welcome to "inside politics." i'm phil mattingly. john king is off today. so what exactly counts as a constitutional crisis? apparently it depends on which member of congress or legal scholar you actually ask. president trump visiting the hurricane-ravaged florida panhandle promising federal relief that congress has yet to deliver months later, and as some lawmakers question senate republican intelligence chairman richard burr's subpoena of donald trump jr., well, others, would rather just stay out of it. >> of course, you would expect them to have an answer. i'm not a member of the committee. it's a very private committee that works itself, and i wouldn't even have the slightest idea what they are up to.

>> tariffs? >> what was the answer on tear sniffs that's the big question. >> more defiance from the president and now his family in the ongoing stare-down over congressional subpoenas. the senate intelligence committee demanded donald trump jr., the president's son, come back and testify before its members. the russian special counsel did not charge trump jr. with any crimes, but the committee wants clarity on some of trump jr.'s previous answers he gave in september 2017, including on the trump tower moscow project. a source tells cnn that the republican committee chairman, senator richard burr, signed off on the subpoena two weeks ago. that decision has provoked public backlash, from get this, other republicans. the message from the president's orbit, well, that's crystal clear. burr is disloyal and the subpoena is a betrayal that says the only reason the north carolina republican has a job is because he latched on to

candidate trump in 2016. a source close to trump jr. selling cnn in a statement saying no lawyer would ever agree to allow their client to participate in what is a pr stunt from a so-called republican senator too cowardly to stand up to his boss mark warner and the rest of the resistance democrats on the committee. let's get to manu raju. i've been reading your reporting talking to republican senators all week. i'm a little taken aback. what are they telling you? >> siding with donald trump jr. over their senate intelligence committee that is run by a republican chairman richard burr. pretty interesting developments through the course of the day making it very clear that they wanted -- they are aligning themselves with the president's message, donald trump jr.'s message, that they should move on. they should not dig into these matters even further even though the senate intelligence committee's investigation into the russian interference in 2016 is not yet concluded. the republicans are making it

clear that donald trump jr. is right, including senator lindsey graham who said if he were donald trump jr.'s attorney he would say don't come to capitol hill. >> if i were his lawyer i would be reluctant to put him back in this circus. >> burr though issued him a subpoena. >> i like richard burr. i just don't know -- to me, mueller is the last word for me. so i'm over. i'm done. >> the interesting thing is that this is a subpoena that would compel donald trump jr.'s appearance but he may defy that subpoena and may actually take the fifth. he may actually come or not even show up at all, and when i asked republican senators what about him not appearing, they seem to be okay with that. senate intelligence member committee member john cornyn told me that, look, he understands the frustration that donald trump jr. is voicing given he had previously testified before this committee. he said it's time to wrap up his own committee's investigation.

not comment yet from richard burr but democrats not surprisingly are taking a much different approach. richard blumenthal moments ago said donald trump jr. should be in jail if he defies a subpoena. phil? >> manu raju, partisan war fare breaking out on capitol hill. who would have thunk it. here with mow to share their reporting and their insights cnn's kaitlan collins, a member of the "washington post" and rachael baie also with "the washington post." >> republican liberal richard burr. no, he's actually a conservative. >> what is the state of the subpoena? >> they are at a standoff. the subpoena was issued about two weeks ago seeking don jr.'s testimony, and they are not -- don jr.'s team is not willing to budge. they were willing to say he'll submit to written questions and

provide written answers. he'll give an off-the-record and non-transskripd interview and they are not looking to have him come back as some kind of media circus to get all the attention here comes don jr. marching back on capitol hill to sit for hours possibly of questions on, you know, kind of an unending range of topics. at this point there's a standoff. don jr.'s team has provide documents to the committee. you know, they are posturing that they want to cooperate, but it looks like they are really drawing the line here and having don jr. show up anywhere on capitol hill or near the cameras. >> you've been talking to trump world and you've got reporting in terms of what their thinking is. what are you hearing? >> they are frustrated because they think burr just handed democrats a talking point because republicans were finally getting behind mitch mcconnell's whole case closed and now democrats can say, hey, look, even members of your own party think that all of these inquiries into the russian investigation are not done yet so they are frustrated by that, but you see john cornyn there,

no secret why he's doing it. he knows he needs people's help like donald trump jr. so he doesn't want to get on their bad side when he's up for a tough re-election fight. look at the role that donald trump jr. played in the mid terms last year and had a pretty big role and a lot of republicans wanting him to endorse them so it's not a surprise him coming out against burr for that reason. >> i want to pull up a tweet from senator tom till tis, a republican from north carolina, where senator richard burr is also from, richard burr is also a republican. tom tillis up for re-election tweeting out i agree with leader mcconnell. the says closed. the mueller report cleared donald trump jr. and he's already spent 27 hours testifying before congress. dems have made it clear this is all about politics. it's time to move on and start focusing on the issues that matter to americans. >> yeah. >> the same tom tillis at one time that was completely opposed to the emergency declaration on the wall and then flipped on that as well. might want to talk to the senior senator from his state. i also want to go through the

issues that the committee might actually be looking. a i'm going to pull out our secret magic wall device. you get a sense of what donald trump jr. might be called back to talk about, one is the june 2016 trump tower meeting and one thing people have keyed on is trump's testimony in september of 2017. help was asked who else knew about the meeting as it was happening? he said i believe only jared kushner and paul manafort and i made them aware of it. go down to the mueller report. this is where people are trying to connect some dots here. when asked about that same thing rick gates who testified or was brought in to talk to the mueller investigation said that gates recalled the meeting was attended or at least a meeting where trump jr. announced these issues, announced he might have had dirt was attended by eric trump, jared kushner, ivanka trump, hope hicks. >> and he was asked do you have

any potential involvement in this deal in moscow? >> like i said, i was peripherally aware of it. michael cohen testified he had discussed the moscow project with ivanka trump as design architects and also donald trump jr. and that's not it. there's a third issue that could be looked into, prior offers of foreign assistance. the question was -- did he ever tell anybody the trump campaign who is receptive to offers of assistance from foreign governments? he was pretty blunt on this and he said no. we've seen for a long time the e-mails related to this issue where it was made very clear that they were being offered dirt from russian government-connected officials. if it's what you say, i love it. there appear to be legitimate reasons to look back into it. is that the case in your view right now? >> lawmakers want to find out if he lied to congress, period, end of story, but, of course, the interesting thing is you usually hear that from democrats. democrats have been talking about this since the mueller

report came out privately so. it's just interesting to see a republican, a conservative republican lead charge, and part of that you have to wonder, you know, richard burr, he's sort in legacy moved. he's retiring, and over the past two years he's tried to -- tried to separate himself from what we saw in the house where the republican investigation of russia became very partisan. he tried to work across the aisle and wanted to make it seem like politics wasn't affecting anything and when the report came out richard burr was in the doghouse because he gave sensitive information he got from the white house and that put him in a corner and he's trying to clear his name right now saying politics is not playing a role so he's potentially in legacy mode and politics could be influencing him as well. >> a lot of different threads and burr hasn't commented

pubically. he doesn't talk to us much when he talks about these things. this is the one bipartisan investigation, right. senator burr and senator mark warner, the vice chairman have stayed together throughout. are there grounds to keep going after two plus years? >> definitely grounds for bipartisanship but those grounds are becoming much more narrow than they were in the past because the white house has said they are not going to cooperate with any more investigations. they are telling the house to basically go on a hike. they are not going to respond to any subpoenas, and the president is getting a lot of support from republicans who are sort of rushing into his camp saying mueller has put out his report. it's over and time to move on. let's even investigate the investigators so it's really a time for choose, and it seems like richard burr wants to choose the path of bipartisanship and this is becoming a much more partisan issue when you have people like senator lindsey graham who once was very much in a bipartisan mode saying mueller should complete his report now being one of the president's most staunch supporters saying it's time to finish this

investigation and look at the investigators, so burr is not having a lot of support within his party right now and trying to be bipartisan on the mueller report. >> we've got 30 seconds left. what happens next? know you have a crystal ball and you know all the things, but what is your sense about where -- how this ends up giving where we stand right now? >> i think there's still a desire by donald trump jr.'s camp to provide some answers to whatever remaining questions they have, but there's a real clear distinction here that they don't want to open up this can of worms again. they want to say, okay. we'll be cooperative. they want the veneer of being cooperative saying we'll give you documents and provide some information but i don't think we'll see donald trump jr. in front of that committee, you know, any time soon. >> certainly doesn't seem that way. anything can happen. next, democrats deploying a new talking point that they hope will stick. before we go to break, one senate democrats say if the president's son does ignore that subpoena, he shouldn't pass go.

>> if he fails to answer, he ought to be put in jail. if he fails to comply with a lawful subpoena, he has no prif electric. prison is the only answer.

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[music playing] jerry has a membership to this gym, but he's not using it. and he has subscriptions to a music service he doesn't listen to and five streaming video services he doesn't watch. this is jerry learning that he's still paying for this stuff he's not using. he's seeing his recurring payments in control tower in the wells fargo mobile app. this is jerry canceling a few things. booyah. this is jerry appreciating the people who made this possible. oh look, there they are. (team member) this is wells fargo. . welcome back to "inside politics." two words taking over democratic talking points today. just take a listen to a handful of democrats this week as well as critics of the president. >> i'm telling you we have a

constitutional crisis. >> this appropriate tastes a constitutional crisis. >> we've talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. we are now in it. we are now in a constitutional crisis. >> we keep coming up against constitutional crises here over the last two years. >> i think it's a constitutional confrontation. i don't think it's yet a cries sxwlis whether it criesies. >> whether it's a constitutional confrontation or crisis, i'll let you guys choose. maybe i'll stick with constitutional crisis this week. >> this week. constitutional crisis, depend apparently on who you ask. black and white for some democrats and highly debatable in the minds of others so when house speaker nancy pelosi took sides you can bet a lot of members in her caucus took notice. >> i do agree with chairman nadler. impeach or nothing. no, it's not that. it's a path that is producing

results and gathering information, and some of that information is that this administration wants to have a constitutional crisis because they do not respect the oath of office that they take to protect and defend the constitution -- support the constitution of the united states. >> lisa lehrer of the "new york times" joins our discussion. this is a confrontation. this is clearly a fight. this is a battle. this is extraordinary in just the extent to which the trump administration has just stonewalled everything, but it's like a constitutional crisis, like they are still going to go to court and that's where this will be remedied. there's always battles back and forth between the executive branch and legislative branch. it seems maybe a tad hyperbolic. i understand everyone is

jittery. >> this could have lasting implications. there's always tension between the executive branch and legislative branch and even when republicans in the house were doing their own investigations of the irs attack and benghazi attacks and they let people set for depositions and gave them material and this whole stonewall them everything, don't allow anyone to do anything. think about it, a future democratic president could do the same thing to a republican congress, so i -- i feel like what trump is doing is he's setting a new precedent that if you don't like the investigations, just stonewall. it will go to the courts. it will take years to be resolved and you have what you want and these things are delayed and that's a problem. >> look. i don't doubt it's extraordinary and it's different and it's new and it has a wide range of repercussions for future administrations because we'll see a lot of court fights that make clear what the powers are between the two. the important point, pushing it off.

getting it past 2020. taking years. is that -- that seems to be the clear strategy here, yes? >> yeah. i think that's part of the strategy. i also think there's an effort by the white house to kind of goad democrats into the big "i." impeachment, moving in that direction or fully towards impeachment because they look at the polling and see what we all see is that a majority of independents don't think they should move forward with impeachment. even a third of democrats are not super supportive of impeachment so republicans see impeachment as a political loser for democrats, but it's true that democrats are under a lot of pressure. i can see when you're out with the 20 to candidates the lines that get the biggest applause are the ones attacking the president, are the ones where they sort of move in that direction, even if they don't necessarily utter the word impeachment, but where they talk about checks and balances and providing a check on this administration. >> yeah. and you talk about the goading. it seems the president is in on this game as well.

>> yes. >> take a listen to what he said last night at his rally in florida. >> now if we want to drive them crazy, i'll say in ten years they will go crazy. see he is a despot. he is a despot. well, 10 or 14, whatever we like, right? there will be headlines tomorrow. donald trump wants to break constitutional -- >> he knows what he's doing there. >> yes, he does. he obviously knows that that's going to get under his skin. you often see him make jokes like that and that comes from a president who not that long ago, saying the first two years of his presidency were stolen because of the russia investigation looming over it. even though the white house has had this talking point, look what we all got done and noupt president is saying he couldn't get so much done because of the version but what you're hearing from the president's ails is if we are in this constitutional crisis that the democrats keep talking about and even nancy

pelosi said today, why aren't you introducing the impeachment proceedings? if it's as bad as you say it is, why aren't you doing it? democrats are saying we're essentially laying out the case because voters don't support it right now and for nixon it took a while for it to gain some traction and the president's ails are asking if this is what you want, why aren't you doing it right now in. >> it's a complicating messaging balance. if you're in a crisis why wouldn't you impeach and if you impeach you have more mechanisms to get the documents that you need. if you're talking about what you can do constitutionally that expands your range in terms of what you can get, so what's your read right now on why they are holding off? >> well, the president wants to play the victim. he feels that he's in a stronger position when he has a foil and if the house democrats decide to move forward on impeachment, he'll go into full sort of victimhood mode and really try to play the american people against the democrats as being too extreme, too far left and he can use that as a political prop

against them and that's why you see speaky ploegs say take o-- y let's take our time and do this methodically because the public is not fully on botch with the impeople hearings. they still want to hear more about the investigation. president trump is saying we're shutting down everything and not going to provide any information and goad the democrats into moving forward really quickly on impeachment so that he can play the victim and have someone to act as a foil before the 2020 field comes into shape because right now there's so many different democrats running for president. there's not really one that's sort of his foil but if the house democrats go for impeachment they could be the punching bag that he needs to focus on? >> all right. i just want to note donald trump talking about north korea right now at the white house. take a listen. >> much like china. the vice premier is coming here today. we were getting very close to a deal and they started to renegotiate the deal. we can't have that. we can't have that, so our country can take in $120 billion in tariffs, paid for mostly by

china, by the way, not by us. a lot of people try to steer it in a different direction. ultimately it's paid for largely by china, and businesses will pour back no our country so instead of making the product -- the old-fashioned way. the way we used to do it. we made our own projects and i think things are going along pretty well there, but a large group delegation headed by one of the most respected men and highest officials of china will be coming in today. they start at 5:00, and we'll see what they can do, but our alternative is -- is an excellent one. it's an alternative i've spoken about for years. we'll take in well over $100 billion a year. we never took in ten cents from china, not ten cents, and it will be a -- i think it will be a very strong day frankly, but we'll see. we'll see. it was their idea to come back. >> do you plan to talk to president xi or no?

>> he just wrote me a beautiful letter. i just received it and i'll probably speak to him by phone. look, we have two great alternatives. our country is doing fan fantastically well. our numbers at 3.2. don't forget 3.2, the first quarter is always by far the worst quarter or at least almost always. you look back over the years. first quarter is always weak and we had 3.2 gdp. our unemployment numbers are the best in the history our country, and we're doing well, and our companies are really doing well. even in ohio, the great state of ohio yesterday, general motors at my very strong urging, to put it mildly, very strong urging, i wasn't even nice about it, i appreciate what they d. they sold the beautiful plant, lordstown, they sold that beautiful plant to a very, very good company that's going to make electric trucks, and that work, because in a was the only thing they could say about our whole economy, lordstown, lordstown, lordstown, and when you had all of these great companies spending billions and billions of dollars coming into

our country, they couldn't talk about it. they would only mention the one plant that was a gm plant from a very long time ago, and now we have a great company going in. going to make electric trucks, very appropriate. interesting idea, electric trucks. yes, please. >> will you allow robert mueller to testify in congress? >> well, i'm going to leave that up to our very great attorney general, and he'll make a decision on that, but i will say this. look, the mueller report came out. it was done i guess i'm hearing numbers close to $40 million with 17 or 18 very angry democrats who hated donald trump and also everything that they could possibly have at their disposal. there was nobody that was in the history of our country more transparent than me. i said give them every document, give them every person. let white house counsel testify. i think he testified for 30

hours. i guess they must have asked him the same question because there wasn't very much to testify about, by said let him testify and late him -- keep him as long as you want. actually when hi heard 30 hours, i said that's a long time, but i let him testify. i didn't have to. i have presidential privilege. i could have stopped everything. i didn't have to give them a document. i gave them 1.5 million documents. i gave them white house counsel. i gave them other -- anybody you want you can talk to. at the end of the testimony no collusion and essentially no obstruction. of course, a lot of people say how can you obstruct when there was no crime, when there was no collusion, how can you possibly obstruct? but it's worse than that. it's not -- not only was there no crime, but the crime was committed on the other side, so we're protecting against a crime committed on the other side so after spending all of that money and all of that time, two years, they come up with a report and

bob mueller's no friend of mine. hi conflicts with him. we had a business dispute. we had somebody that is in love with james comey. we like james comey. they were very good friends, supposedly best friends, maybe not, supposedly best friend r. you look at the picture file and you see hundreds of pictures of him and comey and with all of those other things, he wanted the fbi job, but as you know he was considered for the fbi job, wanted it, and the day after he didn't get it he became the special counsel. that's a conflict, and we had other things, but those are tremendous conflicts. listen to this. your judge, call him a judge, has a business dispute with me. your judge has a fantastic relationship with james comey. well, he's a part of this. he lied to congress. he's a liar, a lyric, and your

judge wanted to become the fbi director. we chose director wray instead and told him i'm sorry. those are tremendous conflicts. those are tremendous conflicts, and then he puts on his staff almost all democrats, many of whom contributed to hillary clinton. none of them contributed to me, that i can tell you, and it started out at 13 and went to 18, and these were angry democrats, people that went to her -- in one case went to her supposed to be a party. it turned out to be a funeral on election evening and was going wild. he was so angry. this man now is judging me. you had other people made big contributions to hillary clinton's campaign. they were angry democrats if i think almost all cases. one of the people worked on the clinton foundation as just about

the top person at the clinton foundation. with all of this they came back, no collusion. there's nobody in this room, including you, that's you, john, if we looked at you with $40 million, 18 angry people that hated you and all of the other things i mentioned, they will find something. maybe john. >> mueller is also friends with mr. barr and as you know mrmr. mr. barr told lawmakers he didn't have a problem. >> i'll leave that up to the attorney general. to me it looks like a redo. the report comes back. it's perfect. it's beautiful. there's no collusion. nobody even talks about collusion. you know, i haven't heard the word russia in a long time. there's no more talk about russia. what happened to russia, the russian wish hunt? it was so on collusion, which by far that's the big deal because

it was all about, are so i haven't heard the word russia. they don't use the word russia newmor anymore. there's no crime. there never was a crime. it was a hoax, a witch hunt. so this comes back and it comes back totally exonerating donald trump and a lot of other people. this was as terrible thing that happened to our country. now i'll tell you what they are asking. they are asking about how this whole thing started? that's what people want to know. i had an event last night, a lot of you were there. thousands and thousands of people standing in the field. i've never seen anything like t.meanit it. meaning even the press. always like that, never had an empty seat. thousand of people. you want to know what they want to know? how did this whole thing start? it's going to be hard for them to answer that. >> yeah, please. >> are you satisfied with the advice you received from john bolton? >> yeah, john is very good. john is a -- he has strong views

on things, but that's hock. i actually temper john which is pretty amazing, isn't it? nobody thought -- i'm the one that tempers him, but that's okay. i have different sides. i mean, i have john bolton and i have other people that are a little more dovish than him, and ultimately i make the decision. i get -- i like john. i get very good advice from john. >> mr. president, as you saw the senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed don jr., that's the republican-led senate intelligence committee, what do you make of that? >> well, i was very surprised. i saw richard burr saying there was no collusion two or three weeks ago. he went outside and somebody asked him and he said no collusion. but i was very surprised to see my son. my son is a very good person, works very hard and the last thing he needs is washington, d.c. i'd rather not have him ever involved. a long time ago he said when i was thinking about running, dad, if i can help, let me know.

it's not my expertise. but whatever i can do. and he's now testified for 20 hours, a massive amount of time. the mueller report came out. that's the bible. the mueller report came out and they said he did nothing wrong. the only thing is it's oppo research. if he did wrong, then everybody standing with me probably except for john and lamar. i think lamar is -- did you ever do oppo research on an opponent, i don't think so, lamar. and i know john barrasso never did opposition research because he's a fine, fine man, but i would say 99% of the rest of the folks, so they -- what they didn't discuss is this woman that came in who i watched her on the "today" show when it all started. oh, i'm just an innocent -- well, nobody even knows, though the halls of congress know her

very well because for years she's walked around all over congress. she came in and she left supposedly gps fusion, goes and meets for a short period of time with my son and some other people, they talked about a subject as very well, you know, advertised and put out, nothing. it was a nothing meeting. in fact, jared left. he said get me how the of this meeting. this is a waste of time. she then went back to gps fusion. they were the ones that wrote the phony dossier. why was she going to gps fusion? why did she go back? then i heard that don for a year made three phone calls with an unmarked number. they called it unmarked, and this was a tremendous event because they all knew the fake, they all knew, you were fair on that, john, but they all knew

that those phone calls, these tremendous phone cams before the meeting and after the meeting, there were i believe three, right? they all knew that it had to be to his father, unmarked, it's perfect, so he reported about the meeting and then reported what happened at the meeting except after looking and spending a tremendous amount of time and money they were able to go back years and find out who made the calls. one was a local real estate developer. the other was a great person from nascar. he took two of them and a friend of don's. this went on for a year and a half, john, you heard all about the phone calls to obviously the father where i knew -- i never knew about the meeting, but the phone calls to the father turned out not to be the phone calls. my son is a good person. my son testified for hours and hours. my son was totally exonerated by mueller who frankly does not

like donald trump, me, this donald trump, and frankly for my son after being exonerated to now get a subpoena to go again and speak again after close to 20 hours of telling everybody that would listen about a nothing meeting, yeah, i'm pretty surprised. >> should he fight that subpoena? >> well, we'll see what happenings. i'm just really surprised. >> what did iran do to prompt you to send an aircraft carrier to the region? >> well, they were threatening and we have information -- we have information that you don't want to know about. they were very threatening and we just want to have -- we have to have great security for this country and for a lot of other places. >> are you at risk of military confrontation, sir? >> i guess you can say that always, isn't there. i don't want to say no, but hopefully that won't happen. we have one. most powerful ships in the world that's loaded up. we don't want to have to do anything.

what i would like to see with iran, i would like to see them call me. john kerry speaks to them a lot. john kerry tells them not to call. that's a violation of the logan act, and frankly he should be prosecuted on that, but my people don't want to do anything that's -- only the democrats do that kind of stuff, you know. if it were the opposite way, they would prosecute him under the logan act, but john kerry violated the logan act. he's talking to iran and has been, has many meetings and many phone calls and he's telling them what to do. that is a total violation of the logan act because what they should be doing is their economy is a mess ever since i took await iran deal. they have inflation that's the highest number i've ever heard. they are having riots every weekend and during the week even, and what they should be doing is calling me up, sitting down. we can make a deal, a fair deal. we just don't want them to have nuclear weapons. not too much to ask, and we would help put them back into

great shape. they are in bad shape right now. i look forward to the day where we can actually help iran. we're not looking to hurt iran. i want them to be strong and great and have a great economy, but they are listening to john kerry whose violated a very important element of what he's supposed to be doing. he violated the logan act, plain and simple. shouldn't be doing that, but they should call, and if they do, we're open to talk to them. we have no secrets, and they can be very, very strong financially. they have great potential. very much like north korea. north korea has tremendous potential economically, and i don't think he's going to blow that. i don't think so. >> mr. president, can i circle back to trade for just a second. >> yeah, please. >> is it still possible to get a trade deal with the chinese this week? >> it's possible to do it. they are all year. the vice premier, one of the most respected men, one of the highest officials in china is coming. you know, you heard he wasn't coming, he's coming. i will say this h.once the

tariffs went on, they upped the meeting. it was supposed to take place originally on thursday and then about five weeks ago they said how about friday, how about next week and i said what is this all about? don't worry about it. let's take in $100 billion a year, and we put the tariffs on. we made the statement, and then they upped the meeting. how about let's go back to thursday. so i have no idea what's going to happen. i did get last night a very beautiful letter from president xi. let's work together. let's see if we can get something done, but they renegotiated the deal. i mean, they took -- whether it's intellectual property theft, they took many, many parts of that deal, and they renegotiated it. you can't do that, and i'm different than a lot of people. i happen to think that tariffs for our country are very powerful. you know, we're the piggy bank that everybody steals, from including china. we've been paying china $500 billion a year for many, many years. the china rebuilt their country

because of us. they couldn't have done what they are doing. they are building a ship every three weeks. they are building aircraft like you've never seen, fighter jets. i respect it. i don't blame them. i blame our past leadership for allowing this to happen. what i'm doing now with china should have happened many years ago, not just obama, long before obama. i always say, you know, if you look, nafta is one of the worst deals ever made trade deal, but the worst trade deal ever made is the wto because china was flat-lining for many, many decades, many, many -- it was flat right here. the wto came along. we allowed china into the wto, and they became a rocket ship. you've got to take a look at the chart sometime. do it. it will be very interesting, an economic chart. they are here, and they went up like a rocket ship.

well, they did it with our money and others, and they did it because they are very smart and they are good people. i like the president a lot. he's a friend of-mile-per-hour, but i'm representing the usa, and he's representing china, and we're not going to be taken advantage of anymore. we're not going to pay china $500 billion a year, so we put very heavy tariffs on china as of friday, and we put them on also eight months ago, and when people looked at the economic numbers, they were shocked when they look at the import/export numbers. they were shocked. they said, wow. how did they get to this point? this was very good? that was a very good report. they had never seen that for many years. i said try looking at all of the tariffs that china has been paying us for the last eight months. billions and billions of dollars, and that's only because i gave them a break. because we were negotiating goodwill, we were negotiating, i gave them a break, and i said

let's keep it at 10% instead of 25%. so now what we're doing is we we are raising it to 25% on friday, so it will be $250 billion at 25%, and it will be $325 billion at 25%, and we're starting that paperwork today. so we'll see. but you know what? as president of our country i've got to do something about it, and as president of our great country, we're going to be taking in more money than we've ever taken in, and all of these countries, many of them have taken advantage of us, including our allies. they have taken advantage of us on trade. they have taken advantage of us on military. we defend all these countries for nothing or for a tiny fraction of what it costs. we take care of nato. i'm all for nato. i'm all for nato, and i think it's just wonderful, but it's different than it was 25 years ago and 40 years ago, and i got

nato to put up an extra $100 billion. ask secretary-general consultberconsul stulnenberg. he's donald trump's biggest fan. the contributions of the countries, heading straight down like a steep mountain and i came up. it went up like china, went up like a rocketship, okay, but i don't like people taking advantage. we pay anywhere from 70% to 100% of nato. we protect nato and we protect european countries, and we protect them and we protect them beautifully. we're the power. we're the most powerful nation especially since we've redone our military, we're redoing and redone all of the nuclear. never want to use it, but you have to have it. but we've spent, and i thank congress for this, $700 billion and then $716 billion on our

military. our military when i came to office was totally depleted. we now have by far the strongest military in the world, but we defend countries. when you look at our budget, so we're at $716 billion and russia is at $68 billion. how do you figure that? because russia doesn't go around defending every country in the world and not getting paid for it, and you know what, i don't mind not getting paid. if there he's a country that's been horribly treated and lots of bad things are happening and they are not a rich country, but when we defend the richest countries in the world and they don't pay us for what we do and frankly they go back into closed meetings and they laugh at stupidity of the united states for doing it, these are countries with nothing but cash. they could very easily -- i told this story last night. i picked up $500 million with one phone call to a country, and that's just the beginning, and i've done with many other

countries anyway, but over the last very short period of time. one phone call that lasted for a period of i would say five minutes. >> you've just been watching president trump's first press conference since the release of the special counsel's report. it was not supposed to be a press conference. it was unexpected. it was extraordinary. it went through no shortage of topics, ranging from china tariff threats, lordstown and gm sales, his opinions of john bolton, the iran situation. north korea's missile launches and nato and the special counsel's report as well as the subpoena from the senate jens committee, republican-led senate intelligence committee of his son donald trump jr. i want to open it up to the panel because there's no shortage of news there, and to be completely clear there. that was an event to submitting principles to congress to end surprise medical billing t.felt like the president had a lot to get off his chest on a lot of

issues. >> and he went on apt length about the mueller report, and it was fascinating to watch the faces of the lawmakers there. >> hang on. >> we're going back in right now because the president is talking. >> take a listen. >> it was a very expensive horrible thing for our country. by the way, should never ever happen again to a president. two years i've been going through this nonsense and now very is a good report, and now guys like jerry nadler, when i fought for many years successfully, i might add pack in new york in manhattan, he was a manhattan congressman, and i beat him all the time and i come to washington and now i have to beat him again over nothing. over a hoax, and they know it's a hoax. they are smart. nadler is a smart guy. schiff is a smart guy. when schiff goes to the microphone, he's conning this whole country, and he knows that, and he goes back into a room and he talks to his friend and he laughs because that's the way life it, but our country is doing great. we're going to find out about

china tonight, and i think in the end you're going to be very impressed with the kind of things we're doing, and the reason they were so surprised with the numbers two or three weeks ago, not that 3.2 gdp that everybody was surprised at, but maybe more importantly export numbers, import numbers, because we have billions of dollars coming to our country that our country never would have seen with a regular president. this should have been done many years ago, and i told president xi of china and i tell abe who is a good friend of mine, prime minister of japan doing a great japan. i tell him, i tell everybody. i don't blame you. i blame the people that ran the united states and i blame their trade representatives and frankly i blame our presidents because this should never have land. we pee we've been lose for years close to $800 billion, not million, 800 million is a lot, but we've been losing $800 billion on

trade. $800 billion on trade. we're going to stop that, and we've already started so we have a meeting tonight at 5:00 with the top people from china, and we'll let you know what happens. thank you all very much. the red sox are coming for a little while. >> i like the red sox. >> just so you understand, we gave puerto rico $91 billion for the hurricane. that's the largest amount of money ever given to any state, talking about states and puerto rico, a little different, $91 billion. texas got 30. florida got 12. puerto rico got $91 billion. so i think the people of puerto rico should really like president trump. now that money was given by

congress, but they got $91 billion. now you remember how big the hurricane was in text yeah, the largest water dump in the history our country, they say. three times, it went in, it went out, it went in. texas got $30 billion. florida got actually anywhere between 9 and 12. puerto rico got $91 billion and now the democrats are trying to hold up the money from georgia, from south carolina, from alabama, to florida, they are trying to hold it up. they are hurting florida. i mean, what they are doing to north carolina, to louisiana, they are trying to hold relief aid because puerto rico which got 91 billion have to love their president. they want to get puerto rico more money. so they are willing to sacrifice georgia, alabama, south carolina, north carolina,

florida, louisiana, and other states. the democrats are doing that. they are very divisive people thank you very much. >> mr. president. >> you were just listening to president donald trump, again, in an extraordinary impromptu press conference running through a range of topics. i want to quickly address the last issue he was referring to it. the idea that puerto rico has received $91 billion in the emergency disaster aid in the wake of the hurricanes, that's not true. that's been proven false on several levels. they have been allocated 40 billion plus by congress. they have been paid out somewhere between 10 and 20 billion nchl the 91 billion number that the president continually repeats at the campaign real down in florida is not true. the intricacies of the disaster relief debate on capitol hill, a lot of blame to go around there but i want to expand it tout because if you go through what you just listened, to you had president take potential military conflict off the table with iran off the table, north

korea is not willing to negotiate, had him weighing in on the national security adviser john bolton and had him weighing in and venting on the subpoena to donald trump jr. where he said i'm really surprised. said it repeatedly. name checked senate republican committee chairman raped burr. >> and surprise medical billing, and the next time no one is focussing on what trump's message is, it's events like this with eight to ten headlines not about what the actual event was about. we reported that the president's inner circle was frustrated by this because they felt like it gave the democrats a talking point. he said that donald trump jr. is a good prern, that he personally was surprised that the republican-led committee issued this subpoena for his son and was saying i don't know if we're going to fight this. he didn't answer that question specifically when asked about it, but he certainly left that option open and it would go with

whatever the white house has been following with that so far. the other thing that stood out to me is the criticism of his national security adviser john bolton. we reported that he -- the president said he has to temper the national security adviser at one time and that's a pretty strange thing to say about the president's top adviser. >> the president just says them out loud, and this was certainly the case here. i also want to -- he spoke at length about special counsel robert mueller. a lot of the things that you guys have all reported about what has been said behind the scenes. he just laid out again in public with his very personal problems with the special counsel. >> the one phrase that stood out to me was essentially no obstruction. in part because i -- i wasn't exactly -- that meant there was obstruction, but not obstruction. the important thing it's a caveat from where the president was before which was just a blanket no obstruction, so it does seem like there's a little

bit of sort of movement of how he's interpreting that report. it's interesting that so much time was devoted from that topic from someone who recently complained he lost two years of his presidency. now he can say he's lost two years and 20 minutes to his presidency discussing that report but as kaitlan pointsous this is what infuriates republicans and his fellow republicans when they have to deal become out in the campaign trail about this president. they want to talk about one thing, the economy, the economy, the economy. they want to hammer democrats particularly in the re-election race with the economy, and when the president comes out and does things like this where he veers from topic to topic and introduces all kinds of new claims and counterclaims it makes it harder for them to do that. >> one thing that struck me is he seemed to back off this notion of trying to block mueller to testify. over the weekend he sawed he doesn't want mueller to testify. the white house officials sort of tried to walk that back. asked about that multiple times and he said i'm going to leave it up to the attorney general and the attorney general has

said he's fine with mueller testifying, but at the same time he was trying to undercut mueller's credibility because he talked a little bit about how he accused mueller of wanting to have the fbi job that he gave to wray, the current fbi director, and then he started to talk about a business dispute he had with mueller so he's getting red for the fact that mueller will be on the hill at some point and he's trying to undercut his credibilty. >> he's laying out the conflicts repeatedly laid out in the mueller report for why he wanted someone on his administration fired and the reason why there's so many pictures of jim comey and bob mueller together because jim comey was the deputy fbi director when he was director. what was your takeaway related to china, the huge talks starting at 5:00 p.m. tonight. >> >> the president is very comfortable with the idea that he's going to put these tariffs on china.

he thinks against all evidence that these tariffs are actually helping the country, that they are paid for by china and not by u.s. consumeers is, that it's not going to hurt the economy in any way, and republican senators and lawmakers are telling him that that's not the case that. their farmers are being hurt, that soybean prices are being depressed by these tariffs, that china is likely to retaliate and that retaliation is likely to impact trump's specific voters, places and parts of the country that have supported trump in the past so the president seems to be on his own as an island to think about how tariffs are going to get the job and people within his own party are saying that's not the way to go. >> he did say he got a letter from the chinese president last night which is interesting because these talks have been upended and officials were not sure if the chinese delegation would show up in washington today. they are. the president said the meeting is starting at 5:00. they said that's a good sign. if they are coming, that's a pretty good sign that these talks could be successful but, of course, the time line is very different than what the president expected back in march

when he thought there would be a trade deal. the other big thing the president accused john kerry of violating the logan act, talking about his contacts with iran, iranians which john kerry says just his former counterparts that he's speaking with, but when he was asked about what prompted the u.s. to send a carrier there, the president was talking about iran saying he has information we don't know about and he went pretty hard on john kerry saying he should be prosecuted for violating the logan act. that's a pretty bold statement to make. >> have to ask if he asked the a.g. about it, remember the exchange when kamala harris asked brar has the president ever asked you to prosecute someone and he kind of didn't answer, it so anyway, adding context. >> not really a great history of prosecutions in the logan act if anyone wants to do the deep dive on that. >> the other thing, north korea. he said given the missile launches that occurred, that he doesn't think that they are ready for a negotiation, at least, again, got about 30

seconds. how do you think this is going at this point of time? is this full breakdown? >> it is feels like that but we'll have to see. >> we will have to see. >> yeah. >> and you can see why the president would say that because they have recently suspended talks to get back the remains of americans who fought in the korean war and now south koreans are saying they fired two short distance missiles. >> a lot of analysis over the weekend that that launch was to try to get trump's attention and back to the negotiating table. it looks like it had the everse effect if he's out there saying talks are breaking down >> it seems that way. there's a lot there. brianna keilar is going to pick up this and the special press conference after this quick break. don't tell your mother.

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i'm brianna keilar live from cnn owes washington headquarters. under way right now, we begin with an impromptu wide ranging q&a with the president weighing in on trade negotiations with china and the new tariffs that he's threatened to enforce, nuclear talks with north korea and a brand-new missile test and, of course, the russia investigation. >> so after spending all of that money, all of that time, two years, they come up with had a report, and bob mueller's no friend of mine. i had conflicts with him. we had a business dispute. we had somebody that is in love with james comey. we like james comey. they