doing. i don't know if you saw the rocket boosters when they're coming back down. to me that was more amazing than watching the rocket go up. nobody saw it before, where they're saving the boosters and they come back without wings, without anything, and they land so beautifully. we're at the forefront and we're doing it in a private manner. at the same time nasa is interested in doing their own projects. but we're bringing that whole space flight back. we'll be sending something very beautiful to mars in the very near future, and we're going to areas that nobody thought possible, certainly not this quickly. so we're very proud. so they had these outside. in fact, they were spread much further apart. i said, let's bring it a little closer to the cameras can see it. it's really amazing what's happening with regard to space and our country. thank you all very much. thank you. thank you.

thank you very much. >> when you said you wanted more on tariffs, what did you mean by that? >> i'll take that. defense is so important. we need steel, we need aluminum. we're negotiating with mexico, we're negotiate ingwiing with c and the nafta. also involved with that is national defense, but if we reach a deal, it's most likely that we won't be charging those two countries the tariffs. we have other countries that are very much involved with us on trade but also on military and working together with military, and we'll be making a decision as to who they are. we have a very close relationship with australia, we have a trade surplus with australia. great country, long-term partner. we'll be doing something with them. we'll be doing something with some other countries. we're going to be very flexible.

at the same time we have some friends and some enemies where we have been tremendously taken advantage of over the years on trade. and on military. if you look at nato, where germany pays 1% and we're paying 4.2% of a much bigger gdp, not fair. so we have a lot of things going on. i think generally with nato because of my involvement we've taken in $33 billion more. within the next year and a half, they expect we will have taken in $33 billion more. and mr. staltenburg, who is running things, is very thankful. he said it's incredible what's happened since we became involved. i became involved by complaining, because it was not fair. we were spending 80% of the money. good for them but it helps them

a lot more than it helps us. we look at the military equation, too. general mattis, it's very important to him and to me to maintain those great relationships. at the same time we both want fairness. so we view the trade and we view the military, and to a certain extent, they go hand in hand. and a lot of progress has been made. you know, i'm very proud of nato, because with nato, when you see the kind of money that's pouring in that was never going to come in because people were delinquent, countries were delinquent, they weren't paying, and now they're paying. not all of them are paying the fair amount. some owe billions and billions of dollars of money. they owe billions and billions from past years. they haven't paid it and that's not fair. they want us to protect and they want us to be a good partner, and then they're delinquent on payment or they haven't made payments. or they haven't made payments which are fair. so we're looking at all of those things. we're talking about tremendous,

massive amounts of money. but that goes along with trade also, because we're looking at defense. defense is very much also a part of trade. so we're going to be very flexible. but as an example with mexico and canada, we're going to be throwing nafta -- we're negotiating nafta right now. i think we're doing quite well. it was always my feeling that i would terminate nafta or renegotiate it, one or the other. i guess renegotiating would be easier, but we'll be perhaps coming up with a deal on nafta fairly soon, or we will terminate nafta and we'll start all over again. okay? thank you very much, everybody. thank you. thank you. what's that? sticking with 10 and 25 initially. i'll have a right to go up and down depending on the country, and i'll have the right to drop out countries or add countries. we just want fairness. because we have not been treated

fairly by other countries. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much, everybody. >> welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. the president of the united states in the cabinet room of the white house. arms folded for most of that discussion. the president has a big announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs later on today. still unclear exactly what he will announce. you heard the president start with a complaint about trade, turn it into a complaint of some european countries not paying, in his view, a fair amount into the alliance. the president made his case and offered some details about what he plans to announce three and a half hours from now at the white house. let's begin there, then. let's go to cnn's jeff zeleny at the white house. giving conflicting amounts of what he will announce later today, how presumptive it may be. what do we know after listening

to the president? >> reporter: i think we have a pretty clear window of why there has been confusion at the white house. just listen to the president talk about that. a, it's complicated, of course, as all these agreements are, but he's also conflating and mixing some things here. but there has been confusion at the white house. yesterday they were preparing for a 3:30 signing ceremony, this morning it was scrapped, and now it's added back onto the schedule. the president clearly wants to show action on this in some way. but as he was saying there, there certainly are not going to be immediate exemptions for canada and mexico. he says that will come down the road, but it certainly does not sound like it will be immediate. but john, the pushback from republicans, from red state republicans, farm state republicans, joni ernst, republican senator from iowa, strongly opposed to this. they are very worried about any major changes to nafta. how that will affect the ag economy, the farm economy. this is far from a done deal here. even after the president signs

the policy this afternoon, it could be symbolic, it could be real. there are still likely to be hearings on capitol hill and much blowback here. so the president articulating his view of taking a shot at his outgoing chief economic adviser gary cohn there, calling him a globalist. but the president has vascil vascillated on meeting with mexico. whether he will or won't, we don't know. >> jeff zeleny at the white house. jeff, if you get any more details in the next hour, just raise your hand and come back on. phil mattingly, and mary catherine hamm of "the federalist." i want to start with one of the things the president said, because white house aides aren't the only ones who contradict

themselves or tell different versions from time to time. sometimes the president does. the staff wanted him to wait. the president tweeted out this morning at 3:30 this afternoon he'll have a big meeting on trade. it could impact the global economy. his own party worries that it's bad policy and bad politics in the middle of an election year. here's part of what the president said. >> american aluminum and steel, you'll be hearing about that at length at 3:30. aluminum and steel are the backbone of our nation. they're the bedrock of our defense industrial base. our greatest presidents from washington to jackson to lincoln to mckinley and others, they protected our country from outside influence, from other countries coming in and stealing our wealth and stealing our jobs and stealing our companies. and we're going to be very fair, we're going to be very flexible, but we're going to protect the american worker as i said i would do in my campaign. >> they sometimes say throwback

thursday. mckinley jackson, the president talking about a year where america did have protection on the trade policies. what the leaders of the party says is those global ideas have changed and you're out of date. what have we been able to decipher that's real and firm? this is a multi-billion-dollar decision that will affect the u.s. economy, the global economy, relationships with his own party in the november election, and it seems they're still jotting down the details. >> absolutely. this is actually reminding me of inauguration day when we were sitting in the wings trying to figure out was the president going to sign any executive orders and if so, which? clearly what you heard from the president right there is he's embracing, as he has for many, many years, his protectionist approach. he wants to be able to say, i have applied these tariffs, i'm

holding our trading partners to task for what he considers to be abusive behavior. but by continuing to come back to this idea of we'll be flexible and we'll make exceptions but failing to be specific about what those are, he's adding to the uncertainty here, and he's adding to his responsibility, his challenge in showing that this is a policy that is workable. not just conceptually, the way he talked about it in the campaign, but actually in practice. >> in most administrations if you have a big debate over this, which they have a big debate, you shut down. you do it in private until you have a final decision. this has been, to be polite, a work in progress on being kind. >> watching something play out in realtime. as a reporter, and you can say this for the president in general in the last 15 months, it's fascinating to watch it play out in realtime. we usually don't see those things. anyone who tells you they know exactly what's real and what's happening right now is likely to be wrong in the next 20 or 30 minutes. that's not an overstatement.

that's reporting. >> and they acknowledge it. >> i spoke to a number of lawmakers in the capitol who asked me, have you talked to anybody in the rnc, have you talked to anybody who knows what's happening now? these are republican lawmakers who are very interested who usually have a shot to the oval office who is asking me what i know on policy. this is kplicomplicated and this wide-ranging circumstances in the white house. if you can't do the process in the normal way, that could be wide open in some way or another. when you listen to the president, you get some semblance of where the discussions are related to nafta when it comes to mexico and canada, or related to defense allies there, do those then undercut the rationale of the process itself, the security exemption? you kind of have a big picture

of where everything is going right now, but you don't have the details, and the details are everything. >> the details are everything. it affects aluminum and steel companies in the united states, it affects everybody else in the united states. farmers are especially worried about the farm states who do so much exports. the process is a mess. i don't think anyone can dispute that. the president said, australia is our friend, we'll try to work something out. he didn't say he would, he said i wanted to. and then essentially he lashed out at germany saying, but not them because i don't like what they do with nato. separate from trade but he makes the connection. can you connect those dots for me? >> it's very hard to follow where the president is trying to go with all of this. obviously he sees this as not only a political issue but it's a foreign policy issue and he's trying to negotiate trade deals. he feels what he's trying to put forward he can use to get better deals from europe, from canada and mexico.

i believe the president is sort of expanding what we have previously seen in terms of what these 232 negotiations are supposed to be about, which is national security. the president is sort of broadening that out to economic security and security when it comes to trade deals. obviously that's leading a number of members of congress to push back and say, actually, this isn't about national security. this is the president trying to get better trade deals out of our allies and some of our enemies, and it's going to be harder to defend that when we talk about going to the wto or we talk about even trying to draw up the legal papers to defend this. there is a lot of concern not only in the west wing but also on capitol hill about whether or not this is something that will stand beyond this afternoon or whether it will get struck down right away. >> i think there's a couple things going on. in the trump white house, everything is a fight and every fight is public. here we are watching it. there's also the slap-dash nature of this white house and how it does throw things together like this on the fly,

which is not a great way of doing policy. there might be another part that is strategic or a method to his madness which is this tendency of his to make a giant asterisk. again, not helpful to go happening this way, but i think that might be part of what's going on here. and the last part is he's changeable on a lot of policies, but on protectionism, he has been more consistent than almost anything else. he genuinely thinks we're losing and he has a misunderstanding of trade deficits. i have a trade deficits from bojangle bojangle's. i buy all the bagels from them, but we both get what we want. countries with bigger tariffs have bigger trade deficits, so we want to avoid that. >> the retaliation question is a huge one. for republicans who opposed the president this is a trifecta in

that he has a policy issue they think is wrong. gary cohn, the chief economic adviser leaving. he had frustration over a number of things but he said this was the last straw. the president sided with the protectionist crowd. this is his last day in the cabinet which means the president had to make a joke about it. >> this is gary cohn's last meeting in the cabinet and of the cabinet. he is terrific. he may be a globalist but i still like him. he's seriously a globalist. but in his own way, he's a nationalist because he loves our country. where is gary? you love our country. [ applause ] >> and he's going to go out and make another couple hundred million, then he's going to maybe come back. you might come back, right? >> it is interesting, number one -- it's a weird way to say goodbye to someone who has served you well for more than a

year and is leaving in frustration, but i guess it's a compliment. forget the specifics for a second. a lot of republicans just worry about his constant churn, policy that affects the global economy being made on the fly hours before a big announcement. months before a midterm election. some trust the churning even more so than the specifics who have them worried this president is leading us into a disaster. >> this is -- donald trump would break with a lot of their principles and positions and would do the same thing. they were with him lock, stock and barrel. now they're at a point where he is tackling a policy issue where

the republican party and donald trump are very much at odds. and you have the complication that any sense of process that has been instilled in this white house, and there was only a little bit when john kelly came in last summer, seems to be completely gone. if it's because kelly is on the rocks. you heard the president say gary cohn may be back. or it's because porter is gone, whatever the case may be, it's feeding on itself. every departure is ending in more chaos. >> we'll keep reporting, try to get more details. when we come back. you said $30 dollars. it was $30 before the pizza-ordering fee and the dog-sitting fee. are those my heels? with t-mobile taxes and fees are already included, so you get four unlimited lines for just $35 bucks each.

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house. it said, the white house official chief of staff john kelly is warning the president to be careful about how he speaks to witnesses in the russian investigation. this in the "new york times" that the president has spoken to at least two key witnesses in the counsel investigation. his white house counsel don mcgahn and former chief of staff reince priebus. the article details the president having conversations with them after their interview with the special counsel. he is saying, quote, that it's pretty clear kellyanne conway admonishes him constantly and he's not the only one. they believe, number one, it could be inappropriate, and number two, it could put the president in a precarious legal position to be talking to witnesses after they speak to the special counsel. not surprising that the president would be curious about what the witnesses are telling the special counsel. as i say from this chair often, one of the things that's interesting when the president lashes out is they know more and he knows more than we do. when he lashes out at the

investigation, i'm always curious as to what has he just been told. to the account in "the times." it says, number one, don mcgahn testified, and don mcgahn told the special counsel that the president at one point asked him to fire bob mueller, the special counsel. after that, apparently "the times" reports asked mcgahn to put out a public statement saying that's not true. mcgahn would not do so. politically the president trying to help himself, if you have. legally, what's the jeopardy? >> what we also know about the episode where he told mcgahn to fire mueller is that mcgahn then told mueller about that episode. so it's not necessarily just about politically wanting to have a statement out there saying this never happened, it also could be construed as trying to get a witness in this investigation to change their story. and that, i think, is where the problem lies and why he is being warned by kelly and many others, including don mcgahn, to not talk to witnesses, to not allow

it to appear as if he's trying to influence this investigation, because we already know bob mueller is looking at the possibility that the president sought to obstruct justice. and while my understanding, i'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is it's not illegal to ask witnesses what they talked about or to have a conversation with a witness about what they talked about, it could go to an intent to try to cover things up if there are enough instances like this that are uncovered by mueller in which the president seems to be questioning or trying to undermine the testimony. >> that's the key point. if it's information gathering, it's one thing. if it is part of a continued effort, lawyers might use the term conspiracy, to gather information or to get people to change their story or gather information from them that then helps you do something to get in the way of the investigation, that should be left to his lawyers, right? it shouldn't be the president himself asking, how did it go before the grand jury? >> it should be but it hasn't been from almost the beginning of this when the president was trying to get james comey to

testify and say publicly that he was not under investigation. the president has taken a very personal role in this when he was sort of drafting a statement for his son on air force i. that's normally something left to the lawyers, left to the communications official, but the president himself has seen this russia investigation as a cloud hanging over his presidency, and he's tried to be his own spokesperson, be his own pr man on this, and that's really gotten him into a lot of trouble where it seems like he's tampering with witnesses, it seems like he's tampering with the investigation. he's forgetting all the various lines that should be drawn between the justice department and the independence of the attorney general, calling jeff sessions out on twitter. obviously the president is concerned about this investigation and is doing various types of activities to try to make this investigation go away. it's only making it stay longer. >> which is why he should leave it to the lawyers on who is trained on what is appropriate and not appropriate and what you should ask about. he asked the former chief of

staff, hey, were they nice to you? you could take that as, okay, just this gentle, were they nice to you, or you could take it as the president understands he can't ask certain questions, or it would be inappropriate to ask certain questions, so he asks a general question hoping you'll share. >> to your point, there is a reason you listen to your lawyers on these types of things. generally they know why they're telling you not to do something. i think it's important to kind of look at it from the broad perspective of the white house, too. they've made every effort to compartmentalize their staff away from what's going on. and the president's willingness to continue to weigh in on this, to ask people about this -- his perspective on this, at least the one publicly, and regularly what he's saying publicly and thinking about behind closed doors, and not shy about that type of stuff, is he doesn't believe the investigation is legit, he doesn't believe he did anything wrong, so therefore he's trying to weigh in and put

a stop to what is a witch hunt, as he calls it. i just think the danger here goes not just to the oval office but also the staff around him, which need to be insulated, want to be insulated, are working on things every day like tariff policy, or whatever they're working on, and all of a sudden they're drawn into a potentially legal and precarious situation because the president is curious. >> 13 months in, it's yet another example that the president would say we are being fool fools? >> i would say nothing has changed. this is a precarious situation where the keep your nose clean approach would be the best approach for appearances legally and politically, but he will refuse to do that because the temptation to ask about something that he is understandably upset and curious about, he's not going to be able to resist it. >> i want to bring in other reporting on russia getting some special attention from the special counsel. a meeting 14 months ago on the

other side of the world. the question, was it an effort to set up a back-channel between the trump administration and the russian government? he said the crown prince of abu dhabi invited him to talk about business deals. he also met with president vladimir putin. prince said that meeting was unplanned. now we're learning george nader was also there who has ties to the trump team and lawyers in abu dhabi. we're told a very different story from erik prince. manu, break down the issues that matter here. >> reporter: well, george nader, who is a businessman, now we have learned was in the seychelles and attended one of those meetings, he's now cooperating with bob mueller's investigation. what we understand, as part of mueller's investigation, he is determining whether or not this meeting was part of an effort to set up this back-channel

discussion between the kremlin and washington when the trump administration came to power. when erik prince met with the intelligence committee last november, he denied this discussion and downplayed these meetings and did not mention at all that george nader apparently was part of these meetings. now, democrats in particular are raising new concerns over erik prince's testimony, saying that perhaps he was not truthful when he met with his committee last year. here's what adam schiff said moments ago. >> do you think erik prince lied to the committee about the seychelles meeting? >> i don't know if the public reports about what mr. nader may be saying are accurate or not. all i can say is if those reports are accurate, there is clearly a significant discrepancy between that version and what we heard in erik prince's testimony. >> schiff wants both nader to come before this committee and

for prince to return to the committee and provide further documents. and that's something, john, republicans are not yet committing to. as we know, republicans are looking to end this investigation soon after this corwin lewandowski testimony from today. the question is what do they do now with this potentially conflicting information from this one witness who came before the committee last year, john. >> at least we know it's of interest to the investigation that matters most. ma manu raju on capitol hill. trump is upset with sarah sanders' response to what she said about a porn actress.

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when. whether she meant to or not, sanders acknowledged for the first time the president's involvement. her excuse? she was taking, quote, steroids. >> anything beyond that, i would refer you to the president's outside counsel. >> you said there's arbitration that's already been won? by whom and when? >> by the president's personal attorneys, and for details on that i would refer you to them. >> you're aware of them so what more can you share with us? >> i can share that the arbitration cwas won in the president's favor and i would refer you to the president's outside counsel for details on that. >> sanders was also asked about whether the president knew about the $130,000 payment by trump's personal attorney daniel cohen to daniels. >> did he know about the payment at the time? >> not that i'm aware of is not a no. that's a new thing they say at the white house because they've

said things so many times because the facts later have a contradict contradicted. the key point is the president has denied this relationship. through spokespeople, the president has denied this relationship. she says the president's personal attorney was won. the daniels side distributes that. but he was in an arbitration hearing about a document. if the president's lawyer is in an arbitration hearing about a document, the document says this. all parties agree to the facts. prior to entering into this agreement, pp, the pseudonym for stormy daniels, had an agreement with dd, meaning donald trump. as more fully defined below, only some of which is in tangible form which includes, but is not limited to information, certain still images and/or text messages

which were authored by or relate to dd. >> so it says stormy daniels got text messages, other information authored by or related to dd, who the hearing says was donald trump. >> she's acknowledging the president's connection to this, like you said, before either on purpose or inadvertently. up to now, the white house has been pretty adamant that they're not going to address these questions. that was asked and answered during the campaign. but the problem for the white house is that because of this new legal action stormy daniels is taking, you can't refer back to questions that weren't being asked then. these are new questions now about this alleged agreement to shut her up before the election, and so i think in trying to figure out what to say that would shut down that line of questioning, she did acknowledge that there is a connection here. by saying that that arbitration, whether or not you agree that it was won or not won, but that it was decided in favor of the

preside president. she didn't say in favor of the president's lawyer or michael cohen or anything like that, but in favor of the president, she did lead to a lot of follow-up questions. >> she gave credence to a hush agreement, call it what you will, with a porn star that had an intimate relationship with the president from 2005 to 2007. >> you're just passively listening on the hill and you hear the word arbitration -- what? >> in the room there was an audible gasp. i wasn't in the room, but i was told when the word arbitration came up, you could hear people saying, what? >> here's why this matters and i think why yesterday's briefing matters. whether sarah did it intentionally or whatever the back story is as to why it all matters. this goes back to the "wall street journal" reporting on this which is unimpeachable, rock solid, related to court documents.

it's been consistent over the course of weeks and weeks and weeks. keep in mind, this is a porn star and a president allegedly in a relationship which has been the most important story for the better part of three months. they've been plugging away at this and they're not using named sources, they're using documents, things you can't fight because they're true and they're filed in court and people are signing off on them. people are agreeing these stated facts are accurate. i think that's why the story is important and it's picking up and people are paying a lot more attention. this is not speculation. these are court documents and the reporting has not disputed it in any way, shape or form up until this point. it's very clear now not only in the white house briefing room, but also by the president's lawyer, that it's not going away anytime soon and there are questions to be answered in the next couple weeks. >> and did the president know about the payment, and if he did, to what level of detail.

the president is on the record saying he didn't have this relationship. his attorney michael cohen who set up this llc and made the payment said the president didn't know about it. he's known to be sort of a gossipy guy, the president, around the white house. the idea that his personal attorney would do all this without the president's knowledge to stormy daniels' attorney is ludicrous. >> that he would engage in weeks of negotiation, that he would reach agreement, that he would then send $130,000 in connection with that agreement, that he would then later institute an arbitration proceeding without knowledge of his client. all of this to those of us that practice under the law as attorneys, it's ludicrous. >> what sarah sanders said from the podium yesterday lends credence to that. >> and that's why you have this very weak denial where she says, not that i'm aware of.

this story has been going on for more than two months now, so she's had plenty of time to talk to the president and ask him, did you know about this payment, what do you know about this? why was there a payment from your attorney to a porn star right before the election. and she's only saying, "not that i'm aware of" and that's a pretty weak denial since this story came out. if she were to talk to the president and he were to tell her, i knew nothing about this payment, this was not done with my approval, then she would come out and tell the reporters, no, the president had nothing to do with this. she didn't say that. she had a weak denial which lends more credence to the idea that the president did know about this and they're trying to cover their tracks. >> is this a daily or almost daily detouring to the tabloids, or does it matter? when you talk to republicans on the hill, they think something else that gets in the way of trying to keep a straight path in an already difficult election year. is it more than that? >> as phil points out, nobody has pushed back except for the

weak denials on the substance of this. when it comes to the white house credibility, it seems to me it's a hallmark of trump world employees like michael cohen, that they're very devoted to the president but they're also not great at shielding the principle from the things they should be. it doesn't smell right to me that he would actually get through this without having talked to the president because this is not something they're great at doing. in this sort of bizarre and sad world we're in where this is the 12th and 15th most important story in the day, in the end, do i think it will matter? i'm not sure it will. >> there are legal ramifications. you can't just put $130,000 into an election if this is election-related spending without reporting it. there are fcc guidelines that could also come into play here. >> bill clinton learned this from paula jones. if this lawsuit has a standing in court, people get to give depositions and there are more questions and we learn more and more and more. paul manafort, the former

trump campaign chairman arriving in virginia moments ago for an arraignment in one of two cases in federal court against him. we'll be right back.

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on our political radar today, how to tackle cyber threats from russia. the highest ranking american general in europe says at the moment he does not believe all u.s. agencies across the government are unified against russian cyber attacks. general curtis saprioti is the commander of europe. he said without getting into details that he has personally seen russian cyber attacks

against u.s. infrastructure. in ethiopia, he's underscoring what he calls security interests in the african content. ethiopia's leader says now in the past. rex tillerson talking to reporters just a short time ago. >> president donald trump has called africa a shithole. this is something africans are still digesting, and do you believe donald trump owes africans an apology? >> i think the united states' commitment to africa is clear in terms of the relationship. the president himself wrote a personal letter to the chairperson reaffirming the importance of this relationship. >> up next, florida lawmakers defy the nra and take action on gun control just weeks after that deadly massacre at a florida high school.

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it has the fiber found in many fruits and vegetables, all in a tasty chewable tablet. fiber choice: the smart choice. big decision now facing the florida governor rick scott. is he ready to anger the nra in an election year? yesterday over the objections of the nra, the republican-controlled legislature passed new gun controls. the bill raises the minimum age to buy firearms to 21, bans bump stocks, gives police more flexibility to take guns away from those believed to be mentally ill and provides school with funding if they want to train and arm certain school staffers. they said arming teachers is a bad idea and he wants time to think it over. >> when a bill gets to my desk, what they don't seem to be doing in washington, i'm going to

review the bill line by line, and the group i'm going to be talking to that impacted them so much is the families. >> it's a big deal. in a state where governor scott has been an ally of the nra, the state legislature has blocked any efforts to block gun controls. a big deal. not to the finish line yet. big deal in florida. a, big for the governor who is trying to be reelected. and b, with big elections this year, will it impact the debate in washington. >> florida is seen as a state for sort of a testing ground to see how far they can push the envelope for creating new gun rights and this is shifting the other way. i think there is a lot of concern among gun owners and specifically the nra that this could be a start of an avalanche of various states moving in this direction. i think raising the age from 18 to 21 for assault rifles is

something the nra has pushed against very strongly. and the idea that this is something the president has also floated, i think he's given some cover to, even some republican-led states to move in this direction. if scott fisigns this, i think we'll see other states follow. >> he praised the state and said this is very good legislation. is there a chance that congress will raise the age, to defy the nra? >> on capitol hill, to be fair, they haven't got taken lot ten details in terms of where the white house is. it's potentially to try putting it in a spending bill. why is florida important? because that's where things are going to be happening right now. the debate is not going anywhere at the moment. it's in the states where when you talk to people, where can there be real impact, where can there be real movement? it's in the states and hopefully

build to the federal. >> the students in parkland have been critical of this debate. thank you for joining us today on "inside politics." we'll see you back here tomorrow. wolf starts after a quick break. have a good day.

hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in washington, 8:00 p.m. in damascus. wherever you're watching from around the world, thank you very much for joining us. the president and the porn star. why the president is upset with his press secretary over her explanation for the payoff. this as accusations now surface. the president's team is threatening stormy daniels to stay quiet. plus a new policy. more confusion. white house staff scrambling to come up with something for the president to sign on tariffs. but there are new concerns about his plan. and the president reportedly asking at least two witnesses about their