tv Inside Politics CNN July 22, 2019 9:00am-10:01am PDT
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welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. the president launching new attacks on four democratic congresswomen of color. he tweets they are racist and he adds not very smart in his view. it was a racist tweet trump tweeted that escalated this fight. one member of the squad vowed she's not going anywhere, quote, until i impeac this president. plus a political crisis in puerto rico. protesters reject the governor's pledge to not run for re-election next year. they say he must resign now for offensive tweets and broader corruption problems. and a supreme court farewell. the president and first lady
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paying respects to the late justice john paul stevens, as is the justice who took his seat on the high court when stevens retired a decade ago. >> if ever there were a case where a funeral should become a celebration of a life well lived, this is that case. he lived a life of integrity and kindness and decency and service. >> we begin the hour, though, with the fight the president simply doesn't want to end. today the president again in a back-and-forth with the so-called squad. very racist troublemakers is how he describes these congresswomen of color in tweets this morning. that tweet would normally be boilerplate in the president's outright racist attack on these lawmakers last sunday. but the circumstances today make it extraordinary. the president sent that tweet 10:48 a.m. eastern time after his motorcade left for the supreme court and a public viewing of the late justice john
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paul stevens. it also came just minutes after one of the four members, michigan's rashida tlaib, said this at an naacp event. >> yeah, i'm not going nowhere! not until i impeach this president. there's all of this young women and it's beyond just the four of us. the squad is all of you. and i can tell you there's -- you are all the squad, trust me. >> with me this monday to share their reporting and insights, abby philip, michael bendinger with "the wall street journal," rachel bade and amy walter. you see the new tweet from the president, again sent in the limousine on the way to the supreme court. you see congresswoman tlaib there. we'll get to congresswoman ocasio-cortez over the weekend saying similar things. is it a fair statement both
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sides like this fight? >> absolutely. when we talk about both sides, let's make clear one side of it, the radical left right now, is the squad. i'm not sure how much pelosi likes this fight or presidential candidates like this fight. but right now this is a back-and-forth that lets the president gets his message out and these four congresswomen get their message out. and that seems to be where we're at right now. i know on the president's side, he's capable of putting anything out on twitter in a limousine or in the oval or in the residence. the next moment that i'm going to be watching for in this back-and-forth is his next rally next week in cincinnati august 1st. this radical left argument is going to be a continuous one for him. whether he will -- whether there will be another "send her back" chant and what he'll do in response. >> it's trademark trump as he continues fights and tries to shift the terrain of the fights. he's calling them very racist. he started this with a tweet that is undeniable erasist.
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go back. so back to where you came from. all three of them citizens. so he tries to keep stirring it up so we sometimes forget where it began. >> and this is the risk for the president and at this rally, the question as michael said, is going to be will his supporters buy into this new narrative that the white house and the president's aides try to spin the president's racist tweets as, that this is about the ideology of these four women or will his supporters say actually it's about sending her back. will this become now a staple of the trump campaign as other chants have in the past. and the risk for president trump becomes can he actually make this a viable political strategy or is this going to just persist as a real part of his campaign where even republicans think that this chant, what the chant is, is an echoing of the president's tweets, goes too far. he might have control over the message right now or think that he does, but i think that these
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rallies are an unpredictable environment and his supporters really tap into what they think the president is really about. we'll find out whether or not what they tap into is what he said originally, which is they should go back to the crime-infested places from which they came. >> and the president on the one hand under a lot of pressure said he didn't like the chants and wish they hadn't done it. and he claimed, and you can watch the video, it was 13 seconds. he didn't try to stop it. he did wait 13 seconds and then started to speak. the question is, it's an excellent point, he's since called them patriots, called it a record crowd, defended his crowd and said they were great americans. the question is what happens next time. the vice president of the united states, with major garrett, trying to say this won't happen again. >> major, the president was very clear. >> was he? >> that he wasn't happy about it and if it happened again, he might -- he might -- he will
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make an effort to speak out about it. >> he will make an effort to speak out about it? >> that's what he already said. >> so we shall see. >> he might maybe speak out against it was the response from the vice president. look, if you saw sunday, the pushback not just from the white house but other republicans, including republican members of congress, including representative cheney from wyoming is you all media, et cetera, are making this racist. this happens to republicans all the time, that any time a republican criticizes somebody who is not white, we get charged with being racist they say. so that is just an old tactic. we're not going to buy into that anymore. he is actually, which i think is the reason why you saw this tweet going out they're racist, this is the way we get all the time, any time we make criticism we get charged with this. so the president is saying
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something we can't defend that part of what he's saying but we have been in this place before. >> republicans seem to be trying to salvage a strategy they thought would work, which is attacking these four women and talking about their socialistic ideologies or policies that they like. trump obviously upended that with his tweet last week and all throughout this week. they're trying to reset this but some of them are worried there is poison in the well. and that's why you see them blaming the media. >> which is why words matter. i understand the point from congresswoman cheney. i would be happy to jump in front of the train if democrats would say you just criticize the green new deal, that's not racist. you just criticized medicare for all. you called out what congresswoman omar said about israel. the president said go back to where you came. go back, which is racist, which is why alexandria ocasio-cortez over the weekend said his inner voice snuck out. >> once you start telling
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american citizens to, quote, go back to your own countries, this tells you that this president's policies are not about immigration, it's about ethnicity and racism. and his biggest mistake was that he said the quiet part loud. that was his biggest mistake, because we know that he's been thinking this the entire time. >> so she is more than happy to continue to engage in this. congresswoman tlaib, infamous for using the word expletive, do the broader democratic party think this is a conversation they want to continue. yes, they like to call out the president when they think his behavior is racist or race baiting, but do they want to get painted as liberal as these congresswomen. amy klobuchar, from the home state of ilhan omar -- the
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appellate of t president of the house has the prime minister of pakistan arriving at the white house. there you go. we don't expect the two leaders to talk here but we'll watch as they go in. reporters should get invited into the oval office. we could get that a little bit later. the prime minister of pakistan you see here, the administration hoping this meeting will lead to more aggressive pakistani efforts to combat extremism operating welcome bao operating within the borders of pakistan. you see the two leaders shaking hands here. waves and smiles and there they go. back to the congresswoman who has been most targeted by the president, ilhan omar of minnesota, who has said some anti-semitic things and other controversial things, but saying go back is not the way to address those things. listen to amy klobuchar, democratic senator, with robert costa of "the washington post." >> are you close to her
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politically? are you friendly with her? >> i know her pretty well. she was a legislator in our state. we have some disagreements politically, i made that clear. but that really isn't what the issue is right now. >> if you were the democratic presidential nominee, would you invite congresswoman omar to speak at the democratic national convention? >> i wouldn't commit to anyone speaking right now at the democratic convention, well, except barack obama. >> it is a reflection there that some democrats, the race is an aside. the racist tweets of the president aside are concerned. if you paintiyou paint the face party as liberal as these four congresswomen are, the president will use the term socialist. you know next year, whoever the democratic nominee is, there will be liberal activists who will say get in the president's face by inviting the squad to the convention. >> there's no question that this is trump's turf. he has moved the conversation away from the things democrats
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actually wanting to talk about, which actually are policies. if you go out there, that's what they want to talk about, whether it's health care, college education or whatever. now they're talking about the president's racist tweets. they have to engage on this because for their party, it's about the sort of values of their party. but it is a concession to the president to be talking about that and talking about in a lot of cases his temperament and not talking about issues. as long as that goes on, i think it's going to create uncomfortable moments for a lot of democrats, including people like amy klobuchar who are just trying to get out of the conversation. they don't want to talk about it. >> are we sure that it's trump's turf? it was in 2016. he got beat in the popular vote but won the electoral college. in 2018 this kind of behavior is what turned off the suburbs, particularly moderate women. you wrote about this last week saying, yes, the president still has that problem. the question is can the democrats give a positive or
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step in? >> i agree with abby about the idea that it takes it on the president's terrain in that this is what he likes to talk about. he's not disciplined enough, though, to drive a message. but where democrats get in trouble is they respond to his unpopular tweets or policies, that policies that happen to be just as unpopular or also unpopular. getting rid of i.c.e., making illegal border crossing not a criminal offense but a civil offense. when we get into questions about what to do about health care, that's a whole other issue. but certainly on immigration, the other health care piece is providing undocumented immigrants with access to health care. so a lot of democrats i talked to last week for this piece would say if you look at what democrats did in 2018, even many liberal democrats, they ran incredibly focused campaigns on the issues that they wanted to talk about. let the president talk about what he's going to talk about. he's going to pull folks like us
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into that news cycle and the twitter world into that cycle, but voters aren't paying attention. they have sort of tuned all of this out. >> and that's exactly why speaker nancy pelosi, if you go back just two weeks ago before the president tweeted this racist tweet, i mean the conversation was about how pelosi was putting these four women in a corner and kept saying very dismissive things about them. they don't have a lot of power in the house and that's why you're seeing them lean into this attention. this is good for their brand to fight back against the president and say we are -- you know, this is america now. we are the faces of america. we show the diversity of this country. and so, you know, that's -- but this is why pelosi this whole time has been putting them in a corner. >> it's also good for them politically too, especially if you look at somebody like rashida tlaib who might have a serious primary challenge in her district, to really cement herself there. >> the enemy of trump, if you will. we'll see if reporters might get into the oval office in a few
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minutes. protests in the streets today in puerto rico. the activists say the governor must go. so far, he says no. hi, i'm joan lunden. when my mother began forgetting things, we didn't know where to turn for more information. that's why i recommend a free service called a place for mom. we have local senior living advisors who can answer your questions about dementia or memory care and, if necessary, help you find the right place for your mom or dad. we all want what's best for our parents, so call today.
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resolute, announcing he will resign his position as head of his party and not seek re-election next year, but he says he will not step down right now as governor. mass protests began a week and a half ago. 900 pages of offensive private text messages were made public between the governor and members of his inner circle. those officials openly bashing fellow politicians, the media and celebrities. the group attacked journalists, trying to discredit their stories. they threatened to turn opponents over to the police. derogatory sexist remarks about women and homophobic opinions about the singer ricky martin. one of the officials targeted is the former speaker of the city council and interim president of the latino victory project. she said even though she was attacked personally, this fight is not about her. >> this is not about me. obviously this is an attack on all women and this is an attack and basically an attack on the people of puerto rico in general. it was basically the breaking
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point. it was about the sexism, misogyny and homophobia. and the use of government resources tone rich your friends. use of power of the government to go against your opponents. this is really everything was exposed in that chat and i think people have just had enough. >> nick paton walsh is live on the ground in san juan. nick, tell us what you're seeing and hearing from these protesters today. >> reporter: jae yeah, john, the governor is most likely in that building behind me. as you see, they are all out on the main expressway into san juan coming here, we are hearing from some protest organizers. now, it's one hell of a long walk for them and may take a number of hours to get here but my god the fury will be substantial. the governor making clear he is not resigning and that has put more people in the streets, hoping the sheer numbers will in fact change his mind. but we spoke to the mayor of san
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juan earlier about what really comes next. it's a democracy, there should be a vote but they want him to leave immediately. here's what she said. >> the crimes committed by the governor are so horrendous that it cannot wait. >> is that impeachment? >> it is impeachment. it is impeachment time. he's obstinate, his mental health isn't there. he doesn't want to resign. it's impeachment time. >> reporter: so will that happen? well, there are three legal experts looking to see if the chat group was enough to launch impeachment. then it will go to congress. that will take weeks. that's not enough for the crowds on the way here now who want him gone now. but they're still talking about more protests later in the week, so maybe even they don't think he's going tonight. he's made it clear he won't stand in the next election. but looking at the numbers of people in the streets, he's very likely to lose that hands down. so really is today's scene going to be enough for him to start rethinking his position. john? >> whatever your position, that is a remarkable display of democratic activism.
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nick paton walsh, appreciate the reporting, keep us posted. this has become an issue in the presidential campaign as well. let's get to that in a moment. just when you look at these pictures and if you go back through the timeline, the last couple of years have been very tough for the people of puerto rico. september 2017 obviously hurricane maria. you had the governor and you just saw the mayor of san juan calling for impeachment. the fbi arresting puerto rican officials for corruption. the leaks of these horrendous text messages, plus open talk of corruption and criticizing your political opponents. you're the governor, you've now said i won't run for re-election, i'll step down as head of the party. are you going to try to govern in a bunker? >> right. this is going to be very difficult, especially if this continues at this rate. at some point there's the breaking point as we've seen. but from the reporting down there, the idea that an impeachment process, even if it started, that might be enough to maybe tamp down some of the
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protests, at least the processes going forward. but this does not seem like somebody who's interested, though, the governor, in saying you're right, here i go. >> certainly not at the moment, it's not seen that way. the question is can the pressure mounti mount. does pressure from presidential candidates in the united states something the governor will listen to? you had tulsi gabbard who went down there. let's listen, actually. tulsi gabbard and julian castro saying, governor, you've got to go. >> i'm doing what i can to lift this up to the national conversation and calling on leaders in the united states of america to stand with the people of puerto rico against corruption and for the people. you're right, this is not about partisan politics. >> he can't possibly be effective anymore. there comes a time when you're in power when you need to acknowledge that for the benefit of the people that you represent, you need to step aside. >> several other democratic candidates as well saying the same thing. there's the obvious issue right
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before you. again, go through some of these text messages in this chat group and it is reprehensible for anybody, let alone a governor. so there's the issue before you saying you've got to go. let's be honest about it also, there's also pretty fierce competition among these democratic candidates for president to court latino voters. >> and also to show they're not standing idly by while this behavior, the messages and the corruption, which is a real issue, goes on. this is as much of a defensive posture from some of these democrats as it is an effort to actually push him out. they have to distance themselves from this. and i do think the pressure will matter. it's not clear how long it will take, because i think we've entered this political world in which people think they can just survive indefinitely, and in some cases they actually can in the face of controversy. but those kind of demonstrations, you don't see that every day. that's a clear sign that the people of puerto rico are
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willing to basically shut it all down to get him to leave office. >> i think that's right. the governor here is signaling some retreat, right, but without showing a path forward for himself. and whether or not tulsi gabbard will be sort of the convincing voice for him to step down, she and others, that is going to be encouragement for the protests to continue, which is where the pressure will rest. >> the pictures of the every day men and women in the streets are the most powerful and they have been at it for 12 days now. so can they sustain it and does the governor decide he can govern in such a situation? senator elizabeth warren says we're on the brink of another financial crash, comparing presenting day to the lead-up to the 2008 crisis. why some on wall street are saying she's not so right. (snoring) what's going on? it's the 3pm slump. should have had a p3. oh yeah. should have had a p3. need energy? get p3. with a mix of meat, cheese and nuts.
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senator elizabeth warren out with a new warning today. she says an economic crash is coming. she also claims she has a plan that could prevent it. in a new media post, the 2020 presidential contender writes i warned about an economic crash years before the 2008 crisis but the people in power wouldn't listen. she goes on to add now i'm seeing serious warning signs in the economy again and i'm calling on regulators in congress to act. the massachusetts democrat bases her prediction on a number of reasons, including growing household debt, corporate debt and what she calls a manufacturing recession. warren also faults president
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trump for chaos in the form over the trade war with china as well as his comments on brexit. cristina alesci joining us now. senator warren did get out ahead of the 2008 crisis saying it was coming but there is some pushback now saying she may be alarmist. >> two things warren is doing, one playing off the ptsd the country suffered post financial crisis and number two, she's proposing some solutions that actually might create another crisis. now, let me explain each of those. number one, she points to several data points that say the alarm bells should be ringing for a financial crisis. well, one of the things she points to is the level of corporate debt. now, while risky loans to corporations have increased post financial crisis, the ability for those companies to keep up with payments has also increased. so we're not seeing the kind of default rates that should be alarming at this point. all i'm saying is that elizabeth
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warren is shaping this conversation in a way that's politically convenient for her. sfr as far as her policy proposals, she is recommending lowering rents, offering affordable child care, offering free tuition at colleges. all of that costs money and the american public should be asking how do you pay for it? one way would be to increase taxes. another way is to increase government debt. this is the issue the american people should be focused on because many experts say if we don't get control of our debt over the next ten years, we could be facing a fiscal crisis. and that would be extraordinarily harmful to our economy. >> i've been here long enough to remember when politicians of both parties talked about the debt. it was a long time ago. appreciate the reporting there. i don't know if it's the good old days, but they're the old days anyway. we'll leave it there. number one, senator warren would push back that that kind -- the
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metrics used on wall street, the metrics used by the bankers, they were wrong last time, i'm right this time. i'm not smart enough to know who's right or wrong, but as she lays this out, what is her play in the primary? >> this does two things, right? first of all, it undercuts trump's economic message. the economy is doing really good right now. things are humming along and people feel good. for a warning that this is coming, she's trying to undercut that. in terms of the primary, this just again bolsters all these policy proposals that she's put out left and right. a minimum wage increase, cancelling student debt, free college, child care, and one of her pet projects, reining in wall street. so this is to her political advantage to peddle this even though all these things would cost a lot of money and increase the national debt. >> at a time when you see her in fierce competition with her fellow progressive bernie sanders. it's interesting when you look into the weeds of their support,
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she is getting more affluent supporters. is this a play for a blue collar person who might have still a hangover from 2008 and beyond? >> it seems like she's doing two things. one is focusing on the primary debate and once again put the focus back on the things that she loves talking about. the system is rigged, it's rigged against you and i want to be able to have people talk about that, like all of us around this table, rather than tweets or whatever else. the other reality is we know that the economy is the issue that at large people are talking about as a benefit to the president. but we know a couple of things. the first is this correlation between how people feel about the economy and their partisanship, they're very closely aligned. it's very hard to separate your partisanship to your feelings about the economy. if you're a republican, you think the economy is good. if you're a democrat, you think it's bad. this happened under obama too.
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it's hard to get people to focus on the future and not the reality. remember in 2012 when president obama basically had to convince voters that i know the economy is not great, but it could have been so much worse, right? and that was going to be the bumper sticker in 2012. it could have been worse, which is a hard thing to sell to voters. >> it's interesting, though. for different reasons president trump raises the same kind of alarms and is pushing fed all the time to cut rates. he wants juice in the economy heading into his re-election year. he doesn't want whether it's a global slowdown or whatever else. but the president today warning hey, jerome powell, cut rates for me so the economy doesn't slow down going into my re-election. >> right now for the white house there are two wild cards on the economy. one is -- that they can control. one is the trade talks with china and the other is what the fed does. so that's why you see trump with some pretty nuanced language on
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the trade talks and why you see an aggressive push relentless on the fed to keep rates low is that he believes that that will keep the economy humming long enough to get him through the next 18 months, 15 months. >> warren seems to be tapping into a razor's edge argument. it's people feel good about their current financial standing but when they look into the future they worry it might not be that great. in the near future or even the distant future as they start to think about their kids' college education, the long-term impact of debt on their families. so that is a real message that democrats need to figure out how to tap into. the idea that the american middle class needs to feel more secure than they feel right now, some of that is ptsd from 2008 but some of that is also because the economy is going well, but i think people feel like they have issues with debt, the rising cost of college is unsustainable, health care is
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unsustainable. those are real issues that they can message around to counter trump's everything's great message. if people were being honest, it probably doesn't feel right for a lot of households. >> one of the great questions for the democratic debates next week. how do you make an economic argument against the president? that's why debates are fun. up next, a budget elephant still in the room. congress and the white house this week, they need to make a dole. h -- deal. you try hard,
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$1.3 trillion budget agreement that would include a two-year suspension. nation's debt ceiling. speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary steven mnuchin speaking several times over the weekend trying to work out the details. if no agreement is reached the united states could run out of money before lawmakers return from their august recess. phil mattingly joining us live on capitol hill. good luck, my friend. where are we? where are we and who is the key player? >> reporter: we've been through enough of these over the last two and a half years to recognize that nothing actually matters, you can be on the brink of a deal, on the cusp with a deal, just about done with a deal which is what one source toelds told me and it doesn't matter until the president signs off and that they don't currently of, at least negotiators who have been working the last week and a half or so. there's an agreement on the top line. parity and increases in spending for the defense side which republicans are keen in and on
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the domestic side which democrats want. that two-year suspension. debt ceiling is huge, it takes a catastrophic crisis off the table until after the election. in terms of offsets, that's been the big back-and-forth, spending hawks want a lot of spending increases offset. about $75 billion is where negotiators ended up. one thing republicans are seizing on is at least a verbal agreement or acknowledgement from speaker nancy pelosi that they will not seek to put in poison pills, as they call them, into their spending measures, including restricting how the administration could move money around for the wall, other issues that they care about on the policy side as well. that's the top lines of the agreement. again, nothing is official until the president signs off. we're told the president has been briefed on this deal. watch every utterance, including the ones he's making right now and in the days ahead. that will determine whether or not this goes through. right now negotiators on the hill, steven mnuchin, the
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expectations setting. the president says robert mueller, quote, should not be given another bite at the apple. special counsel's testimony, the president predicts, will be bad for him and the phony democrats in congress. for democrats, the hope is that mueller, the movie, makes a bigger impact with the american public than mueller, the book. but the bigger the impact may be bigger the potential problem for the house speesaker, nancy pelo. she wants to avoid impeachment because she worries it plays into the president's hands. last week the number of democrats who say impeach now grew to 88. also jerry nadler, who invoked impeachment, the standard for it, on fox news yesterday. >> i think there is very substantial -- well, the report presents very substantial evidence that the president is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, and we have to present -- or let mueller presenting those facts to the american people and then see where we go from there, because the administration must be held accountable and no president can be above the law.
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>> as we await this big moment, the chairman, a pelosi deputy, has been moving away and away and away and away. when the chairman of the judiciary committee says even before mueller testifies he believes you've met high crimes appendicitis mi and misdemeanormisdemeanors, do open the gate for those democrats? dangerous, right? >> absolutely. democrats in the house look at nadler and take cues from him in terms of how they talk about this on television. nadler is in an interesting position in that he privately supports impeachment, he just won't say it publicly because he doesn't want to go up against speaker nancy pelosi. right now he has a primary challenger back in his district who is actually centering her whole campaign on the fact that he will not start impeachment proceedings. so he's getting heat on the left.
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ri richie neal who has been in charge of trying to get trump's tax returns and has taken his time is getting heat in his own district and also faces a primary challenge. what you're seeing is there's a lot of frustration in the party, not just people who want to begin impeachment proceedings, but people who feel that their oversight doesn't have a strategy, that they're all over the map. and so that, again, raises the stakes for wednesday when mueller appears. they have got to try to show something. but the reality is that mueller -- we know mueller. he doesn't make a lot of news. so this could be a bad position for the democrats right now. >> he doesn't want to make a lot of news. the former chief of staff to him at the fbi said i don't think anybody loves going up there and sitting through hours of testimony and hours of speeches that maybe result in a question or not. he didn't love it. a very fair and accurate characterization of what house committee hearings are like. so democrats are trying to lower expectations. but robert mueller is a seasoned prosecutor who's going to get asked questions. even if he's reading from his report, that's pretty damning.
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sorry to the trump supporters. if you read the ten areas where he lays out potential obstruction and the things the president did, the things the president asked, the things the president said, to hear that as opposed to reading it could be very powerful. >> i don't know, i'm skeptical. i just think opinions are baked in. we've already seen the number of people who do say i do think that the president did something wrong or i don't think he's telling the truth. but, i don't think we should impeach. there are plenty of people in that category. i don't know that this will do anything to move those folks. >> i do think the people that are hoping that the mueller testimony does convince pelosi and her team that impeachment is the way to go here will probably be disappointed. but i also think the democrats have kind of one goal out of this hearing and that's to get a clip of mueller with a question of did you give -- did you clear president trump of obstruction? no. and then that will be -- that will be the price of admission.
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>> that's great for a political ad. the question is does it let the genie out of the bottle with pelosi trying to keep it in there. if you look at the committees on the judiciary committee, 15 of the 24 already on record saying impeach. on the intelligence committee, 7 of 13. so the math there, the question is if mueller is compelling or even just gives that on camera, can pelosi keep her hand on the bottle? >> she has been able to keep her hand on the bottle after the mueller report was released. we know this information. it is out there. i don't know that mueller will reveal anything new. so i think pelosi's task is going to be the same. but frankly, the real question is will this be an effective hearing? are democrats going to ask effective questions of robert mueller, who is not only seasoned, but he is meticulous about how he approaches the subject matter. and they're not going to be able to, as lisa monaco said, give a five-minute speech and maybe end
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with a question and get something good out of it. >> and can republicans make their case about the origin of the investigation and other things. as we go to break right now, a day to honor the late supreme court justice, john paul stevens. >> may the example of his abundant life, his patriotism, and his legacy of public service, continue to inspire generations to come. at te, for $40/line for four lines, it's all included for the whole family. like unlimited with netflix on us. and now with each new line, get one of our latest smartphones included. $40/line for four lines and smartphones are included for the whole family.
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supreme court justice john paul stevens being honored one last time at the institution he served for nearly 35 years. 12 former law clerks carrying his casket while dozens of others who worked for him over the decades lined the steps leading up to the court's great hall. stevens will lie in repose ahead of funeral services tomorrow. he died last week at the age of 89. justice alelena kagan was appointed to the stevens' seat back in 2010. she spoke on behalf of her colleagues, current and past. >> he was a brilliant man. he thought that no person, however high and mighty, was above the law, and he insisted that the law and the legal system treat every person however weak or defenseless with dignity and with fairness.
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>> justice stevens, a navy veteran, will be laid to rest at arlington national cemetery tomorrow. that after a private funeral. thank you for joining us today on "inside politics." see you back here this time tomorrow. brianna keilar starts right now. have a great day. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. we start with new comments from president trump. we are waiting to hear from the president any moment now. he met with pakistan's prime minister at the white house. plenty on the agenda, including regional security, the fight against terrorism, and tensions over the administration's decision to cut off billions of dollars in aid to pakistan. let's go to cnn's kaitlin collins at the white house. what are you hearing about this visit between these two leaders? >> reporter: well, the president just took a ton of questions from reporters, about 40 minutes worth of questions, sitting in the oval office with the prime minister of pakistan. and now after saying just last
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