when you're not, you pay for data one gig at a time. use a little, pay a little. use a lot, just switch to unlimited. get $250 back when you buy a new samsung galaxy. call, visit or click today. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. president trump is off for a quick weekend visit to japan, but not without first stirring the impeachment debate with fresh attacks on democrats. another lie about the mueller report and a re-tweet of a video that doctors speaker nancy pelosi's words. plus the president signs off on new military deployment to the middle east. new troops are included to support the deployment of patriot missile batteries and reconnaissance aircraft. and the brexit fight claims its

second prime minister. theresa may now quitting because she cannot get an exit plan through parliament. >> it is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that i have not been able to deliver brexit. it will be for my successor to seek a way forward that dawn as a result of the referendum. to succeed he or she will have to find consensus in parliament where i have not. i will shortly leave the job, but it has been the honor of my life to hold. >> back to that story in had a moment, but we begin the hour with a president about to head off to japan for a quick weekend, but not before scorching more earth in his standoff with house democrats and their leader, and not before one more reminder that washington's dysfunction does not make exceptions, even for long overdue disaster relief. plans to finally pass a big aid package today were blocked by a house republican, even though the president had green light that had plan. more on that in a bit, but, first, the president's mindset

as he heads overseas. one morning tweet asserts absent any evidence that there are no crimes or misdeeds for congress to investigate, quote, except those committed by the other side and other lies finding about the mueller report saying wrongly that the special counsel found, quote, no obstruction that. morning social media messaging played out under a late night trump tweet pinned for hours to the top of the president's twitter page, a we tweet of a fox business news fox mash-up that distorted remarks of speaker pelosi to make it look like she was stammering and the tweet was later deleted. the video included the speaker questioning the president's well-being. the president responding by declaring he is, in his words, a very stable genius. here with me to share their reporting and insights, lisa lehrer with the "new york times," michael bender of the "wall street journal," a writer for "the washington post," cnn's sara murray and cnn's michael

warren. michael, i want to start with you because you just had a conversation with the president's lawyer rudy giuliani who tweeted one version of the doctored pelosi video and the president re-tweeted a different one. rudy giuliani took his down, but he's not really saying sorry, right? >> yeah, that's right. giuliani tweeted this video last night and then says, he told cnn that he got a text from a friend who said it may not be a legitimate video. he took it down because he says that he didn't want any of the -- any of the drama, but, of course, he then proceeded to engage in questioning whether or not speaker pelosi is speaking properly. he told cnn i have no way to know if it's doctored, this video, if it's doctored or not. the president and i don't like to be hit in the head without hitting back. she's the speaker of the house. he says to her grow up, stop it. you're too old for that, and then he defended his client, the president, saying he's plenty emotionally or mentally capable,

as much or more than her, so not wanting to get into ative about the particulars of a video by clearly rudy giuliani doing the president's byrding here and stirring up and continuing thistive between t-- this tiff the president and speaker of the house. >> i don't have the words for this. i've been here for 30 years. i used to joke that washington is like the fifth grade. it's not a joke. it's not a joke. from the president's perspective, they say, well, what about what the speaker said and they are right. she questioned his mental health and his stability saying he needs an intervention. he comes back with his -- it's not only with a stable genius line and goes after her and then, i'm sorry there, should be a line somewhere. she's the highest ranking woman in american politics and third in line of the president as speaker of the house. you have to have a responsibility if you're going to re-tweet something to make sure whether or not it's

accurate. >> that's what makes it accurate. let's take rudy giuliani at his word than he didn't know uncertain well-informed person. he has -- certainly has the ability to know whether this has been doctored or not, but if he didn't, what does that say for the rest of america who is not paying as close attention to this back and forth of someone like rude rurksd and, you know, and as we see more of these types of things happening in the next, you know, next 18 months during the presidential election, there is going to be -- you talked about his responsibility to know. there's going to be questions to the trump campaign. all signs are that the trump re-election campaign is doing everything that they can to be this professional, traditional operation that they were not in 2016. they can do that by -- by flagging these sorts of things and making -- and, you know, and coming out -- >> but they can also do both. they can do both. they can have a more professional operation and do as they are now.

their facebook ad targeting very early and do things quote, unquote professionally and can have a candidate and a few of his surrogates like mr. giuliani who play a different way. ask ted cruz and hide cruz and rafael cruz and go back through the kennedy assassination lore. this is what the president likes to do when you get under his skin. >> the campaign has been very clear. they say they follow the lead of the president. they believe the president's political instincts are what helped him win in 2016 against all odds and even if theft best, you know, political analyst and the best people that can look at polling, they are going to follow the president no matter what he does, and if he decides, you know, to take on joe biden and call him nicknames and decides to tweet out, you know, weird videos about the speaker, they are going to follow. they are going to follow his messaging no matter what, and that's what we're seeing. normally we expect the president to sort of try to calm political tensions and not inflame them and not allow the country to

move towards this area where we don't even know if the video is real or not, but this is instead a president really pushing forward on that. >> look, they are doing part of this buass because they believe it works. this is what we saw with hillary clinton. remember there was a whole thing about her being very ill and her having a stroke and then on and on and then she fainted at a 9/11 ceremony which, of course, was unrelated to any underlying medical condition but it gave that argument serious traction. saw it happen with joe biden, a video making rounds on conservative websites. him slurring his words, a mash-up. is he too old, so i think there are people in the -- in the president's orbit and people in the conservative media orbit that serves to amplify the president's message that believe that this is an effective tactic and that's why it's not going to go away. >> it worked -- it tells you, again, that we're going to see in 20202016 on steroids. we're not -- yes, they have a much more professional organization, but they are not reaching out to suburban women and not making a heavy effort.

they will target some african-american and latinos on economic argument, but this is not going to be. this is a base campaign to drive out the same voters and recreate the trump message and to that point if you haven't been paying close attention. here's one example of the doctored video and you'll see the real video with how it was tinkered with, messed with on the internet. >> and then he had a press conference in the rose garden with all this sort of visuals that obviously were planned long before and then he had a press conference in the rose garden with all this sort of visuals that obviously were planned long before. >> i assume that there are some people out thereto who find this funny or find it effective, but just the -- we're going down a staircase, call it a slippery slope. she's the speaker of the house. she's the highest ranking woman in american political history. there's a way to win a campaign

without doing that. >> yeah. i mean, look, there are always going to be people who find that fin, and if you are a woman who is going to work in politics or anywhere near politics you have to get over that certain subset because those people are never going to change. the bigger concern that lisa and michael are talking about is people who don't know that it's not real and believe that it's accurate depictions of politicians and people running for president and that's the bigger concern. when you put something up that's clearly fake and you don't label it as such and people start to believe that that's the truth. these are the misinformation campaigns that we saw were wreaking havoc on 2016. you know, they are going to come back in full force in 2020. it's one thing for a foreign government to be, you know, injecting themselves in our election, that's certainly going to happen this time, but it's another thing to see it espoused by the president and by rudy giuliani. >> and i want to make this point. there are people on the left who do this to the president, too. for those out there who is going to say just people on the right abusing speaker pelosi, it happens both ways.

this one happened at end of a very dramatic day yesterday in which it was clear the speaker is under the president's skin. she has a way of provoking him, and so how does it fit? is there a broader strategy here? he's boston to go off on this trip. if you're the president and you're about to go overseas and in the middle of not being able to pass a disaster aid package, and they would enjoy a three tore four-day break, going to meet with prime minister ape and go to a sumo match, bilateral meetings and state banquet and then on memorial day will visit u.s. troops in the region. you would think he would go quite and enjoy that trip and lights it up on twitter again this morning because he sort of wants to leave some fumes behind as he leaves. >> exactly right. we've seen a number of foreign trips, overtaken by domestic news and drama and i wouldn't be surprised if that happens again. the support really frustrated

with what's happening in congress with all these investigations but also the rules that are happening in the courts. he thought that he could just sort of have a blanket stonewall against congress and say i'm not going to provide any documents and now we're seeing a sires of court rules that are ruling against his administration and his position and it's sort of laying the groundwork for an incident where he might have to hand over the documents that he does not want to be handed over, including his deeply personal financial records. >> and we also see this new memo to the attorney general bill barr essentially giving him carte blanche to call up any u.s. intelligence agency, to go back and retrace the early moments, minutes, days and weeks of the counterintelligence investigation. lindsey graham saying this morning this is great. >> well, long overdue. you're going to find out the mentality of the people investigating the president. you're going to find out exactly what they did and said. the people involved had political motives. they were out to get trump, and they wanted to help clinton, and how do you prosecute her if you want her to win? so the reason she wasn't charged

i think is because they knew that if they charged her she probably wouldn't win the election. >> oh, my god. we're still talking about hillary clinton's e-mails. >> still talking about hillary clinton. adam schiff, the democratic chairman of the house intelligence committee says this is unamerican. we don't know that yes. they have every right to look at the origins of an investigation that involves an american president. are they going to lay it all out or are they going to cherry pick to say it was a coup as the president says? >> this is the concern. it's an extraordinary thing to decide to open an investigation into a presidential campaign, to decide to involve u.s. intelligence into looking into the activities of people surrounding a presidential campaign, so if everyone did things the way they were supposed to do it, if everyone did things by the book, then, you know, there will be an investigation. it will be uncomfortable and people will be grilled but ultimately that's what the investigation would find. i think part of concern is that, you know, now bill barr has all of this oh, and this is the same

bill barr that people have seen out there saying that the trump campaign was spied on and that the president was falsely accused, and people are looking at him and saying you've already pre-judged where this is going. you've already decided that people did something wrong at the early origins of this investigation into the trump campaign before you really have any information. i think that's what makes people so uncomfortable about the amount of power that's just been placed in his lap. >> the striking thing, too, at a time when he's ordering the intelligence community to participate in this investigation, he's refusing to help with any of the democratic-led investigations in congress and comes in the context of wednesday he talked about this investigation saying crimes were committed and then on thursday he talked about the investigations saying the crime was treason that was committed, so if the question is whether he's going to cherry pick facts, we'll see, but he's already clearly reached his conclusion. >> people complaining about thumbs on a scale seem to be happy to put their thumb on the scale. yeah, okay. we're going to come back to this in the show. the president is talking to

reporters as he leaves the white house for japan. we'll bring you that. up next, breaking news on the united states troops being deployed to the middle east. welcome to our lounge. enjoy your stay. thanks very much. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ find calm in over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. it's another way we've got your back. the business platinum card from american express. don't do business without it. my time is thin, but so is my lawn. now there's scotts thick'r lawn 3-in-1 solution. with a soil improver!

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further deter iran since the pentagon believes there are still rising threats in the region to u.s. troops. cnn military and diplomatic analyst retired rear admiral john kirby joins us now. admiral, 1,500 troops, patriot missile batteries, reconnaissance aircraft. this request some from centcom, you're told. you've worked with the commanding general. what does it tell you? is this a dramatic escalation, or is this a necessary deployment? >> i wouldn't call it dramatic escalation. 1,500 sounds about right to me based on what they are sending, these additional forces, but what it tells me, john, is that the threat from iran has clearly not diminished enough to make general mckenzie comfortable. i've known him for almost ten years. won't find a more pragmatic military leader. wouldn't be asking for the additional resources if he didn't need him. that tells me the threat has not diminished quite enough for general mckenzie and number two, something we need to be looking for long term, i wouldn't be surprised if there's a longer more strategic discussion going

on in the pentagon about changing the forced posture in central command in a more meaningful way. more forces permanently deployed there. >> to that point, you have been skeptical, at times critical, of some of the words coming out of the administration when it comes to the standoff with iran and some of the steps that are taken. in this case you're talking about your personal experience with the centcom commander, and you would think he would not be part of something that was done for political reasons, and that if this is being done he sees a military intelligence need to do it. >> 100%, john. this is not a political decision. it needed political signoff, but i'm comfortable given what i know about him and the pentagon officials i've talked to that this is really required. this is really needed, and, again, i don't think that it's necessary lit end, john. i think we could see additional forces being sent over to that region both temporarily and maybe even permanently. >> admiral kirby coming in on quick notice for us. >> let's go to other big news oversees. britain news a new prime

minister and brexit is the reason. theresa may announcing her resignation yielding from a cabinet rebellion stemming from her repeated failures to win parliamentary approval for her plans to exit the european union. may came to power when david cameron stepped aside because he favored staying in the eu but voters passed the referendum demanding britain exit, this part of the prim's farewell. >> i will shortly leave the job that's been the honor of my life to hold. the second female prime minister but certainly not the last. i do so with no ill will but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve of the country i love. >> quite emotional there at the end. prime minister may will formally step down after a new prime minister is elected so she will still be in office when president trump visits the you can early next month.

phil, a spirited contest to replace. what happens next. >> as you say, theresa mai will stay in office in title. if not absolute authority until after president trump's visit. her conservative party begins the process of trying to determine a new leader. it will be an internal contest amongst what's expected to be a pretty broad field of candidate. m.p.s will determine the final two and that goes out to a ballot of conservative party members across the country and what it means by the end of july we expect to have a new prime minister and party leader. the expectation is that it will be someone who takes a much tougher, harder line on that whole idea of brexit. many are saying that is absolutely what is required to get that done. there's been a lot of criticism of theresa may. much of it over her failure to come to terms to brexit.

that a point made today by nigel farage who was championed the brexit cause, someone who has a personal relationship with president trump responding to theresa may's resignation. he said this. it is difficult not to feel for mrs. may, but politically she misjudged the mood of the country and her party's two conservative loorz were gone that were pro-eu. either the party learns that lesson or it dies. the new expectation is that the new prime minister will be tough on breksically the with you will inherit all the same challenges that have led to theresa may being forced out of office here today. a divided parliament and minority government and an incredibly complicated political chal wedge no easy solution. john? >> no easy solution at all. appreciate the live reporting on downing street. we'll continue to watch. remarkable developments. back to u.s. politics, the disaster aid bill stuck again in

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because if i do not object, congress will have passed into law a bill that spends $19 billion of taxpayer money without members of congress being present here in our nation's capital to vote on it. secondly, it's a bill that includes nothing to address the clear national emergency and humanitarian crisis that we face at our southern billion. >> the bill was all set to go through by what they call nan muss consent and now it seems to be on held until after a memorial day congressional recess. joining me is phil mattingly and melanie zinono. how significant in this is that the president had green lighted there so that the president would bite their tongues, if you will, and we know they object for a number of reasons. >> they finally figured out a pathway forward. the senate passed it by a major vote, 84-16, if you didn't think

a freedom caucus republican would come and block this, is you haven't been paying attention. it's significant in that people need the money. hurting for a long period of time. not just puerto rico and flooding in the midwest and fires in california. now it will take cloninger to get there. and the why the that members of congress do not agree with this bill was willing to sigh of on was an interesting element of this. >> the president of the united states about to leave for japan talking to reporters outside the white house and you see him walking up. let's listen. >> we want to be very transparent so as you know i declassified everything, everything they want. i put it under the auspices of the attorney general. he's going to be in charge of it. he's a great gentleman and a highly respected man so everything that he need is declassified, and they will be able to see how this hoax, how the hoax or witch hunt started and why it started. it was an attempted coup or an

attempted takedown of the president of the united states. it should never have happen to anybody else so it's really important. people have been asking me to declassify for a long period of time. i've decided to do it, and -- and you're going to learn a lot. i hope it's going to be nice, but perhaps it won't be. >> [ inaudible question ]. >> we want protection. we'll sending a large number of troops, mostly protective and some very talented people are going to the middle east right now, and we'll see how -- and we'll see what happens. >> it will be about is a hundred people. >> any legislation at all. >> sure, that's possible, but i do believe you can't go down two tracks, because if you look at judiciary and look at what's going on, all they talk about in

the house is this. i would like to talk about lowering drug prices which i've done better than any president ever. this year drug prices went down, first time in 51 years. would i like to talk about it because with congress i can get prices down 40% and 50%, but i can't do that when all they do is want to try and do a redo of the mueller report. they were very unhappy with the mueller report. they want to do a redo of the mueller report. it's over. there is no redo. they lost. it's very clear. there was no coconclusion. there was no obstruction so there's no redo. yeah. >> should doctors be forced to perform transgender reassignment surgeries? >> we're going to see. we'll see. >> [ inaudible question ]. >> i feel badly for theresa. i like her very much sleep.

's a good woman. she worked very hard. she's very strong. she decided to do something that some people were surprised at and some people weren't. it's for the good of her country but i look her very much. in fact, i'll be seeing her in two weeks. >> president, why are you considering pardoning war criminals, and does that endanger our troops? >> we're looking at a lot of different pardons for a lot of different people. some of fought hard, long, you know. we teach them how to be great fighters and when they fight sometimes they get treated really unfairly so we're going to take a look at it. i haven't done anything yet. i haven't made any decisions. there's two or three of them right now. it's a little bit controversial. it's very possible that i'll let the trials go on and i'll make my decision after the trial. >> anything to say to michael avenatti? >> i wish him a lot of luck.

>> mr. president, are you going to talk to theresa may? >> i may very well talk to her about that. yeah, there's word and rumor that the fbi and others were involved, cia were involved with the uk having to do with the russian hoeks, aax, and i may w talk with her about that. >> mr. president, is your relationship with nancy pelosi soured to the point that it's too personal and some of the altered videos being disseminated. is that going too far? >> i'm here to help the country. i can't tell you about the video. our country is doing unbelievably well. we've had the best economy we've ever had. we have the best job numbers we've ever had and the best unemployment numbers we've ever h.with all of the things that are happening that's all i'm about. i don't think they can go down two tracks. i want to get drug prize down. i want to get things like if you look at infrastructure and

others. i want to get things done. i don't think they are capable of going down two tracks. i think they can only do one thing or the other. so let them finish the one. what i don't think is right they do a re. do they were very unhappy with the mueller report. no collusion, no obstruction no, nothing. they are very unhappy and angry about it. they have to get over their anger. they have to get over -- wait a minute. they have to get over their anger, and they have to get into infrastructure, drug prices and things like that because they want to do a redo. like even the fact that they are asking bob mueller to come and testify. he just gave them a $4434-page report that says no collusion which leads to absolutely no obstruction. he just gave that report. why does he have to testify? it's ridiculous. they ought to get on to drug prices, lowering them.

we can cut them by 50% or 60 mis. the one thing i'm very proud of also on drug prize. i brought it down, first time in 51 years that drug prices went down, but if i could work with congress we could cut 50% and more off drug prices. i can work with the speaker. sure. i can work with the speaker. i can absolutely work. >> what do you want to accomplish with your personal attacks on the speaker? >> excuse me. this just shows how fake you and the news are. when you say -- when you say a personal attack. did you hear what she said about me long before i went after her? did you hear? she made horrible statements. she knows they are not true. she made -- she said terrible things, so i just responded in kind. look, you think nancy is the same as she was? she's not. maybe we can all say that, but i think -- i think -- frankly, i think right now we are -- i'm only speaking for myself is. i want to do what's good for the

country. i think nancy pelosi is not helping this country. i think the democrats are obstructionists. they are hurting our country very, very badly. we can pass so many different bills right now but all they want to do is investigate because they failed with robert mueller and the mueller report. they want to try to get at do-over of the mueller report. it doesn't work that way, and just so you know. i was the most transparent and am transparent president in history. we gave 500 witnesses. i allowed attorneys to testify in front of bob mueller, 2,500 subpoenas, 1.4 million pages of documents. we gave it. i didn't have to give any of it. we gave it, and then we get a great result and they say oh, this is terrible. let's do it over again. you can't do it. our country doesn't have that kind of time.

>> what if the barr investigation doesn't turn out way you think it will? >> i gave -- i declassified i guess potentially millions of pages of documents. i don't know what it is. i have no idea, but i want to be transparent. everybody wanted me to declass five. i've do i've done it. he's a highly respected man, a trustee. our attorney general is in charge. let's see what he finds, but we have -- we have documents now that i have declassified for the purpose of the attorney general. he can then show them to the public, do whatever we want to do with them, but you have to get down to what happened because what happened is a tremendous blight on our country. what happened, the investigation, they tried to do a takedown, and you can't do that. let me just tell you. this should never ever happen to

another president again. >> mr. president, what message do you want to send to military families who are concerned about you sending troops to the middle east? >> well, i think it's going to be very good in the middle east. iran has been a -- as you know, they stage terror all over the world. they are a much different country now than when i first got here. when i first got here, they were at 14 different locations fighting. right now i don't think iran wants to fight, and i certainly don't think they want to fight with us, but they cannot have nuclear weapons and under the obama horrible agreement they would have had nuclear weapons within five or six years. they can't have nuclear weapons, and they understand that. >> mr. president, why should we trust the attorney general to collect what is declassified? even robert mueller expressed concerns about barr handled his findings? >> the question is so false and

so phony. the attorney general -- let me just explain to you something. the attorney general is one of the most respected people in this country, and he has been for a long period of time. he's going to look at a lot of documents. some he might find interesting, maybe he'll find none interesting, but for over a year people have asked me to declassify, so what i've done is i've declassified everything. he can look, and i hope he looks at the uk, and i hope he looks at australia, and i hope he looks at ukraine. i hope he looks at everything because there was as hoax that was person trade on our country. it's the greatest hoax -- excuse me. excuse me. it's the greatest hoax probably in the history our country, and somebody has to get to the bottom of it. we'll see, but for a long period of time they have wanted me to declassify, and i did.

>> is this about getting payback for the two years? >> this is about finding out what happened. i won an election. i won it easily, 306-223. i want it pretty easily, and i'll tell you what. this is all about what happened and when did it happen because this was an attempted takedown of the president of the united states, and we have to find out. why did somebody write a text message, the two lovers, that if she loses we have an insurance policy, an insurance policy to take down the president. we're going to find out what happened and why it happened. >> it sounds like you want payback. >> it's not payback. the i don't care about payback. i think it's very important for our country to find out what happened. >> are you worried that these investigations are hurting your re-election chances? >> i don't know, my poll numbers are very good. you don't like to report them. i guess we have a 48 today. we have a 51.

we have very good poll numbers considering. now, i have to tell you. if you people would give straight news i'd be at 70. i'd be maybe at 75, but you don't give straight news. you give fake news. with fake news i'm still winning with the election, but you if you gave serious good news the way you're supposed to i'd probably be at 70 or 57 bas75 bn the economy alone. go ahead. go ahead. >> i just spoke to prime minister modi and i gave him my warmest regards and congratulations. i just spoke to prime minister modi minutes ago and i just conveyed congratulations on behalf of our country, myself and everybody. he had a great election win. he's a friend of mine. we have a very good relationship

with india. >> on iran, sir, on iran. >> you always said you add mired -- >> i just want somebody that's going to be fair, and i think william barr is one of the most respected men doing what he does in our whole country. i just want him to be fair. i don't want him to be me or for anybody else. i just want him to be fair, and that's what he is, and we're going to find out what this yields, but i will tell you, declassifying, people have wanted me to do it for a long time. i think it was very important to do, and basically what are we doing? we're exposing everything. we're being a word that you like, transparent. we're being ultimately transparent and that's what it's about. again, again, this should never ever happen in our country again. thank you very much. >> president trump there talking

to reporters before boarding marine one. a lot to break down on what the president talked about. talked a lot about his to significance to authorize the attorney general bill barr to have sweeping power to review and sweeping power for him to declassify intelligence documents that were at the core of how the fbi's counterintelligence investigation into the trump campaign began. the president several times said he wanted to be transparent and many times said he had already declassified. he's given barr the opportunity and the right to declassify things and whether or not to be transparent we don't know. we have no idea what we're going to see from this, but a couple other quick points. he said there was an attempted coup and an attempted takedown. there's no public evidence of an attempted coup. there's some evidence of improper texts between ploys that the president says it part of a takedown. he says he likes theresa may very much, going to see her, the

prime minister that just resigned. spent months undermining theresa may and publicly promoting one of her rivals to become prime minister. he also said i don't know about the doctored videos of nancy pelosi. he pinned one atop his twitter page last night, one made by the fox business channel, but he says i don't know about the videos. >> he says he doesn't know about the video but now for two days he's been making the point of those videos calling her a mess and saying she has problems which is the intended message from these videos, so, you know, he was given a chance to distance himself from that, to -- to, you know, to -- to -- to cast doubts on that and refuse. the other thing that i thought was interesting there, too, in context is when he was asked about iran and the decision to move. what i think is a couple thousand troops, not 1,500 like he said into the middle east. we'll see what happens here. i mean, it certainly looks like a slow buildup, but now this is the second day in a row. he's indicated a reluctance to

do that. he indicated it in the roosevelt room and said he didn't want to and the decision came afterwards that he works and he got the sense just this morning here at that -- at that gaggle outside the white house that -- that he's not really all that supportive of this decision talking about they are there mostly protective and a relatively small number. you know. that will be obviously something to watch. >> definitely something to watch and whether there's a follow-up to go beyond 1,500, 1,800, to go beyond that. president there saying, and this is technical correct. he said bill barr is the most respected man doing what he's doing. we only have one attorney general, so he would be the most respected and least respected attorney general of the united states at the moment, but, look, bar -- i don't mean to make a joke about it because barr has called his own credibility into doubt but publishing a four-page letter that if you read the mueller report is completely out of context. bill barr is now in charge of something that may be healthy

and good for the country. go back and look at the beginnings of this counterintelligence investigation, take the name trump of it, a candidate for president and a campaign for president. we should have full transparency. we should look at that. if anyone did anything wrong they should be health any accountable but is there any trust in this town that that's what they are going to get? >> democrats are really worried and looking at how he handled his four-page memo describing the mueller report and they don't trust that he's not going to cherry pick information, declassify documents here and there, and have conservatives in his ear about what he should make public and with the president making this declassification push, this is a reversal for him. he said last fall he wasn't doing do this and all of a sudden this week he comes out with this. saw him lose two court cases this week in the democratic oversight battles, growing calls for impeachment so you're trying to see him shift that narrative to investigate the

investigators. >> the democrats can't see but the attorney general could see anything he wants. this could be very healthy if it was done in a non-partisan and transparent way. i don't think there's a sense in town that that's what's sglapg when you talk about changing the narrative, it's striking to me how much of the narrative is around 2016, happened three years ago. the president has a booming economy, running for re-election and i feel like we're always making this point, but he has a booming economy that any president would love to run on. he could be working towards an infrastructure bill, towards other accomplishments, even passing a sort of basic function of government, disaster relief bill, and instead you have him relitigating something that happened three years ago, and i think it speaks to their strategy, you know, as we've said before of motivating their base but it also feels very cynical to me on both side. i think there's a sense in the trump orbit that if they keep focused on talking about the

investigation that allows democrats not to talk about the things that they are passing or trying to pass in terms of their agenda in the house, and i think the democrats kind of see it a little bit the same way. if the president is fighting with speaker pelosi about the investigation, the possible cover-up and all these things and then he's saying that he's not going to be moving forward with any accomplishments that he could actually run on. it's a disservice to the american people. >> says you can't do both. again, i covered the white house when the president was impeached. they did things that was not pretty by any means, and they did do things. to the point about relitigating. the president said that he won easily. that all of this was a result of his critics, people who didn't want him to have power after an election he won easily. lost the popular vote by 3 million. won an electoral college vote so it wasn't's, a number of things to fact check. again the president's focus on this. let's go back and investigate the investigators at a time when he stonewalls, impedes, pick

your word, any ore oversight or investigation of him is an interesting contrast. >> we've seen attorney general bill barr do the bidding of the president on a number of fronts since the mueller report came out, really came out in front of the president's position and that's the fear from a number of democrats that bill barr will use this opportunity and all this great power that he has now to declassify documents and do the bidding of the president once again because the president has come out with his conclusion. he said there was spying against my campaign. these people wanted to do a coup against me and a takedown of the president and now bill barr can search through all of the intelligence documents to see if he can cherry pick the information to back up the president's claim and he's already backed up the president's claim that they were spying and there were improper origins and now he's looking to see the documents even if the full slate of documents paints a much more nuances picture. >> before we hear to bill barr, we expect to hear from the inspector general michael horowitz who is doing his own

investigation looking at some investigation and we'll see how that one plays out as well. mr. horowitz known as more of a fair broker, see how that one plays out. you mentioned people involved in the investigations, breaking news about one of the leading democrats involved in the oversight investigation of the president. the democratic house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler appearing to faint at a press conference. this just a short time ago. >> and i think that the congressman is right about that fact. you want some -- jerry. jerry, take a drink. you look a little dehydrated. you okay? you want to take a drink? how do you feel, man? you feel okay? >> what happened? >> you all right. >> drink some of this.

>> that's the new york city mayor bill de blasio trying to help chairman nadler or being unable to speak. they got him some water. the mayor believed he was dehydrated. cnn's sunlan serfaty joins us live from capitol hill. what will do we know? >> john, his office tells me that he is okay, but certainly this is a concerning moment, a very scary moment for the 71-year-old congressman, and you can tell the speed at which people responded in the middle of that event with bill de blasio today. his office tells me that he never fainted, that he is responsive and right now he's receiving a checkups, and they don't know exactly what happened, exactly what the problem was, but it, a, tells me

in nadler's office that they believe he was just dehydrated and the comments that he felt it was very warm in that room and bill de blasio noticed he looked a little faint and gave him some water to prop his electrolytes. we've seen jerry nadler, a very familiar face on capitol hill and the tv screens. he's chairman of the house judiciary committee really leading the charge on so many of the investigations into the trump administration. certainly going at a break neck pace. john? >> sunlan serfaty. we wish the chairman well and we'll keep an eye on that story in the hours ahead here. let's come back into the room. we're heading into a holiday weekend capping what's been a remarkable week in washington. the back and forth. she questions his well-being and needs an intervention and is a very stable genius and re-tweets a doctored video of her saying he didn't know anything about that as he leaves for this trip

to japan. again, i've been here a long time. i don't real -- i've covered presidents being impeached and i don't remember a week quite like this. >> seems like we're at a new low between the president and pelosi. she has gotten under his skin and has seen the turning point and debuted a nickname calling her crazy nancy pelosi, though he walked it back a little bit. it reflects the fact that she is intimidated and threatened by the speaker and unlike some of the other females in his orbit, hope hicks, kellyanne conway and sarah sanders, someone not working for him but against him and he doesn't know how to handle that. >> the personal drama and the result of the personal drama which is that it's a down that's just dysfunctional at the movement couldn't get a disaster aid bill through the house and couldn't get the next spending bill down. the president's u.s., mexico and canada trade agreement, wanted her with him on that and i bet

that's at risk. >> still relitigating 2016 when he has a 2016 campaign promise, you mentioned the trade deal, sitting there ready to go, and he spent the last two days carpet bombing the relationship with nancy pelosi. even with the farmers who this sort of thing is intended for. he had good news yesterday. he had $16 billion in relief granted for farmers struggling from his trade conflict with china, this was a good moment for him. had a very happy room of farmers, you know, ag secretary in there and it turned into, you know, a -- a -- almost a police lineup of his staff giving him affirmation of his discipline and calmness. >> it's a remarkable strange one to say the least. you guys, thanks for dealing with the rock 'n' roll of the hour just passed. hope to see you here sunday morning. dana bash starts after a quick break. have a safe memorial day weekend and spend a few minutes

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>> i'm dana bash in for brianna keilar. live from cnn's washington headquarters, breaking news from president trump himself. he says that he is giving the go-ahead for day digital troops to be sent to the middle east. he says it will be around 1,500 troops, taking what he calls defensive positions. >> we want to have protection in the middle east. we're going to be concerneding a a -- to be sending a small