be until north korea actually makes a move. >> new round of sanctions on north korea, i can tell you. can assure you that will be welcome news to a lot of folks on capitol hill watching this closely. thanks, michelle. appreciate it. thank you all for joining me. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. thank you, kate. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. closing arguments under way in the paul manafort trial. the administration just wrapped telling jurors the former trump campaign chairman lifd a life of lies, fraud and greed. plus, brand-new cnn polls show democrats with a growing advantage when voters are asked which party they want to control congress. retaking the house, clearly within the democrats' reach. and democrats celebrate diversity after another big primary night, including the first transgender nominee for

governor. a republican looking to make a big comeback loses and learns a big lesson. >> people are going to ask you what you see in this result. i think the circumstances we live in in terms of a difference type of leadership and i just don't fit well into that era. into that picture. >> back to politics in a moment. we begin with the defining day in the paul manafort trial. one last chance for the lawyers to make their case. the government just finished its turn, its closing argument after the top prosecutor greg andres spent 90-plus minutes making his closing case. he boiled down ten days of testimony from witnesses to a single line. this is a case about lies, he said. the government framing its government this way. mr. manafort lied to keep more money when he had it and lied to get more machine when he didn't. shimon prokupecz joins me and has been tracking this trial from the beginning. 90 minutes or so.

what's your biggest takeaway from this. >> certainly the lies and how they detailed the lies and documents that they allege paul manafort had lied on, the tax forms and bank forms. more interestingly and some of the more color that came from this closing argument was how they addressed the whole issue. one point calling rick gates a guy who was -- paul manafort was his mentor. mr. manafort was a mentor to mr. gates, particularly to his own criminal activity. that's what the prosecutor said to the jury. he then said that manafort didn't choose a boy scout to be his partner in crime. obviously, prosecutors anticipating that rick gates is going to be a big part of the defense attorney's closing arguments. the other thing that was interesting here is, you know, we have all made a lot about rick gates calling him the star witness in this case while the prosecutors to the jury said the star witness in this case is the

documents. this has been a case that has heavily been -- the evidence has heavily relied on documents. e-mails in paul manafort's own words. tax documents that were put together by accountants for paul manafort. so prosecutors urging the jury to look at that. don't automobibelieve -- if you believe what rick gates came here and said. but see if those documents back up what rick gates was saying. jury is on break. they come back about 1:30 and that's when the defense will give their closing argument. and prosecutors will have one last chance to make an argument to the jury for why they should convict paul manafort. and then we'll get charges that will be read to the jury and we could see this case go to the jury this afternoon when they can start deliberating. >> we'll keep in touch, shimon, as that plays out this afternoon. appreciate the reporting. here with me in studio, cnn's abby philip, lisa lear with the

associated press and cnn's sara murray. here it is. the jury -- the prosecution makes its ways it's about lies. what do we make about the significance here. the idea to shimon's point, this isn't really about rick gates. it's about the paper, the financial documents and crimes we detailed to you. prosecution a tad nervous the defense did a good job undermining rick gates? >> they just decided to bloody up the guy they believe to be the prosecution's star witness, rick gates. what we're seeing from prosecuti prosecutor, we're acknowledging you may not like this guy and think he engaged in plenty of unsavory activities but look how his story lines up with everything else we've shown you. the documents that were falsified. the bookkeepers, the accountants that you've heard from. this is a big test for the special counsel. in part because this is just paul manafort's first trial. hes also facing a second trial in another jurisdiction.

if they're unable to get a conviction here, that's going to be a huge plblow to them. they're trying to see whether jurors look at rick gates as a credible witness. we know he's a witness in this case. we know he could be a witness yet again in manafort's next case but we don't know what other information he's been sharing with mueller's team. we don't know if he's someone they could be calling down the line in other cases. it's a test of whether jurors can look at him at all credibly. >> also a test to whether jurors can see through the person to the actual stuff that's written. manafort's own words are part of the document trail. certainly a lot of other potential smoking guns there. if that can be undermined by the weakness of a witness which is not that surprising given the type of trial that it is. and in general when dealing with high white collar crime or other types of more unsavory things, none of your witnesses are going to be boy scouts in the first place. but if rick gates can undermine what is otherwise what they felt was a very strong case to bring

this as the opening gambit, then i don't know if that causes a recalibration of how they approach things going forward. who they decide to -- there's already several indictments. they decide to pursue maybe the other cases differently. >> rick gates who, obviously, has admitted crimes. testifying to a jury saying believe me, even though one of the crimes is he lied to the prosecutors. i want to lay out if people haven't been tracking. paul manafort faces two trials. this one in virginia, five counts of tax fraud, four counts of hiding foreign bank accounts and nine counts of bank fraud. if convicted of these 18 criminal charges, he faces, the charges carry up to 300 years in prison. paul manafort is facing the prospect of spending the rest of his adult life in jail. if you watch there the charges laid out. if you are the president watching this, or the president's legal team, you're trying to see to the points just

made, is the special counsel's office able to detail these cases? do jurors believe these witnesses? does the meticulous work carry the day? >> it's also about just beyond the details of this case. it's about making a public argument about the credibility of the special counsel to the general public which doesn't care much about the counts against paul manafort but does care about whether or not the special counsel perhaps was overreaching, being overzealous in pursuing paul manafort for things that they've already -- the trump folks have already pointed out do not directly relate to the president himself. so i think if mueller is unsuccessful -- if the mueller probe is unsuccessful in dealing with this case, frankly, pretty thoroughly what you're going to see from trump allies is they'll find every little crack they can find and use that to exploit a broader case that the probe is beyond the gates, that it's gone just too far here. >> there's another risk, of course, for trump which for the

president which is that if he does get a heavy conviction, the special counsel can argue for leniency with the court in the sentencing. that gives them another opportunity to try to get manafort to cooperate. they have the second trial as you point out. that's another opportunity to get manafort to cooperate. we don't know how much he knows that's useful to what mueller is doing but gives them another shot at this guy who so far has been unwilling to play ball with them. >> you also know if you're on team trump, at one point they stop the defense from questioning rick gates about his work on the trump campaign. the prosecution got the judge to stop that because they said it would disclose sensitive information and these charges have nothing to do with 2016 or the trump campaign except they brought in testimony in the end. paul manafort, he moves around and his greed goes with him. while chairman of the trump campaign, he was trying to get a loan from the bank and telling the guy after he left, i can get you a job in the trump administration. give me that loan. >> on top of it, if he gets convicted and it's 300 years or

let's just say 100 years, whatever. the rest of his life, however many years the man has, that sends a really chilling message to other people who may have been resistant. they see the punishment can be real and they can take you to court and have a trial on other criminal stuff you're doing but if you play ball with mueller then maybe you can get a lighter sentence. that could have an impact beyond just manafort's cooperation. >> this is coming as the special counsel's office circling around roger stone. talking to everyone he's ever known. hasn't approached roger stone directly. if they get a conviction for paul manafort and say this is what happens if you don't cooperate with us or don't play ball, that could send a message to people like roger stone. >> coming in advance of the -- this is the one thing that we're sure about that will be decided one way or another before then. everybody is speculating about how far mueller will go n when the next things will drop. this will be determined one way or another. if it's bad for manafort, that

puts the credibility of the entire trump circole trial and there's this shadow question behind the midterms, are the democrats going to take the house or start impeachment proceedings. that's the political jury is that in terms of what the up shot of the whole mueller investigation is. this may make a difference coming in advance of the last push to november. >> 12 weeks out. the jurors could start deliberating this evening. if not, by early tomorrow. stay with cnn throughout the day. lunch right now and then the defense makes its closing argument. up next for us here -- hell hath no fury like a former white house staffer scorned. what's omarosa's next move?

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media blitz ped peddling her ne book "unhinged." he claims to have an audiotape of president trump using the "n" word during "the apprentice." >> can you stand at the podium and guarantee the american people that they'll never hear donald trump utter the "n" word on a recording in any context? >> i can't guarantee anything but i can tell you the president addressed this question directly. i can tell you that i've never heard it. >> to be clear, you can't guarantee it. >> i haven't been in every single room. >> a few days ago trump loyalists adamantly denied that tape existed. after omarosa released a recording in which she and two others discussed the possibility that he was caught on mike using that slur, they're being a little more careful in choosing their words. >> i've never heard him say the word. i only judge people by the way that they treat me. >> obviously, the president, i

can't speak for him. i know that he's told me that he has never said this word, that it's not in his vocabulary. i take him at his word. >> i feel comfortable telling you what i know which is that i've never heard him speak about anybody like that whatsoever. >> the president has yet to comment or tweet about omarosa today which is a retreat from the previous couple of days. it seems the white house now trying as hard as possible to avoid the topic as much as it can, if not altogether in hopes it will just fizzle out on its own. omarosa has not so subtly hinted she has more conversations on tape. and that has white house aides more than anxious wondering if their voice might soon pop up in places like this. on cable television. what's the attitude inside the white house? they're trashing her. they say this is disloyal. this is horrible. they say she can't be trusted and they also have to worry that she has them, right? >> no question. she was there for quite some time. it starts with the people in the white house not really being huge fans of omarosa but not

being able to do anything about it for a really long time. and now this is sort of adding insult to injury for them. but there is a sense that this culture of back stabbing and lack of trustworthiness and lies is so deep that omarosa really epitomizes it right now. she is the person who really shows just what a snake pit the white house can feel like sometimes. i think the people who work there know that better than anyone else and the tapes add insult to injury. they go back, not just through the white house but, obviously, she has some tapes from her time on the campaign and she's not respecting any nda she might have signed in that time. it's problematic for a whole host of people around trump. >> it's problematic and this is michael steele, the former republican chairman told this to "the washington post." omarosa doing a lot of television. omarosa driving a lot of social media conversation. she's doing trump as well or better than he is. this is his mini me.

he created omarosa. gave her license and invited her into the sacred space of the oval office. now after having created this monster that's coming back on him, what's he going to do. >> there's something deeply poetic about this story. day five of omarosa fest, and she is just stealing the trump playbook. the student has surpassed the teacher. maybe it's frankenstein is the better analogy, but like she's dribbling out the information. she's blanketing the air waves, giving us nugget after nugget. of course there are tapes and everybody wants to hear those tapes. she watched how trump taught her how you do publicity. how you do reality tv. how you capture a news cycle. she's now implementing those lessons and burning him and everybody around her in the white house. it's remarkable to watch. >> the question is, well, first question is, after all this that there better be tapes there. it's going to be a really big distraction that will play to trump's advantage if at the end

of this there's nothing there. that's number one. also every scandal before this that's involved some sort of personal failing of the president's hasn't really stuck to him that well. that's my other question watching this. this is bad. if he's uttered this particular word. and i think that would create a backlash in places we haven't seen it before. you remember in the "access hollywood" tape and any number of things since then and everybody gets really worried and he comes out of it and his poll numbers are ahead. hopefully this won't happen this time. >> the tape of that conference call, which she did release was in that conversation, they were discussing the potential existence of this tape as if it did exist. and they were saying, we need to figure out how to spin it. it goes to show, even back in the campaign, around that time, they were thinking, we can survive this. i think there are a lot of people around trump who actually do think he can survive it and perhaps he can. >> go ahead. >> i'm not sure why they'd think

any differently at this point given the things he's said and done and the way the republican party has given him cover. we know exactly what would happen if there were a tape of him saying this. paul ryan would trot out there, mitch mcconnell would trot out there. everyone would go out and say this is not the kind of language we should be using. slap on the wrist. we need to focus on the issues the american voters really care about and this would be a crisis for a week and we'd move on. good reason for anyone in the white house to think even if a tape exists we should wait and deal with it because they survived everything like this, every moment the president has acted intolerant or bigoted up until this point. >> except for one thing. up until this point it's mostly been dog whistles. charlottesville. "access hollywood." just in the me too year for the first time. people thinking, i wonder if -- i have something in my past that may be equivalent. this is so blatant. this is something we're supposed to be so far passed, decades

worth that it's difficult to brush it away for the independent voter. >> they're going to throw other things out there. they're going to create a whole alternative narrative that will be, if this tape exists. this is all theoretical. they'll create a whole alternative narrative that will be repeated in various corners of the internet and that will give republicans cover to do exactly the kind of thing. >> one priceless moment i want to get in. this is omarosa on "the daily show," i believe. imagine, just imagine. this is omarosa talking about president trump. you might say, look in the mirror. >> there's one way to shut donald trump down. and that is to just don't give the oxygen. and the oxygen comes from the clicks, the likes, the shock, the discussions. if you ignore him, then you starve him of the thing he loves the most. and that is controversy and attention.

>> student/teacher, teacher/student. >> trump made her famous for being a villain. being someone who is so ruthless, who needed attention so much that it rivaled probably only one person, which is him. so that's why we oar. >> then he gave her a job at $170,000 a year of taxpayer money in the west wing and knew all along she was unreliable, crazy, wacky, all the words he uses about her. then why did he give her a job in the west wing? up next -- the president tweeting he sees a big red wave coming. brand-new cnn poll numbers that show you the public's mood is actually turning more and more blue.

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itthat's why i lovel the daily fiber wfiber choice,ood alone. with the fiber found in many fruits and vegetables. fiber choice. the number one ge recommended chewable prebiotic fiber. welcome back. new cnn polling releasing right now shows a growing democratic advantage when voters are asked which party they want to control congress. the edge now in double digits which means seizing control of the house is more than within the democratic party's reach just 12 weeks until the midterm vote. this is it. which party do you want to control congress? 52% of registered voters say democrats. 41% republicans. a double-digit lead for the democrats. if it stays like that on ele election day, that's almost guaranteed. democrats started the midterm election with a double-digit lead. then a statistical tie in the

springtime. 47-44. it narrowed. closer to election day, this is not what the white house wants or speaker of the house or senate majority leader wants, starting to stretch out in favor of the democrats. we didn't just ask, who do you want to vote for, we asked voters what's on their mind. this is republicans. the president, the economy, taxes, followed by immigration, gun policy, health care and trade. when you say what's extremely important or very important to you as you decide your vote. the president, the economy, taxes at the front for republican voters. democrats, health care, immigration, gun policy and the economy. taxes, trump and trade. immigration coming in so high for the democrats is interesting. normally an issue that animates republicans. if you think back on the trump presidency, think about family separation policy of recent days. if you are in a place with a competitive house race, health care, immigration, you're likely to hear that in a democratic ad on television. >> arizonans deserve affordable

health care. in congress, anne kirkpatrick supported plans to turn medicare into a voucher program. anne kirkpatrick. not from here. not progressive. >> doug chin as attorney general challenging trump's divisive travel ban, even at the supreme court and suing to protect immigrant dreamers from trump's discrimination. >> 11 points. 52 to 41. if you are the republican party and worried about holding on to the house, a double-digit democratic lead as we get closer to election day. that's very bad news for the president and for his party. >> and i think that's also really bad for republicans is what they already know which is that what they thought they wanted to run on, tax cuts, the economy, is not working for them. it's not working for their base. and democrats, on the other hand, have found that issue-based campaigning, specifically as you make it more local on issues like health care, does work for their base. it works almost as well as them

being upset about trump. but on an issue to issue basis, it is not really a fair fight. republicans are not being mobilized quite as much by taxes as republicans had hoped. that's going to be a huge problem for them as they go forward. >> it's really interesting. i've been in a number of these congressional districts. what you see is that democrats almost don't even need to talk about the president. it's so in the ether. it's so motivating their voters. and the president is reinforcing all the reasons democrats don't like him by himself. so they can get up there and i've been to events where they don't mention his name at all. except maybe somebody asks a question. in the stump speech, trump is not mentioned. they talk about health care, immigration. they're able to talk about those issues while still getting the enthusiasm boost the president is able to give the democratic side. >> one of the republicans' closing arguments has been the threat nancy pelosi. you see it in a lot of adds. this is a national poll. in your district it may be

working. but if you look at it from a national perspective, republicans are not having success in selling this argument. is it, among republican voters, is nancy pelosi extremely important or very important to your vote? 34% say yes. 60% say moderately important or not that important. on the national level, republicans have yet to break through. if that is their closing argument. >> right. and i think that to abby's point, republicans were hoping a lot of the stuff they actually got done would be able to propel them. but the chaos that trump has created, all of these competing narratives make it so much harder to run on that. and democrats were at risk of falling in the trap of only running against trump being so alarmed by everything he was doing and saying you have to vote for a democrat because the world is burning down. they've sort of started to realize, we need to run on actual issues and that has proven to be more effective to them and to the extent they can turn that into victory in the midterms, that will be huge and start to lay the groundwork for what they want to do in the next

presidential election because right now it has looked very chaotic on both sides. it hasn't been clear whether anyone can craft a narrative about why you should vote for one candidate over another versus, everything looks chaotic right now. >> double-digit lead thr the democrats. they keep ten points or more on election day they'll keep those. we live in two americas ocrats republicans a question. the russian interference probe. extremely important, very important for your congressional vote? 79% of democrats say it's extremely or very important for them. only 18% say it's extremely or very important to them. you look at these numbers and sometimes you realize at least on political questions, there are two very different americas out there. >> yeah, the most striking thing about that poll is there's only one-third of independents that seem to care about it very much at all. that matters for both sides of the coin. democrats are pushing, oh, my goodness, look at this.

potential collusion with russia. and if that's just a lot wasted air on the people who are in the middle who you don't have committed to either camp, that's a lot of wasted air that people are campaigning on or devoting time to in a campaign season when, like you were saying before, there may be more ground to gain in focussing on actual specific issues. >> but i will make the reminder that i often make at this table which is that we are only hearing 50% of the story on that investigation. when i look at those numbers for independents i wonder what happens when you hear something from mueller. whether it's a report or whatever it is. do we see a shift? we probably won't see a shift in the republican numbers, but that's fine. that's baked into the cake for democrats. do you see a shift with the independence independents? >> i do wonder what those numbers are also showing is that for democrats the mueller probe is important because to don junior's point if democrats take control of the house, they'll impeach the president. what we're seeing is democrats saying this is important to me

because it's important to me that congress acts on whatever the mueller probe finds. i'm not sure what else there would be that would -- they're not -- donald trump himself is not on the ballot in november. the republican party is. >> that number from democrats is part of their thinking about the president of the united states. president trump wishes maxine waters a happy birthday. guess what she wants from him as a gift. d 'park' in the u.s. it's america's most popular street name. but no matter what park you live on, one of 10,000 local allstate agents knows yours. now that you know the truth, are you in good hands? ♪ tired of wrestling with seemingly impossible cleaning tasks? using wipes in the kitchen, and sprays in the bathroom can be ineffective. try mr. clean magic eraser with durafoam. simply add water, and use in your kitchen for burnt on food, in your bathroom to remove soap scum, and on walls to remove scuffs and marks. it erases 4x more permanent marker per swipe.

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topping our political radar, the united states government upping economic pressure on north korea by slapping new sanctions on three shipping companies based in singapore,

russia and china for violating trade restrictions with pyongyang. the u.s. treasury department says it will continue to enforce those sanctions until pyongyang denuclearizes. looking at the big board showing the dow down more than 200 points. that because turkey ramping up a tariff battle with the united states. turkey doubling tariffs on american cars, alcohol and tobacco. that after the trump administration said it would double u.s. tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from turkey. relations between washington and ankara have gone south after they detained an american pastor. president trump sending birthday wishes in a backhanded sort of way. he tweets happy birthday to the leader of the democrat party, maxine waters. waters has been a target of the president's insults. he calls her a low iq person. the congresswoman who is turning 80 today says she'll be thinking of the president when she blows out the candles. >> my biggest birthday wish would be that we're able to get a leader of this country who

represents us. someone that does not lie every morning when they get up with these tweets. i would wish that we could remove him from office and go about getting the kind of president that we can all be proud of. moving to a cnn exclusive report. the chief pentagon spokeswoman under investigation for allegedly misusing her staff. dana white being investigated by the defense department's inspector general. she's accused of making staff members run personal errands and retaliating after some filed complaints. at this point she's not been found in violation any of federal regulation. that investigation continues. right now, brett kavanaugh is meeting with joe donnelly. later this afternoon, heidi heitkamp. they're both up for tough re-elections this fall in states trump carried easily. and both voted to confirm his first supreme court pick

gorsuch. manu raju, what are the chances kavanaugh's confirmation at this point as he starts to make inroads with democrats? >> he's in a good spot because there's no republican opposition so far. only one republican is needed to block this nomination. if all the democrats voted no. right now no sign of that because lisa murkowski and susan collins, two moderate republicans, have essentially been positive about the process so far. they have not yet met with him and we'll see what happens after the meetings with red state democratic senators because they're in a difficult spot back home having to court moderate voters but also worried about infuriating those liberal voters they need also. so that's why they're keeping it -- they're not allowing cameras to take their pictures alongside the nominee. it shows you the difficult road they're walking on right now. >> keep an eye on that one. the congress has been gone. the senate now back. we're waiting on the house. in your conversations welcoming the senators back, i understand

a senior republican you spoke with had some concerns about the president using the term dog to describe his former white house staffer omarosa. tell me about that. >> orrin hatch, the president pro tem of the senate. someone who is a close ally of the president does not feel so good when he hears these words coming out of the president's mouth labeling a woman a dog when he called omarosa yesterday. this is what hatch said to me moments ago. >> i'm not comfortable with that. you know, i don't think words like that should be used. especially by the president. i have a lot of regard for the president. i understand how snotty some of this stuff is that they do to him, but even then, i think he has to rise above that. >> and one of the big concerns here, john is the fact they are heading into this difficult stretch ahead of the midterm elections. the house can flip. we'll see what happens with the senate. they believe these daily back and forths like this, these big

distractions not helpful to the overall message of trying to just keep control of congress and talk about things like the economy that they all can rally behind. not these petty back and forths that the spaeparty is not comfortable hearing about. >> very interesting because they'll be influenced by what they heard back home. manu raju, appreciate it. democrats break new barriers in the latest primaries. an anti-trump republican who learns a tough lesson.

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diversity is a big democratic theme today as we sort through the messages voters sent in the latest big primary night.

witness what happened in vermont where christine hallquist became the first transgend are candidate to win a nomination in a governor's race. she sees a giant message in her victory. >> the reason i'm in here is because of what happened in 2016. you know, in the world of physics we say for every action there's an opposite, opposing reaction. well, i'm definitely a reaction to 2016. if you look at the number of women that have jumped in, it's incredible as well. i'm going back to the fact that we are all reacting to what happened in 2016. i'm hoping our children and our children's children will look back in 2018 and say, that's when we made history. >> it's interesting. christine hallquist said what happened in 2016? she just means trump. what happened in 2016? >> the divergence of the parties, i think last night really highlighted the, just

opposite directions that the two parties are traveling in. democrats are becoming more progressive. republicans are becoming not necessarily more conservative, but they're becoming more monolithic in terms of the makeup of the party. they've abandoned the sort of revamping that they thought they were going to need to do to do outreach to hispanic and african-american communities, and they're going toward a kind of white -- sorry, blue collar working class white rural america party. and last night, kind of really highlights that. the party of trump that won and the very, very left progressive party of the democrats that won on the other side. >> part of what happened here also is not just about democratic women wanting to stand up to trump and his policies. when you talk about these female candidates, a lot of what they tell you is i never thought i could run and then i saw trump and i said, well if that guy can do it, i certainly can do it. there's an argument there for a lot of people. they saw someone not typically

what you think of a president or of a high level politician and they said, well, he took a shot. it was successful. maybe i should take mine. that's a really interesting development. >> and by everyone sort of electing candidates that go to their corners, this will give us a test of where independent voters are. if you're not entrenched in the trumpian world or entrenched in being a super sort of leftist voter, where do you fall when you're given these two options. whennior folks in the center are not the people able to win these primaries right now, where does the independent voter go? that's going to be an important lesson for everybody. >> bernie sanders gets his name on the ballot in vermont as the democratic nominee for senate. wins the democratic primary and then says, a self-described democratic socialist sanders plans to reject the nomination and run as an independent, according to advisers as he did in 2006 and 2012. he seeks the party's nomination in order to block any rival from winning it but then turns it

down to protect the image of independents that he cherishes. after the 2016 met presidential run his campaign manager said sanders would stay in the democratic party. how do democrats swallow this? >> look, i think bernie sanders got a pass for a lot of things in that democratic primary in 2016. with the crowded field we're anticipating in between 20, issues like this will not be overlooked. tim pawlenty tried to make a comeback. he lost the republican primary. tim pawlenty once called trump unfit and unhinged. the guy who won, once called trump a jackass and then decided to say let's forget i ever said that and embrace the president. listen to tim pawlenty explaining why things didn't go as well. >> people are going to ask, what do you see in this result? i think, you know, the circumstances we live in in the era of a different kind of leadership in terms of a president trump and the like,

and i just don't fit well into that era, into that picture. >> how much of it is that. how much of it he was a high-paid lobbyist here in d.c.? the president's own victory, let alone his impact on the republican party said voters are looking for things different. >> he's an insider. not the year for insiders. and he kind of -- it's difficult for somebody like tim pawlenty who has been around for a while and everybody knows his resume. >> not a particularly vibrant politician. if you're going to test whether an insider can win, tim pawlenty, very nice guy. he's not showing up and raring up the crowd. >> he was beaten in an upset. he outraised his opponent. had very high name i.d. he should probably have won this race in a normal year, but this is a different kind of political environment. >> a lot of republicans out there think he was their only chance to win the governor's race. interesting if national money goes in there. up next, elizabeth warren

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elizabeth warren is up for re-election this year. she insists she's not thinking about running for president in

2020. one thing she's doing is raising her national profile. stopping by to see seth meyers just last night. >> i grew up in one of these paycheck to paycheck families. my daddy end upped up as a jani. my chance in life was a $50 a semester commuter college. i grabbed it and hung on and i got to be a public schoolteacher. i got to be a college professor. and i got to be a united states senator. all because america invested in -- i believe in that america. >> now warren is favored to win re-election but one of the republicans hoping to oppose her is trying to raise his profile by taking issue with warren's efforts to raise hers. >> elizabeth warren is done being our senator. she's already running for president. like too many massachusetts politicians, she'd rather skip the fenway fracnks and instead

eat iowa corndogs. >> as someone from massachusetts, that is sacreligious to take the corndog over it. >> he better not ever run for anything in iowa. it is weird. she's in a tough spot in the sense she wants to be a national figure in the democratic party. she's on national television, seth meyers, but she says i'm only worried about massachusetts. you can understand why people are suspicious. >> there's no advantage for any of these people, and there are many, many, many democrats considering running for president to say anything about the midterms. and you can certainly make the argument and some democratic strategists very made the argument that there's an advantage to wading into 2019 because of various reporting requirements. i think the thing that makes senator warren formidable, should she decide to run is her e-mail list and ability to raise

a lot of money. in a crowded field, that gives you a real edge. >> whether she runs or not, that still becomes a major edge in terms of her ability to fund-raise for other democrats. it will wield power. >> nothing against iowa corn dogs but i'm a fenway frank guy. jim sciutto is in for wolf. he starts right now. have a great day. hello. i'm jim sciutto in for wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in washington. wherever you're watching from, thanks for joining us. any minute now, defense attorneys will get their final chance to make ex-trump campaign chairman paul manafort a free man. prosecutors made their closing argument just a short time ago this morning. it took them some 90 minutes. and they methodically laid out their case. the prosecutor tells jurors at one point, quote, mr. manafort lied to keep more money when he had it and he lied to get more money when he didn't. this is a case about lies.