sitdown with the president of the united states. greg abbott unveiled his plan for improving campus safety after the shooting that killed ten in texas. the governor is recommending the school has more armed resource officers and more people for reporting people unfit for carrying weapons. thanks for joining us. "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. from wherever you're watching around the world, thank you very much for joining us. he's called him everything from beleaguered to mr. ma go. now president trump says he wishes he didn't pick jeff sessions to become the attorney general, as we learn of an explosive request by the president. plus, a republican congressman blows up the

president's conspiracy theory that an fbi spy infiltrated his campaign. why trey gowdy now says that claim is bogus. plus, canceled but not quiet. roseanne barr blaming her racist twits on amambien. and now the president has responded. but first, we're following new developments involving recusal, regret, and the russia investigation. president trump's battle with the attorney general jeff sessions is under scrutiny by the special counsel robert mueller and his investigators. according to "the new york times," mueller's team is looking into a march 2017 meeting between sessions and the president at his mar-a-lago resort in florida. the report says trump berated sessions and pressured him to rescind his recusal from the russia investigation. in a tweet, the president said he regrets choosing sessions as his attorney general. he quotes republican congressman trey gowdy who said "there are lots of really good lawyers in

the country. he could have picked somebody else." to which the president replied, and i wish i did. let's go to jeff zeleny. jeff, what more does all this tell us about mueller's investigation? >> reporter: wolf, beyond anything, it confirms the president's frustration with this investigation, and certainly the point about the potential line of inquiry about obstruction of justice. the president calls this investigation a witch hunt repeatedly, over and over, saying there was no collusion. but the obstruction of justice is equally important, perhaps more so. so this is the president going after his attorney general as he's done so often. but certainly the fact that he's still keep thing up, some 14 months later, is a sign that he is frustrated for a reason. always important to keep in mind, the president and his lawyers know so much more about what the special counsel is looking at. so much more about the time

frame of this. so it certainly could seem to indicate the president is upset for a new reason, perhaps it's because of the obstruction of justice. important to remember, wolf, the attorney general sevens as the pleasure of this president. he's expressed his frustration saying he wish he would have hired someone else, but he's not yet fired him. one of the key reasons, so many republican senators said they will not confirm a new attorney general if jeff sessions, a former long-time senator from alabama, is fired. so that is one of the reasons the president, up until now, has been reluctant to fire him. we'll see if that holds, wolf. >> amidst all of this, jeff, the president has all of a sudden suddenly, after a long silence, weighed in on abc's decision to cancel roseanne barr's tv show because of her racist tweets. what is the president saying? >> reporter: he did, wolf. of course, yesterday, the white house was uncharacteristically silent about this. white house press secretary sarah sanders said the president is busy focusing on other

matters. he did not talk about it last evening in tennessee at a rally. he did weigh in this morning online. let's take a lock at what he said. he said this -- >> reporter: so wolf, a couple things going on there. the president seeming to make this about him, you know, certainly not weighing in on the substance of the matter. valerie yart jarrett is a forme obama official, suggesting that she was an ape. the racist comment not repudiated by this white house, not addressed by this president. the substance of that. he simply used it as an opportunity to talk about himself, wolf. >> yep. jeff zeleny at the white house. thank you very much. a lot to discuss with our panel.

julie, you co-wrote the important article in "the new york times" that the special counsel robert mueller and his russia investigations are now looking into this conversation that the president had with jeff sessions, his attorney general, in which the president, you guys write, suggested he reverse his recusal and get back and oversee this russia probe. >> right. we know that he was really enraged when jeff sessions made this decision to step aside from the investigation. but by the time they sat down at this dinner, he was also angry at jeff sessions for other reasons, including his travel ban had to be revised. he was just angry in general. he had also been talking since jeff sessions made the decision to recuse himself with his aides, is this reversible? could he step back in and take control back of this? he had been told, no, we can't do that. that's not possible. he stepped aside. this is a legal situation now where you don't just grab back control of an investigation that

you said you're essentially conflicted out of. but that did not stop the president from asking. and he continued to ask over the many months, and obviously to rage in public and private, that jeff sessions made this call. and i guess the tweet that he posted this morning raises, and all of these requests of the attorney general and people around the president raised, what did he expect would happen had jeff sessions kept control of this investigation? what is the object trying to get him to reassert control? was he hoping jeff sessions would protect him, or if not, why was heing to that? >> what does it say to you, gloria, that the special counsel robert mueller and his team are looking into this conversation that the president had with jeff sessions? earlier, we knew that they were looking into the president's decision to fire the fbi director comey. >> it becomes part of the theory of obstructioobstruction.

and jeff sessions seems to loom larger than many of us thought. that's why i think mueller is interested in this and why jeff sessions has appeared, i believe multiple times, before the special counsel. and the question is, how much pressure was put on sessions? what's striking to me, though, is that even though we didn't know until your great story today about this meeting in which the president asked him to unrecuse, if that's a word, himself is -- is that can you obstruct justice in public the way the president has been sort of saying i wish i had fired him. jeff sessions is beleaguered, he's awful, he's this and that. now we know why. he thought if sessions were still at the justice department, sessions would have done everything he had asked him to do, including the so-called witch hunt. can you do that publicly? i mean, i've never seen anything like this.

>> richard nixon sort of did that, didn't he not? >> the tapes? >> in all of his attacks on this -- on his investigation, which he called the witch hunt, there was a pretty frontal attack on cox and then jawarski. clinton made a pretty frontal attack on ken starr. they were both charged with obstructing justice. i'm not sure you can't obstruct justice in plain daylight. >> when we asked rudy giuliani about this episode, which he said he hadn't talked to the president about, he made the point that he was just making the observation that this would have been better if, you know, attorney general sessions had been in charge of this, and he wasn't obstructing, because it was just something he believed. i think the president is trying to make this case as well, you heard him say before, i just push back, i'm not obstructing anything. when i get hit, i push back. he's making this out to be a question of, you know, he personally felt like he was under attack and he was trying

to push back. but the question is, there are legal implications. >> this goes to the heart of what we saw in those 49 questions, which was what was the president's intent is asked a lot. you can push back. the attorney general serves at your pleasure as president. the fbi director serves at your pleasure. so he can do things constitutionally. but if he's doing that with an intent to interfere with a witness or investigation, then it's different. that's what mueller has to decide. >> the question is, more on this later this hour, how much public humiliation can jeff sessions, the attorney general of the united states, take from the president that's been going on now for a year? i wish i did, meaning the president's tweet this morning, i wish i had never asked this guy to become the attorney general. public humiliation is amazing. >> he should have the last laugh

if he's testifying before the mul special counsel multiple times. >> instead of just firing him, if he wants to fire him, fire him. but to see this kind of public humiliation going on and on and on, i don't remember a time when a member of the cabinet has been so publicly rebuked by the president, a president of the united states. let's talk about something else, gloria. trey gowdy, he's a republican congressman. he was in on one of those two very highly classified briefings that the justice department provided on the allegation by the president that the fbi was spying on his campaign. he knocked that down completely last night. listen to this. >> i am even more convinced that the fbi did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got. and that it has nothing to do with donald trump. >> so that's it. the president's spy allegations --

>> done. >> that they were spying on his campaign. trey gowdy, not a huge obama supporter, comes out of that classified briefing and says not true. >> paging devin nunes. where is he? >> he's been ssilent. he was in that briefing as well and hasn't said a word. >> trey gowdy has -- you know, here's the man who is a partisan republican. he is retiring, but he's a partisan republican, ran the benghazi investigation. coming out and saying, this is what you should want. this was not about spygate or spying on the president. these were people doing their jobs. the president himself took another part of gowdy's transcript about his frustration, et cetera, et cetera, and retweeted that. but paid absolutely no attention to the fact that the president was clearly weaving some conspiracy theory that gowdy

debunked on fox news. >> you were in nashville last night when the president said this. listen. >> how

>> -- while screaming "fake news," a child who will grow up believing the press is the enemy. it sort of comes with the territory now. you guys are in the press area and people are really going after you. >> yeah. the president himself kicked off the rally by yelling "fake news" and pointing at us and saying look how many of them are back there. i think this ties back to the comment he made about infiltrating the campaign. he is -- he has this narrative around what happened with this fbi informant, who as gowdy points out and others pointed out in public cases and other outlets, was looking into information that law enforcement -- federal law enforcement had, that russians were trying to interfere in our election. but the president is sort of leaving his own narrative. and to the degree that he wants to be able to do that, this charge of fake news and having a group of supporters, young, old, women, men, from all walks of

life, believing that is helpful to him. because he is able to stand up there and say this is what happened. people do not believe -- and this kid was a depressing example of that -- what they read in the media about that. so he has this ability to kind of re-create the reality of what this is. and i think that's what we're seeing unfold. >> stand by, there's more -- unfortunately, there's more serious developments unfolding right now, including roseanne now blaming ambien for her racist and anti-semitic tweets that led to her firing. you'll hear what she said about her cast members. and moments ago, stormy daniels' attorney reporting there are recorded conversations between michael cohen and his clients. you'll hear what happened in court today. stick around. picking the right style takes time.

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stormy daniels' attorney, michael avenatti. he writes -- the trump tapes -- let me repeat that, the trump tapes that were just disclosed in court as a result of our efforts should be released immediately, not tomorrow, not next week or next month, now! nixon 2.0. all of this unfolding while president trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, he just had a hearing that wrapped up in new york city. cnn is on the scene at the hearing. so what is avenatti referring to when he talks about "trump tapes?" >> reporter: what happened in court today was michael cohen's attorneys basically admitted that there are recordings out there, that under lock and key. he didn't say who was in those recordings, but michael avenatti went on this -- basically said i know what's on those tapes, i heard about it from a reporter. and he claims that those tapes include conversations between stormy daniels' former attorney, keith davidson, and michael

cohen. he's been making claims for a while that the two had conversations about the alleged affair with president trump. so he basically is saying there are recordings and they should be released to the public. take a listen. >> mr. cohen and his attorney, mr. ryan, should release all of those audio recordings to the american people and to congress, so that they can be heard by all. and people can make their own determinations as to their importance relating to the president and what he knew and when he knew it, and what he did as it relates to conspiring with michael cohen to commit one or more potential crimes. >> reporter: and we know that there are still more evidence that needs to be reviewed in the criminal investigation that is going on against michael cohen and his business practices. we know that a special master assigned to this case has turned

over more than a million items on three cell phones from michael cohen and much more to do. >> we had known that michael cohen was routinely recording phone conversations he had over these many months, and maybe many years. what seems to be rather new and potentially very explosive, if someone of those conversations that he recorded included phone conversations he had with donald trump. either as a candidate or as -- simply as a client or as a president of the united states. that seems to be what michael avenatti is suggesting. do you know that there are audiotapes, is avenatti saying that there are audiotapes of phone conversations between michael cohen and donald trump? >> reporter: it's not clear exactly what those audio recordings are at this point, wolf. he has made those claims, are they clean cohen and trump? are there also between keith davidson and michael cohen? there seems to be a trove of

evidence in this case that is still being sifted through. and just the sheer fact that michael cohen's attorney says yes, there are recordings out there, that's what michael avenatti sort of used to bolster all his claims, and it's uncheer what exactly tapes there are and what's out there and what information is on them, wolf. >> brynn, thank you. michael zeldin, if there are phone conversations recorded between michael cohen and donald trump, and you saw his tweet michael avenatti said, nixon 2.0. seems to be suggesting that there may be these kinds of taped conversations potentially that could be explosive. >> it depends on what's on the tapes and what they relate to, of course. so there are two lawsuits going on here. one is avenatti's stormy daniels i want deposition testimony of the president because it relates to my achievement's nondisclosure agreement. if those tapes bear on that, and

when the freeze on that case is lifted, presumably michael avenatti will get to ask the president what is on those tapes. so there's a forum for which those can be released. then there's the southern district of new york case, which if there is evidence of criminal where wrongdoing, the judge is not going to release those to michael avenatti. that's when they will come out in the course of that, you know, either indictment or trial. so michael avenatti, in this one-man public relations campaign, i think is laying grounds for communications among reporters and the like. but is not going to convince either judge to release them under the terms he wants them to. >> cohen recorded conversations, and they got those phone conversations. the question is, are there phone conversations with donald trump

and if there are, are explosive? >> and the recorded conversations, between michael cohen and stormy daniels' first attorney where they were clearly talking about the sort of payoff, you know, the question is what was said between those two people, and we know that davidson now is cooperating with the government. so, you forecast i think avenatti, who by the way withdrew his motion to appear in court, because he knew he was going to lose the question of standing today -- >> if you want a seat at this table, the judge said you're not going to do this talking. he would rather talk than have the gag order. >> he was outside of court making these charges, and he will continue to do that and beat the drum on that, although he's not -- >> we'll stand by to see if we get more on this. thank you very much. meanwhile, the president

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>> all of this while the star is firing off countless tweets and retweets after abc canceled her hit sitcom. the tweets are all over the map. and that's not even all of them. she's apologizing to her fans, telling them not to boycott abc, blaming her late-night rant on ambien, criticizing her co-stars for speaking out against her, promoting more debunked conspiracy they are yiorys, and suggesting all this backlash is because she's conservative. by the way, the makers of ambien said "racism is not a known side effect of the sleeping drug." joining us now to discuss is april ryan and former congressman charlie dent. april, what is your reaction to the president breaking his silence after almost 24 hours? >> he broke his silence, but it was about him. we still don't know exactly what

the president or the white house feels about this. you know, sarah huckabee sanders will be having her briefing very soon this afternoon. and we're going to find out a little bit more. this is someone the president once supported. you though, when she came back for her reboot, that first show he was talking about her ratings. roseanne is a supporter of this president, and he had a core base that watched her. but at issue is what does the president think? and some are cringing to see what his thoughts are with this, because it could ramp up this divide or calm it. i think back to bill clinton. you know, this is one of those teachable moments. valley jaret talked about that yesterday, but this is one of those teachable moments on race. how will the president handle it, will he rise to the occasion or fall? >> this is valerie jarrett, attacked by roseanne, basically compared to being an ape. listen to how she responded. >> first of all, i think we have

to turn it into a teaching moment. i'm fine. i'm worried about all the people out there who don't have a circle of friends and followers who come right to their defense. the person who is walking down the street, minding their own business and they see somebody cling to their purse or walk across the street. those ordinary examples of racism that happen every single day. >> she says the tone starts at the top. that seemed to be a suggestion that the president made at least partially be responsible for some of this. what's your reaction? >> well, i think that valerie jarrett responded with class, and with dignity. it's really unfortunate. the president had an opportunity here to make a statement, and maybe partially redeem himself for the botched response to charlottesville. i think this sun fortunate. but the good news is, the way the corporate community has stood up, not just on this issue, abc and the maker of ambien, but look at starbucks

after the incident in philadelphia. north carolina companies after the bathroom law, and all that occurred there. a lot of the companies are standing up with inclusive messages, while washington remains very tribal and divided, appealing to bases. so i think this is a lost opportunity for the president. >> she also tweeted, april, that she feels bad for the president because she says he goes through this all the time. >> hmm. >> what she's going through. >> well, the president gets a lot of heat for the things that he says. sometimes are unfounded. sometimes just out of the box. but then, you know, other people get it. you know, asjournalist, fox news put out something about me that was not true. i had people calling me gorilla or planet of the apes. this is what happens. and roseanne barr said things, i don't know what happened to her. we don't know why she did this,

but she put herself in a position sitting in that lofty perch to make those kinds of statements to someone who did not provoke it. why? i'm wondering if she was trying to do a direct message on twitter to someone and she made a mistake. it just boggles my mind. she said it before about susan rice and she grabbed her crotch before. she is unhinged. >> charlie dent, i'm sure it's not going to happen, but if you had your way, what would you hike to see the president do about all this? >> i think the president ought to stand up and condemn it for what it is. this is a racist comment, and he should just simply call it out as such. the same way he should have done, the same thing on charlottesville. that's really the simple response. we should just condemn this type of thing, when we see it. roseanne barr she's kind of bizarre. remember, she had given that -- she did that rendition of the national anthem years ago.

it was awful. and she did other things, too. she's a bizarre person, and she makes these statements. the president just needs to condemn it. i remember at the time of charlottesville, the ceo of merck, a friend of mine, stood up, an african-american by the way, stood up and withdrew from the president's advisory council on manufacturing in protest. so i think the president needs to stand up and try to unite the american people and not play to these divisions. >> charlie dent, april ryan, good discussion. thanks to both of you for joining us. that's other important news, including a stunning twist. a russian journalist faking, yes, faking his own death as part of a sting operation to catch suspected assassins. it's an incredible story. we'll share it with you. that's coming up. ... another anti-wrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair® works in just one week.

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his friends, his family, even his wife, thought he was dead. [ applause ] but today, a shocking turn of events. a russian journalist, arkady babchenko, turned up alive on ukrainian tv. the media reported babchenko, a critic of vladamir putin, was shot and killed in his home in kiev on tuesday. as it turns out, his fake death was a special operation to take down a team of russian asansa n assassins. fred pleitgen is covering the story for us. tell us the very latest. >> reporter: yeah, certainly felt like a spy movie that seemed to involve all echelons of the ukrainian government and

security services. they not only said that he was dead, but you had ukrainian politicians, including the prime minister, lashing out at russia, blaming russia for allegedly killing arkady babchenko. then it turned out today -- by staging his death. as you noted before, wolf, even his wife apparently wasn't informed that he was actually still alive. he came out earlier today and he apologized to his wife and others for putting them through the pain of thinking he was dead. let's listen in. >> translator: i would like to apologize for what you all had to go through, because i buried friends and colleagues many times. and i know it's a sickening, vomiting feeling when you have to bury your colleagues. but in another way, it was impossible. i would like to apologize to my wife for the hell she has been through. i'm sorry, but there were no other options.

>> reporter: the ukrainians say some $40,000 were offered up for the killings. they claim that all of this was steered by russia and say one man is now in custody because of this operation. the ukrainian president, wolf, has come out and called it a brilliant operation by the ukrainian security services. as you can imagine, wolf, the tensions between russia and ukraine, the russians are absolutely fuming right now. they say that the ukrainians have lost all international credibility because of this, wolf. >> a lot more, i'm sure, coming up on the story. fred pleitgen reporting from moscow. thank you. here in the united states, the attorney general jeff sessions, he's one of the president's favorite targets. he's been called everything from week to mr. magoo, and now the president wishes he had never hired him. we'll examine all of the insults. stay with us. smart home technology...meet beautiful window coverings. can something so easy, and so affordable... also be this much fun? ohhhhh, yeaaaaah.

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president trump is finally weighing in on the roseanne controversy, but it's not to denounce her racist comments but to talk about his experience with abc. our politics reporter chris cillizza is joining us. it's not the first time we've seen the president spin attention back to him. >> reporter: no. donald trump sees his life and the world through one lens, which is him. let's go to the tweet he had, wolf, on memorial day, of all maces. i believe we have it. we may not. there it is. it's on the screen. happy memorial day. those who died for our great country, but look what he turns to very quickly. lowest unemployment number for blacks and hispanics, rebuilding our military and so much more.

nice. a lot more about donald trump in there than about the soldiers. >> base chi he did the same thing with roseanne uproar. he turned it towards himself. >> this is about me, right? bob iger called valerie jarrett to apologize, he never called me for all the nasty things that abc said about me. >> let's talk about the president's rocky relationship with the attorney general of the united states, jeff sessions. it's been bad, but it's now taken an even worse turn. >> just when you thought it couldn't get worse, it does. donald trump quoting trey gowdy, the south carolina congressman, on television, essentially saying well, maybe if donald trump knew what he knew now then he wouldn't have hired jeff sessions. he said, i wish i had picked someone else. so let's start, this is not new. let's start with what it all began it for donald trump. jeff sessions, the attorney

general, refucusing himself in e russia investigation. let's play that sound. >> i have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. i have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president of the united states. >> okay, so you see there, that's march 2. by july, we begin to see public explanations, donald trump's not happy. there's a "new york times" quote, this is an interview with "the new york times." jeff sessions gets the job, recuses himself, which i think is very unfair to the president, a reference back to it's all about donald trump. then he takes to twitter less than a week later. i believe it's july 24th. attorney general -- remember, this is his attorney general. attorney general jeff sessions has take an very weak position. our beleaguered attorney

general. he's back at it on twitter in february of this year, with another disgraceful -- this is about why is jeff sessions not covering and looking into the alleged abuses of hillary clinton and her e-mail scandal. then we hear via "the washington post," trump takes what i thought was he's comparing jeff sessions in private to, that's mr. magoo, the comic -- i was going to say hero, the comic figure known for being a bumbler, never doing anything right. and yet that's not the worst thing. i do think what trump did, saying i first thing. i shouldn't and i wouldn't if i knew then what i know now. session, worth noting, silent.

>> i always wonder how much public humiliation can the attorney general take before he says enough is enough. we'll see if that happens. good analysis. thank you very much. the white house briefing only moments away. we'll see how sarah sanders, the press secretary, respond to the president's comments on roseanne. and jeff sessions. and why one congresswoman now says pornography is one of the root causes of school shootings. plaque psoriasis can be relentless. your plaques are always there at the worst times. constantly interrupting you with itching, burning and stinging. being this uncomfortable is unacceptable. i'm ready.

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president and north korea. >> reporter: administration officials are now in the final stages of turning president trump's surprise decision to meet north korea's leader kim jong un into a reality. it's no small feat preparing for one of the most consequential summits, especially now, a nervous china, an unpredictable leader in pyongyang and a president who tends to veer off script. >> president trump thinks he's the only one that has the toughness or audacity to reach an agreement with north korea. >> the president has changed over the secretary of state, the cia director and national security adviser all in a matter of weeks. in normal circumstances, lower-level staffers from both countries would spend months negotiating, hammering out all the details before the leaders meet. in this case the president is working backwards, agreeing to a summit first with the topics and logistics to come later.

it makes the hastily planned meeting even more clhallenging o pull together. >> from a logistical standpoint, we'll need to move in a motorcade, all kinds of things that allows the president to continue governing from a security standpoint. we'll have to have the security prepare for every contingency possible and the goal is to shrink the margin of error of what will happen when the two meet. >> reporter: the president has an opportunity to convince the north koreans to give up their nuclear program. it's not at all clear what that means to kim jong un or what he wants in return. >> i don't think he means complete denuclearization. i think he's looking at something phased, certainly that has a payoff, a 1 for 1, and

also what the verification aspects are going to be. s preside-- the president has t prepared to push them on what the definitions of issues are and not just say, great, you're going to get rid of your nukes, that's not going to happen. >> reporter: but some say kim may already have what he wants, recognition by the united states and a meeting with the president and giving up what he would have given up anyway. >> he'll have to give up the missile program, his security services and the elite who keep him in power and prop him up. if he can't evened all three simultaneously, he'll have to make choices and that hard choice could be to give up the nukes because they're expensive. >> president trump can rightly claim some credit to getting us to this point, but it's the

perceived lack of preparationly t -- preparation by the u.s. and the president's tendency to improvise that has people worried. >> when i was there, kim jung il il was very well briefed on things. i think it's important to be disciplined. >> we're standing by. kim yong chol is going to be meeting with this secretary of state, mike pompeo, the former cia director in new york, that's the next stage in the development of this possible summit still scheduled for june 12th in singapore. it would be the highest ranking meeting between the president of the united states and the leader of north korea. a really historic moment if in

fact it still takes place. clearly both of these leaders want it to take place. we'll see if it does. the meeting's in new york between the north korean spy chief and mike pompeo certainly will set the scene. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer. the news continues right now. >> wolf, we'll take it. hi, everyone. i'm brooke baldwin. thank you for being with me. you have the president of the united states weighing in on the cancellation of "roseanne." that's a sentence i never thought i'd be seeing. the president is tweeting about abc's coverage of himself. this is what he said. bob iger of abk called v-- abc d