investigations. he stepped out today as epa administrator. that's 14 by the way not counting the reports that he his security detail drive him around so he could buy a special kind of skin lotion, and it's not including the used luxury mattress he tried to wrangle from president trump's hotel in washington. on top of that, the scandals that is, not the mattress, he mentioned none of that in his resignation letter. and president trump called him a terrific. more from cnn's kaitlan collins. >> scott pruitt, administrator of the epa. >> reporter: embattled epa chief scott pruitt out tonight after months of mounting ethics scandals and questions about his behavior. president trump announcing on twitter, i have accepted the resignation of scott pruitt as the administrator of the environmental protection agency, praising pruitt's work rolling back obama era regulations at the epa, but making no mention of the dozens of ethics questions facing him. pruitt writing in a letter to

the president, your confidence in me has blessed me personally. adding the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizeable toll. pruitt had been under a cloud of scandals for months, constantly facing questions about his security detail, pricey first class travel and cozy relationships with lobbyists. pruitt was back in the headlines just this week. a cnn report revealing he and his aides kept secret calendars to hide contentious meetings. an aide testifying before the house oversight committee that pruitt asked her to find his wife a job with a salary of over $200,000 at the republican governors association. and cnn reporting that he directly asked trump this spring to fire attorney general jeff sessions and let him lead the department of justice instead. before that, stories about his housing situation in washington, his wife's desire for a chick-fil-a franchise, and even a search for a used trump hotel

mattress stunned white house aides. despite the bad optics, trump never wavered. >> i'm not happy about certain things, but he's done a fantastic job running the epa, which is very overriding. but i am not happy about it. >> reporter: on wednesday, pruitt appeared to be in good standing with the president, smiling and shaking hands at the white house's fourth of july picnic. >> administrator scott pruitt -- >> reporter: but in this administration, 24 hours can mean the difference between a job and a farewell. >> so, kaitlan, the president spoke about pruitt tonight. what did he say? >> reporter: he made quite clear that scott pruitt was not fired from his position as the head of the epa, but he had resigned to the president, which the president said on twitter, he announced his resignation, but he made clear that it wasn't any kind of a forced resignation. he called him a great guy, said he did a terrific job,

outstanding at the epa, making quite clear that he had no problem with the ethics scandals which had mounted in recent days, dozens of scandals, but it was simply because scott pruitt himself wanted to step down after being in the headlines once again this week. in addition to praising scott pruitt, the president also weighed in tonight in montana on elizabeth warren who he often refers to as pocahontas. as he did, he took a shot for the first time, as best we can tell, at the "me too" movement. listen to this. >> pocahontas, they always me to apologize for saying it. let's say i'm debating pocahontas, right? i promise you i'll do this. i will take -- up know those little kits they sell on television for $2? learn your heritage. we will take that little kit and say, but we have to do it gently because we're in the me too generation, so we have to be

very gentle. and we will very gently take that kit, and we will slowly toss it, hoping it doesn't hit her and injure her arm. >> for context, this comes the same day that bill shine started overseeing communications inside the white house. shine left fox news after being criticized for turning a blind eye to sexual harassment claims at the network during his tenure there. and senator warren has just weighed in, tweeting, hey, donald trump, while you obsess over my genes, your administration is conducting dna tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas and you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you're destroying. she's referring to the kids taken from their parents at the mexican border. there is new reporting on that, and it's pretty shocking. first though, scott pruitt, senator warren, me too, and the president. joining us, norm eisen, republican strategist, rick

wilson, author of "everything trump touches dies," and trump supporter steve cortes, who is here with us and very healthy as far as we can tell, and i think he has touched the president in some way literally and figurati figuratively. rick, you're a republican strategist. you help run campaigns. you know how women are energized in this election season. a joke about the "me too" movement. how will that play this election year? >> look, republican women have been fleeing donald trump, particularly college-educated republican women, suburban women, because he is a guy who has spent a long time playing the role of this playboy figure and, you know, basically making a public spectacle of himself, having relationships with porn stars and adult film stars and, you know, dry-humping beauty pageant contestants. this is a guy who is not somebody you would want to leave your daughter alone with. so a lot of women are hearing this, and now they're hearing

him joke about it. he's not a guy -- you know, president grab him by tthem by know what is a guy who doesn't have al lot of latitude to make jokes like that. a record number of women are running. a record number of turned out in the various races, and so this is donald trump playing with fire as he usually does. and i think it's a risk that, you know, obviously he's going to take because he's not, you know, terribly cognizant of the fact that he is a national laughingstock when it comes to be the first predator in chief. >> kaitlan, i have not heard the president make any jokes about the "me too" movement yet. at least i don't think i have. you cover him day in and day out. is this a first? is this the type of thing you think that white house insiders would like to see him do more of, or is there concern tonight? >> reporter: so, john, this is definitely the first time we've heard the president talk about this publicly like this.

but we know that back behind the scenes as all of this was unfolding, the "me too" movement, when it really started to get a lot of momentum, the president would talk about it and say he thought it was unfair at times that people's lives could be destroyed by allegations. you'll recall he said a lot about that former staff secretary who worked here, rob porter, who was accused of domestic abuse of two of his ex-wives. the president has long said and doubted a lot of the accusers of me too. that doesn't come as a surprise because this is a president accused of sexual assault himself, something he has publicly denied. certainly that gives you the context. he's said it privately, but not publicly. this is the fuirst time we're hearing. it does come on a day that bill shine, that former co-president of fox news, has started at the white house. today was the first time we saw him on camera in his official capacity as the new deputy chief of staff who is in charge of communications. he is someone who is one of

roger ailes' top aides at fox news. he stepped down from fox news last year because he was accused not of sexual harassment as roger ailes was, but accused of covering up for roger ailes. now, he has denied any wrongdoing, but he was named in several lawsuits from people who said he helped cover up some of the things that roger ailes did when he was at fox news. so keep this in mind. bill shine was on air force one with the president as was donald trump jr., the president's son, also on the way to montana tonight. now, i had tweeted earlier remarking that bill shine was acting in his official capacity here at the white house. we saw him getting into the motorcade with the president as they were ready to depart earlier. and donald trump jr. made a remark about my tweet, saying, get ready, that the media and the liberal side are going to start taking shots at bill shine. you could only assume that is part of that conversation that led to the president saying that tonight. >> interesting. steve cortes, trump supporter, do you think that mentioning me too like this is a smart

strategy? >> i don't. i'm not sure why he did. i love him castigating elizabeth warren and her ridiculous claims to be an american indian because it's absurd, and she should take a dna test. and the fact that she engages in what aboutism, right, rather than his challenge, she immediately start talking about the border. i'd also like to say, by the way, bill shine, who has been a couple times in this segment disparaged is a friend of mine, is an american patriot. he's an incredible master of media and messaging. i'm incredibly glad he's in the white house. he was never accused of any wrongdoing, of any sexual harassment himself. the fact that he was named in lawsuits -- by the way, some of those lawsuits named every person of any importance at fox news. the fact that he was named in lawsuits, i think is hardly a conviction of him or his character. and he's going to, i think, lead to a far better messaging white house from here forward.

>> well, look, kaitlan didn't run down bill shine at all. she merely noted that he was on the plane, and it is a statement of fact that he has been named in lawsuits. it is a statement of fact he was very much a big part of fox news when a lot of those things were going on, and people have lost their jobs and there's been mountains and mountains written about that. be that as it may, ambassador eisen, to you here. look, we're talking about the midterm elections. we've seen the energy among women heading into the midterm elections. do you think that that will carry the democrats, or are they going to need more than that? >> well, there's no question, john, that the power of women candidates, women winning these primaries, women turning out and voting, has been a part of the mix. it's not by itself enough. an equal part of the story, as rick noted, is the flight of college-educated women from donald trump. but, john, i think the revulsion

of people across the american public for comments like the president made tonight are also going to play a role. what does me too -- what does sexual harassment have to do with throwing a dna kit across the stage? nothing. clearly the president was envisioning in that same twisted mind that gave us the "access hollywood" tape something entirely different and disgusting. that's a repellent. people of no gender like that. even my friend steve thinks he made a mistake, and he did. and, john, i'll tell you one other bizarre thing about the president's speech tonight. every word out of his mouth hit on one of his vulnerabilities because he also talked about dna as senator warren pointed out. dna has to be used because of this administration's unconstitutional and botched separation of parents from children to reunite them. he talked about a million dollar

gift to charity. he's been sued by the new york a.g. for fraudulent charitable activity that's going to trial before the election. so i heard it as more of a confession than a campaign speech. >> rick wilson, i want to ask you quickly about scott pruitt, who will soon be no longer with this administration. i was speaking to maggie haberman. she said kaitlan's reporting that pruitt was pushing the president to fire jeff sessions and replace him with scott pruitt alongside with drew griffin's reporting about changing some calendars, that that was the straw, that this new reporting this week was enough to get the president and the people closest to him just tired of dealing with scott pruitt. >> well, i think kaitlan's reporting on that was very incisive, and probably had an impact on this question. i do think also that scott pruitt was sort of the clown prince of corruption in this administration. this was a guy who -- he acted like he was in some third-world kleptocracy and was trying to, you know, cash out as he

possibly could the entire time. but he finally crossed the president's, you know, unspeakable line where it caused him more hassles than it was worth. and i find that, look, the defenses of scott pruitt in this town, in d.c., that lasted for months and months and months, oh, he's doing all these great things, you know, those things -- all those people that were making those defenses had a chance over and over again to take a step away from trump and didn't. so the fact that they're all sort of standing there with egg on their face tonight is hilarious to me. and i do think that, you know, this idea that when you're in this much ethical trouble, you try to double down and say, oh, make me the attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer of the united states, it's ludicrous. it was an absurdity, and pruitt, you know, reaped the whirlwind from it. >> steve cortes, just to be clear, you think it was time for scott pruitt to go here? you're not really crying any tears over this? >> oh, gosh, quite the opposite. no, i'm very happy. i said so yesterday on cnn, and

i've advised the president both publicly and privately that i thought scott pruitt was becoming an unnecessary distraction. here's the shame of it from my perspective. i thought he did a great job at epa. he did a wonderful job of deconstructing the administrative state, the weapon that the epa had become against american business, particularly american small business. he did a great job there but somehow he was so ethically challenged that he couldn't get over himself. frankly when we run against the swamp as we did in 2016, we have to be cleaner than clean, and he wasn't because of that, he needs to go. he did important work, but it's good that he's gone. >> thanks for sticking around, kaitlan, thank you very much for your reporting. perspective next from david axelrod, and ahead, the kids taken at the border. the man in charge of reuniting them with their families is asked how much progress he has made, and the answer he gives is stunning. and later the president's narrowing down his supreme court picks. we'll talk about the likely

candidates. salads should look like this. crisp leaves of lettuce. freshly made dressing. clean food that looks this good. delivered to your desk. now delivering to home or office. panera. food as it should be. my dai need my blood sugar i'to stay in control.en. panera. so i asked about tresiba®. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ tresiba® is a once-daily, long-acting insulin that lasts even longer than 24 hours. i need to shave my a1c. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ tresiba® works like my body's insulin. releases slow and steady. providing powerful a1c reduction. my week? hectic. my weekends? my time. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪

i can take tresiba® any time of day. so if i sleep in, and delay my dose, i take it as soon as i can, as long as there's at least eight hours between doses. (renee) once in use, it lasts eight weeks with or without refrigeration, twice as long as the lantus® pen. (announcer) tresiba® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. don't use tresiba® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. don't share needles or insulin pens. don't reuse needles. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which may cause dizziness, sweating, confusion, and headache. check your blood sugar. low blood sugar can be serious and may be life-threatening. injection site reactions may occur. tell your prescriber about all medicines you take and all your medical conditions. taking tzds with insulins, like tresiba®, may cause serious side effects like heart failure. your insulin dose shouldn't be changed without asking your prescriber. get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing, fast heartbeat, extreme drowsiness, swelling of your face, tongue or throat, dizziness, or confusion. ask your health care provider if you're tresiba® ready. covered by most insurance and medicare plans. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪

ordinary stains say they 2 can do the job, s. but behr premium stain can weather any weather. behr premium semi-transparent stain and sealer, overall #1 rated, weathers it all. find our most advanced formula exclusively at the home depot. with tripadvisor, finding your perfect hotel at the lowest price... is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates... and see all the hotels for your stay! tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to show you the lowest prices... so you can get the best deal on the right hotel for you. dates, deals, done! tripadvisor. visit tripadvisor.com

so scott fruit pruitt it ou epa. nor is this the first departing to bring back memories of one of trump's campaign promises. >> we're going to make america great again. we're going to use our best people. i'm going to get the best people. we're going to deliver. we're going to get the best

people in the world. we don't want people that are b level, c level, d level. we're going to use our smartest and our best. we're not using political hacks anymore. it's a sophisticated chess match, but i have the best people lined up. you need people that are truly, truly capable. we have to get the best people. >> joining us now, one of our own best people, former obama senior adviser, david axelrod, host of the ax files on cnn. david, what does it say about this administration and this president that it took this long, this many scandals, 14 investigations before pruitt resigned? >> well, it says that ethics aren't a big deal here and that should not be a surprise because everything flows from the top. and when you have a president who has basically given the back of his hand to people who have asked to see his tax returns, when you have his children on the white house staff making $78 million on the side and so on. i mean the message is very

clear, which is take what you can get, however you can get it, but don't become a political liability. and what scott pruitt did was he became a political liability because his offenses were so legion and garnering so much coverage that it overshadowed everything else, including the things that he's done. i mean i have deep objections to what he's done at the epa, but a lot of people in the republican base do not. they like it. certainly the donor base in the old energy community, they really like it, in the oil industry and so on, in the coal industry. but, you know, these stories became so, so pronounced and so outrageous that -- and maybe bordering on things that will lead him into a criminal situation, that they just decided we have to cut the cord here. >> given all the things you just said, does it surprise you at all that the president said it was all pruitt's choice and that

there was no final straw here? >> it may be one of those times when the president isn't being entirely candid with us about how the process came down. there is no doubt -- i mean he's been defending pruitt, and there's no doubt that a decision was made either on the basis of knowledge about what may be coming down the pike or on the basis of what we've already seen, that this guy isn't worth the trouble anymore. you know, pruitt's made very clear that he likes the job, and why wouldn't he like the job? he's got his security detail. he flies first class. he sends his security guys around to find his favorite lotion at posh hotels and all of that stuff. so i don't think that he just woke up and said, you know what, i don't think this is good for me. i think that he was told he had to go. >> i have been told by the way that it is terrific lotion, by the way, at the ritz. so pruitt may have been on to

something when he was asking his security detail to drive him around to -- >> you hang around in -- >> it is something special. whether or not you should have your security detail drive you around to get it, that's a different story. >> it is indeed. >> we're hearing white house officials are relieved this is over. epa insiders are relieved this is over. trump supporters, they are the ones who are part of our family here at cnn. steve cortes, i just spoke with, he's relieved this is over. it makes it all the more surprising to me that it got to this point. >> yeah. but i think there's only one -- you know, there's only one person who has 100% of the voting shares in that administration, and that's the president. and i'm sure that he's watched on the channels that he watches and on the sites that he sees. he sees a lot of praise for pruitt -- or has. i mean some of them have flaked away recently. and i think pruitt -- my sense

is that pruitt had mastered the art of buttering up the boss, which gets you a long way in this administration. and i think that probably added some days to his tenure. but if i were advising the president, if i were one of his political aides, his campaign people, people looking at the midterms and so on, i would be very happy that he's on his way back to oklahoma. >> just lastly, david, if i could get you on one other subject we've been talking about. the president making a joke about the "me too" movement and elizabeth warren. we haven't heard it before. i don't know that we'll hear it again. the president has said a lot of controversial things before. will this be potent going forward? >> well, i think -- i don't know that this will have that kind of endurance, but it reflects a mindset. i mean his basic mindset is let's party like it's the 1950s, and that includes in terms of his attitude toward women. have you heard a full-throated statement of support from the president on the "me too" movement? >> no. >> when a lot of these stories

broke, particularly about his allies, he defended them against these charges. so it's not -- i think he was -- i said before, i joked about his not being candid. this was a place where i think he was very revealing. i don't think he thinks much of the "me too" movement and i think his general attitude toward women is going to be a problem for him, particularly in some of these suburban districts are going to be key to who controls the house after november. >> always great to have you with us. thanks so much. the secretary of state of health and human services held a conference call with reporters today. the question is did it do anything to clear up the confusion about just how many immigrant children are still separated from their parents and what the plan is to reunite them? the answer is next. booking a flight at the last minute doesn't have to be expensive. just go to priceline. it's the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40%. just tap and go... for the best savings on flights, go to priceline.

it can grow out of control, disrupting business and taking on a life of its own. its multi-cloud complexity creating friction... and slowing innovation. with software-defined solutions, like hpe onesphere, you can tame the it monster. hewlett packard enterprise. clouds, apps, and insights faster. like concert tickets or a new snowboard. matt: whoo! whoo! jen: but that all changed when we bought a house. matt: voilà! jen: matt started turning into his dad. matt: mm. that's some good mulch. ♪ i'm awake. but it was pretty nifty when jen showed me how easy it was

to protect our home and auto with progressive. [ wrapper crinkling ] get this butterscotch out of here. progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents. there's quite a bit of work, 'cause this was all -- this was all stapled. but we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. but we can protect your home and auto sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. [park announcer] all military members stand and be recognized. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. no matter where or when you served, t-mobile stands ready to serve you. that's why we're providing half off family lines to all military.

talk today from the trump administration but not so much transparency about the thousands of migrant children taken from their parents under the president's zero-tolerance border policy. hhs secretary alex azar briefed reporters. when he was done talking, the parents still in the dark. he could not provide a precise number of children who had been separated from their parents as a result of zero tolerance by the u.s. government. the administration has until next tuesday to reunite the kids younger than 5 with their parents and until the 26th for the rest. but secretary azar had little to offer in the way of any details on how that is being implemented. however, he did give the total number of family reunifications that have taken place so far. that number is pretty stunning. miguel marquez joins us now from a federal processing center in mcallen, texas. exactly how many reunions have

taken place? >> reporter: since the judge ordered the government to make those reunions, zero have taken place. they say they are trying to scrub down the numbers and figure out where everybody is. they do say they know where these children are, that under 3,000 number today. the frustrating part is they will not say how many of that 3,000 were due to zero tolerance, how many were separated due to zero tolerance. the one thing they are saying is those under 5, they expect to make the judge's order. by the way, they blame the courts for making this more complicated than it needs to be. they say those under 5s, they're physically moving the parents to texas to be close to their children. if they can't make bond, if they don't get out, they are going to be housed together in a location tbd. we believe it is a military base near el paso, texas, fort bliss, where they will be housed. so that is the rough plan going forward. but as we've seen with at least these one-off reunifications of

individual who's have lawyers, who were able to make bond and get out, it is a very, very complicated process. every single one of these is going to be difficult. >> what more are we learning from that call with secretary azar? >> reporter: another thing he said is that they're going to use dna testing because they need to speed the process up because of the judge's order. typically they would use documentation that the parents have to make those reunifications and ensure that the parent and the child have that relationship. but in this case, in some cases they've gone to the parent for dna and to the child for dna so that they can ensure that they are -- that the parentage is correct. they say it will only be used for identification, but clearly advocacy groups, lawyers, and the immigrants themselves are quite concerned about this. but these individuals, they will do anything to speed that reunification with their children. john? >> mickle, greguel, thanks so m. again, zero families unified based on last week's court

order. as miguel mentions, there have been a handful of reunions. there was one today in boston between an 8-year-old girl and her mother, a reunion 55 days in the making. our polo sandoval reports. >> reporter: it's been nearly two months since this little girl has seen her mother. angel ca gonzalez garcia. the guatemalan family was separated after illegally crossing the u.s.-mexico border into arizona. today they were reunited in a boston airport. [ speaking foreign language ] >> reporter: the mother and daughter were separated may 11th and taken to shelters in different states. she says there was a moment when i thought i would never see her

again because of what they told me when they took her. and i would get on my knees every morning and pray to god while i too was detained, and i would pray with all my heart. gonzalez-gar gonzalez-garcia filed an asylum claim and was released on bond on june 19th but still hadn't seen her daughter in weeks. the aclu helped her file a lawsuit that describes, quote, unmitigated cruelty, saying an officer told her happy mother's day after saying her daughter would be taken away and she would never see her again. later on the phone, she says her daughter described being hurt by another child and getting sick while still in the custody of the u.s. government. i would spend time thinking about how long it would be, she says. i wanted to go where she was, even just to see her from a distance. amid tears of joy, a belated birthday gift from mom. the little girl turned 8 while in a texas shelter. she is the reason i'm here, gonzalez-garcia says, looking for a better life for her and myself. gonzalez-garcia lives in massachusetts, where she says

she's built a support system for her and her little girl. a belated birthday party is planned for tomorrow, a chance for mother and daughter to get their minds off the long and uncertain road to securing asylum. >> polo sandoval joins us now. do we know why this reunification took so long? why did it take almost two months for this mother to get her daughter back? >> reporter: a couple of reasons for that, john. there's the complicated paperwork that took a very long time to come together. there's also, of course, the red tape, miles of it. and then, of course, the lack of clarity coming from the u.s. government on how exactly these kind of reunifications are supposed to happen. that being said, this woman also had a lot of support behind her. she had her attorney. she had the aclu. she had some lawmakers as well to make this happen. next step for her will be to try to secure that asylum status so that she can stay here in the united states. john, she knows that it's not going to be easy, especially under the new guidelines issued by attorney general jeff

sessions. but she says, that's okay, as long as she has her little girl by her side. as she put it to me today, it's as if she got her life back. a lot more to get to tonight including who may be on the very short list for the next nomination to the supreme court. that's next. ♪ you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia's add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. add-on advantage. i never thought i'd say this... ...but i found bladder leak underwear... ...that's actually pretty. always discreet boutique. hidden inside... ...is a super absorbent core that quickly turns liquid to gel. [snap!] so i feel protected... ...and pretty. always discreet boutique. capital one has partneredthing with hotels.com to give venture cardholders 10 miles on every dollar they spend at thousands of hotels. all you have to do is pay with this...

at hotels.com/venture. 10 miles per dollar? that is incredible. brrrrr. i have the chills. because you're so excited? because ice is cold. and because of all those miles. obviously. what's in your wallet? i'm not sure. what's in your wallet? we can'twhy?y here! flat toilet paper! i'll never get clean! way ahead of you. charmin ultra strong. it cleans better. it's four times stronger and you can use less.

enjoy the go with charmin. it can grow out of control, disrupting business and taking on a life of its own. its multi-cloud complexity creating friction... and slowing innovation. with software-defined solutions, like hpe oneview, you can tame the it monster. hewlett packard enterprise. less complexity. more visibility. and i am a senior public safety my namspecialist for pg&e. my job is to help educate our first responders on how to deal with natural gas and electric emergencies. everyday when we go to work

we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. i live right here in auburn, i absolutely love this community. once i moved here i didn't want to live anywhere else. i love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other people's lives. together, we're building a better california. as we reported the last

hour, president trump is telling reporters he has narrowed down his choices for the soon to be vacant supreme court seat down to two or three. the only thing that seems safe to say at this point is whoever he selects will delight republicans and anger democrats. here to discuss, so explain the front-runners. at this point there appear to be three. >> okay. sure, john. good to be with you. first we have brett kavanaugh, who is 53 years old. he sits right here in washington, d.c. on the u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit. he's somebody who has been part of the washington establishment since the george h.w. bush administration, and then he was a top lawyer with george w. bush, who also put him on the d.c. circuit. i think he's the man to beat right now, but as i've said, there's also a woman to beat right now, and that would be amy coney barrett.

before i get to her, let me tell you who i think might be second. a man by the name of raymond kethledge who sits on the sixth circuit based in michigan. like brett kavanaugh, he was a law clerk to retiring justice thoint kenne anthony kennedy so there would be a bit of passing the baton here. he was also put on the court by george w. bush. he's got the advantage of being out beyond the beltway. his law degree is from the university of michigan, and as we've talked, the president likes to say he's naming someone with elite credentials, and that certainly is brett kavanaugh, who went to yale. then finally just to close the loop on the three, it's judge amy coney barrett, who president trump put on the seventh circuit based in chicago last fall. and she's a former notre dame law professor who has a very interesting story. she'd only be the fifth woman on the court. she has seven children.

she's someone who would bring more diversity to the bench, but who knows what donald trump will settle on? >> so, a.b., the politics of this right now, and we're talking really just the politics inside the republican party, seems to be brett kavanaugh and not brett kavanaugh. there is some pushback in some circles because kavanaugh was close to the bushes here. do you really think any republican would vote against him if he did end up the nominee? >> no, john. you're right. the timing is get all the pressure in as soon as you can before he actually settles on a choice. then they're all going to support the nominee of course. but there's a lot of jockeying still up through into this weekend, a heavy push by senators and the heritage foundation for senator mike lee, and also a little bit of a rift in conservative circles about whether or not kethledge would be better on immigration than kavanaugh. this is really an interesting thing breaking into camps. everyone trying to be the last

person obviously in the president's ear about who would be a better choice and who is a secret liberal. but i imagine that everyone is going to come around to the ultimate choice no matter what. >> joan, very quickly, the president has had a chance to meet with these people. how important are these meetings typically? >> oh, very important, john. i have known presidents decide on the spot of the chemistry with an individual. it can be a make-or-break situation because it's the opportunity for the nominee to sell himself for sell herself. and if the chemistry is not there, the nomination won't be there either. >> and, a.b., we talk about these choices but i think one thing is pretty clear. for them to be on this list to begin with that was put together by the federalist society, it's pretty clear that it's a safe bet they would vote, for instance, to overturn roe v. wade if it does come to that down the road. >> you know, john, you're right. i think this whole debate about what's going to happen to roe and how, you know, someone like susan collins, a pro-choice republican senator has said she's not going to pick someone

who has been, you know, disdainful of roe. i don't think a lot of these people have had to make comments about that particular case during their career to be a justice likely to vote with the majority to overturn it. that whole debate is interesting about what kind of guarantees you get before a choice is made. there are none. this is going to be a conservative choice, chosen by the federalist society. a long list that pleased evangelical and social conservatives and they knew this going in. it was a promise to be delivered by president trump, and i think most of them are all going to end up voting pretty much the same way. >> announcement monday night, prime time, 9:00 p.m. between now and then, nothing but lobbying. appreciate it. all right. coming up for us, i'm going to speak with a conservative who says he has had it with president trump and wants democrats to control congress in november. also the republican who it seems safe to say will never do that. crisp leaves of lettuce.

freshly made dressing. clean food that looks this good. delivered to your desk. now delivering to home or office. panera. food as it should be. panera. ♪ (laughing) (screaming) ♪ come here! oh my... (applause) ♪ (vocalizing) (dad, over phone) just like that? (vocalizing continues)

on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort your sleep number setting. and snoring? does your bed do that? don't miss the 4th of july specials, with the last chance for final closeout savings on the queen c2 mattress. now only $599, save $300. it's the lowest price ever. ends sunday. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you.

though rare, it can take your teen's life in just 24 hours. even if they had the first dose of mcv4 vaccine at 11 or 12 years, they need the second-dose at 16. call their doctor today.

a one-time republican is now going one step beyond leaving the party over its direction and the election of president trump. he's max boot, who has just written about it in "the washington post." i spoke with max, as well as paris dennard, a republican who is definitely not abandoning ship, just before the broadcast. so, max, you wrote that the republican party used to be, quote, a conservative party with a white nationalist fringe. now it's a white nationalist party with a conservative fringe. can you explain what you meant by that? >> well, i think that donald trump has really transformed the republican party, and this is certainly not the party that i grew up with in the 1980s under ronald reagan. it's not the party of mitt romney or john mccain or so many other republicans, including some that i worked for. donald trump has really made this into a european-style nationalist party sort of like

the national front in france. he has made demonization of immigrants a key part of his agenda, and he began his campaign in 2015 by calling mexican immigrants rapists and murderers, and more recently he's been referring to latin american immigrants as animals who breed and using other demonizing terminology. for a while he was trying to separate families and lock children of newly alivrrived immigrants in cages. he has catered to racism. for example, vilifying african-american nfl players who kneel during the anthem to protest police brutality, praising white supremacist protesters in charlottesville, and on and on and on. i think it's really just transformed the republican party because the republican party has never said, no, we repudiate what donald trump is doing. in fact, the republican party has fallen in line behind him.

the fact that while two-thirds of americans denounced the barbaric and inhumane family separation policy, a majority of republicans supported it. this is not the republican party i grew up with. this is not the republican party i want to belong to. >> paris, what's your response when you hear people like max -- and he's not alone. there are others, steve schmidt who have out and out left the party. >> i think that max has actually just mouthed off a lot of falsehoods in his characterization of president trump and his positions. but i will say for every establishment -- >> can you name one falsehood from what i just said? can you name one -- you accused me of falsehoods. could you please list those falsehoods for me. >> i sure will, max. >> he's not catering to racism the first you said was the president referred to hispanics as animals. i think that what he was talking about and was specifically talking atal talking about was these ms-13

gang members. >> that was the cover story. he uses dehumanizing terminology to refer to immigrants. he also says they fests and breed. that is not a falsehood. >> so i can go on. i'm going to use my time to talk about things i think are important. >> i want to hear a falsehood. you accused me of falsehoods. give me a falsehood. >> the president did not talk about all hispanics or people coming across the border as rapists. >> yes, he did. he said they're sending us rapists and murders and a few good ones. look it up. >> i understand what the president said. >> i characterized it completely accurately. >> max, let me say something. this isn't your show.

>> you accused me of falsehood, and you have not listed a single falsehood. >> i did, max. i listed two. for every establishment type like max that chooses to leave the party, there are more and more people that look like me and less than max who are joining the party and that actually like what president trump stands for and likes the leadership that the rnc chairwoman are doing with the lead right initiative. they've had since september over 800-some-odd african americans join in on the events they have. and they have the specific things they're doing in florida with respect to puerto ricans with over 3,000 people who have signed up and have been engaged in direct engagement with what's going on. >> come on. get serious. trump has a low approval ratings among latinos and african americans. get serious. >> max, if you let me speak so

the american people can hear what i have to say, it would be greatly appreciated. when you look at what the president has done when he was running this campaign, max mentioned this is not the party of mccain or romney. he did better among african americans, getting 8 % of the vote than mccain and romney. and so this is the party that i have been a part of since i was 17. this is the party that i know. this is the party that has embraced me, and this is the party that continues to stand for things that are positive, that a building this country and making america great again and people are responding to it. max, you can leave and that's fine, but more people that look like me and people that look like you, people forgotten are signing onto his message. that's why thousands are standing in line right now to see him at a rally in montana. because they are responding to his positive message. there are people who have jobs. there are people who have been forgotten that are no longer forgotten. they appreciate his message, and

so, max, i appreciate your time and the party. i wish that you would stay and fight like my grandfather said. he told me before he passed. he said paris, i don't like your party and i don't agree with a lot of what your party does, but i love you and i believe you should fight for what you believe in inside the republican party because the party will be better with you in it, fighting for things you care about than you outside of it. max, when you want to come back, the door is always open. >> max, paris, thank you for being with us. i appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, rescues in thailand facing challenges to rescue the boys in the cave. there are health and weather complications setting back the effort. we're lye on the scene in just a moment. ob, but behr premium stain can weather any weather.

behr premium semi-transparent stain and sealer, overall #1 rated, weathers it all. find our most advanced formula exclusively at the home depot. dear foremothers, your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands... ...commanded armies... ...yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 2 times more geographic detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com.

booking a flight doesn't have to be expensive. just go to priceline. it's the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40%. just tap and go... for the best savings on flights, go to priceline.

sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. [park announcer] all military members stand and be recognized. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. no matter where or when you served, t-mobile stands ready to serve you. that's why we're providing half off family lines to all military. 13 days that. that's how many soccer members have been trapped in a cave. rescuers have not decided on a plan on how to get the boys and coaches out. weather is supposed to be taking a turn for the worst. let's go to matt rivers on the scene. what's the latest? >> reporter: last hour we were talking a little bit about the preferred plan for authorities

here which would involve reducing the water level in the cave so the kids could actually walk out. this is kind of what this looks like. the pipes are the end of the system of pumps that they've installed. if you follow the pipes all the way down, you can see where they drilled down into the well. for days now nonstop 234 24 hours a day, water has been pulled out of this cave, and this is where it's coming out. the hope is they can pull enough water out of the cave so the kids can walk out. the kids are tired. they're exhausted. some of them don't know how to swim. none of them have scuba diving experience. the other option is they might have to swim out, use scuba equipment in what could be a dive even for an experienced diver, difficult. this is what rescuers are doing here. they're facing this short window as you mentioned off the top

there. the weather is expected to get worse. all this work here pumping out all that water, it could all be for not if the skies open up and flood the cave again. >> rain expected by monday. we've also seen them trying to lay wires to establish communication with the children inside the cave. what's the latest on that? >> reporter: no luck yet in terms of establishing a communication line for the people in the cave. of course, they want the kids to be able to talk to their parents for morale, but they want realtime updates from the kids who are exhausted and want to know what's going on. it's hard to get back there to see where they are. it takes experienced divers sometimes hours just to reach the kids so there's a two-fold reason for getting the communication lines in there. that's a priority for rescuers as they have to make a crucial decision, how are they going to move forward here? do they get enough water out on time for the kids to walk out or are they faced with a much more treacherous, risky option? >> we see the pumps working. we also see the weather forecast.

it's, again, rain for monday. that will force a decision sometime in the next couple of days. will they try to get them out via the water whether they can walk or swim remains to be scene. thank you for watching ac 360. "the 70s" starts right now. rock is probably the most cultural event in the history of america. at generation of freaks. >> guys kind of get off on. high-energy sorts of events. >> if sight and sound is your pleasure, you bet your bottom, we've got them, baby. >> unless you have been living in a sealed cave, you probably know america's latest craze is disco dancing. >> this is punk rock. its purpose to promote violence, sex and destruction in that order. >> pure rock 'n' roll. pure stamina! ♪