welcome to inside politics. i'm john king. thanks for sharing your di. president trump promises to go to puerto rico this week amid the devastated complaints texas and florida got after their horror stories. >> it is senate run off day in alabama. this would be a dig defeat for president trump and the republican establishment. >> they think you are a pack of morons. they think you are nothing but

rude. you ready for more protests? nfl owners and players want the president to stay out of their pregame decisions. >> that was a clear shot at trump sitting on their knee like that. you can't do that. that's super disrespectful. like i said, we show great unity and that's what that was for. i feel like that was needed. >> we begin the hour with the fateful hour ahead for repealing and replacing obamacare. it has been the number one promise the past seven years and a promise president trump embraced with gusto. the senators gather this hour for lunch and they didn't deliver yet again. they must decide what now? there are more than enough votes to doom their latest attempt known as graham cassidy.

susan collins was none too pleased with the three nos. >> at some point there will be a repeal and replace. we will see whether or not that is now or shortly there after. we are disappointed at certain so-called republicans. >> if push comes to shove meaning if the leadership is scheduled to vote anyway, there will be more of what president trump calls so-called republicans. the gop's top priority is damming policy hurdles. saying grass cassidy would slash about a trillion dollars from medicaid over a decade and millions of americans would lose health insurance. lindsey graham knows the math and wants a vote. >> we are going to press on and it's okay to vote and fall short whether or not you believe in it.

>> with us is cnn's mallika henderson. phil matingly and mary cather e catherine. this has been your life for the past months. i felt bad on what appears to be awake. is there any way and i don't mean to make light of it. from health care to family budget to life and death decisions. it is a central promise of the republican party. this latest version is done. >> by all accounts. we have seen this happen over five or six months. iterations have phoenix-like properties and reappear, but the math is not there. it is a deeper issue and we discuss this a lot over the past couple of months. there are significant divides in the republican party about the meaning of health care and whether or not it's a right or whether or not it's something that should be provided. how medicaid should be treated and reformed.

as long as that exists, it's not a huge divide. there is 46 republicans that will vote for anything that said obamacare repealed. because of political reasons and the policy reasons. until you can find that last four or five republicans to vote and address a way to threat that needle between the far right and those in the more moderate space, there is no path forward for right now. is it dead? they will keep pushing and the deadline was september 30th and it's clear that many people including those in leadership don't expect to vote and don't think it's a good idea. we will see in about an hour or two, but the idea that it has a possibility of moving forward, no. >> the point that phil made, mitch mcconnell knew he had 52. that means i can only lose two. he knew these policy disagreements whether you had the ted and the mike lees on the right and the john mccains and

lisa murcowskis on the other. none of that is new. a lot of conservatives and american who is may be in the middle of saying okay, why was this done so badly? if you knew the policy was hard and the math was near impossible, why have you stumbled through? >> because it's hard. they sold it looking easier than it was ever going to look. you have this ideological divide between murcowski, collins and rand paul part of the party. there is not a perfect bill from the perfect way that brought people on. there was the argument that if you had done the bill in a regular order, more would have been earned. there were a handful of senator who is don't want their names on any changes because there is a bias in health care and there will be disruptions and winners and losers on any policy and i don't think they want to touch d

vote for her. i'm not convinced she would. >> you heard the president there, so-called republicans. i'm going to keep trying. can the phoenix come back from the ashes. some republican says say this has been horrible and terrible, but we are going to do a budget mostly defined and attach tax reform to that and when that train is leaving the station, maybe we can come at this again. really? >> you do hear that. this is something that republicans have promised and the idea of siding into next year without going to voters and show they have taken action on this is a grim scenario who are working on 2018 races. this is going to be difficult to see the will from some of these member who is continue to put themselves out there.

susan collins, lisa murcowski and things they are asking for are different than what republicans want to put on the table. john mccain has been pushing regular order which is wonky and procedural, but you are debating or should be debating a major piece of implications. this is all happening in the back room which is limning the ability to rally the public. when you throw all the factors together, it is hard to see how things get tacked on to a budget. >> for republicans who complain, it took them two years. 17 months. they had public hearings and the republicans i think are central to this. the president said it to be easy. with a republican majority and snap. >> he said he would have it on day one. >> the president clearly doesn't understand policy, health care

policy. on the tax cut thing, he said you should call it tax cuts rather than tax reform. i don't understand he understood the different ideological spreads and divisions in the republican party. that's what's happened. it's also true that he never really was attached to this bill. the details of it. i don't think he understood it well. the republicans didn't have a good selling point either. grassley said the idea that we would be better if governors took over. i don't think anyone complaining about health care is if the governor was in charge. they complain about prices and access to care. they never had a firm footing on how to make it work. >> if you were starting for scratch, a federalist let the states decide this would be a logical approach to do this. they are trying to deal with an infrastructure in place that has

some items that are popular. murcowski and collins, they think my people have this and this is going to cut the money away. what lessons will be learned if any from what will speaker ryan learn? the house did pass the bill. we are waiting on the senate. after the house passed the bill, they called the bills mean. the president's reaction is to say so-called republicans, one of them john mccain whose thumbs down doomed the last try and he began the process of dooming this try. the president is tweeting after senator mccain talking about repealing and replacing obamacare. he changed from years ago. tweeting videos of john mccain who dealt a blow to the president and also is battling brain cancer. listen to lindsey graham said back off senator mccain even though his vote doomed my bill.

>> he is one of my best friends and he can do whatever he wants. he earned that right. to any american who has a problem with john mccain's vote, all i can say is he was willing to die for this country and he can vote any way he wants to. >> senator graham is disappointed, but said they should learn a lesson. a lot of the country revolted against it and let's not make the same mistake. will they go back? if they come out and cannot repeal and replace, will they go back? the republican and democrats are working on a package that would be fixing obamacare. they can say we can repeal and replace, but if the republicans try to pass that, they will be fixing obamacare after saying we will flush obamacare.

can they do that? >> a couple things. republicans are right to be mad at several of these includings senator john mccain who ran on repeal and knew what that entail and knew it would not be regular order. he was leading the charge on that as he was running for this. the other thing that is interesting this fight reflects something larger about the trump era. all the fights are in public. people say it's behind closed doors, but you are seeing sort of regular order and every time we lose, we will do something different. we are actually voting and losing. they were talking about bringing it up again. i think they will. this is a promise and when it comes to governors, the mandates and the top down nature drove many of the prices up in this market and make it tough for people to buy and unsubsidized young people who may get less

sick to buy it. you can make changes and nobody wants to be responsible for making the changes. obamacare made a bunch of changes. >> it's hard to make the case for people who were disrupted by obamacare to say they don't trust any politicians. they are going to disrupt my life again. don't you trust your governor and legislature. they are close to you. not in far away washington. >> this al zaexander murray arrangement is an interesting place to look. if it doesn't pass and it doesn't look like it's going to, you still have a system that doesn't work. elected representatives are the ones that have to fix it. democrats talk a little bit about the political benefits because this is politics and the benefits of jumping on board a

plan to fix obamacare. the republicans are still pretty uncertain whether that is where they want to go because of that narrative. they would be the ones that couldn't get a repeal across the line and ended up saving this. these are things that would change the mandates and how people price these plans. saving obamacare means giving a good jill yon dollars to them. >> the next question is leader mcconnell has to go back into the conversations. is he willing to fix that. a couple hours ahead in washington. devastation in puerto rico. i will speak with the acting secretary about what the federal government is doing to help. if you have medicare parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what? you could apply for a medicare supplement insurance plan whenever you want. no enrollment window. no waiting to apply. that means now may be a

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>> live pictures at the white

house visiting the prime minister of spain. outside of the west wing about to head into the white house. the marine guard as always there and we expect to get cameras and reporters allowed in for a few minutes. we will see if the president has anything to say when that happens. he plans to visit puerto rico next week to see the devastation. a short time ago he was speaking about the aid efforts and the trail of distraction left behind. >> we shipped massive amounts of food and water and supplies to puerto rico and we are continuing to do it on an hourly basis. puerto rico and the people are fantastic. i grew up in new york and i know many people from puerto rico and many puerto ricans. these are great people and we have to help them. >> that was the president. before that he received a briefing from the security adviser along with the fema

chief returning home after assessing the damage in puerto rico. the needs are overwomaning. t they show how widespread the power outages are. people are starving for aid. a child laying on the framework of what used to be her home. a woman washing her clothes in open road drainage. cnn's layla santiago has been managing to reach areas outside of san juan that are devastated. >> this woman doesn't even know who i am, but i'm the first person she has seen land since hurricane maria battered the island. the floods and debris and lack of power make hard to get to areas tougher to reach. even fema has not set foot in parts of puerto rico. we took a chopper from san juan

to remote areas largely unseen like a small town next to the town on the northwest part of the island. it has been breached and the government ordered 70,000 nearby residents to evacuate. it is here in the nearby area i was met with such emotion. the people starving for assistance. she said if something happens to that dam, that could be as bad as the hurricane itself. >> the communications are so poor, many are asking us to send messages to their families. from the air, you can see why. they remain in the dark for months. >> this is a problem. this is why puerto rico, 100% of the island doesn't have power right now. granted the infrastructure is before maria passed by. you can see with the power lines down what the challenge is. they are completely collapsed. >> heads further inland, the

death toll is among the highest here. this is where we meet the 56-year-old who is diabetic, just had surgery and is unemployed. now she doesn't have a home either. this is what maria did to her home. water spewing from every corner. by now she thought help would have arrived. it hasn't. >> she is hopeful that someone will help. to be able to rebuild this. >> flying south to a more remote area. the roads are blocked, forcing us to find another way to get to this home. they tell us the problem here is food. most of what they have left has gone bad. >> he said you work and work and work and it's for nothing. he lost everything. >> a common theme on an island

of 3.4 u.s. citizens waiting and hoping that help is on the way. >> they are reporting in puerto rico. we hope any second to get a conversation with the homeland secretary. let's talk about this in the room. high marks for the president and fema and the federal response after harvey and irma. we are beginning to have complaints here. part of it is logistics. it's an island and there is a complaint from some of the residents. the mayor was saying nice things about fema and the federal response, but when you get out where layla is, they feel forgotten. whether that's fair or not, you saw that woman hugging and hasn't seen anybody come to her town. they say do you need anything? what's the challenge for the president? >> to show that he is as committed to the recovery efforts as he was in florida and

texas. with those storms, he was as focused on what was happening as i have seen him be on any particular issue. he's easily distracted and tends to vacillate back and forth. he was set on making clear that he was focused on the recovery and the federal government was providing information to people and as a result when you ta uk to peop talk to people on the ground, they step up. this president has not been laser focused on puerto rico. he has been driving the conversation about the nfl and tweeting about luther strange. that is his challenge now. to show the people in puerto rico that the government is actually going to be on the ground and this is as much of a priority for him as these storms in contiguous states here. >> you can see the reaction show that people did think his reaction to the hurricanes and what happened in florida and what happened in texas as well.

for this he distracted the things in puerto rico early on. he seemed to talk about the bankruptcy there. that was more of a problem than the devastation of that hurricane. he sounded empathetic with the remarks of the folks he knows. he knows from new york. we will see. he will go next tuesday and some people say he should go earlier and the folks on the ground, my best friend is puerto rican and his family has been devastated. 75% of one of his relatives's houses is devastated. some have generators and one works two or three hours and they will be without power for months. according to what we are hearing out of puerto rico. >> this is one of the things where the president is very bad at overshadowing what the government is doing competently. there are 10-k plus staff and navy and coast guard and

national guard headed in that direction. it's much harder to get supplies there than to houston and florida. that will continue to be a problem, but when he tweets something that digs at the debt of puerto rico, they feel like they are not being paid attention to. the media cycle has been about the nfl and not puerto rico. two players are in that game. >> that's the crux of it. puerto rico is not a foreign country. these are american citizens and three million people. unlike texas or florida, they don't carry a lot of weight. they will need snag moves through the senate and the house. there is concern that it will be forgotten and it won't be on the federal left. they have resources down there now. they will need more amounts of everything and most notably money. this is where you give at ton of

credit to layla. it's tough to visualize until we see pictures. we are listening about it, but not seeing how terrible it is. you can see everything in houston and see everything going on in the keys. you can tell this morning senator mitch mcconnell is on the floor. speaker ryan meeting with puerto rico. democratic leader chuck schumer. people are starting to get their heads around the magnitude of this and that is extremely important because the needs are large and going to be at the forefront of how this place recovers for the next month. >> you have so many americans with family and friends including myself that they have not even heard from. it's very scary. >> i'm told the secretary with us momentarily watch this picture again. i said it many times. this is for all the people out there who don't like the news media, this is amazing reporting. other members of the team are there. this is why it's important to

get to the places and tell the stories and whether these are americans are not. these are people in need. they happen to be our fellow americans down there who feel part is destruction on the grid. there is no communication. part of it is living in tough situations to begin with. they are looking for attention. you see the pictures and the emotional responses, it is striking. the president will go on tuesday. that in and of itself. when you have all this destruction and the water everywhere and i security situation, he can do more harm than good rushing in because of the attention it takes and the infrastructure it takes support the security. it's often smart for the president to wait. even though you are on the ground, you show the pictures in florida. you want that attention too because you want to know that you are relevant. >> they are barely getting supply planes in right now. >> the airport is grim and the

focus needs to be on if you have plane movement. not the president. you know that that will shut down the capital and wherever he moves, it will pull resources into it. this is always a debate after natural disasters and whatever president is in the white house. there is this legitimate concern about what it does to the people who so badly need help. >> you were talking about it and people going there who will go there and already on the ground there. is a president going there and it's symbolic in many ways in terms of what they do. they draw media attention to it and hopefully draw people to volunteer and send money and all those sorts of things. i think he will go next tuesday. >> let's go to the white house to the cabinet secretary of homeland security. madam secretary, thank you for your time. we saw a very emotional package

from our colleague on the ground. the island i believe is almost 100% without power. 85% of the cell phone towers are down. people here who have family there can't reach them to see how they are doing. give us an update on the points about getting roads open and cell towers back up and getting communication and power back in place. >> you are exactly right. that is where we are now. we have cell phone communications that started today. about 35% of the island we are restoring power of the cell phone towers. we are looking at the electrical. it was devastated in this hurricane. we are moving in generators to keep people and keep the reports running while we rebuild the power structure and great through the governor. >> some of the this is logistical and i don't think you can hear about how a resident

wants to see their president, but it would cause more harm than good. what would you say to the citizens in those remote areas who saw the president go quickly to texas and florida and feel somehow they either are being or might be forgotten because they are off our shores not connected. >> i just left a meeting. the president and vice president were there and his staff were having a cabinet meeting. we spoke with the governor today again. everyone, leadership is on this. we are not sending the period down immediately because the flights and the limited ability to get into puerto rico at this time has to be focused on bringing in the people, the supplies, and the equipment to restore puerto rico. the president is on that, but will be there very, very soon. the meeting we just had, they recommitted full resources to help the governor rebuild puerto

rico. >> we learn more from this thing. the lessons of katrina and rita and more disasters where technology and the coordination between power companies and to rush resources and help. what are we learning about things we can do better? i want to read you a tweet. marco rubio was there and said returning from puerto rico now. tremendous damage and potential for crisis in areas outside of san juan. must get power crews in asap. you can't have crews from virginia and maryland and wyoming and the west drive trucks down because it is an island. what do matee need to do to get in quicker? >> we are there. one of the things the president did today was approved 100% payment for the electrical infrastructure for the first 180 days. that allows the mutual

assistance and aid to go there. we had dod and vessels as well as air support. getting the people there is not a problem. we have to remember we are recovering from the first hurricane that went through two weeks ago. the amount of supplies and the amount of capability on the island are severely diminished. we are reconstituting after we just did that after two weeks ago from irma. >> another senator who has been following this from nebraska, the crisis needs more attention and urgency from the executive brar branch. they are not getting enough attention, but help me understand the water situation. >> there are some areas where we have to boil water and working on getting generators. more generators in. we have limited flight capacity, but we are working at restoring all the necessary services.

there are some water production on the island and we are in a boil water state for a little over half the island which is expected with the size of this hurricane. >> there is a conversation about whether the military should send a hospital ship and officials say no, we want to get the on island up and running as opposed to having a ship come in. >> the governor asked that and wants to focus on getting the hospitals and make sure they have the generators and the fuel they need. it's a logistical problem trying to move from the many hospitals across puerto rico to a hospital ship wom ship. we do have many vessels, 16 or more and we have what we need for ships in the area. >> secretary duke, do you have the money? fema has about $5 billion because of the emergency response of congress.

i think he has $6.77 billion more. you have puerto rico and virgin islands and other issues. do you have enough money? >> we are absolutely prepared financially. we are work hand in hand with congress and the white house to ensure that we have the funds to perform these essential missions for all three of the hurricanes, yes. >> the acting secretary, i know it's a busy day and urgent time, but the people will be grateful to hear your words of concern. take care and good luck. i want to go straight to the white house. president trump meeting with spain's prime minister in the oval office. let's listen. >> he is somebody highly respected. highly respected in this country. we have a very, very close relationship with spain. mr. president, it's an honor to have you in the oval office and at the white house.

we will be discussing trade and other things. we look forward to doing it. mr. president, thank you very much. [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language] >> you see the president welcoming remarks with the prime minister of spain. we will keep an eye on that and see if any news comes from the latest. behind closed doors, the president told conservative

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>> the dallas cowboys kneeling and then standing arm in arm for the national anthem.

a clear message for donald trump and respect for the flag. he labeled player who is kneel sobs that should be fired. he thinks he is winning. ratings are way down except before the game starts. when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected. the booing at the football game when the entire dallas game dropped to its knees was the loudest i had heard. moments later, while dallas dropped to its knees as a team, they stood for the national anthem, big progress being made. they have all sores of rules and regulations and the only way out is to set a rule that you can't kneel during the national anthem. the president is convinced he struck a nerve and it caught on. according to cnn reporting, i said what millions of americans were thinking. the president does think he is

winning. i want to add one that to me is the most powerful voice to come out from somebody who has a stake in this that none of us can appreciate. this is the wife of pat tillman. he was killed in african began and an american hero. as a football player and soldier, he inspired countless americans to unify. we should always remind people we should come together. with every man and woman's service should never be politicized in a way that divides us. >> she is responding to the fact that people are responding politically for the anthem. in terms of donald trump's winning this argument, he was going to say he was winning even if he was losing it. kwleen winning looks like here. he picked this fight and want this is fight.

i think it struck a nerve for some folks. some people i think he may have gone too far in terms of what he called the players. it will be interesting if this is a litmus test and it will be a question of do you think the nfl should regulate the behavior of players during the national anthem. we will see this more and more from this president. going into white identity and a culture warrior. where he is comfortable and it works to bind him to his base. >> that's 30 something percent of the american people at best. if you are about to be embarrassed again, if we are about to hit nine months and you have zero legislative victories, i get that you want to keep your base happy. is this something that will pass or something that in keeping part of the base happy today could come back to bite down the

road? >> this is a complicated issue because it's multiple issues rolled into one. the question of the flag and the respect for the national anthem. there is a debate about police brutality that got oust in all of this. trump has the ability to pick on issues where he knows he will get a liberal freak out and he knows that the elite media will be all over this. when you actually look at the issue from the perspective of americans, it is more complicated. he was smart on the one piece of charlottesville and trying to turn it into an issue of the statues and not what happened on campus. the bigger question is even if you win this debate, who cares? why is this the debate that the president of the united states should be deciding he is going to fight right now? that to me whether it rallies his base or not is confounding. >> in the wake of do a deal with democrats and everybody is

supportive of that and great approval ratings and gets the bounce anding chuck schumer this was a great idea and you go to the sole purpose to divide. the nuances of what the president specializes in and the willingness to say what the issues are. what people are trying to do. instead turn it into a shiny object pulls people so much further away on an issue that people have not gotten their heads around and they are going their ideological corners. i don't think anybody knows the end game. you don't want any part of this. they don't want to get in the middle of it. they understand the kneeling and the protests are not about the flag. they are not about the troops or any of those issues. much more detailed than that. the debate has been taken in an

opposite direction and people don't feel good about where it's going. i don't think is winning this. when it comes to being ticked off about people kneeling for the fight and the anthem, pea does speak for millions of people. they feel that is disrespectful and there is a different way to have the conversation. he spoked that by saying and chilling free speech saying you should fire these guys, they had to do something saying you don't get to say what we say. the standing with locked arms and the kneeling therefore and standing up is a way to thread that. when you talk about the end game, here's the end game. when americans watch nfl players kneel on foreign soil in britain and stand for god save the queen, you don't want to be on that side of the debate. he put himself on the pro flag,

pro anthem debate even though it's more complicated than that. that's not great for the nfl and people who rally around them. and it's not great when you get into a situation where a three-time combat vet who stood up and there was confusion about what the steelers would do in the fraught situation ends up having to explain himself for why he stood for the anthem? >> you make a great point that if you get villanueva at a table with the president of the united states, they could probably work this out. we didn't show you the video. we have the video of what the cowboy diagnosis last night. the president's tweet said they took a knee before the anthem and stood for the anthem. the president's tweet saluting that, i took that as a way -- there is the off-ramp. can they do that instead? can they exercise their right and make their protest and stand for the anthem.

the president started by calling them sobs. it's hard for them to find a compromise where you get to make your point and i get your point and i get your right to make that point, that would be a conversation worth having. >> anything he endorses is poisoned by the original. >> you don't get the idea that the president is trying to start a conversation. >> he wants to be the programming director of nfl television. if you do this your ratings will go up. this whole idea that the ratings are down because of the protests. that's not true. nascar ratings are far down as well. they are supposed to be at least in the president's eyes, the most patriotic league in the universe. this is the fight that the president wants, we will see how long it takes. he will probably be diverted to something else, but for now this is where he is.

>> we are definitely solving problems. >> to that point there. we will take a quick break and when we come back, it's election day. a big election day for the president in alabama.

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i expressed my view that i am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion by the russian state or anyone in the trump campaign. or anyone associated with donald trump. and i reiterated my view that in my continue, donald trump has the potential to be a truly great and transformative president. i would be happy to take your questions. >> [inaudible]. >> i believe his attorneys informed my attorneys of that. >> you aware of any other type of legal action in that realm? >> i am not. >> have you been contacted? >> i have not. i never heard from mr. mueller's office and the fbi and only had an initial contact from the senate intelligence committee asking us to preserve records.

>> they team to know neither when or what the charge may be. >> on the question focused on your discussions going from the intermediary as well as this discussion. >> a fair amount. a substantial amount. >> from the democrats who are asking the questions? >> democrats. >> did you have any communication beyond that? >> none whatsoever. the entire exchange takes place between august 16th and september 9th. many weeks after the publication by wikileaks of the dnc material. meaning collusion with gucifer

and the hacking would be impossible unless i owned a time machine, which i do not. >> in your view russian his nothing to do with the hacks or mr. podesta? >> that is my belief. i subscribe to the view published in the magazine several weeks ago that the computer science seems to indicate an inside job. i don't know whether the dnc was hacked at all. i don't know that it was hacked by russians. now on the basis of this report, i tend to believe that it was an inside job meaning the data was downloaded to a thumb drive and spirited out of the building. i would point out that craig murray who was a british diplomat said he received information from the dnc from a thumb drive and passed it to

wikileaks. >> have you said what you plan to say here today and spoke to him at all about this testimony? >> i have not. i'm not sure he was aware i was testifying although he may have read it in "the washington post." we have no information on that. there is no current schedule to do so. i would be willing to do so on a voluntary basis and welcome the opportunity. >> have you heard from the white house? >> i have not. >> it was not about this conversation. there were partisan clashes and disagreements or differences of opinion. nothing that made me

uncomfortable. i prefer not to. i don't think that members of the committee buy some of my claims, but they have no evidence to the contrary. i did not because the length of my testimony which included that stuff went over and i was only afforded 45 minutes. i'm not holding my breath. >> did you decline to say that your intermediaries? >> yes, i did. that's the only question i declined to answer. mr. castro seems about the opinion that has not changed.

i told them i would consider it. the reason i am not committing that name is because he's a journalist and the conversation is off the record. i'm an opinion journalist and he's a journalist. i'm not going to burn somebody i spoke to off the record. if he releases me and allows me to release it, i will give it to the committee and i will try to do that. >> you both come here and in the statements before or after, and by and large, do you look at this as a serious exercise? >> it's a political exercise. they make the charges for you in a public forum for maximum coverage to benefit the senate campaign or reelection. they only allow you to respond behind closed doors and they

won't even allow the release of a transcript. it puts you in an unfair advantage. in the case of michael ka puto, he attended the session to answer all questions truth flee and congresswoman smear -- i mean spear said he misaligned himself. i don't believe that's true. he auditioned or interviewed for the job of fbi direct director the day after mr. comey was resigned or fired or passed over for the job. that constitutes a conflict. >> you made that recommendation? >> i have not. but i have written it and said it on info wars.com and written it in the daily caller. the president may be aware of it. >> what was the disposition and

they were trying to do the report. there were clashes about the appropriateness of some questions. overall it was collegial. they asked me if i had any knowledge of russian collusion. collusion with any member of the trump campaign, trump family, donald trump, trump associates and trump friends and trump supporters. i said no. mr. schiff said we could ask the same question of vladimir putin. mr. gowdy took exception to that. >> [inaudible].

>> i believe i was fairly treated if that's your question. i reserve judgment until i see the final report. the exchange was professional and everyone was courteous. i have no complaints about anyone's conduct. >> have you spoken with mr. manafort? >> yes. he believes as i do that it is outrageous. they took the folders of the do you means that they had and photographed all of this custom italian suits in his closet. i cannot imagine for what reason. english is better than italian tailoring for my body shape. >> [inaudible]. . >> i don't and neither does he. >> you said she not --