tv Inside Politics CNN March 16, 2018 9:00am-10:00am PDT
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"inside politics" with john king starts right now. thank you, brianna, and welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. the president and his chief of staff reportedly make peace, but more white house changes are brewing and the national security adviser said to be on his way out. plus the special counsel hits close to home. subpoenas for trump organizational records dealing with russia and more. and the 2018 election map is changing. the odds of democrats taking back the house are on the rise. we begin today with a nonstop casting call that is the trump presidency and its impact on both policy and politics. by all accounts, the president is done with his national security adviser, any calling france to discuss possible replacements. new reporting today suggests the chief of staff john kelly is safe for now. president trump told the advisers tuesday, john kelly,
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quote, 100% safe. still, friends and advisers who have spoken with the president in recent days describe him as full of swagger and eager to make other big changes. depending on the day or the hour, others said to be on the bubble include the attorney general and the secretaries of housing and veterans affairs. remember, it took months for the president to actually fire rex tillerson as secretary of state. presidential rants often did not translate into immediate actions. but they did translate to anxiety. south korean diplomats now nervously asking this question around town. might h.r. mcmaster be replaced by a man who first made the case for a first strike against north korea? anxiety is an understatement for the mood among republicans. tough strategy amid a midterm debacle viewing. gop leaders say the president waves off their concerns and insists he knows best.
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let's get straight to the white house and bring in cnn's jeff zeleny. jeff, a lot of buzz this morning about a fire friday. how does it feel near the lunch hour? >> reporter: john, as we approach noon here, at least, in the east at the white house, the level of anxiety and apprehension certainly is palpable. people still do not know who will be in their positions coming up. but there is a sense here from top officials in the west wing telling other aides to focus on your work, try and ignore the rampant rumors of firings. they say they do not expect anything today. again, all of this could change with a simple action of a tweet. the president controls the timing here. that's what a senior white house official told me earlier today and stressed it again. the president controls the timing here. and by all accounts, he's very much enjoying this speculation as he does try and change his cabinet, change his advisers somewhat. we do believe that the national
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security adviser h.r. mcmaster is among the next big departures here. is that going to be today, tomorrow, next week, next month? we do not know that. but there is not a sense that there is anything imminent in the next hours coming to be. now, john, we have stood here on fridays before not aware of what was coming by the end of the day, so of course this could change. but again, as you said, focusing on the governing here, that meeting with the south korea happened only a week ago. what is happening behind the scene s a key part of that. going into the weekend, the staff should be the same on monday morning but the president could decide to change it. all is calm and sunny here at the white house so far today, john. >> thank you to jeff zeleny for sharing his reporting. here with me, karen of the
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"washington post" and others. we sometimes laugh and smile about these things because the chaos is constant, but i can't imagine what it's like to be whether you're a senior official or a worker bee inside the white house. this is your daily environment. constant questions, constant uncertainty and a boss, president of the united states, who seems to revel in undermining and humiliating the people that work for him. >> that's very true. staffers from the bottom to the top are all dealing with this in different ways. a lot of folks being walked out of the white house for all kinds of different issues, whether it's security clearance problems or other things that are unknown, and then there is also the uncertainty from the president himself. what direction does he want to take his administration? people are losing their allies, their bosses, their connections day to day and they don't know where anybody stands. it's uncertain and that's very real, but that's the way trump likes it. what's interesting is everybody kind of knew that going into
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this administration. all of these people knew that's the way trump was, but the problem is, this has really taken it into overdrive. because the president, as jeff just pointed out, seems confident, he seems strident, and he doesn't want to listen to people who say put the brakes on this for all kinds of other reasons. he wants to do exactly what he wants. >> very important, friends outside the white house i've spoken to says the president has a swagger. he doesn't think it's a bad thing and that scares people on capitol hill because they think all the chaos is hurting them. let's separate the fact from the unknown, if you will. by all accounts, h.r. mcmaster is done. this one seems very much like the tillerson track. we've known for weeks, for months the president and h.r. mcmaster don't have much in common, they're very different people. apparently he's been calling around on some of the options. one of them is john bolton who served in the bush administration who the south
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koreans are petrified might get the job because of his views about north korea. others are more mainstream candidates. former chief of staff keith kellogg, stephen biegun, ford executive. any idea how he'll go here? >> i think what you typically see, though, from the president, is even when there are reports of this is what's going to happen, he'll say, no, it's not, and go in another direction to keep people guess forging for ae and then ultimately do what everybody guessed months before. the weird thing about some of these names. yaur yeah, bolton's name was being kicked around for a long time, but you put bolton in the talks and these things don't match up
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with policy. >> he doesn't really get along with kelly, either. he wrote an op-ed in 2017 basically saying he couldn't get access to the president because of staffing changes. staffing changes were reince priebus was out and john clkell was in. this seems like a combination of "the young and the restless," "general hospital" and "another world." i have cabinet officials asking me what i'm hearing about what might happen to their boss. they're worried that the cabinet official might wake up and see something on twitter about their fate. so this sense of unease and constant interruption may be great and comfortable for the president, it's certainly not good for the people leaving and it's not good for policy. >> the president likes bolton because he likes him on television, but you said bolton's policy views are a complete departure over what the
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president campaigned on. bolton is the absolute opposite. he's a hawk. that dynamic is very interesting. and you wonder how that would square if he does end up in the white house. >> you hear this morning michael bender of the "wall street journal," frequent visitor here on "inside politics" that the president and chief kelly had a meeting last night. there's been a lot of tension between the two of them, talk that kelly is on his way out, too. today the message is kelly is 100% safe. on the one hand you say, good, that's stability. the chief of staff is staying, that will bring some calm. on the other hand, every time those words have come out in the past, those who don't want john kelly to stay start a campaign in the media saying he's the problem, not the solution. >> and the president and john kelly are having issues they need to work out at some point, and they keep having these face to faces. that's one of the things we hear about kelly, is that he and
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trump, they can kind of duke it out on whatever they're disagreeing about. this is another one of those cases. that's in contradiction to the white house official line which is, there's absolutely nothing wrong here. john kelly is perfectly happy, everything is peachy keen. clearly there is a problem here with the president and his chief of staff where they're not always on the same page, and they may not always get along. kelly mayor may not be looking for the exits. he put that on hold for now, but that's a story we continue to watch in part because of this dynamic. he is someone having some trouble with the boss who increasingly doesn't want to listen to him or really anyone else. >> i'm going to play this sound. a trump supporter is going to say, oh, whatever. jeff flake is in new hampton today. he's a critic of the president. he's been a critic of the president from the very beginning. but a lot of republicans express the sentiment you hear from senator flake.
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this is talking specifically about general mcmaster and the possibility he will leave the white house. what a lot of republicans worry about is that as the president makes these changes, he's looking for people who say yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir and will not push back and challenge him. >> i think he's been a stabilizing force in the white house, and has, i think, pushed back on certain things that the president has wanted to do. i think that pushback has been needed and helpful, so i am concerned that whoever replaces him won't provide the same honesty. >> it's always been an element of what i'll call politely the strange dysfunction between the president and his party, where a bunch of people who don't agree with the president, they don't trust his instinct s, they don' think he's figured out the president thing, that everyone
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needs to agree with him. >> remember when he said general mattis was the only one keeping the country from chaos? now you're talking about all of those people being gone. mattis is the only one who has not had his tenure cut short and now you're seeing that worry spread over capitol hill. it's important that the president have yes men, but maybe they're not yes men, they just have a different view. pompeo is a huge hawk on that. he matches up with trump much more. bolton, just by definition, he would have to change his entire life record on foreign policy, so that's probably not a yes man situation. sometimes, yes, that seems to be the problem, and sometimes no, he just seems to be picking people whose very strong idealogy just happens to match up more with his and that has implications for these major
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but i'm not standing still... and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real. ♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ everything is working, just like it should ♪ welcome back. the russia special counsel is sending a strong message and crossing the president's red line in doing so. cnn has confirmed that the special counsel served subpoenas on the trump administration, asking for records from the trump businesses. this from the "new york times" which first reported the news. in the subpoena delivered in recent weeks, mr. mueller ordered the trump organization to hand over all documents relate to do russia and other topics he is investigating. the words deserving special attention there are "other topics." remember, we know the president draws a line.
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>> mueller was looking at your family's finances and your finances unrelated to russia, is that a red line? >> i would say yes. >> how significant is this. in anyone who has been paying attention, if you don't think that this has something to do with the president's otherwise restless mood, you have been paying attention. >> i definitely think it's significant in the sense that it is both a warning shot that they are moving in this direction. they're doing it in a way that is kind of loud, a subpoena instead of just simply asking for the documents. and also that there's a part of the special counsel mandate that deals with other matters that maya rise fr arise from the coue investigation. that's a big deal here. if there is concern on the president's part that mueller is going in that territory, this would be the way to do it. if they find anything else, they would be obligated to pursue it,
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and that's why you would enter into red line territory. >> it's relatively easy for a prosecutor to get a subpoena from a grand jury. but to your point, it gives you backup. this is not just some rogue prosecutor saying, i want everything. he went and presented some factual evidence, some predicate evidence to a grand jury saying we need to subpoena records because we think this. plus it's bob mueller who everything he does has to be run by the president's deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who quoted this week saying this in "usa today." remember, the subpoenas were issued in recent reeweeks. rod rosenstein said, the special counsel is not an unguided missile. i don't believe there is any justification at this point for terminating the special counsel. >> this investigation isn't going anywhere. the president has been told this several times from folks in the inner circle, that it's going to wrap up by thanksgiving, by the end of 2017. we're well into 2018, this could
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go on for many months. so you understand why the president is so nervous and acting out radically in recent ways. we remember what happened with president clinton from whitewater to monica lewinsky. he wasn't removed from office. but this comes from a president who can talk red lines all he wants, but he doesn't get to draw them. >> but he can start firing his attorney general or his deputy attorney general, but any time he does that, he's in a worse position. the senate is in no mood to give him a new attorney general because they don't want to aid him in this or cover things up. if you go down the chain, getting rid of rosenstein, the question would be who would take his place, right? you need to get rid of one of the people at the top to actually push mueller out the
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door. >> you mentioned senator chuck grassley, senator lindsey graham said it would blow up the committee. they've stayed back and tried to bite their tongues about all of this. i get back to the point the president's deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, a career prosecutor who approved the subpoenas, bob mueller came to him and put some level of threshold evidence before him that we have reason to ask for these documents. >> right. and the other thing i want to add about the senate and the house, for that matter, this is close to an election year. the closer we get to november, it could affect the election. this could i mperil his party a well as his white house. >> we want to you listen this morning.
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this is felix stader. this happened to be just at the time businessman donald trump was getting ready to run for president. the trump organization said the president's children were there by coincidence at the same time, and this is why the special investigation is going to go on for a long time, felix stader says no. >> the idea that you went to russia with trump's children to advance business interests, is that true? >> that is true. >> because you know the trump organization says it's not true, that felix was just there at the same time, it was not coordinated. is that true? >> the president asked me to be in russia at the same time. >> the president asked you? >> yes, sir. >> directly? >> yes, sir. >> if you're curious about the proposed trump tower, if you're curious about other interaction
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with russians around that time frame, answers like that contradicting what the trump organization has said off the record makes you understand why the special counsel wants documents. >> there have been these questions swirling between where is the line between trump and the trump family's personal business interests and where does it become about the roles they play in service of the country? we could boil this all down to the original question, which is, why don't you just separate yourselves from the terms in the white house, which they would not do? the people who are not bearing the last name trump is starting to say, no, the line you're giving is not accurate, and yes, there were business deals made. that opens questions about previous iterations about attempts to actually make deals happen with russia, and this is what happens. >> ask just this cast of characters. felix stader, sam nunberg, roger
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stone. people have all their own stories of what happened here, and it seems on the president's part, the lack of evidence how this can really go sideways, considering all these people are going before the special counsel under subpoena, under oath, and they have to testify so they don't go to jail. >> we'll keep an eye on that as well. quick break, and then we began the week knowing the republicans were in trouble. at the end of the week, we know, with a new map, the republicans are in even more trouble. for all the people who sneeze around dust. there's flonase sensimist allergy relief. it relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. it's more complete allergy relief. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. and 6 is greater than 1. flonase sensimist.
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leading. no official declaration yet. in pennsylvania 2018, the democrats carried this by 15 points. the suburban area of southern allegheny county has the republicans in a panic and has trump reassessing the map. here's where we began the week looking at the house of representatives. solid republican seats, likely republican seats, leaning republican seats. you see the toss-ups here? same on the blue side. '17 races change. all the shifts move toward the democrats. here are the new numbers. fewer solid seats for the republicans, fewer lean seats for the republicans, more toss-ups and better numbers on that side for the democrats. democrats are on offense, republicans are on defense. nancy pelosi are incredibly happy. >> he won. if he hadn't won, you might have a question.
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he won. won the race. the d next to his name was very significant in those blue parts. he made it a tremendous and great and successful effort to minimize the damage in the red-red. i feel pretty confident we're going to win big, we're going to win a lot of the seats. >> it is march. democrats have their own internal issues which we'll get to in a second. but when you see it's not just cnn, other organizations that do the house rankings as well, maybe moving a fewer number of seats, but when you look at the pennsylvania results and you look at the map, where do the democrats have good candidates. everything we just talked about with the russian chaos or parts of it, everything is trend ago way from the republicans. >> republicans are completely demoralized at this point. there is a tendency to overplay special elections. this was a seat that trump won by 20 points and right now it looks like a democrat won.
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that is internalized. democrats, on the other hand, are energized. they're marching in the streets in addition to marching in the polls. in march, right now, it really does look good for democrats. >> democrats are also saying, listen, if you are a candidate who is highly rated by the nra and wants to film a commercial where you're shooting a gun, and you want to say you're not backing nancy pelosi, then have at it. that is the kind of concessions they're making, and you can see the work of the dccc in some of she's races. in techs exas, for instance, th picked a guy who has a really good rating with the nra, so they are trying to figure out this map and how they can eat into the trump coalition of suburban white women, union workers who showed up big for conor lamb and older voters as well. >> most republicans want the president to be quiet and get out of the way.
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that's what they want. they want the president to be quiet and get out of the way. now, the president just tweeted this on a nevada senate race which has a republican incumbent, dean heller, the president tweeting, it would be great for the republican party of nevada and its unity if good guy danny tarkanian would run for congress and dean heller, who is doing a really good job, could run for senate unopposed. >> this goes back to the president not knowing which horse to pick at any point, but you can tell he's getting a little shaken at what's going on around the country looking at this. the democrats are trying to build a strategy for how can we build on this and flip the house? the republicans are basically trying to keep themselves in line right now. b batten down the hatches, hold firm, don't start running for
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the exits. you don't want to have republicans fighting each other is what you're trying to do is actually solidify as many of the seats as you've got and not lose them. right now -- i used to work for the las vegas suns. these are pretty big personalities and that he probably won't listen. >> two months ago the president's chief strategist steve bannon, then chief strategist, was openly advocating a strategy of republicans running against other republicans in big races like this. and other folks like mitch mcconnell have been saying for a long time that is a waste of resources, and now that's becoming crystal clear. the republican party cannot afford to have intra-party fights, especially when democrats are doing exactly what republicans don't think they can do, which is recruiting blue dog candidates to run in purple districts and potentially make inroads. even though the democrats have an energized base, it's about
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getting those people in the middle, and right now they're kind of starting to do that. if republicans can't get their house in order, they'll have some big problems. >> getting their house in order includes the speaker's team. even in an environment like this, you want republicans who can raise more money and many of them looking at pennsylvania and saying, do i want to lose? let's flip for a second here. this is a little bit long, but i want to play something that is causing d causing republicans incredible angst. >> it's all that red in the middle where trump won. i win the coast, i win illinois, minnesota, places like that. but what the map doesn't show you is that i won the places that represent two-thirds of america's gross domestic product. so i won the places that are
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optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign, make america great again, was looking backwards. you know, you didn't like black people getting rights, you don't like women getting jobs, you don't want to see that indian american succeeding more than you are. whatever your problem is, i'm going to solve it. >> deplorables 2.0, right? if only the presidency was determined by the gdp instead of the electoral college, maybe she would be president. i think democrats are fine and comfortable saying, hillary clinton, go away, like heidi hi heidkamp. >> let's hear the voice of heidi heidkamp saying, dear nogod, wh? >> when does hillary clinton ride into the sunset? what's the answer?
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>> not soon enough. >> she's bashing the middle of this country in my state again. i don't need her to do that. >> it's just reinforcing the ster stereotypes. maybe if you're a pundit who never ran for office and you're trying to explain the american map, okay, but not for somebody like hillary clinton. >> she's a symbol. she is a sem bymbol of the democratic party being out of touch. >> it's elitist. it is condescending and elitist to blue collar workers who work with their hands to say, clearly, i did not transcend the republ them, the president did. >> they want biden right now, not hillary clinton. >> as long as she is there, she will be used as a foil.
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even if she's not running, even if she's not around. that clip will be used as the foil they need to power through much of these cycles. when we come back, everybody knows stormy daniels now suing to try to get out of a nondisclosure agreement she signed with the president. as she does, her lawyer says she's being threatened. dear freshpet, zooka had digestive problems and wouldn't eat. then i fed him freshpet.
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fire. some more sad news, democrat representative louise slaughter passing away this morning. she served since 1986. she was 88 years old. and the attorney for stormy daniels says she has been getting physical threats. daniels said she had an intimate relationship with the president a decade ago. she is now trying to have a disclosure agreement ruled invalid. and as her attorney fights that court case, he says other women are reaching out to him. >> i'm stating a fact. and the fact is my client was physically threatened to stay silent about what she knew about donald trump. we have been approached by six separate women who claim to have similar stories to those or to that of my client. two of those women, at least two, have ndas. we are in the very early stages of vetting those stories. i want to preach caution and restraint. we are not vouching for these
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stories, we are investigating them. >> forgive me, the not preaching caution and restraint. to go on television to say that six other women have come forward but we're not sure they're telling the truth. you've already let the horse out of the barn. what's the point? >> that's true, but to her allegations about the physical threats, we don't know who did that at this point, but michael cohen did threat ayn repoen a rt "the daily beast" when we were going to run a story about him, he said he would do something disgusting to him. we've seen it firsthand. someone in the trump orbit threatened her. >> the threats part, i'm flippant about this being a political strategy and then saying watch the "60 minutes" interview where she talks more about this. whether you disagree what she's doing, that threat is beyond the
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pale. >> and this story just keeps going. she's hired a media savvy lawyer who is very easy on the eyes, so we'll see what happens. i think the donald trump campaign at the time was clearly worried about this. i'm sure they're still worried about it. >> if you watch mr. robanetti, he's clearly learned a lot about how the president communicated. don't worry about teeing up a little rumor and then pulling back. he's got the white house on its heels. when we come back, we know the president does not like the former fbi director andrew mccabe. will the attorney general get back in favor with the president if he took away his pension? allowing scalability and providing fast, comprehensive security from intruders like me. luckily i found a new calling. faster. security transformation by cisco. just run. run like you know how to run. it orchestration by cdw.
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my ci can worry about it,ine. or do something about it. garlique® helps maintain healthy cholesterol naturally. and it's odor free. and pharmacist recommended. garlique.® the attorney general jeff sessions has a big decision to make and a decision that, depending on what he chooses, could get him back into the president's good graces. the issue at hand, whether to
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fire former fbi director mccabe just bays before his retirement becomes official. there is also a not so subtle hint here. >> that's a determination that we would leave up to attorney general sessions, but we do think it is well documented that he has had some very troubling behavior, and by most accounts a bad actor and should have some cause for concern. >> the fbi's internal disciplinary office recommended mccabe's firing after a justice department investigation found he misled investigators over leaks to the news media while he was overseeing the fbi's probe of the clinton foundation. and that is the ultimate irony here. we know the president doesn't like andy mccabe. we know he was a key deputy but the problem here is he was a leak to the hillary clinton campaign.
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the leaks here hurt hillary clinton. >> trump has been defining mccabe his entire tenure at the fbi, which is over 20 years, by this episode. granted, there is a screwup here because the personnel office would not have recommended he be fired. but you hear sarah sanders saying he is a bad actor. that is not the fbi's accounting to date. his pension matures on sunday, so we are in the last stretch right now. there are four days between when they said here is a recommendation, make a decision, and the end day. if you're feeling like a benevolent ag, you just let him leave and take that up later. but if you're not, and this is not the most benevolent feeling white house, you'll be out the door. >> and sessions adds another layer to this. if sessions lets him skate, he's going to hear about it. >> sessions has to worry about himself, yeah. >> if you watch on state tv, i
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mean fox news, that issue here, the leaks were detrimental to hillary clinton. they cast the clinton foundation in a bad light. but on fox news, listen. >> this guy mccabe needs to be taken out in cuffs. they should not be paid by the american people. >> mccabe is corrupt and he is as crooked as they come. he is one of those deep state ak o aktors. >> even in the sainted bureau itself, fbi itself, were part and parcel of a political operation to sink donald trump. >> to sink donald trump by leaking information damaging to hillary clinton. got it. >> it's not about that for trump. this is about the special counsel investigation. it's also about what trump has been harping on publicly which is mccabe's wife's accepting
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donations from hillary clinton. that circle does not square. i think this is actually a potential problem for sessions, that he has to justify what he might choose to do, which is deprive mccabe of a retirement after decades of service in the fbi. and the evidence base out there based on the president's own tweets are that the reason he wants mccabe fired has nothing to do with the personnel office. >> and sessions has been talking to other people in the fbi, and what resource might mccabe have if he's out of all this money? >> and they can point to the fact that the recommendation was to fire him. >> which makes it very hard for him. >> the whole thing about the text between lisa page and peter struck, the back and forth on capitol hill trying to undercut
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the fbi. >> how they have described him, however, is parallel universe. we'll watch that decision from the attorney general. up next, senator jeff flake in new hampshire today. is he planting the seed for a primary challenge to the president of the united states? >> i stand before you today the rarest of species. the american conservative. american never trumpis. is never.
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where you do one thing and only one: testing the waters for president. one thing is for sure, the republicans can't stand the thought of this president for another four years. >> we have a president who induces chaos and flirts with damage. we must get away from this form of politics, the kind of poison that has the president flinging insults at a bad roast. >> is he serious? it takes a lot to challenge a sitting president no matter what you think of him. is he real or is he just enjoying it? >> i think it could be real. he's not running for senate this year. he might have some competition in john kasich, who is also someone who is reportedly weighing a bid, but i think
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there is no reason to think that jeff flake isn't serious. >> i think there are always these presidential candidates who are more media creation than anyone else. john huntsman comes to mind, jeff clark who were kind of drafted because they seemed to fit the bill and fit the moment but they don't necessarily have a constituency. he clearly doesn't have a constituency because he's not running for reelection in his own state. but i think we'll hear more from him and he'll keep this buzz going. >> even if he's more sensible and has more facts behind him, the president has the verve. >> the question is, is jeff flake right, or has the party changed so much in trump's image? he's saying, i follow the steps of goldwater and i'm not a republican? >> i grew my wife cuts my hair
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i'm too cheap to go to a barber. i kell earmarks in the house, score a perfect 100 on the club for growth and have 90 years are the american conservative union. and i'm the rhino. >> republican in name only, but the party has changed a lot, number one. number two, he's still an incumbent president. >> absolutely. i think this would have been a great speech six years ago. but in today's republican party, that may not really fly. and i don't know that he realizes that. he plays an important role in this political moment to be a kind of never trump voice who is also in the senate at the moment. but if he's going to transition into the presidential stage, there has to be something else he brings to the table. >> with the uncertainty of the midterms, the uncertainty of the mueller investigation, you're out there. if something happens that has people looking. watch the union leader in new hampshire. he used to be a huge power player.
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conservative paper, doesn't like trump, they don't like kasich so much. we'll see what happens. thank you for joining me on "inside politics." see you sunday. get up early for us. i'll be back the same time monday as well. don't go anywhere. wolf starts soon. enjoy the weekend. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington, 5:00 p.m. in salisbury, england, 8:00 p.m. in glasgow. thanks so much for joining us. caesar finality. that's the way it's described for the west wing advisers. stormy daniels suing over their alleged affair said she was specifically told to be silent. six more women are
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