campaign promises the president made on the campaign trail. >> epa broke the law, and we'll see what that means. thank you all for joining me. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. thank you, kate. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. the president on the move this hour in florida for a roundtable on taxes. but with so much controversy flowing, here's the question. will the president stick to the script? plus his long-time personal lawyer is due in court shortly and porn actress stormy daniels also showing up. yes, a bit of a circus but also big legal questions as a rattled president tries to find out just what prosecutors know. and a new tweet storm attacking james comey. the fbi director looms large in

the other big investigation, threatening the president. >> at least in my experience, he won't criticize is vladimir putin even in private. even in a meeting with three people in the oval office. he is arguing that he gave a good answer when he said, essentially, we are the same kind of killers that putin's thugs are. and that struck me. >> to director comey and the debate over his publicity blitz in a moment, but we begin with today's escalation of a court fight that is full of tabloid and reality tv flavor but also holds enormous consequence for president trump and his long-time fix eer michael cohen. cohen suggested in a new legal filing that the investigation of his business dealings is politically motivated.

the one who did the sweeping search last week worked for the trump budget department. there is growing public debate about whether criminal and congressional investigations by the government are being undertaken impartially, free of political bias or partisan motivation. the court says it won't throw it out. it at least needs a process to review the materials. that is designed to keep the information away from prosecutors. the porn actress stormy daniels plans to be there, too. the seized materials claims to have information about the payoff to the porn star. president trump wants to know just what the feds know about michael cohen. shimon prokupecz will be heading to that hearing soon. tell us. >> reporter: this morning the court filed a transcript for friday. there was a transcript of a

conversation that occurred on a sidebar, and this morning the court released that. what we've learned is pretty significant here just in terms of where the investigation stands against michael cohen. the prosecutor, the lead prosecutor in this case, talking to the judge at the sidebar conversation says that they have considerable amount of information about mr. cohen's activities. he then goes on to say how this is a fast-moving investigation. essentially what's going on is, the government feels that with these emergency relief requests, with what michael cohen's attorneys are doing and now with what the president's attorneys are doing is just a stall tactic and they're hoping to just get going. they want to be able to continue their investigation, start looking at the material that they seized on monday. they have not been able to look at any of that. but keep in mind, even before this raid on monday, what they're saying is that they already have considerable amount of information. and we also know from friday's filing, another filing that was posted on friday, that his

e-mails, michael cohen's e-mails are in the possession of the government. they had what they called covert warrants and they've been able to review that. essentially what's at stake here, john, is whether or not the government will be able to proceed and review these materials. it's likely the judge will rule today. she says case law is really on the government's side, not on the defense team's side in this one. >> a remarkable hearing coming up. we'll touch base with you tomorrow, i'm sure, about the details inside the court. to share her reporting and insight, my panel. again, like everything involving the trump administration, there is some reality tv aspect to this. the porn actress showing up for the court hearing. let's set that aside for a minute. the president's attorney much more contained than the president but tried to suggest this is politics at play here. the government said, no, we understand it's a highbar to

have a warrant served on the president's personal attorney, but we have evidence to think he's going to destroy evidence. we have evidence of a case against him. we're going to get to the russian probe special counsel in a minute. certainly they think it's the biggest immediate threat to him, right? >> the president certainly thinks it's the biggest immediate threat, it's not clear what his legal team thinks. in michael jackscohen's records there are a lot of things about donald trump's personal life, his business life, things that go way beyond just the time he was running for president and now that he's in the oval office. if someone can get their hands on all of those private matters and the details of all of those private matters, that is going to be a problem for him, he believes, so i think that's why his staff is operating on that assumption, because whether or not the stakes of the russia investigation are higher, sort

of empirically speaking, the president sees this as a direct threat to his authority and his right to privacy. and there were a lot of issues that michael cohen took care of for donald trump, keeping them private. sdp >> there will be three parties in there arguing they have privacy rights here: the president, the president's toer personal attorney, and a porn actress. >> the president's team is trying to figure out just exactly what they have. there is a lot of uncertainty of how much information there is and what could be in there. >> take a step back to see how much potential legal jeopardy the president is in right now. not just on this case and michael cohen, whatever they have seized in this raid that could potentially implicate the president one way or another, the mueller investigation still picking up steam. there could be other associates

of the president who get him into further legal jeopardy. and then the stormy daniels case, michael avenatti, the attorney for stormy daniels is pursuing, whether the president will be deposed in that case. the president is being hit on several different fronts now which is perhaps why he's lashing out in different ways, but it's remarkable to see a president under siege on so many different legal fronts. >> it will be interesting to hear the prosecutors make their case. whatever you think of the president of the united states, he has the right to legal counsel. whatever you think of the president of the united states, he has a right to a private attorney. if cohen is in the process of covering up crimes or illegally moving money around, that's not covered by the attorney-client privilege. they filed this last night. the president objects to the government's proposal, fairness and justice, as well as the appearance of fairness and justice.

require that before they are turned over to the investigation relating to the president must be reviewed by the only person who is truly motivated to ensure that the privilege is properly invoked and applied. the privilege-holder himself, the president. >> stormy daniels is exceedingly good at playing this game by putting her in the hearing, and probably one of the reasons he's paying a lot of attention to it, because this is his turf, this is his media-style war that she's waging and waging successfully. if you don't care for cohen or don't care for trump, i don't mind the government being put through their paces on this one bit. the "new york times" editorial page sort of shrugged this off the other day, but it's important for them to bring the reason they went to this extraordinary place.

>> agree 10,000%, in the sense -- this is unprecedented. it's very rare to serve a search warrant on an attorney. unprecedented, michael cohen argues, serve as the personal attorney for the president of the united states, so they should be held to a higher bar. if they clear that bar, what does that say about michael cohen and potentially about the president? your comment about stormy daniels playing the game, so to speak, attention to the media. those who do not lose history are deemed to repeat it and then contains a link to the "new york times," u.s. says top gotti aide will turn against them. you could argue that's not fair. you could argue that's putting the cart way ahead of the horse in terms of the facts. >> what was interesting about that statement you just read from the president's personal attorneys is he talks about donald trump being the only person who can review these materials and say whether

privilege needs to be invoeked r not. you would think michael cohen, who is the actual lawyer, would be one of those people. but what's interesting to me about the way they worded that is there is the possibility that cohen could flip. that's clearly what avenatti is trying to suggest. i think trump thinks he's going to be loyal, he has been loyal. cohen has been trying to telegraph he will continue to be loyal. but the fact is the legal stakes for him are huge, and there is the possibility that he could be motivated to tell prosecutors something that they need to hear or want to hear about the president in the course of dealing with all of this legal risk on him. so that's a real concern for the president. that's another one of the reasons that he is so worried about cohen being targeted in this way. >> i think it's fascinating when you heard from shimon at the top of the show about the sidebar, that transcript, the attorneys making the case you can't stop us here, we need to see these materials as quickly as possible because, and they say, and they should have to air it out to the

court without compromising the investigation -- they say they have evidence that michael jackson coh-- michael cohen wast acting as his attorney, it was more personal. and they are worried he was going to destroy evidence or not cooperate with the investigation. >> cohen isn't an attorney but his fixer. this is the personal attorney for the president, but the thing we hear the most about is he is someone who fixes things for him. >> very rare for an attorney for this type of attack on the president, but the president's attorney, clear they had a significant degree of evidence to go forward and get a judge to allow them to search these premises. they probably have some rationale for their argument going forward. >> just like in the special counsel case, a lot of it is

cloaked in secrecy, a lot of it is cloaked in privilege and privacy. we've learned little nuggets from these court hearings. when people go to court in the manafort case, for example, it's challenged. up next, james comey's media blitz begins. he's certainly selling books, but is he undermining his but is he undermining his credibility as a witness?

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comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. james comey kicking off his tell-all book tour with a very controversial bang. you've already read the excerpts or seen them on television. he takes shots at the president's appearance and moral character. now on nbc sunday night, comey going for the jugular. comey's firing nearly a year ago sparked questions of obstruction of justice for the president and led to an appointment with the special counsel. here's comey last night.

>> was president trump obstructing justice? possibly. there is certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice? >> do you think the russians have something on donald trump? >> i think it's possible. i don't know. these are moword i never thoughi would utter about a president. i can't say that but it's possible. >> there's no doubt it's helping comey sell books. it's also raising eyebrows and legal questions. also a former chairman with the intelligence committee and an fbi agent. >> to have an fbi agent in the middle of an investigation even speculate that the president may have committed a crime, he wasn't quite sure, i just thought really damages both his brand and the fbi brand. the fact we now have two boys in the school yard calling each other names, i think, is horrifically unproductive. >> it's a similar conversation to the one we just had in the

sense that some of this is playing out in the court of public opinion, and james comey, like him or not, has decided he's going to join the insult factory and compete with the president to go back and forth insulting each other. then there are the legal questions. george step nhanopolous asking e question, do they have something illegal on the president? it's possible. he's choosing not to say for what reason? >> this is why he's out in public right now, but clearly he has jumped off of the sidelines and jumped out of the role of being a disunderstand law enforcement person that he so proudly had for many decades and really jumped into the fire right here, and he could have given an interview and written a book that was much more kind of down the middle, but he clearly has a point of view and he's taking sides and he said some things about the president that were pretty petty about his

hairdo and the size of his hands and his orange face with the tanning salon cups, potentially. he definitely is coming from an angle, and it's possible that damages his credibility with the public. i don't actually think it really changes the political calculus. republicans, and particularly strong trump supporters, are going to think of him as evil and wrong, anyway. and democrats have mixed feelings about jim comey because of his role on the clinton e-mail matter, but in general we're going to point to what he said in the book and what he says in the interview and is say, you see, there is a law enforcement guy saying what we've all been saying about donald trump. so i don't think this really changes the political calculus much, but it does raise questions about why is he going quite so hard on some of the more petty personal things. >> sarah sanders, the press secretary, on the flight to florida was asked, did he watch the comey interview?

he watched some of it, not the whole thing. did he learn anything new? not really, he knew what those are. he drafted the crooked hillary long before he talked to her, disgrujtsed, he, mccabe, skplt others, committed many crimes. these two have decided that, again, it makes great cable television, it makes great twitter. my question is more important to the mueller investigation. is comey being careful enough here that he doesn't undermine himself as a witness? in the sense that if he says anything in these interviews that doesn't match up with what he told mueller in the investigation, if the president has a good attorney, that's where the credibility question will matter, let me put it that way. not in this court of public opinion but in a court of law. >> no question it's a big risk doing this. he's doing it above pot shots of the president, big risk for him

potentially role in all of this. despite the noise, the ultimate questions will be the interactions the president did have with james comey where he allegedly asked for loyalty, where he allegedly asked him to back off the investigation, and to michael flynn, the fired national security adviser, somebody who has now pleaded guilty about his conversations with russians. what did he do in those conversations? one thing comey did not know yesterday was whether or not the president knew flynn lied to the fbi at the time he allegedly asked him to back off the investigation of michael flynn. those are things that mueller will ultimately have to investigate, and that's the essence of what, you know, despite all the noise, that's where things will probably be. >> an hour interview last night. they did five hours of the taping. you see our sample at the top of the program wi. this is jack sherman who worked with the special counsel is team in the whitewater investigation.

if it differs at all from what he provides to the special counsel, you can be sure there will be a challenge if this case moves to an impeachment or trial. this will be at least a pain for mueller to deal with. so match everything you know about comey up with what he says in the book and then match the book to make sure there are no inconsistencies. >> i think what we're also seeing from comey is he's making a bigger argument than just these meetings or the russia probe. he's sort of making a moral case to the american public. he's going very big here saying this man isn't fit to be president, talking about the way he speaks about women, the way he treats people. and he also spoke looking ahead to the next election. he was asked should he be impeached. he said no, he thinks the american people need to make a judgment here. >> that's a fascinating point, because as the deputy attorney general, the bush administration was prosecuted before that, and

when asked emplabout impeachmene says, i think not. people should make their own opinions. he's injecting himself into this. >> if his goal is to sort of shore up the fbi and law enforcement's reputation and his own to shift from being a disinterested law enforcement officer to being an open partisan a partisan arguer and attack dog, it doesn sell you books. but if people on the trump side are worried this law enforcement officer is bound to become and act like a partisan attack dog in their role, then proving you were that is not a great look. then someone who is friendly to comey throughout this says he

was a bad pick as president. not good. >> now we know the president, seeing all this comey stuff going forward and rod rosenstein's role in that as well as the mueller investigation has all these ruminations of is the president going to fire somebody? that, says james comey, would cross a line. >> i would hope it would set off alarm bells that this is his most serious attack yet on the rule of law. it would be something that our entire country, again, democrats republ and republicans, that is higher than all fights. if they were able to see that higher level and protect it. >> a lot of republicans have gifr given that advice, don't go there. but if that advice is given by comey, might that provoke him.

>> anything that comes out of comey's mouth at this point, the president is going to disagree with it. but i think the president's concerns with rosenstein well predate that comment, and he has wanted to and ruminated about going the next few steps to potentially dismissing rosenstein before this. it would contribute but i don't think it would be the reason. >> a quick reminder for our viewers, again, our former fbi director james comey will be in an interview on thursday. when we come back, they're expected to hit russia with new sanctions. the target? those who helped the assad regime. sometimes,

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welcome back. the trump administration as

early as today plans to slap new sanctions on russia, targeting businesses the white house says provide military equipment and financing for the assad regime in syria. a source telling cnn more than a dozen entities are on the list being fine-tuned by the treasury department. they are on sites linked to syria's chemical weapons programs. >> this is a very strained time between the united states and russia. if you look at what russia is doing, you know, they continue to be involved with all the wrong actors. whether it's their involvement in ukraine, whether you look at how they're supporting venezuela, whether you look in syria and they're propping up assad and working with iran, that continues to be a problem. >> people asked after the strikes, what's the long-term strategy? the strikes send a message but they don't solve the problem. this is part of it. more pressure on russia. it all seems to be a little bit -- i don't want to call it slow walking, but the white

house says it might not be today. nikki haley seems adamant it's today, then they say, well, we're not ready. >> it depends how quickly they want to move, who are the actors they want to move against. when the president said on friday night this would be a sustained effort, people sort of wonder, does that mean more airstrikes, more military action in getting more deeply involved in the military in syria? i think what the administration is trying to do is finding other ways to signal and message that they're serious about this. the question is, what is the overall policy? even strong advocates of the airstrikes on friday said retaliation for a chemical strike is not policy. how is the president going to articulate that more broadly beyond the military action? clearly they're not willing to put on a sustained bombing campaign in damascus. >> that's why it seems to be an unforced air when the president

said, mission accomplished. what is the angle of the united states' involvement in syria? that's not clearly explained, particularly by this president, who is eager to pull back from syria. are we deepening our involvement in the united states? what happens going forward? that is something not fully disseminated by the administration. >> to be clear, he said it's not an unforced error and he said "mission accomplished" and ept -- he wants to bring the phrase back. >> is this book closed on vladimir putin? trump came to the white house believing his personal relationship with other leaders would be central in solving the world's foreign policy programs. in trump's mind, no leader was more important and powerful than putin, they said. privately he complained to aides that the media's fixation on the mueller probe was hobbling his

effort to woo putin. i can't put on the charm, the president often said. is this with assad over or is it just another chapter? >> one of the reasons that he doesn't say putin specifically and he doesn't talk about that openly in real clear and oral terms is because of this desire he thought he could win him over and work with him. i think he'll continue on this dichotomy where he says, good, sanctions are good. you're making him pay for bad bha behavior, but you will not have the head of administration really vocally clear on the issue. that will continue to be the situation. i would say in this situation we have france being more hawkish, which i didn't expect to see. the american public is not in the mood for a sustained on the ground, certainly, campaign.

>> a lot of republican members of congress might be calling up the president of france. macron says he's the one that convinced the president. the president had been very public about, i want to get out of syria as soon as possible, i wish we were out yesterday. now the u.s. troops are battling isis and they'll stay for at least six months. the president is taking the credit. >> seven days ago the president said it was his will to remove his troops from syria. we convinced him to stay they have to stay on long term. second, we convinced him we have to limit these strikes to chemical weapons even though there was an uproar of tweets, as you may be aware of. >> that's an interesting state dinner coming up. >> here, mr. president, here's the comey transcript. please don't read the macron transcript. >> the white house is pushing back very hard on this.

they said macron did not change the white house position at all. they've been very clear this military operation was a u.s.-u.k.-french joint operation. they're very is proud of that. but they're pushing back that macron said it's in the u.s.' interest to stay. if the president is going to push so hard to get american troops out of the fight against isis in syria, what does that mean for the broader strategy? i do think it raises a question for them even if they're going to say that, no, in fact, it was not macron who convinced him to go harder. >> just to a point of broader strategy, one thing to look out for, as soon as today the senate foreign chairman bob corker is going to release authorization for using force. it has not been done in 16 years. will there be bipartisan support on the broader war against terror? when do the president come down on this congress rule of

improving more force? especially if the president continues this war against syria. >> a lot of americans might be surprised to find where we are in the u.s. military operations around the world. the question is, should the president do this alone? they get elected to stand up for what the country is doing. here's another question here. any president -- donald trump is the president right now -- any president would be conflicted on what to do in syria, because there is no strategy on the table. here's lindsey graham, republican senator, saying he understands the president's conflict. he would like him to be tougher. >> if you're assad and you hear the president saying, i'm going to make you pay a big price, you're an animal, and what did assad see, a military strike did not change his life at all.

assad wakes up and goes back to work. if you heard the president, you heard he is deathly afraid of the russian president. if you're kurds, you heard we're going to leave which means they're going to get slaughtered. lindsey graham is a very conflicted commander in chief. this is the president about tax cuts. we'll see if he sticks to the topic. >> our secretary of labor is right there. not all of my choices were good, but they were great ones. tomorrow is tax day and we're going to hear from everybody. we have heard from so many people, they're so thrilled. remember this is the last time we draw up that long, complicated, horrible return.

i would say some of his companies that do all that work getting a lot of money for doing your tax returns, they're not going to be too happy with us, but that's about the only business that won't be. so tomorrow, last day. very importantly, next year it will be a simple one page. it will be bigger and simpler to do. and you'll have a lot of money left over from what you have. we didn't get one democrat to vote for us. senator nelson was hostile to it. let me tell you, if for any reason they get in, meaning the democrats, they're going to raise your taxes way up high, they're going to terminate this out -- of course, i'll veto it, but anyway -- they want to terminate and raise your taxes. we cannot let that happen because these countries are

start to go rock with our businesses coming back in. it's starting to really rock. so we've had massive tax cuts, and i mean massive. we've had tremendous success from the company standpoint and from the people standpoint. they're going out, they have a lot more money to spend. something happened that we didn't even expect, nobody talked about it. when we first had it passed, it started with, well, at&t. we might as well give them credit. but they gave $1,000 bonuses to their employees. that's a lot of employees. all of a sudden, other companies came along. now you have so many of the big companies have given bonuses to the people that work for the companies. that was unexpected. nobody thought that was going to happen. and most importantly, we waited until february 1st, and you see what's happened to your wallet. you're getting a lot more money in your weekly or monthly checks than you ever thought possible. so people are really liking it,

and very importantly, it's great for the country. our taxes were the highest or among the highest, but just about, i would say, marco, they were the highest in the world from a business standpoint. that's why businesses were leaving. now they're not the lowest but they're on the low side and businesses are pouring back in to the united states. and that means jobs. that means jobs. so we created, since election day, that beautiful, beautiful day -- was that a great day? we got a big, big percentage vote over here, huh? we got a big percentage vote. since election day, we've created 3 million new jobs. 3 million. and people, if i would have said

that prior to the election that it would create 3 million jobs, they would have said, that's ridiculous, that's an exaggeration, how is that possible? we would have taken a lot of heat. now we've created 3 million jobs and it's going higher than that. unemployment rates for hispanics. are there any hispanics in the room? for hispanics, we have the lowest level ever recorded. in other words, you have more employment -- think of it -- lowest level employment rates for african-americans, the lowest level ever recorded. and i'm really proud of it. unemployment for women. lowest level in 18 years.

that means if you're a woman and hispanic or a woman and african-american, you're really doing well, right? that means you're really doing well. remember i used to take heat for it. what do you have to lose? i would say, what do you have to lose? every once in a while i would say, if it was a rambunctious stadium or something, i would say, what the hell do you have to lose, right? i get criticized by those people, the fake media back there. thank you! no, i get criticized for using the word "hell." i say, i've heard a heck of a lot worse than that. but the economist larry kudlow is here someplace. where is larry? come on, larry, stand up. he just gave me a number. he said the economy is entering the greatest boom in many decades. in other words, it's now at the

early phase -- would you say that, larry -- of the earliest and -- this could be the greatest boom ever. i think it is because the country is so strong and ready to rock. what do you think, larry? >> i agree. >> can you imagine if he said, i disagree with that? [ inaudible ] >> everybody is going to benefit. that's right. by the way, john bolton is here, and we just had a big successful -- john. so i think -- john, that's

pretty good. i didn't expect that. i'mjealous. are you giving him all the credit? did our generals do a great job? did our military do a great job? you know with more than 100 missiles shot, they didn't shoot one down. their equipment didn't work too well. you heard, oh, they shot 40 down, they shot 50 down. no, sir, every single one hit its target. not one was shot down. so we have the biggest tax cut in history, bigger than the reagan tax cut, bigger than any

tax cut. the original mandate is gone which is about the end of obamacare. we had obamacare beat and then one senator decided to go thumbs down. do you remember that? no, nobody remembers thumbs down. that's all right, because alex acosta has come up, and this is a plan that a lot of people wanted for a long time, associations, and we're going to have tremendous sign-ups. alex, when is that -- tell me, tucked, when is that going to be ready when people can actually start signing and doing it through groups and cooperatives, et cetera? >> that's right, mr. president. we hope to have that by this summer. >> it's going to be incredible. you're going to get tremendous insurance at a very low cost. so the original mandate is there. anwar is up. that's the big energy that nobody thought -- i said, no, let's not do that, and then a person called up that i have a lot of respect for in the energy

business. she said, is it true that you're going to get anwar as part of your tax cut plan? you know, they put a lot of things in. we have the original mandate, we have anwar. i said, yeah, it's true. tell me about it because i'm not inclined to do it. be very specific, please. he didn't benefit by it, but he said, they've been trying to get this passed since ronald reagan. no president could get it done. it's impossible. it's perhaps the most -- the biggest, the best in the world in terms of energy, in terms of a field. nobody has been able to get it done. as soon as i heard that, i called up and said, put that back in the bill quickly. right? and we got it done. marco, we got it done. that was a big deal. that's a lot of jobs in alaska. that's a lot of jobs. just another thing, because the tax cut is massive and not since reagan. but you look at the whole bill,

it's bigger than anything ever passed. but more importantly -- and that's a tremendous asset to our country. but we did another thing that people don't talk about much. we cut regulations at a level that nobody has seen in the history of our country more than any other president, so i'm here 15 and 16 months, and we've cut more regulations than any president whether it's four years, eight years, or in one case, 16 years. nobody is even close. and we're not finished yet. roads and highways would take 17 years to get improved and not get approved. they take 17 years and they're voted down. now we're looking to getting it to two years and maybe even one year. and maybe it gets rejected, but if it does, it's going to get rejected quickly. you're not going to take an entire lifetime to get something approved and all of a sudden you find out -- i've had roger

explain, it took years and years, and you go, fortunately, it got approved. i've had projects that took four or five or six years to get approved, big building projects, and i said to myself going into the final approvals, you know, if these five people don't vote for it, i've wasted millions and millions of dollars and i've wasted five or six years of my life trying to get a project approved. it's not right. you know if something is good and if it's going to get approved. so we have the biggest regulation cut -- and i'm not so sure that the regulation cut, marco, isn't even more important than this massive tax cut, but it's right up there. and we're continuing to go. so we think that things that would take sometimes two decades to get approved can be done in two years and even one year. and again, if they're not environmentally good, if they're not safe, if it's not great for our water and air and all the things we watch and think are so important, we're not going to approve it. but we're going to have fast

approvals. we have many, many jobs that started that would never start if the other administration came in. and that's why you see the job numbers the way they are. the job numbers are through the roof and training numbers are through the roof. you see it. and they don't talk about regulation much. i think it's as important as the big massive tax cut. so i just want to let you know that. the business and consumer confidence in our country is at an all-time high. larry just gave me the numbers and there's nothing close. so we're at an all-time high. and the tax cuts for family, let's talk just about families now. number one, the jobs, you have choice. we're creating choice for our great veterans. this is a different kind of choice. this is choice for a job. in the past you would hold one job. you really have choice.

people are hiring, and wages for the first time in 18 years are going up. because i used to make these speeches. i came down here and made one. wages were stagnant and even going down. people made more money 18 years ago and today they're working two and three jobs. first time in 18 years where wages are going up. congratulations. enjoy your money. congratulatio congratulations. so today we're joined by florida business owners and workers who are experiencing the incredible results of the tax cuts, and i'd like to invite each of you to share some of your stories. if we can start, let's start right at the end of the table. >> thank you, mr. president. >> seems like a very prosperous guy. >> trying to be, trying to be. my name is alberto daniel. i'm cuban-american descent, born and raised in hialeah, florida. >> you're watching the president of the united states leading a roundtable in florida. he mentioned the key senate race

saying the democrats wouldn't vote for his tax cuts. he says tax cuts are key to a record boom, he promises, to the economy. the comey interview is out which has new focus on the mueller investigation and did the president obstruct justice. and we're in our midterm election year where if the president can pull it off is absolutely critical to how much his party loses. everyone assumes the republicans will lose. if they can defy history, we will see, but everyone says in the first republican year, america will suffer. can they help candidates or will they come to view him as a liability? >> what we saw of this is him doing what his advisers and republicans want him to do, just talk about taxes. not about white house chaos but talk about their main legislative achievement. and it's important, too, i

think, because in a lot of things that were very pro tem, they were not playing well to its base. a lot of people didn't like the strikes in syria. the suggestion he reconsider the tpp hasn't played well, so there are people in trump country a little worried about what's going on right now. >> ultimately in november there will be a base election. democrats are much more enthusiastic about voting as republicans are. you see some polls reflecting more positive feelings among republicans. so if trump can get the republican voters themselves to feel like there is a reason why they put republicans in power. tax cuts delivered what republicans were pushing for, perhaps helping with the base turnout come election day. it's a risk, because trump goes on the road, you don't know what he's going to say and all the distractions continue to undercut their message. that's the goal here, trying to

get some republican enthusiasm going into november. >> people who aren't fans of president will roll their eyes at this or attack me on the internet, but if he sticks to the script talking about tax cuts and he's laid back, he seems a lot more happy. when he's in a room with a crowd applauding him, when he's talking about the things he's gotten done, when he talks about the economic numbers which are good, he seems like a happy warrior, if you have, than when you read his twitter feed. >> he's talking about the american people, and he's talking about 3 million jobs, and you get to keep more money, and he's talking about how he affects voters and how you need to vote for the house. he is probably their most effective messenger on that because he's the president. the issue comes when it doesn't even necessarily matter if he

stays on script during a given event. if the overall sense of him is that he is concerned with his own personal issues, that he is a dishonorable person in the white house and independents and republican leaners feel like they should stay home, that is regardless of what the president says on the campaign trail. >> he was saluting some of the cabinet members with him saying, not all my picks are good, but these guys are great as he introduced the economic team. you mentioned the strikes on syria. his new national security adviser john bolton is with him. the president singled him out, and this was trademark trump. >> john, that's pretty good. i didn't expect that. i'm a little jealous. are you giving him all the credit? you know that means the end of his job. >> a joke there from the president, but if you're john bolton -- >> you know what they said about

jokes. nobody knows trump like trump and that's a pretty good impression. i think there is an open question in the midterms as to whether trump works for trump but just does not transfer it to other people, whether he's on script or not. i think that's a really good question. we've seen in alabama, the senate race, where they did not win, and in the special election in pennsylvania as well, places where it should have worked and yet it did not. >> except he didn't stay on message, necessarily, when he was in those places campaigning for those people. he talked a lot about himself. when he went to alabama, he at first wasn't for him and then he became for the nominee. >> the president is there in april. let's see if he's there in september and october. trump just carried florida. he'll be in another place and we'll see if he's back there.

thank you for joining me on "inside politics" today. wolf starts after a quick break.

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