accepting glowing praise from the president of mexico and the head of the boy scouts never happened. the white house today said it was just a matter of semantics. whether that's true, we have no idea. but the majority of american trouble believing him on much of anything according to the latest quinnipiac poll which found only 34% think the president is honest. 62% do not believe that. president's approval rating also hit a new low, just 33%. jim acosta joins us now from the white house. did they give any explanation why the president was citing phone calls that never happened? >> anderson, they were essentially saying that that he was just sort of mixing up his stories here. let's just give a little context. the president earlier this week when he was sitting with his new chief of staff, john kelly, was talking about some of the work down at the border, talking about how the border was a tremendous problem and now close to 80% stoppage, he said, and even the president of the mexico called me and then the mexican government earlier today put out a statement saying the president there had not been in recent

communication via telephone with president donald trump. that's a pretty clear sign from mexico city that he has not been on the phone with the president. then you remember that very political speech, controversial speech the president gave to the boy scouts. earlier last month. during -- i guess after that speech he was talking to "the wall street journal" and he said i was told by the head of the boy scouts that it was the greatest speech that was ever made. the boy scouts told cnn no call of that nature was made. here's how sarah huckabee sanders answered that at the briefing earlier today when she was pressed on this. >> they were actually direct -- they were direct conversations, not actual phone calls. >> so he lied -- >> i wouldn't say it was a lie. that's a pretty bold accusation. the conversations took place. they just simply didn't take place over a phone call. he had them in person. >> so there you go, anderson. sarah huckabee sanders trying to make the best of a bad situation. the president once again caught essentially making something up there and in this case just something as strange and as

small as a couple of phone calls that he really didn't need to make false statements about. >> of all the things to make up, it just seems ridiculous. the folks you talk to at the white house, are they at all aware? they must be aware of. are they concerned about or do they say they're concerned about how these kind of things actually affect his credibility, their credibility? >> well, remember yesterday, anderson, when we were talking about the president being involved, weighing in on his son, donald trump jr.'s false statement, misleading statement about that meeting with the russian attorney, sarah huckabee sanders acknowledged at the briefing yesterday, well, the president, yes, he was involved in that but then she accused reporters of pushing what she described as a false narrative about the russia investigation. and so there isn't really a whole lot of, you know, coming to grips with reality here and that is the president time and again seems to make these statements that just don't hold up. i will tell you, though, when you talk to people privately in the administration and, you know, the white house will not want to acknowledge this, they

will acknowledge to you privately that it is difficult at times defending this president when he makes these kind of remarks. and once again, as we saw today, he made the job of his spokesperson that much tougher. >> with me now is kirsten powers, jeffrey lord, paul begalla. jeffrey -- >> why did i know you were coming to me? >> why does the president do this? i know he's always done this in the past, but as president you would think he would know people are going to check. it's not like he's lying calling up "the new york post" pretending to be his publicist. >> you have to be precise, there's no question about it, and be accurate as best you can in these kind of situations. but i will say this, anderson. you know, people out there watching this stuff, regular folks, i mean i was -- >> they don't care about a phone call. >> well, right. >> and i agree with that. but my question -- >> but there's another half -- there's another part to this, anderson. when the media at large, any

media institution makes a mistake, do they spend hours on end saying this on television? >> actually, yes, they do correct themselves. >> no, i didn't say correct themselves. >> has this president ever corrected himself? >> no. >> what is it eisenhower said about nixon? give me a week and i'll -- >> you're going to need more than a week to find it. >> i think he did once. he said he had some regrets after the cons. >> i had some general regrets about tone and stuff. >> even when you look at today, the way sarah huckabee sanders is acting so put upon that she has to answer these questions and how dare you even suggest that maybe he lied, rather than just saying he didn't tell the truth and taking responsibility for it. >> or made a mistake. >> and then this -- the new story is, i guess, there were a bunch of people after he gave the speech at the boy scouts that were saying nice things to him. but that's still not actually

what he said happened. >> again, to jeffrey's first point, yeah, these are minor things and probably a lot of people at home who voted for him think, you know what, i don't care. all politicians lie. i guess my question is if you're lying about the stuff that doesn't matter, what happens when it's actually stuff that does matter? >> all people lie. politicians lie more than people. i get that. >> are politicians people? >> i actually like politicians. but i do think -- well, in the gospel of luke, jesus says whosoever is dishonest on little things will be dishonest with greater responsibilities. this is timeless wisdom, people do know this. we don't want to analyze whether it's a phone call or personal. but it's a banner. we're going to have to save the breaking news banner when the guy tells the truth. >> i would disagree that it's not a big deal. i've been talking about the fact that trump's character deficit is a problem, because when you are given this level of responsibility like the presidency, your credibility, your word, your character matters. because to what paul said, when

it comes to bigger things, how do we know whether you're telling the truth or not. this is something that's almost pathological with donald trump, that he has to feel praised all the time to the point where he'll make things up to reinforce this idea that he's the greatest. i mean he literally made up these calls between the mexican president and the boy scouts, both of them, the common denominator is that they were telling him how great he is. this is an issue that i think has caused a lot of the problems with his governing style, his management style, has gotten him into trouble. he's unable to really get his agenda through because he continues to do things like this that cut at the core of his character and his credibility, and that is harmful to the country. what if there's a major attack? what if there's something going on on foreign policy and he's saying one thing or another. how many times did he say he met

putin? oh, yeah, i met him in the green room at cbs. then he was no, i never met petin. how do we ever know when to believe trump or not believe him? >> so it's like if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. >> how do we know other things were not true? >> just because barack obama did it makes it okay for trump to do it. it does a disservice to honesty. >> it's daily fabrications. daily mistakes or lies or fabrications or fantasy, whatever you want to call it. it's not as if this is a one-off thing. that's the one thing you keep repeating about barack obama. >> well, it was a serious one and it hurt him enormously, but it was one in eight years. >> but these are daily occurrences. >> and these are provable, verifiable facts. you look at the crowd size from day one. let's go back to day one. look at the crowd size of the election. you look at the pictures. i believe that in his own mind he believes all of this, and that he believes that these people did say this to him, whether it was in a phone call or not.

we still don't know what the conversations were. >> that's more frightening. >> but i do believe there is some sense of the details be damned, this is what occurred. even if they didn't say it, this is what they were thinking. >> i think instead it's -- i hope. i actually don't want to believe he's delusional. i believe -- somebody told me this after the election. actually it was my brother in houston. what you never got is hillary is a politician, she's a liar, a blank blank liar. trump is a bs artist. a lot of people held him to a different level because he's a reality show star. i accept that. but nobody is holding him to a lower standard nor should they be. it's august 2nd. there's going to be a storm. i'm from that area. i'm scared to death when we have another major storm and i want my president to say evacuate galveston and people listen. the north koreans are rattling sabres, venezuela is in flames. he has to have credibility. i have to believe my president. >> or what happens when we have

the next terrorist attack here on the scale of 9/11 and then he spouts off about who was responsible or who wasn't or is he going to -- is he capable of unifying the country when he spouts off things that are so reckless and irresponsible. i'm not quite sure. and that's where it really matters. >> his supporters will say, look, this was all baked in. >> exactly. >> they knew this before he was elected and they decided, you know what, i like him on these other issues, or i don't like clinton and i'm going to go for him even though i think he's a bs artist. >> well, look, you're going to live by approval ratings and die by approval ratings. if i was trump, i'd take a look at what's happening with his approval ratings because eventually people may get tired of it. i do think that even if it's true people don't care about this, and i'm not totally convinced that that's true. i don't care. you know, i care about this. and i think that it matters. >> and it's more today than on november 8th. >> we do have an obligation to hold people responsible

regardless of what other people think. there's plenty of obama supporters who said i don't care what he did, i love obama. that doesn't mean as journalists, we don't hold him accountable. >> when he makes stuff up, there's almost a challenge to it that's as if we're all idiots if we actually disagree with him on this, because he's so out in front of it that you're almost like, well, it must be true or else maybe we're just imagining stuff. but we're not imagining stuff. >> right. but at some point in this poll today, this quinnipiac poll, 62% of the people in the country do not believe he is honest. and that's going to be a real problem for him going forward. i don't see how you turn that around with the american public. >> let me just say i'm sitting next to somebody who worked for a president who was challenged on issues like this, right? >> he lied about an affair and that was terrible, but that's what it was. the american people forgave him but it cost him enormously but he didn't lie about everything every day. >> arguably he's the most popular democratic politician in

the country today. >> not because we liked it. >> are you really sitting here saying that it's okay that the president -- that the american people 61% believe that he doesn't tell the truth is okay? that's what it sounds like to me, you're rationalizing this. >> i think polls be damned in essence. >> don't tell trump that. >> how many times have we sat at this table for the last year and a half and said this is the end of him because, and it isn't. >> we didn't say it was the end of him. >> truth is real and it is provable. polls move, some are right, some are wrong, some go up, some go down but the truth is the truth and the president has to have fidelity to that or he can't lead us. the president signs the russia sanctions bill but also calls it seriously flawed and insists that he can make par better deals with foreign countries than congress can. we'll get into that in a molt. and later, the immigration issue that led to a dust-up in the white house press briefing adsor, a cnn reporter and lady liberty herself. americans - 83% try to eat healthy.

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the president signed a bill today that imposes new sanctions on russia, a bill that gained overwhelming bipartisan support on capitol hill but it took the president a week to put his signature on it. he called it, quote, seriously flawed and said parts of it were clearly unconstitutional. he ended the statement by saying i built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars that is a big part of the reason i was elected. as president, i can make far better deals with foreign countries than congress. republican senator john mccain, who's getting treatment for brain cancer back in arizona, released his own statement. quote, the concerns expressed in the president's signing statement are hardly surprising, though misplaced. the framers of our constitution made the congress and the president co-equal branches of government. this bill has already proven the wisdom of that choice. mccain goes on to say going forward, i hope the president will be as vocal about russia's aggressive behavior as he was about his concerns with this legislation. back to our panel. ouch!

>> ouch! >> you thought mccain was a maverick before? now he's unleashed. he's honest. i disagree with mccain on a lot of things as a conservative in the past, but he's right on the money here with this. for donald trump again to have to insert the "i'm the greatest, i'm a deal maker" well, obviously he's not that great of a deal maker because how many deals have we gotten through thus far since he's been president? zero. outside of a supreme court nominee, which had nothing to do with him other than nominating. he's failed on health care. we haven't had anything on immigration, anything meaningful. when it's come to a deal, he was against the russian sanctions, so where was he involved in this process? he was nowhere to be found. he was too busy tweeting about anthony scaramucci. i mean these things are -- if he's that great of a deal maker, how come it was pence up on the hill the whole time trying to negotiate with the health care situation and not the president of the united states? i mean he -- >> because that's what a vice president does.

>> i understand that, but he's priding himself on being a deal maker and he has yet to demonstrate how that has come into play as president of the united states. >> give him time. he does have four years. >> i know. good lord. >> his whole preelection thing was i get people in a room together, we close the doors and we make a deal. >> he does it with photo ops. >> i for one don't think the health care thing is done. i think he is still going to persist with this. over the objections, i might add, of some republicans. and i mean let's be clear here, senator mccain, who campaigned against this -- >> for somebody who has avoided saying anything bad about russia, avoided criticizing putin time and time again, one of the strategies he could have used in this was to embrace this sanctions bill and, you know, make it his own really. >> by the way, he hasn't said anything about the 755 people who have been expelled from russia, but he has criticized congress on the sanctions bill. where is his voice on those expulsions. he felt boxed in here, it's very obvious to me. >> that's right.

>> these were veto-proof margins, huge margins. there was nothing else he could do except write this signing letter criticizing congress and saying, you know what, you shouldn't have the final word, i should have the final word. >> he also said it was unconstitutional. if he felt it was unconstitutional, then he shouldn't have signed it and let it go ahead with the veto override or into law and then challenge it in court if he felt that passionate about it. why are you signing something you feel is unconstitutional. >> the prime minister of russia put out a statement that the president signing the sanctions bill, the trump administration demonstrated demonstrated complete impotence in the most humiliating manner transferring executive powers to congress. >> this is prime minister medvedev so it's below the pay grade of president putin. >> so in other words the russians thought they had a sure thing and turned this election for them are now upset. >> they're upset because they think he's too weak in defending them. first off, i'm glad he signed it.

people like me a harsh critic of him and of russia, i'm glad he signed it. i want to see him enforce it aggressively. this is the trump i want who said if i'm hit, i hit back a thousand times harder. america was hit. not just my party, my country, president trump's country. we have to hit back russia a thousand times harder. we didn't hit any russians in syria, we bombed syrian planes. we have got to show putin he has to pay a price. dianne feinstein said this will be the beginning, not the end, of the punishment against russia if the president doesn't toughen up. >> i find it interesting that the prime minister used the term impotence. >> it's kgb style. >> dig, like they know what his weaknesses are. his whole thing is i'm strong, i'm strong, everyone in the white house talks about i'm strong. vice president pence talks about how broad shouldered he is, whatever that means, and why he's commenting on how broad shouldered he is i don't really know. but i find it interesting that the russians would use that term. >> they also are hitting on

something very important, which is that this was a real vote of no confidence of the president by his own party. it is a real rebuke. and so he actually -- it actually is a sign of weakness. it shows that congress, the republican controlled congress don't trust him. they don't trust him in this area. they did not -- he was very specific about what he wanted, that he wanted flexibility to negotiate. i think if he was a stronger president, they would have deferred to him. and they clearly don't. they boxed him in and put him in a situation if he didn't sign it, they would override his veto. for a new president who has a republican congress six months in, this is unprecedented. i can't think of another time this has happened. >> and if he had come out and said that i believe that the russians hacked the election and i agree with the 17 intelligence agencies who also said the same thing, perhaps congress would have negotiated with him a little bit, because maybe they would have had a little more faith in how he was dealing with the russians. but i think this is not only a rebuke, but it's really evidence of the fact that they don't trust him to deal with the russians, period.

>> but it's self-inflicted, though. it's based on his own behavior, as gloria said, concerning russia, so he has no one to blame but himself that he has been stripped of this ability because of his own statements and seeming denial about what took place with russia trying to influence the election. >> what took place? >> are we going relitigate this again? i didn't say collusion because that's still being investigated. >> good, good. >> but it is indisputable that the russians tried to influence the election. we're not talking about switching votes in voting machines. >> that's a big deal. >> they tried to and they may have. they attacked 20 different states voting systems. >> whether they did or didn't but it still wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election. but them meddling with the fake news, with the bots on twitter, with trying to shape opinion, this is typical russian espionage stuff. this is what they do. you worked for reagan. you're acting now all of a sudden like, oh, my goodness, clutching pearls, the russians

tried to do this? it strains credulity, jeffrey, come on. >> i just think what you've got here is a republican establishment that doesn't like the president, period. and that includes members of congress. >> all of them? jeff, come on. look at the vote. >> putin is anti-american. that's what the president is on this issue. >> my astonishment and all of my liberal friends and their sudden strong feelings on russia went for the last 50 to 60 years of the cold war, they were practically in bed with them is always amazing to me. >> we can relitigate the cold war -- >> you understand -- so the fact that the president seemed to not get the fact that there are three co-equal branches of government and that in fact congress has every right to do this and can do this. >> he simply said he could get a better deal. >> right. but what would that be? >> and i'm just -- what evidence is there of that?

>> we don't need a deal, we need punishment. putin understands power. america has superior power. we are not using it. by the way, president obama did not use it. >> i'm not sure the president helped himself by one of the first statements after meeting putin was about a cyber security joint operation with russia that they then walked back. i'm not sure that instilled confidence in congress that he was going to get a better deal. we've got to take a quick break. the new plan to cut back on legal immigration. what the president said about it and how a poem on the statue of liberty came into play today. when you really want to save big on a hotel just go to priceline. they add thousands of new deals every day at up to 60% off. that's how kaley and i got to share this trip together at this amazing hotel. yeah ash and i share everything - dresses, makeup, water bottles... we do? mmhmm. we share secrets, shoes, toothbrushes... what? yeah i forgot mine so i've been using yours. seriously? what's the big deal? i mean, we even dated the same guy. who?! uh, go to priceline and get the hotel deals you won't find anywhere else.

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it's a requirement to be naturalized you had to speak english, so the notion that speaking english wouldn't be a part of immigration systems would be ahistorical. secondly, i don't want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the statue of liberty is a symbol of american liberty lighting the world. the poem that you're referring to was added later and is not part of the original statue of liberty. more fundamentally -- >> you're saying that that does not represent what the country has always thought of -- >> i'm saying -- i'm saying the notion -- >> i'm sorry. that sounds like -- that sounds like. >> let me ask you a question. >> that sounds like some national park revisionism. you want to build a wall and bring about a sweeping change to immigration. >> surely, jim, you don't actually think that a wall affects green card policy. you couldn't possibly believe that, do you? i want to be serious, do you at cnn not know the difference between green card policy and illegal immigration? you really don't know that?

>> he came to this country in 1962 right before the cuban missile crisis and obtained a green card. yes, people who immigrate to this country can eventually -- people who immigrate to this country -- >> jim, as a factual question. >> they do obtain a green card at some point. they do it through a lot of hard work and, yes, they may learn english as a second language later on in life. but this whole notion of, well, they have to learn english before they get to the united states, are we just going to bring in people from great britain and australia? >> jim, actually -- i can honestly say i am shocked at your statement that you think that only people from great britain and australia would know english. it's absolutely -- it reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind -- no, this is an amazing -- this is an amazing moment. this is an amazing moment, that you think only people from great britain or australia would speak english is so insulting to millions of hard-working immigrants who do speak english

from all over the world. >> back now with the panel. paul, what did you make of that exchange? certainly among, you know, some conservative viewers or right-wing viewers, they'll see that as a great victory by mr. miller. >> yes, but it's his job there to build support for the president's plan on the hill and with the public, so people who already like it, very, very conservative folks, that's fine, they would like it anyway. they would like it if he had no press avail. his job is to try to build support. from that perspective as a former white house aide, that performance was astonishingly bad. i'm sure the president likes it because he likes people who beat up on the media. but in terms of achieving his objective, after mr. miller finished, did we get one member of the house or senate that said, wow, i'm for your bill now, mr. president, count me in. your guy, miller, has persuaded me. i couldn't help but think of ronald reagan. i went back and read the speech that president reagan gave in 1986 that came up from texas for this. i came up and my president spoke at the 100th anniversary of the statue of liberty.

by the way, he pointed out that lady liberty herself was an immigrant. she came from france, she didn't speak a word of english. he talked how wonderful it was that actually french workers and american workers together had refurbished her. he said our greatest strength as a country is immigration. that's the kind of republicanism i think democrats can admire. i don't think he gained a single vote. >> it was just a nativist diatribe. it really was. him going after and trying to make a distinction when the poem was put on the statue of liberty, as if that matters. it's an integral part of our country's story as you're talking about ronald reagan telling that story. it's not a democrat or a republican or a liberal or conservative thing. this is something that we all grew up hearing. can i also just add for all his condescension to jim acosta about how, i guess, stephen miller knows so much about

immigration law, it's actually not true that you have to speak english to become a naturalized citizen. i'm shocked that he doesn't know many people who don't speak english. i have many friends of my parents who are korean immigrants or chinese immigrants or immigrants who don't speak a word of english. i went and i looked it up because i thought am i crazy? because i'm sure this isn't true. if you go to the government website, it says quite clearly that if you're over the age of 50 and you've had a green card and lived in the country for 20 years, you actually don't need to speak english, so it's not even true what he was saying. >> but kirsten, just to clarify, you're saying, to borrow from stephen's argument, that if, say, a million people were allowed in, that is not nativist, but it's nativist if 900,000 were in or 800,000? >> how did i say that? >> that was in the clip earlier, where he got into this back and forth with jim about how many people come in and where do you draw the line and what is nativist. >> what's nativist about it is

this is a solution looking for a problem. there is no problem with legal immigration. in fact donald trump during the campaign said that he didn't want to stop legal immigration. so this is just -- this is just something that he's doing to appeal to his base. people who are nativists. >> he just said he didn't want to lower it. >> he's looking for an issue because he hasn't had one that he can succeed on with his base, as kirsten points out. most of congress is trying to figure out what to do with 11 million illegal immigrants into this country, and there is legislation proposed about legal immigration, but there are lots of republicans i would argue who aren't -- who aren't interested in this particular approach. i mean jeff flake just told you before that he believes in a certain merit-based immigration but he doesn't want to hurt the economy. there are economists who are saying why would you do this? we have 4.4% unemployment. if you keep these people from coming into this country, you're

going to create economic problems in states where tourism and agriculture are very important. >> okay. just -- i worked on this issue for seven years on capitol hill. and there are problems with legal immigration as well, from the h1b visa program and the lottery system, the diverse lottery system that is addressed in this legislation where it's just random with certain countries. there's a cap there, whether those are the best people that we want to bring here legally. i think people have to understand and put this in perspective. it is -- it is a privilege to come to this country as an immigrant. it is not a right. it is a privilege. we are the most generous country in the world. we allow 1.1 million plus legal immigrants every year into this country. and i think the problem here is that the way that the trump administration and the way trump as a candidate framed this issue, as being very nativist, coming across with the alt-right and xenophobic with the wall, now any kind of reasonable legislation is looked upon in

those terms and i think that's doing a disservice. there are 40% of visa overstays happen in this country. those are people that come here with legal visas and they stay. that's a problem. again, with the eb5 problem, that's a fraud problem that the kushner family is running into right now. people should look that up. but that's a problem. when you bring in low skilled workers in this country, the national academy of sciences did a major study on the economic impact of this. last year in 2016 they discussed that if you put apples to apples with low skilled workers and immigrants and low skilled workers and american, the american workers are hurt by this. so there are valid discussions to have around this issue that shouldn't be so emotional. but when you see a display like you saw with stephen miller today and that posture coming across that way, no one is going to listen to that. i think it's doing a disservice for an issue that is very important to this country, especially for legal immigrants that wait for 20 years to try to get a green card here. >> and it should be noted that the sponsors of this, senator cotton and senator perdue don't

have reputations as being xenophobic nativists. >> they would have been better served if they introduced this without the white house. they would have gotten more traction and more people to listen to it. but once you inject this kind of behavior, it's dead on arrival. >> the senators that introduced it have been for this for quite some time. on may 11th the president was asked by economists, do you want to restrict legal immigration? and he said, oh, legal, no, no, no, no. we want people coming in legally. no, very strongly. no facts have changed. i think the only thing that's changed is he's eroding with his base. >> we're going to continue the conversation next. i want to know what you think about the president eroding with lawmakers of his own party. you said $30. yeah, well it was $30 before my fees, like the pizza-ordering fee and the dog-sitting fee...

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the last few weeks we've seen a growing rift between some lawmakers and the president. in the senate four republicans opposed president trump's transgender troops ban including john mccain, who is also one of three republicans who voted against the partial repeal of obamacare, which the president obviously pushed for. seven republicans have spoken

out against president trump's criticism of attorney general jeff sessions. jeff flake is also speaking out against the president not just on policy. i spoke to him earlier tonight. >> populism is just not a governing philosophy. it is popular. you can win a few elections here or there, but it's not a governing philosophy. >> why the shift now? >> well, i think it's taken them some time to get some courage here if they disagree with him. also, he's at 36% in the polls and they're not afraid of him. and they also don't believe if they follow him that he will have their back. i mean he turned on the house after the house passed health care and called it a mean bill. and he has tweeted about republicans, telling them what they ought to do. they should only -- they should change the rules of the senate. they should, you know, grow a spine on health care, et cetera, et cetera. so i think it's taken them some time and it's not unanimous in any stretch of the word, but i do believe that people like mitch mcconnell have said, no, no, we're not going to change

the rules of the senate for you. you're transitory. this is the senate. they're starting to say you know what, we don't have to follow. >> jeff, you think there's a lot of people that just don't like him. >> i do think that's the case. one of the interesting things here about senator flake, my friend mark levine denounced him yesterday and said he's not a conservative. brent bozell who runs the media research center where i write a column, his father was the ghost writer for barry goldwater's "conscience of a conservative" and he put out a statement on behalf of his family saying this is just not so, really going after him. there are a lot of conservatives that think suffice to say that

senator flake is not one of them. >> do you believe donald trump is a conservative? >> not in the reagan sense i don't. i think he's conservative on a lot of issues. >> like what? >> energy, for example. >> when did this transformation happen? >> he spent a whole campaign talking about energy -- >> right, but before that since he was pro choice, he gave money to democrats, he was pro single payer. >> and ronald reagan was a democrat until a couple of years before -- >> over a 20 year period of time ronald reagan came to understand conservatism and change over and it was also very different back then. donald trump, it was in like two years all of a sudden. oh, now i'm a republican but he doesn't act like a republican. and to gloria's point, he constantly, when he makes these statements and these tweets, he's tweeting as if he's a bystander, as if he's not part of -- he isn't the head of the republican party as the president. he's doing that so that he can inoculate himself from any failures or any criticism and so

republicans, they're single seekers of re-election, right? most people that are elected, that's their motivation. they're looking at this thing going he threw jeff sessions, who was the first elected republican of significance to support him under the bus terribly, going after him in a very disrespectful way. even democrats were coming to the defense of jeff sessions. >> paul, does it come with risks for the republicans. >> first, i love republican on republican violence. >> i wanted to give you a thrill tonight. >> i didn't want to interrupt. the truth is, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. the president's approval will drive the midterms, it will. if he stays at 33, the republicans are in a lot of trouble. if he goes up to 63, the democrats are in a lot of trouble. and you can break with him or not. i don't think voters are going to care, because they do all vote with him 90%, 95% of the time. many of those votes are pro forma, but still they do. i think the rubber will hit the road coming up and it will be on

russia. the president has made sounds about firing attorney general sessions. he's made inklings about firing the special counsel, mr. mueller. if he does that, that will be the gut check for congressional -- it's fine for senator flake to write a book and i hope everybody reads it but i'm not that interested. i'm interested in checking his power as a chief executive. article one versus article two, not r versus d. >> if he fires robert mueller, the ultimate battle will be on between the establishment -- >> it will be on between the constitution and the president. >> it would be a crisis for sure. >> i should point out we have breaking news about attorney general jeff sessions. we'll get into that next. also more on one of the most colorful figures in the white house, anthony scaramucci, lost his west wing job on monday in case you were in a cave. we'll hear from a journalist who asked him about his infamous profanity-laced tirade. hey! you know, progressive

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that provide all-day comfort to keep him feeling more energized. so he even has the energy to take the long way home. keep it up, steve! dr. scholl's. born to move. there is breaking news tonight. two sources say john kelly called the attorney general jeff sessions to assure him his job was safe. the president has been letting sessions twist in the wind, publicly criticizing him for recusing himself from the russia investigation. tonight the word from sources is kelly told him his job is safe. the same day kelly was sworn in, anthony scaramucci was out. just 11 days after he announced white house communications

director. for such a short time, there are still a lot of memorable moments. take a look. >> there are people inside the administration who think it is their job to save america from this president. that is not their job. their job is to inject this president into america so he can explain his views properly and his policies so that we can transform america and drain the swamp. >> i love the president. the president is phenomenal with the press. the president himself is always going to be the president. i think he's got some of the best political instincts in the world, and perhaps in history. he has done a phenomenal job for the american people. he is the most competitive person i've ever met. i've seen this guy throw a dead spiral through a tire. i've seen him at madison square garden with a top coat on. he is standing in the key and hitting foul shots and swishing them. he sinks three-foot putts. thank you. >> back with the panel. joining the conversation is vicky ward, editor at large for "the huffington post." a piece called why the mooch lost his cool. you talked to scaramucci today.

what did he say? >> did. i talked to him this morning after the piece came out. you know, scaramucci is very resilient. apart that he had a sore throat, he was kind of like making jokes. he said don't worry, i'm going to go dark. but then i will reappear as me. >> do you know what he means? >> people have been telling him he's got some data analysts at sky bridge capital, his hedge fund that he is in the process of trying to sell who have told him that he is now huge with the base. so he could write books. he could actually run for office. while i was speaking to him. >> wilbur ross was on the phone. as roger stone said to me earlier this week, his influence with this administration is not dead. and his great line to me is "i still intend to play myself on saturday night live." >> he characterized the

profanity-laced conversation with ryan lizza as humorous and joking with you. >>. >> right. he did. and i got to know anthony over the last months, years. and i've actually been talking to him for other reasons, further long-term projects that i'm doing. and he does -- when he talks even to me, there are a lot of expletives in his speech. and part of his shtick, his salesmanship is i'm the guy who grew up in a blue collar background in long island, and i'm very proud of that. i'm the guy who put myself through harvard. i think that obviously what happened with ryan lizza, you know, he, you know, it was a learning curve. and as he said to me, i made a mistake. i own this.

>> it's interesting, gloria, because his communications plan for the white house which was dated june 30th was leaked today. and it's actually pretty good. i actually thought it was really well done. >> i liked it. >> some of the priorities said improve the culture. good ideas are welcome regardless of source. potus can choose to fight with the media but comms cannot, meaning communication department cannot. comms will continue to challenge stories unfair and true. there are a lot of good ideas. >> don't leave for the night until you return every reporter's phone call. i really like that. but there was another part of it where he said you have to lead by example. and that was kind of his problem. because he didn't lead by example. and his star was shining a little too bright for the president. >> who leaked it? >> his whole tirade to ryan, self-destructive tirade was

about a leak. we don't know who leaked it. >> it shows himself in a good light. >> it does. >> and by the way, who cares about who the president is having dinner with. he got so incensed about that. >> sorry. was it really about that, or was it the disclosure, the financial d disclosure form. >> it was about the dinner. because as i understand it, only someone from the inside could have leaked it. there literally -- >> went on the tirade about reince priebus, and he knows it was reince concerning the financial -- >> right. there. >> are so many layers to this. >> one of the interesting things that is in this communications strategy is make it clear that horn tooting and denigrating colleagues is unacceptable. >> oops, how did he write this? he did everything against what he allegedly wrote in this plan. i think what happened is his ego got in front of him. and he became all about him.

it was very -- each he was going on with his accolades to the president how much he loved him, to the point of ad nauseam in my opinion, it was still all about him. i cautioned him last week trump will like this until he doesn't. once people started calling scaramucci a mini trump, there is only one donald trump. and that was probably the beginning of the end for him. even if your interview, it was still all about him. he is going to emerge. and he is going to have this whole thing. those kinds of egos, they're so narcissistic that there is no way they can co-exist in the white house. >> the one thing i would caution here is there are plenty of people walking around washington, d.c. who have had a second act. and a, you know, what he is saying to you is probably exactly go dark, as it were. >> he has second acts in his life already. he can bounce back. >> that's what happened with goldman sachs. >> and i would bet you that the president stays in touch. >> of course he will. >> and his relationship -- >> i think it's very good. i actually think the other thing

is knowing i spent many years covering the president as well. and that there is a difference between the two men. i would say that anthony scaramucci is quite self-deprecating and quite self-aware actually. >> right. >> the president doesn't like to make fun of himself. >> you will never hear the president say he bought all the copies of his book to make it a best-seller and that they're in the basement which is a funny line that anthony scaramucci uses. we've got to take a break, vicky. we'll be right back. americans - 83% try to eat healthy. yet up 90% fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone.

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that's all the time we have. thanks for watching. time to hand things over to don lemon. "cnn tonight" starts right now. see you tomorrow. good night. all right there she is. lady liberty, a symbol of america's benevolent invocation. give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. but a new white house policy on immigrants calls that policy into doubt. let's take on the question of who exactly we are and what this country is about. this is "cnn tonight." i'm chris cuomo in for don lemon. there is a white house proposal that seeks to cut the flow of legal immigrants in half. but it is how our president wants to do that that is a concern. he proposes changing the signature promise of our country. to welcome those in need by creating a merit-based sys