tonight on the axe files. marco rubio. the son of cuban immigrants weighs in on the zero tolerance policy and battle at the border. >> i'd do almost anything to protect my children. zpl the mueller investigation. >> the best thing for the president and country is for him to finish his investigation to be thor reand that the entire truth come out. >> and republicans relationship with the president. >> mo matter how much outrage, he's not going to change his behavior. he is who he is.

he was elect third-degree way. this is what phovoters voted on. >> welcome to the axe files. >> senator rubio, good to be with you. i want to apologize at the top and to our listeners because i'm fighting a throat thing. but i want you to do most of the talking. >> i've worked hard to have a voice as deep as that. >> it's not going to last. you know, i read your memoir. the beginning is very, very compel ng the retelling of your family's immigrant story. your parents came from cuba in the '50s. why? >> i think if you asked them and you know i didn't have a chance to, my dad didn't talk a lot about h his childhood and my sense of it years later learning more was that it was very painful. but i think at the core is they lived in a society where they felt limited. they really couldn't move forward. it was an unstable place.

it's not clear to me when they came on may 27th of 1956 their plans were to live in the united states forever, but they wanted to live there for a lopg type. they felt it was a place where they could do thipgs they couldn't do in their country. they felt they didn't come from the right family or have the right connections or education. it was a lack of tupt opportunity that brought them here. >> which is a common story. my father came from eastern europe to flee persecution. his family risked their lives to get here because of what america is. >> yeah, my parents were pretty nomadiylived in new york, miami always moving around. in the late early '60s, they thought about going back.

when fidel wins, there's a belief things are going to be better. my father goes back to check it out to see if it's a good opportunity. that was their intent and their whole family warned them, don't stay here. this is communism, which wasn't necessarily clear early on. >> when you look at what's going on on the border today, you must look at it as i do through the eyes of the first generation american who believes in this ideal of what america is is. what was your reaction to those images you saw? >> i hate those images. i think we can fix it. i think you look at it through two lenses. that's the unique part of this. if you recognize that you have a policy that says the only adults we release in the general population pending a hearing for which many never show up for are the adults that have children with them, then you have facto and an incentive for children to

come on the dangerous journey. zpl what does it tell you that people are willing to risk their lives and the live of their children to come here? >> i know these people and their families because they're in south florida, many of them. they are fleei inin ining hondu guatemala. whether it's the inb ability to get ahead economically or having to live in a place where an ms 13 gang controls the neighborhood and you're fearful for your life or your being extorted. it's a common process. i'm such a spoert of the alliance for prosperity. we want to create conditions where people don't have to take these journeys. but i say i get it. we do this, we're crediting this incentive, if you bring children, you'll get to say. the flip side, it doesn't feel right as a country to see these images children separated from

their pashts. >> doesn't it feel this is bit of a manufactured crisis in policy decision was made and from the beginning to separate families. >> the decision was made to prosecute every one of these cases for illegal entries, primarily as a misdemeanor. this is a consequence of that decision and they were aware of that. other administrations have understood that and not to do it. >> the president has depicted the people that are coming as dangerous. they're not sending us their best. rapists and murderers. >> not based on a lottery or not people that snuck across the board e. they could be murderers and thieves and so much else. >> the vast, 98, 99% of these people being charged with a m misdemeanor, they don't have criminal histories. is it fair? >> i don't think it's wise to just cast a broad net of generalization over any group of

human beings. so yes, there are people across the border that are dangerous and criminals. the vast majority in my experience are coming over because they want a better life and my sense of it is you're a father. for example, my situation, my family's desperate. they're living in a dangerous situation, i'd do almost anything to protect my children. we have to understand that element. doesn't mean we don't have to have to have laws. mexico has immigration laws and canada has immigration laws. i don't think we should generalize that. i think the jvast majority are coming because they want something better. >> do you find it offensive, knowing the people you represent some them as you mentioned. you know these people. they are like your family and my family. sfwl i don't think it's accurate and to the extent that it's not, if someone's coming across that's not a criminal or you know them or their family member of yours and hear them described that way, of course you'll be offended. i think by the way, it may be a small percentage, but significant none the less, that that are people crossing who are

members of ms 13 and involved in criminality. we know that, too. but both things can be true. and at the sim time, i think you can acknowledge that the majority of people coming here are not coming here to break laws or live on welfare. that doesn't mean we don't have to have laws. >> you stood on a platform many, many times with donald trump during the 2016 campaign. he thinks this is a winning irk for him. corey who was his campaign manager said the other day people don't come out to vote, talk iing about midterms, they won't come out to say thank you. they couple out if they're arouse and immigration is an issue that will get people riled up. isn't the president kind of playing his consistent political hand here? depicting imgrabts as threat? you know, zee tolerance and so on. >> i think he campaigned on it and was elected on it. whether you agree with him or

not, to the extent is what he would do if elected, i think people have to acknowledge that. they may not like it, but this is what he promised he would do. i think you have to separate the politics from the public policymaking. we live in a constant cycle of trying to figure out what we have to do today. can't be here to make a difference if you don't win an election, but at the same time, you have to do things that are good for the country when you get here. on this issue, it may well be a winning issue among a lot of people because there's real frustration that the immigration laws haven't been enforced. i live in miami-dade county, the majority minority community. large number of immigrants. there's frustration there among people who have immigrated to this country that we accept 1.1 million people a year with green cards yet more people want to come illegally. we can be generous, but we have to have a process by which people enter the country. by which we decide when they come, how many and who. and that has to be enforced in

order for it to work. so i think you can be for a immigration system that works and that is enforced on laws, but i think you have to do it in a way that doesn't vile who we are as a people. and our character is as a nation. >> so tucker karlsson told his view eers the other night they want to change your country. i don't know who this they was chakt exactly. but you know, my reaction is immigrants built this country. your family, my family. and yet an audience for that. isn't there? >> i would say there's always been an audience for that. every wave of immigration of this country was met with resistance ch every time. that's not unique to america. angela merkel is on the verge of her government collapsing over the issue of immigration. immigration has driven the rise of nationalists parties europe. canada just issued a stringent warning to tps beneficiaries in the united states not to go to canada because they won't be allowed to stay. the mexican government has

stepped up enforcement on its southern border. italians turned away a ship that had to divert to spain. so every society when facing a wave of people from other places reacts this n this way and this has been true for thousands of years. the united states b kopts to be a pro immigration country. we accept more than any country than any in the world. >> you were a leader of the gang of eight. back in 2013. i remember 2013. the convention wisdom was the republican party in order to win needed to be a more open party. more tolerant. needed to deal with the issue of undocuments immigrants and you tried to solve that problem. passed a bill in the senate but wound up sort of walking away from ta bill. the house never took it up. you urnled them not to. what happened and was, what caused you to --

>> i'm in the law passing business. i'm a lawmaker. so you can always produce a piece of legislation that sounds really dpogood but has no chancf passing. you can only change a law that passes a law, passes the senate and signed by the president. the passed in the senate was the best we could produce but had no chance of pass iing in the hous unless it was dramatically amended and we had to get it signed by president obama. so the con trustruct of what we together couldn't become law. to pass a law in america isn't just this is the way we want it to be so jump on word board or nothing. that's why nothing passed on immigration going back to efforts that failed in 2005 and 2007. so it's great to have great ideas, but in this republic, in order to turn an idea into a law, you have to come up with something that can pass the house and get 60 votes in the senate and be sign ed by whoeve the president and beupheld by courts. >> the way describe it makes it

sound like we're not going to solve this anytime soon. >> i think every effort so far has failed. >> isn't some of this just trying survive? let's just go over the list. senator flake. corker. mark sanford lost his primary. this party is in the thrall of this president.

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you talk ed about what's going on around the world and it's clear you're trying think b about these big forces now that are driving not just the vote, but public opinion. everywhere in ways that are disruptive to our democracies but reflect real concerns on the part of people that donald trump heard. talk about that a little bit. >> i think if we can separate ourselves from the daily life and the micro and look at the macro of what's happening, the world is going through a transformation of epic proportions and it's disrupted everything from the kind of jobs we have to the geography of our country in terms of where people live. these are coming faster than ever f. when that happens, and security always follows. political insecurity, social, economic and it manifests politically, but sutley as well.

our policies are antiquated. they're not built to react to that. for example, economic growth alone doesn't tell us enough anymore. there was a time in this country where economic growth was broadly shared because our economy provided millions of jobs that paid enough. a bartender and maid like my parents with those jobs and little education were able to own a home and car and take ray vacations, the economy benefitted. because of the structure of can economy. the way it flows is it flows to industries and jobs that are valued in the new economy and as the cost of living rises, everybody else gets left behind. not just enough to create jobs. it has to be the kind that allow workers to achieve dignity. that should be the purpose of f our economic policy, is to create the opportunity for dignified work. you need growth to do that. we need an economy that works

for people. not an economy where people work for the economy. >> you know, another effect of this is this great polarity where you have people on the right side of this digital divide. who are doing fantastically well because of the, this there's enormous opportunity and then the people who you're speaking about who are on the other side who see their old industries disappear. >> right. >> the president's promise to those people was we're going back. we're going to go back to where we are manufacturing country. >> we can manufacture again, but we're not going to manufacture like 1950 because no one's ever been able to go back. only forward. so the opportunity becomes what does the future look like and how can we embrace its opportunities. it would be like telling people at the turn of the century, we're going back to horse drawn carriages as opposed to becoming we're going to move people back to farms. >> you've been a free trader,

that's how you came into this congress. what do you think about what the president's doing right now? >> which one? >> relative to china, which i know you feel strongly about. but also trade potentially trade weres with canaars with canada european allies. >> when he talks to mexico, canada and europe, there are and japan and others, there are clearly trade imbalances. some are a heritage of world war i where we knew there were and we allowed them to exist. in the cold war, there weral highs and rebuild fing from the second world war. china for me is is not even about trade. it's geo political. i can tell you in the history of man, a status quo power and a rising power if it's broken, almost always leads to conflict. that what i want to avoid. china's going to be a great and powerful country. that's a fact. but if that balance with the united states is disrupped, we are going to have a conflict and

it could be military, an economic conflict, both. this may be our last chance to get that right. in the context of that, they are large ly making significant gais by taling $300 billion a year of american intellectual property through straight out espionage. >> you've led the movement to e reverse the administration's position on zte. >> yep. >> the manufacturer there that you believe is a national security risk. do you expect to win that fight in. >> i hope so because if we can't win that fight, we're not going to win the bigger one. zte is an important company, but it's small compared to some other the others china poses. it poses a threat to american telecommunication. they make routers and all components in our the telecommunication system. once you embed yourself in the telecommunication of a nation, it's a threat. >> you didn't find the spectacle

odd when the president stormed out of the g-7 and castigated justin trudeau and removed the u.s. from the -- >> yeah, it's unconventional, that's for sure. >> unconventional is i'd say mild. >> i think it's a product of this broader view on all of this. i think the president is pointing to something that's real and that is we have imbalances with canada and mex me mexi mexico. >> koedon't these alliances mat sner zwl they do and we would be much better served in my view if we said we have a problem with china. that's the bigger issue. let's work together and address that issue. at some point when we're done with that, we have to deal with ocho other on the other situations we're facing among ourselves. that's the way it should have been approached. our alliances with canada and nato and europe are so institutionalized and sturdy that we're going to continue to

work together. >> what about the president tweeting a very, very provocative tweet about angela merkel and germany seemed to topple one of our allies. >> i would just tell you, i've now donald trump him that well. there's one thing i know. no matter how much outrage i or others express, he's not going to change his behavior. he was elected this way. he's behaving today how he did on the campaign and that's what voters chose and i respect. i'm a policymaker, so my job sb is to ensure that irrespective of the rhetoric and daily outrage cycle, our public policy the ones the people of florida -- >> is it policy when you interfere in elections that way? >> i can't pass a law, none of us can pass a law to edit or change how the president expresses himself on these issues and frankly, he would rightfully say this is how i

behave and what voters chose. my job is to look at things like zte and say on this one, it's bad for the county are tri. we're going to figure out a way to address it and work with him. try to change his mine and if he makes a decision, try to confront it that way. other wise, we'll spend all day as b cable news commentators, setting our hair on fire. my job is to try to help the country move forward. sometimes, that's work wg the white house. sometimes try iing to change hi mind and frankly supporting him when he's right and change his mind when he's not. >> isn't some of this swrus trying to survive? go over the list. senator flake. senator corker. mark sanford lost his primary. this party is in the thrall of this president and anyone who challenges him and you're being very careful here, anyone who challenges him runs the risk of going same way as sanford said. what did you take from this? that if you're a republican, you

better not publicly challenge this president. >> i tell you two things. the first is it's not about being careful ott not. one of the things that gives the president strength within the party is many of the republicans feel like he's treated unfairly. the media is outraged by everything he does and overreaches. people are not oblivious and don't agree with everything he does, but they feel he's treated so unfairly on such a consistent basis, whether you agree or not, that they feel like they've got to kind of balance it out defending him. he's doing exactly what he said he would do if he get elected. i'm not here to do combat with the president. to support everything he's for. i'm here to work with whoever's in the white house to get things done, offer a view when we do not. >> next on the axe files. >> best thing that could happen for this president is for mu mueller to finish his work and all the truth come out.

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what was your impression of the president essentially defending north korea from these charges of human rights abuses? you sat in the chamber when he gave a state of the union. he gave a very eloquent five minute disqui sigs on how bad their record is. >> kim jong-un is a grotesque human rights violator. has death camps. he's a complete bizarre individual. uhl, he possesses between 30 and 60 nuclear warheads. i know for fact the president was presented with scenarios of f what war on the peninsula would look like and the catastrophic potential loss of life and felt an obligation to do everything he could to avoid that from happening. the president comes from a background and private life of figuring out how to make other people like him and be happen p pi with him.

so i think his view is if kim jong-un likes him, he's going to get a better deal out of him. i've seen him do it with political opponents and with others. he approaches it as a person who's not a politician. that said, all of it is is, do i like the things that were said? in do i agree? of course not. i don't think he's talented. i'm not the guy negotiated with him. at the end, as long as the sanctions are in place, that's the thing that matters. that's what we're keeping a close eye on. j understand he doesn't want to be -- >> he's gotten quite a bit out of it. he's elevated to the world stage. he's an outlaw. the president has said that he will suspend joint military exercises with south korea. >> well i think all that is is is true. and something that in an ideal world we wouldn't be at and i have trouble with it. no doubt. i don't like elevate thg guy. i also understand this is an

individual, he today, the highest probablity of a nuclear confrontation and nuclear war since the end of the second world war when the attack on japan happened exists ton korean peninsula. i am willing to be flexible, but i am concerned that any rhetoric that could be used to justify weakening sanctions would be counterproductive. that's what we have to keep a close eye on. >> would you think about his idea to bring russia back into the ga? >> i think it would be an asset to bring russia back in. >> i think it's a statement he made. i wouldn't agree with it. >> it was a suggestion. >> i don't think it's a formal one. i think it's statement he made and bottom line, it can't happen. >> do you think it was wise? >> b i don't believe that we should allow russia back in. this behavior hasn't altered. it continues to be a destabilizing force in libya. it continues even to this day the try to influence and divide societies. not just here in the us, but in

other parts of the world. so it's in any way that would encourage us to bring them back in. >> he has no problem attacking people. he went after you pretty hard when you were a candidate. >> yeah, the it's a campaign. >> why is he so differential to putin. >> well, you may say he's dif wre wrenn shl in terms of the statements. the sanctions have continued to increase, there's been continued sanction and imp sigs on russia. >> you guys passed sanctions, took a very long time. >> but they're moving on him and there was just about a month ago, additional sanctions, so if you look at the policies, they're as strong or stronger than previous administrations when it comes to russia. if you view the rhetoric, my view is that the president is not a political figure, not a politician. didn't grow up surrounded by washington think tanks and his view as a person who comes out of the world of development is this s a guy with nuclear weapons in russia that i need to be able to work with and if i have animosity towards him, we

won't be able to work together. he's not a politician. >> he is the commander in chief. the russians did assault our election. you're on the intel committee. you don't have any doubt about that. >> no, but i didn't have any doubt in october of 2016 when i was running for re-election, i think i'm the only republican in the country that refuse d to tak about wikileaks and all the leak frs the clinton e-mails. i said this is a work of a foreign sbel where she knows agency and i'm not going to use it to advance my campaign. i would say they most definitely interfered. i believe their primary purpose was to ensure no matter who was elected, they would be weakened by a divided society. i would say they probably fully expeck hillary clinton to win. they may have had a personal preference for donald trump because they hate d her so much but in the end, i think their primary purpose was not to elect one candidate over the other but to divide american society. to or i should say to exacerbate our existing divisions in a way

the next president would be weakened no matter who it was and if you look at it today an the debates we're having and a year and a half into an investigation and the constant flow into russia, you have to say they were quite successful and exacerbating and using these preexisting divisions to weaken. >> so not a hoax. >> the russian interference? >> yes. >> no. i said it back in october of 2016. i stand by it now. the one thing he was able to play like a fiddle, putin, was he understand that the u.s. immediamedia, when those e-mail leaked, they weren't focused on the leak. they weren't focused on the fact these e-mails were hacked. they were focuseded on the contents. they were so se lashs that they couldn't help report on it. that should have been the real story. they ignored it. he knows that. >> you know bob mueller because you were in the senate when he was the fbi director. what's your opinion of him. >> my opinion is he served our country admirably for a long time in uniform at the fbi. >> trust his integrity?

>> i do and i believe the best thing for the president and the country is for him to finish his investigation, thorough and that the entire truth come out. i truly believe that. i believe the it's the best thing for the president, for his administration and for america. >> my view and i've said this to democrats, what have his conclusion is, i'm prepared to say he conducted a thorough investigation. he's a person of integrity and i accept it, but republicans who support the president should do the same, shouldn't they? >> i think everybody should say we want to know the truth. no matter who you voted for how you feel about public policy, we want the whole truth to come out. i think i still i'll reiterate it. the best thing that could happen for this president is for bob mueller to finish his work and all the truth come out. >> his strategy is to impeach mueller in advance to whatever he says if unfavorable, can be

view ed as partisan. but you don't believe that will be the case. >> i have no reason to believe that bob mueller, we don't have any insight. nobody should. my view, if he did something unfair, it would be uncharacteric of the way he hassed this country up to this point. >> you said mueller shouldn't be fired. would firing sessions or rosenstein be the same, give you u the same concern? >> if it's for that reason, of course. well, i think there would be a lot of questions about how they were fired if they were fired unless it was -- it wouldn't solve anything because some of us would just pick up the mantle and continue with it. that's the i don't believe it's going to happen. firing them is not going to stop this thing from moving forward. that's why we should let it play out and when the truth comes out, it will be the best thing for the president and for the country. >> well, i agree with that. >> ahead on the axe files. >> i admired you for showing up

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i'm a big bobby kennedy fan. i was trying to fig youre out we his office building was. >> why did you admire him? >> so there's two bobbys. before 1963 and after. what i add mired is his energy and sort of moral drive. when he locked in on something that was wrong, he went after it. >> he was not a conformist. he didn't, he was rolling a challenge policies right, left and center sxwlchlt so he jumpeded right into the poverty issue across america, the farm

workers. anywhere he found there was injustice, it just angered him and he went after it with a sort of moral outrage that i think picked up after 1963, 1964 during his time in the senate. >> we can build a newer and better nation. i say we can do so, that we must do so and that we will do so. >> you see that he was a young man that was learning and as he was exposed to things that perhaps he hasn't seen in his upbringing, it brought out a catholic moral outrage that he took action on. >> can you be that kind of f -- >> today? >> in our politics today? you admire it. >> yeah. i think you can try. you know, his era was not easy either. but i think the difference now is it's almost always politicized. the other side rather than seeing the value of why you're doing it we'll figure out how to line up who you're fighting against and justify it.

>> one thing he didn't have was cable television, social media. your party is really fox is kind of the voice to majority of republicans. they give an administration's viewpoint on it. isn't that one of the reasons why he has so consolidated the base? >> one. i would also say that the way the other outlets have behaved sometimes is the other. look, they're in a business. they saw advertising about rate is baseded on -- >> of course. what drives eyeballs, whether it's traffic on a website or by the way, fund raising through direct mail, is outrage and strong language. that's what gets you famous. if you're a house member that wants to be a national fig yurks go on tv and say things that are over the top. that's the culture and environment we're in. the immediate wra is a part of f it. >> donald trump mastered it. >> as i told wrou earlier, i think being from new york, he understood that you could

dominate earn eed media. he's dominated every news cycle in america since june or july of 2015. and i don't think that's an accident. i think he in his time in new york as a developer and promoter of a brand really learned how to do that. it was a key part of his victory, to be frank. >> show me around. you're a huge football fan. >> i am. that's why i try to collect as many of these as i can get. dan marino. >> he's your guy, right? >> i got a pass from him on the floor of the house of representatives. he threw it pretty hard, too. >> i think you spoke on this colin kaepernick issue. >> i think he has a first amendment right to speak. in the nfl, they'll fine you because your socks aren't high enough. it's kind of a catch 22. >> eyou agreed with what the president said about him and the other player. >> about not kneeling? look, i don't agree. they have a right to do it.

constitutional right, but i don't agree necessarily with everything they're saying. now i do agree there is a large number of particularly young african-american males in america who feel their interaction with law enforcement is different than others. whether you agree or not, if they feel that way, we have to address it. if a significant portion of the american family feel that is way, we have an issue and so we have got to address it. >> so you don't think they should leave the country. >> no. >> up next -- >> do you think you might run again. james carville said running for president is like sex. you don't just do it once. how do you win at business?

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after the parkland massacre. you took a beating there. >> what i said and now i'm going to tell you what we're going to do and that's why i support the things that i have stood for during my time here. >> more n rrra money? >> you u also aid said that time, you'd consider certain measures, raising the age for people to guy gun to 21. limiting large kamsty clips and so on. none of that happened. and it does give rise to the question of whether the president was right when he said to some of your colleagues in that famous white house get together, you guys are afraid of the nra. >> number one, the cnn town hall people say you take a beating or it was brave. i mean, we're in america. like the worst thing that happens to somebody in america is you lose your election. you know, but wrou don't have to go into exile. nobody's going to kill you. two, it's my job.

three on the ibs you outlined, i feel again as a lawmaker, my job is to get things done. i wanted to focus first on the things i knew he could get done and try the build momentum to do more. i don't believe, i'm telling you, money on both sides and influence on both sides of the issue, but the nra and any group like it is mobilizing an economist iing feeling in ameri. there are people in this country who strongly support the second amendment and i'm one of them. i think we have to have strix restrictions, but they have to be limited and restrictions that actually will achieve something. >> but you seem to be saying again that what we can't pass this law so there's no point. >> no, i think it's more than that in this case. this that is will these laws achieve something. if you look at the state of new york. >> background checks. >> so we have universal background checks in america. the only places not checked are if you have a private sale.

the vast majority of exhibiters are federally licensed firearms tealers. you have to go a background check. only private sales are prohibited. we might be able to have something called a buyer's permit. actually the interesting thing about that is that it would allow us to conduct sting operations against the black market. zpl you've had three big massacres in your state. one you said moved you to when you were think iing about runni for relech to run. feels like we keep going from one tragedy to another. we grieve then nothing changes. >> right. let me say on one that, you're talking b about pulse. that was a terror attack. he was motivated and he said it, by radical jihadist element. he used guns for that. we should do more. sf >> what about the people who have been victims, lost their loved ones.

each time we grieve. i mean d it shall. >> i talk to them every day. i talked to multiple parents from parkland, a couple from pulse, on a regular basis. e-mail, phone calls, text messages. some are are working on cool safety improvements, which i think is an element of it. a lot have worked with us on what we think is the most effective thing and that is help ing to identify someone who is is in danger, which is and stop them before they act. we continue to look at the high capacity magazine limit. the problem with that is we can't get a consensus we can justify on the number. >> we have more guns in this country than any other and we have more gun deaths and it seems to me there's some correspondence and we need to think -- >> one reason we have more gun is we have a second amendment. that does not diminish the fact that we have far too many shootings at schools and churches and gathers and we need

to address those. what's the drive behind it. ultimately, the issue is we have young americans, almost exclusively males, who want to kill a bunch of people for reasons that sometimes we don't fully understand. they happen to be using guns, but the shoot is they want to kill people. we have to stop them. z >> the 2016 campaign. >> i have -- >> some sense of what a presidential campaign entails. it's hard. it's really, really a gauntlet. and so you know, i honor anybody who's willing to do that. what have you learned about yourself and the country. >> there's no way you can run for president for as long as we did and not learn from it because exposed to places and people an things. growing up, for me, immigration meant more people like my family

and neighbors. when you go to different places around the country, you recognize that in other places, immigration might mean more competition for limited jobs and constrained economy. doesn't mean that you change your view on the issue. but it does expose you to a different view of things and some of the challenges. you see some of the areas in the northeast that were emptied out by globalization and automation. some of the trends that have happened. the result was not what i intended, but i wouldn't trade it for the world. the it was an incredible experience for us. i believe i'm a better senator for having done it. we made some great friendships across the country. >> what about failure? you were the house speeblger in florida at what 32 years old. elected to the senate at 39. and you'd never experienced failure in politics before. >> yeah, but i think i tell people there are no stars politics. there will be a new person tomorrowment it's not a celebrity thing.

it's not sports. this is public service. there are people who will make sure you come down a notch. >> did you do anything wrong -- >> in the campaign? >> what would you do differently if you did it again? >> i think our message was the right one about these changes in our economy. i think we could have done a better job of condensing it. nothing i could have done about the fact there were 17 people running. >> you had a bad debate in new hampshire. >> the mistake i made was not attacking, going back at him. >> this notion that barack obama doesn't know what he's doing -- >> there it is. the 25 second speech. there it is, everybody! you know, i knew chris. i like him. we're friends now and we talk. but for those 90 seconds -- >> why did he do it? >> you have to ask him why. but the answer is i probably should have gone back at him hard and it would have been forgotten and moved on. i knew he probably wasn't going make it past new hampshire. i didn't want to spend the whole debate about me fighting with

chris christie. that wouldn't have changed the race. it would have changed new hampshire. >> then you went on a road for a lost weekend where you trading insults with trump. >> have you seen his hands? they're like this. >> little mouth on him. ding, ding, ding. >> i didn't like that we did that. it's not who i am. it was at the end where you felt like someone has to stand up, but when we didn't, on super tuesday, we underperformed. we could have won virginia. came very close to winning in virginia. probably should have spent a little more time there. jumped on it too late. if we had won virginia and minnesota, there might have been a different narrative. you come out of super tuesday. win one state and the media says this guy's got no chance to win. people who are spothing you gravitate towards someone else. >> so no regrets. >> i don't have regrets. >> do you think you might run again? >> i have no --

>> james carville says it's like sex. you don't just do it once. >> he would say that. i can only say that you know when you've run on it, you kind of understand what it means and i don't know where i'll be in seven years in my life, where my kids will be. i don't play the game anymore. who knows, but i'm not working towards that. yp i'm going to be b in the senate for four and a half rears. i'm away from family. i want them to know i made a difference while here. >> you talk about things you said at the end of the campaign. i want read a couple of them to you. you said i think there are a lot of people who are going to spend years and years of how they fell into this. we should not have cults of personality here. if you look at any political movement in the world where the leader says deposit your trust in me. that's only worked one time and it wasn't a political movement. it almost always leads to

disaster. that was a critique of donald trump. do you stand by that? >> i do. i meant everything i said there and i think in the long-term, both of those things will be true but for different reasons. i would just say that in the case of if hillary clinton had been elected, people asking me why aren't you cooperating more with her to get things done. she won the election. so why would that not be true someone of my own party was elected. >> you would be outspoke. >> but we are. >> pret ty kaurs. >> the outrage cycle is such that if i disagree with the president on public policy, i want it to be a public policy agreem. it will be portrayed as a republican attacking the president because we created the cycle where the way where you become famous and liked is by being a republican that goes after the p president. t not personal. the president has a view on it. i'm going to do what i do in the senate. we'll work together on other things. that's the way you to this

stuff. >> senator, thank you. good to be with you. >> thanks. >> for more of my conversation, go to apple podcast or your favorite podcast app and subscribe to the axe files. so the most important people never make the headlines. but they make a difference dramatically improving the lives of countless others. maybe you know someone like that. my colleagues and i were asked to seek out the changemakers, the people working on causes close to our hearts and tell their stories. tonight, you'll meet them. this is champions for change. ♪