this week, with george stephanopoulos starts right now. >> the president defiant. the russia story engulfing the white house. and following him on his trip to paris. trump defending his son on the world stage. >> most people would have taken that meeting. it's called opposition research. >> that private meeting where donald trump jr. was told he would get damaging information on hillary clinton as part of russia and its government support for mr. trump. >> in retrospect, i probably would have done things differently. >> what does this mean for the investigation? we're one on one with the top democrat on the house intelligence committee, adam schiff, and a member of the president's legal team, jay sekulow. plus, new bill, same questions, another delay. the senate leadership is pushing

off the health care vote. >> i'm sitting, waiting for that bill to come to my desk. >> what happens next? we ask two key players. a republican set against the bill and the white houses' point on health care. anltd as he nears the six-month mark, how does america see president trump's performance? everything you need to know. what's fact. what's fiction. and what matters to you. good morning. almost six months into the trump presidency. the headline this is week were once again dominated by russia. the newly disclosed meeting at trump tower puts president trump's son, his son-in-law, and his then-came pan chairman in the same room with a russian-american lobbyist and a kremlin-connected lawyer

believed to have dirt on hillary clinton. is this a turning point in the russia investigation? what does it mean for the president's ability to push his agenda forward? all this comes as there were science of momentum this week for the president and the country. the stock market hitting record highs. the cease-fire in southwest syria largely holding. and isis cleared out of mosul in iraq. a grim snapshot of opinion. the president's job approval rating at just 36%. the lowest six-month approval rating for any president in 70 years. the majority of the country says the president is not making significant progress towards his goals. as for the mystery meeting on the 25th floor of trump tower last summer, 63% say it was inappropriate. and now, the list of who took part in that meeting grows. don jr. insists nothing came of it. here's what he told fox news.

12k34r i'm more than happy to be transparent about it. i'm more than happy to cooperate with everyone. >> as far as you know this is all of it? >> this is everything. this is everything. >> we take those questions about what happened inside trump tower and what the president knew and when he knew it to a member of the trump legal team, jay sekulow. jay, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> you heard don jr. say on tuesday that we have now -- there's nothing more. that this is everything. can you now say that we know everything about that meeting? i mean, clearly, when he said that, there was still a lot more to come out. do we now know everything about that meeting? who was there? and what followup there was? >> well, let me say this. i don't represent donald trump jr. i represent the president. the pet was not aware of that meeting. did not attend that meeting. and don trump jr. was explicitly clear on his interview on the

sean hannity broadcast. look. here's the reality. the meeting, in and of itself, as i have said before is not a violation of the law. it's pont to understand that as counsel to the president, he was not aware of it and did not participate. >> you say no law was broken. do you accept what we heard from the president's trip to run the fbi is that what should have happened there, a situation where you have representatives of a foreign government offering assistance to -- in an election what should have happened was the fbi should have been notified? >> i wondered why the secret service, if this was nefarious, why did the secret service let these people in? number two we can't act like this is in a sack yum. we know for sure as was reported extensively, that the ukrainians were in direct contact with dnv

fishlgs. to sarks i understand what chris ray was saying. donald trump jr. said things should have been done differently. none of that is a violation of the law. that's more process. >> the president has said over and over again, again this week, this is a witch hunt. i want to get specific on this. is he saying that the mueller investigation is part of a witch hunt? >> yeah, look how it started. as it relates to the president. but let me put this in context. how did this whole situation start? we tend to lose this fact and we should not. james comey takes notes. of a conversation or a series of conversations he has with the president of the united states. he takes notes. he puts them on a government computer in his government vehicle. put them in his government desk. he gets fired by the president of the united states. he was terminated as the fbi director. which james comey acknowledged

the president had the right to do. james comey then leaks those documents to a friend of his for the sole purpose of leaking them to "the new york times" and with the desire to be, and james comey said this under oath. let me just finish this, jon. said under oath he hoped to get a special counsel. the special counsel is based on evidence that was illegally leaked. >> when the president says witch hunt he's talking about robert mueller's special counsel investigation? that is part of this co--called witch hunt? >> yeah, when he calls it a witch hunt. talks about the scope and nature of the investigation, he's concerned about the nature of what is going on here. there are a whole host of issues that has, as lawyers, we deal with in cases like that. potential con fliblgts of interest. how would james comey be a

witness when he has this relationship not just with the special counsel but in the way he testified. james comey said three times under oath that he acknowledged to the president that he wasn't under invest xwags. >> the president told me in the rose garden he would be willing to testify under oath. here's what he had to say. would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version? >> 100%. >> if robert mueller would want to talk to you -- >> i would be glad to tell him what i just told you. >> is the president still willing to speak under oath to special counsel robert mueller? >> the president was very clear. if it came to that, but i don't think it will, he would do that. the president was very clear on that. when you look at what's going on here. i look at this as the lawyer. i keep going back to this issue. what is the legal statute that has been violated here. or alleged to be violated.

what would the subject of that questioning be under oath? so here's what would say. the president's been very clear and direct on his statements. there is nothing i can add. other than saying this, the nature upon which this whole issue developed over the last several months raises serious questions as a lawyer. and any lawyer that was looking at this issue would say, there's a lot of questions that have to be answered here. how this started, where it went, where it's going. >> no backing down on his offer to testify under oath. when do you think this could happen? >> i don't -- i don't think it will happen. >> you don't think it will happen. ? >> at this point, we have no indication at all, whatsoever. of an investigation of the president with regard to any of this. the special counsel has a mandate. he gets his mandate. you asked him the question in the rose garden. the president answered it. so, i take the president at his word there. >> one last question. senator warner says he's concern that the president will issue

pardons to the key figures in this investigation. will the president rule out giving pardons to people like michael flynn? paul manafort? any others in this investigation? >> i have not had that conversation with the president about any of that. and i wouldn't share it if i did because of the attorney-client privilege. he can pardon, individuals, because the founders of our country put that in the united states constitution. i have not had those conversations. >> pardoning the key figures is not off the table? it's something he might do? >> the president told me, in conversations that i have had with him about a variety of issues. we have not talked about pardoning individuals. you're asking me to speculate on something i cannot speculate on. >> jay sekulow of the president's legal team, thank you for joining us.

>> thanks for having me e, jon. >> i'm joined now by congressman schiff. he's not ruling out that the president could issue pardons to the key figures in this. would that put an end to this? >> it wouldn't put an e end to it. it would be deeply disturb fpg impression the country would get from that was that the president was trying to shield people from liability for telling the truth about what happened in the russia investigation or russian contacts. but what i take away from his discussion with you is -- two things. two points he wants to make. first, the president didn't know. and second, even if he did, there's no crime here. now, to believe that, we have to rely on two things. don jr.'s representation of what happened that meeting. we have already seen, many times we can't rely on that. he first said no meeting happened. then he said it was about

adoptions. then admitted it was about getting information about hillary clinton. and then he wasn't forthcoming about who was in the meeting. we can't accept what he says about this. we can't accept what the president says either. if you look at the president's statements around this time, he announces a speech he's going to give where he's going to give the dirt on hillary clinton that he then cancels. that would corroborate that don jr. didn't get the information he was hoping for. but of course, it contradicts the idea that he was unaware. >> you have also heard him say several times the president is not under investigation. is that true? >> i can't comment on who bob mueller may be looking at. we want to determine just what the russians did. who was knowing of it. who was participating in it. and of course the president very publicly encouraged russia to do exactly what don jr. was

encouraging them to do privately, that was give us the dirt on hillary clinton. every time there was dirt given, the president applauded very publicly. was the campaign doing privately what the president urged publicly? you have evidence in black and white that yes, the campaign was encouraging the russians to give them dirt. and the fact that this was done through intermediaries is just how the russians operate. >> if we look at this trump tower meeting. and certainly it's problematic in the shifting explanations are problematic. the bottom line is there any evidence whatsoever tying this meeting or that russian lawyer to the center piece of this russian influence campaign, which was the hack of the dnc, the hack of the clinton campaign e-mails. is there anything whatsoever tyinging this meeting to that activity by the russians? >> it is certainly tied in the

sense this is as clear of evidence you co-find of intent of the campaign to get useful information. >> a willingness to accept we see from the president's son. >> more than that. but to indicate what the best timing was to russia. don jr. says late summer. what do we know about late summer? that's when the russians start dumping this information. to accept the attorney's representation that no crime was committed here, you have to accept don jr.'s representations. if they went into the meeting, the russians want something. they want repeals of the sanctions law. if any kind of understanding comes out of that meeting, you get us the dirt, we'll look favorable on repealing the magnitsky act. that is a serious crime.

>> from a story in january. you krin jan efforts to sabotage trump backfire. a ewe cane jan-american operative who was consulting for the dnc met with top officials at the ukrainian embass is si in washington in an effort to show ties between trump, top campaign aide paul manafort and russia. -- deeply connected to ukraine's foe to the east. i understand this effort was not as elaborate as the russian effort. but was it acceptable for the democrats to accept help from the ukrainian government in this campaign? >> no, it would be appropriate for the democrats to get help from the you crane jan development. if you accept all the facts in the article, the scale of what the russians did is not

comparable to anything in that article. if it were the comparable analogy would be that the ukrainian president directed the ukrainian intelligence agencies to investigate and they sat down with chelsea clinton and john podesta and indicated they wanted the information op donald trump. >> the scale is different. but the meeting is problematic? >> it would be problemati drorks get any support from a goran government. to compare the two is like comparing bank robbery to writing a check with insufficient funds. both appropriate money from the bank improperly. but a different degree of seriousness and involvement. >> the most recent person to appear before your committee is a former trump adviser michael caputo. he'll be on "the roundtable" in

a bit. he called it collusion delusion. his lawyer who was present said the questions devolved into a fishing expedition. are youonon a fishing expedition when you bring in someone like michael caputo? >> no. we appreciate his cooperation. he's a p.r. guy. he got an at t at thaa he got an at tttaboy from the president about this. if we said we were looking for evidence that top trump campaign pete met with russian government officials to get dirt on hillary clinton, they would have said there's no such thing. you're looking for something that doesn't exist. now, of course, we know, that does exist. that did take place. they can call it a fishing expedition. a witch hunt. it's all an alined message with the white house. nonetheless, real evidence is coming forward that can't be

ignored. >> we have learned more people were there. not just the russian lawyer. we have this russian-american lobbyist. what is the significance of his presence or is there a significance? >> i think it's very significant. here, you have two people now aligned with the russian government. a third, a translater, we don't know the identity of that person. did they come from moscow? do they have ties to to russian government? you have a history of a lobby ist getting information. damaging information about a rival company. if you look at the way the russian government intelligence agencies work, the russian government has a priority. in this case, it's getting rid of the magnitsky. they use oligarchs.

they put money into accounts. they employ people to do their work. they sit down and offer dirt. what do they want? they want the repeal of that law. >> thank you for joining us. when we come back, can the gop sell its new health care plan? i'll talk to a key republican opposed to the bill. and the president's point man on health care. and we'll have the powerhouse "roundtable." including the trump campaign veteran who just testified before the house intelligence committee. excuse me, are you aware of what's happening right now? we're facing 20 billion security events every day. ddos campaigns, ransomware, malware attacks... actually, we just handled all the priority threats. you did that? we did that. really. we analyzed millions of articles and reports.

we can identify threats 50% faster. you can do that? we can do that. then do that. can we do that? we can do that. can we do that? having mplaque psoriasise is not always easy. it's a long-distance run. and you have the determination to keep going. humira has a proven track record of being prescribed for nearly 10 years. humira works inside the body to target and help block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to symptoms. in clinical trials, most adults taking humira were clear or almost clear and many saw 75% and even 90% clearance in just four months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal, infections and cancers, including lymphoma have happened as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections,

or have flu-like symptoms, or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. join over 250,000 people who have chosen humira. ask about the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists. humira & go. you all the time.ories am i going to pass away like my mom did? and so you know this is something that's important. losing my mom to heart disease and then being diagnosed myself. it's like a war we're trying to fight against these diseases. resilience is in my dna. i won't die like my mom. it's a big challenge, but the challenge in itself is what keeps me going. i could really make a difference in these people's lives. that would be my dream.

there's president trump and france's president, emmanuel macron, engaging in an epic 29-second hand shake at the conclusion of the president's visit to paris. despite three overseas trips in just eight weeks, our abc/"washington post" poll find that 48% of americans think the kink's leadership on the world stage has grown weaker under president trump. and two-thirds don't trust the president to negotiate with other world leaders. we'll take a deep dive on our new poll and more with "the roundtable" later in the show. we'll be right back.

when you buy a used car you that's why carmax has over. 40,000 cars to choose from nationwide. with prices clearly marked, the same online as they are in the stores. that should give you some car-buying confidence. the type of confidence you need to wear white after labor day. the type of confidence to suddenly switch to an english accent for no reason whatsoever. yep... . at carmax, it's all about confidence. nothing but net. nailed it! or should i say, nailed it gov'nor. [music playing] across the country, we walk. carrying flowers that signify why we want to end alzheimer's disease. but what if, one day, there was a white flower for alzheimer's first survivor?

what if there were millions of them? join us for the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's. register today at alz.org/walk.

the senate health care bill provides the most vulnerable in our society. it improves and strengthens medicaid. it give you, america's governors, what you need to offer better outcomes to the citizens of your states. is there that was vice president pence making the case to the nation's governors. overnight, the vote on that bill was once against delayed. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell postponed the vote because senator john mccain needs time to recover from surgery before coming back to washington. i'm joined by susan collins from maine who has made it clear she's opposed to the bill as it

stands right now. thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> you heard vice president pence say it provides for the most vulnerable. protects medicaid, and will lead to better outcomes. is he right? >> i would respectfully disagree. let me extend wishes to my friend and colleague john mccain as he recovers from his surgery. that has led, as you indicated, to a delay in consideration for this bill. this bill would make sweeping and deep cuts in the medicaid program, which has been a safety net program on the books for more than 50 years. ensuring that some of our most vulnerable citizens, our disabled children, our low-income seniors, receive the health care that they need. it would also jeopardize the very existence of our rural hospitals and our nursing homes,

which not only provide essential care to people in rural america, but also are major employers in the small communities in which they are located. and worst of all, these changes would be made without the senate having held a single hearing to evaluate their impact. >> but, the vote's been delayed. did mcconnell have the votes to get it passed? >> i don't know. i think it would be extremely close. there are many of us who have concerned about the bill. particularly the cuts in the medicaid program. but there are other problems with the bill, as well. it could lead to insurance plans that really are barely insurance at all. it would cause premiums to increase for some very vulnerable individuals. including those with

pre-existing conditions, depending on what states decide to do. so -- there are a lot of us who have concerns about the bill. on the senate side, i would estimate that there are about eight to ten republican senators who have deep concerns. but how this would all trance late out, i'm not certain. i never underestimate leader mcconnell's skills. >> that's a good idea. if you look at medicaid, you have mentioned repeatedly, isn't medicaid spending out of control. the estimates, medicaid is estimated to be at nearly $1 trillion a year by 2025. a 70% increase in medicaid spending over the course of a decade. you heard the vice president. he said this bill puts medicaid on a more sustainable path. you would acknowledge that right now it's not on a sustainable

path. >> i would never say that the medicaid program should not the scrutinized to see if we can lower the costs. i believe there's a good mod until indiana, which applied a managed care approach to the expansion of medicaid. that was done in that state under the affordable care act. that offers a very useful model that a i believe could be replicated in other states. but to totally change the program and to set a future insurance -- future inflation rate that we know will not cover the kos of medical care at a time when the baby boomer generation is going to be needing those services is not the way we should proceed. should we proceed to have careful hearings and look at what we can do to make sure that the medicaid program can

continue to be there for future generations without bankrupting the federal budget? absolutely. but we haven't had that kind of in-depth analysis. public hearings to vet all kinds of ideas that would be useful in lowering costs of the program and producing better outcomes, which is what the indiana model has done. >> so the president says that this must happen. that after seven years of what he calls the obamacare disaster, it must happen. have you heard from him? when was the last time you spoke to the president about this? >> i spoke to the president at the white house at a meeting that was held of the republican caucus a few weeks ago. i have been in touch with members of his -- administration. who have talked to me about the bill and of course, there have been some changes made in the bill. so it still seems to be a work

in progress. let me make cheer, i think there are substantial flaws in the affordable care act. it has produced premium increases that are very troubling and difficult for people to afford. particularly those who don't get the subsidies under the current law. and in some counties and some states, the markets are literally collapsing. so that even if you have a subsidy, you're not going to find that there's an insurance policy that you can purchase. so we do need to fix the significant flaws in the current law. but the way to do that is through the normal process of committee hearings and expert witnesses and writing a bill with bipartisan support. president obama in my view made a serious mistake when he pushed through the affordable care act without a single republican

vote. i don't want to make the same mistake in reverse and push through this bill without a single democrat vote. >> all right, senator susan collins. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, jonathan. >> i'm joined now by health and human services secretary dr. tom price. thank you for being here. >> good to be with you. >> our new poll shows that by a 2 to 1 margin, voters refer the obamacare plan. shouldn't republicans be worried about voting far plan what that is actually less prop lar now than obamacare has ever been? >> it depends how you ask the question. if you ask the question, to you ant to be able to select your doctor? your insurance coverage? it's overwhelming that americans want to do that. the current system, the aca,

obamacare, whatever you want to call it, is failing the individuals in the individual and small group market. we have counties that only have one choice. next year, there will be dozens of counties that don't have an issuer. we have premiums that are sky-rocketing. deductibles that are so high that they have coverage but not care. this is a system crying out for reform and revision. that's what we're trying to do. >> no doubt there are significant problems with the current system. if you look at the republican plan to modify it and replace it, more than 10 medical groups are against it, 32 cancer organizations oppose it. on thursday in a rare joint statement by the biggest insurance companies cause the cruz ameant unworkable in any

form. and warned it would lead to quote widespread losses. a single risk pool is exactly the kind of process that has been utilized for decades. >> they're against it. the doctors are against it. >> the challenge that we have is that the bill itself is not the entire plan. it is a significant and an important and integral part of the plan. it's not the entire plan. what we're doing over at health and human services is going through all the rules and regulations that were promulgated pursue ed pursuant to -- does it help patients or harm pashs? increase costs or decrease costs? where the sans wrong, we'll move it in a better direction.

>> i saw a picture of you talking to governor brian sandoval. republican of nevada. if you look at the governors. i understand you have the governor of kentucky saying he supports the bill with reservations. there's not a single government in the country saying they're on the record unequivocally supporting the the bill. >> what they'll tell you, the vast majority of them, almost to a person, is that what they need is flexibility. they need to be able to design a medicaid program that works for their population. don't dictate to us from washington, d.c., what you're telling us to do. we know how to do it better than you. nevada knows how to take care of nevada citizens better than washington, d.c. and it's true across the country. so what we have heard from the governors is virtually ewe name anymorety on that kind of flexibility that doesn't exist to the degree now that the bill would provide, would allow for. that's what the governors are

calling out for. >> i remember i covered quite intimately the debate over obamacare in the house. i think talked to you several times in the process. one of the things you were very critical of were the special provisions put in the bill to win key senators. the cornhusker kickback. the la purchase, as you called both of them. they were provisions to win democratic senators on the fence. now we see special pro visions in the bill for alaska, florida, la plap again, seem to be directly aimed at winning over key republican senators. do you have a problem can this? i know you're not in the senate. you're not putting this stuff in. you must be a little uncomfortable. >> what we're trying to do is dlsh it's not an appropriate characterization. >> this is special treatment. alaska will get more money in a provision tailored to alaska.

>> you talk about a state that's unique, talk about alaska. they have 650 municipalities and cities that cow can't reach by car. that's a unique situation. our goal is to make certain that nobody falls through the cracks. we're able to provide coverage for every single american for their physicians and their care. and it's done in a way that makes it possible. >> the bottom line is, this vote is delayed. it was going to be on tuesday. did mcconnell have the votes to get it passed? >> i don't know. let me take this opportunity to convey our best wishes to senator mccain. he's a fighter. he'll be back. i never underestimate senator mcconnell's expertise in gettinging the votes. >> thank you, dr. tom price. >> thank you. coming up, the powerhouse "roundtable" take on the health care debate. and the new concerns about

russia. we'll be right back.

copdso to breathe better,athe. i go with anoro. ♪go your own way copd tries to say, "go this way." i say, "i'll go my own way" with anoro. ♪go your own way once-daily anoro contains two medicines called bronchodilators, that work together to significantly improve lung function all day and all night.

anoro is not for asthma . it contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. the risk is unknown in copd. anoro won't replace rescue inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, glaucoma, prostate, bladder, or urinary problems. these may worsen with anoro. call your doctor if you have worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain while taking anoro. ask your doctor about anoro. ♪go your own way get your first prescription free at anoro.com. i have a friendship with him. why? because he's called a brother with a different mother. he hangs out in our -- because when you campaigned. >> he hangs out in maine more than i do. >> former president george w. bush joking about the former

ppt's relationship with the bush clan. the powerhouse "roundtable" is here ready to debate. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ buried just under the surface, the answer to it all. ♪ we want to need each other. ♪ but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown

to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. hey. hi. hi. you guys going to the company picnic this weekend? picnics are delightful. oh, wish we could. but we're stuck here catching up on claims. but we just compared historical claims to coverages. but we have those new audits. my natural language api can help us score those by noon. great. see you guys there. we would not miss it. watson, you gotta learn how to take a hint. i love to learn. wpresent. you're always itthinking about it.s always what if my cancer comes back? i've been working on this therapy for 5 years now and we're getting ready to go to the clinic. my son definitely keeps me fighting. i want to be there for him when he needs me. that's what motivates me. i want to see patients have gray hair. i see myself growing old with my pink hair.

that to me, is enough to keep going.

right now, we have no consensus on how the repeal and replace the failed policies of obamacare. i can't tell you the number of hours i have heard the same arguments go around and around and around and around. as far as i know, consensus on how the pass the government. >> they'll be going around and around a while longer after that vote on health care was delayed after senator john mccain recovers from surgery. abby phillip, bloomberg business

wooek editor megan murphy, republican strategist and former trump campaign team member michael caputo. and abc news political analyst matthew dowd join us. how all-concerning is this? >> why hasn't the president been owl selling his agenda, health care. the answer is, there's been a lot of other crises happening. putting aside the foreign trips he spent the last couple of weeks overseas trying to do some things on foreign policy, beyond that, there is a real difficulty in getting thing on his schedule that are outside of washington that involve pushing legislation and policy. and instead, we know what the president is doing with some of his time because he tweets about

it almost every single morning. >> he seemed paralyzed by this, megan. this is one of the dark eer moments of his presidency, seeing his son dragged into this. we went three days, four days where the president had nothing on his public schedule. >> he has almost intentionally removed himself. we're in the middle of an epic battle about what should be the signature legislative information he's putting in place. other than tweets from the sideline saying, i think mitch mcconnell can get it done. we're seeing mitch mcconnell is probably not going to get this done. he's so angry. so all-consumed. you saw again, the hillary clinton tweets again. the fake news tweets. >> he mentioned michael. >> he mentioned michael. it's of their own creation.

it's getting closer and closer. the family is being drawn in deeper and deeper and deeper. the don jr. revelations continue to come out. who was in the meeting. who wasn't. it will be another week dominated by russia. not dominated by the things that american people care about, improving their wages. getting better jobs. lowering their taxes. the thing this administration said they were going to come in and do, they are not doing week after week after week. >> michael, we hear the complaint that the media is obsessed with the russia investigation. not talking about substance. if you look at what the president has been talking about, he's not been out there using the bully pulpit. is there it's true. in august of 2016 or so, it became clear that the hillary clinton campaign had cracked the code. they knew how to distract the president. they've gotten better at it. we know from "shattered" and

other sources. this has been planned as a way to stop the president's agenda. as a cynical political operative, i admire their effectiveness. as a citizen of the united states, i fear for the republican. >> how does the white house get back on message? how does the president get back on message? >> i think they're doing it. they've separated the crisis out into an outside unit. it works. we have to get the wheels rolling so it works well. i think they're on their way. >> he's been extraordinary. when you were at the campaign, president, then-candidate trump held press conferences. did interviews. he hasn't had a full-blown press conference since february. the white house briefings have been reduced the a couple a week. most are not on camera. you're not longered a sizing that team. i would imagine -- that doesn't play to trump's strengths, does it? >> i now advise ceos and

business leaders. the ceos i talk to are pleased with the agenda that the president is pursuing on regulatory reform. energy. extremely successful on natural gas development. the ceos who create jobs. >> but they're hiding them. you don't see the president or his spokespeople. >> that's what they need to do. they need to start talking about this. >> the problem is not that the democrats had a great strategy. they didn't have a great sfrat ji to win an election. the problem is the principal. donald trump is the main person that takes him off the message that everybody else in the white house and the vice president and the republicans in congress seem to want to follow. and get in -- every time he announces a week of infrom structure, he goes off on twitter tirade. he has a foreign trip, goes off on something ems. multiple foreign trips. the president is ultimately the problem. it's not reflected.

everything that the trump administration, his spokes people, people that advocated him is not affected out in america. two-thirds of the country think the country is off on the wrong track. if they're doing good things, nobody in america knows it. >> but, abby, the polls s also shows that democrats have hardly seized the reins here. >> the democrat party is a little bit adrift. it's like they're in a target-rich environment. they're dealing with so many things they want to jump on, and no one is is really focusing their attention on a message that they think can work. there's no leader of the democratic party right now who can help set that agenda. as a result, in part, the russia scandal, has become the dominant story when some democrats say we

should be undermining trump on the economic piece. in this poll, his vongest front. >> the democrats have been thrown off their game. i want to go back to -- >> it's a whole washington, d.c., thing, i have to say is like a marvel comics movie. with all villains and no superheroes. not a single superhero in washington, d.c., that the american public thinks are on track. >> we don't want a superhero. >> how about one profile if courage? just one. >> you said it's a target-rich environment. the democratic party is not hitting a target. they have one of the easiest ones in front of them. only 40% of the people in the poll agree with how donald trump is handling the economy. this is the defining issue in most american homes the. what is my future? how do i get a better job? when is my pay packet goingketkt go up? you mentioned ceos being happy?

i can tell you one who is not. jamie dimon. people want tax reform. they want stuff better for their business. they don't see meaningful reform that will change the everyday economic environment. struggling families. working to get their kids into college. working for better jobs. this is what he always should have focused on. >> i disagree. i think the more -- americans are not interested in specific policy debate. i think the democrats, if they were smart, would run on the exact same thing george w. bush ran on and didn't do. the same thing barack obama ran on and didn't do. the same thing donald trump ran on and hasn't done. how do you deal with the total dysfunction in washington and get together and solve a problem? >> the democrats are doing great in their mind by saying he's bad, he's bad, he's bad, he's worse than us. the american public thinks you're all bad. how are you going to figure out

how the fix the problem in washington, d.c., that everybody seems to run on. >> as someone who does not live inside the beltway. >> they must will have to have you here. >> i used to live here. i spent a lot of time here. you would see democrats drinking are republicans. you saw them marry each other. remember mary matalin. i now live in the hinterlands and the flyover country, we look at this and see america is lost. we're lost in the vastness. what happened to the day when we worked as team? jack kemp's birthday was thursday. he looked as legislators as a team. i'm not sure we can get back to it. >> you're here because you had to testify before the house intelligence committee. i want to get to a mystery here. there's been a lot of attention

to this speech that donald trump gave just before the meeting in trump tower. where he said this. >> i am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week. and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the clintons. i think you're going find it very informative and very, very interesting. >> okay, so abby, that speech didn't happen the following week, the week after that. the week after that. the week after that. what happened? >> i have yet to find a trump campaign aide that can explain what happened that day. what then-candidate trump was talking about. why the speech didn't happen. no one seems to have an explanation for it. the key thing to know though is that a few hours before he gave that speech, don jr. finally confirmed a date and a time for this meeting he was going have for the people who told him basically going into the meeting that they would have dirt on

hillary clinton and it was part of the russian government's efforts to help donald trump. those are the facts. there are no explanations. >> you were there. what happened to the speech? >> my job when i was in trump tower was developing message. talking points. that time, we were in a big deep dive on all kinds of things hillary. if you remember, i got caught researching white water because hope hicks in the campaign e-mailed mark caput of of politico instead of michael caputo. we were putting things on the books that were on record. that is not the only speech he talked about that did not happen. a lot of things we hoped to do didn't happen. >> you would think picking on hillary clinton would happen quick. >> russia didn't help donald trump. then we discovered he tried to help donald trump. there was no meetings, now we know there were meetings.

there's though collusion, it's not illegal. now we're having a debate on that. i have been involved in two presidential campaigns. i have talked to people in the last 25 years. no one has every attended a meeting like this or been involved in something like this. >> michael, i know you had nothing to do with this meeting. the president's tweeted about you this morning. let's take a look that. thank you to former campaign adviser michael caputo for saying so powerfully that there was no russian collusion in our winning campaign. you would acknowledge you wouldn't necessarily know, right? >> i know about myself. i know about my friends, roger stone and paul manafort. they would never do anything like this. i know about donald trump. i spent time with him years before the election. talking about his love of country and how thankful he is for what the country has done for him. i don't believe he would tolerate in his ranks. i wasn't in the dominant

coalition. i wasn't in all the meetings. we see mistakes made by don jr. and general flynn. in the end of all of this, when we discover no crimes have been committed, we have to dial down the rhetoric. i get called a traitor every 60 seconds on twitter. i'm a veteran of the u.s. army infan industry. when you call someone a traitor, people buy weapons and we start shooting. we have on to stop this before someone else gets shot. >> there's an explain nation that people are worried that donald trump and his people seemingly being in close relationship with vladimir putin. viewed by most people as a totalitarian in a state that is our adversary. >> we're out of time. thank you very much. we'll be right back.

w

that's all for us today. check out our new live series, the briefing room, when it debuts tomorrow on our abc news digital platforms with more results on our new poll. until then, thanks for sharing part of your sunday with us. and have a great day.

up next, firefighters battle an early morning brushfire in the south bay. what sparked those flames. and thousands of people get ready to take part in this year's aids walk san francisco. good morning, a live look outside from the east bay hills camera where it is already in the low to mid-70s, h-70s, h-700 danger, all for you n