but you're right, there are very big disagreements on that team, and how this gets resolved, and whether or not the president will stay off twitter and stop antagonizing the chinese is also a big question. >> that is probably the largest unknown of anything as they head over to china for these negotiations. christina, thanks so much. thank you for bringing us that interview. thank you all for joining me. "inside politics" with john king starts now. thank you, kate. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. we now know what the special counsel wants to ask the president and the list is a wow. most allies of the president say he would be nuts to sit down for an interview. count your tuesdays. midterm elections now six months away. cnn shifting more houses toward the democrats. the public insisting it is not a

lost cause. france called it proof the iran deal is working, but israel's prime minister hopes his new slide show is the final nudge president trump needs to rip it up. >> if this was known in 2015, the nuclear deal as was done would not be done. and, in fact, the pre-conditions for its implementation was that iran come clean, and it gave them a clean bill of health that they had no secret nuclear weapons. that's not true. they had it, they kept it and they're ready to use it. >> back to that big story in a few moments. but we begin with special counsel robert mueller's sweeping list of questions for president trump and what it tells us about his russia meddling investigation. for starters, ignore the president's reaction except for the possible political attempt. no attempts of collusion, the president rights. actually, the list of four dozen questions reported by the "new

york times" includes several acts of collusion, by his son, by campaign aides, and by his long-time personal lawyer. there are also questions about whether the president tried to influence key witnesses, like this one. what efforts were made to reach out to mr. flynn about seeking immunity or an exclusive pardon? that means someone high up tried to keep the former national security adviser from cooperating. and you could lump into the special section about the president's treatment of james comey, his angry tweets, even his efforts to fire mueller himself. the scope of the questions is stunning, and it is telling. mueller is a former federal prosecutor, former fbi director. you know you don't treat the prospect of interviewing the president as a fishing expedition. any questions that make the final list, therefore, should be for information absolutely vital that only the president can provide. or with information for the president's direct role where his intent is central.

people are sitting across from the president with such a list. counsel in the clinton whitewater and lewinsky investigation. you've gone through these questions. inquiry from the people for robert mueller say this is trouble. dua agreo you agree? >> it's a sign that the president should not go in for that interview. if he were my client, i would advise him of that. this is a list of questions that is striking both in its breadth and in its detail. and in particular, it shows that mr. mueller has a very, very broadview of obstruction of justice which would worry me greatly if i represented the president. >> so i just want to go through a couple issues here. the president says there are no questions about collusion. actually, there's several. when did you become aware of the

trump tower meeting? that was the meeting that don jr. was with campaign officials. what knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by paul manafort, to russia about potential assistance to the campaign? the president and his tweets are not factual, but from your knowledge, we're going to ask this question of the president of the united states. you had to go through that meeting. is this a question we have to ask the president? what does it tell you that that's still on the list? >> i disagree with the premise that we're only asking questions that we absolutely have to ask the president. but there's no question this is -- these are deadly serious questions, and obviously there is no question the president is completely wrong when he says there are no questions about collusion. there are more than several questions about collusion. though most of them are about obstruction. there are close to 20 that i think could be called related to collusion. he's just wrong about that. he also says it's a disgrace

that it was leaked. well, i agree, but who leaked it? certainly no indication that it's the mueller people. they've been a very tightly run ship. so i assume it came from somebody who the defense camp gave them to. >> solomon wisenburg, we appreciate your insight. with us the associated press, also cnn, abby perez and abby phillips. to sol's point, i read through this having gone through the clinton investigation where there's a little disagreement about what makes the list. but when you go through this list and you see that bob mueller wants to ask the president about everything -- about everything -- and this is months after his attorneys narrowed this down and narrowed this down and said, look, can we do this by e-mail, what does

this tell you? >> this is the meeting in march where the mueller team finally laid their cards on the table. this is something the president's legal team had tried to figure out a way to discern where is this going, and i think they finally got it. frankly it was a big gulp moment. they saw flashing lights before them, and it crystallized why the president should not do a voluntary interview. secondly, what it sets up is the likelihood this is going to end up being a fight. i think the president and people around him are already laying the groundwork for the political side of this, which is if the president refuses to do a voluntary interview, he's going to get castigated and criticized, but he's already laid the groundwork that this is a witch hunt and mueller is way over his skis here. i think then maybe we'll see a fight over whether mueller decides to do a subpoena, and that goes to the courts, and then we have several months of that. there are a couple things that jump out at me. the things you point out, but

one last thing i would say, it's clear that it's not just people around the president and collusion that the questions are. there is one about the 2013 trip to russia and what communication or relationships did you have with the agalaras? they are some wealthy kremlin directors that the president has some relationships with, and there is a lot more for mueller to have follow-ups on. this is why i don't think there will abe voluntabe a voluntary . >> and the special counsel of the united states wants to sit across from him and ask him, did you try to get paul manafort to cooperate? and what did you think and do in reaction to the news that the special counsel was speaking to mr. rogers, mr. pompeo and mr. coats? what did you do in reaction to the news of the appointment of the special counsel? again, tried to get to the president's actions, but also what he's thinking, his head,

his intent. >> also important to note that mueller would be asking these questions if he does go forward with this interview after i've heard answers to these questions from other people around the president. so he's going in with top advisers like reince priebus, michael flynn, paul manafort. they've already gone in and talked, to these questions are not coming out of nowhere. mueller would have trumps's answers from people he's already collected them from in the room. >> mueller understands something very important about trump which is sometimes when you ask him, what were you thinking when you did x? he answers honestly. he doesn't answer like a lawyer, he answers like a person. he was simply asked, were you thinking about ending the russia investigation when you fired james comey, and he bakesically answered the question honestly.

so to the degree mueller and these questions are simply wanting to know the president's perspective on what he did and perhaps expecting an honest answer is telling about the president and how he behaves. >> that's what's so fascinating, the trump paradox. he says some things he knows aren't true, but then he sometimes impulsively tells you what he thinks. to that point, this is something the investigators in the beginning said they were going to try to get answers to these questions. but robert mueller wants to sit across from the president and ask, how was the decision made to fire mr. flynn on february 20, 2013? regardless of firing mr. comey, when was the decision made? why? who played a role? in the case of michael flynn, someone they kept on after being warned he was bad, and then fired him only when it got out to the public that he had lied. >> that's exactly right. when you go through the entire list, one is the scope and scale of the list. it's literally everything we've all talked about or read into or

investigated or broken news on over the course of the last 14 or 15 months. there is no narrowing here by any account. when it comes to the issues you raised, work under the assumption that mueller knows all the answers to all of these things. i think that's why evan's point is so sail yelient right now ant is sitting down with the legal team is not the best thing right now, because mueller and his team know the answers at least to other individuals' perspectives and they want to line it up with the president's and see how they come out. mueller's team really kind of drills down into what they actually want answers to. >> let's step back and think about what we're saying. the president gets advice sometimes from someone on cable television. here is one. sean hannity says, mr. president, do not do the interview. >> this garbage from the "new

york times" tonight, absolute garbage. no attorney will ever let this president sit down with robert mueller. now it's going to go on for a year. it's all executive privilege, and mueller drove this, as i predicted he would when he hired his hit team of partisans. >> sean hannity trying to speak to the audience of one there because all the attorneys have said no, and the president said, i would like to do it if i can. implicit in saying the president cannot go in for this interview is what? either he has something to hide or he can speak to a stranger or both. >> after the president said, sure, i would be willing to talk to mueller and cooperate with mueller, it raises the question of, why wouldn't you go do this if you have nothing to hide? of course, there are answers legally and politically to that

question but it does create a conundrum for him. >> mueller's office has been pretty tight. >> right, but our understanding is, and based on our reporting from last month as well, these were questions written by the president's legal team. these were not in possession of the mueller team. these are questions that came from notes in the meeting and they composed these questions based on the information they got, the cards they saw laid out in front of them. there is only one place this could come from and that's the trump side. >> the obvious result is that it's being talked about on television. the message from the president is pretty direct. don't do this. this is a trap for you. >> there is a lot of rope for the president to get hanged. >> some people call it a trap. some say a lot of questions you have not sufficiently answered. mueller has another stack of interviews and it is not in the good for him to answer questions. do the prime minister's

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israel's prime minister insists he has caught iran in a big lie and it is time for president trump to tear up the iran nuclear deal. >> the premise is that iran said it had no such material. it's not just in the minds of the people, it's the actual calculations, the measurements, the blueprints. they kept it hidden because they don't want the world to know what i showed yesterday. >> yesterday the prime minister had a lengthy slide presentation, but it included no evidence that iran is currently violating the agreement. listen to michael hayes. he is the former director of intelligence. he said, is there validity, yes, but is it a breakthrough?

>> getting this trove of documents and digital records, i think it only gives more detail to the plot line we all knew, that we all agreed. to the best of my knowledge, not getting all the briefings. i realize this is an intelligent source. >> michael hayden's point seems to be the governor of france put on a lengthy statement. prime minister netanyahu, yes, had a lot of details that iran lied for a long time of what it was doing in the depth and scope of its nuclear program. a lot of people knew that, but his main message was to try to get a message to president trump, rip it up. >> the prime minister is in trouble politically at home. he's been calling for the united states to tear it up, to back off this agreement for a long time. he needs this. he's making the argument after the leaders of france and germany came through washington, d.c., met with president trump

and urged him to keep it. there are always questions of what we're calling the preexisting activities, the intent to develop nuclear weapons. there is a little news that's not new to american intelligence, french intelligence or british intelligence. recently both the current secretary of state, mike pompeo, and the defense secretary jim mattis has said iran is complying with the nuclear agreement, which seems to be more clear than general hayden's remarks. >> you could see his was an audience of one, almost. this was done in a televised address. he had charts, he had graphics. we know that that is something that trump's own advisers use when they're trying to sell him a lot of visual aids. he's doing television interviews to try to bolster his point with american voters. much of this seems to be about positioning himself as trump makes his decision, and he did it probably in a way that was fairly effective coming off the heels of these visits just knowing the way trump responded

to it. >> the president was with the president of nigeria yesterday, and he said he had seen much of prime minister netanyahu's presentation already and he's thinking of walking away. >> in seven years, that deal would have expired and iran is free to walk away and create nuclear weapons. that's not acceptable. and they're not sitting back. i believe they're setting off missiles which they say are for television purposes. i don't think so. if anything, what's happened today and what's happened in the last little while and what we've learned has really shown i've been 100% right. >> may 12th being the operative deadline. all indications are go? >> the president has been coy about it, saying you all think i know what i'm going to do, and i'm not going to tell you what i'm going to do, but, wink,

wink, i'm pulling out of the deal. the conversations with macron talked about some sort of possible side deal or new deal that wouldn't actually rip up the jocpa. there is not time for that. there have been legitimate items behind the scenes to try to figure out a path forward in negotiation between israel and the united states. i think the most interesting element besides the assad operation, the details of that when it came to getting the documents and the disks that were laid out yesterday, is just the strategy behind it. getting the last word here in the wake of merkel, in the wake of macron, making sure you were the last one to talk to the president before he makes this decision, a decision he feels very comfortable, i think, in his current place. the big question now is what about means? you heard the iaea say there is no current program in iran.

the deal has always been after this deal ends in ten years, they could just restart it. if you keep that as a baseline premise and that's your reason to pull out of the deal, then the president needs all he needs to stay in it. if that's his viewpoint, then he gets out, but i think everyone is asking what happens after may 12 if he gets out? >> what does backing out mean for trump? does it mean a rose garden event in which he says, i'm quitting the iran deal fully? does it mean that iran will punish american, chinese, russian, other countries that do business with iran? people think he's pulled out of the climate group. he hasn't. that doesn't happen until 2020. it's a definitional matter. what does it mean to tear it up? what does it mean to walk away? if you listen to the french, they don't seem like he thinks he's going to say, if you pull

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leaning. in the democrats, 180 solid, 11 likely, 11 leaning. let's take a look at the toss-up seats. 19 currently held by republicans, meaning 19 seats have moved from the dark red toward the middle now, toward the blue. 19. only two of those seats are held by democrats. is that enough to get the democrats there? let's give you one scenario. if the democrats keep that momentum, win the toss-up states, win the lean democratic states and hold the likely democratic states, that would get the democrats to the magic number, across the majority threshold. it never plays out that cleanly, but the democrats can reach the majority without reaching any of the red seats. just the darker blue would give them the majority. here's another way to look at it. where are we now as opposed to the beginning of the year?

look at the numbers. more solid democratic seats, more lean democratic seats, more seats have moved from the red in the toss-up call. any way you add this up, democrats have a chance in the final six months to take back the house. it won't be easy but look at the shift from january to today. again, six months a long way to go but the math unmistakably tells you democrats have a more than reasonable chance to take back the house. six months. we're all counting every day to the midterms. i say that jokingly but not in the sense that we're heading to some key primaries. if you go back to the beginning of the year, more house races toward the blue. taking away from the red, shifting toward the blue. you walk the halls every day up there. do republicans understand the shift in this? the new guys elected in 2010, 2014, they don't understand because they've never lived through a year like this. >> the vast majority of them do. the ones who don't just look at

the fundraising totals. you've had speaker ryan, you've had leader mccarthy behind closed doors. that's where they would have wanted it to go for people like tom herritt and david bratt. raise your money if you want to defend yourself. no seat is safe right now. i talked to one top republican official who said we know to keep the house we essentially have to pitch a perfect game. it doesn't mean it's out of the realm of possibility. the idea that there is zero chance that republicans keep the house, it's just not the case. they've got money, they've got superpacs, they can finance what they're trying to do. and because of the way the lines are drawn right now, it may not be the type of wave we saw in 2010. but the reality is particularly move aside the weak numbers. they're outraising in districts. people who have no political experience at all are outraising

republicans by hundreds of thousands of dollars. you've seen the numbers we've seen which is completely parallel but certainly means the energy is there. democrats have to royally screw things up to lose. >> this is shown by a republican strategist. he looks at these numbers and says, wait a minute, we ever a chance here. look at 2006, 2008 and now. 2006 and 2008, big democratic years. one a presidential year, wayone midterm year. democrats had an advantage in the economy. this year republicans have the advantage on taxes and the economy. that is why you have republicans and here's paul ryan the speaker saying, mr. president, please put down the phone. mr. president, please stop attacking the counsel and the justice department. mr. president, please just talk taxes and the economy. >> if you look at the generic

ballot today -- that's one of met rix all of our data guys look at -- it actually looks pretty good. we believe that if the election were today, we would keep the house and we were busy focusing on people's problems. >> he would tell you privately the president is distracted by the speaker because of other stuff. all these people come in to the president and say, you all told me this in '16, too, you told me i was going to lose, so go away. >> i don't think the president understands the political fortunes and the vast amount of republicans out there running different kinds of races. they're not running the type of campaign he ran in 2016. on top of that, in addition to taxes and the economy more

broadly, one of the reasons republicans were so against the president throwing a curveball in the economy by going after tariffs and really ending some of the confidence that had been in wall street, for example, is that that really put at risk some of the economic growth they had tried to put together in the last half of last year. so there's been some stuff. in addition to mueller, it's also some of the wilder things the president has been doing when it comes to foreign trade that republicans are just uncomfortable with because it has resulted in the sentiment that people are feeling like, we were going up for so long and now every single day they're talking about losses on wall street. that does matter to people. especially people close to retirement. >> it is a constant struggle for people on the hill and white house advisers to get the president to stay on this message: economy and taxes, economy and taxes. they can set up events, they can set him up to travel on those messages and he gets distracted. that is one of their great

frustrations. >> the president does it regularly. script? eh. >> i'll sit out. a battle between one party to another and a delay on tariffs. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job

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checking our political radar now, bragging rights in a year for the army football team. president trump presenting them with a trophy for their win last december. he said there just might be room for another. >> you will be part of the five

proud branches of the united states armed forces. army, navy, marines, air force and the coast guard. we're actually thinking of a sixth. and that would be the space force. does that make sense? the space force, general. you probably haven't even heard that. i'm just telling you now. we're getting very big in space. >> i wonder where they'll put the academy. two top aides of the epa of scott pruitt are leaving. they want to talk about pruitt's habits and controversial measures. also leaving the epa, cal kelly. he's been running the agency's important superfund program. blank blankenship doesn't think much of mitch mcconnell.

but he tries to revive a west virginia campaign that by all accounts is struggling. >> if you want jobs, if you want to end the drug epidemic and you want to protect the unborn, you need to vote for me. one of my goals as u.s. senator will be to ditch cocaine mitch. >> blankenship's campaign points to a shipping company owned by the senate majority leader's father-in-law that said it once got caught smuggling cocaine. no comment from leader mcconnell's office. the white house now postponing its decision on steel and aluminum tariffs. the trump administration now giving the white house an additional 30 days to try to work things out. christine roman explains the delay. >> hi, john. president trump holding off on those tariffs, at least for now. they tried in march with several exemptions and they expired at midnight with just hours to spare. it extended exemptions for eu,

canada and mexico until june 1st and the white house now says it's focused, john, so quotas to both curb import of steele a an aluminum in south korea. this happened when french president macron urged trump not to slap tariffs on the eu. it included strategic items from paul ryan, think harley-davidsons, and mitch mcconnell, think whiskey. the president has granted another month. this also allows the white house to focus on another trade ban with china. secretary steve mnuchin, trade representative robert

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yes, sometimes life is stranger than fiction. new nbc reporting this hour says the president's former doctor that someone named tom shiller came to the president's office and took all his medical records. >> what cannexactly were they

looking for? >> a lot of medical records and so forth. i couldn't believe they were making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair which is not important. and if someone takes alopecia to grow their hair, bhaewhat's the matter with that? >> there's some hilarious tv there. dr. borden saying he couldn't believe anyone would be upset that the president took drugs to grow his hair. that's funny, i guess, but keith shiller worked at the white house at the time. if a white house aide, a lawyer and somebody else shows up unannounced without notice to take a doctor's records and he didn't seem like he had a choice in the matter, what? >> there is a lot to unpack in that story. you're right, the actual act that he is describing is so

bizarre that i think it's important to just walk through the sequence of this. this happened when trump was in office, february of 2017, so shortly after he took office. you had keith shiller who was working in the office, but also alan garten who was working in the trump organization, a business trump said he had separated himself from. we all know that that is a bit of an overstatement, how much he has separated from his business. but the two of them together going to get private medical records from the president's personal physician? it's a wild story in a year and month where we've had just so many wild stories. sometimes you kind of wake up and think, this can't possibly be happening, and yet, it continues to happen. >> we were all introduced to dr. borden during the campaign. he's a strange, eccentric guy.

taxpayers paid chookeith shille the time. the trump organization's top lawyer showing up unannounced, apparently not trusting this doctor to turn over the president's records. >> yeah. and not to mention this could be done in a fairly normal way. doctors' offices do it all the time. you go to a new doctor, you sign a form, they turn over the documentation. that is probably something that happens with every president. they chose to do it this way. they chose to show up unannounced, to seize whatever they chose to seize, and then also tell him, apparently according to the story, to take a photo of them and the president off their wall. it seems like the point here is to send a message to the doctor about revealing something about the president that was perhaps unflattering in his view, or maybe overly personal. the president wants his doctors to say he's the healthiest person alive, which this doctor did at one point, but he also revealed, apparently in this

"new york times" article, that he was taking drugs to grow his hair, that he was taking drugs for cholesterol, that sort of thing. >> which is actually fairly mild. it does feel retaliatory. it also feels a little bit like, well, if he's willing to reveal this, is there something else he would be willing to reveal. >> so maybe show up and politely say the president wants his records back. taxpayers' dollars used to intimidate somebody, i don't think that's -- >> for the use of shiller as an enforcer while he was working in the white house is an interesting story. remember keith shille, was also the person sent to deliver the letter that fired jim comey. even though comey wasn't even there. there's been questionable uses

of that office in the presidency that i just think this fits into that pattern. >> it is bizarre. more questions to answer. we shall try. we talked about a message there to the president's former doctor. next, what do you think? the president's famous tabloid talks about the fixer. will michael cohen get the message? it's a pill that treats psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months, ... with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss.

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should michael cohen be more worried about robert mueller or the national enquirer. the president's fixer comes up several times in the long list of questions that mueller would like to ask president trump. here's one. what communication did the president have with michael cohen, felix sater and others, including foreign nationals, about russian real estate developments during the campaign? the national enquirer attacks him in a cover story, and no one knows better than cohen this

tabloid is owned by a close friend of the president, who often uses its pages to help the president. jim acosta asked the president if the flattering cover you just saw was a deliberate message. this is michael cohen. quote, what do you think? what do you think? >> i think the national enquirer has often been used as a vehicle for trump oe o's own opinions o things. we've seen that during the campaign. i would say if i was michael cohen i would be fairly worried about the posture of the national enquirer. >> i think if there's one thing we've all learned in the last 15 months that can include the campaign as well is that everything ends up connected to one another, like bizarrely. you think one random figure that comes out in a story three months ago will somehow be connected to a story moving this one day. so when the connection seems brutally obvious as it does in this case, you might as well think it's true.

i think the interest of it is a why? why would you attack someone, or why you want someone you consider allies to deploy an attack on someone people are quite wary of. >> and if you're a publisher of the national enquirer, why would you guarantee a reference to the feds? >> last week the president gave an interview to fox news in which he said, michael cohen? michael cohen who? this guy doesn't do any legal work for me, he's in trouble for his own business problems. also the president has basically tried to separate himself in all other kinds of ways from cohen. cohen is this headline that says "lie." i think that's a really important word in this case. if cohen has something to say about president trump, the president probably wants him to be characterized as untrustworthy. so the message is pretty clear

here. he's trying to cordon himself off on something that could be a pandora's box businesswise and politically as well. >> i get that's the president's strategy, but that's like me trying to say this hand and this hand are not attached to the same body. michael cohen has worked for donald trump forever. forever. if donald trump thinks he can separate himself from michael cohen, then maybe donald trump can fly. to that point there is new reporting that cnn reported overnight that the president's reelection campaign has paid a lot of michael cohen's legal expenses. they're making the distinction this was only for the russian meddling investigation, not for the new investigation which involves his business practices and things, but still they paid more than $228,000 in his legal expenses. you can't say, oops. >> no, you can't. the answer to the first question is he should be more worried about the southern district of new york more than you'llmuelle think. i don't think anyone has watched the president pardonen former

aide scooter libby without thinking, huh. this came out of the blue. this either certainly sent a message intentionally or not to these people caught up in these investigations facing federal charges that they've got some problems. i don't like the idea of the d feds calling up the national enquirer for obvious reasons, but they're trying to stick it to cohen. >> rod rosenstein, the executive attorney general, took that away from robert mueller when he came through with some evidence. he said, that's not your mandate, hand it off to the prosecutors in new york. but to the list of questions that robert mueller wants to ask the question includes this. what did he know about a ukranian peace proposal provided to mr. cohen in 2017? bob mueller seems to think some pro-russian ukranians came to michael cohen with a new deal and said, can you get this to candidate trump? they have to think there is

something nefarious about this. >> and it shows how interconnected it all is. the southern district of new york seems tobacco h-- to be cohen's big problem here, but it's all very bizarre. >> thank you for watching "inside politics." wolf starts right now. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington, 6:00 p.m. in london, 8:00 p.m. in moscow. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. 49 questions but how many answers? the "new york times" obtaining at least four dozen questions robert mueller, the special counsel, has for the president of the united states on everything from obstruction to his campaign activities. plus, asked whether he thinks a new national enquirer cover is a message, the president's long-time personal lawyer and so-called fi