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joe biden's back on the campaign trail, and we'll look at why he seems to be doing more wholesale fund-raising than retail politics. we begin tonight by keeping them honest. president trump back from his state visit to japan. whether it was the president's cup trophy created just for him to present at a sumo match, 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 three-star h.r. mcmaster, who

has a storied military career, but the president once said 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 talk about all the great beachfront property there is in north korea and spoke of kim jong-un as if he were a fellow real estate tycoon, not a bloodthirsty dictator. 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 three of 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 has been nothing, if not consistent, and consistently hawkish over the years. p perspective now from dexter filki filkins. author of 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 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. i mean, he saw him on fox. >> he saw him on fox. and i think, my impression is 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 spoke to a western diplomat who knows bolton, and he told you, i'm quoting, the trouble for 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 he said, well, look, whenever 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. >> i -- 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.

>> right. >> his analysis was correct. the president was just wrong. >> right. >> so, yeah, i think -- it's not ideal. >> it's also -- i mean, 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 that's not the first time he said that kind of thing. he said that to vladimir putin about dni coats. 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? >> well, i think what's interesting now in the administration is you just -- you have a big vacuum, basically. so, there isn't a perment sec d 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 falls 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. i mean, sort of, in the state department, a lot of the -- >> oh, yeah. >> the positions moving downward, it's empty in many places. embassies overseas. >> yeah, there's so many vacancies in those jobs, both in the embassies overseas and in the state department 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? i mean, 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? >> right. >> 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.

>> dexter, thank you so much. >> thank you. 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 and many other things whereas i related the quote of chairman kim as much softer low iq individual. who could possibly be upset with that. i don't know what that means. joining me is dana bash and with me here, as well, 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. >> i didn't go over so well. >> always goes well on twitter. >> always goes well. and, obviously, didn't succeed and it wasn't funny. and of course, he can never

admit he did something wrong that was inappropriate or dumb, so what he has to do is double back and say, well, of course, i'm going to make a joke out of it now, because that was a joke then, when, of course, it really wasn't, since 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, essentially, wait until the president was back on u.s. soil to offer an official response to the president's comments. which some would look at as old fashioned, respectful, you know -- yeah, respectful. >> right. and it is intentionally to show a contrast. i mean, it doesn't take a political analyst or somebody who has covered or worked in politics awhile, 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 just on the first, yes, 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. >> yes. >> the -- it's an interesting response, though. it's actually an interesting way of handling the 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, you know, 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 through, as we were talking about with dextxter, the 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 had 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 other roles in the administration. 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 to go into the administration, by all accounts, it's 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 the 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 i mean, you know, you can make the argument the president is his own national security adviser, his own communications adviser, that he feels 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 campaign strategy, 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.

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you ever wish you weren't a motaur? sure. sometimes i wish i had legs like you. yeah, like a regular person. no. still half bike/half man, just the opposite. oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top? yeah. yeah, i could see that. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. 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 public appearances than his competitors but plenty of fund-raising. today, though, 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, biden over the next month is expected to focus on mapping out some policy ideas. being off the trail 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 analyst david gergen. david axelrod, i mean, 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 >> well, it's a winning strategy

for now. i mean, i have to say, joe biden has gotten out of the blocks 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, quote, 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 any 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. >> david gergen, james carville was quoted in politico, taking issue with these criticisms saying, and i'm quote egg, biden's never been a candidate that's run on excitement, he's a condition that says, i'm human, you know me, i'll 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. i think the 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. >> good point. >> i totally see your point. the last democratic candidate who tried to sort of play it safe, tried to ensure, she didn'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 may occur in the democratic party. >> david gergen and david axelrod, good discussion, appreciate it. >> thank you.

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, best friend, or just dad. the va provides the care, t-mobile provides the coverage. with priceline, bundling our lowest prices on flights, hotels and rental cars means you spend less time planning and more time travelling. we like that! by the way, these chairs are ours. everyone is already sitting. by the way, these chairs are ours. when you start with a better that's no way to treat a dog...

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president trump has repeatedly called the russian investigation treason and a coup. tonight, one of the men he blames for the alleged treason has had enough. former fbi director james comey has tired back in a point by point denunciation in an op-ed 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. joining me now is josh campbell. former special assistant to comey and a former fbi soup visery special agent. 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 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 announcing the clinton stuff. would it be logistically possible, given how large the 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 th president, the president-elect at 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 alleged ties to a hostile foreign intelligence service? they didn't do that. they conducted their investigation in secret. which is how counterintelligence investigations work. one other point he makes, he makes many of them, but one thing he talks about, which a lot of people accept now, if you look back at the fbi's actions in 2016, they were almost univer 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 have 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 out. he clearly has a book, he wants to be part of the conversation, probably for a whole 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 6-e information -- >> okay, 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 6-e information publicly. >> so, 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. >> josh? i want you to respond and we have to go. >> 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 is no evidence out there that the fbi acted illegally. and i tell you, as someone who is now in journalism, you're not going to hear me saying we need to trust law enforcement at every turn. 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 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. the page/strzok messages came from strzok. they weren't written by a republican operative. they weren't written -- >> what does that have to do with anything? you mention the name of these boogiemen, strzok and page. i tell you what, let's come to an agreement. let's let the inspector general do its work -- >> jeff campbell -- >> thank you. >> -- nothing wrong with the inspector general doing his work. a lot more ahead, including the story of a family divided after the trump administration's immigration policy. i'll explain why a mom living in mexico, the father and a child who is serious ill here in the united states. ur brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall. - learning from him is great... when i can keep up! - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory.

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and big savings when you switch. that's verizon. roxana: when i got into teaching, it was this idea of really transforming our schools. marisa: one of my biggest responsibilities as a teacher is to serve as an advocate for my kids. newscaster: hundreds of teachers are hitting the picket lines. newscaster: thousands gathered here. rosanne: we need smaller class sizes. angelia: more counselors and more nurses. roxana: we have to be able to invest in our young people. angelia: every student has a right to quality education. ever: no matter what neighborhood you live in. roxana: our students don't have part-time needs, so they can't have part-time solutions. rodney: because we know quality public schools...

roxana: make a better california... marisa: for all of us. president trump talks about an immigration crisis in the united states. and for many on the southern border, it is. but for others, just not in the way the administration characterizes it. our randi kaye tonight with the story of a separated family. they are not migrants, but for now, they are a house divided. >> jump, jump, jump. >> reporter: moments like these for 6-year-old ashton rochester and his parents are precious. but this togetherness in mexico won't last long. >> i miss my family and it's

very hard for me to stay here without them. and i know they need me. so it's hard. >> reporter: ashton's mom, cecilia gonzalez, lives in mexico, but her husband, jason rochester, and their son, live more than 2,000 miles away, in roswell, georgia. when they got married 12 years ago, jason knew cecilia was undocumented, having entered the country illegally back in 2000. but wasn't worried. then came campaign 2016 and donald trump. >> but we have some bad hombres here and we're going to get them out. >> reporter: in the united states, were you afraid you were going to be arrested, or -- >> yeah, yeah. >> she was terrified of being profiled. >> reporter: terrified of being arrested in front of her son, cecilia tried to make things right and got a work permit in 2015, effectively putting her on i.c.e.'s radar, so she self-deported nearly a year and a half ago, hoping to start the process of becoming a legal citizen. trouble is, she says her lawyer

didn't explain that she couldn't return to the u.s. for at least ten years, maybe even forever. that's despite being married to an american citizen with a son who is also a u.s. citizen. >> we told him that mommy would be home soon. but we lied. we hoped that she would. but it wasn't -- it wasn't something that we could control. >> reporter: did he -- did you explain to him why she had to leave the country? >> we told him. mommy made a mistake. >> reporter: mommy made a mistake. cecilia felt she had to leave, fearing the policies of a president her own husband helped put in office. you supported donald trump in 2016.

why did you support him? >> i made the decision to vote for him for my moral values. >> reporter: jason was on board with the president deporting hard criminals, but says he never imagined trump would target immigrants like his wife, cecilia. >> i don't have a ticket, a traffic ticket, nothing. >> and we didn't consider her to be a bad hombre. >> reporter: complicating matters, last year, at just 5 years old, ashton got kidney cancer. he needed surgery, then chemotherapy and radiation. he had to do it all without his mom at his side. she was refused entry to the u.s., even to be with her son during treatment. >> it was terrible. terrible to don't be with them in these hard moments. >> he used to break down and cry. he was like --

he'd say, i don't think mommy's coming home. and i couldn't tell him any different. >> reporter: meanwhile, except for a few visits a year to mexico, ashton only sees his mom on facetime, in the morning and at night. >> my dream was to take him to school, and i'm not able to do that. and it really breaks my heart. >> reporter: you can't make him breakfast or take him to school. >> no, no, i can't dress him, i can't -- i mean, it's very hard to me. >> reporter: now back at work in georgia, jason is desperately trying to find a way to bring his family back together. >> i miss you a lot. >> i miss you too, baby. hopefully we can make it work. i'd love to get you home soon. >> reporter: and ashton is working on it, too. he and his kindergarten class sent this book of letters to the white house, lobbying donald trump. >> reporter: this is what your class made? >> it's like, president trump. >> reporter: ashton hopes the president reads his letter and that the white house answers his prayers.

first, tell me what the picture shows. >> it's me crying. >> reporter: there's the tears. >> and i'm standing up, and there's tears with puddles. i want mom. >> reporter: to -- >> mommy to come home. i miss my mommy. >> so, randi, has the family heard anything back from the white house or anyone else? >> reporter: nothing at all, anderson, from the white house or the president. in fact, when ashton was sick and hospitalized, his father actually tweeted a photo of him and tagged president trump, pleading with him to let his mom come and be at his bedside, at least. no response and no response since that book of letters and ashton and his kindergarten classmates was sent to the white house. and anderson, i want to be really clear. cecilia knows that she made a mistake. she said, if she had a chance, she'd actually apologize to the president, but she says that her son needs her and this is actually hurting him the most.

jason, the father, says he doesn't want special treatment. that's not what he's looking for, but he does think that there should be a better policy. he thinks people like his wife who are married to a u.s. citizen, have a u.s. citizen child, they have a job, they don't collect welfare, they've never committed a crime, should be given a priority and be allowed to figure out some sort of path to citizenship. he says this is destroying his family, given that cecilia may never actually be allowed to enter the country legally ever again, anderson. >> randi kaye, appreciate it. thank you. a family divided. coming up next, an update on dangerous weather, tornado warnings in kansas and new jersey. to a single defining moment... ...when a plan stops being a plan and gets set into motion. today's merrill can help you get there with the people, tools, and personalized advice to help turn your ambitions into action.

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got some breaking news right now to tell you about. a tornado described by a chopper pilot who saw it as a mile wide hitting east central kansas and northern new jersey as well. let's check in with the latest to ivan cabrera. evan, what's going on? >> we've been tracking this tornadoes a mile wide as you said. but looks like minutes before this thing was supposed to hit kansas city it lifted off the ground thankfully. but looks like some towns to the west of kansas city did not fair all that well. and some reporters are

describing some towns as completely leveled here. in just the last minute the tornado warning has been lifted for kansas city. however, the threat for tonight is not over because we still have that tornado watch which means conditions are favorable for additional tornados to form heading into the next several hours. i do want to take you into the northeast because the threat is not just today across the central u.s. we have tornado warnings 10, 15 miles to the northwest of newark. this likely will weaken before it hits new york city. but looks like 67 mile an hour winds can't be ruled out as all of this tracks to the southeast. and this storm has a history of producing damage as well. by the way in the last 30 days over 500 tornados in the u.s. we have done that except for four

years from 1950. this is the track of the storm. about 9:28 that is when the storm is going to arrive in new york city likely with the damaging winds. so watch out for that. and tomorrow more severe weather on the way. >> we're going to continue to keep an eye on those storms throughout the evening. let's check in with chris. chris? >> could you do what amanda eller did? >> 17 days eating bugs and, no, probably not. >> i don't think i have it, no. i think i'd like to say i could, but you and i have met so many of these people and they always have the simple answers like amanda says i chose to live or i had to keep, the people who tread water 24, 30 hours after they fall off a cruise ship, her story is amazing. we're going to look at one it of the congressman that's holding up this relief bill.

why? republican, democrat -- why he says that democrats runs for president need to do some homework before they talk about the '94 crime bill. he was there then and he'll talk about the significance now. coming up what are the nine scariest words the president's re-election campaign could be faced with. rudy giuliani is here and he wants to help. what's the unpretickable former mayor up to now? find out. i had a heart problem. i was told to begin my aspirin regimen, and i just didn't listen. until i almost lost my life. my doctors again ordered me to take aspirin, and i do. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. listen to the doctor. take it seriously. last year, the department of veteran's affairs partnered with t-mobile for business. with va video connect, powered by t-mobile,

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time now for the ridiculist, and tonight comes pro bono from the president's legal esquire. the president's long time friend and legal whoopee cushion may or may not be found playing sherlock holmes in ukraine now says he is eager for a role in the re-election campaign. he says we'll see where they have holes and need help. i'm available to do a lot of it. first off, i don't doubt he is available. the market for his services screaming and saying stuff that isn't true is limited and the president has most of that covered anyway but that's not to say rudy giuliani couldn't be once again be an in demand surrogate. like for example then citizen trump had a long history of not only making charitable donations which we now in itself screams

incr incredulity but doing so honestly. >> i'm going to mention it. this is a man with a big heart that loves people. all people. from the top to the bottom to the middle to the side. >> who wouldn't believe he made anonymous charitable donations. it's not like he bought a 6 foot tall portrait of himself with money from his own so-called charitable foundation, a foundation that has since closed down amid a new york state investigation. why dwell on the negative? that actually happened. speaking of money another thing mr. giuliani brings to the table is blurting out crimes. remember when all the president's allyis were denying he had anything to do with the hush money payment? not jewgiuliani.

he showed up and tossed that grenade right into the wind. >> the president repaid it. >> he did? >> there's no campaign finance law. >> zero. >> zero. it's like oh, yeah, like that one. here's another one, the moon, it's made out of cheese. i'm talking 40% romano, 60% cheddar and the clintons have been covering it up since '87. google it. that doesn't sound like him. i don't know what that was. i also love how hannity was trying to clean it up in realtime. doing the nancy grace move, cut his mike, just cut his mike. nancy, i miss you. perhaps his most valuable quality at least as far as the president is concerned is just go back on television and claim he didn't say anything. and it's not limited to hush money. rudy has range. >> i never said there was any collusion between the campaign or people in the campaign. >> yes, you have.

>> i've seen that expression on chris cuomo's face before. it's the expression you get when you, a, lie to his face or drink all of his protein shakes. not that i have done that. it's all blitzer. i replace them. no surprise rudy giuliani didn't get that bologna past chris. it remains to be seen what if any meat he'll be slinging in president trump's 2020 campaign. he will surely now remain high atop the menu on the ridiculist. i want to hand it over to chris. >> it's not cheddar. i would have been provalone. if it was rudy. well-done as always, my friend. you can have whatever protein shake you want. i am chris cuomo. welcome to prime time. republican sabotage is afoot in the house. we have a member of congress holding up the disaster bill. he wants to tell us why he is doing the right thing in his opinion and we will test the case. on the democratic side, what's the bigger risk to joe biden?