raju and amy walter of the cook political report and dan balls of the "washington post." dan, starting with you. what do you make of all this? >> well, it's a big, big, big

development. this is, you know, as jeff was saying, the first time we've seen senior campaign people dealing directly with russian operatives in the middle of the campaign at a meeting in which they were told they were going to receive damages information about hillary clinton. i mean, that ties together. now, obviously, there are a lot of questions that still have to be answered. we don't know what transpired after that, other meetings, but it has taken this long for this meeting to come out. >> that right. >> we don't know what else is to come, and i think that this has ho raise the temperatures inside the white house about this investigation. i mean, this may have been a moment where prior to this where they thought they were going to, you know, have a quieter period, and it just thrusts everybody back into the russia story and prevents them from staying on their agenda. >> and once again, never mind us not knowing about this more than a year. the initial statement was different from the second statement, within 24 hours from

donald trump jr. he also tweeted today a denial of inconsistency. he said, no inconsistent in statements. meeting ended up being primarily about adoptions in response to further cues. i simp think provided more details. okay. maybe. >> maybe. >> of course, the whole thrust of the reason why we cared about this was the big question mark about whether they talked politics and the answer was, yes, not what he initially said. >> gets us to the bigger point. right. just imagine if at the very beginning of all of this, when the investigation started at the end of the election, that every single member of the trump administration sat down, went through each and other one of their meetings,ut it all out there and said, this is it. we're done. put everything out front. they literally went through with a fine-tooth comb and gave more information than they had to and could come back and say, we did everything we possibly could to be as up front and transparent about our relationships and meetings with anybody at all

affiliated, even if we didn't know their distinct affiliation at that time. the second piece of this statement i find curious and it came from kellyanne conway as well. nothing came of this meeting. it wasn't a big deal. what if they had given you information? what would you have done with if? the next question. said, uh-oh. this came from a kremlin-backed source. we can't do anything with this or taken that information and done something with it? >> a great point. and a different way to look at it also is, the question about how politics works. how campaigns work. >> right. >> manu, jason miller, who was the communications director for the trump campaign now a cnn contributor, here's what he said about this. >> the fact that someone's coming forward with information about an opposing campaign would be insane to not at least go and send someone to sit down with them to figure out what they were talking about. >> okay. so that is true. but i've heard from republican after republican today on

twitter and else wwhere saying t when it's a foreign national. >> and suspected at that point of hacking the democratic national committee. of course, the intelligence committee had not put on an assessment accusing russia but suggestions russia could have been involved. that same month don junior told jake tapper this talk about russia being involved is nonsense. totally phony. this is a witch-hunt, et cetera. going back to his statement initially, initial statement, he said initially this was not a campaign issue. part of this statement he gave in the "new york times." inconsistent from what he later divulged. undoubtab undoubtably, down jr. is now a part of this investigation. will have to answer questions from the house and senate intelligence committee or face a subpoena if he refuses. certainly special counsel mueller is interested in this and the interesting thing, a lot of this was learned by

apparently jared kushner's amended security clearance form in which he listed all of these meetings with foreign nationals and presumably with russians. what else is on that list? >> which was incorrect at the beginning. we should point out. he didn't list these meetings. you covered the white house every day. i want to play for viewers what the white house chief of staff reince priebus said over the weekend about this. >> it was a very short meeting. it was a meeting apparently about russian adoption. and after about 20 minutes, the meeting ended, and that was the end of it. this is a developing story. i don't know much about it, other than it seems to be on the end of the trump individual, a big nothing burger but may spin out of control for the dnc and the democrats. >> okay. yob usually he hopes it's a nothing burger. to be fair, looks like he was in the dark about the fact that the premise of the meeting was about giving dirt on hillary clinton. but you talked about, manu, the idea of donald trump jr.

probably having to go to capitol hill. adam schiff, top democrat on the intelligence committeed to me yesterday on "state of the union" they definitely will try to call him and probably others. what do you think this means for the white house? how big of a shift is this? >> after jim comey's most recent testimony, the white house not only put on a good public face but felt with all the advisers you talked to, actually it had been very good for that process to be over with, because if there had been any kind of like their there, it would have come out and feel like they could move on. this puts things squarely back in the realm of no one's moving on yet. and for months, you know, lawmakers have been interested in talking with jared kushner, interested in talking with michael flynn, talking with don jr. so the president's family as well as some of his closest associates at the time. this just keeps things moving in that direction and it's precisely these two issues.

number one, if there was nothing wrong with any of this and it had been disclosed up front, there would be a whole loss less steam and momentum behind this. second is, there's been this sort of consistent question a among aides inside the white house about, do they know what they need to know in order to address these questions? >> yes. >> and this suggests another example of, no. more information coming out that is, you know, revelatory to a lot of people trying to help put the president's communications strategy forward, policy strategy forward, foreign policy approach forward. it you're h.r. mcmaster learning about this, if you're the defense secretary or the secretary of state and you're learning about it, it necessarily effects all of your next moves, the way you communicate them. a terrible thing to find out at this point. >> reince priebus sitting on live national television. >> saying it's a nothing burger. >> five minutes later, everything he said was undermined. >> i was going to say, one of the important things about this particular meeting is, as people

have been trying to understand whether there was collusion or cooperation. i mean, obviously there's smoke, but hard to pin things down. but one aspect of the questioning is, was the trump campaign in a receptive mode? >> yeah. >> not actively colluding, but being willing to have information that was helpful to them as it was being leaked publicly? >> from the russians? >> right. from the russians. >> that's the case. >> and testimony from john bren a nen, an active effort by the russians to u.s. persons to try to provide information that could be damaging to hillary clinton. >> okay. everybody stand by. a lot more to talk about. up next -- more on the russia issue but realtime. teaming up with putin on cyber security? is it a sly move or as one republican senator called it, the fox guarding the hen house. that's next.

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act® strengthens enamel, protects teeth from harmful acids, and helps prevent cavities. go beyond brushing with act®. how many times have we heard president trump say, how nice it would be if the u.s. and russia to get along better and cooperate on important issues? one idea he and vladimir putin came out of their face-to-face meeting, first one they had, caused many incredulous republicans to say, is this is a joke? when he woke up sunday morning, president trump tweeted that he and the russian president discussed forming "an impenetrable cyber security unit so election hacking and many other things will be guarded." many who worked in the government were practically speechless. >> this is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a, would go group on burglary. >> if that's our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to moscow.

i don't think that's an answer at all. >> it's not the dumbest idea i've ever heard but pretty close. >> well, by the end of the day yesterday, the president sent another tweet, which suggested he heard that criticism loud and clear and did something uncharacteristic for trump. he backed off the idea saying, "the fact that president putin and i discussed a cyber security unit doesn't mean i think it can happen. it can't, but a cease-fire can and did. he talked about referring to syria. now, take a listen to what the vice president just said a few moments ago on this. >> the president raised the issue of cyber security again in the context of that meeting. i don't know the exact reference, but the president made it very clear last night that it probably isn't going to work out. >> and seen. i mean, 24 hours, it does a full circle. dan, i want to ask you about this, but before i do i just want to put up another tweet

that came out yesterday from marco rubio, also kind of priceless who said, partnering with putin on a cyber security unit is akin to partners with assad on a chemical weapons unit. ouch. >> i mean, the mocking of this idea was extraordinary yesterday. and particularly from republicans as well as democrats. >> right. >> how this got raised, why this got raised, why anybody around the president thought this was a good idea or something that should be talked about publicly after the meeting is baffling i think to everybody. i mean, i think that secretary carter was correct. i mean, the idea that we are going to go in partnership with the russians on cyber security to protect the integrity of our elections is fanciful. and, you know, the president left his secretary of treasury hung out to try who praised on one of the sunday shows smartly moo moved away from it quickly, but the damage is done. the damage left is a question

of, is the president -- how naive is this president to even begin to talk about something like that? >> you mentioned he left his treasury secretary hung out to dry. also his u.n. ambassador to -- u.s. ambassador to the u.n. i spoke with nikki haley sunday. listen to what she said about it. >> from a cyber standpoint, we need to get together with russia. we need to tell them, you know what we think should happen, shouldn't happen, and if we talked to them about it, hopefully we can cut this out and get them to stop. it doesn't mean we -- >> do you think they can be trusted? >> -- eyes off the ball. it doesn't mean we ever trust russia, we can't trust russia and won't ever trust russia but you keep those you trust closer to always keen an eye on them and keep them in check. >> actually, a pretty good point. the best defense i've heard of it. margaret, with your perch covering the white house, is it your sense this was kind of a vladimir putin idea, kind of a -- what people shoe are experts on russia are saying.

classic, you know, russian idea to propose working on something that is controversial between two nations? >> so this meeting between the president and vladimir putin was supposed to go for 30 minutes. overseas in hamburg on the sidelines of the g-20. we all know it went 2 hours 15 minutes. the difference between what you can do in 30 minutes and what you can do in 2 hours and 15 minutes, it's this -- exactly this. when you have a 2 1/2 hour meeting with multiple staff who can talk about multiple things it's a different dynamic than what you have a meeting where the only people there are the president, secretary of state and two translators. no professional notetakers, national security advisers isn't there, russia director not there. an enormous amount we still don't know about precisely how that conversation went down. and that we won't know and these are -- it's a private meeting, but that's what matters. for president putin there's a lot to be gained from saying,

look, let's move forward, and cyber is something that affects all of are us, because what an approach like that does is puts us on an equal playing field. u.s. is worried about this. russia worried about this, we're all worried about this. what's happening inside the u.s., from congress, members of the intelligence community is a real concern that the u.s. whether in states or the federal level is extremely vulnerable to russian penetration and that russia needs to be on guard on notice that they'll be major consequences if something like this happens again. >> and again, many of the president's fellow republicans, he got played by vladimir putin. listen to what lindsey graham said yesterday. >> he understands the world pretty damn well, except for russia. mr. president, you're hurting your ability to govern this nation by forgiving and forgetting and empowering. the more he talks about this in terms of not being sure, the more he throws our intelligence communities under the bus. the more he's willing to forgive

and forget putin. the more suspicion and i think it's going to dog his presidency until he breaks this cycle. >> you run the tall ways and talk to these guys every single day, and you witness the fact that it's dogging as president. >> absolutely. almost everyone in his party take as much harder line on russia than the president of the united states does. particularly not just someone like lindsey graham which is probably the reason why the president felt like he had to back off the cyber security idea. the more he kept this out there the more it was undoubtedly got to get panned. interesting. going back to the clips you showed earlier of nikki haley, you mentioned steve mnuchin, touting, defending this idea and the president later saying, no. forget about it. how much he continues to undercut ace surrogates. completely contradicts what they're saying. rex tillerson came out of that meeting last week and said they did discuss the issue of

sanctions. afterwards the president tweeted, no sanctions were discussed. it's really difficult for these officials not just to defend the president but, you know, to especially when he's taking these controversial stances. >> and one of inproposition. i read it, for the president, what i took away, the president was saying they didn't discuss the idea of relaxing sanctions. but you're right. >> helpful if he actually answered the question. >> creating an idea of a contradiction. >> before we go to break i would note that vladimir putin did a press conference, answering questions about what happened. and the united states president did not. leave it there. coming up, as the senate returns to work today facing obamacare repeal and replace still in flux and new fresher from the president to get it passed before the august recess. can senate majority leader mitch mcconnell deliver a signature gop campaign promise? stay with us. . mmmm. mmmm... ugh. nothing spoils a moment like heartburn. try new alka-seltzer ultra strength heartburn relief chews.

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congress would dare to leave washington without a beautiful, new health care bill fully approved and ready to go. presidential pressure and what could effectively be a new deadline in health care. the august congress' recess, but setting deadlines is dangerous business. republican senators already missed their first target date for a vote on repealing and replacing obamacare. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell could not whip enough votes before the july 4th holiday and then the majority leader may have lost more while lawmakers were out of town. remember, his advisors said more than once maybe time was the last thing that they need, and perhaps they were right, but if you go a few doors down from the oval office, deadlines, well, they don't really seem to be deadlines. >> maybe before. maybe a little into it, but i know this president expects them to get this thing done. whether it be before august recess or during august recess. the president expects the senate to fulfill the promises it made to the american people.

>> but on capitol hill, where the people actually have to vote, some republicans warned no amount of time would be enough to fix this bill's problems. >> i think, my view is, it's probably going to be dead, but i am -- i've been wrong. >> speaking the truth, amy walter? >> boy, it is hard to see where this thing goes, and how it gets across the finish line. now, let's take us back in time. we said this about the house bill that passed. >> right. >> right? on the republican side. said this back in 2009, and in early 2010 about the democrats being able to get their bill across the finish line. this is especially true after the special election in massachusetts where republican scott brown had the upset there and no longer the 60-seat majority in the senate. so things can happen. that said, the big takeaway i get on this bill is, it is so

politically toxic that for anybody who touches it, up in 2018 it is going to be -- it can melt your face off, kind of toxicity. right? the kind of stuff that you lose midterm elections over. and it is why tackling health care is soft like the box canyon of issues. right? you get in there, and you think you're going to solve it and get out easily but you're stuck and people are -- >> i feel like the "indiana jones" reference -- >> your fate is meting. watch it over the weekend. face is melting. you're trapped. republicans are trapped not just because of the bill's unpopularity, not only from democrats but wynn their own party and the president is not leading on this issue. given multiple contradictory statements what he wants to see. maybe just repeal it. do the replace later. got to get it done before august. the bill's too mean. nothing coming from the white

house helping coordinate that. watch the sunday shows yesterday. three or four different republicans coming out with three or four different solutions without any sort of gelling. >> exactly right. go ahead. >> i was going to say, a point i was going to make. where is the messaging operation to push this bill through? there is virtually nothing on the right. not just from the white house but outside groups on the right are completely silent. there's no pro active message about why this particular bill will be beneficial to the country and to help restructure 1/6 of the economy. virtually no megaphone on their side. only saying obamacare is imploding a disaster and we need to fix it but not what the bill does to fix the problem kmsh, w gets to the point mitch mcconnell made last week. we can fix this bill with democrats. a more politically popular idea than just repealing the bill without really explaining what's in the replacement. >> to that point i want to play

what bill cassidy, republican senator, said yesterday about appearing to be, again, this is a smart guy. a doctorate, right? confused about what's in the bill. >> we don't know what the plan is. >> wait a minute. it was submitted. >> well, the draft plan has now been serious rewrite, and so we don't know what the serious rewrite -- clearly the draft plan is dead. is the serious rewrite plan dead? i don't know. i've not seen the serious rewrite plan. >> so this is not a commentary on a senator but on the process and the fact that it is, look, it's a moving process. at the same time, when you have something so confusing and lacking a message to push it that's not helpful. >> they're doing two things at once obviously. one is, tweaking the bill in response to criticisms from various people. sending those to the cbo to try to get those scored to see whether they have real impact or a positive impact. but there's no way to bring all of that together until they put this bill out in a public way, which she did the last time and

it, as a result of that, couldn't even move it to the floor. so -- you know, as amy said. there you stuck in a place they have so many people who have such reservations about it that harmonizing those will be the biggest challenge that mitch mcconnell's ever had. >> as i go to you margaret, i want to put up an image very telling, captured in kansas at a town hall. senator jerry moran, and if you look at that, kind of look down, this is -- he's having a conversation, a good conversation with constituents and a protestors is just standing behind him with a sign talking about how bad this bill is. i mean -- >> kansas. >> in kansas. >> right. this is not san francisco or new york city. it's kansas. >> i think, dana, i think there are political repercussions for president trump if this legislation goes down that are separate from health care and separate from whether they can get the votes on tax reform and

that sort of thing, and it's a much more basic simple thing which is up until now, the republican strategy has been to say, yes, and to work with him. not to say no and not to step back. to be very careful about not stepping back. even when it's on russia-related issues, to just the -- consensus stra teachly has been he's the president, ke were get conservative judges on the bench. move towards stuff, and -- when they -- if there is a, sort of finality of an act of no, that changes the instincts in the direction and becomes easier to say no going forward on other things, and that is the strategic problem for the white house. >> yeah. i was just going to say that if you look at the math, i think you rule out susan collins, she's gone most likely. you're going to lose rand paul on the right. he's gone. you really can't lose anybody. >> about the current bill? >> the current bill. even -- with changes, it's hard to see how these two get there. and then you have so many other senators who have reservations in different areas.

even if they try to add language to appease ted cruz or a mike lee, the conservatives, you have concerns with people like dean heller, up for re-election. rob portman from a state that expanded medicaid, their own significant reservations. jiri moran, kansas conservative who says he won't vote for this. >> one more beat. i want to play a back and forth, joni ernst, not up for re-election but from a purple state, iowa, had with a constituent asking about the removal of essential benefits in the senate bill. watch this. >> -- that could cause that man's costs to skyrocket. doesn't matter if you say a condition is covered if you don't cover prescriptions, hospital stays. how does that cover someone with cancer? >> allows flexibility, but again. >> flexibility for insurance

companies to not cover these people. >> very hard to manage. on the campaign trail in 2016 the thing i heard from voters over and over about health care, simply too expensive. i can't afford it. that's not the message that republicans are putting forward. this is going to be more affordable. talking flexibility. talking about keeping a promise to voters. but not getting to the core issue for many, many, many voters which is, what we disliked about obamacare was its expense or health care in general, its expense. if that messaging doesn't get through i think it's going to be very difficult for them -- >> the smart ones realize, they don't want to promise it. >> because they know. >> may not come to pass in the end. stand by. up next, whatever happened to tax reform? and infrastructure repairs? is all of the haggling over health care we've discussed making it hard for republicans to do other big things and keep campaign promises? that's next. you do all this research

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this news just in to cnn --

an entertainment company president named rob goldstone confirming the "washington post" post the person who set up the meeting between donald trump jr. and the kremlin was in fact goldstone. the guy who did it. in a statement goldstone says the lawyer claimed to have information about hillary clinton that the trump campaign might find important. the meeting took place in june of last year at trump tower and both goldstone and donald trump jr. say it was brief and the information was worthless and nothing came out of it. we'll have much more on this rapidly unfolding story throughout the day on cnn. meanwhile, russia isn't the only investigation and the only cloud hanging over the gop agenda. with three weeks to go, republicans are in a time crunch to get any of their big items crossed off their list before the august recess. these items have yet to make it even to the president's desk. obviously, talking about health

care and tax reform. a budget at all. the debt ceiling, russia sanctions, and a bill to fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure. gop congressman and freedom caucus chair mark meadows put it this way to the "washington post" -- "there is real anxiety among the people that i serve on why we're not putting more things on the president's desk. they're tired of excuses." manu? >> yes. they are. i agree. it's remarkable. this is all republican control of washington, and i think there's a very good chance that the only thing they get done before the august recess, or at least before, by the new fiscal year, october 1st, is keeping the lights on. keeping the government operating. if they can do that, unless there's a big fight over the -- another campaign promise, which is to build the wall along the border of mexico and if the white house insists on money for that a fight with democrats

could lead to a shutdown. we're months away to see if that will actually happen. raise the debt limit. a huge fight within the republican party and may have to do it free of restrictions to cut spending. if that happens, conservatives would be very upset they did not get anything there. health care we discussed in the last block may not happen because of divisions. tax reforms, nowhere near a deal on tax reforms certainly not in the next two months and inf infrastructure, the one put forward doesn't have the support of democrats and they need democrats to pass in the senate. ways and ways away from passing big ticket items they campaigned on and may have to do basic functioning the government, keeping the lights on and that may be difficult in and of itself. >> listen to mitch mcconnell what the majority leader said at the republican convention a year ago. >> put donald trump in the white house, senate republicans will build on the work we've done and pass more bills into law than any senate in years.

>> okay. that was the aspirational part of this. they didn't actually think donald trump would win. once he won, republicans who weren't thrilled about donald trump being the nominee never mind the president thought, okay. at least we have a guy in the white house and can get our stuff done and that ain't happening. >> actually could have happened and is what should be happening when you look at the numbers. i would put this list into two categories. the debt kreceiling and everyth else. honest lly cannot be having a conversation about this. the debt ceiling and everything else. the trouble with everything else is not just momentum and getting everyone on the same page but the numbers for it. if the whole reason for reordering reconciliation, the health bill saves money to spend money doing other stuff. it changes the whole equation of everything else and changing the conversations you have to have how to pay for things. we saw as recently as in the

last week or two the beginning, the rumblings of a new debate whether it makes more sense to go the populist route on taxes. tax cut. how to pay for that and get back to the real stuff later. when you're even talking about these things it suggests these cleaves in the different branches of the republican party, the trump populist base versus kind of the business or corporate base, if this doesn't get resolved in, like -- you know, six or eight weeks, they go into the midterms really disorganized. >> and you know, amy, as -- feels like we're always in a campaign cycle but it's really true once the calendar flips to 2018. but is this just the reality that the disrupter president, the guy who comes from outside who says he going to get all of these things is facing the fact that washington is tough even maybe especially when you have your own party in charge, in the

congress? >> well, and margaret put it very well, which is, it's our daily reminder that what republicans in congress ran on was a very different agenda than what the president who is a republican ran on. and this is a party now that is not a unified party. it really hasn't been, in recent years, and it continues to be divided. they never had going in this idea of what we're going to do. once we get here, the republicans in congress said, this is what our agenda will be. paul ryan laid it out we'll go through this. this is not certainly what president trump focused on. the real question in my mind is, what kind of influence not getting stuff done is going to have on 2018 in terms of the enthusiasm for republicans to come out and vote for other republicans? in years' past we know, when your side isn't doing very well you tend to stay back, not go out. the other side tends to turn out because they're angry. is that going to continue to happen in 2018? >> great question. hold that thought. a quick break and up next,

ivanka trump's big moment at the g-20 that raised a few eyebrows from her dad, and someone else. chelsea clinton. that's coming up. if you have medicare

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president trump's two-hour chat with president putin may have been important, but this one as well. ivanka trump sitting in her father's seat between the chinese president and the british prime minister. now, the photo caused a bit of a stir among trump's critics on social media who question whether it's appropriate for the president's daughter to take his place at such an important table if only for a few moments. trump rallied to ivanka's defense on twitter saying if chelsea clinton were asked to

hold the seat for her mother as her mother gave the country away, the fake news would say -- chelsea clinton fired back. it would never have occurred to my mother or father to ask me, were you giving away our country? hoping not. so even though this is -- you know, a lot of snark between a lot of important people, dan, this does kind of raise the question it is appropriate -- i mean it is true, ivanka trump, she has an actual job in her father's administration. whether or not she would, was qualified, not just to have the job but to be sitting there even a few minutes is another, but she has the job. why not put an adviser there, daughter or not? >> you have to discount some of the internet -- >> the noise? >> the noise that took place on saturday. your point is right. i mean, she is a senior white

house person. she happens to be his daughter. and so sometimes it's hard to separate those. i was struck, though, that a number of people who have had experience in diplomacy and at meetings like the g-20 suggested when that happened that in any other administration, that seat at the table would have been taken by the secretary of state. the secretary of treasury. some other, you know, cabinet official, rather than a white house person. so i think that was -- that was -- >> daughter or not? >> daughter or not. >> interesting. you were there, margaret? >> yeah. interesting. context is important. an announcement of a world bank initiative created for which the u.s. is one of the contributors. ivanka was up on that panel beforehand. women's empowerment and also the reason in the back of the room for the closed g-20 section the picture comes from. in that world bank empowerment event the president came in himself and talked about his daughter. how proud he is of his daughter

and made a joke, i think a joke, saying probably the worst thing going for her is him right now. that's the preface for all the rest of this. one more point. one of the reasons that tweet was making its way around of the photo to begin with wus russia's sherpa to the g-20 was the one tweeting that picture. >> ouch. all right. thank you all. great discussion. thank you so much for that. and thank you for joining us on "inside politics." wolf blitzer is up after a quick break.

hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. 8:00 p.m. in moz cow and 8:00 p.m. in erbil as well. whenever you're watching from around the world, thanks for joining us. up next, if you questions about a meeting between a russian and the trump campaign. donald trump jr. gave two statements that