at the top of the hour tonight, donald trump versus the protesters who are on hand for his campaign rally tonight in phoenix. the president versus the state's two republican senators, neither of whom will be in attendance tonight, though one of their gop primary opponents will be. president versus mitch mcconnell who "the new york times" reports is privately doubt whether he can save his presidency. finally tonight, the president versus donald trump. will we see the kind of buttoned down, on message president we saw last night or the off the cuff presidential id that emerged after sharltcharlottesv week ago today? phil mudd put it in "the situation room" will we see the president tonight or just trump? let's two to sara murray inside the hall. what do we expect from the president tonight? we saw the crowds outside. obviously thousands of people inside waiting to hear from him. >> reporter: well, i think that will be what's interesting, look, there are teleprompters set up for the president, maybe we will see sort of reserved

delivery. sarry hu rah huckabee sanders, secretary, pointed to the president's message of unity last night when she was asked what he might talk about tonight. also there's a pretty big crowd already building here. there are still people streaming in. we know this president has a tendency to go on rifts, tendency to flee the teleprompter if he hears a big cheering crowd. one thing the white house took off the table today, though, they said president trump will not pardon joe arpaio at this event today, joe arpaio held in contempt of court. anderson? >> the president has been o outspoken against both arizona senators. they're not going to be there tonight, are they, right? >> reporter: no, jeff flake and john mccain, the two republican senators in this state are not attending. they obviously had sharp words for the president and the president has had pretty sharp words for them in return. he lavished praise on kelly ward who is challenging jeff flake for his senate seat and kelly ward is here tonight. we are told by officials that

she is not expected to speak but anderson, as you know, the president can always pull an audible at an event like this. we'll be looking for if he has anything to say about her, anything to say about jeff flake. obviously if he were to throw his full support behind ward, that would be a finger in the eye not just to flake, but also the senate majority leade eer mh mcconnell who made it clear no matter what the president says, he's standing behind flake in arizona. >> is that a song from katz playing behind you? sa sara, thanks very much. let's go to gary tuchman among the protesters. what's the crowd like? >> reporter: anderson, the crowd is loud, the crowd is angry, and numerous. 2,000 people here, may be more. expecting 7,000, 10,000, according to people on facebook who said they would show up. across the street from where sara was talking to you, i want to give you a look at what's going on here. there's an important thing to

mention that there's been absolutely no violence whatsoever. that's partly because of good preparations by the phoenix police. excuse me for one second. i want to give you a shot. this is the buffer zone, this street. this is the street, this is monroe street in downtown phoenix. this is the phoenix convention center. you can see trump supporters still going into the rally which begins in an hour. often, there has been taunting between both sides. the people walking into the rally, and the people here. right now, they're chanting "no kkk, no fascist usa." quite a multicultural turnout here, old, young, white, black, latino, native american. we also see those people going into the trump rally, but not nearly as many of that representation. bull but people are waving, giving the finger on both both sides. a lot of nastiness to go around. one thing that stood out to me, during the campaign i would hear donald trump rallies say he's a great yun unifier. what you seeing today with the possibility of more people being outside this rally than inside the rally, this country

certainly isn't unified. it may be as ununified as any time since the vietnam war. what we're hoping for, anderson, is so no violence. when this comes to an end, that could be when the people come standing out in the thousands and meet the people standing here on several streets in downtown phoenix. >> gary, thanks. kirsten powers, ed harden, jen psaki, ryan lizza. what are you all expecting tonight? you know, we heard from sarah huckabee sanders that he's not going to be saying that he's going to pardon sheriff joe arpaio today. that was something the mayor of phoenix was particularly enraged about or upset about or concerned about tonight that that would upset the protesters outside, though would certainly please a lot of the president's supporters in phoenix. but sarah huckabee sanders has said plenty of stuff before, turns out the president freelances. >> i think it's a good sign that sara murray indicated the teleprompters are up. that is one way to help keep the blinders on, but at the same time we know when he's in a crowd like this --

>> feeds off that. >> feedsed off the crowd, feeds off the emotions. hopefully they keep them on message. you also notice the back drodro the event, said "promise made, promise kept." clearly the message this evening is going to be one of the key promises he made on the campaign which was securing the border, it's important to have safety on the border, protecting law and order in this country and also providing the necessary resources to those on the southern border. in order to keep our country safe. and so that clearly will be the message. let's just hope he -- >> ed, certainly as a trump supporter, i mean, the president has a lot of good things to talk about about in terms of the border, in terms of the vast drop in number of people crossing over illegally. question is, you know, we've also seen infrastructure week which ended up, i can't even remember when that was, there was little talk of infrastructure. >> well, but look, i mean, for those of us that are trump early supporters, this is like going back to the beginning. he came down theesque later, problem of immigration, law and order. this is what we elected him for. mcconnell has no credibility.

trump also ran as a guy that said washington's broken and so far mcconnell's proven that washington is broken. they can't pass a repeal bill after running on it for seven years so when he stands up there, trump, our people, which is lots of people, i mean, voters, trump supporters are going to look up and saylected . it's really exciting. >> jen, people could look at the last couple months and say the white house is broken. i mean, that, you know, how many people have been fired, resigned, attacked, mocked. >> yeah. and i would say the choice to do this today is a perfect example of that. the truth is, giving a speech on afghanistan, an issue that has vexed republican and democratic presidents, it's a difficult, serious national security issue, he should have capitalized on that today. he could have fwoen and visited troops. >> the schedule -- >> let me finish. he could have gone to visit troops. you can change it. he could have gone and made a surprise trip, visit the troops overseas, at home, could have gone and met with allies. they let that moment sort of

drop and they haven't explain add lot of things. they're also not making the case to the public. had a real opportunity to do that. >> does he really want to put everything behind afghanistan? it's one thing to make a speech, but there's not a lot of new stuff necessarily in that speech. >> something they don't really want to hear about. >> right, only 17 million people who viewed that speech last night. >> not something he ran on. ton talk about afghanistan much during the campaign. >> not an issue they want to highlight during the campaign. i think what ed was a saying is a good point, goes back to immigration, the issue he talked about in his campaign speech and tore apart the republican party and for a long time. i remember interviewing john mccain two years ago and he said in arizona trump is riling up the crazies. that remark is what got trump when he was asked by an interviewer in iowa to attack john mccain for not being a true hero. that, this issue has been dividing republicans for a long time. you know, there's sort of scars

built up in the republican party over this and trump has had no -- he can't rip off the scars but, you know, the scab. and just to your point, s anderson, about what he's going to do tonight, i went to a lot of rallies during the campaign, 2015, 2016, they are like conservative versions of the grate elf deful dead shows. people who go there want to hear the hits. don't want to speak from the teleprompter, hear president trump, they want to hear trump. i would be very surprised if that's not what we ge. >> i don't think anyone here thinks he's going to speak from the teleprompter or he's going to stick to the president he was last night or when he gave the joint sessions speech. that's not what the crowd wants, to your point. he doesn't have new policy to announ announce. he's going to feed off the crowd. there's nothing new to announce. all likelihood, we're going to hear some of the red meat that goes back to the divisive person he was a week ago. >> the fact we don't care anymore that he's having a campaign rally, we go to the --

>> running for re-election. >> can you explain why he's having a campaign rally? >> this is strdonald trump, ran against the convention of the rnc. like groundhog's day when i come to new york, people said on the day before the election, he can't win, he can't win. he does this all the time. what he's going to do, by the way, for those of us that care about these issues, he whacked chinese businesses yesterday. he said to them you can't -- >> my question that doesn't involve because he's donald trump and does something different. why is the president of the united states having a campaign rally tonight? >> it's the same rceason the president of the united states, cnn is going to cover it friday night, is going to talk about twitter. he does things very differently. >> answer that doesn't involve donald trump -- is there a reason, a proactive reason to have a campaign rally? >> sure. >> a lot of it just because he enjoys it and he's, like, isolated and miserable in the white house? >> i don't know about that. >> it's concerning because there are actually real problems in the world that need to be dealt with. >> i just expressed -- >> that's my point. you're the commander in chief or you want to do a legislative agenda, you still want to do health care, you want to do tax

reform, go out and sell that. sell that. >> reporting on the tax deal moving ahead, they're reporting on appointments. judges are getting appointed. you guys are missing it. he's governing every day. >> actually the reporting, as you brought up mitch mcconnell which we're going to talk more about, he hasn't talked to mitch mcconnell according to "the new york times" since august 9th at which point it was a shouting match. >> the reporting, gang of six, whatever the group of six that's doing the tax deal, they're making progress. in other words, the government continues to work. >> gary cohn is trying to make progress on the tax deal. he's being attacked by bannon from outside the white house. and breitbart. does that seem -- doesn't that seem disfungal to yo funfung dysfunctional to you? >> tax cut, not tax deals. >> perfect. >> seems like a problem. >> not a froproblem for us, it' problem for you. >> i'm telling you if i was advising the president and trying to sell an agenda, you have a month left to accomplish, what i would send my time doing in august. >> a month left to accomplish, just explain to people why it's that timeframe. >> there's a natural cycle in

congress where really you have the first eight months of the year, seven months of the year before the august recess then have about a month before there's going to be a budget fight. so september i'm get to. september there's going to be a budget fight to keep the government open. so at that point after that, the oe end of the year, not a lot happens in congress. that's been the case for tech ka decades. i don't think it's going to change now. i think it's highly unlikely that november and december are going to be highly productive months. >> i think with regard to why he's doing this, clearly this is his comfort zone, getting out there amongst the people. this stargted out as a rally to get out there, gin up the pace, talk about one of his promises kept with regard to immigration. it's no surprise about an hour ago agot a fund-raising e-mail from kelly ward who is the senate candidate against jeff flake who there's been no love lost between president trump and jeff flake. >> he's going to be there tonight. >> she will be there this evening. i would not -- here's the thing that's going to, i think this is going to be the difficulty for trump.

she will be there. her name may not be in the teleprompter, but he won't be able to help himself from calling attention to her and that, unfortunately, could be the news tomorrow because he's turning -- >> there's a treasurer that may run, too. >> no, if was going to say if h wants to pardon arpaio, why wouldn't tonight -- is it possible tonight he could very well get carried away by the crowd -- >> sure. to the brink. >> he does this every time for us. he comes out, he floats the possible of possibility of arpaio, realizes it's not a good time. the mayor said if he did that today, there would be violence. he may do that later, may do it when the justice department checks it and makes it work. tonight he's going to get people really excited and hopeny no violence and that will be great. that will be a positive thing. by the way, kelly ward, she's a good candidate, a strong candidate. here's the truth. mcconnell and ryan have to lead or they will be on the block

'18, their teams. so trump's got a position where they're going to come toward -- >> i think, but if they -- i mean, i think mcconnell and ryan would say is, you know -- >> sorry, the presidential motorcade there, we believe, heading to the venue. >> the relationship between flake and trump is so interesting. the senator from arizona who trump is now supporting. the opponent. flake has been very critical of trump personally. he has supported trump's legislative agenda including repeal and replace. >> not immigration. not immigration. legislatively on immigration in -- >> he's outwardly against -- >> if you look at the legislative agenda, he supported repeal and replace, right? i would be very doubtful that he would not support the tax reform. >> he's personally attacked the president, though, right? >> so trump looks at that and says, i don't like -- so trump looks at that and says even though he's a vote for my agenda, he personally attacked me. >> there's no democrat in arizona, so he's going to get a vote. >> as a political strategist, a normal president would say, you

know what, i don't care if he's attacked me personally, he's a vote, i'm going to leave him alone. >> we're going to have more to talk about tonight. the president and protesters share the phoenix streets. breaking news, new reporting on how badly the relationship deteriorated between the president and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. talk of shouted profanities, senator mcconnell doubting trump's presidency ability to survive. also why steve bannon is taking aim at the white house and a number of folks in it when we continue. what's going on here? um...i'm babysitting. that'll be $50 bucks. you said 30 dollars. yeah, well it was $30 before my fees, like the dog-sitting fee... and the rummage through your closet fee. who is she, verizon? are those my heels? yeah! yeah, we're the same size...in shoes. with t-mobile taxes and fees are already included, so you get four lines of unlimited for just $40 bucks each. and now get zero down on the hottest smart phone brands like samsung galaxy. more reasons why t-mobile is america's best unlimited network. [woman 1] huh. can't find my [woman 2] oh no... [woman 1] oh, it's fine. [woman 2] yeah, totally. it's fine.

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the breaking news tonight as we await the president to speak in phoenix, feud with mitch mcconnell, new report out of "the new york times." the headline "mcconnell in private doubts if trump can save presidency." quite a headline. other details, sources say ting the two have not spoke b into weeks. a phone call that devolved into a shouting match. earlier tonight i spoke with alex burns who shares the byline on this with jonathan martin. is mcconnell not sure that president trump will serve his full term? what does it mean that he may not be able to salvage his presidency? >> well, look, he's expressing pessimism and frustration in a range of ways, anderson. but from the get-go of this story, it was very clear that the senate leader is really telling people close to him, people who are supportive of his agenda in general, and who he relies on to pass legislation and support the party on the national level that he simply no longer feels that president trump can be counted on to be a dependable partner for him in governing or in politics,

either. >> back now with the panel. i mean, ryan, what's so fascinating about this, the anger is not just about the failure on health care, but, which i guess the president claims to blame mcconnell for, but also he believes mcconnell hasn't been running enough interference on the russia investigation. >> yeah. like the layers of intrigue on this story are many, right? mcconnell was the guy who unlike paul ryan, speaker of the house, was a republican leader who last year said this is our -- this is the nominee of our party, we're going to support him. he never, ever criticized trump. you had to really, really push mcconnell to get him to ever say a bad word about trump even during the worst moments of that campaign and he had a strategy in mind. he wanted the scalia seat. he wanted that to go to a republican-appointed supreme court justice. he got it. that was his strategy. and a lot of republicans, lot of conservatives, have criticized mcconnell for not speaking up enough on some of the low moments during trump's campaign

and presidency and now this relationship has been torn apart. >> does it matter? i mean -- >> i mean, look, mcconnell -- the senate is losing their popularity amongst conservatives and republicans. mcconnell, as i said earlier, has to get himself moving. whether they're fighting or not, i got to imagine obama fought with manchin, lieberman. >> do you think there's a strategy the president has? >> i think the strategy is let's get something done, mcconnell is saying why are you putting pressure on me? again, they have to -- mcconnell ran for seven years on repeal and replace and tax cuts and things like that. he's going to have to deliver. he's going to deliver. >> wasn't it the president who also ran on replacing obamacare? >> that's why he's not a zik m that's heat hitler do not hold. >> he left it up to them to become an obama care solution. >> he wanted something, right, to make progress. >> i said this before, i actually do sort of lay the blame on the senate and the

house, more on the senate with health care because i do think that, you know, they have been talking about this for the last seven years. >> they passed how many bills on that, i mean -- >> donald trump to come in and think they have a plan, it seems like a reasonable thing to expect and they probably told him that. on that one, i think that you're right. i don't think you're right that it doesn't matter, though, because he can't get anything done without the senate. and so this idea -- you have this idea that somehow he's just going to leave and then you have no concerns apparently -- >> what is the number-one achievement of the trump administration so far? >> right. >> illegal immigration down. china on their heels. >> gorsuch. come on. >> i can't pick one. i got to make a list. >> who's responsible for the gorsuch -- >> right. >> elaine chao -- >> i'm channeling my mcconnell sources. they'll brag about the fact they're responsible for the most important success of donald trump's support administration, the supreme court pick. >> what you've done today, not -- >> the second thing they'll say is you can tick off half a dozen

republican senators that donald trump has personally attacked and they will argue that has not helped them pass his agenda through the senate. i'm just -- >> that's an argument. >> the key with regard to how mcconnell helped with regard to gorsuch, he was the one that helped to make sure that obama didn't have the opportunity to appoint a supreme court justice, and he kept that ball to the next term for republican president to name that. but here's the problem, when you're the president of the united states, and the president of the gop, and the speaker of the house and senate n t, in th senate you have a two-seat majority, you can't ain order to have these kind of squabbles. they need to work together. the white house is confident, i'm hopefully optimistic that we can put this behind us. i mean, can put these squabbles behind us because we need to work on tax reform, needs to work on infrastructure. >> they are very much in front of us. >> ryan, look, i thuching it inn your magazine, not your article, you read about the epa.

in the justice department, every day -- ben carson in hud, they're doing this every day. in other words, trump's vision is zbompin inggoverning. he's being hemmed in on some things. that's fine. illegal immigration isn't one of them. >> legacy-defining achievements -- >> saving america is a big legacy for those of us -- >> here's why it matters. in the ddynamic, mitch mcconnel is never going to be elected nationally, he's not a super popular guy. i have admiration/hatred for how he handled things in the -- >> i was going it to say, jen psaki making a case for mcconnell. this is a great moment. bringing people together. >> trump needs to be the public case maker. mitch mcconnell is the street fighter behind the scenes getting legislation done, twisting arms, making people vote certain ways. without that if he says i don't care how you vote, don't care what you do, that matters. it matterses because it's hard to get legislation done. >> there is a battle in the republican party about the future on immigration, on trade, on these approaches. that is a fundamental battle and it's going to play out for lots of years now. trump is -- >> i wish i had this -- i wrote

about this recently, i wish i hat the quote in front of me, i'm going to paraphrase from the former mcconnell adviser who said very pointedly the person who killed repeal and replace replace was john mccain. mitch mcconnell is not the guy who alienated john mccain by attacking him personally. in the senate, that's what they believe that was about. so -- >> they believe that was payback? >> mcconnell believe, will point out, certainly wasn't unrelated to that, you know. >> so that wasn't trump's fault, it was the senate's fault. >> but that is -- >> their argument is that trump has alienated republican senators who are responsible for passing his agenda. >> right, in fact, you point t out, you know, the -- in your opinion good things are being done at the justice department to advance the president's agenda. the president is going after the very guy who is advancing his agenda maybe more than anybody else, certainly at the justice die apartme department. his own attorney general. >> you're not surprised, right? this is how he's always operated in terms of politics. groan aft

gone after his own party. >> his own party was the democratic party. he's been all over the map. >> we could talk about, alice, when someone tells you they're pro-life and came up with a few years ago, that's good for people that are pro-life. you want converts at that point. you say, hey, i don't try to study the heart of politicians because it's not worth the trouble. what are you doing late sfly? what trump is doing athelong th lines, to show up in arizona, you think it's a political rally. you think it's only political. it's a transformation of the country. before he ran, no one except jeff sessions took seriously that issue at this level. >> let's take a break. we're going to wait for president trump to take the stage at his campaign rally in phoenix, arizona. we'll bring it to you alive. also ahead ousted steve bannon back at breitbart news, taking aim at president and not so nice headlines when we come back. over the course of 9 days...

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one that keeps you connected to what matters most. president trump arrives in arizona tonight amid a barrage of negative headlines from breitba breitbart, the conservative website is once again being run by his former steve bannon after he was fired from his west wing post last friday. headlines from the website, the president's primetime speech in afghanistan last night, some proclaimed strong comparisons to president obama's middle east policy. certainly won't play well to the president's base. we also learned tonight breitbart editor in chief alex marlow got dooped by an e-mail trickster over the weekend who claimed he was steve bannon. the two exchanged e-mails back and forth, vowing to fake steve bannon he and top aides would do bannon, quote, dirty work against white house aides. let's bring back in the panel.

how does -- i mean, apparently this guy has done this before, whoever this trick zer stster i done this before to the trump white house. what does that mean this guy wants to do steve bannon's dirty work, why would he put that in an e-mail? anybody? >> clearly what he was doing, he was trying to provoke answers out of them to indicate breitbart has an agenda, they're trying to push certain stories that will be derogatory toward one person and -- >> how wor are rried should the president be? >> this guy has done this before. look, the mt. hpresident has kn all along steve bannon is loyal to the base of the populist nationalist agenda. that's what he wants to further and he knew whether it was inside of the administration, or now that he's outside, working with bright bart, that is where bannon will continue to put his emphas emphasis. breitbart has been vocal and unequivocal holding the feet to the fire with this administration and others with regard to making sure they stay true to these issues and really the story from this person who

posed as steve bannon is really not a surprise. breitbart front and center on their page today is continuing to do the same thing. they are -- they're pushing the mcconnell contradiction story. they're pushing that president trump flip-flopped with regard to afghanistan. they're continuing to do what they're going to do. the story just shows that. >> are you concerned, though, if you read the story, i feel like, maybe somebody can tell me they read it differently, to me, it's clear bannon has been trash talking the white house to the editor based on what he was sharing to who he thought was bannon, right? it's pretty clear these conversations have happened. he says, like, you told me jared and ivanka are evil, this is the most not dysfunctional white house, but most divided white house. these kinds of things. it's very clear that bannon has been downloading stuff to these editors. to the editors. >> i don't see as much as trash talking the president or jared and ivanka, it's -- he's concerned that some of those back at the white house now, jared, ivanka, gary cohn, and others, don't really represent the nationalist agenda. they're more of the globalists. they clearly want to expand our military footprint. that was his concern when he was

in the white house and clearly it's a -- >> according to this guy, he said they're evil. >> the fact is if you watch what happened, since i was on the rnc until 2015, everybody thought it was going to be jeb, working up, all the media things were played out right, and brigeitbart stard to surge and bannon was fearless. when bannon went in the campaign, some of us were surprised in the sense he would be going after ryan on positions. not personally. i think that stuff is distasteful. i toedon't know what that was about. he's going to do it again. in is a contrast. breitbart was consistent and is consistent on where they are. it's not where the whole republican party is, but it's where a chunk of the party is. they're going to be fearless on it. >> i think -- >> the personal, i don't know. >> as kristen pointed out, they called the president's daughter and son-in-law evil and hatched a plan, he thought he was talking to bannon but he wasn't, and hatched a plan to drive them out of the white house by the end of the year. >> well -- >> to use all of the influence of breitbart, a very influential site these days, to drive the

president's daughter and son-in-law, two most important people to him in the white house out, how does trump react o that? how does he react to a website now devoted to the destruction of his daughter -- >> wait, it's not -- >> e-mails. the editor in chief said -- >> bannon didn't say that. some imposter said it. >> no, no, the editor of the website. >> he said as you told me. >> bannon saying he said/she said e-mail exchange. >> wait a second. >> they're not facts. they're e-mail exchanges. >> but the editor is talking to what he thinks is bannon and says remember when you told me that -- >> story written like that, this is like, i mean, whoever the guy who wrote the e-mails should be told you're a rotten guy. >> he's editor in chief of breitbart. >> right, and he was hoaxed. >> but he believes that steve bannon told him that jared and ivanka are evil. i mean, he believes that that happened. are you saying he's delusional? >> i'm saying it's a dumb thing to do to send an e-mail like that, more importantly, breitbart's space in the media

for conservatives and populists has not been personally attack -- i'll be surprised if they start. in fact, this is probably the best way to inoculate ivanka and jared from being attacked personally. >> you're saying for conserve ti tives, a lot of what they're is spou espousing are not -- >> he's a new republican party. >> ed, don't you -- you know, don't you think that -- >> he is. >> -- that bannon's exile from the white house shows that project failed, that the new republican party that sort of the bannon influenced version of turn, it was defeated. he got kicked out. and now trump's surrounded by people who don't buy into that. >> no. >> with the exception of immigration, i think he betrayed -- >> some of these other issues. >> government being broken. >> trade, they didn't pull out of nafta like they said they would. >> that doesn't mean the tpp they pulled out right away. >> that was going to happen whoever won. >> that's a different problem for the democrat party. hillary -- >> consensus on that. >> it was a consensus that trump drove. by the time trump was the leading nominee, everybody took that position.

so, look, the republican party has dramatically shifted. >> if you read what bannon told the "weekly standard," he basically said we lost, the presidency, the trump presidency that we, the nationalist, populists, have voted for, is over. and republican establishment in congress is what killed it because they don't agree us on, he listed all the issues. >> i think i did an interview on cnn, i said this, bannon is a showman also. he left with a showman's flair saying i'm coming for you, paul ryan. i'm coming for you. now he's going to run a successful media site. again, trump's vision, he's the one common denominator. >> more of the president eets speech in afghanistan. vowed repeatedly the u.s. will win the war. this afternoon, secretary of state rex tillerson had kind of a different take. what we said when we continue. when i first started working with capital one,

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the top u.s. commander in the middle east announced today additional u.s. troops could arrive in afghanistan in days and weeks. that came hours after the president outlined his own war strategy stressing over and over that victory was the main objective. >> and we will always win. i'm a problem solver, and in the

end, we will win. our troops will fight to win. we will fight to win. >> secretary of state rex tillerson seems to be downplaying some of those expectations. here's what he told reporters this afternoon. >> i think the president was clear, this entire effort is intended to put pressure on the taliban to have the taliban understand you will not win a battlefield victory. we may not win one, but neither will you. so at some point, we have to come to the negotiating table and find a way to bring this to an end. >> let's go back to the panel. do you see daylight between the president and his secretary of state? >> yes. >> no. >> yes. absolutely. >> jen? >> first of all, the other thing secretary tillerson said is fighting is going to get everyone nowhere. that is in direct contrast to, of course, the clips that were just shown by what president trump said last night. he's right, and most military and civilian leaders would agree with what tillerson said. now, the problem is, we heard a little bit of rhetoric from

trump last night about the diplomatic side. we didn't hear a lot of details about how that actually would happen. >> right. >> the specifics are there's no confirmed ambassador. reportedly tillerson was the only person from the state department who was at these camp david meetings this weekend. representative for afghanistan and pakistan, but not somebody who's there permanently. how exactly they'll get this done, how they'll get the taliban and afghan government to the table, those are big questions we don't know. in the meantime, we have an open-ended nil te eed military the -- >> one word, maddog. >> i think it's two words. >> i think it's two words, but it together, no? mattis. you guys, you were here for this. north korea, trump said we're going to come and take you down. tillerson says, okay, let's try to get together. this is good cop/bad cop. what you have is mattis whose message is, when you meet someone, be nice, remember, you have is to figure out a way to

kill them. >> you're saying all the military commanders up until now have not been up to the stuff that general mattis is? >> obama didn't have the will to do. >> obama put ten times as many troops on the ground. 30,000. >> the point is to win, you have to win now, not put troops there and talk about it, go and win. >> there's no military outcome. that's what tillerson was saying, that's going to win. >> there's a military outcome when everybody there is taken to their knees then they say -- >> wait a minute, we had more than 100,000 u.s. troops in afghanistan -- >> if you don't have the will to fight, you can have a million troops. >> you're saying the 100,000 u.s. troops in afghanistan did not have the will or ability -- >> no, the president of the united states. >> -- that 8,000 u.s. troops are going to have? >> the president of the united states didn't have the will to do what it took to handle the thing the way they needed to. that's what trump is saying. >> i think trump was better on this topic probably during the campaign. where he had a more realistic -- whether he stumbled upon it by accident or it was actually his

position, he had a more realistic understanding. >> he'd been tweeting against the actions in afghanistan for years. >> this is something that has bedeviled president after president. has nothing to with president obama. it's afghanistan is a problem and it's not -- it's a difficult problem and he didn't lay out anything different that would make us believe that something different is going to happen. >> what's interesting to me about one of the things the president said last night, on the diplomatic front, pakistan has to step up. >> right. >> everybody -- every president has always said that. obama said that. saying to pakistan, you have to step up, doesn't mean that -- it's like saying to china, you have to do better in north korea. there's reasons they have the -- you know, they have the policy in north korea. there's reasons that pakistan has their military focused on india and has safe havens. >> it's no different than telling everybody in the u.n. you have to pony up your, nato, 2% of your gdp to be part of this. you're an expert when it comes to the state department, no doubt about that. here's what i think, though,

where the president hit it out of the park yesterday. clearly, he was saying just the opposite when he was running, saying we need to pull our troops out of afghanistan, but after talking to mad dog mattis, talking to nicholson who oversees the situation there in afghanistan, he realized, situation's different and i think it was important for him to say we need to make changes according to the situation on the ground, and not an au timel >> people say he listens to his generals. there's all this reporting he's actually got imprenot impressed nicholson. >> reportedly almost fired him. >> up to mcmaster and matti sx to defend nicholson to the president. h.r. mcmaster according to the reporting basically in order to help convince the president, this is in the "washington post," how this new polisy f was arrived at. one of the way general mcmast e tried to persuade trump, that afghanistan was not a hopeless place. presented trump with a black and white snapshot of 1972 with afghan women in miniskirts

walking through kabul to show him western norms existed there before and could return. >> what -- i mean, what -- that's all i have to say to that. i think tsh. >> what is that reporting? what's that reporting? >> this is -- it's been pretty well reported, but he showed him this picture. they also were talking about negotiating with the taliban. so i'm not quite sure how those two things square together where they're going to go to a place where women are wearing miniskirts there when they've also negotiated with the taliban. >> and tillerson is, you know, sort of uber-realist in his comments today when he was asked does afghanistan have to be a democracy and said, you know, it's up to the people in afghanistan, you know, no commitment -- >> that's clearly, you know, politically off the table for this white house. i mean, the whole -- but, you know, presidents in the past, george w. bush got elected saying not nation-building and stuff, and that's what the u.s. has been doing there. >> i think this is what pa lot of voters are frustrated with. i think democratic voters that were frustrated with it and obviously trump voters who are frustrated.

see how breitbart is reacting to this. trump said i'm going to be different, not going to be like everybody else. turns out he is like everybody else. they say they're going to do one thing and they come in and the generals convince them of something else. i think that is a legitimately frustrating thing, i think, to a lot of voters and i suspect to a lot of trump voters. >> i don't think anybody thinks trump is not one of a kind. i mean, and look, what he did was -- again, exciting. he listened to generals. whatever the reason he got to the position he said, you know what, we have to do something different than i ran on, and here's why. when he gave that speech, he was on the teleprompter then he started to get ramped up. remember? and he got off the teleprompter a little bit. i was talking to folks late last night and today, they were excited about it. they didn't think he betrayed us. they thought that's a serious guy. >> said -- >> no, because he didn't say we're going to give 100,000 -- we're going to put 100,000 military and manage the country and build values and all that. he said we're going to tgo in there and we're going to try to win this thing.

i know it's hard. >> part of the challenge, i think, it was new to trump, so i would give him some credit for acknowledging -- >> this is great. >> -- something that was different from what he thought. however, the policy was not new to the united states. this has been our policy for some time. it hasn't been working. and to the point you raised earlier, if you're going to put more pressure on pakistan, what exactly is our leverage? i mean, i think -- >> because right flnow it seemso be embracing india which is not nesz necessarily -- >> there's a reason they align themselves with the taliban. >> we have to take a break. minutes way from the president's campaign rally in phoenix. thousands of protesters are expected to be outside the convention center. we saw a number of them already. thousands are obviously inside to listen to the president. we're going to have more on the pack seen inside and outside when we come back. i switched to t-mobile, kept my phone-everything on it- -oh, they even paid it off! wow! yeah. it's nice that every bad decision doesn't have to be permenant!

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hear from the president? this is going to be a rally president. >> i don't think -- i actually was, we were talking off the air, i don't think you'll see him go after mccain on the red meat of the issues that people care about, you'll hear immigration. legal immigration, there's been miller in the white house has been pushing some of the changes to laws. that's exciting and law and order. arpaio, i don't know how he won't praise him to the ceiling. he's going to be there arpaio said he's not going to go. >> i think the thing. >> maybe he'll be a surprise guest. >> it would be great if the president talks about no violence and no hate like he has done in the last couple days and that there is no violence and hate. hate, i guess we can't get rid of. it would be nice for people to go back to seeing that first amendment expression and move on. >> do you think we'll hear about election night? >> hillary clinton, barack obama. >> the gorgeous map? >> a few times. >> i think part of the challenge

is it is contradictory to throw red meat at this audience and also be a uniter. this audience wants to hear from him the wall and i'm going to send people back over the border. they want to hear things that for part of the population in arizona, but also around the country, it's very offensive and devicive. the biggest problem i would say trump has now is part of the country, a large population of african-americans, latino americans feel he's not their president. >> it's like the day before the election, you're saying the same thing. more people than you realize are for lower unemployment. >> this has nothing to do with before the election. it's hard to be a red meat rallier like i want to be and also a uniter like he tried to be yesterday. >> when obama jammed through. >> they don't feel he's their president because of rhetoric. you talk about joe arpaio like a hear role. >> in st. louis, i founded the

st. louis tea party which an lunch of others. we felt rally after rally. people felt disenfranchised from obama. they said people disagree. that's america. that's the beauty of disagreeing. lots of people will. >> here's the difference. barack obama went and talked to the protests are. >> no, he didn't. he jammed through obamacare on a straight party vote. >> i worked for him for almost ten years. he would say people have the right to protest. that is different from what trump is saying. > no so is trump. you want to hear something different because you're in a bubble that says everything he has to say is wrong. >> i expect him as he did last night, last night was about making the speech on afghanistan. he did start off reiterating the key message points in response tons charlottesville denouncing hatred and racism and trying to unite the country. i see him doing the same thing this evening. but also to feed into the base and play red meat, he will talk

about securing the border, about law and order. this is a great opportunity and venue for hip to talk about his support for kate's laws which increases penalties for illegals in this country. also withdrawing support for sanctuary cities, key issues for people in this area and increasing funding for securing the border. these are issues that don't get talked about a lot. this is the perfect venue for him to say that. >> emotionally charged issues that make the other side upset. >> we're going to take another quick break. you're looking inside the venue where president trump is expected to speak in a matter of minutes. we'll be right back. die weeken. the watch me let if fly. this i gotta try weekenders. then we've got the bendy... ... spendy weekenders. the tranquility awaits. hanging with our mates weekenders and the it's been quite a day... ...so glad we got away weekenders. whatever kind of weekender you are, there's a hilton for you.

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vice president pence. there's the crowd inside. very eager to hear from president trump. we are just moments away from the speech at the rally in phoenix. it is time to hand things over to don lemon. i'll see you tomorrow night. "cnn tonight" starts right now. there you go. live look inside the phoenix convention center and a live look outside, as well. this is that trump rally. president trump walking in now expected to speak. mike pence i should say walking in now expected to speak. the president at a campaign rally at any moment now. we'll carry it for you live. we've got both views inside and outside, whatever happens inside you'll get and whatever outside, as well. you can see thousands of protesters flooding the streets outside the freedom of convention center. i'm don lemon. thank you for joining us. this is "cnn tonight." the president after one of the worst weeks of his chaotic pr