the first indication we really get as to whether this race is going to be tight and whether devin nunes really is in danger. >> we'll watch it closely with you, thanks very much, nick watt reporting. that's it from me, thanks for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next, the president considering more pardons tonight. is the pardon frenzy all about a signal to his allies? plus a source telling cnn the president pressured the attorney general jeff sessions multiple times. to get control of the russia investigation again. was this about obstructing justice? trump refusing to condemn roseanne's racist tweets. why won't he take a moral stand on this one? let's go "outfront." good evening. i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, pardon spree. today with little explanation, announcing on twitter, the president said he will pardon controversial conservative commentator dinesh d'souza

saying d'souza was quote treated very unfairly by our government. it's trump's fifth pardon since taking office, which is big news. i'm going to get to more on that in just a moment. first, why d'souza? today trump said he didn't know d'souza, who of course confessed to illegal campaign contributions. trump said he's never met the guy. he claims no one asked him to pardon him. then why did he? a white house official tells cnn that trump began considering the pardon several weeks ago and coincidentally, that would be when d'souza appeared on the president's favorite morning show to say he was a victim of a quote political hit. >> i think in my case, a congressional oversight committee has my file. and it very clearly red flags me as a conservative who made a movie critical of the obama administration. so the fbi which uncovered this was clearly signalling to obama and to the holder justice department, hey this guy's a political enemy, let's prosecute

him. so what's interesting is that my case is quite clearly a political hit. >> a political hit by the fbi and the obama administration. sound familiar? of course that's something president trump believes he too is the victim of. this tweet from just two weeks ago from the president says it all. quote, wow, word seems to be coming out that the obama fbi quote spied on the trump campaign with an embedded informant, all caps. if so, this is bigger than watergate. d'souza, victim of obama, the fbi. what trump has called and his allies have called the deep state. trump today also telling report others air force one that he may pardon or commute the sentence of another man who was convicted of corruption, the former governor of illinois, rod blagojevich, serving a 12-year prison sentence. even after a judge rejected his plea for reduced sentence. one of the last times you have heard from blagojevich, well, roll the tape. >> i'll do anything.

legal and ethical and honest. >> of course. ♪ money money money >> what suddenly brought blagojevich back to trump's mind? could it this be op-ed from "the wall street journal"? "i'm in prison for practicing politics." when i read it i said, this is a letter written for an audience of one, for trump. blagojevich writes, the rule of law is under assault in america, it is being perverted and abused by the people sworn to enforce it and uphold it, some in the justice department and the fbi are abusing their power. blagojevich continues with these lines. clearly meant for the president. i learned the hard way what happens when an investigation comes up empty after the government has invested time, resources, and manpower, when they can't prove a crime they create one. all right, so far president donald trump has pardoned five people and that is something that is not normal. his three predecessors all took

nearly two years before pardoning anyone. but trump did his first pardon just seven weeks into his term, sheriff joe arpaio, who along with scooter libby, saylor, christian soshier, claimed to be political targets. president trump parted another person who claimed he was wronged by the justice department, specifically jim comey, martha stewart. someone trump used to love and also publicly loathed. >> we're going to make a meatloaf sandwich which is donald's favorite sandwich. >> martha stewart failed when she did "the apprentice" and i just kept chugging along, every year it was a big hit. >> trump's latest public claim, a failure, this year at a rally in pittsburgh. trump has made her disdain -- stewart, sorry, has made her disdain for trump pretty obvious. here's something she tweeted out

flipping trump off in 2017. so why is trump now offering her a pardon? sure she's a celebrity. people know this. but pardoning stewart is slamming trump's nemesis, jim comey. james comey. turns out comey was the one who built the case against martha stewart. trump would like you to believe that he is writing moral wrongs. but the real question is, are these pardons really about himself? >> i'm fighting a battle against a horrible group of deep-seated people. drained the swamp. they're coming up with all sorts of phony charges against me. >> phony charges, the swamp. are these pardons about sending a signal to trump's allies? people like michael cohen, michael flynn, paul manafort, all facing the possibility of decades behind bars if convicted, that the president is saying, i'll pardon you if you just remain loyal to me. see what i've done to these other high-profile people?

jeff zeleny is traveling with the president today, he's live in houston. look, we've got five pardons from this president. at this point in the prior presidencies of bush, clinton, obama, we had not had a single one. what is trump doing here? >> reporter: erin, it is exceedingly unusual. something that most white house aides were not expecting at all today. when the president did fly here to houston, he's supposed to be focusing on the midterm elections. this is hardly the republican message for the midterm election. but in many respects talking to a variety of white house aides today, it is also something the president privately has been saying for a long time. he is obsessed and so many of his thoughts revolve around james comey. it's clear what he is trying to do here as you laid it out all in the introduction. he's trying to paint a narrative, show that he is not the only one, in his view, the president is not the only one, in his view, who's being wronged by the justice department. he's drawn a thread with james comey. he's looked back through some of

his previous cases. ironically, he's friends with a lot of these people, as you pointed out. more importantly, the president is trying to paint a broader picture here that when the mueller investigation reaches its climax, whenever that will be, that they too cannot believe the findings of that, because of these other cases here. no question the rod blagojevich op-ed in the "wall street journal" absolutely directed at the president. at the white house here. but it's interesting, erin, i would be surprised if the president was as concerned about rod blagojevich as he was using his story, perhaps, to paint a broader narrative here about james comey. >> all right, certainly appears that that is part of it. blagojevich couldn't have written that op-ed or letter, whatever you want to call it, more effectively to this president. thank you so much, jeff zeleny in houston with the president. i want to go to victoria tunsing who knows more about this than

almost anyone, former legal adviser to trump, attorney to scooter libby who was among those pardoned by this president. victoria, great to have you back. this is the crucial question. is president donald trump sending a message with these pardons to people like manafort, flynn, cohen? >> if their lawyers don't know that the president has pardon power, they better get into another line of business, for goodness sakes. the president has pardon power, we know that. it's unfettered. and what is this thing about, well, every other president did it -- didn't do any in the first couple of years. well, better to do like bill clinton and reward a whole bunch of people on your way out of office, including mark rich, who gave him about $500,000 for the clinton library? it's an unfettered power. and i can see the president taking great joy in righting these wrongs. he did that with scooter libby who had done nothing wrong.

he had one testimony, somebody else had a differing testimony, and scooter got indicted. here's another threat here. it's not just james comey. it's also patrick fitzgerald. those of us in the criminal defense business -- >> the prosecutor. >> two of the most despicable, december spiced, unethical prosecutors -- >> are you saying, you're talking about unfettered power and i want to talk more about that, but it is with reason. but first, are you saying he would pardon them? we're taco win, manafort, flynn. you're saying -- >> i have no idea. why would i know? i have no idea. he hasn't pardoned them yet, and he could have. so i'm saying that the lawyers for these people don't need to see a pardon for somebody else to figure out that the president has pardon power. they already know it. we learn it the first year in law school. >> so when you talk about his unfettered power, i want to ask you about that. first of all, i did mention the last three presidents for a reason, and that is, it is

unusual to do it this way. there are plenty of pardons, we could go through everybody and say, what about that one, what about that one? people don't all agree and they might have been crazy. the point is they each waited nearly two years. >> so? >> before their first pardon. and they did it through the dep of justice. >> no, no, no, no. bill clinton did 40 pardons that did not go through the department of justice. that's not accurate. >> why isn't trump going through the department of justice? >> i don't know, why did bill clinton do 40 that did not go through the department of justice? the department of justice sucks its thumb and waits years to ever get something through. this is a much better way to do it. and there is no requirement that he goes through the department of justice. >> no, there isn't. it's been executive order in the past. part of the reason, you know, i know, hopefully our viewers know, it's been done that way is to take away the appearance that a president is doing something for personal reasons, for political gain.

we're talking about a president here who issard pard-- who is p people, gym comey, martha stewart, comey built the case against her. or we're talking -- many people criticized jim comey for it. >> it was a really picayune case, it was ridiculous. >> shouldn't he care it looks like a personal issue or his political point of view about the obama administration and the fbi? >> no. these are people -- he's righting wrongs. dinesh d'souza was wrongly prosecuted. he made a total of $20,000, two contributions, paid people back for two contributions for a good friend who was running for the senate. and he was criminally prosecuted. that does not happen. on top of that, the lawyers for the eric holder justice department misled the court, cited case law wrongly, for that they were chewed out and he was never sent to prison. usually that kind of conduct is

met with a fine and a promise to never do it again. >> the president has tweeted, that's how he chose to do it, tweeted this news about dinesh desue zarks he was treated very unfairly by our own government. as you know the president likes to talk about how he himself has been treated unfairly, whether by the u.s. constitution, which he said is not as well written as the russian constitution in some contechs, he's also said it specifically about the fbi raid on his personal attorney michael cohen's office. >> the attack on what we all stand for. so when i saw this and heard it, like you did, i said, that is really now a whole new level of unfairness. >> is that what this is all about? >> i've said on your show that i thought it was a despicable act for the government to go into an attorney's office and raid it. you know, those of us who have small law firms, we're concerned

about this. because they never go into the big offices. the fbi never goes into white and case, or any major law firm, even though all kinds of shenanigans are going on -- >> they said he was going to shred and destroy documents and they had evidence to prove that, that's how they got the warrant. >> well, you know, who knows. who knows what they said. i think it's a very important deal. to go into the president's lawyer's office and take documents. when he's got lawyers that he's working with and they're very well respected lawyers in new york. >> so would you advise him to continue doing pardons at the pace he's been doing it, which of course -- >> it's a slow pace. >> also doing it without going through the department of justice? is that your advice? >> i think he should do it any way he wants to. that's what the constitution he can do. barack obama pardoned several hundred drug dealers. >> yes, clemency. >> in one fell swoop, yeah. so different presidents have different ways of doing it. daddy bush pardoned the

secretary of defense, whose name escapes me right now, i can see a picture of him. prior to his going to trial. so the pardon power is used just as each president is a different person, they want to use it the way that they feel comfortable. i think he took great joy, i know in giving scooter libby a pardon. he told me, i'm so happy, i'm making him happy. so the president is righting many wrongs, not just from the obama administration but other administrations, and that's what the power should be about. >> the president tweeted this morning a quote from your husband and your law partner, obviously you are both roles in each other's lives, here's the tweet. the recusal of jeff sessions was an unforced betrayal of the president of the united states, and of course he quotes joe digenova, storm u.s. attorney. >> joe and i have certain different styles. i wouldn't quite say it that

way. i think jeff is not running the department of justice now as well as he should be because of this recusal. so i really do think it is a problem. >> you think it's a problem but you wouldn't go so far as to say it's a betrayal of the president? >> he's italian what can i say? he talks differently. >> viktor yeah thank you very much, i appreciate it. "outfront" next, more on our breaking news. a top democrat says trump may be sending a signal to campaign aides who are under the microsco microscope. we're talking about people like manafort. breaking news, cnn learning trump repeatedly pressured jeff sessions to overturn his recusal from the russia investigation. could those efforts come back to haunt him? north korea ready to hand-deliver a letter from kim jong-un to the white house tomorrow. an his tore and i can unprecedented move. discover card. hey, i'm curious about your social security alerts.

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democrats sounding the alarm over trump's parade of pardons. senator mark warner, the ranking democrat on the intelligence committee, tweeted just a short time ago, the president's ad hoc use of the pardon power is concerning enough. but the possibility that he may also be sending a message to witnesses in a criminal investigation into his campaign is extremely dangerous. in the united states of america, no one is above the law. "outfront" now, norm eisen, former obama white house ethics

czar. april ryan, correspondent for american urban radio networks. row naught dough mariotti, former federal prosecutor. senator warner is suggesting the president is sending a message to people like cohen, people like flynn, people like manafort. hey, stay loyal to me and i'll pardon you. is that a possibility? or victoria tunsing said, look, they don't need him to tell them that, they already know. >> i got to tell you, that was the least objectionable thing that victoria just said in the last segment. she said so many lies and demonstrable -- things that are false statements that you could easily look up and find are false. it was hard for me to sit through that segment, to be very frank with you. look, i think it's very clear that trump is using this to send a message. he didn't just choose these -- this handful of people at random. i think we reserve we have six pardons now. we didn't choose them at random, he's choosing people who are

ultimately either connected to people who are investigating him, who are -- who have committed crimes that seem to be -- that his aides seem to be investigated for, and frankly, those people are all people who were rightfully convicted despite what victoria said. >> so norm, on this issue, right, dinesh d'souza, that pardon did not go through the justice department's office, that's the standard way you would do this, historically that's how it has been done most of the time, not all the time. victoria says, no problem, he can do it however he wants, who cares if he doesn't go through that office and completely goes around it, it's irrelevant. is it? >> no. it's not. when i was serving in the white house counsel's office, after almost two years, president obama did his first set of pardons. proper procedure was followed. for example, you're supposed to

wait five years. this d'souza pardon was not -- did not allow the five years to run. that's the regulation. you are supposed to have an expression of contrition. d'souza was all over twitter today slamming everybody in sight. he almost equaled victoria tensing's performance, although not quite. this is clearly message-sending. because the people who are involved, d'souza was prosecuted for what? campaign finance violations. well, does that sound familiar? this is part of the mueller investigation. and who was he prosecuted by? preet bharara, trump's protagonist. jim on martha stewart for what? a false statement. again, that's what flynn pled guilty to. so this is no -- there's nothing right about this at all. >> you know, and you have this

blaming the obama administration as we pointed out, blaming the fbi, which of course is music to the president's ears. when it comes to martha stewart, obviously jim comey's the one who built that case. all of a sudden they go from loving each other to loathing each other, now back to this pardon being dangled out there. you know, when martha stewart was released from prison, she hosted her own version of "the apprentice." let me just play for you a clip. >> somebody sent me -- donald trump's steaks. i can't eat donald trump. then they said, no, he owns the company. they didn't slaughter him. >> too bad. >> it's like martha stewart. she goes on, she puts on "the apprentice," it fails, then she blames me. >> i'm supposed to fire him on air. and donald liked it too much. you know. fantastic for him. it's built him a platform. now he thinks he can be president.

>> i mean, all that hate, april, is now just, hey, it's water under the bridge because jim comey is the one who built the case and that is more important than anything. >> it's a strategically placed potential pardon. and, i mean, it sends a message to comey, it sends a message to the nation, not only is comey involved in that, but look at what was about. conspiracy, correct? then i think about rob blagojevich. here's the deal with him. he was impeached. and he had corruption charges. convicted on corruption. that says a lot within itself. then today, on air force one, the president didn't come back to the press to tell them. he wanted it to be presidential. he made the press come to the nose of the plane, to go into the flying oval as he was sitting at the desk in the

flying oval, for them to hear his words. this is strategically placed. he wants people to know what he's doing. to send a message to america, send a message to those who we think may flip. he wants to make a statement. and this is not -- normally it's always when you have a pardon, a clemency, why and who are the people that are involved? but we know the answer. it's in front of our face. >> norm, look, the president always used to talk about -- he had this view of being president that didn't match what being president is, didn't match the fact that there were other pool who could check your power, didn't match that there was a constitution that could tell you what to do. he said the constitution is quote-unquote treating him very unfairly. here's what he said. >> i have to do it myself. my daughter would go crazy. she said, dad, that's not presidential. i'd say, who cares? i'm the only one, believe me, i know them all, i'm the only one that knows how to fix it. i don't know if it's presidential but i'd rather do it myself, and who cares.

>> that's the thing, the whole thing is wanting to be able to do it himself, having no one who could tell him what to do. that's not the reality of the job except pardons. great joy, thrill, victoria talking to me about how he felt pardoning scooter libby. is it that he loves that feeling of being the king? i can bestow upon you this pardon? >> clearly he's getting ego rush from granting these pardons. he enjoys thumbing the nose of his adversaries and stroking those who are in a position to incriminate him, encouraging them that deliverance will be coming. just like when he thought he was going to be able to do what he wanted, he's found out that the law pushes back, and he's going to find out that there are limitations on this too. he's even talked about whether

he can do a sell-pard -- a self-pardon. the constitution doesn't allow that. the constitution doesn't allow corrupt pardons. if he does it with corrupt intent, he's going to get in trouble. he may think he can pardon his way out of trouble, send this signal, but he can't. he can only pardon federal offenses. the states are ready to come after the michael cohens and the paul manaforts. they have huge new york state liability. so the president's going to be disabused again of his wrong impressions. >> is that a sure thing, renato? if new york state, michael cohen, they charge him, convict him, he gets 50 years, pulling this out of the air, right, but he can't pardon that if that's new york state. are the states going to do it? >> they can do it for many offenses but not for all. because unfortunately obstructing a federal investigation is only a federal offense. lying to the fbi is only a federal offense. norm is right that there's a lot of -- a lot out there that they can be charge the with on the

state side. i think everyone here agrees, there's clearly a signal being sent, and one thing i will say for sure is these pardons are not doing justice. >> thank you all. next, breaking news. cnn learning president trump has pressured jeff sessions multiple times to overturn his recusal from the russia investigation. is this obstruction of justice? trump demanding apologies again for things said about him. so why can't he denounce the racist remarks of roseanne barr?

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alleviate -- you own stock in a certain company, you sell it, now you're able to participate it. now here, he got out because he was viewed as being a partisan of the president and maybe had meetings with russian leaders during the campaign. >> john, is there anything wrong with the president of the united states multiple times pressuring the attorney general to unrecuse himself? is it obstruction of justice or not? >> i don't think so. i think what's going on here is president trump, sounds like he's grousing, whining, complaining. he's obsessed with the russia investigation. but it doesn't sound like he's really trying to get in the way of the investigation. he could order sessions to take control of the investigation, if he refused, fire him. he could order rosenstein to do it. it doesn't sound to me like this is really enough for obstruction of justice. >> to john's point, he grouses a lot. i like that word. he grouses a lot about this particular issue and how sessions recused himself, how he thinks it's the worst thing

ever, he's a terrible attorney general, here he is. >> jeff sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. i then have -- which, frankly, i think is very unfair to the president. >> i am disappointed in the attorney general. >> he should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself and we would have put a different attorney general in. >> all right, you can't say he's hiding what he thinks. obviously we're now reporting there's been private conversations where he's pressured, but that's obviously public. sessions, though, has stood up for himself. he told "time" magazine, i think i did the right thing, i don't think the attorney general can ask everybody else in the department to follow the rules if the attorney general doesn't follow them. what does it say to you about jeff sessions that he has stood firm, refused to resign, refused to unrecuse, what does that say? >> i think what it says is this

is someone who was a u.s. attorney for 12 years, he knows the department of justice is composed primarily of career employees who follow the rules, and he wants to follow those rules as well. who he's willing to carry out very vigorously the trump administration policies on crime and immigration and civil rights, much to the dissatisfaction of the democrats. >> fair, yeah. >> but he's not willing to break the rules of the department. >> what does it say to you, john, that jeff sessions is absolutely refusing to do what the president wants, and basically giving him the -- i don't know what appropriate word to use, you know what i'm saying, go ahead. >> i wish there was an equivalent for the word grouse here. so look, first, i think what sessions is doing is actually helping trump. even though trump doesn't realize it. trump is turning into a big whiner about this investigation. but actually the more independent, the more swift and effective the investigation is, if the investigation clears

trump, the better it is for trump. so sessions, think about what it would have been like if it had been opposite. suppose sessions hadn't recused himself. you would have had unending stories about trump pressuring sessions pressuring mueller. no one would have had faith in the credibility of the investigation. i can't imagine -- sessions was a high campaign official in the subject of this investigation. i think it's a close call that he properly recused himself and by getting out of the way, it makes sure the mueller investigation and its conclusion will be as credible as possible. that's the only thing that can really clear trump in the minds not just of the congress, but of the american people. >> here the thing is, trump had stayed away from criticizing mueller for a while, then started doing that, right? and now he's got his pitbull attorney, rudy giuliani, doing it publicly. here he is calling mueller's whole group a lynch mob. >> we'll challenge mueller to write whatever you got. take your best punch. with all your 13 democrats there. you couldn't find a republican?

so you got a group there that's a lynching mob. let them do their job. boy, we're ready to knock the heck out of you. >> okay, by the way, in terms of party affiliation, what he's saying at this point is not backed up in fact. but the point that i want to make here is, lynch mob? >> no, that's not fair. that's offensive. lynching is this terrible historical moment. this is a normal investigation being conducted by talented prosecutors trying to work as quickly as they can to get to the end. >> all right, thank you both very much. next, president trump speaking out again about roseanne's firing. but still he will not condemn her racist remarks. why? the u.s. with new hope tonight for the trump/kim summit. so why can it still happen on june 12th? the commute is worth it. you and that john deere tractor... you can keep dreaming up projects all the way home. it's a longer drive. but just like a john deere, it's worth it.

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ithe race for governort. has turned into a scam. gavin newsom's trying to elect a republican who was endorsed by trump. and villaraigosa's being bankrolled by a handful of billionaires. it's everything that's wrong with politics. and none of it is helping struggling families. here's my pledge to you. i'll keep our budget balanced. invest in affordable housing. fight for universal healthcare. and stand up to donald trump. as governor, you can trust me to do what's right- because i always have.

tonight, president trump doubling down on his refusal to denounce roseanne's racist comments about former obama aide valerie jarrett, making it about himself, tweeting iger, referring to bob, ceo of disney, where is my apology? you and abc have offended millions of people and they demand a response. how is brian ross doing? he tanks the market with an abc lie yet no apology, double standard. bob iger is the ceo of disney which owns abe. brian ross was the investigative reporter, who was suspended from abc after they publicly said he made a serious reporting error

in a story about trump's former national security adviser, michael flynn. but all of this avoids the issue of the racist comment itself. "outfront" now, national affairs correspondent for "the nation" joan walsh, and former advise tort trump campaign, steve cortez. why can't the president just say what she said was dead wrong, but. and then go on whatever diatribe. why not just say, it's wrong? >> sure, it was wrong. i'm saying it. i think the president would say it but i want to take exception -- >> he hasn't. >> you said he refused. he was not asked about this. that's an incorrect statement. he didn't refuse to comment. he just didn't comment. and that's a big difference. look -- >> he's coming out and saying, bob iger should be apologizing. that's commenting. >> bob iger should apologize. you know why? because brian ross issued a blatantly false statement about the president -- >> he's been president for six months and put out a statement

saying it was wrong exactly as a journalist -- >> yet, yet he did call and apologize to valerie jarrett when something offensive was said about her. why doesn't he owe that same courtesy to the president of the united states? by the way, to investors all over the united states who suffered miserably from that fake news story out of abc? i think what we're seeing here, here's i think the bigger question or point. there is a double standard at play. there clearly is. roseanne was fired and she should have been fired, what she said was reprehensible. samantha bee said something probably even worse, and so far, no sanction on her. no sanction right now on her. >> no -- >> that is the double standard of the left at play. >> no double standard, no. i'm not going to samantha bee because i want to answer your original question. first of all the president refuses to comment on -- >> did not refuse. >> he demands an apology from bob iger. steve, he is the president, he needs to get thicker skin. ryan ross made a mistake in the

course of reporting -- >> mistake? >> a real story about the president. the president is comparing himself to people -- asking for apologies for things that are about policy. yes, people have used some tough language. language that i wouldn't use. but rather than facing a crisis of race mechanism our country that he has helped promote, he's demanding an apology, a whiny bully, here's what the bullies do. >> here's what the left always do, you resort to racism. this has become the scarlet letter. >> this is racism. it's what she said -- >> the first thing you said, you said what she said was wrong, she should have been fired -- >> you called the president a racist? >> he is. >> steve, you went on to say what you wanted to say. that is not what the president did. he's not able to apologize for these things. >> he's not able to do what you just did. >> steve, on this issue of racism -- >> wait what does the president have to apologize for? roseanne barr said these things. >> he called her and congratulated her on her

ratings. he made it a tribute to him. >> steve, i should have said denounce. he should denounce what she said. he's someone who has complimented her, they've complimented each other, hee demanding an apology for himself that abc did six months ago and suspended someone and refusing to denounce roseanne for the planet of the apes comment, won't denounce it. >> those comments were reprehensible -- >> again, you're saying it but the president won't. why? >> look, it is not incumbent on the president that he denounce every single person who happens to support him for whatever their reprehensible behavior is. by that standard, if we're to carry that logic forward, is bernie sanders responsible for that monster who showed up with a gun and shot representative scalise? >> that's ridiculous. >> it's not ridiculous. >> that person didn't know bernie sanders, bernie sanders had never praised him, no one knew who he was -- >> it's just as unfair. >> he compliments roseanne on

her ratings, and then when roseanne is fired, his comment is to come out and demand an apology from abc for something they did to him. >> which he deserves. >> we are derivatives away from him calling her out for what she said. >> this is just like charlottesville where he refused -- >> are you saying he supports roseanne's statement? >> there are good people on both sides, but there are no good people with the nazis, steve. >> that's not what he said. he was talking about -- >> yes, he did, good people marching with the nazis. >> no. he was not, joan. he was talking about -- >> what was he talking about? >> body people on sides of the monument debate. >> he was talking about what happened -- >> on both sides of the debate over monuments, he was not saying there were good people among the nazis. cut to the chase, are you saying the president's a racist? >> he said there's good people on both sides. >> what you're talking about is the general monuments debate, stop. >> is the president a racist? >> let me play something. here's some clues.

>> when mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. they're bringing drugs. they're bringing crime. they're rapists. look at my african-american over here, look at him. pocahontas. i call her pocahontas. that's 18 insult to pocahontas. donald trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states. >> that's the context around somebody he publicly lauds and compliments repeatedly, saying something racist and refuses to denounce it. >> you could have played the inaugural address, and i was there on the mall when he said it, open your hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. all right? that is something you could also say. >> does that make up for these other comments? >> no, it debt make up for the years of birtherism, and demanding the death penalty for the central park five and then when exonerated by dna, saying they still deserve the death

penalty, he insistsed they were still guilty. he has a pattern of racism, discriminated against black tenants in his buildings. we know this history. you cannot say one sentence at his inaugural makes it okay. >> we end it there, steve, you started it. thank you to both. next, it could hold the key to an historic summit days away. there is a letter, actually a north korean in this country, one of the top aides to kim jong-un, who is on his way. we'll tell you how. a picture is worth a thousand words. jeanne moos on this dynamic duo in the oval office. coppertone sport.

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the man makes them matter. get your groove on with one a day 50+. ♪ get ready for the wild life ♪ complete multivitamins with key nutrients that address 6 concerns of aging, including heart health, supported by b-vitamins. your one a day is showing. tonight, a letter from kim jong-un, kim june un's envoy, you see him. he met with kim jong-chul. this is very significant. first north korean of this level to be in the united states in nearly 20 years, and a meeting with the president. >> well, a lot of firsts of the secretary of state, a special waiver has to be issued to leave

the 25-mile radius of the u.n. building in new york. no iranian official was granted that, so he's going to walk into the white house with a letter, unclear what the letter says beyond what has been said already, and what's clearly unclear is that the north koreankorean s -- the u.s. demands that north korea give up their nuclear weapons. >> pompeo asked what changed? the summit was last week, now it's back on, did they send you an indication that they are willing to play ball on this issue? his language was i believe that they are contemplating the right path.

>> is he taking the train, is he taking the shuttle? >> we don't know what form of transportation he's taking, we do know that he's going to the white house. and it's not clear what merited that unprecedented move. >> as you said, in the entire negotiations, iran was never granted and this is granted even before we have a negotiation. next that other kim summit. i was glad i was out yesterday. here we go, this is next. your worst symptomsse res including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. i can do more to lower my a1c. and i can do it with what's already within me. because my body can still make its own insulin. and once-weekly trulicity activates my body to release it.

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president trump's big meeting with kim, not that kim, this one. here's jeanne. >> in instead of being at an

official photo-op, kim kardashian was at a oval office photo-op. it was a tale of two reality show stars. >> kim changed in his words. >> referring to kim as his his >> reporter: the only general that can serve two kims at a once, kardashian arrived at the white house, stayed about an hour, making a case for prison reform, making the case to go nuts. this adams family reboot looks amazing. but some didn't see morticia, they saw melania.

a podcaster casting the president saying, you are melania now, both have done their share of posing. >> how do you even describe that bootie? >> the post described her as kim thong un. and trump meets rump, which inspired a backlash, this pathetic, do better "new york post." but kim and trump weren't the oddest couple in oval office. that was nixon and elvis presley. >> i can't believe that's real life, and coming up tomorrow on cnn, president trump's former chief strategist steve bannon sits down with our fareed, you don't want to miss that tomorrow right here at 9:00 on cnn.

don't forget you can watch out front any time anywhere. "a.c. 360" with anderson begins right now. good evening, presidents are not kings, but in at least one respect, they enjoy the privilege of loyalty. under a president's authority to pardon federal offenders, is depending on what scholar you is very nearly so. few have questioned his power to do it, but there are those who have questioned his judgment and intent whether he's using this to send a message to those who will reach a plea deal with -- pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, he's