>> dickerson: welcome back. political analysis on very busy week in washington. julie pace is the washington bureau chief for the associated press. david nakamura covers the white house for the "washington post." we're also joined by "washington post" columnist and deputy editorial page editor ruth marcus founder and publisher of the publisher, ben domenech. the mueller news or not news into context. >> a good washington drama to start off your week. we're at point where there is much more that we don't know about what is going to be happening potentially monday with mueller and endowments. we don't know what charges will be brought forward works they may be focused on but i think what we can say pretty definitively is that the muller investigation is not winding

down which is what the white house wants people to think. they want people to believe that this is investigation that that is largely run its course, that there is no evidence of collusion and there for nothing to see there. mueller is taking the opposite approach, he is working through white house officials, other pepeople who have been close to the president doing interviews and i think it's important for people to remember also that when you do end up with these special counsel investigation and the first set of charges start come through tend to start at the bottom. start with the low hanging grout. i don't think anybody should expect that if we do see indictments this week that witness be the last or the final announcement from the special counsel. >> dickerson: what have you made of the white house reaction to this? they was a pre-reaction in a week in terms of white house focus on democrats then the president is speaking a little bit about this on twitter this morning. >> nothing animates this president more than lashing out trying to throw the blame back on to his platal opponents including hillary clinton, we've seen that again this morning

talking about dossier and democratic funding of it. and once again it just comes down now we're nine months in to this process, since he's been president where the president still does not talk about fundamentally how russia has affected the democracy, ultimately that continues to get lost in this as this investigation goes forward. exactly what russia did in this election, president not talked to george bush himself came out with the speech talking about russia meddling. he continues to say this is victim here is trump. >> dickerson: ruth, the victim is trump, he talk this morning, during the clinton years, pinned pendant counsel, the clinton team went after him. do you expect that here? does it work? is is that a trap? what is your sense of how this reaction to whatever news we get next week will play out? >> definitely seems to be a reluck on not necessarily the

white house but certainly alli allies. to start going after bob mueller, we saw it this week, wall street journal, she resign. i have to say, all of this, the dossier, the uranium, the attack on mueller seems to be just absolutely frantic effort to distract attention from what we do know which is -- as david pointed out intelligence community concluded that russia tried to meddle in the owel, that russia tried to meddle on donald trump's behalf. and donald trump never acknowledged that, he's constantly called eight hoax. responsible president would want to get to the bottom of this. and that is not what we're seeing. >> dickerson: ben, it is possible there could be both special counsel inquirely that is legitimate and the other questions that has been raised the dossier of information about

the president, a lot unconfirmeda lot of it very unconfirmed if that's a cot gore rethat it was funded in part by dnc. >> we know that the clinton campaign and dnc did pay for access to the dossier, how much of the dossier's creation. we have less of clear picture you have in part because of this deal that was cut on behalf of fusion gps with the house intel committee. authors of the dossier in this instance. i think that that dossier is concerning in part because the fbi was willing to engage with the creator of it and potentially was on path toward paying for it. that also potentially was dossier was used as justification to look into other people in donald trump's circle. we need clarification on this going forward. but as ruth indicated in so many different ways, this is one of those areas where everything really remains very muddy.

>> dickerson: let's move from muddy to slightly opaque. julie, this week you had two republicans speak out very strongly about the president but two senators on their way out to retirement or was it the start of something different than just kind of criticism of this president? >> public dynamic and private dynamic. what corker and what flake were reflect hang their colleagues say, they are reflecting a mood among a lot of republican senators where they feel like they would like this president to succeed on policy but they feel like he has put certain elements of our democracy at risk. senators that say things that are astounding about a president from their own party. publicly a much different story. flake issued a call to arms from his colleagues and no one lined up behind to follow him. it's because they look at their

own electoral process and donald trump is very popular among republican voters. >> this is pro than this they run in to. republican senators, many would like to have a different constituency than one they actually have but cannot dissolve the people and elect another. instead you face a situation where the fact is that jeff flake gave interview right after he gave his speak where he said, when i came here i wanted to talk about limited government and free trade and things like that. well that's fine. but he also said, i didn't want to talk about ditch voice safe issues like these culture war issues. the electorate wants to you talk about those issues, one of the reasons that donald trump has succeeded to the degree that did he in changing the republican party into one that is the party of trump is because he just wraps his around around all of these issues. flake described that as politics of resentment and grievance but the fact is that majority of republican voters across the country do not believe that saying something like, nfl

players should respect the flag and stand for it is act of grievance or resentment. that is the reason that trump has prevailed and people like flake are on the way out. >> what was remarkable about the comments wasn't simply that they made it about a president of their own party. hard to even remember senators of opposite parties speaking in that kind of language about the president. but as julie said the silence that succeeded it, the silence is telling on two grounds. first, that they almost all of them do priefly agree with that assessment more or less. and also that they are scared and reluctant to say it. that is -- jeff flake was leaving no one, to follow him. but watch two things. watch what happens with mueller and see how that affects things. but even more watch what happens with tax cuts, because what you hear from senators, when you

say, why is this sigh leapt? he was elected, which is totally legitimate point, but tax cuts. if they're unable to get these tax cuts done i think that really shatters the cohesion of the party. >> to extent there was cohesion. >> take a quick break now, we'll be back with more from our panel we'll talk about this a little more and tax cuts as well. ♪ (cheering) a triangle solo? surprising.

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>> dickerson: we're back. david, i want to go to you on this, the president called it a love fest be the other republicans whether they love him or not they are behind him. flake and corker are off on -- >> he had a lunch with republican senators, all reports at that lunch which came on the same day as this flake speech was that there wasn't a whole lot of sparks or fireworks. that some of the republicans who support this president's agenda said he was very well versed in the facts and the details of tax reform and other legislation that they discussed at the lunch. even corker said they hadn't talked to each other at the lunch but there was no big outburst. but i think more importantly, it's the leadership. just couple of week ago we saw mitch mcconnell visit the white house whether he was knew ahead of time he'd be dragged boot rose garden as trump went on and on. it looked very uncomfortable for mcconnell, but he was a show of unity and we talked about the tax cuts that's where they want

to go, same with paul ryan. until these leaders start to put out more resistance i don't think you'll see whole lot of others follow. >> dickerson: as you mentioned, ben, the president wants unity to get tax cuts past but the president has lot of power because he has a relationship with those voters that you mentioned earlier. so, how does this play out politically, on the one hand you have steve bannon carrying the trump torch saying we have lots of people like president trump running for office, mcconnell wants different sort like incumbents, if you return to the senate how do you think that plays out between now and the election in '18? >> i think mitch mcconnell made a grave mistake by personalizing this situation, having his chief of staffer call steve bannon a white supremacist. in missouri, for instance, who is running for senate, it doesn't mat who are steve bannons what matters is his plan and the fact that his plan lines

up at this juncture in a way that it hasn't ever before with the interests of republican donors. major republican donors are more furious than they have ever been. and the level of frustration that they had directed toward the u.s. senate is palpable. may not agree with steve bannon with the priorities, like to see that add vans but do agree who the problem s. in this instance, it's mcconnell. it's the way that he's run the show. they blame him for the fact that they don't have a tax reform package already through and if bannon is sable to marshal those donors in a significant and organized way, it can dramatically change the make up of this conference. >> the elevation of steve bannon i think is a fascinating political dynamic right now. we're talking about donald trump, mitch mcconnell and steve bannon in the same breath. steve bannon has done excellent job. >> what do you think to go happen on tax cuts, there's unity among some but not much room for error because simple majority in the senate that way not able to clear that bar for

the affordable care act. >> i think senator corker did good job of laying out challenges that he faced, saw it on display with the discussion and wobbling about 401(k) and how you adjust their taxability 20 make the amount of money you're taking out of the treasury looks smaller. >> dickerson: the presidents doesn't want the house wants to -- >> as general matter cutting taxes is an easier thing to do than reforming health care. because it is giving things to people rather than potentially taking it away. but when you get into the weeds, any change in the tax code affects a lot of different people then you see all of the constituencies going to that, then you have these things called distribution tables which, it's very hard to cut taxes without helping very wealthy people. so the distribution tables are going to be a little bit of deja vu all over again to the impact on health care and what would

happen to premiums. because they're going -- they very well could end up looking like wealthy people get a huge tax break and there's going to be a bunch of middle income people depending what they do. who could end up suffering. so, it is going to be a hard lift but it is the absolute imperative for republicans to survive. >> dickerson: is that the difference between tax cuts and the replacement which s everybody knows that -- >> absolutely. you've seen trump i think differently than on affordable care act where he didn't have pro-active message, done more campaigning for this tax bill, the republican caucus maybe talk about it in a different way. he wound call it instead of tax reform, tax cuts, he's gone out to states where there's democratic senators and tried to put pressure on them, talked about maybe getting democratic votes that may be unlikely. you've seen the president certainly he understands i think

the station involved if this gets stopped his agenda is at risk. >> dickerson: does this look like a trump tax plan or republican one? >> looks like a regular old republican one. what donald trump said, perhaps even raise taxes on wealthy individuals, he promised tax cuts that would go to every american worker and something like. that but you don't see a payroll tax cut in this you see something that's much more along the lines of a typical republican tax plan. i actually think that has some potential to be problematic if this goes forward. we saw how donald trump referred to attempts to replace obamacare as being too mean in instances. that sort of thing. i think you can see something similar happen when it comes to taxes if he thinks that doesn't line up with his priorities directly then he may not be as strong of an advocate as republicans would like. that being said, republicans are always more comfortable talking about taxes than almost any other subject, this is the one area where they will run into the spears of opposing opinion

absolutely willingly because they think that it's their issue, they think they own it and i do think that this has a lot more likelihood of getting moved forward than anything else that's come to the floor. >> dickerson: we'll that have to wrap it there. i want to thank our panel. when we come back loot one of the big e challenges facing the commander in chief. woman: so, greg... it's a lot to take in. i know.

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>> dickerson: president trump has reflected on the difficulty of consoling the families of fallen servicemen and women. it's a burden he shares with all presidents who have ordered americans into battle or to contemplate doing so. harry truman said that the decision to go to war with korea was the toughest decision he had to make as president. truman received a letter that proved just how tough, it was from william banning the father of george c. banning, one of the more than 36,000 americans who died during the korean war. and along with the letter mr. banning returned his son's purple heart. the letter read, mr. truman, as you have been directly responsible for the loss of our son's life in korea, you might just as well keep this emblem on display in your trophy room as a

memory of one of your historic deeds. our major regret at this time is that your daughter was not there to receive the same treatment as our son received in korea. truman, whose presidential desk had a sign "the buck stops here" kept the letter and medal close at hand for the last 19 years of his life. when he died, they were found in his desk drawer, a reminder that the toughest presidential decisions last long after a president's tenure is over. back in a moment.

>> dickerson: we talk a lot about politics. we decided to look at the relationship between politics and music. jon batiste is the band leader for the late show with stephen colbert. we spoke about reinteroperation of the battle him of the

republica project for atlantic's podcast. >> this song has that thing that makes us have a sense of reference for it. and without even studying the history when you hear that mellody. ♪ for me i like to keep that essence and let myself -- free association with things that i'm listening at the time, something that i may have been working on several years back will come up and there's no intention other than just to follow that stream of consciousness. what came out is a blend of things which i think highly signifies the american experiment. you have the blend of african rhythms, you have this almost chorale like habit going on in

the music mixed with the gospel style. just blend of everything that i think if we at our best, ideal of american life at its best is everything coexisting and the great compromise of every element being here and living as one. that's what the piece represents. >> dickerson: is there a line that it speaks to you really strongly out of that piece? >> wow. >> his truth is marching on. it sounds the way that a march sounds. one foot after another. i like that. this victory is not just a victory of now. this is a victory of all

generations after us and eternal victory. there's so many layers in that one line. >> dickerson: we're in a moment now where truth maybe is up for grabs. >> absolutely. about the idea of developing your philosophy and world view that i approach this song with. truth being up for grabs, something that you think of i really think that comes from people not actually being in the same room enough. to say, okay, you just like me, we have maybe different things going on culturally or in our upbringing. we're all just here together. >> dickerson: you tried to use that more broadly. take it from this song and what you see music being able to do in your work or just in general, to create those bridges. right now we're in place where people don't feel like there are

bridges. >> music will also be a bridge depending on who is using it. i think music has the power to get people into the room together. that may not come into the room with one another if it wasn't for the musical experience and it's pretty hard to hate the person next to you when you are laughing and dancing next to each other. >> dickerson: do you have musical reactions to events? whether you see something on is the or whether it's an event in the news, does it -- do you react in music? >> i react when i see something on the news from a place of empathy. i try to practice empathy. empathy i think leads to music if that makes any sense. empathy is something that when you put it into practice your response becomes less verbal and less physical and it becomes more emotional, because you have

to sit back and reflect for awhile before you act. >> dickerson: let me ask about the idea of restraint. we in public don't have much restraint in a lot of the way people behave. but i think it was his notes to his band talked about, you don't have to play every note. >> whew, john, yes. restraint is the beauty we cannot see. when you listen to music and you hear someone's tone on the instrument or a beautiful voice or the sound of bass resonating with the sounds of the symbols, like the universe. then when there is space it allows you to appreciate what you just heard and to understand it and to process it then to respond.

so, space is important in that dialogue. i think we can learn a lot from jazz in our dialogue right now as a nation. we have a lot of sides going like this. and we have these two predominant sides really pushing like this. there's no space, it's only my perspective, no listening, no questions really, just constantly. to me that always leads to more conflict. and i'm not saying i don't have hope for our nation, i do feel like there's something that we can learn and sooner or later who will be forced to learn it. >> dickerson: if you want to see our full conversation with jon batiste you cago

website at thenation.com. we'll leave with you a listen and a look at john batiste's reimagined "battle him of the republic" we'll see you. ♪ ♪ ♪ captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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