welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. urgent search and recovery operations in alabama today after a series of vicious tornadoes left nearly 23 people dead. the president promises quick federal assistance. plus house democrats flex their new power. democrats get 80 individuals involved in the trump organization, the trump campaign, including the president's former attorney general and his children. john hickenlooper is more moderate than many of his rivals, but he says take a look at the progressives and you'll find plenty to like. >> we brought oil and gas to the table to fight the toughest mission laws in the country.

then we beat the nra by having universal background checks and o outlawing high-powered machine guns. recipients of the documents request include people from the trump foundation, the trump organization and trump's businesses. also among the recipients? the president's 2020 campaign manager brad pascal, and the gatekeeper, allen weisselberg. the goal? to find the president's attempts to obstruct justice, what the committee calls abuses of power. the white house this morning says yes, it has received the committee's letter and will process it through the white house. he says the committee will work carefully and that means to slow

the talk coming from some of the democratic left. >> do you think the president obstructed justice? >> yes, i do. it's very clear the president obstructed justice. it's very clear. >> if that's the case, then is the decision not to pursue impeachment right now simply political if you believe he obstructed justice? >> no. we have to do the investigations and get all this. we do not now have the evidence all sorted out and everything to do an impeachment. >> cnn's manu raju live on capitol hill. manu, help us understand the scope of this. the democrats want documents from so many people. what's the deal? >> virtually everybody connected to the president in some aspect, people in his business world like allen weisselberg, long-time chief financial officer of the trump organization, ronald graff who

was the long-time gatekeeper of the trump organization, and his kids, his son-in-law jared kushner who used to work with him, communications director among many, many others. they're trying to look into all aspects, controversy that has not been fully investigated by congress but they may very well have been investigated by other entities, namely the special counsel, robert mueller, and the southern district of new york which led to the guilty plea of michael cohen who implicated the president in two crimes involving the alleged hush money payments of women who are about to come guaforward with stories alleged affairs vovinvolving th president. they want to look into that aspect as well, including a letter they sent to david pecker who had the extent to cover up their stories in the run-up to the 2016 campaign. they want to keep this going for

weeks and months. expect potentially public hearings. i talked to a committee aide this morning, john, who said that we're talking about weeks, not months, in terms of having hearings potentially in public. they want to be, quote, as tran transparent as possible. and they've made these document requests and have been green lighted to move forward. essentially, john, this is continuing for some time in this investigation involving this committee. this will touch on almost every aspect and controversy that has emerged over the last two years, john. >> we know from the last two years what the president thinks when you start asking about his businesses and the like, including his two children. here to share their insight, julyie heir hirsch-feld davis.

this is anybody who has had anything to do with the president with just about anything. the democrats have this power. they say the president ignored this in the first two years of the administration and they're going to do it. this also tells you it's march 2019. document fights, weeks and months of hearings. this will carry on throughout the year. >> i think that's absolutely true. this is an extremely ambitious list of witnesses and it shows that the democrats are not confining themselves to the things that have occurred in the past pho yeatwo years in the wh house. they're going after the president's last two decades of business. they cannot assert any privilege over any of that. democrats are very free to go after that and the president has

far lower protections in terms of what his lawyers can do to block democrats from digging into that. i think the question is, will democrats be able to focus their inquiries on a few discreet that will pack a punch to the public. if you ask people what were the things they were able to really land, there weren't many. that could either be because republicans didn't think there was obstruction, but i think the republicans didn't do a particularly good job. now the onus is on the democrats. >> can they maintain their credibility as oversight agents, or does this become perceived, the president will say it out of the box, or in the wide swath of americans who aren't caught up in the instant polarization, can they maintain their credibility in terms of facts or in search of a scalp, would be the question. >> i think it depends how they

go about it. there is a line that leaders are continuing to walk. not saying impeachment, but they're working on their oversight duties. and that actually is going to extend into the 2020 race, how that is messaged, how senators are playing into this, and how, if they can have a cohesive message going into and out of these investigations. because you're right, if the preside -- the president is going to use the threat of impeachment whether or not it comes true. so how they go about it will be a big test for democrats across the board. >> we've seen previous administrations that have gone through this type of investigation. they set up war rooms, they've had communications aides and really strategized how to take this on. we don't really see that out of this white house but you do have president trump who has been sort of masterful in using the bully pulpit to change the conversation, and you can expect him to be out there saying all

these democrats are really trying to do is presidential harassment, and democrats have to figure out how to play in this new media world that president trump has been playing in the past two years. i'm not sure they're there yet, but they'll have to learn quickly president trump doesn't play by the rules of the old days, he plays by very new rules and he's not really strikcken b the rules of political decorum. >> you're right, the trump organization and trump campaign cannot be shielded from executive privilege. in the document request, in the initial response, sarah sanders releasing a statement. it says, we're going to look at this, the counsel's office will look at it and we'll decide how to proceed. don mcgahn, the former counsel is on this list. they want documents from him. they expected to have two years of combat with the new

democratic majority. the question is, how much will he say, here you go, and how much will he say no way? >> they're casting such a wide net. i think you mentioned 81 different agencies and/or individuals and not just confined to president trump as president or his campaign, but the people in his sector. the one who fielded all his calls is on this list. it tells you how deeply they're delving down. the white house anticipating this, it's interesting they're not saying right off the bat, this is ridiculous, it's a fishing expedition. they're actually saying we're going to take it seriously and see what we have to do with this. i think you have to imagine they're going to provide some of the material they're asking for, particularly some of the officials, like the former white house counsel. they may feel they have to provide some of that, but i would anticipate they'll push back on a lot of it, and particularly where the president's family is concerned or his business is concerned.

i think there will be a lot of effort on the part of the president himself try to facilitate limiting that as much as, and i think that's where you'll see some of the biggest fights here. >> michael cohen gave them plenty of leads. the question is, how do they want to focus here? do they just want to go after the security clearance here, or jerry nadler saying what's going to trickle out of this. most of the leadership says go slow, wait for mueller, wait for the southern district of new york, let's have months of our own hearings and see where that gets us. this is ted deutsch. one of them says they're trying to go slow but listen to this from this morning. >> to what end? you will try to find this out to do what? >> well, to enforce the rule of law, to make sure that no one is above the law.

look -- >> why is it the only way to enforce the law when you're talking about the president of the united states? >> it's the president of the united states and everyone around him, and i'll anticipate your question. i gue i guess you're hinting at the question of impeachment. >> it is the question in the venue and what the committees come up with what at least the democrats believe is evidence of wrongdoing. their only avenue is members of congress. i suppose they could say, look at this, look at that, but those investigations are separate. that's the genie that democrats might have to keep in the bottle here if they do view facts. >> democrats are already contending with it from the party who says we think we've seen more than enough as one who indulges in criminal practices.

they're most likely to get information on those things. you know, i think they could confront a scenario in which they ask the question, okay, do we -- is it an impeachable -- should we impeach the president for acts he committed before he was sworn into office? i think the closest parallel is probably whitewater where there was an investigation of acts that the clintons -- you know, misuse of finances the clintons committed before they ever got to office. that obviously led to monica lew ins lewins lewinsky. >> these legal charges are all sorts of hurdles and to put the country through this right before a presidential election. we're going into a presidential election. clinton's impeachment was in the

second term, remember, when the voters didn't have a chance to decide on him again. that also is a question that democrats are facing going into this. not that that would stop anything, but it is a consideration. >> and there's an open question whether they would even be there by the time of the campaign. i mean, this is a lot of documents, a lot of interviews, a lot of potential subpoenas they might have to try to enforce. you hear jerry nadler talk about building a record, right? they might not have what they need to make a decision of impeachment or not by the time 2020 is here. nearly 23 people confirmed dead, many more missing in alabama as a line of tornadoes did he have stat devastates the southeast. ♪

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we have seen in the area as catastrophic. there are simply in some locations complete residences are gone. the debris field stretches for hundreds and hundreds of yards. we're finding materials from one location up to half a mile away from the original point of where they were located. >> it's a devastating scene, a devastating day in lee county, alabama. 20 people still unaccounted for after yesterday's deadly tornadoes. at least 23 people were killed, the youngest just six years old. the path of destruction stretches nearly half a mile wide and several miles long. trump tweeting earlier today, he's directed fema, quote, to give the state a-plus treatment to those hurt by the storm. kayl kaylee hartung is there. kaylee, tell us what you're seeing and hearing.

>> reporter: there is, john. we heard a helicopter buzzing overhead. authorities are trying to get a bird's-eye view just to get a feeling of how long this seven-mile-long stretch is where they need to perform service and recovery operations. just ahead of me, we've got four alabama power trucks working to resume power in this area as everyone we've seen nearby has lost it. power lines laying on the ground just to my left. and behind me we see a family returning to the site of their completely destroyed home for the first time, sifting through the rubble trying to see if there is anything for them to find. and on top of all this activity, as i mentioned, search and recovery, that being authorities' priority. you gave the numbers, at least 23 dead, and it could be as many as 20 people still unaccounted for.

both the sheriff and court -- the coroner telling me they expect the numbers to go up. there were counties they couldn't even reach yesterday as they tried to make their way through this high volume of debris. john, that process began at 8:00 a.m. local today and will continue for as long as it takes. >> kaylee hartung on the ground in lee county. i appreciate your live reporting. the pictures are horrible. jennifer joins us from the cnn weather center. jennifer, help us understand how big of an area this impacted? >> the damage widespread and the tornado in lee county definitely had a long track. 65 miles long. the national weather service is out there as we speak to determine if this was all one tornado, exactly how strong it was, and they will start to research all of these areas and determine how strong these tornadoes were and exactly what the details were on them. we should have those results any time today or tomorrow.

between 2:30 and 4:00 eastern time is when this occurred, and the preliminary reports of that one that impacted lee county is possibly ef-3, could be even stronger. these are just the preliminary reports. that means winds were 136 to 165 miles per hour, and as we go through the day, this is the past radar from yesterday. these hot pink boxes, those are the tornado warnings, and they just lit up as we went through the afternoon and these showers continued. look at this, this is 3:40, and you can see all the tornado warnings that we had throughout the afternoon. so it was a devastating day. it did happen in the middle of the afternoon, so at least a lot of people weren't sleeping, and so they were able to get some warning. some people didn't get quite as much warning as others depending on where you were within that track, but we did have 36 reported tornadoes yesterday. it's not unheard of this time of year. we're just starting to get into the season, but you can see only

about 15 from mississippi to georgia is typical during the month of march. so we saw 36. it's already above what we normally see, john. >> jennifer gray, appreciate the context there from the weather center. president trump just moments ago from the white house says he sends his love and his prayers to the people of alabama. up next for us here, yet another democrat decides to run for president in 2020. he's a governor. but first senator bernie sanders asked this morning how he feels about being another white presidential candidate. >> so bernie, 44 out of 45 presidents have been white men. do you think we need another one? >> we need this one.

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the 2020 democratic field adding one more today. the moderate governor of colorado made it official. jumping into the race, john hickenlooper explained why he should replace the current president in the white house. >> i'm john hickenlooper. we're facing a crisis for everything colorado stands for. i stood up to my share of bullies. standing tall for what matters is one of the things that really drives me. >> hickenlooper highlighted his

extensive resume as governor. while governor he oversaw the legalization of marijuana in colorado and he also managed to pass the gun control legislation, no small feat in an otherwise red state, and also helped start the beer brewery in colorado. we need a president that understands beer. it used to be that being a governor was a good place to start in the race for president. we have a field now that has a lot of senators, a lot of washington influence. where does he fit? they're going to try to say he's a moderate, they're going to try to say he's not in touch with the energy of 2019. he'll say, no, i'm a moderate, it's okay. >> if you look at the radio ad from this morning, it's not clear he has the answer to that. on one hand he's showing images of president trump in his video and saying he'll stand up to the bully which is a very super aggressive way of branding himself as the person who is really going to take it to the

president. on the other hand , he is tryin to build himself as a pragmatist on the other side of the aisle. you can argue those two are not d d diametrically opposed. or they're saying, listen, i'm not used to fighting, i'm not used to making the bully part of this situation, i want to tell you what my ideas are to move the country forward. those are two different things. >> it seems like policywise he's going kind of the klobuchar way. he hasn't embraced medicare for all, he hasn't embraced the green new deal. he took care of things as governor like the budget. but you also have to attract the progressive left, and this is someone who was an advocate for the fracking industry when he was governor. he's a former geologist who worked for fossil fuel companies, so there are going to

be some hiccups in his record. he did oversee legalization of marijuana, but initially he was against legalizing it for recreational use. now, he came around to it, but there are going to be some parts of his record that are going to cause pause where the energy is right now in the democratic party. >> that energy is probably one of the reasons for this. it's early in the campaign. don't go running off to vegas for any of these polls. hickenlooper would be there at zero. he's at zero percent. joe biden is at second. everybody knows the former vice president. if you're hickenlooper and you're trying to find your way. i saw him in iowa a few weeks ago. he's not a big speech giver. i would say if you're hickenlooper, joe biden and michael bloomberg, is that sort of the competition for that space? >> it's getting more and more crowded. we had inslee get in the race last week, biden is expected to

get in, you have bloomberg. even beto o'rourke is seen as more moderate because he hasn't gl glommed onto some of the things the democrats have started. now that area is getting really crowded and it's not clear whether that lane will end up becoming too crowded and leaving room for someone on the left to take over. >> to me democrats seem to have a choice between two types of candidates. on the one hand somebody relatively new who could provide the sort of excitement of a barack obama type candidate, or someone with a lot of name recognition who can tout themselves as sort of an experienced person like a joe biden who could take it to donald trump. and hickenlooper, to me, though he has experience, he's not particularly exciting, and he certainly doesn't have as much experience as a biden, so he seems to me to fall in this middle area where he may just be

unlikely to get traction. then again, all the things we thought we knew about how politics work, we don't really know, you know? >> that's a great point. if you take the david axelrod theory, that trump was his new obama, trump was all boom, boom, boom, everything is black and white. so listen to hickenlooper where he says i'll get things done. polarized environment, you wouldn't think that's your appeal. democrats want somebody more fighting with republicans. listen. >> i learned this in the restaurant business. when someone is angry, you don't, you know, fight back and argue with them, you repeat back their words. if mitch mcconnell, when i come into office, i would go to mitch mcconnell in his office and i would sit down with him and say, what is the issue again? we would talk and i would continue to speak back to him. sounds silly, right? this is what i did with the suburban mayors and they hated the city of denver.

>> you would think he thinks this is a novel idea. however, in colorado there aren't many meetings with people who have disagreements. >> joe biden has already taken a lot of flak for that which is why i think hickenlooper -- he's lesser known but he'll be saying the same types of things as these other candidates, but who knows. >> biden got a lot of backlash. >> and that is going to open up a lot of ways that, you know, these moderate candidates that are trying to reach across the aisle, it could not be a better fit for them on the front end. >> the most interesting thing in this race, there's so many different candidates, different issues, different positions. could we start the debates tomorrow? up next, then there were four. the republicans get a boost on their border wall fight.

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for more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge.com/safety. topping our political radar today, a report that president trump personally pushed top aides to make sure the justice department blocked the at&t/time warner merger. we knew the president opposed the merger because of his dislike of cnn. but ultimately unsuccessful with the efforts to block the merger. the president called john cohn into the office and reportedly wanted the merger blocked. the former ag eric holder said he's not joining the

presidential race in 2020. he didn't say why he's not running for president, but he'll do everything he can, quote, to make sure the next generation is not hobbled to extremes. senator rand paul of kentucky now the fourth republican saying he will not back trump's national emergency. rand paul's vote gives republicans just enough to block the wall. will it survive a veto? nancy pelosi says that's near impossible. >> do you think it will survive a veit to? >> i don't think it will survive a veto. but we have the republicans with

us now, and that's what we needed. >> why are there only four republicans when in principle more republicans oppose this? >> it will only be four republicans to block the president's national emergency. if you want evidence of that, two points to point to, veteran senator from tennessee, kind of considered a pragmatic deal maker of sorts, last week went on the senate floor and asked the president to rescind the national emergency declaration, trying to give him other options to supporting a border wall. it was a back-pitch from the white house. in other words, i'm going to continue voting on this if you push forward. there is no sign the president will withdraw the national emergency. senate republicans at their weekly conference lunch with vice president mike pence, people who were inside that meeting, one of them told me it was a mess, senate republicans

really trying to pin down in a contentious manner the vice president saying they had severe reservations on the president moving with this. the reputation for the last couple weeks is the senate would be able to pass this. the magic number is 20. 20 people defect, that means it's veto-proof. people may have reservations but they're not voting against the president on political grounds and sort of the recognition that this is the leader of the party, this is what he wants to do, this is a critical issue. so a veto likely will survive, john. >> we'll watch those numbers when they come out. when we come back, some positive trends and warning signs in some new polling. looking at the president's reelection bid. those? oh, pierogis? and this is the avery's wondering if eating out is eating into saving for their first home.

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610 days now until election

day 2020. you're keeping count at home, right? 610 days. a new set of numbers and president trump raises the question, is the glass half full or the glass half empty? a washington street journal poll shows key numbers in key states. start with the president's approval rating. still below 50%, 46% in the poll now. below 50% but close to his all-time high of 47% in the nbc wall street polling. the government did not tank the president's approval rating. for president trump that's a relatively strong number. here's hay questia question. will you vote for or against? 46% is a they will probably vote for him. but close to half, 47%, said they will probably not vote for him. only bill clinton under water like president trump was, but of course clinton went on to win. so president trump could say, there is a way to reverse this.

only 40% who didn't vote for president obama, 45 poers did. for the president you're happy with this. nbc wall street polling found including in the states he flipped, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, the president runs ahead of the democrats right now. if you're president trump you're looking at your map and you think, i can do in 2020 what i did in 2016. the challenge for democrats in these sun belt states, they currently lead. that means arizona, florida, texas. all the blue states, president trump carried them all last time. do the democrats make a bet and contest those states? that's one of the big questions as we head into 2020 cycle. here's one thing. the president over the weekend sounding very confident. >> they came from the mountains and the valleys and the cities. they came from all over, and

what we did in 2016, the election, we call it, with a capital e, it's never been done before. this has never, ever happened before and now we have to verify it in 2020 with an even bigger victory. >> somebody help me with what never, ever happened before. >> nobody ever within the presidency before? >> we've elected presidents before and we've elected presidents that lost the popular vote but won the electoral college before. help? >> i can't help you there, but i believe the president is saying he wants to recreate the magic of 2016, and that sort of shocked the world and he is able to bring out voters that were never expected to vote. what you saw maybe were democrats who were going to stay home and figured hillary clinton was going to win or they weren't inspired, they came out as well. so we're likely to see this big clash in 2020 where the

president will have his vote, his base coming out to vote. democrats fired up thinking they can make him a one-term president, so they won't have as much trouble jimmying up support of their base voters as well. it will be interesting to see who turns out at the highest levels. with the president at 46%, it's really about the base. >> you're hearing about investigations and the approval ratings, it will not be. the poll numbers tell you we head into the cycle with a very contesting environment. 46% of republicans approve of him. the gop, 88% approve. 60% of latinos disapprove, 61% of women disapprove and 55% of white voters with college degrees disapprove. then you organize a turnout and

the democrats have to decide, which map do you fight? >> i think the challenge for trump is going to be the democratic base is fired up and the trump base is fired up. the trump base and the republicans have remained very loyal to him, but that is not enough for him to win. while the president has done a tremendous job keeping his base enthused, he hasn't done anything to expand it. we saw in 2018 a lot of those people went back to the democrats. the question is, can trump expand his coalition enough to win the white house again in 2020? those are voters the two parties are going to be struggling for. they went to democrats in the last election. it doesn't mean they'll stay with the democrats in 2020. obama lost in the midterms, so did george w. bush. trump with win them but he doesn't seem to be putting a lot of effort into winning over some of the independent voters who said, what do we have to lose between trump and hillary? we want the new guy.

>> if you're the democrats you're looking at those mid western states. better be prepared to fight. quick break. we'll be right back.better be p. quick break. we'll be right back.

♪ ♪ . are you going to cooperate with mr. nadler? >> i cooperate all the time with everybody. and you know the beautiful thing? no collusion, it's all the truthment it's a political hot .

it's a political hoax. >> the president taking questions from the north dakota football team about document requests. two things. one, he said i always cooperate. democrats might oppose that. number two, it's a political hoax. we know what he thinks about it. the question is what do they do about it? >> he says there's no collusion. he's still focused that this is only about russia and the election interference, which it is about. i mean, they are investigating that and i think one of the motivations here is tho sort of backstop the mueller investigation in case there isn't a lot of disclosure from that investigation. jerry nadler wants to build that record in the congress. but it's about a whole lot more than that. and the fact he's koccoming baco this saying, there is no collusion, shows the president and maybe people around him haven't grasped the whole scope

of what they're dealing with in this request and they're going to have to go issue by issue way beyond the campaign and figure out what their liabilities are and what their willing to share. >> that's the president's default and he kept attacking robert mueller. this document request is based on michael cohen's testimony in which he did talk about maybe he got tipped off about the julian assange e-mail dump, but lying to banks, payments to stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. this has a lot more to do with that than the possibility of collusion. >> they didn't try to tear the president up on those substantive issues. they said this is all about politics, michael cohen wants a

book deal. the president is saying this is all a hoax, but he's not defending himself. you don't see anyone close to the president really defending him on these substantive issues of these various crimes that have nothing to do with russia or collusion. it will be really interesting to see if this politics argument holds up over the test of time. >> that's a lot easier argument to make if you're calling it presidential harassment which he's done and calling it a day. you don't have to get into details that way. >> and to the point he says, i always cooperate, democrats would laugh in that in the sense that even in recent days, the head of the oversight committee says i've been asking for weeks and weeks for these documents. they both wrote contemporaneous memos because they didn't like the process that landed jared kushner with his security clearance. the president said he did not get involved. the "new york times" reports quite clearly that he did.

so he said, i always cooperate. that's laughable on its face. >> i think one of the things we're going to try to see democrats draw out is the way normal processes have been avert bid this whi averted by this white house. if democrats are smart, they will try to have it come to a head in september, october, november of 2020. there will be some coordination between these organizations and then the democratic campaign, which will give whoever the democratic nominee is, a very fruitful issue to run on. >> if you have the president's own chief of staff and his own white house counsel writing contemporaneous memos saying this is upsetting or this is something the president is doing that's not right, it takes away the argument that it's all political, that democrats are only worried about this because it's a political hit on the president. you have the president's inner circle concerned about what he was doing about security clearances and saying this is potentially a national security threat with the way the

president is behaving. i think democrats will push that hard saying this is not just about democrats trying to take out the president, this is about people close to the president that are concerned about the way he's carrying out his office. >> the democrats, do they understand this? you just made the point, it's a good point, i think, that the president himself perhaps hasn't wrapped his mind around the totality of this, the scope of this, the breadth of this, because the democrats now have this power to protect the president. they did not have that oversight for the first two years. are the democrats ready for this in terms of the management, the quality, the caliber of the investigators, and then the political will to keep down the people who scream impeach, impeach, every time they see something that could be potentially damaging. >> think they're ready. they planned for this. the question is whether they'll manage it well. that is the big question. i think they've recruited and spent a long time and worked hard recruiting highly qualified people to lead these investigations. they've been meticulously trying

to plan this out so -- you know, i think this document request today is the culmination of a months-long process of going through thing by thing and saying, what are the roads that we want to go down? what do we want to pursue? while they are casting a wide net, i do believe they have plans in place to pull on all of these threads in various ways. would they be able to do what leanna just described in terms of laying out all the information for voters and for the public? i don't know. but i certainly think there is a lot of opportunity here for them to lay out a pretty compelling case. i think the big question, though, is going to be to what extent is the white house going to cooperate with this? he says i always cooperate with everyone, but there's executive privilege. they kind of avoided that issue a bit with the mueller investigation because they waived executive privilege on a lot of things. this is a whole different ball game. this is a democratic congress and i can't imagine there won't be pretty substantial fights about what they get. are they going to get that memo

they want about security clearances or any other information? thanks for joining us on "inside politics." don't go away, a lot ahead. brianna keilar starts right now. have a great day. john, thank you. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now, president trump's legal problems just got worse as democrats demand documents from dozens in his inner circle, including his own children. a bombshell new report that says the president ordered his aides to block the merger of at&t with the parent company turner. almost two dozen people killed, including a six-year-old, after torna