welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. the nfl and its players take an international stand and knee against president trump, responding in force to his labeling a few players, quote, sons of bitches for exercising their right to free speech. >> i know for a fact that i'm no son of a bitch, and i plan on continuing forward and doing whatever i can for my position to, you know, promote the

equality that's needed in this country. >> plus, the last-ditch republican obamacare repeal effort is short votes, and the dealmaking to try to win support includes more money for states with wavering senators. >> you should not be able to bribe states and governors to say, we will give you a little bit more money now, but after the next several years, we're going to cut access to medicaid. and a new travel ban from the trump white house focuses on seven countries, including north korea and venezuela. >> the travel ban, the tougher, the better. >> we begin, though, the controversy the president set off over the weekend. like many americans, mr. trump eager to play monday morning quarterback today, and he's g giving himself rave reviews for

escalating free speech and race. many players beople booed the p who kneeled yesterday. those are the people who demand respect for the flag. donald trump said, this issue of kneeling has nothing to do with the racist issue. it has to do with respect to the flag. colin kaepernick, this photo taken exactly one year ago. but take a look at yesterday. players, coaches, owners at stadiums from los angeles to philadelphia, london, everywhere in between, locking arms, some kneeling, some staying in the locker room while the anthem played. in chicago the pittsburgh steelers sideline empty as the star-spangled banner echoed in

soldier field. alejandroville anyw villanueva, army man who went to afghanistan, standing at the tunnel for the national anthem. they call it using their first amendment right to free speech to make what they say to them is a very important point. the president of the united states called them sons of bitches. plus it was an african-american nba star that the president criticized by name on twitter over the weekend. today nfl owners, many of them white, many of them said the president is wrong. so did tom brady, a self-described friend of the president. >> i certainly disagree with what he said and thought it was just divisive. >> part of the president's twitter tirade against protesters was this.

sports fans should never condone players that do not stand proud for the national anthem or their country. nfl should change policy. at the training camp last month, fans almotook offense to this. should we listen to the president and change the rules? >> i don't think it will be a distraction to the team. if anything, what we saw was a sense of unity, to owners, to coaches, to players, to ball boys. it was amazing to see the support that the entire sing come together as a unit and show that we support heeeach other regardless of the circumstances. >> unusual for a president, any president, to get involved in this way. you're in the locker room for more than a dozen years. some of the athletes are black, some of the athletes are white. they're from all over the country and have different political views. tom brady said nice things about president trump and caused a

little mumbling and murmuring on that team. what did you see yesterday having lived through various social controversies, political controversies, controversies as a player, what did you see yesterday that most jumped out at you? >> the thing that i saw is very hard to put politics into sports. for many reasons. you got guys who are protesting, doing the silent protest of what they've experienced. then you got guys who the flag is a whole new meaning to them. and then you have guys that are in the middle that really don't want to get into a political stance or whatnot, all they want to do is play football. that's the reason why they grew up loving the game. they just want to go out there and play football and not have to make a choice. but what i saw yesterday of everyone being united, it makes it tough because it's kind of like law and order. you really don't want to mix the two because they don't go together. at one point you have players kneeling and at another point you have players standing for the national anthem. like you were talking about the player from the steelers,

alejandro. who are we to sit there and tell a guy who served for our country, did three tours over in afghanistan that he can't run out the tunnel and sing the national anthem? i'm not upset with his choice. he didn't tell any of the players he was doing it. but for him to stand out there alone and to do it, i just wish there were other players showing support for him just like they're showing support for oert protesters that are taking the knee. >> what would you have done if you were in the locker room yesterday and the decision was go out, stay in the locker room, go out and stand, go out and kneel? >> for me it's a personal choice because of the military background. my father served in the military and i have close friends. i reached out and i actually texted a dear friend of mine who served in the marines who lost his leg, and i asked him what did he think about the nfl players standing out and not singing the anthem or standing for the flag? and what he told me was very interesting. he told me what that flag represents to him -- now, he's served for our country and now how they drape the american flag

over the casket of someone, a dear friend of him, and then folded the flag up and handing it to the wife, he said that was more saying thank you because of the sacrifices that he made for our country, so that flag and what it means to these military guys is a whole new meaning, especially for nfl guys who could never talk about what their life experience because they've never been there before. >> it would be a great thoughtful and maybe helpful conversation if we could have it as a conversation. yesterday we got confrontation. hines ward, i appreciate your insights as we continue our conversation. kimberly with the boston herald. the president got what he wanted. he got attention. he got a big fight. he insisted it had nothing to do with race. could have been a one shot, if you will. the president did this friday night. could have seen what played out yesterday, could have gone quiet. it's clear the president likes

this if you see his twitter feed yesterday. we'll go through this at least another week, monday night football, thursday night football, sunday next week. why does the president see this as a win? >> the president likes to wage these sort of us versus them battles. we saw this on the campaign trail throughout his presidency. remember when the black lives matter protests were reaching its height, he declared he would have a law and order presidency and that he firmly backed police. that, too, was not a battle between police or black lives matter. black lives matter wasn't anti-police. here he's doing the same thing. he's taking what was a protest, a civil rights protest, that had largely, as you pointed out, died down. colin kaepernick isn't even in the nfl anymore and phrased it in terms of a battle against the military which isn't what it is, but it fuels his base, he likes wa waging this battle, and it takes attention away from the obamacare bill that will probably fail.

>> that's it, he started a battle here because he's losing the battle over there. i don't hate bills, it's just the way it goes. we have this conversation in baseball sometimes. why bring this into sports? that's an escalation. >> it is an escalation and the president knew exactly what he was doing. he did it on friday night in alabama. he was down in alabama giving a prime time speech talking about race. he can say it's not about race, it is absolutely about race and he knows it's about race. he knows it is about something that -- he's tapping into something, a, that's already there, which he's done a lot. viewership is down in the nfl in part because of this, as some people believe. that he clearly want to remind his base that he is with them. he has been, you know, doing some deals with democrats, he'll be doing more deals with democrats. he's failing with other things, not getting some things done, too. he was in the position of a rally so he decided to go with this. ben sass, the republican senator

from nebraska, had an interesting message to players. he said he wants you to take a knee because it divides you with him and the flag on the same side. don't give him the attention he wants. ben is not asking fans of the president, but interestingly, people are on the side of the president and of the flag. it's hard to see an exit out of this for the president. >> maybe he doesn't want an exit. the democrats used to come out publicly and defend flag burners. nobody wants to burn the flag. what is the president's goal here? is it just to have a dust-up to lead this program, lead international conversations at a time we should talk about they're about to fail on obamacare repeal. we have no idea if they'll get tax reform. >> donald trump is a culture president. even though he doesn't talk

about sexual ethics and idealogy, he is a genius for identifying cultural flashpoints and sticking his finger in them and igniting national debates over them. i think what he did was deliberate and he doubled down on it when he saw the crowd reaction. it obviously wasn't in his scripted remarks, but it's a debate he wants to have. at the very base of it, you know, when you poll people, do they support standing for the national anthem versus, you know, having athletes kneel, a majority of americans are with him. i think it depends on what people perceive this debate to be about. do they perceive it to be about standing versus not standing or the freedom to do so versus not doing so, should someone be fired, should they not? it's not clear how that will play out, but it's clear the white house thinks this is a winning issue for him. i don't think anyone has too many kwaqualms about him finish his debate. >> we learned what is first and foremost on the president's

mind, what he tweets about. no teleprompter. this is what he wants to be talking about. here's his twitter feed since saturday morning. 16 tweets about sports and the national anthem, two about health care, one about taxes, one about north korea, zero about puerto rico where there is desperate need for some help and the president could help get help there. thael that's the president now. this president is not always consistent. i think thafeats a fair fact. in october 2013 when president obama was getting involved in the debate about whether the washington redskins should change their name because some people think it's offensive and racist. donald trump tweeted then, president should not be telling the washington red kinz to change their name. our country has far bigger problems. focus on them, not nonsense. >> put that in the book "there is a tweet about everything." there really is, especially on this point. you often hear republicans in this town say they wish the president would lay off twitter. this is another example of that.

this is a fight that the white house may see as a winning issue, but unfortunately he's not going to hear a lot of support from his own party on capitol hill. particularly in light of the aftermath of what he said in charlottesville. he said there were some very fine people who were marching along with those white supremacists and neo-nazis, but how come there are not so many people taking a knee and protesting what they believe or concerns they have over civil rights. i think whenever he dives into these cultural war issues, he dent have a lot of support from people in this town. he may speak to 30% or so. >> it's an interesting discussion. sometimes we need our president to lead the country through conversations about difficult issues. the president has every right to say, i get your point. you have the right to demonstrate. could you please find some other way? can we have a conversation. let's not do that to the flag, let's find another way. he wasn't having a conversation, he wanted a confrontation. and listening to the steelers

coach saying, you want a confrontation, president? you got one. >> we have a group of men that come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, races, creeds, religions and so forth. that's a lot of team sports. but because of the opposition, we get drug into the [ bleep ], to be quite honest with you. some have opinions, some don't. we wanted to protect those who don't, we wanted to protect those that do. we came here to play a football game today and that was our intentions. >> i think that's the frustrating thing for a lot of sports fans, is that they watch sports to get away from politics, to get away from all the noise, and yes, this was an issue certainly some people were protesting, but it was a small number of people and the president just injected politics into something that people wanted to stay away from. >> i'm told that his chief of staff john kelly is absolutely quite alarmed by this, and it's one of the things he can't control. he says he can control what the president -- who sees the president and what the president reads, but he cannot control

what he says in a rally or what he sends out on this. i'm told that he is alarmed by this, does not know how this will end exactly, and after spending 45 years in the marine corps, he sees himself as someone who does not want to be on this side of the argument here. so i think internally in the white house, there is a little consternation. i was also told this morning it happened on a friday evening going into a saturday when he was basically alone. melania trump was in canada, ivanka trump was down for the jewish sabbath, and he was sort of alone and tweet to go his own devices. >> kelly grew up the same time i grew up. he's a little older than me, but he has a good idea of what happens when people start injecting themselves into issues. they can develop into powder kegs. that's the president's position when it comes to the new travel ban rules while his critics say it's nothing more than a new way to enforce the muslim ban. [vo] quickbooks introduces rodney.

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welcome back. the president is rolling out the latest version of his travel ban. quote, making america safe is my number bone priority. we will not admit those in our country we cannot safely vet. he dropped sudan from the safety list and now included venezuela and north korea. the restrictions which take effect next month vary by country and include a phased-in approach. they also include enhanced screening and vetting requirements for countries like iran and somalia. critics of the president like the aclu say the changes are like putting lipstick on a pig. the president's original sin of targeting muslims cannot be cured by throwing other countries on his enemies list. the president's take? >> the travel ban, the tougher the better. >> that's the president's take. undoubtedly this will end up in court. we're lucky we have an attorney at the table who also happens to be a reporter. you covered this issue

extensively. i guess two questions. number one, you do have non-majority muslim areas on the list. i assume it makes it more difficult for people attacking it to say it's all about muslims. he's been going after this for eight months. is it easier to get a standing because you're president? >> the travelers were waiting for this. they knew it would change in some way for the government to say, look, this is not a muslim ban, we're banning venezuela and a few other countries as well. like you said, lipstick on a pig in that this is still devoted to giving his base what they want, which is the muslim ban that he promised on the campaign trail. the words and statements that he's made and the tweets that he's made since then will definitely be part of this case. but it's tough for a lot of reasons. this is a different ban than the one they sued over. that one has expired.

and even though the argument will take place before this new one goes into effect on october 18th, the fact that it is changing, the supreme court could do a number of things. they can say, we'll remand this back and try again, we can start all over, they can ask for new briefings, they can give the parties more time to argue this out. we don't know procedurally how this will matter, but at the end of the day, just as anthony kennedy, he is going to be the decider on this court that is evenly decided, the power of the presidency to implement bans which is broad, and this is something even the president without authority can't do. >> in the first year of his administration, this is something that's been more thought out. they had all these rulings to sort of help him along the way here. but the president, this is much

softer than he initially discussed back in 2015. but again, this is all about the supreme court here. so the white house is not necessarily -- it doesn't seem to me all that enthused about this. i think they want him to keep talking about it, because when he talks about it, he himself called it a muslim ban. >> he said he wished the ban was broader and more specific which suggested very much that he wanted to be an outright muslim ban which he called for initially on the campaign trail. what will be interesting to see is if the court looks at anything he said on the campaign trail to suggest that as their true intent. >> you make a key point. i don't think they want the president talking about this because when he talks off the cuff about this, those words are then brought into the court cases of saying this is the president's true mindset. but less chaotic, controlled process, clearly well organized process. they had the lawyer scrub the language much more so than the first time around. that's the legal argument.

i'm not sure where the nfl debate leads for the president politically, but this one, the president is on pretty safe ground. in his case he says, i'm going to do things to keep you safe. and if i'm going to make a mistake, i'm going to overdo it, not underdo it. that's a pretty solid case you can sell to the american people. >> i agree, and i think one of the places president obama misstepped is chastising the american people when they felt real fear in the case of domestic terror attacks. granted, most of those were perpetrated by domestic terrorists, but he tended to come out and tell the american people that their fears were unfounded and they came from racist sentiments, which i think was a difficult sell to the american people who tend to want to be reassured. trump does somewhat better on the ground where the quality -- he is a strength guy, and he does better when he's working in that realm rather than in the sort of post-hurricane comfort zone. >> but that works with his base, though, remember, because this

ban still does not affect places like pakistan, places like saudi arabia where people actually came and perpetrated terrorist acts on u.s. soil. so it's a tough sell to say, hey, we're keeping you safe when still these countries are not the ones imposing the greatest threat. >> next test in a court somewhere in america. up next, republicans running out of time on their efforts to, yes, de javu, repeal obamacare. i'm only in my 60's. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out

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check out the best of the best hand-picked fall shows on xfinity x1, online, and the xfinity stream app. thirsty? i've been watching for seven years and the republicans have been saying repeal and replace. then you have john mccain voting no for whatever reason. by the way, arizona is one of the biggest beneficiaries. it's also great for maine, it's also great for alaska. >> it is if you didn't know this already. deadline week for republicans hoping to keep their obamacare

repeal promise. the words you hear from the president say he is counting the no votes. john mccain is a no. susan collins is most likely a no. and lisa murkowski says she has many concerns. conservatives are leaning no's, so there is a big scramble to rewrite that bill with the deadline ahead. some call them routine changes, others sweeteners, and they think they can flat out buy votes for some over others. >> the changes that were made in this bill, and nothing gets the pulse pounding looking over 146 pages of legislative text at 10:00 p.m. on a sunday night, but the changes are subtle. take lisa murkowski, for example. a as you noted, still undecided about this bill. the state of alaska would get a

significant bump-up for medicaid, up to 25% because it is defined as a low poverty state. it would get carve-outs because it is a low density state. including is automatic enrollment from any alaskan native who has benefited from the alaska program into the medicaid program. these are changes that almost entirely involve alaska alone and the type of things that lisa murkowski has been very concerned about. the cost of care up there is extraordinarily high, the size of the state and the population density are obviously major problems, but there is no question about why these changes were made. flip it to the unconservative si side of things. conservatives like john mccain, rand paul, susan collins. again, for conservatives, this is an issue about premiums. they don't want healthy people paying more because they're in a larger risk pool.

that's exactly what they're targeting here. we've seen them thread this needle multiple times before. there's no doubt about it. they're scrambling for votes. they're changing the legislative text to specifically try to get senators on board. we'll see if it works, but right now, not yet, john. >> you could kind of say the deadline is thursday or friday. this is your day job. do you have any dispute with phil's math? this is nowhere, right? >> this is nowhere. i don't agree with what phil said. i always agree with what phil says. susan collins is not going to vote for this bill. she's waiting for this late afternoon announcement to get from the congressional budget office to get a preliminary analysis of the bill. that analysis, though, is not going to have the coverage numbers. it's not really going to get into the details about cuts to medicaid spending. it's only going to look at the basic deficit projections which

probably would be favorable for the republicans, but it's not going to get into the nitty-gritty and what a lot of people want to hear, including what john mccain wants to hear. that's why john mccain is voting against it. i think you can probably expect other republican senators, perhaps collins, to point to that as well saying i need more information before i can vote for it. she's already skeptical about the way it was structured. perhaps lisa murkowski comes down the same way. it's interesting to hear trump touting how good this is for states. the only information they're relying on now is from the health and human services department, his own health and human services department. there is no independent analysis that both parties can rely on, and that's one of the big reasons it will probably fail this week. >> to be fair, john mccain gave a lot of reasons why he voted against this bill, but i'm struck about how bad the process has been on all of these health care bills. president obama spent two full years trying to pass obamacare and the next six years paying the price in defending it in

terms of senate and house seats. but republicans expected to come in and repeal this, apparently, in three or four months and now they've spent another three or four months trying to do the same and mounted zero public campaign to try to rally the country around doing this. nobody has really owned these bills. three weeks ago nobody was talking about graham-cassidy and all of a sudden it's supposed to consume public attention. i just think this was botched from top to bottom and that will ultimately be the reason it fails by a couple votes. >> the day obamacare passed, they ran in every election since and benefited. the democrats lost the house, the democrats lost the senate. obamacare played a lot in republican gains, but they didn't have a lot of power. >> they expected to do it in two or three months instead of devoting a full year to work out the kinks.

they mounted a big pressure campaign, building support for it. the whole thing doesn't make any sense to me. >> outside groups came from nowhere. >> the president, for all his talk about how republicans can't get this done, we were told by white house officials that he would actually become more involved in this. he's not been involved at all. in terms of selling this, among republicans alone, never mind democrats, has about a 26% approval rating. that is extraordinary in our latest polling. some people were surprised by senator mccain last week by not supporting this. someone i talked to who knows him very well and lindsey graham who travels with him a lot says it explains the relationship. senator mccain has seldom followed lindsey graham, but lindsey graham follows mccain quite a bit. he was never going to vote on this. >> you think of john mccain on the left of this.

susan collins even more to the left of him, lisa murkowski maybe in between the two. but that's not the problem. ted cruz says no. >> right now they don't have my vote and i don't think they have mike lee's, either. i want to be a yes. i want to get there because i think obamacare is a disaster -- >> but there's work to be done. >> but the price to getting there, i believe, is focusing on consumer freedom. >> it's a mess when you know the math isn't great for republicans. they can only afford to lose two. you have to lock up the right or lock up what they would consider the left or the moderates. >> it's important to point out senator cruz made that comment after it was clear there were four votes not in. >> it's still an open game? give us more. >> exactly. but that's the problem. you have folks like rand paul who don't want this extra stuff

that they're giving to kentucky in an effort to woo him. he actually wants these pomeran rants to be smaller. the things america seems behind is they just want something better than obamacare. americans want affordable health care. they want their premiums to stop rising. they want fewer out of pocket costs and they haven't come forward with a plan that does that. the only solution is one which seems politically impossible which is retpublicans and democrats getting together and fixing what was wrong. >> mr. mcconnell, when it came to the senate side, thought it would be smarter to cut this deal behind closed doors, unveil it, jam it through, but a lot of republicans didn't give buy-in, pushed back on that. the president deserves a significant amount of blame here. when he came out and said the

bill was mean, they said, well, the president is not going to give me cover for such a ridiculous vote when it's even more popular. >> if the president calls you up and says, i need your vote, but the white house guys gave him a big ceremony and called it mean. >> those will be in 2018. we've got one week to go. washington likes nothing more than a deadline. to >> dana bash and jake tapper debating this tonight. they will debate bernie sanders and amy cloklobuchar. the president has a plan b.

welcome back. today is the final day of campaigning for a special republican runoff for alabama senator. they pitched among conservative interim states. also pits president trump against most of its base. the might house is throwing a lot of last-minute weight into this race. likewise, the president's former chief strategist steve bannon will make a rare public appearance to campaign for george moore. he said luther strange is my guy and that he hedged his bet. >> and i told luther, i have to say this, if his opponent wins, i'm going to be here campaigning like hell for him.

but i have to say this. and you understand this, just look at the polls. luther will definitely win. >> luther will definitely win. but if he doesn't, i'll be here to campaign for his opponent. i did talk to somebody from an outside group very involved in this race who says the polling is getting closer in the last several days, that it's a very close race but that justice moore is still leading right now. polls are not always great, anyway, in a special runoff election. if it's close, then it's close. it's a gift to get the president of the united states to commit to the republican primary. but if he says, don't worry, if you lose, i'll be against you. >> there are a lot of people who are normally with him that are on the opposite side of this. either way the president can spin this as a win.

if senator strange loses, he can say, i helped him out, he was down 20 points, and he'll blame it on mitch mcconnell and others, on the establishment. we'll see what happens. i would advise everyone to not pay much attention to these polls, as you said earlier. i mean, we've seen this happen time and time again, in specials, particularly, and others as well. it's incredibly hard to poll. if he gets 5,000 more people out to the polls because of his presidential visit, that could change things or vice versa here. but there were a lot of people at the rally on friday who came to see the president who will support rory moore. >> the concern here for the republicans is that moore will be a very controversial candidate in the general election. of course, it's alabama. the republicans will be heavily favored. the concern is that he has a very controversial pass. he has a penchant for saying things that puts his own party

on the defense. that's why the mitch mcconnells of the world are doing what they can to get luther strange elected to this seat. it's interesting that trump today saying mitch mcconnell is not luther strange's friend. mr. mcconnell's super pac has spent millions to try to help luther strange because there is a concern about ray moore and what he may do. >> if you put ray moore in the senate, we haven't been able to pass obamacare. if you put ray moore in the senate, we won't be able to pass anything. that's why i don't understand the president's self-interest to do this. you see how nimble people are in politics. the president is down there and says, i'll come back and campaign for more if my guy loses. this pac supportive of ray moore jumps on it. >> who does the president support? the president supports me. >> i have to tell you something,

he hacs not been there very lon. i met luther once. i might have made a mistake. i don't know him. sdplz t >> the president supports me. >> i could be sitting at home right now. if his opponent wins, i'll be campaigning like hell for him. >> of course. of course that's what he did. >> well played. >> we watched that rally from all that equivocating, yeah, i'm here for this guy. the president speaks against ray moore and for luther strange, luther strange has said a lot of nice things about him. they want to go and sort of fight for him because they think it's in their interest. but in the end of the day, this is not a fight that president trump's heart is truly in. >> if ray moore wins, the reason

steve bannon is going to do high profile there, he's hoping with breitbart news and his friends with deep pockets to get others to challenge the races. trump needed a wing man to go against the republican establishment. it's not the democrats. we'll get them and we'll beat them like we beat hillary clinton. but the first thing you have to get through is a corrupt and incompetent establishment. he's already trying to get a stronger conservative candidate in against jeff flake saying, look, we can do this. it will cause a mess in the american party. he thinks a necessary mess. >> i do think this race is kind of a microcosm about a bizarre political moment where you have mitch mcconnell pouring tens of millions of dollars to back a candidate who says he's going to come to washington to oppose mitch mcconnell. and you have donald trump

supporting a candidate -- or opposing a candidate in ray moore who says i'm the real guy who is going to channel donald trump. it is this bizarre amalgamation of facts, but if moore wins, he could establish a lot of candidates, and there is a weird way in which trump's base is pitted against the republican party. he is his own party in many ways. >> that's a great way to put it. we'll keep watching that race. we count the votes tomorrow. up next, ask and you shall not receive. what the white house won't turn over is angering some investigative committees investigating russian meddling. ok, guys, hear me out. switching to geico could save you... hundreds on car insurance. huh, he does make a point...

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a key democrat says it's time for the white house to

stand up for what he sees as stonewau stonewalling in the russian investigation. in an e-mail to cnn, congressman adam schiff says, quote, the white house must fully comply immediately. if it does not, the committee should, on a bipartisan basis, subpoena the records. manu raja, this is your story. wishful thinking by adam schiff or does he think he can get other republicans to actually subpoena the white ouse? >> he has contact with the man running the investigation, mike c conaway. this is related to any documents that they had. he did write to the white house asking for this information to be turned over by the summer. they did not do that and that's where the subpoena threat is now coming from. that's just one of a number of outstanding requests that bipartisan committees have sent to the white house, everything

from jared kushner's security clearance information to information about the dossier that the agent compiled about trump ties to russia. the question is does the white house agree, but the standoff is certainly intensive. >> in the "new york times," september 17, the white house counsel says, quote, if we give it to mueller, there is no reason for it to ever get to the hill. if that's your philosophy, i think these committees will be waiting a while. >> i think that's absolutely right, but we'll see. i'm not sure that's necessarily going to happen. >> one of the things pointed out to me, that decision responding to professional inquiries comes from the white house legal counsel more so than it does ty cobb, the special counsel. but if you're in the white house you know the mueller probe is a lot more serious. >> a couple ways to look at this. number one, if you don't give them the documents, they don't

have much to chew about. if you do, it never goes away. a lot of news popping today. stay with us. wolf blitzer in the chair after a quick break.

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hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington, 6:00 p.m. in london and 2:30 in pyongyang, north korea. wherever you're watching around the world, thank you very much for joining us. president trump igniting a culture war by attacking nfl athletes who kneel for the national anthem. an agreement on obamacare gets more dire. will 11 hours change the bill's fate?