i'd of said... i'd of said you're dreaming. dreaming! definitely dreaming. then again, dreaming is how i got this far. now more businesses in more places can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. turnover in trump land. the president picks a new v.a. chief. >> we're going to have real choice. that's why i made some changes because i wasn't happy with the speed with which our veterans were taking care of. and hope hicks says good-bye. will anyone replace her in plus mueller looks for evidence of collusion. >> any time a russian intelligence agent is in contact

with someone in the united states, that raises the old flag. >> who he's focusing on as the russia probe continues? and a speech that was supposed to be about infrastructure. >> i love the smell of a construction site. >> turns into a foreign policy pivot. >> we're knocking the hell out of isis. "inside politics," the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm nia-malika henderson. john king is off today. to our viewers nationwide and around the world, thanks for joining us and happy easter. president trump is at his florida resort this morning but he'll be back at the white house tonight looking for a fresh start after more administration turmoil and turnover that included some high profile departures. the latest trump staff shovel ousting david shulkin and naming

ronny jackson to head up the department of veterans affairs and other departures including trump secretary of state rex tillerson finally leaving his post in washington, a town he called mean spired in his good-bye speech. he lasted a little more than a year on the job and one of trump's most trusted confidence also leaving the white house, trump gave a more personal sendoff to hope hicks his long time aide and white house communications director and now questions about whether she will be replaced and if so, who will trump pick to take that job. tillerson's and hicks' exits, they were long planned but shulkin's dismissal was a surprise to him. he talked to the president on wednesday just hours before he was fired. >> he spoke about the progress that i was making, what i needed to do from a policy perspective to make sure that we're fixing the issues in v.a. >> that's before you were fired? >> that's correct. >> you spoke to him, he made no mention of the fact that he was about to terminate you?

>> that's correct. a v.a. inspector report faulted shulkin for improperly accepting gifts and a detail about an overseas trip he took last year. trump claimed the firing wasn't about the bad headlines it was all about the veterans. >> i want to get them choice and they didn't give us choice. that's why i made some changes because i wasn't happy with the speed with which our veterans were taken care of. i wasn't happy with it. >> the formal head of the v.a. didn't go quietly. he claimed in multiple interviews that he'd been pushed out. >> i am very concerned about the future of v.a. and to make sure that this organization stays on track with the type of progress we've been making and that it's not hijacked and dismantled. >> i think that there are clear forces that are trying to suggest that a v.a. system is not necessary, that the private

sector can handle all of the care for our veterans. >> here to share their reporting and their incites we've got michael sheer, car ren demurjion, margaret telov. thank you all for being here. michael, i'll start with you on this. the shulkin firing. you heard him there talk about privatization, some efforts to do that, the thinking that he would slow to want to do that, also these bad headlines that he generated because of a travel. what was this about? >> i think the travel problems that he had in the inspector general's report gave the president and his allies all the cover they needed to push him out, but i think this really was more about a real fight inside the v.a. over how to approach dealing with what is the government's -- one of the government's largest bureaucracy and most screwed up bureaucracy

that has had problems -- this is not a trump or republican problem. all through the eight years of obama administration they struggled to figure out how to deal -- >> wait times. >> but just the bureaucratic weight of an agency that has hundreds of thousands of employees and so that struggle inside and we saw all sorts of headlines, there was literally shulkin fighting with some of his senior staff that had been put there by the trump administration and so, you know, while it was -- it appearsing from his comments that it was a surprise to him, you know, in the hours leading up to the firing, it was certainly not a surprise to any of us who had been watching to weeks. >> long time coming. >> and i think that's really what this one was about. that's different than maybe some of the other firings that have taken place but this one in particular, there was a root policy cause. >> there's also a campaign promise tied to this, that may be not -- that don't include

some of the other cabinet segts that were fired. trump himself has said he wants to fix things for veterans and we've seen many times whether or not it's popular the president is very focused on making good of his -- on his campaign promises. will the person he select, ronny jackson be able to make good on that? it's an open question. we're talking about someone who is a very good doctor by all accounts, has very strong records when it comes to -- i believe he was a combat physician, but that's not management, that's not running this giant mess of a bureaucracy. >> and he made his big turn, ronny jackson did from the white house, in the press room there, here is what he had to say about donald trump and this was said to be one of the reasons why donald trump liked him so much. >> the president's health is excellent. his overall health is excellent. he has incredible genes. i told the president if he had a healthier diet over the last 20

years, i think he would live till 200 years. >> he might live to be 200 years old. what's your sense of -- will it be difficult to confirm ronny jackson given his background? >> people have a lot of questions for him. his background is nonpartisan. he served several presidents of different parties and there's nothing about him that's objectionable in his record. his record has nothing to do with what he's been tasked to do which is run the second biggest department. we don't know where he stands on the issues we were just discussing. it's a campaign promise. it's about a fundamental policy disagreement. it has major implications for where that policy goes now. is ronny jackson somebody who because he's military really does believe in keeping the v.a. solvent functional and fitching the problems. it goes really hard towards privatization or will he find

more middle ground that's pleasing to the president. we have no idea. we have not heard him speak on these topics. it's nice we heard him talk about the president's fitness and members of congress want to hear him say where he stands on these things. i don't see anything now that's going to prevent him from being confirmed but he's going to get grilled in the meantime so -- >> real questions about him -- some of the things they already said was basically like they'll have to find out who this guy is. they don't know about him. veterans organizations have been sceptical. we'll see. another cabinet official in some trouble here, pruitt who is at the epa. among those bad headlines are from bloomberg, your outfit, epa chiefs $50 a night. cnn, our headline, senator pruitt secure included disneyland and rose bowl trips.

those were his vacations i guess in using -- what's your sense of pruitt in terms of we have been watching obviously for weeks everything going on about shulkin, is pruitt next on the list? >> i put them in different categories. the trump -- the president is not thrilled with headlines that make his team look swampy since his whole swamp thing is part of his shtick. but the difference is it would be hard to find a more successful or better or more enthusiastic advocate on the cabinet for president trump's policies right now than pruitt at the epa. he is sort of at the head of the spear of this effort to rollback emissions which has been important for the trump administration. he never goes out there and gets ahead of the president on policy or embarrasses the president or criticizes him in the rear-view mirror. these are all things really important to president trump. with the caveat that anything's possible, i think the kind of

emotional circumstances or positional circumstances. it's not like this is a holdover from the obama administration. i think politically it's a very different question in terms of optics and also in terms of policy and the ability to drive forward what's important to the president, that pruitt is still a very good advocate for him. >> and more questions, michael, inside the white house? who will replace hope hicks? will she even be replaced? apparently some folks are telling the president that maybe he doesn't need a communications director, maybe he doesn't need chief-of-staff either? any word in terms of john kelly's tenure also seems to be shaky? >> i think there's no surprise, we have known since day one, since before day one, since the campaign that the president thinks he's his best communications director. he has always long been dissatisfied with people who attempt to speak for him because he feels like there's no one better than trump himself. this even goes back to the whole, you know -- when john

barron thing -- when he used to play his own spokesperson and have reporters call him back in the day. i guess i wouldn't be surprised. having said that, there have got to be people telling him for all around him that this would be an enormously bad idea to try to run a white house without somebody to run the staff -- >> hope was in the position of communications director because they needed a communications director, but she was the president's confidentant. >> almost like a daughter in some ways. >> if you could make -- i don't really -- she will be not physically located steps away any more i don't expect her to -- i think she will continue talking with the president basically all the time -- no one ever leaves the trump circle. >> it's like been the drummer for spinal tap. they just disappear. it's a weird job because you're supposed to be operating behind the scenes. when something goes right, nobody knows it's you, when

something goes wrong everybody blames you. you need someone focused on the long-term strategy even if the person in charge often derails that strategy. >> jackie? >> when it comes to the chief-of-staff, that's not just a job -- it's a big job. if the president isn't a details person, so it's hard to think that -- those aren't good friends who are telling him he can't do it all. >> we'll see what happens. up next, president trump claimed he wasn't thinking about pardoning his former national security adviser but a new report has trump's own lawyers contradicting him. first, though, late night laughs. say hello to dana carvy's john bolton and his very memorable mustache. it's very important for me that no unthinks president trump is handed the keys to the war machine to some sort of hair trigger lunatic. >> well, that's very reaassuringing sir. >> if i heard someone say, i'd

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>> there is no collusion between me and my campaign and the russians. >> there's been absolutely no collusion. there's been no collusion between us and the russians. >> there's been no collusion ten the trump campaign and russians or trump and russians. no collusion. >> bottom line they all say there's no collusion and there is no collusion. that was president trump talking about collusion. he says its pretty straightforward. his campaign had nothing to do with russia's interference in the 2016 election. but special counsel robert mueller might not be convinced. cnn reports that mueller is honing in on the trump campaign's contacts with russians as part of a plea deal paul manafort's deputy rick gates is sharing more about who team trump talked to and when. a court filing released on tuesday shows how mueller's team plans to use gates to tie manafort directly to a russian

intelligence agency. the document says, gates and person a were directly communicating in september and october 2016, person a has ties to russian intelligence, service and has had such ties since 2016. gates told him mueller that person a was a former russian intelligence officer with gru. one former cia director says the investigation is speeding up, not slowing down. >> you can see the pace picking up. we're seeing a great body of evidence that the president, his family, his business, his campaign had a lot of contacts with a lot of russians which may be entirely innocent, but now we're seeing bob mueller explore each of those linkages. >> corrine where does this take us at this point. mueller focusing on gates and using him to explore collusion? >> right. it takes us backwards and forwards, really.

this is like a perfect example of how this -- the pebble in the water that just keeps growing and mueller's expanding his probe. the court filing is for this alexander guy in which gates told him he had been in touch with a person -- people believe is the person -- who basically ran manafort's office for the ten years he was working in russia sympathic ukraine and that he had ties to the gru which is russian military intelligence and that manafort ann gates knew this as late of september, october 2016 which is the heat of the campaign, really. it shows you how mueller is using the the conversations he's having with the smaller fish to really get the bigger fish really stuck and then it's -- it's been easy for manafort to say that was a past life. yeah, sure i worked on those issues but this has nothing to do with the campaign. if you're still in contact, if

you still know about those intelligence ties a month before the election, it becomes much harder to make that argument. what about everything that came before? what about all the comments -- the candidate at that point was making about russia? what about the change to the party platform that was made? what about all of these different things and was that actually because you had not just idle contacts with russians but somebody who's connected to military intelligence is a big deal. it opens these things up again and if he can pressure gates to give him even more information which it seems like that's what he's doing, that will open the question of was there collusion. >> and obviously there's mueller investigation, congressional investigations as well. here's what trey gowdy had to say about those congressional investigations. >> congressional investigations leak like the gossip girls. they -- they're terrible and i would be telling you that if i were staying in congress.

they're just not serious. serious investigations don't leak. serious investigations don't make up their mind first and then go in search of the evidence to validate your previously held convictions. >> i appreciate the gossip girls reference there. one of the things he also said that he is glad that mueller is in the mix. >> right. you look at what happened with the house intelligence committee and what a mess that is and just how they botched -- from beginning to end, they really has been a problem. the senate's been better but they too have had their issues. the fact that the mueller probe is there and that, you know, as trey gowdy said hasn't leaked anything, there is a sense that something's getting done and we might actually get to the bottom of all of this. >> another story, michael, that you're paper report was this report that there had been discussion about pardons, a trump lawyer talked about

pardoning manafort and flynn, ty cobb who is still on the legal team, trump's legal team, here's what he had to say in response to the story in your paper. i've only been asked by pardons by the president and have routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under discussion or consideration at the white house. why is this story a big deal? >> this is really centers around the question of obstruction of justice and whether or not the president took actions that he hoped would stop or bring an end to the investigation that of him and his associates and the question -- so the question is, you know, is it possible that by raising the pardon issue with the lawyers to gates -- with flynn and manafort that somehow you were attempting to keep them from cooperating with the special counsel and thereby short circuit the investigation. i think it was interesting if what you read the statement there from ty cobb, look at the

word, it's are, it's present tense, there are no considerations of a pardon going on. he didn't really deny that there had been some in the past. >> that would have been john dowd. >> right, that would have been john dowd's lawyer, the lawyer who had been working on the russia indication for the president outside of the white house who has now left, so really the question is, is bob mueller looking at some of these actions that the president and his then lawyer took as he constructs an obstruction of justice case if that's where he's going to go. >> margaret, as part of the discussion everybody's having about russia, one of the crit sims of this president and the administration is that they haven't been tough enough on russia. we did see this week expelling 60 russians. do you see this as marking a different path in terms of trump's relationship and rhetoric on putin? >> i think you have to look at the rhetoric and the actions separately which is weird, but it's true, because the congress

forced the president to go forward with these other sanctions last year. he was angry about it but it happened and they have begun to follow through on those. under h.r. mcmasters leadership and jim mattis at the pentagon, this administration has come out with tough language about dealing with russia. and then we saw the feeling on the part of the u.s. that there needed to be a response alongside the uk to that attack inside the uk that's been attributed now to the russians. president trump feels proud that he was able to kind of bring along other countries, maybe they would have come along any way, there's 20 countries that have responded including the u.s. and to what happened in the uk and russia's response was to some extent reciprocal but to some extent pretty aggressive because the consulate that the u.s. dealt with in washington state is really different than a consulate in st. petersburg,

when you take 60 diplomats, you're making a strong stance. if the u.s. got tough on russia, russia was going to have to respond. we're in increased diplomatic tensions. >> we'll see this goes. just ahead, trump's serious surprise. the impact of trump saying the u.s. will be out of syria very soon. i had frequent heartburn, but my doctor recommended... ...prilosec otc 7 years ago, 5 years ago, last week. just 1 pill each morning, 24 hours and zero heartburn.

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. it was supposed to be a speech to sell trump's big infrastructure plan. >> i've asked republicans and democrats in congress to come together and deliver the biggest and boldest infrastructure plan in the last half century. i don't think you'll get democratic support very much. we probably have to wait until after the election. because the democrats say don't

give him any more wins. don't give him any more wins. >> but thursday in ohio, the president quickly shifted from teleprompter trump to greatest hits trump. >> they don't like that the economy, the democrats, they don't like that the economy is so strong. we're doing incredible things on health care but obamacare is a disaster. your second amendment will always be your second amendment. we're not doing anything to that. we love our great american flag, don't we? >> trump's off the cuff moments also including an unexpected turn to foreign policy, one that caught his own administration off guard. >> we're noking the hell out of isis. we'll be coming out of syria any soon. let the other people take care of it now. very soon. very soon. we'll have 100% of the caliphate as they call it, sometimes referred to as land, taking it

all back quickly, quickly. we'll be coming out of there real soon. >> senior administration officials tell cnn that the national security council will meet on tuesday to discuss syria and if trump does pull troops it will be against the advice of pentagon officials. margaret, i want to go to you on this. this was a surprise not only to folks in his administration, to a lo a lot of reporters covering trump, where did it come from? what does it mean? is america actually pulling troops out of syria? >> publicly it certainly was a surprise. there was no planned syria rollout at the rally in the middle of the country but behind the scenes the president has been expressing a desire to get out and that desires been ramping up as the u.s. has been able to declare these wins, like actions against isis have been working. the president campaigned wanting to pullback from sort of these foreign engagements and the president also likes wins and so

when you put those two together, you see the idea that if you could like find a moment where the u.s. thought, okay, now, go now. that would be really appealing to him. obviously it's more complicated than that, so there are implications for iran and if the president is serious about pulling out of the iran deal, withdrawing the u.s. from syria would give iran free range federal government the u.s. is serious about getting tougher on russia, seems like he would be turning syria over to assad and russia and so there are a lot of reasons not to do it, but the reason to do it is that you campaign on getting out and you found a moment to declare victory and get out. these are discussions that are absolutely going on behind the scenes. >> michael, one of the things that trump also campaigned on was this idea that he wouldn't telegraph military plans before they actually happened. that's exactly what he did here with syria. >> right. it's what he did which of course does undermine that pledge.

it's also more evidence of the kind of norms that he shatters and breaks through. typically foreign policy is one of those things the president tries to do very carefully. there was no rollout. it's a campaign style rally. it was infrastructure. >> it was in ohio. >> this is not when you talk about something that is so fraught. foreign policy -- as much as the former president, barack obama would have loved to pull back from some of these foreign engagements in iraq, afghanistan, syria, they always recognized how difficult and the kind of collateral issues there are and so they always hesitated and sort of left it up to the generals to figure that out and that's part of the issue here. he's not doing that. >> this was very much a campaign style rally. one of the things he talked about obviously syria also the wall. here's what he had to say.

we need walls. we started building our wall. i'm so proud of it. we started -- we have 1.6 billion and we already started. you saw the pictures yesterday. what a thing of beauty. ear getting that sucker built and you think that's easy. oh, has he given up on the wall? i never give up. i build. that's what i do. better than being president i was maybe good at building. >> this is a shift from the president in terms of now he's satisfied about the wall. about a week ago he didn't seem to be so satisfied about the poultry some of money that he was allocated. >> which is a fraction of what it's going to take. he's a little inaccurate to say we started building the wall. you got the money. these shifting tones on trump. the wall say nice example to use in conjunction with what we were talking about. the president has i will please

a crowd when i have to and i will say if it's -- other people will take care of it. mexico will take care of it. the last thing we were talking about the pulling out of syria that i found the most surprising is him saying let the other people take care of it with no consciousness of necessarily if they're going to do it, how they're doing to do it and if that's going to happen. when you're talking about russia and iran that's probably not going to help. this is yet another example of things where the president is saying, oh, okay, it's good in front of a crowd, it's bad when you get back in the negotiation room and i will tell you the ways it's going to work when i'm on the stage because it feels good with the response even if it cannot happen that way. >> one of the things he also thinks is good for his twitter crowd is talking about amazon. he's tweeted several times about amazon over these last couple of days on saturday. he tweeted in part, the u.s. post office will lose a 1.50 on average for each package it delivers for amazon.

he closed this tweet, this post office scam must stop. amazon must pay real costs and taxes now. they do pay taxes. and by all accounts it's a good deal for the post office that they have this alliance with amazon. their real problem is retirement funds and all that. why is he doing this? where is this coming from? is it about bezos and "the washington post"? >> yes. i feel like if we had a free market conservative at the table they'd be pulling out chunksz of their hair. he also talked about how it's killing small businesses. that's not true. if you're talking about killing small business, you have to talk about walmart and target. you talk about all these other big box stores. there really is -- it does seem to have a lot to do with jeff bezos and if you know anything about just how massive holdings work, amazon has nothing to do with the "the washington post." there can be two separate entities. >> jeff bezos owns "the

washington post" he also owns a lot of money. $120 billion or something like that. >> all of the money. >> yes. coming up, trump sees stronger poll numbers with the core voting block. what's driving the uptick and what it means for 2018 midterms? a wealth of perspective. ♪ a wealth of opportunities. that's the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management. to help you grow and protect your wealth. the morning walk until... it... wasn't. don't let type 2 diabetes get between you and your heart. even if you reach your a1c goal you are still at risk for heart attack or stroke.

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president trump has stayed silent on the affair allegations that have been swirling around him. there's the former playboy model

and the adult film actress. last week daniels attorney tried and failed to have a judge order trump and his lawyer, michael cohen be questioned under oath and still trump hasn't spoken out or even tweeted about any of it and that might actually be working for him. a core part of trump's base white conservative christians have said they don't care about the accusations even if they're true. >> i know that when i voted tor him, i wasn't voting for a choir boy. you can throw all that stuff up in our faces many times as you want, but that means that we will work harder for trump. is that not so, ladies in. >> that's correct. >> worse case scenario if he slept with her, whatever, i believe he didn't because he says he didn't. but that's between him, the lord and his family. that is not about the job he's doing in running our country. >> a black conservative christians, the agreeing there often with white conservatives

christians in terms of trump. while trump's base is sticking with him the president is also seen an up tick in his overall approval rating among all voters. he now has a 42% approval rating. his highest in 11 months. that's up 7 points from february. so where is this boost coming from? trump is gaining among republicans, up six since february and notably his approval is also up with independence now at about 41%. jackie, why this boost in his approval ratings? he's had something of a chaotic time over these last many eekz but his approval ratings are up? >> he has everything to do with the economy. the people are -- these tax cuts. while they're not being sold to republicans liking at this point it is making an impact in helping the president and in terms of what you heard there from some of those women, a lot of this was baked in when they voted for him to begin with. as long as he's getting the agenda done they didn't care

about his personal -- he bragged about sexual assault essentially on tape, so if that's not going to change your vote, what's happening now with some of these other women coming forward isn't going to change your vote. >> can i add really quickly, it's a reminder to all of us that a lot of the chaos and process stories that we write up just don't penetrate in real america. >> particularly these core trump supporters who are with him no matter what. >> absolutely. >> car ren one of the things you see in polls is the tightening of the generic ballot. who voters want, democrats or republicans? i think it's down to six or eight right now depending on the poll you watch. it had been in double digits. what does trouble's approval rating mean? >> it makes it trickier. they still have a lot of seats they have to flip if they'll take the majority of the house back. if you have the trump bump or trump drain mitigated, then it makes it harder to go after

people in these seats that are republican plus double digits and you need some of those sits if you'll be able to have that much of a win that puts nancy pelosi back in the speaker's gavel or whoever they choose to appoint. that's another discussion entirely. it depends -- they'll have to just do really smart work district by district in where they choose to carry out these fights and have to focus a lot on selectively tieing the campaigns to issues of trumps that don't play well in those areas. you'll basically have a little bit more win at the republicans backs and that makes it more complicated. >> we'll see where the rest of the year goes, where his approval ratings go. one of the issues that has come up, margaret, is the census and this idea that the commerce department is now going to add a citizenship question to the census and you've seen both sides try to fund raise off of it. trump as well as democrats

trying to make an issue of it. where do you think this goes? does it become a campaign issue? >> i think it's as a campaign issue. the president has felt before that sometimes having these devicive issues helps him because it makes him remember how much they like him and motivates them to turn out. the place where it all puts pressure all these issues from the tax cut, legislation to the census debate is how it effects republicans in purple states or swing states in swing districts, right? whether it's new jersey or what have you, that's where the rubber is going to meet the road. the president's gamble for him is it's a win either way. if he can dehinnish the representation in states like california, that helps him. but if it does depress turnout or circumstances for enough of those republicans in the philly suburbs and new jersey, in some parts of california where this

house sort of path lies, then that's the gamble and we won't know until november. >> it also effects the maps going forward. when the state legislators redraw -- >> that's my point. if he's successful and it goes forward -- >> that could mean something in terms of a congressional districts, certainly in terms of federal funding as well. we'll see where this goes. coming up, the house majority whip makes a fund-raising move and everybody's watching? so is he going after the house speaker spot? i had frequent heartburn, but my doctor recommended...

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each sunday the "inside politics" panelists giving you an early glimpse at the conversations they're having with their sources. michael, we'll start with you. >> so in a couple of weeks the president will go on his first real overseas trip for this year. he's going to lima, peru, couple of things to watch for. one is that this is a first test of his new national security team, new secretary of state, cia director and also whether or not scandals from back home, the russia investigation dog him while he's there. >> we'll look for that. karoun? >> i'll be watching the new cia director who's supposed to be answering questions from john mccain by monday. all these questions surrounding what hurt the tenure at the cia, how closely it involved torture or enhanced interrogation techniques. she's for a while served as supervisor of a black site

prison who's known for conducting these types of things. there was question she's involved in a decision of whether or not to destroy video taped evidence of this. there are a lot of people who are very sceptical of her torture record and how she answers these questions will be the first time we'll hear from her. if he can't get this through cleanly, so she's got to convince people pretty well this week if when they get back to session in the following week if she's actually going to have a chance. >> this will be really interesting. >> especially torture issues that do not break on party lines. party does not trump this issue for a lot of people. >> margaret? >> ahead of all of this the president is welcoming the leaders of estonia this week. it is the bal tick summit but,

of course the timing ends up being important because we're at such cross hairs on russia and the singling that he does with those three leaders, of course, half of this century that's passed they were under soviet control. he'll send important signals on that. whenever a foreign leader visits we always look for the news conference. we're all eager to ask the president questions. >> jackie? >> i'm bringing it back home. there's been a lot of talk this week about steve scalise's fund-raising prowess and what that means for paul ryan. well, yes, steve scalise has raised a lot of money for republicans going into the this election year but paul ryan affiliated superpacs are poised to spend more than any republican outside group in the 2018 elections. now, should they lose the house or should the house become smaller? it's going to be conservative. it's going to be more southern and white. when with you look at that

dynamic and if paul ryan steps aside, steve scalise fits that conference a lot better than say kevin mccarthy. >> a lot of eyes on november and what happens. do they keep the house or lose it? we'll see. that's it for "inside politics" today. thanks for being with us. john is going to be back in the anchor chair tomorrow at noon and up next, former v.a. secretary david shulkin and senator bernie sanders on cnn's state of the union. stay tuned. [ doorbell rings ] janice, mom told me you bought a house. okay. [ buttons clicking ] [ camera shutter clicks ] so, now that you have a house, you can use homequote explorer. quiet. i'm blasting my quads. janice, look. i'm in a meeting. -janice, look. -[ chuckles ] -look, look. -i'm looking. it's easy. you just answer some simple questions online,

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trump unleashed. the president says good-bye to a top aide as he's reportedly told he doesn't need a communication it's director or a chief-of-staff. can president trump do it all himself? senator bernie sanders will be here to discuss next. plus, speaking out. president trump replaces yet another member of his cabinet. >> i wasn't happy with the speed with which our veterans were taking care of. and the embattled veterans affair secretary is not leaving quietly. >> people are bringing so much politics, there's so much division. >> is he pointing fingers at the white house? former v.a. secretary david shulkin will be here. and first look. a new book based on exclusive interviews with the president and his staff providing a rare inside look into the trump white house and offering a surprising