to save 30% on all the medications we carry. so go directly to petmeds.com now. good evening. we have new information tonight on the story that we first reported last night and that "the new york times" first broke. sources familiar with the conversations telling us that several people on robert mueller's team are frustrated about how attorney general william barr, the nation's top law enforcement official characterized some of the special counsel's unreleased report. they reportedly contend that his four-page summary glossed over potentially damaging information in the full report about the president's actions. our pamela brown has new details on that. she joins us in just a minute or two. but first, how the president and his supporters are reacting to the story and what they're saying once again about the

mueller team. it's kind of a throwback to those thrilling days of yesteryear when this was the official line about all things robert mueller. >> the problem with mueller investigation is everybody's got massive conflicts. >> mr. mueller is highly conflicted. in fact, comey is like his best friend. >> these people have the biggest conflicts of interest i've ever seen. >> i call them the 13 angry democrats. >> i could go into conflict after conflict, but sadly, mr. mueller is conflicted. mueller was not senate confirmed because of all the conflicts, they didn't want to bring him before the senate, because he is very conflicted. he is conflicted, and i know that his best friend is comey who is a bad cop. he put 13 highly conflicted and very angry -- i call them angry democrats in. >> so that was the president's and the administration's line right up until attorney general barr put out his summary, which appeared to clear the president of criminally conspiring with russians

during election, and according to barr's report on the mueller report, cleared him which also included i'm not exonerating the president. that aside the white house quickly seized on the apparent positive outcome and their mueller take shifted pretty dramatically. >> it was a complete and total exoneration. >> i think everyone here and everyone frankly across america was happy. >> we had the full and fair and thorough investigation, $25 million plus of taxpayer dollars, 500 witness, over a million documents. this, the mueller examination is the gold standard. >> the mueller report is great. it could not have been better. it said no obstruction. no collusion. it could not have been better. >> i do see some people now trying to besmirch the integrity of director mueller, attorney general barr that is really rich. >> yes, yes. >> this, the mueller investigation is the gold standard. >> well, you know what they say, all that glitters is the work of sneaky unethical workers.

they don't all say that. but the president's attorney rudy giuliani said that last night once the story broke. and just like that, everything old was new again. >> it makes the point we've been making for two years despite all of the media reports about how holy and sanctimonious the mueller team. they're a bunch of sneaky, unethical leakers, and they are rabid democrats who hate the president of the united states. and i can't tell you how much false information they leaked during the course of the investigation. how many people were going to be indicted that didn't get indicted? how many blockbusters were there, starting with papadopoulos and ending with cohen who turns out to be a serial liar? how could you have any confidence in this? >> so he is no longer a fan. that said, keeping them honest, robert mueller is a republican, and yes, a number of attorneys on his team have donated to democrats in the past, but mueller is no rabid democrat. and as far as anyone can tell,

the amount of information leaked from the mueller team true or false is zero, much to reporters' dismay perhaps but to mueller's credit. there will no doubt be evidence about -- interpreted or acted on. there is really no reason to believe that any games were played in the course of the probe. in any case, the mayor should know that consistency counts when establishing credibility. you can love or hate robert mueller and his team, but if you want the public to trust your take on them, you can't love them one day and hate them the next, depending on what you think they're saying about you. our pamela brown joins us now with her new reporting on the clash over robert mueller's report and william barr's summary of it. what have you learned, pamela? >> we learned a few things here, that there is this clash between some of robert mueller's investigators and the attorney bill barr. more specifically, about the letter that the attorney general gave to congress with those key findings of the mueller investigation. we have learned that some of the investigators in mueller's team speaking to outside associates don't feel like he adequately described the obstruction probe in particular in some of their

findings that included derogatory information. as you'll recall in that letter to congress, the attorney general obliquely said that mueller's team found evidence on both sides of the issue, and did say that mueller did not exonerate him, but that ultimately, the attorney general was left to make the decision. apparently, mueller's investigators feel like that was not an accurate representation of some of their findings in the obstruction probe, and they've been expressing this frustration, also that the attorney general has been able to shape the public perception of their findings. and as you just played many clips of the president and his aides celebrating that he has been exonerated, yes, it is true the attorney general did clear him on obstruction, but mueller's team feels as though there is more there that wasn't represented to the public. and as you know, anderson, barr said or our reporting is that barr did not consult with mueller or the investigators with those initial findings that he provided to congress and the

public, anderson. >> so did -- did they expect more of what they delivered to barr to be in the memo that he released? >> according to our sources, yes, that they wrote summaries of their findings that were included in the report, and they thought that more of that should be released to the public. now a source that we spoke with pushed back on this saying that the summaries contained sensitive information that would have needed to be scrubbed, and the justice department released a statement saying that every single page in the report contained a note, a flag that it contained potentially sensitive information that shouldn't go out to the public. and the justice department also says it was never the deal, part of the deal for barr to just summarize the findings. the justice department said due to the intense public interest here, barr wanted to as soon as possible provide the principal conclusions, and then as we know, provide more when he could. and he is going through the

report now with putting redactions in in conjunction with robert mueller's team to release to the public. so that's what the justice department is saying about this. >> were there other frustrations among mueller's team do, we know? >> yeah we have learned there were other frustrations just beyond the way this was handled, and that is the interviews they haven't been able to get, including with president trump, but also we learned, anderson, that the team never got a chance to sit down and interview don jr., the president's son. of course, don jr. was a key figure in all of this. he could have shed light on the trump tower meeting, when the russians offered dirt on hillary clinton. he could have shed light on the air force one statement that was misleading that was a key part of the obstruction probe. he did as we know testify to several committees and presumably robert mueller's team had access to those transcripts, but he never had a chance to sit down with him, and that has been a source of frustration for the team as well. we should note that don jr.'s attorney declined to comment. anderson? >> do we know why? why he didn't sit down with them?

did they ask? >> we don't. we don't know the why. we know that robert mueller apparently pressed to interview don jr., and that never happened, that sit-down interview never happened. and same with president trump. there were these discussions about issuing a subpoena for a sit-down interview, and that never happened either. it never got to the point where a formal request was made for a subpoena. so there is certainly a lot more to learn about what went on behind the scenes in the special counsel. >> all right, pamela brown, thanks very much. as all that was unfolding, house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler sent a letter to the attorney general demanding he publicly release the mueller summaries as soon as possible. he also asked about the report. i talked about that as well as the back and forth over the report itself with virginia democratic congressman gerald connelly who sits on the house oversight committee. congressman connolly, these summaries, why do you think they need to be released immediately, as congressman nadler is calling for them to be?

>> i think we're very concerned, anderson, that as time goes by, a certain narrative that may be highly inaccurate sets in, and that narrative, of course, the one the president has propounded, that full exoneration, nothing to see here, let's move on. well we haven't seen the mueller report. we haven't seen the summaries that his staff prepared of the report. we've only seen one four-page summary of 400-page report plus supporting documents. and there is nothing like seeing the real document for all of us to make up our own minds. >> so you're afraid that people -- because that was something that was also echoed according to the reporting from some of the people on mueller's team that they were afraid this had already kind of set the stage in people's minds for forming an opinion? >> that's right. that's right. and there is so much -- last time we met, we talked about this. let's take obstruction of justice. the only thing we know in direct

quotes through the barr summary is that mueller said i couldn't conclude a crime had been committed by the president with respect to obstruction of justice, but neither could i exonerate him, unquote. now that is stunning. that is -- that's a prosecutor saying a crime may very well have been committed. i couldn't resolve it. >> you know, republicans are saying, look, the attorney general has promised he is going to release as much of the report as he legally can. why not give him the time he needs, you know? it's almost 400 pages to go through. >> look, democrats have been consistent all along, long before the mueller report was in fact written or completed that whatever he had to say, the public and the congress deserved to have the full report. so that's not a new refrain. the idea that the attorney general needs weeks to edit and redact the report when it took him less than 48 hours to

determine the president would not be charged with a crime, obstruction of justice, even though the mueller report says that they couldn't exonerate him from such a crime, i think just doesn't pass the smell test for the public or certainly with us. >> do you think mueller needs to testify in front of congress? or can the report, if it's released and not heavily redacted speak for itself? >> i hope the report speaks for itself, anderson, but i think sooner or later mueller absolutely be essential as a witness, as will attorney general barr. but i think there is no substitute for getting the man in flesh and blood to talk what he was thinking, why they concluded x, y and z, why they left some things out. for example, why didn't they pursue getting testimony under oath from the president himself? what led to that decision? >> just lastly, one administration official told cnn today that it would be inappropriate -- that's not the word they used, it was actually

sort of a curse word -- to release embarrassing information about the president if he is not going to be accused of any crimes. what do you say to that? >> anderson, pray tell, what could be more embarrassing than what we already know about this president? hush money, playmates, porn stars, you know, lying about russian money and his involvement in a potential trump tower in moscow, calling people out by names, you know, denigrating people with disability, denigrating certain ethnic groups. is there an embarrassment this president hasn't engaged in that would actually be magnified by the mueller report? i doubt it. >> congressman connolly, i appreciate your time. thank you. >> my pleasure, anderson. thank you. >> well, joining us now, "new york times" white house correspondent cnn political analyst maggie haberman, gloria borger, and cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. do we know, maggie, where the president actually stands on mueller now?

he didn't like him and then he liked him. >> i think he stands wherever it is good for donald trump is how he feels about robert mueller. so when the summary came out from bill barr and he was able to seize on the parts of that that seemed goo, he did that. one of the things that has come out in the last day is there were people on the mueller team who were surprised at how barr handled this and how the president seized on that. and i don't understand how anyone could have watched the last two years and have been surprised by what the president did because this is pretty much how he handles all of these things. i think you will see him and rudy giuliani say any number of things about this report as we head into the time when it is portions of it anyway are released publicly. there were some people around the president when the report was submitted who were saying to him regardless of what the barr letter says, just be cautious in what you say because it is going to come out eventually. the details of this report -- we haven't seen it. we don't know what's in it.

but we do know that just based on what we have all been reporting on and based on what we heard from some members of the team who have concerns, there are going to be a lot of details in there that are maybe not criminally damaging, as we know, but certainly potentially politically damaging. he has embraced this. >> it does seem until it is released, it is going to be both sides vying for controlling the narrative. >> sure. and at this point, of course, the president has controlled the narrative. he said i'm completely vindicated, even though he wasn't and there was no collusion. and as maggie says, there is no reason to expect otherwise. but now that you have this reporting from "the new york times" and elsewhere about the discrepancies between what was in the barr letter and the reports of what team mueller thought should have been in the barr letter and the news that there may have been summaries that were scrubbed that barr could have used in his letter and chose not to, the fight is on to say okay, the democrats are saying, well, we have to clear this up. we have to know what barr chose

not to use and the american public deserves to see it. >> jeff, this letter from nadler demanding the release of summaries from mueller, does that have any weight at all? >> i think it's unlikely. remember, mueller is a subordinate of barr. i mean, he is an employee of the department of justice. he is not an independent counsel. he is simply an employee. so internal communications within an executive department is very unusual for those to be released. i think nadler is really interested in, as most people are interested in is getting the report. but if you look at the categories that barr established, those four categories, classified information, grand jury material, other investigations, potentially embarrassing material, that's huge. i don't know that barr will define those expansively. >> particularly embarrassing material was for third parties which could be the president. >> sure. >> it could be the president. the president could have this

extraordinary situation of, well, he can't be indicted under justice department policy, but because he can't be indicted and is not being charged, you can't disclose embarrassing information about him. which is a heads i win, tails you lose situation for the president. i don't know if that's how barr is going to interpret it. but based on the four categories, it's possible he'll do that. >> it's really difficult to figure out. you can't indict the president. so do you want to pull a james comey, as he did with hillary clinton and say i'm not going indict her, but she was reckless. so what do you put in the public view, in the public domain about somebody you can't indict who also happens to be the president of the united states and needs some accountability to the public. >> and is also running for reelection. >> exactly. >> what do you do in the middle of that? there's going to be pushback. >> sure. >> "the times" reporting that members of mueller's team are displeased. the president today tweeted this. "the new york times" had no legitimate sources which would be totally illegal concerning the mueller report. in fact, they probably had no

sources at all. they are a fake newspaper who have already been forced to apologize for their incorrect and very bad reporting on me. >> okay. >> where do you start? >> i guess i would refer people to the episode of the daily podcast that "the times" puts out where there was an extended audio of the interview between a.g. sulzberger and where our president referred glowingly to "the times" and how much he valued its coverage. i would ask them to contrast with that. >> look what he does to people's faces. >> it's also what he does in terms -- jeffrey used the phrase i had been thinking of before, heads i win, tails you lose. it is not surprising that he is trying to undermine faith in institutions or anything that is potentially challenging what he wants to see out there. we have seen him do this over and over. we obviously stand by the reporting, and the repeated falsehood that he asserts that "the times" apologized for coverage is also not true, but

it's something he likes saying, and it is something that his supporters have taken hold of. >> gloria, we also learned that michael cohen is telling congress that he has more information. >> yeah. >> that he has found on some sort of a hard drive and essentially wants more time before going to prison. >> right. >> or perhaps some sort of reduction. >> his attorneys wrote a letter today to congressional democrats who had been on oversight committees saying, look, i've discovered this hard drive. i've only looked through 1% of it. it has 14 million files, emails. audio recordings. >> it seems it would have been seized by -- >> it might have. >> investigators and already looked at? >> they say they just discovered it, and it contains substantial new information, and that what he wants is for the democrats to write letters on his behalf to the southern district of new york saying they need his assistance in their oversight investigation, and therefore he should not go to jail on may 6 as he is supposed to go to jail. i don't know what democrats will do. >> jeff?

do you think -- >> it's certainly a long shot that he'll get any sort of reduction in sentence. i don't think it's out of the question that he might get some delay. you have to look at michael cohen's situation, which is here he is, he is the only person going to prison, manafort, who put millions of dollars in his pocket. >> and the crimes were not direct -- some of them related to the campaign or overlapped with it. but they refer to a lot of other things. >> but michael cohen is convicted of behavior that benefits donald trump, not him. and he's the one who is going to prison. and congress is saying to him spend your last month of freedom helping us out for which you have gotten and will get no benefit. i mean, it is not a good position to be in. but i don't know what he can do about it, really. >> if he had been a cooperating witness, though, wouldn't it have gone easier for him? >> i don't think so. >> it might have. he had this peculiar guilty plea situation where he had no cooperation agreement, although he did cooperate.

but he didn't really get much benefit out of it. and he got three years, which by white collar standards is a pretty substantial sentence, and he has to serve 85% of that in federal court. >> federal prison. >> federal prison. >> jeff toobin, gloria borger, maggie haberman. thanks very much. maggie is going to stick around. she has some new reporting that was just up on "the times" website. i have to read it. i'm sitting right next to her and didn't know about it. it could have bearing on the battle over the president's tax. we'll talk about this new report from maggie. also what the president saying about the fight and later tracking the threats the president makes but doesn't follow through on, including his latest backdown. keeping them honest. we humans are strange creatures. other species avoid pain and struggle. we actually... seek it out. other species do difficult things

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provide the president's returns as you probably know from 2013 through 2018. when president trump was asked about it this afternoon, he didn't really have a direct answer. here's what he said. >> they'll speak to my lawyers. they'll speak to the attorney general. >> will you direct the irs to do that? >> they'll speak to my lawyers and they'll speak to the attorney general. >> well, that is what's known as a shot across the bow. and the president's motivation for saying it might just make a little more sense in the context of maggie haberman's new reporting. she is back with us. this is really fascinating stuff. explain. it has to do with the irs, the general counsel to the irs and somebody who is linked to president trump. >> sure. so matthew desmond, who is the chief counsel for the irs, his nomination had been languishing for many months. he was nominated last fall. the president called before bill barr was confirmed, it was several days or a week before back in february. the president called mitch mcconnell. and in the course of the conversation said he would like him to fast track the irs chief

counsel, his confirmation vote, that desmond was getting frustrated with the wait, might want to withdraw his nomination, and it was a top priority, even more of a priority than getting barr confirmed. >> wow. wait a minute. the president said getting the general counsel to the irs -- >> correct. >> who is somebody who has worked -- >> who is among his previous clientele had been some work related to the trump organization that is correct. and he has worked alongside the president's tax lawyer. >> so it was more important to get him confirmed than the attorney general of the united states. >> at the time, yes. the senate we should note did not move the desmond vote before barr. barr was confirmed when he was expected to be and desmond was confirmed at the end of february. he is now there. the white house will say desmond's confirmation had been a priority for many months, a top five priority because he was going to be dealing with a potentially very dicey tax season after the passing of the tax bill. so fine, okay, except he does have the specific connection to the president, and it struck a number of people as possible

that the president had other motives, given the democrats had already been talking about trying to get hold of his tax returns, presumably the chief counsel to the irs would be involved in that decision in some way. >> you would think if the irs was -- it seems like it's up to the irs how to proceed. but if the general counsel for the irs, i assume that is the person who would be the point of contact. >> or at least might have some involvement in it, yes. but i think it is an example of if that was the president's motive, that is part of a pattern we have seen repeatedly where he tries to install people he perceives as loyalists in certain jobs where there are potential investigative connections. >> wow. that's really fascinating. maggie haberman. thanks very much. we're joined by michael dan tone owe. also laura coats. so laura, first off maggie's reporting the president pushed the senate to fast track his nominee for irs chief counsel. how do you see that?

>> i mean, just think about the context of it. within a week of the federal government reopening, i know that sounds like a long time ago, the president prioritizes the chief counsel of the irs. that's top of the list, even over the attorney general of the united states. i mean, think about what the role of that person is. the role of that chief counsel coincidentally is able to interpret the code, to be able to figure out what should be a plausible interpretation, the enforcement of it. the irs code is known to be extraordinarily boring, and frankly straightforward. this point that what it says is actually supposed to be followed. so to prioritize that really puts into context that the president of the united states anticipated within a few weeks of the new democratic-led house of representatives coming in, knowing that there are going to be three bodies in congress with the authority to try to get his tax returns, according to that boring tax code, he prioritizes that. this sounds a lot like what happened in the southern district of new york with geoffrey berman, especially to

have his girl friday in the office in order to make sure he had oversight over a particular area that's close to home for the president of the united states, manhattan, where a number of his businesses are. you see as maggie pointed out this trend. but you also see a gearing up, a preparation by the president of the united states and his team to say we're going to be -- this is going to be a request. we have to prepare for litigation. he didn't ask for the head of the irs, it's the chief counsel. and remember, it's the doj, anderson, that will have the obligation to actually litigate the matter in the courts. so if the head of the doj was less important than the person interpreting the tax code, you know where he was thinking and what he was thinking about. >> michael, the claim that the president's tax returns are under audit, michael cohen was asked about that when he testified before the house oversight in february. i just want to play that, what he said. >> mr. cohen, do you know whether president trump's tax returns were really under audit by the irs in 2016? >> i don't know the answer.

i asked for a copy of the audit so that i could use it in terms of my statements to the press, and i was never able to obtain one. >> it's not just the president hasn't turned over his tax returns as he said he would. there is -- there is not any proof ever that he has been under audit. >> no, there isn't any proof. and what we do have proof of is that the president prior to his inauguration trotted out a tax lawyer who actually was working in the same firm as mr. desmond, who maggie reported as nominated and now the chief counsel at the irs. and in that dog and pony show, there were stacks and stacks of files that appeared to just have blank paper in them. and he was announcing he was doing something to separate his business interests from his activity as president. and really, it was a kind of toothless act he took that

really didn't remove him from contact with his children who are running these firms. so time and again we have a president who's making these personnel decisions on a personal basis with an eye toward protecting himself, not the national interests, not the american taxpayer where the irs counsel you would think would be most concerned with applying the tax code. and now he is going to fight all of this in court, citing his attorney general who he's always complained should be his personal lawyer. so we're seeing the true trump method at work, which is to make everything about protecting himself. >> laura, there is no law that the candidate trump had to release his tax returns. yes, everyone since nixon had done that, but, you know, the president's supporters could very easily say and understandably so, well, look he is not breaking any law by not releasing his returns.

and now congress, now that the democrats have come in are reaching out to try to look at those returns. how is that not just harassment? >> well, they are trying to argue that this is a weaponization of the tax code, and that will probably form the basis of the majority of any pushback from steve mnuchin on down. however, the tax code is quite clear about the requirements they shall furnish the tax information to that particular ways and means committee. so whether the public ultimately will see it will be maybe a different story, but it's important that you raise the idea of the context and the historical precedent set. the reason it dates back to nixon is because nixon himself, based on charitable deductions, and the fear of the american people that nobody was guarding the guards, and that the irs was somehow not providing a fair auditing process of the president of the united states as they would have with an average joe citizen, he said in his famous "i'm not a crook" statement about that idea of a

cost benefit analysis of on the one hand, you have the privacy interests of somebody issuing a tax return or filling one out. against the public's right to know whether the president is a crook. nixon said i'm not a crook, but he voluntarily transferred and turned over his tax returns. that's a difference. >> laura coates, michael d'antonio, thanks very much. coming up, the larger pattern based on threats and backing down. the question, there a strategy behind it? it is wise or is it just the art of the cave? we're keeping him honest. you've had quite the career. yeah, i've had some pretty prestigious jobs over the years. news producer, executive transport manager, and a beverage distribution supervisor. now i'm a director at a security software firm. wow, you've been at it a long time. thing is, i like working. what if my retirement plan is i don't want to retire? then let's not create a retirement plan. let's create a plan for what's next. i like that. get a plan that's right for you. td ameritrade.

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whether you consider that a good or bad thing, it certainly is fascinating on a number of levels, because for the most part, the president is retreating from battles of his own making and corners you could say of his own painting. from threats he makes but didn't fulfill. today he backed down from his threat to close parts or all of the southern border as early as this week. now it's maybe some time next year. >> we're going to give them a one-year warning. and if the drugs don't stop or largely stop, we're going to put tariffs on mexico and products in particular cars. the whole ball game is cars. that's the big ball game, with many countries, it's cars. and if that doesn't stop the drugs, we close the border. >> so now he is going to

close it in a year if, quote, the drugs don't stop or largely stop. that retreat is part of a campaign of retreats. he said mexico, of course, would pay for the wall. he walked away from that in a number of ways. he said it would be made of precast concrete but then settled for the same metal fencing that is already in place for a wall that still hasn't been built. shut down the government to get funding from congress, failed goat it and backed down. all of this is complicated stuff to be fair. backing down from something you promised or campaigned on is not necessarily a bad thing. for some it's signs they learned about an issue and changed their minds. nothing wrong with that. the problem with this president is he didn't admit he is wrong or backed down. and he campaigned by claiming all this would be so easy for him because according to him he is very smart and he knows how to win, and the president has won or had really good news on a number of important things. we should also point out supreme court justices, conservative judges, unemployment. but on his centerpieces on the border, not so much. same with health care. without warning, he reopened his fight to replace obamacare. and when his own party told him to drop it, delay a politically punishing vote until after the 2020 election, he did. he backed down. that's because he had no plan.

if he had a great health care plan or any plan, he could be promoting it now before the election. this is clearly a bluff, and we know this because it's the exact same health care bluff that he used in 2016. he is almost using the same words. he is running a bluff which he has done about big things and small things over the years, whether it's threatening to investigate and prosecute hillary clinton or unleash fire and fury in north korea, or reveal what his investigators uncovered about president obama's birth certificate, which is not to say the presidents never threaten or bluff. they do. what they don't do is raise the stakes so high and fold their cards as often as we've seen this president do. plenty to talk about with our next two guests. rick wilson is a republican strategist who has a difference or two with the party these days. he is the author of "everything trump touches dies" also max boot who knows catchy book titles, having written "the corrosion of conservatism: why i left the right." max, the president today saying he doesn't play games. the irony of so much of what

this president says is it's almost opposite of what the truth actually is. i mean, he does play games. that's exactly what this is, isn't it? >> absolutely. i mean just a few days ago, you had kellyanne conway saying the president is not bluffing. you have to take him seriously. well, au contraire, he is bluffing. this is part of a pattern with him. he is a master of bluster and bs. that is his stock in trade that is what his whole candidacy and his whole presidency is all about. >> rick, some of his supporters will say look, he is shaking things up. by threatening that to mexico and to congress, he's getting people to react or to do something that they might not otherwise have done. >> well, you know, i think there has been a lot of sort of magical thinking on the part of trump supporters that the character they saw on a reality show called "the apprentice" for 15 years was the real donald trump. and he is really not an actually terrific negotiator.

he is not a deal maker, and he doesn't really have the ability to move the needle like he claims he did in terms of making other countries or making other people do what he wants. we've looked at north korea. we've looked at mexico. we've looked at nato. we've looked at china. we've looked at russia. none of those places are doing what donald trump wants because he doesn't really have the ability to cut these deals that folks thought he could do. so that's why he tends to bluster. he tends to lay it out there and say things like i'm going to close the border tomorrow and then walks it back a year. i'm going to eliminate the aca, maybe two years from now. so these things are always sort of intangibles and promises that don't get -- that don't get fulfilled. and his audience tends to make excuses for it. >> well, max, one of the excuses we've heard from supporters on the air is look, i pay attention to policy. i'm not listening to the tweets and what he says, which i understand that as an argument. but in the case of saying i'm

shutting down aid to honduras, guatemala, el salvador, the policy was kirstjen nielsen in the region signing a deal on a wednesday, announcing it on a thursday about greater cooperation as a way to move forward and then the president's statement on friday and subsequent follow-through by state department on saturday. i mean, the statement is the policy. and it destroyed the policy that they were actually pursuing. >> right. i think there is a couple of issues here, anderson. a, the president has terrible policy instincts. and b, the president says a lot of stuff that he doesn't mean. for example, when he says i'm going to take the troops out of syria, or when he said last week that he is going to come up with a health care plan or i'm going to close the border with mexico next week, and he doesn't do any of those things, or threatening to rain fire and fury down on north korea or what have you. and with the latter category of statements where he doesn't actually execute them, i mean, it's generally a good thing, because what he says is

hare-brained. it doesn't make any sense. it would be actually dangerous to carry out his ideas. but there is a huge cost to having a president who is a bs artist. his words don't mean anything. other countries understand that they can discount 98% of what trump says. that puts him in a very weak negotiating position with countries like china and north korea, and potentially it creates a real danger down the road if we get into a real crisis where the president's words are the difference between war and peace and who the heck can possibly take anything that donald trump takes seriously in that kind of situation. >> rick, i don't know -- i don't know the answer to this, but, i mean, do you think the president actually cares about all the impact overseas, the opinion of overseas, the actual follow-through. there is not actual follow-through, or it gets reversed later on. as long as to his base, to the people he is talking to directly, he appears to be following through or appears to

be acting tough, and that's enough for them, because they're not following through on the details. >> right. anderson, i think you've got a very good point there. donald trump lives in the very immediate moment. he lives in the now. he's always focused on what the next headline about him says, how his base is perceiving his action at that moment. he understands they don't really have a real deep historical memory and they don't look prospectively at the potential consequences of his statements and actions. so he's always looking to keep the trump image right where he wants it, keep the cameras on him at all times, and to move forward all the time, no matter what wreckage is behind him, and no matter what cleanup has to be done on the wild statements and the lies and the prevarications and the back and forth and on the flip-flops. he knows that he is always going to have a built-in audience that loves seeing donald trump perform the donald trump act. this whole performance art presidency of his is about the next big explosion, the next big show, the next big tweet, the

craziness that comes to keep the bread and the circus aspect of donald trump. >> which is bizarre given that he is president. what you describe is fine for if you're a realtor or, you know, a developer of sorts. but it's -- it actually has consequence now. >> moving from being a celebrity to being a president is a big deal. >> max boot, rick wilson, thank you. >> thank you. >> thanks, anderson. still ahead, the president said the sound made by windmills may cause cancer and his father is born in germany, both not true. the one he said several times before, the question of course is why does he do that? we'll take an in-depth look at the president's sometimes tricky relationship with the truth. i'm working to keep the fire going

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as we've been reporting, the president claimed during a press conference yesterday that his father was, quote, born in a very wonderful place in germany. actually, his father fred trump was born in new york city. his grandfather was from germany. and not telling the truth about his father's birthplace wasn't the only false claim the president made this week. you might be not surprised to learn. on tuesday night he said this about windmills and the sound they make and cancer. >> hillary wanted to put up wind, wind. if you have a windmill anywhere near your house, down 75% in value.

and they say the noise causes cancer. you tell me that one, right? rrr, rrr. >> in case you missed it, the president of the united states uttered the sound from windmills they say causes cancer. there's no proof to back that up. republican senator chuck grassley called the comments idiotic. however you see it, making statements that are not true. nothing new from the president. >> donald trump has had a fraught relationship with the truth. one that goes back decades to the building and selling of trump tower where barbara managed the construction. >> that didn't happen? >> no. >> but it made the papers. >> so varacity wasn't apart of it. it was just getting the buzz out there about trump. >> yeah. >> did you guys laugh at it?

>> yeah. there was nothing to terrible about it. it was like puffing or exaggerating. >> tony schwartz has a name for this. >> i came up with the phrase truthful hyperbole. i called it an isn't form of innocent form of exaggeration. now something i told for $2 million i can say $10 million and that's truthful hyperbole. the problem is there is no such thing. the truth is a truth. hyperbole is a lie. they don't go together. >> they didn't go together during the troubled opening of atlantic city casino in 1990 when the slots didn't work. >> when they went down there on opening day to check that all the things had been done, many things hadn't been done. they shutdown a third of the slots.

>> slots critical to the casino success. slots are the prime revenue. >> to shutdown the third on opening day was both humiliating and financially disastrous and it was only done because he doesn't have an organization in depth. >> that wasn't the story trump told. >> something would go bad and he would saw it's because we had so many business that this happened. not that the systems broke down or we didn't know what we were doing, we had so much business that it broke down. truly he would lie about everything. >> and he did. >> he would like about everything. >> and he did. >> what about the slot machines? >> the slots are so hot. nobody has seen people play that hard and that fast. >> it blew out the slots? >> they blew apart. >> he's so wrapped up in hyperbole that it's almost constant lies.

whether it's the littlest things where if you had 2,000 people at an event he would say there was 5,000 people at an event. >> lying when there's no reason to lie. >> there's no belief system, if it will work, i will say it. if it stops working i'll say it's opposite and i will not feel any compunction about saying it's opposite because i don't believe anything in the first place. >> lying when it's in his political interest as he did last july after his disastrous press conference with vladimir putin trying to walk back this remark on election interference. >> my people came to me and said they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said it's not russia. i don't see any reason why it could be. would be. >> in a key sentence i said would instead of wouldn't.

it should have said i don't see any reason why it wouldn't be russia. >> it doesn't make a distinction between what's true and what's false his only distinction is what will work and what will not work. >> what happens when he's challenged with facts? what does he do? >> he has a proverse genius for turning any situation into something that is reverse of his brilliant, even if it's not true. >> what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. let's check in with chris for cuomo "prime time". >> when you see it layed out like that, it's quite a situation that we're dealing with. >> you 60 minutes guys you stick

together and i respect that. we have the dhs secretary tonight. she's down on the border. we have what i believe is a very good and productive conversation about the status down there, what she believes they need and why they're not getting it. i hope people watch it because i don't know why congress is sleeping on the situation. i don't know why the president is either and you'll see in the interview where that assertion comes from. we have congressman tim ryan. he's throwing his hat in. he wants to be president. why? why him? we'll test him tonight. >> chris, i'll see you then. a couple of minutes. coming up next, the president makes another controversial pick for another powerful post. that ahead. what does help for heart failure look like? it looks like george having a busy day. ♪ the beat goes on george has entresto, a heart failure medicine that helps his heart... so he can keep on doing what he loves. in the largest heart failure study ever,

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trump is planning to nominate hermann cain for a seat on the federal reserve board. he called him quote he told him a terrific man and terrific person. he's a former exec tiff who dropped out of the 2012

presidential come nation amid sexual harassment allegations he does have some experience with the fed. in the 190s he served as a director of the federal reserve bank. >> welcome to primetime. big night. no question about it. the battle continues as team bar fires back at team mueller. now there's a new demand to find out what the heck is going on here. almost two weeks in. we have more questions than answers. when will we get to see the facts. why is the president backing off his threat to close the border. good move but he said he wasn't playing games. was it game? we have the perfect guest to tell you the priority on the border. a "prime time" first. kirstin from our border.