sure, maybe it's just a result of bugs in the imaging system or atmospheric effects, but if there are aliens, let's hope they don't need tic tacs for their breath. jeanne moos, cnn -- >> what is that thing! >> reporter: -- new york. and thanks for watching. anderson good evening. thanks for joining us tonight. james comey speak out, joe biden is back on the campaign trail, and we look at why he seems to be more wholesale fund-raising than retail politicking. we begin tonight by keeping 'em honest. president trump back from his state visit to japan. whether it was the president's cup trophy presented just for him, the rounds of golf, or the audience with japan's new emperor, the trip was designed to flatter him and showcase u.s./japanese unity. instead, it seems to have showcased divisions inside the west wing over what the country's foreign policy actually is.

there's no academic question considering that the divide appears to be over at least two global hot spots, iran and north korea, and it's especially significant in that it is the president and john bolton, his national security adviser. his third national security adviser so far, who seems increasingly at odds with each other. now, you'll recall, he was passed over for the job once before in part, reportedly, because of his mustache. the president has been widely reported to not believe bolton looked the part. so he picked someone who would end up being a felon, michael flynn, and replaced him with michael mcmaster, who has a storied military career, but the president once said he looked like a beer salesman, and when he left, bolton got the nod. tonight, after the president's performance in japan, he's looking increasingly distant from the boss. here's bolton in tokyo watching as the president undercuts him on north korean missile testing, which bolton says violates a u.n. security council resolution. >> my people think it could have been a violation, as you know. i view it differently. i view it as a man, perhaps he wants to get attention.

>> the president went on to rapz diz about all the great beachfront property in north korea. a view bolton clearly does not share. never has, and the two differ on iran, as well, with the president talking tough in public, but counseling restraint behind closed doors, which should be mentioned, is certainly his prerogative as chief executive. it should also be said that presidents often see things differently from their national security advisers, sometimes even hiring them to play devil's advocate. that said, the president has now hired them. he's seen secretaries of state, defense, and u.n. ambassadors come and go. he's changed course so many times on so many issues, whether it's north korea, iran pulling out of syria, threatening to leave nato, that perhaps it's not really possible to say that he and ambassador bolton are truly at odds on foreign policy, because he so far has no real consistent foreign policy to be at odds with, rather than a preference for appeasing dictators. that's a question, at least, the other, of course, is what exactly did the president think he was getting in john bolton, who's been nothing, if not

consistent, and consistently hawkish over the years. now a fascinating piece called "john bolton on the warpath," dexter, thanks for being here. john bolton has always been john bolton. i mean, he's always said that north korea cannot be appeased, that they're not going to give up nuclear weapons. and what yet, there he is working for a president who clearly is trying to make a dea deal. >> i think it's a fundamental divide in the white house. bolton has publicly advocated attacking north korea and iran before he was national security adviser. he's called for regime change in venezuela. it's not clear that trump really buys into any of that. i mean, trump -- >> did he know that, do you think? >> i think so. >> somebody must have said to

him pip me him. i mean, he saw him on fox. my impression was what the president liked about him was how blunt he was. very, very blunt and plainspoken. but when you look at their two world views, they don't connect. >> you -- for your new yorker piece, you spoken to a western diplomat who knows bolton, and he told you, the trouble more bolton is trump does not want war, he does not want to launch military operations. to get the job, bolton had to cut his balls off and put them on trump's desk, which is quite a visual i don't even need to address. but bolton knew what he was getting himself into. >> i think so. i think so. i asked him about that. not that particular quote, but and he said, look, wherever you decide to get into government, you have to kind of decide you're not going to get everything you want. and so i'm not going to get everything i want. but i think in this case, it really is like a fundamental difference of -- >> right, president trump, you know, has been very clear on his criticisms, i mean, during the campaign, at least, of the iraq war.

previous to that, he was all over the place on it in public statements as a civilian. bolton has been clear as a bell from the beginning. it's, do you buy the argument some in the administration might make that the president wants to surround himself with lots of different viewpoints? because it doesn't seem like that. >> my sense is is that there's a certain tension between the two. i mean, consider, for instance, when bolton said the north koreans are in violation of the u.n. security council resolutions, bolton was correct. his analysis was correct. the president was just wrong. so, yeah, they're -- i think it's not ideal. >> it's also, it's one thing to have that discussion behind the scenes, it's another thing for a president on a foreign trip in front of john bolton and everyone else to say, some of my folks believe this, but it's not the first thing he said that kind of thing. he said that to vladimir putin about dni coastal. you write about the chaos behind the scenes under bolton. he's sort of -- you know, he's moving to try to keep his

influence and spread his influence. now, how does that work? >> i think what's interesting now in the administration is you just -- off big vacuum, basically. so there isn't a permanent secretary of defense. there's no u.n. ambassador. there's no secretary for homeland security. so the whole sort of field -- >> when you say it like that, it doesn't sound good. >> so the whole field of national security is, it's false to him. and i think all of foreign policy is essentially either him or pompeo, the secretary of state. and so he's got a lot of room to run. and there's a lot of -- so there just isn't -- there aren't a lot of people there who are kind of manning their posts. >> and also, even just in -- those are top positions you talked about. sort of in the state department, a lot of the -- you know, the positions moving downward, it's empty in many places. embassies overseas. >> yeah, there's so many vacancies in those jobs, both if the embassies overseas and in the state departments

themselves. that's because just really when the president took over, and then starting with rex tillerson and the secretary of state, there just was a kind of demoralization inside the diplomatic core. >> do you think he'll last? there's no way to know, but? >> you know, it's hard to say. but then you have to wonder if you're the president, who do you pick to replace him? you know, he's running out of -- he's running out of prominent people who will either work for him or who he's going to want. >> yeah, dexter, it's a fascinating piece in "the new yorker," thank you so much. having joined criticism for using a brutal dictator to attack a political rival, vice president biden, the president is at it again, this time either apologizing or gaslighting, you decide, quoting now from his tweet late today, "i was actually sticking up for sleepy joe biden while on foreign soil. kim jong-un called him a low-iq idiot, whereas i related the quote of mr. kim as a much softer low-iq individual.

who could possibly be upset with that?" . i don't know what that means. joining me now is dana bash and gloria borger. gloria, do you -- >> i don't know what it means either. >> am i an idiot? i don't know what it means. >> i think it was trump's attempt at sarcasm. >> always goes well on twitter. >> and it obviously didn't succeed and it wasn't funny. and he can never admit he did something inappropriate or dumb, so he has to double back and say, i'm going to make a joke out of it now, because that was a joke then, when it really wasn't, when he did this on foreign soil and praised a dictator and criticized a former vice president of the united states. >> it is quite the contrast to how the biden camp handled this, which was to wait until ft. wth president was back on u.s. soil to issue a response to the

president's comments. which some would look at as old-fashioned, respect. -- right, respectful. >> yeah, and it is intentionally to show a contrast. it doesn't take political analyst or somebody who has covered or worked in politics a while. it's just common sense that joe biden, his whole campaign is to return america to a sense of what he calls morality, doing things the right way, treating people appropriately, not to mention a big difference on policy. but it has been traditional for politicians to not criticize one another while on foreign soil. that has gone out the window on both sides of the aisle recently. but when you're running to get the nomination to run against donald trump, you want to use every tool you can to show and provide the contrast and show that you are a grown-up who understands the way things are supposed to be. so, of course he's going to wait. not just for him to get back,

but also for memorial day to be over, because that was another point of joe biden's criticism, not that he did it on foreign soil, but he did it on a day where thousands of people died in the war on the korean peninsula. >> yeah, i believe 33,000, if my numbers are correct. the -- it's an interesting response, though. it's also an interesting way of handling an attack from the president to essentially just like leave him hanging out there to not respond, which then, it becomes a back and forth and he's overseas and then the white house says, well, look, he's engaged in this, as well, to just allow his comment to just sit there smelling. >> yeah. smelling. absolutely. and it did. and also, not to have the response come from joe biden. it came, not from the campaign manager, but from the deputy campaign manager, as if they were like, this isn't even worthy of a response from the top person running the campaign,

but the second-to-top person, which is not joe biden. and they're demoting it. and saying, you know, we're tired of this, we're not going to pay that much attention to it, but privately, of course, they're all thrilled. because every time biden takes on trump, he makes -- i mean, every time trump takes on biden, he makes it a two-person race, which is exactly what biden wants. >> dana, president trump has gone flu three national security advisers. should we have any expectation that john bolton is going to be his last? i mean, dexter raised the point that, you know, who else is there in terms of somebody who is prominent, who has a name -- in the president's parlance -- looks the part and has credibility? >> no. i mean, we should have no examinations either way. we've learned that just not only on the national security adviser role, but several other, many administration.the but dexter is exactly right in his piece. i agree with you, was right on about the fact that bolton has always been a true believer. there is no gray.

it is black and it is white, especially on the issues of iran, but also north korea. and the fact that he agreed to go into the administration and was eager into the administration by all accounts, is just a different approach from what others who are saying, you know, i don't agree with this guy, i'm not going to get involved. he believes so much, john bolton, in himself, that he believes he can even try to change and successfully at least tweak the way that the president approaches these things. but i can tell you that i have spoken to a source who has spoken to the president in recent weeks and the president is actively badmouthing john bolton. this is even before the north korea thing. this is about specifically about iran, saying that he's worried that he just wants to start a war. this is something -- this is not exactly a difference of world view that should surprise anybody. >> right. >> but here's a question. did the president google john bolton before he hired him? didn't he know that he was this

hardliner, that he's an interventionist, the president, you could call, an isolationist. didn't somebody say to him, you know, this might not work out really well for you? >> but, you can make the argument that the president is his own national security adviser, his own communications adviser, i mean, that he feels that he's got this. >> and was his own secretary of state, one would argue, when tillerson was there. and told him, don't waste your time on north korea, and then, of course, he ends up summoning twice. and then tillerson is gone. he likes pompeo now. but i think that the president wants to be his own chief of staff, he wants to be his own national security adviser, he wants to be his own secretary of state. and there's a sense, kind of, i got this, because there's nobody around him to say, stop, there are no guardrails anymore. >> gloria borger, thank you. dana bash, as well. coming up next, we'll dig deeper into joe biden's tragedy, heavy on fund-raisers,

comparatively light on public appearances. now that he's back on the trail, we'll look at how it's been working for him so far and what the pitfalls ahead could be. and later, a family divided by the president's immigration policies and the 6-year-old child caught in the middle. his mom on the other side of the mexican border. (woman) paul, my husband and i need new phones and we're looking to save money. (paul) sprint has a great deal. double the fun. lease the latest iphone and get an iphone xr on us. (woman) the iphone xr has an amazing camera. get in here! (paul) oh. yeah. (woman) i'm switching to sprint. for people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay.com

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joe biden is back on the campaign trail and we're talking tonight about his choice of a schedule that one democratic strategist describes as see him less and remember him more. fewer appearances than his competitors, but plenty of fund-raising. today he was out on the stump in houston. cnn's arlette saenz is there for us now. so do we know why biden has chosen to only have 11 public events since launching his campaign? >> reporter: well, anderson, biden and his campaign have been very deliberate in how these events have all been planned out. you saw him do that early swing

through early nominating states like iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, and nevada, and also, those few stops that he's done in pennsylvania. but they've been structuring his campaign to give him time not just to connect with voters, but also to head out and raise that money. there's a lot of focus that's being paid to how much biden is going to be able to raise in that -- in his first quarter as a candidate. but biden really, his campaign doesn't think that he necessarily needs to be out seven days a week, partly because he's a known commodity. the american people know who joe biden is and he doesn't necessarily need to introduce himself the way that other democratic candidates do. but going forward, bydiden over the next month is expected to map out some policy ideas. being off the time gives him a little bit of time to structure all of that together. today here in houston he outlined his plan when it comes to education and he's also going to be spending some time going

forward preparing for that first debate which is less than a month away. >> arlette saenz, thanks very much. appreciate it. perspective now from the two davids. former senior obama adviser david axelrod and senior political adviser david gergen going back to richard nixon. david axelrod, 11 public events since launching the campaign a month ago, is that a winning strategy? elizabeth warren has had four public events on sunday alone zplp well, it's a winning strategy for now. i mean, i have to say joe biden has gotten out of the politics very, very fast. and part of it is that people see him as a guy who can beat donald trump. he's a comfortable figure and the democratic electorate is very focused on beating donald trump. so that has benefited him, but he cannot continue to run what amounts to a rose garden strategy. you've got too many competitors out there. and i think with biden, the real question is, he would be eight years older than any president

who's ever taken office if he gets elected. and there are real questions about that. and if you keep him in a candidate protection program this way, it just is going to exacerbate those questions. plus, voters in these early states, iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, they want to see you ask for their vote. they want to have that interaction with you. the other candidates are going at it full measure. and if he doesn't, he runs the great risk of losing the support he has. >> david gergen, in "the new york times," they point out that the seven words that are becoming very familiar from the biden team is that joe biden has no public events scheduled. i think david axelrod makes great points. the kind of -- the lack of joe biden on the trail, it also kind of avoids the issue of him making my gaffes and allows him to sort of, at this stage, maintain his name recommendation, his lead. >> sure. look, i think that he did have some early stumbles coming out

of the gate, especially with regard to anita hill and with regard to his relationship with women in general. but since then, he's run a very smooth campaign. and i actually think it's been a smart move, not to have him racing around the country. we have 525 days before the election. this is a marathon, not a sprint. >> david axelrod, does this help biden kind of stay above the fray of all the other democratic candidates and the potential kind of sniping at each other? >> well, without question. that's his strategy. and without them sniping at him. you know, his strategy has been to really jump over the primary process and preview the race with trump, as if to suggest it's going to be me and trump and let's get to the main event. and that's been a pretty effective strategy so far. >> reporter: david gergen, james carville was quoted in politico, taking issues with these criticisms saying, i'm quote welcome the biden's never been a candidate that can run on

excitement, he's a candidate that says, i'm human, you know me, i'm well-liked. does he have a point? >> yes, he has part of a point, but joe biden has never won with that kind of campaign, you know, that kind of campaigning. >> he's never gotten out of the primaries. >> right. he's never gotten out of the primaries. so i do think the time is going to come when he has to connect with the young people more, he has to connect with women more, and i think he has to connect with people of color more. and i think part of that is going to be moving from an aggressive campaign against trump to what is joe biden for? >> anderson, let me just say on that point, i think when he gets to that point, these speeches and these positions need to speak to the future. ting greatest challenge for him is to become a candidate who's plausibly of the future. right now, when you hear the limited number of speeches that he makes, you hear a lot of lines that you've heard for a long time. it's like -- it's kind of like a billy joel concert, you know, the best of the '70s, '80s,

'90s, 2000s. he's going to have to project something that suggests he's a leader for the future, if he's going to get, particularly these younger voters to become excited about his candidacy. >> by the way, billy joel has been selling out madison square garden for now like two years or so. but i totally see your point. i totally see your point. the last democratic candidate who tried to sort of play it safe, tried to ensure, he shouldn't make any unnecessary gaffes was the candidate who lost to president trump. does -- david gergen, do you think joe biden really knows how to run a campaign of the future? and how to run in this present? i mean, you know, running now is different than running four years ago and running four years ago was certainly, you know, or two years ago was a heck of a lot different than any other campaign. >> i totally agree. i think that is a big, big question, anderson. does he -- can he connect? can he be a man of the future? i think he can be the man who

shapes the democratic future. there are a lot of these other candidates running against him right now who hope to beat him, but they also want to stay on his good side, because one of them might be his vice presidential nominee. and by the way, they're all looking and saying, well, maybe in four years, if he is president, he'll be a one term, maybe, and i want to be out there and be in good graces with joe biden in 2024 when a big showdown might occur in the democratic party. >> david gergen and david axelrod, good discussion, appreciate it. just ahead, a fiery new op-ed from james comey. he doesn't just call president trump a liar, he backs up the charges from his opinion, as well. we'll be right back. last year, the department of veteran's affairs partnered with t-mobile for business. with va video connect, powered by t-mobile, vets can speak to their doctors from virtually anywhere, and get the care they deserve, without it counting against their data, so they can return to their most important post. soulmate,

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president trump has investigation treason and a n - coup. tonight, one of the men he blames for the alleged treason has had enough . james comey has fired back by a point-by point denunciation just published in "the washington post." he says that the president is a liar and he jokes that keeping the investigation hidden in the campaign makes it the worst deep-state conspiracy ever. however, he ends the column this

way. but go ahead, investigate the investigators if you must. when those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. there was no corruption, there was no treason, there was no attempted coup. those are lies and dumb lies at that. joi joining me now is josh campbell. also, james schultz, a former white house lawyer for president trump and a cnn legal commentator. jim, do you believe this was a coup attempt against the president? >> look, i think as american citizens, we all hope there was no coup attempt against the president, that there was no spying that was going on in the campaign. that there was -- that the fbi was acting appropriately. and i believe that officials are looking at that now and are going to come to their own determinations. it gets a little tiresome with the self-adulation and comey trying to portray himself as the paragon of ethics in this country. and if he really wants to talk about efficiency, michael horowitz, the person who's been the longtime inspector general at the department of justice was

very critical of how he handled things during the clinton administration. calling him things like insubordinate and serious errors in judgment were made. so for him to be on his high horse on this, if i were advising jim comey, i would tell him not to do it. >> josh, jim makes the accurate point that the inspector general was critical of comey in how he handled the press conference and the clinton stuff. would it be logistically possible, given how long of a bureaucracy the fbi is, to get that many agents, who, you know, have taken an oath to defend the constitution, to conspire to carry out an attempted coup as the president is alleging? >> well, you hit on it. and as james comey has said, as i've said, as other people have said, anyone with a brain can understand, this notion that there was this deep state cabal that was out to get the president, the president-elect of the time, doesn't survive the first contact with logic. all it takes is one iota of critical thinking to understand just how ridiculous this is. it's like a breeze on a house of cards, it comes crashing to the

ground. as comey mentions in his op-ed, if you were to believe there was a cabal out to get him, why didn't they leak that his campaign was under investigation for allegedtize ed ties to a h foreign intelligence service. they didn't do that. they conducted their investigation in secret. one other point he makes, he makes many of them, but one thing he talks about, which is a lot of people accept now, if you go back and look at the fbi's actions in 2016, they were element universally detrimental to hillary clinton. these were the same people working the investigation. if their goal was to get donald trump, why did they take actions that then cost hillary clinton the election? the whole thing is a house of cards. the worst thing about it is that this campaign of attack is meant to manipulate the public, nothing more. it's shameful. >> jim, what about that argument, that if they were out to get the president, that they -- that somebody could have leaked that he was under investigation? >> look, i'm not an fbi investigator. i don't know what the fbi knows and doesn't know. and quite frankly, none of us do at this point in time, as to what was going on -- >> we actually do, we have the

mueller report, so we actually -- >> no, we do shave the mueller report, which found that there was no collusion and there was nothing with the -- no russian interference that was conspired -- that was a conspiracy with the trump campaign. although we do know, and that the russians did interfere with the election, did attempt to interfere with the election, and will likely try to interfere with the next election. and it's a good thing that this has been uncovered. i think we can all be happy that there was no conspiracy with the campaign. similarly, we'd also like to be happy that -- and pleased that there's no -- no effort undertaken to subvert the president's campaign. and that's something, obviously, that's being looked at by horowitz. and i think we're expecting a report. and i just don't understand -- >> but if the inspector -- >> why now does comey come out right now? >> well, he's got a paperbook ba out. he wants to be part of the conversation, probably for a number of reasons. but jim, you pointed to the

inspector general report about comey, accurately. which shows, i think, that you have a sense that the inspector general is reputable. there is an inspector general investigation already going on. why does there need to be this other one with the attorney general, whose record on what he chooses to tell publicly and what he doesn't is certainly, at least, under question? >> it's under question by congress, because he didn't release 6e information -- >> why does there need to be another report? >> and let's get straight there, there's not a lawyer in his right mind who thinks it's good to release 6e information publicly. >> why does there need to be a second investigation? even after the mueller investigation, we have the inspector general investigation, and now this. >> let's remember, it's the person that -- remember how we talked about usurping power and the fbi director usurping the power of the attorney general? that was also in horowitz's reports. it's the attorney general's job to investigate crimes in this country, investigate what goes on in this country as it realities to surveillance and

other things. it's not necessarily the sole job of michael horowitz -- >> okay, i'm going to jump in here. >> it's important to note here -- >> josh? >> it's important to note here that the reason we keep talking about spying and this nonsense is that the president and his allies keep bringing it up. there's no ed out there that the fbi acted illegallily. i've been long on the record saying, we need to investigate what the fbi did in a democracy, you can't have a law enforcement agency with these kind of powers without having someone looking over their shoulder. the problem is is that the president and his allies are muddying the water now, before this independent inspector general has even completed his work, which is a pattern. we saw it with mueller, we're seeing it now, it's shameful. >> i'm out of time. >> let me close with -- >> very quickly. >> okay, strzok was the one that wrote those e-mails.