welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. president trump's post-impeachment score settling rattles career prosecutors at the justice department. but gets mostly a shrug from congressional republicans. his former chief of staff says there's no one left at the white house who will challenge the president's rash behavior. plus, on to nevada. a new spanish language ad for pete buttigieg. new immigration questions for amy klobuchar. and a sharper tone as the democratic campaign shifts west for contest number three. and don't forget michael

bloomberg. he isn't on the ballot in the first four contests. but he says there's clear proof that he is the strongest democratic contender. >> he calls me little mike, and the answer is, donald, where we come from, we measure your height from your neck up. if he doesn't mention you, you've got a big problem. but the president attacked me again this morning on twitter. thank you very much, donald. >> back to 2020 in a minute. but we begin the hour with president trump. his instincts and the wrecking ball-like impact of his post-impeachment actions. the president who once said he could shoot someone in the middle of fifth avenue and get away with it is now directing fire of a different sort of those he sees as his enemies. the short list, firing an impeachment witness from his national security council months ahead of that colonel's scheduled reassignment. attacking the federal judge presiding over the trial and now the sentencing of trump ally, roger stone.

pulling the nomination of the top return who oversaw the stone prosecution. and praising his attorney general for, quote, taking charge and overruling career justice department lawyers who said stone should spend nearly a decade in jail. it is retribution and retaliation in plain sight. not to mention actions that obliterate the idea that justice is supposed to be blind and free of political interference. democrats are livid. but ask a republican to weigh in? and mostly what you get is, "not my problem." >> what do you think? do you think it's a smart idea? >> i'm not the president. >> should the president even be weighing in on a case involving his friend? >> i am not somebody that is going to tell the president what to do. >> reporter: the president's former chief of staff says one big issue here is in his view, there's no one left inside theest with wing willing to stand up to the president. more proof today that loyalists are what the president demands. cnn confirming that hope hicks now returning to the white house as a counselor to the president. she will report to presidential son-in-law, jared kushner.

let's get straight to cnn's caitlkaitlan collins live for u the white house. kaitlan, bringing back hope hicks, the president getting his way again. >> reporter: but she is coming back to a very different white house than the one she left in 2018, when there was a different chief of staff, different top officials in the west wing, and that was when the mueller investigation was still underway. but we have now been told by multiple sources that hope hicks is going to be returning. she'll have a different title, as well. she was the communications director when she left the white house and she's been working for fox out in l.a., and now she's going to be coming back as counselor to the president, reporting to jared kushner, but what we're really told is that as the president is moving past impeachment, on to this re-election effort that you're seeing, starting to play out, she wants people that he can trust around him, and hope hicks is one of those people. now, what's interesting is they actually had a little bit of some distance between them after she moved out of the white house and went to l.a. they didn't speak very often. she testified they had only spoken about five tone times in

the year and a half since she had left the white house, but now she will be coming back. and john, we should note that she's coming back at a time that there's another departure happening next door in the treasury department, and that's just jessie lew, the person we've withbeen reporting on, a former u.s. attorney who oversaw that prosecution of roger stone and several other cases that stemmed from mueller's investigation. she's the one who had her nomination for a top treasury job pulled this week. she was supposed to be in her confirmation hearing today. and i'm now being told by a source that she resigned, effective immediately last night from this job that she was holding at the treasury department, just really on a temporary basis, until she got confirmed. but now that her nomination has been pulled, she is resigning from the administration overall, john. >> loyalist in, those who the president thinks are in his way, out. kaitlan collins, appreciate it, live at the white house. with me at the studio, julie pace with the associated press, aisha rasco, karoun demirjian of

"the washington post," and cnn's abby phillip. it's interesting, hope hicks comes back in, the president knows from her role in the campaign, even before that in the trump organization, that she's on his side, very close to jared and ivanka. at the same time, the president is having a fight to someone else who used to be close in the west wing, his former chief of staff. john kelly giving a speech and some remarks in which he defended colonel vindman, the national security aide, who testified in the impeachment proceedings, was supposed to leave soon and the president decided not soon enough and had him escorted out of the white house. john kelly says this. he did exactly what we teach them to do, from cradle to grave. he went and told his boss what he had just heard. we teach them, don't follow an illegal order, and if you're ever given one, you'll raise it to whoever gives it to you that that is an illegal order and then tell your boss. kelly is a former marine general. the president quickly responding this morning, when i terminated john kelly, which i couldn't do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head. being chief of staff wasn't for him. he came in with a bang, went out with a whimper.

but with so many exes, he misses the action and just can't keep his mouth shut. it goes on from there. drama. >> a lot of drama. and john kelly, when he was chief of staff, was trying to put some guardrails around this president, which is part of the reason that that relationship didn't work. and now you see the president entering this new phase, where, you know, he looks over the past year and he sees no punishment through the mueller investigation, no punishment through -- permanent punishment through the impeachment process. republicans in congress standing by him. republicans out in the country standing by him. his approval rating, in fact, ticking up a little bit, according to some surveys. so in a lot of ways, it's no surprise that this is a president who is feeling emboldened, who is feeling like he can be even more aggressive than perhaps we have seen over the past three years. >> and john kelly is saying, in addition to what i read about colonel vindman, if he were there, he would stop the president from doing some of the things we've seen in recent days. that has been a line, he told the president, don't hire a "yes" man or you'll get impeached.

>> i mean, i mean, so he does have that forum, john kelly can say that president trump was not impeached while he was there. i'm sure that some people would have questions about some of the decisions that were made. and i don't know that anyone can really control president trump. the thing of it is, even with his approval rating going up slightly, some polls are showing that he's kind of in the same level. it seemed like during the impeachment trial, at least, he seemed to be pulling back a bit. he wasn't doing all of these bold actions, even with his tweets, they were mostly retweets. he wasn't doing as much as he's doing now. and i wonder, does that have an effect on his poll ratings, because normally, when president trump is really out there, driving the action, doing things that presidents normally would not do, that's when his approval ratings start to go down. and there's a reason why you normally would have guardrails in a white house, so things that like getting impeached don't happen. like, that's the -- that's the risk with taking the guardrails off. >> it is the risk. and yet at the same time, there's so many of these

outrages that i think one of the things that frustrates democrats and one of the things that leads republicans thinking, it's safe to just not answer questions, turn, look the other way, say, not my problem, say, talk to the president, to not challenge him when, yes, there are a lot of outrages, but the ones in recent days, meddling with the justice department? i mean, that is a ruby red, thick line that you're just not supposed to cross. >> right. and it's the latest norm that's just completely out the window, and yet you're seeing a lot of the republicans on capitol hill sort of hide behind the doj statement saying, we were going to do that anyway, even before the first tweet came out. so you've got basically this confidence that something else will come around the corner that will distract us all from what the actual thing is. and frankly, once you've been through an entire impeachment process and an acquittal, things do seem somewhat smaller in comparison, even when you're talking about basic judicial independence. so i think that's why you're going to see this discussion continue, but the main question really is how much are potential

voters' ears opens to this still? and how much are they absorbing as a crisis and shock to the system or potential threat to the system, and yet just the next thing and fine, my life hasn't changed that much, so tell me what really affects me at home. >> bill clinton goeets on a pla with loretta lynch during the impeachment investigation, every republican says, burn the town down. the president of the united states tweets to the justice department, he says he asks -- he told them, he tweeted, i want you to do this, they did it. now he's attacking the federal judge for overseeing the sentencing of his friend, roger stone. and one of the issues in the stone trial was, did he lie about telling the president -- tipping the president off about wikileaks and those things john attorney general of the state of texas, knows something about it or should know something about the law enforcement sy this and >> i have confidence in the judge who's going to actually impose the sentence. i'm confident the judge will do the right thing. the jury found him guilty of a couple of crimes.

and the judge will assess an appropriate sentence. >> what you don't get is, i'm confident the judge will do the right thing, and add, and the president did a wrong thing here. you just don't hear that here. that the president must stop. >> yeah, no, they don't think that he should stop doing anything. they're perfectly fine -- >> they think eshe should, theye just not willing to say so. >> the reality is, they have every opportunity to do what they did for the first two years of the trump administration. they're not doing that anymore. they're not doing the, i don't agree with the president part anymore. and that's a choice that republicans have largely made that they're living with right now. i mean, let's take a step back and reflect on the sheer number of people who worked for this president. who do not work for him now, and are now saying that he has routinely wanted to or has done illegal things or unethical things while in office. john kelly, re-electix tillerso bolton. there are a lot of people out

there who republicans in congress have, you know, went to bat for when they were in the administration. and they are now ignoring all of these people who are coming out and saying, we thought that this had crossed the line. and i think that this is -- where we are with the republican party is that they have crossed that line. they are now fully behind the president. they will not say a cross word about him, because he's been impeached and acquitted. he is running for re-election. and they all have to run with him. >> that's the last part is critical. it's an election year and they know if they fight with him, he fights back with them. they also know that they rise or fall, most of them -- no ticket splitting left in america -- most of them rise or fall with him. a conversation we will continue. up next, we shift to the democratic race and the unorthodox candidacy of michael bloomberg. so unorthodox he doesn't spend much time on the other democrats. he wants to pick a fight with the president.

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to plain right his strategy of skipping the first four democratic contests. those are all in february. instead, bloomberg is banking on making a big splash in march. >> i don't know that you can see very many presidential candidate here in winston, salem. i believe the voters in north carolina deserve just as much attention. especially because this is a swing state that we need to win in november. and we have momentum. i guess you can look at this crowd and say, all the candidates would kill this big a crowd at 7:00 in the morning. >> the bloomberg campaign said they had to change venues for that event because it needed a bigger space. those who laughed off this bloomberg strategy are now taking notice, especially voters loyal to the struggling joe biden. a source close to biden saying that bloomberg is a threat, and if the former vice president doesn't bounce back in nevada

and south carolina, quote, there's also going to be people looking for off-ramps. i know's jeff zeleny joins us live from raleigh, north carolina, where bloomberg is set to speak in a few minutes. it's inescapable, jeff, that there's a connection between biden and bloomberg. >> reporter: john, there's no question. michael bloomberg is always seen as the insurance policy for joe biden if things didn't go well in iowa or new hampshire. now some democrats are wondering if it's time to cash in on that policy. you can see the crowd behind me gathering here in the raleigh train station. a few hundred people or so. and they are eagerly anticipating the former new york city mayor. this is his third stop of the day here in north carolina. he doesn't just happen to be in the neighborhood, john. he's here today because early voting is starting in north carolina. of course, north carolina one of those 14 critical super tuesday states. but there's already considerable back and forth between joe biden and michael bloomberg. just this morning on "the view" a short time ago, joe biden was essentially saying that, look,

he's been vetted and it's time for others to be vetted, as well. talking about some of those old comments about stop and frisk, about red lining, so we are about to see this contest be incredibly engaged. michael bloomberg, as of now, has been calling the shots. he's been controlling the message through an extraordinary amount of television advertising. $350 million, he's spent or reserved in terms of time. no one else can compete with that. but he's largely controlled the narrative. that will change, particularly if he joins the debate stage next week in las vegas. he still must qualify for one national poll to do so, but john, this is about to become a clash here between biden and bloomberg and i can tell you, talking to voters here, they are eager to hear michael bloomberg's message, because they believe that he can beat president trump. but john, it is still less than three months -- this campaign is less than three months old. it's hardly a start-up. they have more staffers already than barack obama had at the end of his 2008 campaign. the question, of course, is the

candidate. will candidate bloomberg be able to jump into this fast-moving race? we'll find out. john? >> we'll find out. and have to wait a little bit to see the votes, but as you mentioned, early voting underway in north carolina. jeff zeleny, appreciate that from the trail. let's bring into the room. before we talk, to jeff's point, vice president biden raising questions. audio came out jed of michael bloomberg defending, almost bragging about the stop and frisk policy. saying crimes in minority neighborhoods, what do you do, throw them up against a wall and frisk them. he'll have problems with the democratic base there. the red lining story, associated press reporting, great reporting on how he blamed the fiscal crisis in 2008 on the easing of mortgage lending and other lending policies there. last night, he got heckled on the stop and frisk issue. i want to see, there's a headline of the cnn story that matched the ap reporting there. you judge a candidate sometimes about how they react. a, from questions about his record and "b" when those

questions come from voters. >> -- terrorizing inner city youth. stop stop and frisk. >> okay, okay, thank you. that's all right. [ audience reacts ] >> thank you. i just wanted to thank him for making me feel like i was at home. >> now, he's going to have to answer the question substantively in interviews, if he gets up on the debate stage. but you do see a guy who served three terms as new york city mayor that's been yelled at. some candidates will get flustered when a heckler gets up. i'm not saying he answered the gentlemen's question, because he didn't, but he handled it well. and his campaign and bloomberg himself of course know that this is coming. they have been prepared for this. but it is going to come pretty aggressively and it's going to come on multiple fronts. you're going to get it certainly from candidates who are watching the tremendous amount of money he's putting in and watching numbers in the polls tick up.

and the couple of videos that we've seen so far on both the red lining and stop and frisk, those are just the beginning.

marginalized he

calls him less energy than jeb bush. and in the 2016 primaries. and if you're bloomberg and biden and even newcomer, hadn't cast so many tough votes and in ways, you're protected. there's a flip side to that. >> yes, i think that that is very true. but i do think that cycle, what is surprising to me and what is the controlling narrative throughout all of this, is how little voters are being swayed by actual people's -- people's

actual records. they want to see people's interpersonal dynamics and who seems strong and who seems tough. and i wouldn't be surprised if what we actually end up seeing on a debate stage is not as much sparring -- it's not about the substance of the policy debate that happens between the candidates, but about how candidates handle incoming. and just -- i'm just saying, be on the lookout for that, because i'm not necessarily convinced that people are going to say no to mike bloomberg because of a well-known record of supporting and pioneering stop and frisk in new york city. people already know that. and yet, he's rising in the polls really, really rapidly. so that's the "x" factor. >> and the spark lined up some african-american endorsements. join cnn next week for a series of town halls with the top 2020 democratic candidates. you see them right there live from vegas, next tuesday and thursday night only here on cnn. up next, democrats leave iowa and new hampshire behind

and look west to nevada and the all-important latino vote. hey hun,

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[ fast-paced drumming ]

. the next contest in the democratic nomination chases nevada, nine days from now. the first opportunity for the candidates to appeal to a much more diverse electorate after overwhelmingly white electorates in iowa and in new hampshire. let's take a look. this is from the general

election, november 2016 exit polls, who voted in the race. you see 62% white, but 18% latinos, 9% of the population of nevada who voted in 2016 were black. 6% asian. 4% other non-white voters. a much more diverse electorate than we've had so far in iowa and new hampshire. in the democratic caucus back in 2016, again, 40% of the electorate was non-white. the biggest chunk latinos, but also a sizable chunk of african-americans asian and other non-white voters. four years ago, in the democratic race, senator sanders had the edge over secretary clinton in that contest. and he goes in now hoping senator sanders does that that loyalty remains and that he can win nevada. the competition is fierce. nine more days to fight it out, including a new spanish-language ad from mayor pete buttigieg. [ speaking in foreign language ]

>> he also speaks arabic and norwegian, but he went with -- it's smart, if you can speak the language, especially when everyone else is saying, you have no relationship in our community, you don't have high visibility in our community. sanders is is a household name because he ran four years ago and ran on the national stage. that is one to have the defining questions for buttigieg and klobuchar, can you prove yourself in communities of color and nevada is your first chance. >> this is their first time to show and prove, that they can show that what happened, especially for buttigieg and for klobuchar, but to show what happened in iowa and new hampshire, it means something, that this is giving them momentum that people are going to look at them and say, you can win and i will, you know, put my support behind you. i don't know how that actually ends up working out, but it's time for them to actually show that i could have a path. and if they can't show it in nevada and if they can't show it

in south carolina, when do you show it. >> and this is the point that the biden campaign makes, which is that you can't be the democratic nominee, nor should you be, they argue, if you can't have a good chunk of support from both black voters and hispanic voters, because of how important they are to democrats in a general election. i think one of the reasons you're seeing some of these other candidates stay in the race is that it's really unclear where biden's standing is going to be. that to me is just one of the huge questions right now. can he go into south carolina and emerge like the strong candidate with black voters, like he has looked for the past year. or can some of these other candidates make up ground? and i think bernie sanders, you know, one thing you have to give bernie sanders credit for is he looked at his 2016 loss to hillary clinton and he learned some lessons from it. and he has spent a lot of time over the past four years, because he's essentially been running for the past four years, trying to build relationships with black voters that he didn't have last time, trying to build on the relationships with hispanic voters that we saw in the nevada caucuses in 2016. >> right. that's true. he has been doing this for four years and they found out he is

underestimated way too often about his persistence and learning lessons. he learns lessons and he's a smart politician. one of the things that happens, we talked about this about mayor bloomberg, you're running in a campaign, especially if you start to get momentum, as amy klobuchar has coming out of new hampshire, people start looking at your record. lo and behold, back in 2006, now as she tries to court latino voters, she voted for a fence along the border. >> i do no believe that we need more resources at the border and that that includes a fence. what we have now, we have people waiting to come in legally. thousands of people waiting to come in legally to this country, and we have people coming in illegally. that's not right. we feneed to get order at the border. >> again, again, these things come up and people say, aha, let's just rewind the tape and go back in context to the times, she can defend her vote. israel is to defend her vote. any vote anybody casts is fair game in politics. at the time, the border fence

act passed the house, passed the senate 80-19. senators biden, senator clinton, senator obama, and senator schumer among those voting "yes." it was in vogue at the time, and now, of course, it's in outrage. that's the way politics works. >> and the question is, will voters even hear about this? maybe they will at the debate next week. but we always have to be careful that we're talking about things and our voters are even hearing about it? will it matter in that sense? for amy klobuchar, i do think one of her challenge that is unlike the other candidates and particularly pete buttigieg, who is in a similar position with non-white voters, she does not have a whole lot of infrastructure on the ground to counteract the broad messages that people are hearing on television, whether it's through ads or on a debate stage. and so she's a lot more vulnerable to messages like that getting through to voters, if they do get through. and she doesn't have a huge campaign behind her to give them another option. and i do think that she has --

and you'll hear this from all the other campaigns. they're very eager to get to this point, because they know that she hasn't been scrutinized. she has not been treated like a front-runner. and she's going to get that treatment starting wednesday morning. and it's going to be really tough for her. she did a lot of things, a lot of senators did over the years, that were perfectly normal and probably not unusual. but now, in this democratic party, some of those things are going to become problematic. >> s there. it was just a big issue in the day. and that's why i mentioned the votes that happened in the senate. a lot of those latino voters are part of the unions, especially in vegas, the culinary union is the strongest union in vegas. if you look at the numbers, 28%, 28% union households voted in the 2016 caucuses. they went for secretary clinton over bernie sanders, which is why he's trying to make inroads again. he goes back in. the culinary union came out on new hampshire night with a pretty sharp memo, saying, medicare for all, bernie sanders' position, would take away the health care plans that

the unions have negotiated with their employers. this has become a huge fighting point. mayor buttigieg trying to jump in and take votes away. senator sanders says, wait a minute. >> when you're in nevada, you talk to a lot of folks, including workers in organizations like the culinary workers' union and other labor organizations that have fought hard for good health care plans. and senator sanders' message that he's going to erase those plans and replace them with a single government plan for everybody is going to be, i think, a very tough sell. >> the truth is, i have far more union support, to the best of my knowledge, than mr. buttigieg does. >> many of the unions are supportive of medicare for all, because it is comprehensive health care. >> this is going to be -- this has been a defining issue since day one. that nevada, especially because of the prominence of the union in vegas, this is going to be a big test of who's right here. >> it is going to be a big test. and it's a big messaging test too for the various candidates.

look, it's funny, you were talking about immigration a second ago, but sanders voted against an immigration bill in 2007, because of labor unions, and these things are never purely siloed by themselves. the dirty secret of all of this is a medicare for all bill going to be able to easily get through congress? probably not. which means that the labor union's health care plans will be just fine, as they are for a while until we get there. but how can you still deliver your message to the people with kind of like the grain of salt that has to come along with the realism of how much a president can do on this front and how can you spin that argument? citiest this this is a test of how well they'll be able to verbalize the pitch without the fear. >> nine days. coming up for us, joe biden defends rival pete buttigieg amid anti-gay attacks from the right. when it comes to using data,

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2020 presidential hopeful pete buttigieg getting some backup today from one of his democratic rivals. this after conservative talk show host rush limbaugh attacked buttigieg. listen. >> they're sitting there and they're looking at mayor pete. 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of south bend, loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage. there may be some democrats who think, that's exactly what we need to do, rush. get a gay guy kissing his husband on stage, either ram it down trump's throat and beat him in the general election. really? having fun envisioning that. >> today on "the view," joe biden condemning those comments and standing up for mayor buttigieg. >> my god. >> yeah, i know. pathetic. >> but, no, it is part of the

depravity of this administration. the idea that, you know, pete and i are competitors, but this guy has honor, he has courage, he's smart as hell. >> i guess, not to be surprised by this, but it's reckless, it's homophobia, and it's from a guy who has a following, who just got a medal from the president. >> just got a medal, during the state of union, he got a medal. but when he got that medal, we all knew that this was the type of language that rush limbaugh engages in and that he would continue to engage in that type of language. and the thing for this administration and for the president is, i don't think that anyone thinks that president trump is really going to stand up to any of his followers who engage in homophobia or racism or anything else. and that he won't make these kind of comments or kind of go there and say, and try to make fun of pete buttigieg or anybody else, for things like that. that is what the president has done, over and over. >> mayor buttigieg has already made history. we don't know where his campaign

is going to go, but a strong showing in iowa, strong showing in new hampshire. more delegates out of -- he won the iowa caucuses. for an openly gay candidate for president, that's a huge deal, and it's probably inevitable that the other side out of fear or whatever has to attack. >> one thing about this rush limbaugh thing is that is actually a window into how this is going to go. people -- it's awful and terrible, but this is the way it's going to be and everyone should get ready for that if buttigieg does end up winning this thing. >> okay. coming up, candidates try to cash in before nevada and south carolina. nder wild-caught lobst, dig in to butter-poached, fire-roasted and shrimp & lobster linguini. see? dreams do come true. or if you like a taste of new england without leaving home, try lobster, sautéed with crab, jumbo shrimp and more, or maybe you'd like to experience the ultimate surf and the ultimate turf... with so many lobster dishes, there's something for every lobster fan so hurry in and let's lobsterfest. or get pick up or delivery at redlobster.com

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money tends to follow momentum in politics. and we see clear proof of that after the new hampshire vote tuesday. the pete buttigieg campaign says its strong showing is helping fund-raising. and that enables him to ramp up the in super tuesday states, hiring staff and so on. elizabeth warren has struggled so far in both iowa and new hampshire. so her campaign now canceling some of its ad buys in south carolina and nevada. and listen here in a message to supporters, senator warren says, i need help. >> but i need to level with you. our movement needs critical funds so i can remain competitive in this race through super tuesday. >> it is an interesting moment, because you go sort of slowly, iowa, new hampshire, nevada, south carolina, but then, boom!

14 states plus american samoa on supemore, the tuesday after that. a bunch more, the tuesday after that. you need money, and if you're struggling, even if you have a great name like senator warren among liberals, the money tends to pause. >> absolutely, and there are two dilemmas for candidates right now. if you're candidate like senator warren, you have an operation in some of these super tuesday states. that's expensive. you have people on the ground, offices, people who need to start ramping up their get out the vote efforts. do they have the money to keep that opal through super tuesday? on the other hand, you have a candidate like amy klobuchar, who doesn't have an operation in those states. and she needs the money to start building it out really quickly. once you get to super tuesday, this moves fast. and it's a delegate game. and if you fall behind on super tuesday, it is really hard to catch up. and that's why that day is just so critical. >> critical for the ones already competing and critical when you just think of bloomberg -- you have this guy that writes his own checks, and in those states, he's hoon the ballot. >> and it's tough for warren,

because she's now foregoing traditional fund-raising, so she's relying on grassroots fund-raisers. months ago, other campaigns were kind of envious of her decision to do that. because it creates a sense of urgency among your supporters and helps you raise money. but at times like this, it's very easy for the narrative to shift right underneath you, and then your own supporters start to think that you're kind of dead in the water. she's trying to counteract that by saying, we still have a chance, but it's very, very risky. and all it takes is just a couple of slow days and then you really fall behind and you can't catch up. >> and just listen, you mentioned klobuchar. she said she had raised some money quickly, after her friday night debate, and here she is saying, it's coming in, still. >> we can do this. we are running ads all over the place in nevada, in part because, well, i didn't is the biggest bank account on that stage, and certainly not in this race, but since that debate, we raised $3 million online from regular people. and then yesterday in new hampshire, we raised $2.5 million in one day.

and that's been an issue for me. i know that. and so i only ran $1.5 million of ads in that new hampshire market. but now, i'm going to be in a better place. >> she hopes. she is in a better place, now, after the debate, after a strong third place in new hampshire. but for a candidate like that who needs a slingshot, she has to do something. if you don't perform well in nevada, if you don't keep performing, it will end pretty quickly. >> it's like, yeah, nevada is still not a super tuesday state. it's not the biggest market. and she's gone from fifth to third. and if she can keep that going and challenge for number one, great for her. and probably more money will come rolling in. but she's not doing long-term planning right now. and by long-term, i mean, two, three weeks into the future. not just the next, what is it about, nine or ten days. but it's a quick run through south carolina until super tuesday. >> and they're all going to hit a wall called michael bloomberg as soon as they get to super tuesday and it's going to be a

really tall one. >> and bloomberg's going to pay for it. >> up next, a very important debate on capitol hill this afternoon. senate democrats moving to curb the president's war powers with the help of a few key republicans. we're making it an even better deal. now you can get two lines for only $55. that includes unlimited talk, text and data. it also includes talk, text and data when traveling in mexico and canada. so if you're 55 and up, you can now get two lines for only $55. because at t-mobile, we have a plan designed just for you.

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i was told to begin my aspirin regimen, blem. 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. the senate set to vote next hour for a resolution to reign in the president's war powers. president trump calls it an effort to embarrass him and the republican party. but the democrats sponsoring the measure, senator tim kaine of virginia, says it has enough gop support to pass.

four republicans are now known to be onboard, at least four. susan collins of maine, rand paul of kentucky, and mike lee of utah. the kaine resolution is a response to the killings of qassem soleimani. it is interesting, we talked earlier, very rare are the republicans to break with the president, but this is an issue, is it republicans looking to send a message to the president, the four to six or so -- >> it may be six to eight, actually. >> or is this about congressional prerogatives or anger at the president? >> i think it's about both. it depends on who you ask. definitely for the democrats, it's about anger at the president, about him overstepping his bounds. i think that mike lee was pretty angry with the administration for not being forthright about why they did this and not promising to consult congress again. and i think for a lot of republicans, the constitutional question, does congress have a role before you commit to war, and administrations for a long time have said "no," they wanted to make sure to put a marker in the ground that this is not okay.

this is not the first war powers resolution that congress has dealt with in recent memory. there was yemen before this. now we're dealing with iran. you add jerry miran to the list of five, and we're expecting murkowski to be onboard for the final vote, too. it's a statement. it's not a statement that actually ultimately changes the president's action, because even if the pass houses this, too, which we assume they will later on, there's no way they can override a veto, and we're pretty sure that veto is coming. but the supporters would say, look, we still have to make our opinions known about this. and if the president knows that joir majorities of both congress are not cool with this, maybe he thinks about staying his hand in the future, which is ultimately, the best they can hope for. >> you mean, if they go on sunday shows and says impeachment will teach him a lesson, and he'll be restrained after this, he's going to listen? >> they're appealing to a president that campaigned on being somewhat anti-war. they're hoping this one lands a

little better. >> big vote next hour. stay with us. thanks for joining us for "inside politics" today. see you back at noontime tomorrow. don't go anywhere. brianna keilar starts right now. don't go anywhere. have a great afternoon. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now, the president's unprecedented influence over the justice department and his retaliation against subpoenaed witnesses in his impeachment are amounting to a stress test ton america's justice system. how far can it bend before it breaks. and one of the president's former chiefs of staff criticizing his ex-boss on criticizing of his handling, defending a key impeachment witness. and now the president is firing