moments ago. our cameras were rolling. he had some youth with him as well, and kate, we have spoken with both parties here in florida, and they tell me that they're going to be zeroing in on this new group of freshly new voters ahead of 2020. kate? >> no kidding. rosa, thank you so much, we really appreciate it. thank you for joining me, everybody. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. thank you, kate, and welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing this important day with us. prime time from the oval office. the president makes a risky national address to press his case. the u.s.-mexico border is in crisis and force is necessary to get congress to give him his border wall. the key question. can the president sway public opinion and key members of congress despite what they say about immigration, and the security threat is simply not

true. senator kamala harris wants you to read her new book. >> you think, what would mommy think? what would she think about all this? >> i think she would say, what is going on down there? it is a hot mess. >> and kamala harris can fix it? >> i was raised that you don't complain about a problem, you do something about it. >> a prime time spectacle and a test of the president. speaker nancy pelosi and the senate democratic leader chuck schumer will then get the democratic response. the president is making a trip to the border on thursday.

with bigger venues and a bigger audience, the president can sway support for the border wall his way. that is a very hard sell and the evidence will do little to change minds. 6 million people oppose the wall, that number staggering since 2016. even though the president has talked about criminals and terrorists overwhelming the border. mike pompeo promising a lot of news tonight based on his meeting with an early draft of the speech. what can the president say that he hasn't already? and can he say anything to narrow the narrative. >> you know that we could resolve this in a matter of hours if the democrats would come to the table and start negotiating in good faith, and we're going to continue to carry that case forward until the democrats in congress come to the table and start negotiating. the democrats need to come to the table and start negotiating.

>> consistency from the vice president, but that's not the biggest issue. today to share their reporting and insights, cnn's abby philip, johnny morton with the "new york times" and gabby with the daily beast. here's my question. is there any reason to believe a president can now get more from the democrats than he ever asked for in the two years his party were in the congress. he lost an election and now he's demanding more and saying it's your fault. >> that's a really great point. the president is basically saying that he's going to take the hardest possible route to get the thing that he's campaigned on in 2016 and has failed to get for the last two years, or this might all just be about putting up a fight for the sake of the people who are watching, which are his base and his conservative allies out there in conservative media.

is point tonight to convince the american people, or is it to convince his supporters that he's fighting hard for this thing that was the central premise of his 2016 campaign? it is not likely that democrats will give him a huge, huge win, both symbolically and practically on this wall, and even though the white house does claim that they believe the president's case will improve the sort of polling for the wall, there is no reason to believe that that is true, because it's been two and a half years. if the president hasn't been able to convince the public up to this point, it's hard to see that an address tonight will do the trick. and beyond that, what i'm going to be looking for is, is the white house going to be factual about this? are they going to be factual or are they going to bend the facts in order to make some case? i think that remains to be seen. everything we've seen in the last several days has been that the facts they put out there are misleading at best. i think in an address like this,

it matters. >> misleading at best is a good point. the president and his team have lied repeatedly about the threat of the president saying the wall is being built. no, it's not. so the question is even if he's perfect tonight from a fact check perspective, can he change minds at this point on this issue that has been a staple, to his credit helped him in the presidential nomination, he believes helped him win the presidency. but to this point, nearly two years in, big bully pulpit, can he bend the arc? >> it's two years in. it's also two months after an election where voters resoundingly rejected his stand on immigration. the picture he pained of the bleak immigration system over and over again at all those rallies, it didn't get him anything. in fact, it probably helped a lot of republicans in these marginal districts lose. we've already seen the results of this messaging and it wasn't

successful. >> you asked if he could change minds. i think the answer is no. the president basically has two options. >> forgive me for interrupting, but if you can't, if you can't, why? because this is a giant risk. he could lose members of his own party. the question is does he gain, or does he dangerously, at the beginning of the second half of his term, lose? if he loses republicans and they say let's not reopen the government, then he's in trouble. >> we've been debating this for over a decade. i think people are well put in their places in terms of what side of the debate they're on. the question is how much he'll push this. he could come out and say something that makes him look like the magnanimous problem solver, that he cares about the wall still, but he needs to stop the shutdown. then people might like him more. or he could say i'm going to push this for months and months and months and wear the other side out. in that case people will be scared of him.

but in terms of is the wall a good idea or not, no, he has to work it at some other angle, which may be a win for him, but it's not going to change minds on the wall. >> again, logic tells you they just got spanked in the election. democrats are taking over the house. nancy pelosi in her first days and weeks and months as speaker is not in the mood to give president trump his border wall. he asked for more than he ever asked the republicans. he wants $5.7 billion for a steel barrier, $800 million for humanitarian needs. $798 million for additional detention beds which the people don't want. $571 million for additional law enforcement at the border. >> it's a great example of how detached this presidency is from a sort of conventional and recent history of american presidents. to your point, john, the white house does at least come to the table to compromise after they

lose an election. we saw it in 1994, certainly in 2006 and 2010, and that's not happening this time around. and i think there's a very simple reason why. the country is far more polarized now, and this president cares chiefly about the views of his base that are expressed by a handful of conservative talk news hosts. that's what drives him. look, i think the best comparison to this, a very different era, but george h.w. bush runs on no new taxes in 1988. then he goes back on his promise. gets a promise from the right and loses the reelection. the last president to lose a reelection. i think that example is what's driving this. they are focused on not losing their base, and i think they view a betrayal on the border wall in the same way a lot of folks on the right did taxes in the early '90s. >> if that's the case today, where was that calculus for two

years when he agreed, when republicans kept saying in every budget fight, let's kick that one down the road. no, mr. president, we disagree with you. not just the democrats, enough republicans disagreed with him in the majority. kick it down, kick it down, kick it down. lose the election, then it's end al all-be all. two-thirds of the american people are not with him, and this is vice president pence following the leading of his boss and saying things that aren't true. >> the american people aren't concerned about the debate as much as they are what's happening at the border. >> he's saying 4,000 criminals are coming into our country. that's not true. >> nearly 4,000 terrorists were apprehended, attempting to come into our states.

>> on the airplane, not the border. >> but 3,000 special interest individuals, people with suspicious backgrounds that may suggest terrorist connections, were apprehended at our southern border. >> a couple things from that. the american people aren't as concerned about the political debate as they are concerned about what's really happening at the border. in other words, if they convince them there's a crisis, we can lie about it. we just need to convince them there's a crisis, then they don't care about the facts. sam brown did some reporting about this. first 3,000, now 4,000. a trump official familiar with trump border connections, 12 of those encountered at the southern border between 2017 and 2018. twelve suspected terrorists, not 3,000. >> they're having trouble with the numbers. they're having trouble with the numbers. >> the president won the election. george w. bush lost the vote and got his tax cut. if he was just consistent, he could have something by now. >> that's a great point.

they had an opportunity last year to get some kind of deal for more money for more security, but this president, who is nothing if he's not industrious, could have it framed as the wall. in exchange you were going to give legal status to some number to be negotiated of kids who are coming to the country illegally. they had a chance to declare a victory. the problem is there are a handful of hard-liners in his ear who didn't even want that. that leaves us at this point where you don't have a chance to declare victory like you could last year. >> there is something to be said about repetition and consistency about trying to convince the american people, you're not paying attention. there is a problem, in his words, a crisis. >> what is a real humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border? address this crisis once and for all. address the border crisis. genuine humanitarian and security crisis. we have a crisis. crisis on the southern border.

a crisis at our southern border. crisis at our southern border. and it is a real crisis. >> here's my question, again, two years in. the president won an election based on this. he has every reason -- the american people broadly want better border security. it's the wall where he gets off the racks and the misleading stuff. if this is such a crisis and the president wants to make it a defining issue leading into an election campaign, where is the governor of texas today? where is the governor today? they disagree with the president. crickets. >> that's a good point. >> it's been that way the entire time. the problem for president trump is that people on the border say they want border security, but the idea of a physical wall being the sort of centerpiece of a border security strategy doesn't make a lot of sense. it also isn't even borne out by the administration's own facts and figures, that when you talk about suspected terrorists being

apprehended, they're being apprehended at airports. when you talk about heroin being intradicted at the border, it's being intradicted at the port of entry. there is a problem, but the one the president talks about repeatedly, it doesn't match up. that's why you're seeing this effort to rebrand it as a crisis without a whole lot of substance behind it. that's a page out of president trump's book, but i think once that gets a lot more scrutiny, they're going to have a harder time. >> and because they're trying to build this case for a national emergency. if you don't have a crisis, what's the emergency? that is going to be challenged in court. if he does decide to do that tonight in the speech -- >> and say i can build the wall using pentagon money saying it's a national emergency. >> but you can also see it being challe lejd nged in the court. >> then if he loses in court he'll blame the democrats. next, the democrats plan a counterattack to whatever the president says tonight.

t-mobile knows dancing is better when you include a partner. singing is better when you include a friend. and unlimited is better with a phone included. it's true. forty bucks with the other guys, doesn't include a phone. so, start the new year right. join t-mobile and get unlimited with a phone included for just forty dollars per line. why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. we're the tenney's and we're usaa members for life. call usaa to start saving on insurance today.

democrats pushing for the final word on the shutdown. speaker nancy pelosi and chuck schumer will deliver an aft after-president address. in the meantime they're taking every chance they can to remind americans the shutdown hurts you, and the democrats insist they're doing everything they can to end it. phil mattingly joins us live on capitol hill. phil, do democrats see any problem peeling off republicans? do you think the president speaking will hurt their cause or help them? >> they definitely see progress. while there hasn't been a wave of republicans, they think they see cracks, at least in the unity, enough to keep pressing forward on their strategy. they're going to keep passing individual appropriations bills and bills they believe resonate most with the people. this week they're going to pass

tax refund bill. they're going to pass the tax appropriations bill. that's food stamps which could run out of money in february. they'll just methodically go through this. take a look at the votes we had last week. we had five to seven republicans start to peel off. in the senate you have three to five republicans saying, we're not sure this is a good idea. what democrats are counting on right now is the evacuation of the white house strategy. the republicans are dealing with this on capitol hill, and they believe if they ramp up the pressure, more republicans will start to peel off, and their view is there can be kind of an internal revolt that can force a change on the leadership. the wild card here is the president. if the white house doesn't want to change course, it's pretty sure that mitch mcconnell will at any point. the government may keep this pressure on, keep ramping up. as they ask what concessions are the american people willing to make right now? the answer is none. they've put on the table what

they will do and they'll continue in that process in the days ahead, john. >> phil mattingly, appreciate it. we were waiting a little more than an hour ago. if the president wants time, we want equal time, and that is the leader. is that a smart decision, to put your leaders forward, or is that more of a risky decision and not put a fresh face? i was just asking during the break, who could it be? you could have a newly elected senator. >> in a way it takes negotiation that's happening behind closed doors. they have both been saying we can't negotiate with anybody else but that person at the top, the president versus the top democrats. so we'll be seeing that. the one potential liability of this, of course, is that they're both going to be very much on message and nancy pelosi and chuck schumer are not the greatest at freelancing and being able to respond in quick time what the president may say that needs a gut response.

i don't know how great it's going to be in terms of reaching the public against him, but the question is how much are you stating your case and just bracing the public for what's about to transpire? >> the president is saying crisis, crisis, crisis. the democrats are saying, no, mr. president, there is a border problem, it's not a crisis. you're continuing to shut down the government and you're hurting people. >> we have to make sure we're paying our tsa agents. we've heard about the crisis of people calling in sick. we have to make sure we get the government open again and that we're paying our federal employees. >> i don't think he understands what it's like to be on food stamps. i do. i hope that he will understand and have some compassion for the people who are hurting right now. >> i hope to hear tonight from the president some empathy for the hundreds of thousands of american families who work for the federal government who will be impacted by the shutdown. >> that is one of the questions tonight, who wins the messaging

war. so far democrats believe they have been winning the messaging war about the shutdown. they say the president keeps asking something that even his own party said no. the president again using the oval office by going to the border. do democrats have reason to believe they're still on the right side? >> listening to sonny hoyer, who is the majority leader, outline their response today, they're throwing mitch mcconnell's words right back at him about shutdown, saying it's a failed policy. i don't see them deviating from that. what you're seeing on the news right now, not just here in washington but in different states, are people who can't pay their bills. tsa lines that are, you know, out the door in some airports. this is really starting to affect people outside of the beltway. and that's what's coming back at them. >> to that point, i want you listening. this is christine vitel. she's a tsa employee. to your point they say, mr.

president, we can figure this out at the negotiating table. stop hurting people. this helps the democrats. >> i am a single mom. my son just graduated his first two years of college. he's going back. i'm not getting paid. i just bought a house. i'm not going to be able to pay my mortgage. so, yes, this is affecting me personally. other people are married, they do have another income. i do not. >> why do you keep coming into work? >> we'll see on friday. that's my answer, friday. >> a lot of people, not just the president. the president going into 2020, he wants to get back to his board wall promise. there are a lot of other republicans who just went through a tough midterm year. getting them to crack is my question. >> i think for the democrats, this is the easier part of the equation for tonight. it is going to be very straightforward to put these stories out there, to make it

very apparent the pain and the hurt that's being caused by the shutdown. the question is to what extent do they stick with the message, which is that, we are not negotiating at all. we want you to reopen the government. or do they say, mr. president, here's what we are willing to do and what we think is important to secure the border, border security? your fight on the wall is continuing to hurt people. are they going to put something else out there on the table. do the american people want them pra perhaps to put something on the table to up president trump. we don't know where the american people stand on this. we don't have an instapoll right now on the shutdown. there is a question about no negotiation at all jur, just re the government, or maybe add more pressure to the president and move forward is the way to go with a compromise.

>> pelosi and schumer will be the difference tonight. it's different for a democrat state senator who has to make another choice in 2020. up next for us, is today's media blitz about something other than selling a book? does mcconnell harris sell herself? with expedia, i saved when i added a hotel to our flight. so even when she grows up, she'll never outgrow the memory of our adventure. unlock savings when you add select hotels to your existing trip. only with expedia. >>got it. ran out of ink and i have a big meeting today >>and 2 boxes of twizzlers... yeah, uh...for the team... >>the team? gooo team....

order online pickup in an hour and, now buy one hp ink get one 30% off at office depot officemax and, now buy one hp ink get one 30% off if your moderate to severeor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible.

tell your doctor if you have an infection experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms, or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio®. if your uc or crohn's treatment isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio®. entyvio®. relief and remission within reach. your insurance rates skyrocket you could fix it with a pen. how about using that pen to sign up for new insurance instead? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty mutual insurance.

♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? news flash: nobody's perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty mutual insurance.

♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

welcome back. a media tour certainly fitting for the 2020 presidential announcement. kamala harris is scheduled just today for her book, a memoir, "the truths we hold: an american journey." she's kind of leaning in. let's take a listen in on "good morning america." >> i would come home with a problem. other parents would say, darling, i'll take care of it. my mother would look at us and say, well, what did you do? i think this is that moment. >> cnn's may rusten joins our conversation. kamala harris, a democrat, woman of color? can she run against president trump? does she think a woman can beat president trump?

here we go. >> is this country, after what trump has unleashed and what we have seen, ready for the first woman of color president? >> absolutely. >> you think so? >> absolutely. i mean, listen, and i'm not saying that about myself, but i am saying that about the capacity of the american public. and we need to give the american public more credit. >> not a bad answer. >> it could be anyone. >> being pro voter is always a good line. >> she is a very disciplined and cautious politician, always has been in california. but, you know, this book, the memoir which is very interesting about her own journey as the daughter of immigrant parents and how that connects with the policy focus that she's had, she really does make the case here that this is a battle against the agenda of the trump administration. it's a rallying cry.

she frequently, in iowa and other places, says we're better than this. so she has the core makings of her argument here and is very likely to announce by the end of the month, whether she wants to be coy about it or not. >> by the end of the month and that's a fast track. elizabeth warren in iowa this past weekend, joe biden could be out there running, other democrats out there running. what's the sweet spot? can you be tough enough without going too deep in the mud? listen. >> if you were to run against president trump who does make comments about women and their appearances, how do you handle that? can you be successful by not going down in the mud? >> i absolutely believe so. and i think that there is something to be said for the no

bill nobility of the president of the united states. i believe we should have the band width to not engage in the ba banter. >> this is what she's been trying to prove in her administration with other trump officials that she can take it. one of the anecdotes in the book is when she was attorney general in california, and she was going up against big banks trying to get a bigger settlement for homeowners in california. she describes this shouting match with jamie diamond on the phone where she took her earrings off oakland style and really gave it to him, and they were like dogs in a fight. i think what she's going to try to prove here is that she is tough enough to go up against trump without sinking in the mud, as she talks about it. and warren obviously has had a terrible time with that. so we'll see if she can be more successful. >> does any democrat know where that line is?

never mind a democrat, does anybody know where that line is? >> when you talk about republicans who ran against him and more like the staff, they'll say you'll never go lower than donald trump. if you try, you're going to fail and turn people off. that is going to be one of the big challenges of any nominee. >> the big challenge that the president faces is what warren didn't say last weekend in iowa. she didn't talk about trump until she was asked about him directly. aborting his name, why? because she didn't want to invoke a fight with him on line where he'll invoke the pocahontas argument and it starts all over again. if you fight on president trump's terrain, he's going to pull you into battles that you don't even want to engage. but at the same time, yes, the base of the party wants to know that you are tough enough to take him on. look, it's a challenge that they haven't figured out, still. i don't think they're going to

for some time, and i think frankly, the hope is that the problem takes care of itself, that trump is so weak by year's end that it won't be difficult to figure out. >> i think why trump won iowa, the other challenge is do you connect with people? putting trump aside, do you genuinely connect with people? i think every one of these candidates has to prove that in these early states. it's not just whether you can take on trump, it's whether you have a message that people gravitate toward. that's one of the weaknesses hillary clinton had, putting trump aside, can you connect? i think that's why warren is wise to focus on something else, focus on her message or herself or her personal story. and kamala harris is doing the same. >> and trump ignored it entirely because it was revoked. a little flashback. january 8, 2008, 11 years ago, the night of the new hampshire

primary, john king meets the magic wall. >> wolf, this is the map. this is the democratic primary. most of it white meaning the results have not come in yet. you do see the difference now. senator clinton is the lighter blue, senator obama is the darker blue on here. you see here in manchester, we'll bring that out in a little bit, senator clinton is winning that at the moment. >> tech: at safelite autoglass

we know that when you're spending time with the grandkids... ♪ music >> tech: ...every minute counts. and you don't have time for a cracked windshield. that's why at safelite, we'll show you exactly when we'll be there. with a replacement you can trust. all done sir. >> grandpa: looks great! >> tech: thanks for choosing safelite. >> grandpa: thank you! >> child: bye! >> tech: bye! saving you time... so you can keep saving the world. >> kids: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪ - with tripadvisor finding the right hotel at the lowest price is as easy as dates, deals, done. going on a work trip? dates, deals, done. destination wedding? dates, deals, done. because with tripadvisor all you have to do is enter the dates of your stay and we'll take care of the rest: searching over 200 booking sites to find you the best deal it's as easy dates, deals, you know the rest.

(owl hoots) read reviews, check hotel prices, book things to do, tripadvisor. hey. i heard you're moving into yeah, it's pretty stressful. this music is supposed to relax me, though. ♪ maybe you'd mellow out a bit if you got geico to help you with your renters insurance. oh, geico helps with renters insurance? good to know. yeah, and they could save you a lot of money. wow, suddenly i feel so relieved. you guys are fired.

get to know geico and see how much you could save on renters insurance.

topping our political radar today, political justice ruth bader ginsburg not in today for opening arguments.

judge ginsburg will still participate in decisions by reading the transcripts as she recovers from surgery. john cavanaugh is reviewing his first decision. word just in to cnn that world trade talks with china will be extended into wednesday. negotiators need more time to discuss the issues on the agenda. it's not clear how much progress is being made, although the "wall street journal" does report the two sides are, quote, narrowing their differences. president trump reported this morning that the talks, in his view, are going well. two years since the shooting in arizona that nearly took the life of gabrielle giffords. they're reviewing a bill that would expand background checks. >> this bill isn't law yet, and we as american people need to

step up, especially young people, to tell our elected officials that it's not cutting it anymore. >> if we really want to talk about a national emergency that the president likes to talk about, 40,000 people dying annually from gun violence is a pretty damn good one to start out with. >> national security adviser john bolton causing quite the political dust-up in turkey, after saying the united states won't be pulling back troops from syria right away and won't pull back without protection for the kurds. bolton said meeting with president erdogan is not happening. he is not happy with president trump who immediately called for a quick withdrawal from syria before pulling back. >> translator: we cannot accept the comments made by bolton in israel. comments made by mr. trump are our criteria on syria. >> the turkish president also

described bolton's comments as a serious mistake. a little dust-up among friends here. is this bolton's fault or is this the president's fault for announcing a policy before they quite understood the detalils o how to play it out. >> one issue with the dust-up between friends, which is the u.s. and turkey had a very tense relationship for a long time. i think what this shows is it's a pretty significant thing for the turks to say, cool, we're not going to worry about the kurds anymore, because the turks have thought of the kurds as an internal threat for so long. it's not just a disagreement with trump and his advisers on should we pull out of syria and what the terms are, we also need to be checking in whether there will be a road out or not. which is not a bad thing. if we don't pull out because the kurds are endangered, that's fine. you can say that without checking with decades of turkish

history and their relationship with the kurds. the question is, will we stick to that? bolton can speak one way, but will we be in syria forever because that undercuts what the president said he would do and it doesn't seem that turkey plans to parlay on this one. >> there isn't a policy. they haven't decided on what it is, so people are saying different things at different times. foreign officials say this doesn't work. it doesn't jibe with what we were told before. this is the administration being called out publicly for not settling on what their plan is and their strategy is, getting the appropriate buy-in and executing on their plan. it's a pretty obvious result of what president trump just yesterday said was a perfectly clear consistent policy from day one, which everyone knows it has not been. >> it's perfectly clear that it's not perfectly clear. new charges filed against that russian lawyer that you might remember came to trump tower promising clinton dirt.

r , we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say "oh we can't beat usaa" we're the webber family. we're the tenney's we're the hayles, and we're usaa members for life. ♪ get your usaa auto insurance quote today.

new legal action today gets the russian lawyer who was at the june 26 trump tower meeting and the evidence against the krem lilins kremlins. these new charges against talia skya. tell us what happened. >> she was in a civil investigation. the government there in new york, sdny, was looking to get some money from russians involved in a tax fraud scheme, and she was representing these russians. essentially what the government is alleging is that she filed false documents with the court. in fact, these documents, she claimed, were independent

documents, stuff that she had put together in an investigation of these russians. but what the government here says is that, in fact, that's not the case. what these documents showed was that there was actually collaboration. they have evidence to show she worked with the russian government to submit these documents to the court, try and fabricate evidence, to help the russians that she worked with on with the russian government. certainly a concern here, because what this shows us is she has much deeper and closer ties to the kremlin than she has led many to believe. certainly the issue here is obviously that trump tower meeting that she helped organize. she claimed it was to offer dirt on hillary clinton but turned out to be all about sanctions and adoptions. that is all under investigation by the mueller team. she is not in this country, so she's unlikely ever going to have to face these charges, but nevertheless, the significance here is that the department of justice people are now saying she has deep ties into the russian government. >> so, jennifer, let's follow up

with that point. it's the trump justice department saying she has deep ties to the government, this particular case, nothing to do with robert mueller. nbc news put the question to her back in 2017. >> have you ever worked for the russian government? do you have connections to the russian government? >> translator: no. >> jennifer, does it matter to robert mueller? again, this is a separate case, but does it in any way help or give you clues about where mueller might be going with additional information now that the trump justice department is laying out, yes, in fact, she is tied to the kremlin. >> well, it's certainly hard to tell what the mueller team's reaction to this is or what they're going to do with it, if anything. but i do think that sdny unsealed this indictment now and today for a reason. and they wouldn't have done it if it were in any way harmful to what mueller is doing, and it might even signal that something is coming on the trump tower front, although we, of course,

don't know that for sure. i also think that it's interesting that he may actually have some use for this new evidence that she is so closely tied to the russian government as she has denied so many times. one of the points that came out after the trump tower meeting and she kept claiming, no, she has no ties to the russian government, we now have her actually working with russian officials to falsify evidence and then present that evidence to an american court which i think is interesting to the mueller team. the question is how can they possibly use that, and that's kind of the unanswered question here, what, if anything, are they going to do with this. >> that is the question we're left with again. we get a tantalizing new development and the question of where is it going to take us? jennifer s hirks m oshimone, i you being here. my fellow americans, i have spoken to you about many things. the power of the presidency is often thought to reside within this oval office.

yet it doesn't rest here. it rests with you. boost® high protein nutritional drink has 20 grams of protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals. boost® high protein. be up for life.

>>got it. ran out of ink and i have a big meeting today >>and 2 boxes of twizzlers... yeah, uh...for the team... >>the team? gooo team.... order online pickup in an hour and, now buy one hp ink get one 30% off at office depot officemax

with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month? $75? $50? actually, duncan got his $500,000 for under $28 a month. less than a dollar a day. his secret? selectquote. in just minutes, a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highly-rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncan's wife cassie got a $750,000 policy for under $22 a month. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford.

the way is liberated. iraq's army is defeated. our military objectives are met. >> in the years ahead, i will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of president of the united states. >> today our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly

terrorist acts. >> presidents george w. bush, president clinton and reagan. tonight president trump will use the oval office for his setting making the case for his border wall. what are we looking for? >> i'm looking for facts. it's really important. this is the place where presidents go to convey to the american people that they should be trusted, that they are with them. it's incredibly symbolically important. the president needs to not diminish the office by making claims that are not true. it will have an enormous amount of damage both to him, but also to the institution. he's been trying to protect these things about the institution of the presidency. i think tonight he has to be

really careful. >> it really is about the office, i completely agree with you. what he says, how he says it, it matters. >> it also is a huge challenge. president trump, like many politicians, is a very physical person. it's hard to sit still and make the compelling case. >> it's hard to stick to a script also. he's a big guy, he likes to be able to work a crowd, and he's going to have to sit in that chair and stick to the short message he's delivering. he cannot ad lib, and if he does, it will start to do what abby warned about, it will undermine the seriousness. >> he has a tendency to read his script and respond to the script itself, adding phrases like, that's so true. he needs to be careful tonight. it's very awkward if he does that in this format. what i'm curious about, john, most of all, does he try to broaden his message to appeal to his base and reach parts of the

country, or does he just hope his base is on board as he goes up for reelection. >> this has been "inside politics." brianna keilar starts right now. i'm brianna k irielar live h "cnn right now." hours away from the president's prime time pitch to americans on his wall, this as his vice president pushes more misleading claims. plus the president's son-in-law making last-minute calls to lawmakers as concerns grow that some republicans are beginning to waiver. and another man turns up dead at the home of a democratic mega donor. two deaths in 18 months. cnn investigates. we begin with charges