>> sean: out of time. tomorrow, 9:30, gdp numbers. big news, hopefully. congressman jim jordan announces he's going to run for speaker. we will always be fair and balanced. laura ingraham standing by. and take it away. how are you? >> laura: thanks so much. fascinating hour with roseanne. i need to watch the last half. i had to work during the second half. i'm going to watch it when i get back. it was wild from beginning to end. good job. that's like dealing with some kind of feral, wild deal. congrats on that. i'm laura ingraham. this is "the ingraham angle." we have a phenomenal show. breaking news on the 2016 trump tower meeting with supposedly russian agents. the lawyer. will talk to you about that. plus a stunning turn of events in the impeachment campaign against rod rosenstein by the house g.o.p. wait until you hear who auntie

maxine claims is driving her anti-trump crusade. a major warning to democrats. why they may be dead wrong again about the polls ahead of the midterms. but first, when the inmates run the immigration asylum. that's the focus of tonight's angle. today was the court imposed deadline for the trump administration to reunite families who were separated due to the doj zero-tolerance approach to illegal immigration. of course, all the usual suspects in the media painted a grim picture. >> they are indicative of these emotional pains and struggles these families have been dealing with over the last several weeks. >> i met two children from two different families. one a 7-year-old boy who loves the superhero flash and the other an 11-year-old girl who has to help her father operate his smartphone and likes to play basketball. they are normal kids in almost

every way, normal kids dealing with a very difficult situation. >> laura: the administration announces 1412 children have been delivered to parents. in immigration custody. which took hundreds of staffers, apparently to carry out. lord knows how much money it took. but the fact that this ever happened drove the left to cry trump is a heartless guy. >> a practice it's been called heartless and cruel by republicans almost never speak out. >> they are being held against their will. this is a trump policy that is blatantly cruel. >> most of donald trump's base wouldn't tolerate seeing white children treated like that. >> laura: histrionics aside, the white house's hands were tied by the 2015 ruling by obama judge dolly gee, ordering that even children who cross the border with parents have to be released from custody in 20 days. that meant either trump

continued that old policy of catch and release, family units caught entering the country illegally, or parents were detained separately from their minor children because the children had to be released. the administration chose the latter path which led to, well, mostly democrat-led protests across america, which ultimately drove the white house back to back down. it was a total mess. congress has a chance to change the law, close the loopholes. let's face it, they could've tightened the asylum process and expedited the deportation hearings. but they chose to do nada. how brave. >> we have a broken immigration system. doesn't work for anybody. least of which is to control our border. and so when we get to the moment where we're actually solving this problem, which i would

prefer sooner rather than later, i would think it's going to gravitate around these four pillars. >> laura: but then came a typical sneak move that we expect from democrats but not from the president's own party. before running to the airport today for their working august recess, the house held a sneaky vote on a homeland security appropriations bill that will only end up adding to our problems at the border. the amendment basically codifies daca and was the brainchild of congressman david price, a democrat from north carolina. wasn't just david price. g.o.p. congressman kevin yoder, the all-important chair of the homeland security subcommittee, was also in full support of the idea. especially this part that made it easier for illegal immigrants to claim asylum if they credibly fear gang-related or domestic violence. kevin yoder claims he was moved to change his position due to the influence of his mother. he said "as the son of a social

worker, i have great compassion for those victims of domestic violence anywhere, especially as it concerns those nations who turn a blind eye to crimes of domestic violence. forgive me, congressman, i appreciate your personal story, but your family history shouldn't be allowed to thwart the presidents immigration agenda. and frankly, imperil the party's prospects in the mid-terms. until 2016, asylum was traditionally reserved for those in fear of persecution for things like their religious, their political or their ethnic background. not due to one's fear of crime or the threat of domestic abuse in his or her home, as horrible as that is. if the new barometer for asylum status is whether a foreigner feels safe in his or her home country, we should -- might as well throw the borders wide open. it doesn't matter if you have a wall or no wall. hundreds of millions of asylum requests are going to come

pouring in. now, it's worth remembering the center for immigration studies estimates if this house language like that in the gang of eight bill were to prevail in the senate, we could be looking at 32 million new voting age adults living in the united states by the year 2036. democrats want desperately to replace american's more conservative electorate with foreign, younger, usually more socially liberal voters. what does that mean? i'll tell you one thing it means: no more donald trump. big business will revel in the glut of low skilled workers in the midst of what they claim is a labor crunch. they won't have to raise wages much, which they are starting to do now. they are having to do it to fill the jobs. that means more profit for themselves. beyond the tears, the meltdown, and a lot of sad stories, some sob stories, it's critical for

republicans not to cave to the democrats on immigration. this is just a desperate play by the resistance because trump is beating them on the economy. >> the future is pointing north. up 232 points. the markets are loving it. >> we are on our way. if we back up to the january highs. >> we may have 5% gdp growth coming friday. >> laura: because their phony russia collusion pipedream is crumbling. >> there is just not a lot in the trump collusion bucket to look at. >> laura: and because they are incapable of separating the president from his base. >> according to the new nbc news "wall street journal" poll, 88% of republicans approve of the job president trump is doing. the only president with a higher approval rating was in their own party at this point in their presidency, it was president george w. bush less than a year after 9/11.

>> laura: now is not the time for republicans to give in on immigration enforcement or melt because of the cheap emotional media games. by the way, games that are only reserved for noncitizens. nd it was president trump's get tough approach on immigration, his relentless focus on the american worker, the american family, that helped him win the election against all odds. michigan, wisconsin, ohio, pennsylvania. giving into the melodrama of the moment is not the way to go. in fact, that will end up further burdening the american taxpayer who was already fed up with a political system that sometimes makes them feel like second-class citizens. i know, mr. president, you will not them down. and that is "the angle." joining me now for reaction is immigration attorney michael wildes who is the author of the new book "safe haven in america: battles to open the golden door."

our friend alan dershowitz wrote the forward to it. and dinesh d'souza, a filmmaker whose new movie is in theaters august 3. we're looking forward to that. his accompanying book comes out on the same day. all right, a lot to unpack. dinesh, let's start with you. this is the kind of story i think republicans always have a hard time with because nobody likes to see a child crying because he or she misses his mother or his father. it tugs at everybody's heartstrings. mine. i am a mom. you are a dad. it has hard stuff to see but this problem was brought on by politicians who refused to do the work they were supposed to do. now the american people, as usual, are supposed to pick up the tab for your reaction to all of this. >> well, i think on the one hand, there is grief but there is also the manipulation of grief. the politics, if you could call it, of moist eyes. this isn't just the democratic party. it's also the media which frames

these images. it's not that the republicans are insensitive. the republicans are scared of being portrayed as insensitive. the democrats are using that charge, even though at heart they know it's fake. what i mean by that is look, we live in a world in which a lot of these problems, gang violence, domestic violence, these are epidemic particularly the favelas in brazil, the slums of bombay, all over china. these are global problems. america has never taken the position that our doors are open worldwide to anybody who is suffering from these problems. we create very carefully carved out exceptions, for example, political persecution or as you said earlier, religious persecution. that is it. but the democrats are using the fact that they are able to dramatize these problems on our border to create a kind of emotional stampede.

republicans feel politically defensive, run for the exits, the kind of familiar invertebrate fashion. >> laura: kevin yoder, congressman, i don't know him from adam. his mother was a social worker. that's interesting and i'm glad she was a social worker, but that has nothing to do with our u.s. immigration policy. for some reason, donald trump had him on air force one last week. great guy. give me $5 billion for the wall. it's not going to matter if we have tens of millions of people all across the country. 45 countries, michael wildes, where domestic abuse is generally not recognized as crime. 45 countries. kuwait, saudi arabia, russia, qatar, haiti. on and on and on. women do not get the same rights as women here in the united states and other developed countries against men who abuse them. does that mean all of them can apply under kevin yoder's new idea about asylum?

that is madness. >> thank you for having me on. forgive my personal attire. i am running for mayor in new jersey and there was an event in my community and i came over here to join you. i am a law professor and adjunct to a law school. political asylum is actually sacred law. historically domestic violence has not yielded itself for a long time as the basis for # # political asylum. there's an old battle cry between persecution and prosecution. if you are being persecuted, you apply for asylum at our door. if you are in fear of prosecution or you have issues with your home country, it's not america's business. we have economic challenges for our own citizenry. domestic violence is less of a case. gang violence is a different predicate for asylum. there you have countries that enable narcos and the drug traffickers and they take no action. muslim countries throughout the world where women are being

abused and relationships for the government codifies it under sharia law and so forth. the real question is should america's golden doors be slammed shut when there are people that are trying to protect themselves. >> laura: i know we have iraqi christians, syrian christians, people throughout the middle east who have been waiting for years. the classic case of ethnic cleansing, religious cleansing taking place in central african republics, sudan and throughout the middle east. we have taken -- you might know better. very few. just because you show up at our southern border and nbc is there to cover the sad story, that suddenly america says okay, we're going to change our whole system, and we are going to throw open the door to every criminal victim in the world. let me read this. i want you to react. credible fear applications since 2007.

5,171 applications for credible fear asylum request. 2016, 91,786. an increase of 1675%. do you think there is any fraud there, dinesh? >> i would like to step back for a moment and look at this a slightly different way. the founders looked at america as a kind of moral community. a group of people who have a common set of values and a common destiny. almost in some senses like an extended family. if someone came banging on your door and said listen, i am in fear because i'm being chased by a gang, i would submit that the ordinary person would be a little skeptical before giving them "asylum," before saying come in. you can move in because you have a credible fear. it's now become our responsibility. most people would say wait a minute. i have a direct obligation to my own. as for others, coming in from the outside, i am sympathetic. but on the other hand, it's not necessarily my problem.

at the very least, our democratic system has to go through the legislative process to decide what we do with such people. ultimately the decision is with congress, but this idea that somehow because the media dramatizes a hard-luck story, that the idea that somehow the republicans have to run for cover, this is in a sense political theater. >> laura: michael, we have a 311,000 applicant backlog as of january of this year. we have an overall backlog of 700,000 in general immigration applications. jeff sessions said we are trying to make progress, but we can't keep up with it. at some point, it swamps the whole system, costing a huge amount of money that most people watching the show tonight are like, i don't want to pay for this. >> two points. >> laura: we're out of money here.

we all agree, the gentleman speaking, congress should set the policy. we don't want the attorney general or the cops, the i.c.e. agents to be executing on asylum laws. that should be in the courts. and certainly, they should have set up enough judges to adjudicate these cases so you don't have children without representation and you don't have families being separated. the real issue here is a few weeks ago you said if the republicans aren't going to work with the democrats, then do nothing. here they are beginning to work with each other but you are not liking what they are doing. guess what. congress, it's their job. we all agreed that they have to fix this. >> laura: why did they have no vote on this? why no vote? why are they running out of town for their august recess? they did this sneak vote and they run out of town. we called all the democrats today, no one would come on the show. >> i have always been disappointed with members of congress. >> laura: they are all afraid. they don't want to defend this. it's indefensible. it's indefensible. yeah.

they are running home to vacation or campaigns. they do not want to defend. we are out of time. we are out of time. we'll do a longer segment. michael cohen it's reportedly claiming tonight that donald trump knew of the infamous 2016 trump tower meeting with russians ahead of time. but there may be one big problem with cohen's allegations. details next. be one big problem with cohen's allegations. details

>> laura: breaking tonight: michael cohen, president trump's -- a wildfire in shasta county in northern california, a bulldozer operator has been killed and three firefighters are injured. there are reports of people living in the area suffering burns while fleeing the fast-moving flames. the extent of their injuries are unknown at this hour. dozens of homes and buildings including a historic schoolhouse has been destroyed. the so-called car fire is taking everything down its path and reached redding. the california highway patrol are urging people if they see heavy smoke or flames and not wait for evacuation calls. the 45 square mile fire tripled

in size overnight on thursday. hot temperatures, low humidity are making it hard to gain the upper hand there. stay with fox news channel and foxnews.com for more on the the story. now back to regular programming. i have always thought that if mueller believes that cohen was somehow the key to proving a collusion case against trump, there is no way he lets that case walk to the southern district of new york. i would be surprised if this amounts to anything that is serious in the way of collusion, like an espionage conspiracy. the trump tower meeting is bad. it's not collusion in the sense that they were, that they opened the investigation over it. >> laura: andy, hold on. andy. andy. as we talk about this, i think we forget hillary clinton paid for dirt. that was assembled by the

russians in the form of the steele dossier. she actually went further than meeting with someone. her people paid for it. they got dirt and it ended up making it all the way through the u.s. government. big deal. >> look, i don't think it's bad if campaigns are turning to foreign governments for dirt. it's not collusion. it's not something that's impeachable. it is icky. that's what this is. >> laura: kimberley, let's go to you on this. rudy giuliani was on cnn when this came out and he had a comment about the, well, the veracity of mr. cohen. let's watch. >> there's nobody i know that hasn't warned me that when you're back us up against the wall, he will lie like crazy. he's lied all his life. >> laura: wow, a war of words. that seems like cohen would release more information. >> the kind of guy you want as a lawyer, right?

i think the issue here is you've got to decide whether or not you believe cnn reporting. there has been a lot of breathless reporting out there that has turned out not to be correct. then, even if it is correct, you have to decide if you believe mr. cohen. now versus what, as andy said, he might've said in the past. and whether or not there is any evidence, which apparently there is not in which case this may come down to a case of he said versus three others. saying the opposite. if what andy said is true, it looks icky but the bigger point is is there a crime? obviously it's not a crime for trump, jr. to meet with this russian national and find out what she had to talk about. it's also not a crime for mr. trump to have had prior knowledge of it either. mr. trump sr., the president. the question, has he ever under oath said he didn't know? any situation where he might be viewed as having lied to federal

law enforcement. i'm not sure that's the case. it's another potentially bad headline if it's true, but i'm not necessarily sure it's any legal jeopardy. >> laura: andy, the veselnitskaya woman was there to push the magnitsky act. she was trying to get him to push congress on that magnitsky act because of russian adoptions. the whole thing, it has nothing to do with hillary. big scam, big play. sounds like they were played in that meeting. jared was bored. he got up. manafort walked out. it was a big nothing. if this is where they are, on this level, we're going to get to the twitter issue in a moment. what does it tell you about the state of the mueller investigation? >> seems to me the mueller investigation is winding down to a conclusion. that investigation of that indictment they brought recently against the 12 russians who are actually intelligence officers, i don't think that's the kind of thing you should indict.

putting that aside, if you read the indictment and the logic of it, it kind of excludes the possibility that there could have been the kind of espionage conspiracy everybody was so whipped up about that because he investigation a start in the first place and led to mueller's appointment. if it is winding down, i sure hope it's winding down -- >> laura: a report out today that mueller is looking through the president's tweets. >> who thought he wasn't? who thought he wasn't? i have been looking at them too. kim, have you been looking at them? >> laura: i have to play this for you. preet bharara was on cnn today with wolf blitzer and they were excited about the tweet story. let's watch. >> the tweets he sends late at night and early in the morning, often out of anger, go some way to showing what is state of mind was and to prove obstruction --

>> i'm quoting giuliani. if you're going to obstruct justice, you do it quietly and secretly, not in public. what do you make of it? >> yes. what rudy giuliani says is the norm. this president likes to break norms. maybe he likes to violate the law in ways that break norms as well. >> laura: kimberly. >> the cheerleading here is extraordinary. we have been witnessing this now for going on two years, and as i just said, headline after headline saying oh, definitely collusion. and then oh, obstruction of justice. really it will only be a few weeks now. look what mueller is looking at now. nothing has come of it so far. other than those indictments we've had related to charges that have nothing to do with either of those two central topics or anything that the press is actively pressing for. so i agree with andy. i wish if mueller has decided

that trump is not a target, that he's not going down the road, that even if he is still wrapping up his probe that he feels he had a duty to tell the country the president is no longer a target so people can start to move on. >> laura: andy, they said this is where they are looking over tweets, it is like the dread. it's ridiculous. i'm sorry. now we are in tweets? interviews? it's public staff. how are you obstructing an investigation with public comments? i am not following that. i guess it's possible but i don't follow it. >> the whole thing is preposterous because with due respect to preet, the state of mind or a criminal state of mind is irrelevant unless you've done something that can amount to obstruction. the president cannot obstruct justice by taking lawful actions that are within his constitutional prerogative, like

pardoning people or firing comey or weighing in on whether somebody should be prosecuted, which prosecutors across this country do every day. >> laura: or complaining that jeff sessions didn't recuse himself. that's have not obstructing justice. it's an opinion. >> i understand the style problem. they don't like the way trump goes about things. you still have to kind of prove the thing that's a crime before you start worrying about what somebody's state of mind was. >> laura: a former u.s. attorney in new york like preet bharara should know better. i know he's on cnn, but you've got to know, you can't say that on television. fantastic conversation. thank you so much. i want everyone to stay there because we have some big breaking news out of north korea we are going to bring you in just a matter of moments.

>> laura: some breaking news out of north korea. the white house saying a u.s. air force plane has now left north korea containing the remains of fallen u.s. service

members from the korean war. approximately 5300 american soldiers' remains have not yet returned home from that war. it's an important, very positive first step as the u.s. and north korea continue negotiations on denuclearization. and in other news, mad maxine is at it again. she has moved on from calling for her acolytes to attack trump officials wherever they are to now saying her opposition to all things trump comes from a higher power. >> [indistinct]

>> laura: her own version of the crusades. the latest language comes after judicial watch found an ethics complaint against her inciting violence against the trump cabinet. let's bring in the man behind the effort, tom fitton, president of judicial watch. i know you have been all over this call to declassify the fisa documents. now you're on onto the maxine story. is this kind of a publicity stunt for judicial watch or is it a real thing? >> i saw her call on people to get a crowd together if you see a cabinet member of the trump team, if they are at department stores or restaurants or a gas station, get a crowd together, push back and tell them they are not welcome. that is kind of inciting a riot. we filed this complaint. it's easy to figure out whether or not comments like that reflect credibly on the house, which is the rule. of course, they don't want to do anything about it.

another member said maybe we should censure her. that has gone nowhere. >> laura: how has that gone nowhere? she is kind of an icon to the left. she is protected in her own way. she is elderly, so you don't want to make her a bigger story. is that the reason no one wants to move on censuring her? without saying it explicitly, she was saying get them. >> i think it is fear-based decision-making by the republican leadership. >> laura: we want to hear the audio and then we want to hear what you have to say. let's watch. >> people want to see us be stronger and forceful and confront them on these policies. if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get up and you create a crowd. you push back on them. they have to absolutely harass them until they decide that they are going to tell the president no, i can't hang with you. >> laura: i like the nbc anchors. they just sit there. they are like mannequins. they don't say anything.

wait a second, congressman, there's no push back by these people on these other networks. imagine if conservatives said that about other people? >> harassing public officials. the house is going to let her use her position in the house to really attack people in inappropriate ways and incite violence. i think it is inciting violence and i would like the house to grapple with it. it is fear-based decision-making by the house. >> laura: you are being nice. they are wimps. they are wimpy. >> they don't want to confront maxine waters or rod rosenstein. >> laura: they're afraid of this asylum thing. on this asylum issue, you have congressman yoder who threw trump $5 billion for the wall and wants to institutionalize daca, codify daca, and open up asylum to anyone who claims a criminal element in this country or their country. gang or domestic violence. how are we supposed to verify that? that was never asylum. it was racial or ethnic or political or religious persecution.

now it is if my country is too violent. >> if you have a bad home life, you get asylum. >> laura: these are republicans going it because they're afraid of the emotional argument. >> the reason immigration is controversial is because politicians want to do something people don't want them to do. it's always going to be controversial. >> laura: tom fitton, thank you. joining us now is former oversight chairman jason chaffetz. he has had many threats directed against him personally while he was in congress. we are joined by democratic strategist and radio talk show host garland nixon. great to see you. jason, things have gotten way out of hand. we can't have a person walk into a restaurant wearing a "make america great again" hat without being verbally assaulted. in some cases physically assaulted. if you support the president in a high school, you are called a racist, hater, xenophobic.

there is free speech but there is not free speech. i think there are a lot of people who are just afraid. >> and they should be. after the gabby giffords incident, after steve scalise was shot and almost killed, other members that were targeted because they were republicans, then you have house members on the democratic side of the aisle basically, like maxine waters, inciting people to violence. this is the face of what the democrats are putting up. it is the resistance movement. it's antifa. it's targeted and aggressive and scorched earth. i have to tell you i was on the receiving end of lots of it. my family was subjected to things they should never be subjected to. diane black in the last few days had somebody who was arrested for being aggressive against her. it's a very real threat. people are going to get hurt. >> laura: garland, this is one of the types of calls and i know democrats get hate stuff too. i'm not saying it's just republicans. since trump, it has gotten

worse. this is what jason was subjected to. let's listen. >> i suggest you... [indistinct] [bleep] [bleep] and hang you from a lamp post you worthless piece of [ bleep ]! >> laura: your reaction to the climate we are living in. >> i think it's terrible. but it really isn't new. i think in fact, i had some friends for years who worked for john conyers. i was aware of some very nasty calls that he got on a regular basis. it isn't new. i disagree with it. let's not have a short memory. let's not forget president trump, during the election, was inciting people at his rallies -- >> laura: that one comment? one comment. that's all you have is that one comment. >> i'm not here to defend anyone

who is inciting violence because i disagree with it. but let's not try to pretend there is one party who has ever pushed this. >> laura: have you seen a concerted effort on the part of conservative activists to attack people in public places? someone is eating with his or her child or family, having a quiet dinner, and shouting, screaming. demanding and rattling, prattling on about all these points. that's just not right. >> right, and i absolutely agree. >> laura: that is all left-wing resistance dingbat stuff. >> i absolutely disagree with that because i'm a person, i am a king-esque person so i believe in nonviolence. let's not forget with michele bachmann and the lock and load, this is not new. there has been dangerous rhetoric for many, many years and hopefully both parties and both sides will learn to calm it down.

doesn't seem like that is happening. but i oppose it. i think the people both sides of the aisle should step up to the plate. >> laura: jason. >> those are nice words, but i don't see democrats who will call out maxine waters. if i do it as a republican, then i will get accused of being a partisan. but when she does that, i don't see a democrat who ever stands up and says you know what, that's wrong. through all the campaign, all the trump, all the rhetoric, it's a different scenario and someone is heckling the president, the candidate in front of tens of thousands of people. may not be excusable in your mind, but i went to trump rallies out there. i've been with the nra rallies. you don't see this kind of stuff. i don't see the democrats stepping up and taking some ownership and saying you know what, folks? you have to tone it down. >> president trump said to beat people up and he would pay the bills. >> laura: that was one time. it wasn't smart. it wasn't smart but it was someone causing a huge ruckus to get camera.

got the better of him in the moment. it's not a concerted effort by the candidate. >> debra messing of all people called me out on twitter saying that we should take him down. what does that mean? you want to take some people down. it's unbelievable, the number of celebrities will also engage in taking them down. using language. look at the cover of the latest magazines. cutting off donald trump's head and mocking it with comedy. >> laura: again, we can say this morning, noon, and night, but if conservatives spoke like they do on a regular basis, physically approached people like they do on a regular basis, they will be holding candlelight vigils. the left melt on stuff like this, but they can do it. maxine waters can say these things with complete and utter impunity. and we are supposed to say oh, it's just maxine. it's ridiculous. if you are a democrat, you

should be saying maxine, you are out of line. be passionate and be out there, but you are out of line. you sound like a complete buffoon. >> right now you're exercising your right to go after her. i am saying -- >> laura: she is the toast of the town. she is all over democratic politics, garland. she is everywhere. wasn't she at the oscars? grammys. the woman is like the cause celebre in the democratic party. we will see if anything happens. we hope nothing violent happens, because that would be the real tragedy of all of this. thank you so much to both of this. coming up, the media on the left obsess over these so-called blue wave in the upcoming midterm, but they could be making a miscalculation of epic proportions. we will tell you why up next. ma miscalculation of epic proportions. we will t your all you can eat riblets. okay. enjoy. thanks. ♪ ♪ when i touch you like this ♪ and i hold you like that. ♪ it's so hard to believe

♪ but it's all coming back me. ♪ baby, baby, baby. ♪ if you touch me like this ♪ and when you hold me like that. ♪ all you can eat is back, baby. applebee's. eatin' good in the neighborhood.

>> laura: the left is giddy about the prospect of a blue wave in november and they are devouring any tidbit of

information that helps confirm that narrative. case in point: a new nbc-marist poll indicating sagging approval for president trump in michigan, wisconsin, and minnesota. critics couldn't get enough of it. >> look at his approval rating in those states. in these new nbc polls. 36%, 36, 38%. that is bad news for republicans. >> donald trump is getting crushed in polling in michigan and wisconsin which is part of why he offered a partial surrender today in his tariff war with europe. >> the president has no coattails. you used the right word. devastating. >> they are in trouble right in the president's base. >> laura: but the democrats could be in for a rude awakening come november. joining us now, someone with a warning to those folks, democratic pollster mark penn, along with tom bevan, publisher of real clear politics. great to see you. mark, let's start with you. it's commonly thought that most pollsters were wrong before the last election. however, on the popular vote,

they were pretty close. were they not, with hillary clinton? 2%, 3%. they missed it in key states like michigan, pennsylvania, ohio. that's the whole shooting match. nevertheless, when i saw them going frothy on the minnesota, wisconsin, michigan deal, what do we think now? >> in 2016, the only person to actually call the electoral college right was kellyanne conway who was laughed off the set as she correctly predicted it. my point about these polls is, what happened in the election, the analysis was bad. what i see now is that the questions are bad. they are usually slanted, anti-trump questions, so they don't see the narrative here. this is a divided country. it's close. i think there is a blue edge, but it is way too early to say there's a blue wave. have to be very careful because these polls very rarely put the trump messaging and for testing. they don't ask about sanctuary

cities. they don't ask about using tariffs as a wedge. they ask easy, layup questions designed to prove points they are making. >> laura: tom, the questions are things like do you support ripping babies out of the arms of mothers after they have crossed the border? no one is going to say yes, i'm in favor of that. but if you asked, should people be able to cross our border illegally and then get various benefits for having done so, they will say what? no, we don't want that. what of this and where are we right now? >> i think mark makes a great point. it's the numbers, but it's also the framing. let me give you an example. the nbc news "wall street journal" poll that came out after the helsinki summit and voters disapproved of it, that was a headline. the actual story, the real headline was that trump's approval rating has reached an all-time high for his presidency. it had ticked up. the framing around that was negative despite the fact there

was good news for trump in there. in the last week or two, the democratic lead advantage in the generic ballot has ticked actually in favor of republicans by about a point. but i also agree with mark. the problem in 2016 was not the polls. it was the pundits. you would've thought that if we, the journalists -- >> laura: don't look at me. >> had learned anything from 2016, it would be not to over interpret, not to jump to conclusions. there is still three months left before the election. the other thing is that the economy is doing pretty well, and trump gets good marks on the economy. over 50% in most polls. jobs and the economy. and it's the number one issue for voters. >> laura: that is key. everyone focuses, mark, on the approval ratings. it should be over 50. okay, fine. but he won the presidency with an approval rating of 36%. could it be they are not wild about some of the stuff he does personally but they like the results he gets for the american

worker? could that be maybe where we end up? if he ends up having a positive effect in some of these races? >> his personal rating in the harvard poll that we are coming out with is 41. his approval on the economy and terrorism is around 55. are voters going to focus on what's going on with the economy or on what he does personally? that has always been the big question in trump. clearly on election day, they focused a lot more on the issues. we don't know what's going to happen this time. that's what makes it so fascinating. that's my pundits have to be careful. when you look at the high approval ratings on the core issues, that means the president has got to be doing something right. there is a story line here that you've got to see. if you miss it and you are a democrat, boy, you will miss the whole election again. >> laura: tom, i was talking to hannity about this right before the election, when we were predicting trump was going to win and then right after the election. we both said thank goodness we host radio shows.

we hear this stuff day after day after day. people say they are conservatives listening. no, they are not. it's an interesting cross-section of the country. liberals will laugh if they are watching this. listen and you will learn every now and then. just listen. people were saying we don't care about this billy bush tape. we don't care about stormy daniels. they thought he might be kind of a bully but he is our bully. we are tired of being bullied by the experts and consultants and corrupt class. he's going to fight for us. that's what they were telling us on the radio. to this day, they are saying that. maybe it won't add up to much in november. i don't know. but i can tell you, i do a daily focus group. in my listening audience, they are not listening to this. they don't care about this mueller stuff. they don't care about the cohen tape. they are like let's move on. let's talk about immigration. tom, close it out. >> that's exactly right. another interesting statistic, in 2016, donald trump got 90% of republican votes on election day. his approval rating in that

"wall street journal" poll is 88%. on election day, he got 9% of democrats. 9% of democrats give him a favorable job approval rating. we have been in suspended political animation since the campaign. despite all the controversy that surrounds the president, partisans on the other side have not budged. there's been some wiggle room by independents in the middle and that might be what it comes down to on election day in november. >> laura: thank you. demi lovato's overdose exposing another tragic truth of celebrity life. we will explain after this.

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it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. >> laura: the overdose of music superstar demi lovato casting a harsh spotlight on the false allure and dangers of celebrity. tmz reporting that lovato recently surrounded herself with a new group of so-called friends. on tuesday night, they decided to go on a binge. the group apparently knew things could get bad with lovato. tmz saying they had an emergency medication called narcan on hand. it is used to revive someone after overdosing. this story follows an all-too-familiar pattern. incredibly talented people surrounding themselves with hangers-on and enablers. often this ends in tragedy. joining us now to analyze is counselor, drug counselor sonya veytsman. sonya, we have had so many

instances of people with immense talent who weren't found alive. from belushi to of course prince and the list goes on and on and on going back decades. now this. what is your take? >> there's a misconception that fame or wealth can serve as a buffer against vulnerability for a mental illness or addiction. it doesn't. psychologists have come up with a hypothesis called a diathesis stress model which sort of explains why certain vulnerabilities emerge. it talks about genetic predisposition combined with any sort of environmental stress and when it reaches the combination, it reaches a certain threshold, then mental illness or addiction can emerge. in this case of demi, she's been vocal about her father having a history of substance abuse.

>> laura: sonya, i've got to ask, you counsel people who have drug problems. when you have a drug problem, and she has been very vocal about her own problems. she said, talked about her problems going back to 19 years of age. "i was going to an airport. i had a sprite bottle filled with vodka. it was nine in the morning." she said she was throwing up in her car. she said she was about to get on a plane to l.a. to a sober living house she was staying at. she said i had all the help in the world but i didn't want it. then the story of course about her friends out there parting with her. with the narcan. they know she is vulnerable. presumably they are not totally dumb people though they sound pretty dumb. they know she could end up dead. this is who she is hanging out with. i don't know, her family has tried to intervene unsuccessfully. who are these friends? who are they? >> part of managing drug

addiction is avoiding triggers. so that people who abuse and people who would be a bad influence or people that are also under the influence of some substance and don't have the judgment. a big part of addiction is ambivalence. the new models of treatment really try to address that, things like harm reduction and motivational interviewing which looks to basically help people reconcile or address or resolve some of that ambivalence. whenever someone is abusing drugs, typically there is a lot of conflict within them about continuing the drug use or whatever substance. >> laura: i've got to say i don't really understand. i am trying to follow what you are saying on that but drug ambivalence? she has an addiction problem. here's ambivalence. there shouldn't be any, okay. nothing is that simple, i know. but if you are an addict, the number one thing you have to do is what? this is your line of work. you have to not be with people who enable you, correct? >> there is something called

secondary gain which talks about the benefit of using or doing something. so anyone that's abusing is gaining a benefit from it, and the benefit might be escape. it might be numbing the pain. that's probably the reason that's driving them to do it. sometimes that drive or dependence outweighs their desire to change. so that's why relapse is so commonplace. >> laura: what are the chances of relapse? we are almost out of time. if you go sober, relapse, chances, what percentage? >> it's a high likelihood. counselors prepare are usually their patients for the likelihood of relapse. >> laura: thank you so much. sad situation. we certainly wish her and her family the best.

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>> i want to say thank you to this president, donald trump,

getting some of our war dead back from the korean war. people thought it was not going to be possible but it is happening and would not have happened without his leadership, chuck carlson served in the korean war and is watching tonight. we always honor our troops, think of you every day, thank you for your service to this country. shannon is up next. shannon: we begin with a fox news alert, the president says we can expect terrific economic numbers while rallying the newly reopened skill plant hours ago but his personal attorney has another bombshell tonight and the administration says it has reunited all eligible immigrant families separated at the border but that is not enough for activists. former acting director of ice live with reaction including what is next. rosanne barr did her first tv interview with sean hannity since she was fired, she doesn't hold anything back. welcome to fox news at night.