now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00. there is big news on the russia this hour. the guest list grows. the identity of other participant in the meeting arranged by donald trump jr. to get dirt on hillary clinton is now known. the "new york times" is reporting that the latest name to surface is that of ike kaveladzee who was sent to make sure that the favor was executed. today news that donald trump jr. and paul manafort, who were in the meeting, have been cleared by special counsel bob mueller to testify in public. first to the republicans' big fail. the senate republican health care bill all but died. trump is in denial at this point, and he is not taking the fall. >> i don't think it's dead, no, but i'm certainly disappointed for seven years i have been hearing repeal and replace from congress and i have been hearing it loud and strong.

when we finally get a chance to repeal and replace they don't take advantage of it. let obamacare fail. it will be a lot easier. i think we're probably in that position where we'll just let obamacare fail. we're not going to own it. i am not going to own it. i can tell you the republicans are not going to own it. >> trump made those comments after three republican senators came out and said they oppose the latest senate plan. keep in mind, the house has voted more than 50 times to repeal obamacare, and the senate passed legislation in 2015 to repeal. but when faced with the tricky aspect of selling health care reform to their own members and constituents, they came up short. let's get to our reporters covering the new developments. kasie hunt with us on capitol hill. kristen welker at the white house and eli stokols and politico susan glasser. kasie hunt, first to you at capitol hill. what is mcconnell's sort of last-ditch effort to salvage any

sort of -- i can't even use the word "win" but to salvage anything out of this bust? >> salvage something, yeah. it looks -- there was a very contentious lunch here this afternoon where there was a lot of disagreement and argument about whether or not they should have a vote on this repeal-only plan. mcconnell came out to the microphones. first he said, yes, we're going to vote, then he said it was likely we're going to vote, then he said this is where i think the majority of my members are. it seems like there was a lot of disagreement about whether they should all be forced to go on the record about whether obamacare should be straight-up repealed. it seems like there are still developments ongoing here. they are scrambling to try to figure out what the plan would be, could be, are there other options. lamar alexander, the chairman of the health committee, the health committee essentially saying that they are planning to hold hearings on how to fix the

insurance market. that announcement came out a few minutes ago. regardless of whether or not the vote is actually held. that, of course, lines up with what mcconnell said over the recess. if they fail to get the 50 votes they need to fix the individual obamacare markets. that's as sure a sign as any that they're moving in that direction. right now it seems mcconnell wants to force the members to walk the plank and take the vote. the president telegraphing from the white house that they think they'll have to go in a different direction and let, as the president said, obamacare fail. they're in an incredibly difficult spot. it's been a very sort of -- how to put it, moody day on capitol hill. there has been -- it's been a strange kind of experience watching this unfold, thinking there is no way many of these members will get on board with this. sure enough, by noon, even before they went behind closed doors, we had the three votes. very difficult place and day for

mitch mcconnell right now. >> kristen welker, i was stunned by the president's comments. obviously, when you talk about health care, there's a political consideration, but i have never heard an american president reduce health care policy-making to just the crass political, bare-knuckles aspect of it. the fact that obamacare is now more popular than the senate republican bill is in part his fault. he could have helped to make the senate bill more popular, but he trashed the house bill. he said the senate bill needed more heart, and now he just reduces the entire debate, which at its best is about policy, i suppose, it sounds like what mcconnell is doing at this point, getting people to get on the record, is about keeping score. what does the white house say behind closed doors about the president's comments this morning? >> reporter: i think white house officials are digging in. they're defensive. they want to try to make democrats own this, which has been really striking to kind of

hear the verbal jiu jitsu. president trump is here in the white house, and republicans have control of both chambers. i think what is going to be complicated moving forward is something kasie was talking about, which is what does a plan "b" look like, nicolle? it seems like the white house and leader mcconnell, leaders on capitol hill, have two very different ideas about how this should move forward. the president very much dug in on this idea that he wants to see obamacare repealed now and then replaced later. the political reality is it doesn't seem like that's going to work, so you have mitch mcconnell really moving toward the possibility of actually trying to improve aspects of this and fix the individual marke markets. duringy our daily press briefing with sarah huckabee sanders a short time ago she was pressed on whether the president might try to do the opposite, push obamacare over a cliff so that, in fact, it does fail. he could potentially do that if he wanted to. she pushed back and said, look,

it's already failing. if you look at the raw numbers there are still millions of americans relying on obamacare. so i think that's where politically this gets very difficult. if not for the messaging, which you raise. and all of this may underscore the fact that this is a president who, by his own admission, is new to washington and ledge latigislating. >> let me put up the president's tweet this morning. he says republicans should repeal failing obamacare now and work on a new health care plan that starts from a clean slate. dems will join in. i guess, to you first, kristen and back to you, kasie, do you sense any sort of faction at the white house that is for dems will join in plan "b"? >> reporter: there are a number of officials here who think that ul ultimately they can put pressure on democrats and ultimately

force them to the table. that would require under the calculation the white house is making repealing obamacare with the two-year sunset. effectively people would be able to keep their coverage for two years and the white house calculation, a number of officials believe, would be to put the pressure on democrats to come to the table and to negotiate on a replacement package. when you talk to democrats and i'm sure kasie has had a number of conversations to this effect, they are not showing any inclination of wanting to go to the table under those circumstances. their argument is, look, we'll sit down and try to improve obamacare now, but we're not going to be a part of any type of repeal effort. from the calculus of democrats, why not let republicans own this and then bear the political brunt in 2018. >> kasie, if donald trump can't make any republicans in the senate or the house afraid of him, why on earth would democrats in the senate or the house be afraid of him? >> reporter: well, look, i don't know that it's a question of being afraid of him as much as

there is, i think, a real imperative to try to fix this. look, obamacare wasn't popular until the republicans gained control of both the white house and the congress and started trying to repeal it. democrats had an awful lot of trouble with this law. there is a lot of political upside for red state democrats who can go in and say, look, i wanted to fix this. i told you i was going to fix this. they ran away from president obama in especially the mid-term years. i don't think that there is necessarily, for a joe manchin, say of west virginia, a problem in being seen working with president trump. now, for chuck schumer it's an entirely different set of calculations because he is the leader of the national party, the base, as you know, has zero appetite whatsoever for working with president trump. so i think that's the tension you may start to see play out if in fact this is what happened in the end. >> eli stokols. i want to ask you about dopes.

donald trump tweeting about dopes saying -- talking about dopes at dinner last night. he may have tweeted about it too. i love it. talking about loyalty as well. saying he was let down by all the democrats and a few republicans. most republicans were loyal, terrific and worked really hard. what -- to whom were they loyal by trump's analysis? because i think susan collins' constituents would find her incredibly loyal to them and their concerns about cuts in medicaid. who didn't pass the loyalty test and who fell into the dopes category? >> i am guessing one person in dopes or not loyal is dean heller given the political report this week that the white house and the president himself have talked to folks in arizona about possibly primarying heller because he didn't get on board with this bill. obviously the president calling, saying that we're going to look like dopes if we don't pass this about 12 hours before he

publicly says to the cameras at the white house, this isn't on us. i don't own this, republicans don't own this. you can get tied up in those knots if you listen to the republican private pronouncements and the words from the president. if you look at what his actions and what he did to push this bill forward. at the end of last year's campaign he was doing five or six rallies a day around the clock on this campaign to pass an obamacare repeal effort. did he ever leave the white house? he threw a party when the house passed its obamacare repeal bill, but over the last couple of weeks, as mitch mcconnell was trying to sort of, you know, put together 50 votes, trump, yeah, he invited a few folks to dinner, but he never really went out there. he didn't go to any of the states he won, like ohio and west virginia, to try to pressure those senators in those places who were skeptical about voting for this senate bill. he never really grasped the policy. he seemed sort of content to just sign anything that would come to his desk. if you listen to his words, he

basically acknowledges this isn't really his deal. this is mitch mcconnell's deal. he said i'm waiting for mitch to send something to my desk. could have been anything, probably. he was ready to sign it. and the words over the last 24, 48 hours it was never we're trying to do this as republicans. it was they. i am waiting on the senate. i am surprised they couldn't get it done. mitch couldn't get it done. i am surprised. trump strategically distanced himself from this. >> eli, do the people who called the meeting don junior coordinated with the british music publicist to get dirt on hillary clinton feel like dopes when today we learn about yet another person at the meeting? their story being undermined by the hour. and we now know more about what we don't know. and it appears that there are more secrets they're keeping than truths they are telling about this meeting. >> i think a lot of the people

who took that meeting have to feel in hindsight like dopes themselves. it was obviously not worth whatever they thought they would get out of it. when don junior goes on tv and says this is all of it and more comes out. whether it's significant or not, there is more investigating to be done about what may have come out of the meeting that we don't know about. it does not seem like the folks who were in the room around this administration have been fully forthcoming about this and it's creating more legal headaches and a darker cloud hanging over the white house. >> susan glasser, you know more about ike kaveladze. i was never a candidate to be a russian spy, clearly, than i do. tell me the significance of him being in the meeting. >> it feels like minute by minute we are finding out more information about the meeting. it was the nixon presidency that gave us the phrase the modified limited hangout. it does feel like we weren't exactly getting the full story

from donald trump jr. last week. the eighth man. even his lawyer, it seems, has already given a statement that is hard to believe. kaveladze's lawyer says he was a consultant to the trump kont tact who wanted the meeting to happen. the statement from the lawyer given to some media outlets was he was there and prepared to be a translator at the meeting. he showed up and found that natalia veselnitskaya had her own translator. when you find out even a little bit more of his background, you find out that back in 2000, the general accounting office did a report and linked, you know, this same guy, mr. kaveladze and his company to basically setting up hundreds of pass-through accounts for russian shell companies here in the united states. the total amount the gao found that had been laundered through his company and another company was $1.4 billion. there were no charges ever filed that anyone has yet found, but

this is definitely the same person, that's been confirmed by his attorney. i don't think you send somebody at that level who is setting up hundreds of shell companies for russian firms in the united states. he is not showing up at that meeting as a simple translator. >> susan, what would he be doing? what kinds of things do people like this do? >> i have to say, i just -- we can't get ahead of the information. one thing that we also learned today as part of this is that not only was this meeting already on special counsel robert mueller's radar screen but that, in fact, the special prosecutor's office had already reached out to mr. kaveladze to formally request an interview with him as part of the investigation. so we know officially now that this meeting is part of the investigation that robert mueller is undertaking. and i think that, obviously, this is a significant meeting. we don't know yet what we don't know. and i am amazed that trump people have turned this into a

week-long story just to even reveal who was at the meeting. why not, if you're making disclosures about it, go ahead and say who was at the meeting. instead, every single day practically there is an oh, one more person. we forgot. it's amazing. >> and they maintain that there was nothing wrong with the meeting, so it's sort of weird that they won't just acknowledge everyone who was there. kasie hunt, kristen welker, eli stokols and susan glasser, thank you so much for spending time with me. coming up, the man who was with donald trump on the very same day, the very same city that donald trump jr., jared kushner and paul manafort were meeting at trump tower with russians who promised high-level and sensitive information as part of the russian government's support for donald trump joins me live in studio exclusively. i have said from the beginning that what should be done here is that everybody who had any contacts with any foreign nationals, especially anyone from russia, should have

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. is it inappropriate to get opposition research from a foreign government? >> yeah, i think it would be. i think it would be. i don't think there is any evidence that they did. but i -- i do think it would be, sure. and i think quite frankly that's probably against the law, michael, in addition to being inappropriate. >> i am joined by new jersey governor chris christie. thank you for being here with us. >> happy to be here, nicolle. >> you were with the candidate

that day. >> as it turns out. >> i remember exactly what was going on in that period. he was the nominee by virtue of the delegate count but not all republicans had come to terms with it. can you talk about the campaign and the candidate's state of mind that day. >> that was a day when we were having a pretty important meeting at the four seasons with major republican donors. and then-candidate trump asked me if i would come in and speak to the donors. a lot of those people had been people who had been big donors of mine at the rga when i was chairman and in my run for reelection in 2013. the candidate and i spent a while beforehand together. then we went over together to the four seasons to give that talk. >> did the candidate say anything that day about this meeting? >> no, no. >> do you think he knew about it? >> i don't. i don't. listen, we have a very open, friendly 15-year relationship, and i was a -- at that time, i was a key member of the

campaign. and so, if this was anything that he knew about, he is not the holding-back type. we would have talked about it. i am confident he didn't know. >> did you know about the meeting? >> no. no. >> is it the kind of meeting you would have been brought into? >> not typically because it doesn't sound to me to be -- first of all, i think -- so no. the answer is no, i wasn't invited nor would it be the kind of meeting typically i was brought into. when i met most of the time, it was most of the time with the candidate. there might be others in the room with the candidate, but i didn't engage in a lot of the strategic meetings with just staff. my job most of the time was interact with the candidate and deal with debate prep for the candidate. >> let me -- can i read you the e-mail that led to -- >> sure. >> so the e-mail that was sent to don junior said, the crown prosecutor of russia, it's unclear that there is one, met with his father this morning and offered to provide the trump campaign with official documents and information that would

incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia and be very useful to your father. this is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of russia and its government's support for mr. trump. what does that say to you? he wrote back, if it's what you say, i love it. what do those two statements represent in your mind? >> listen, first of all, i think you have got to consider the source of the information and the recipient of the information. in the source of the information, as i understand it, i have never met this guy, but the source of the information seems to me to be like a music promoter, right. i don't think this guy is necessarily sophisticated in the language of government like you and i would be. and the recipient of the information, donald trump jr., who i know very well, is by no means a sophisticated political actor. this is a guy who loves his father and got involved in politics because his father got involved, but i don't think don would have gotten involved at that level any other time.

now, all that being said, people who saw that at some point have to, i think, ask more questions. i don't know what that guy means. crown prosecutor. >> pat money hynihan said you'r entitled to your own opinions but not your own set of facts. this makes clear that was an offer to cluollude with the russian government. you don't agree this is bungled collusion. >> no. i don't know who goldstone is. >> does it matter? >> it does matter for this reason. if goldstone were an official of the russian government, or someone who has been seen in the past to represent the russian government, neither of those things at least as far as i know, have been represented. that would be one thing. he is a music promoter who they dealt with in the miss universe pageant. these representations -- i am

not saying it shouldn't be something that would raise some concerns, but i don't think his representations should necessarily be taken at face value. >> so you -- this doesn't, for you, represent clear-cut collusion? >> no. >> why not? >> first of all, let's go. >> because of who they are? you are basically saying he was a music professor and you're saying don junior was dumb. >> no, that's not what i'm saying. what i am saying is that, first, with goldstone, you have to know that the information he is relaying in that e-mail is actually true. >> how do you know it's not? >> we're looking in retrospect now. you are saying at the time should it have raised concerns. i am saying yes. you're saying is it evidence of bungled collusion. the only way it is is if goldstone knew what he was talking about was correct. i don't think we know that. secondly, there is no evidence of actual collusion. >> for you the discrepancy is whether or not goldstone's information is good, not whether or not the son of an american

candidate for president agreed to receive opo from a hostile foreign power? >> i think don junior and he has said it himself, if he had it to do over he would do it differently. >> how do you do it differently. is it patriotic to meet with the russians. how about send it to the fbi. >> you don't send it to the fbi. >> really? >> when the book was delivered to al gore's campaign he called the fbi. >> reporter: you don't know they didn't talk to their campaign's lawyers first, i suspect that's exactly what they did. i don't suspect this guy on his own who received the book said i'm going immediately to the fbi. i suspect he spoke to the campaign's lawyers, which any smart person should do. >> you are saying don is not smart. >> he is not sophisticated in this stuff. >> what about jared kushner? >> i don't know what jared knew or didn't know. that's why it's important for

this to get out. i think everybody has got to get the information right of who met with who, and about what, and get the information out there. i am confident from speaking to the president that the president didn't authorize any collusion, didn't know about any collusion and i don't know that any collusion ever happened. >> do you think he should stand in the east room and continue to bellow at the top of his lungs that there was no collusion? >> that's our guy. >> that's your guy? are you proud that's our president? he is all of our president. should he wekeep saying that? >> i am proud he is the president. >> i'm talking about collusion. do you advise him to keep saying there is no collusion or do you advise him not to? >> he needs to get to the bottom of all this. the fact of the matter is he knows he didn't collude and that's essentially what he is saying. so he should be saying that because the american people need to hear, first and foremost, from their president that he didn't collude and he didn't know anything about collusion. let's start with that. the rest of this stuff -- i said

this yesterday. i don't think anybody really thinks that this meeting was advisable. i don't think anybody is really saying that. in the end, i think that now you are looking at everything in retrospect. everybody ois examining this based on what you know how, not what you knew at the time. >> you're a prosecutor. how do you know that nothing of value was -- >> i don't know. i am sure bob mueller will try to find out. i know as a prosecutor you don't prosecute people until you have the facts. my problem is that people are prosecuting folks before they have the facts? >> is bob mueller doing that? >> i think the media is essentially doing that. >> we're just asking questions. >> it's a form of prosecution. i am not saying actually prosecuting. my point is that's the media's job. that's fine. they can do it. it doesn't mean when you ask me as a former prosecutor -- i don't see any crime here. >> i guess -- stop.

>> that's what investigations are for. >> you don't know one wasn't committed. how do you know that something. let's put it up. the campaign finance -- >> hold on. you only know once you know. here is the thing. i am saying to you the same thing you're saying to me. i don't know that there has been a crime committed. >> donald trump doesn't know there wasn't. >> he knows he didn't collude. he knows he didn't collude. >> i am not sure about that. >> this is what he said. you have to take him at his word. >> why? he doesn't have a close relationship with the truth. >> that's fine and well, i understand those are the talking points. >> the talking points? has donald trump ever lied about anything? >> here is the fact of the matter. you know what, he has never lied to me. i can only judge based on that. here is the fact of the matter, that's why we have investigations. that's why the justice department is doing what they're doing and that's why somebody like bob mueller being in this position should give everybody faith and confidence. i worked with him as a u.s. attorney and he was director of the fbi. he is a smart and careful guy. he is a reasonable guy. i think, at the end, he will

come to certain conclusions about conduct in this case. but we can't come to conclusions now. we could have opinions. just not come to conclusions. >> let's put up one of the -- there is a serious question about whether it's possible that a campaign finance violation occurred. there is a law -- i worked on campaigns and i knew this to be the case. no american shall knowingly solicit, accept or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation and it says anything of value. when i worked on campaigns, if you got a call from australia, the uae or russia and they want to give you information about an opponent that's strictly out of bounds. you're right, you go to the campaign counsel or to the fbi. >> right. >> do you think it's possible at least that a campaign finance violation occurred. >> it depends what happened in that meeting. nicolle, we don't know what happened in the meeting yet. i am not saying nothing happened and i'm not saying something happened. you know why? because i wasn't in the meeting.

neither was anybody else who is commenting on it. >> i remember when one of your responsibilities was to interface with foreign governments and foreign leaders who were waking up to the fact that he could be our next president. you interfaced with the australians and british. did you ever interface with any russians? >> nope. >> do you think it's weird that the other three most senior people on the campaign had a meeting with at least four russians? >> do i think it's weird? it's not a meeting, from my perspective, that i would have been anxious to take. >> it's four people with leadership positions on the campaign had a meeting that was pitched as, very high-level and sensitive information and part of russia's government support for mr. trump. >> three of them did. >> should you have been in the loop since you were dealing with other countries? >> no. my dealing with other countries was not anything official as part of the campaign. >> you were the head of the transition. >> yes. so what they reached out to me

to talk about was what kind of government do you think donald trump will have. what kind of people do you think he'll put into positions of authority? how does he view the world. and that's what i was asked about. so my responsibility was very different from the campaign. in the campaign, i had no official position in the campaign, but my job was to be the candidate's friend. and to be the person who could talk to him on a peer-to-peer level. someone who had run against him, had been his friend for 15 years and someone whom he respected as a debater. and so, i would work with him significantly on those type of issues. but i was not, by any stretch, in every kind of strategy meeting or discussion of all kinds of different things. sometimes i would be. >> right. >> but usually it was only what he was also in the room, not with the rest of the staff. other staff might be in there when i was but not all the time. >> i have got more questions about the conversations you had with then-candidate trump and

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we're back with governor chris christie. should jared kushner's security clearances be put on pause while he finishes the process which, by his own admission involves i think the third round of updating his background forms? >> i don't think there is a reason to put it on pause. i think the president needs to make the judgment himself regarding this. >> if you were the president and a senior staffer had to turn in their background forms three times, if i was the senior staffer, would you want my security clearance put on hold? >> it's a much different relationship, right. >> seriously. >> he knows jared better than i ever knew anyone on my senior staff as government. >> diplomats and foreign intelligence agencies are asked to trust jared, it's not just the president who is asked to trust jared kushner. >> in the end it's the president who decides who has security

clearance and who does not. unless donald trump is brought strong, direct evidence that there is some kind of risk to jared having security clearance, he won't take it away. >> do you think the blind loyalty to family is serving him well? >> i don't know that it's blind loyalty. it's been developed over a number of years that he's gotten to know him as a business person and as the father of his grandchildren. i don't know if it's blind loyalty or not. the president can only judge that. it appears that they've known each other for a long time in an intimate way and the president made judgments. >> does the president believe don junior, jared kushner and paul manafort handled the meeting well? >> i haven't heard the president say that. i haven't seen him tweeted. >> can i show you what your friend chris wray said?

>> here is what i want you to tell every politician. if you get a call from somebody suggesting that a foreign government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the fbi. >> to the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation-state, or any non-state actor, is the kind of thing the fbi would want to know. >> yeah. i agree with him. >> so should jared kushner, paul manafort, don junior have called the fbi? >> as i said before, what they should have done was to go to don mcgahn. hold on. this is a process. >> this was a campaign that had no processes. >> excuse me. they had a lawyer. i was -- i interacted with don often during that period of time. he is someone who is now the white house counsel. don is a good, smart, careful lawyer. if they had gone to don with that, i am willing to bet you everything i've got in my pocket

don would have said, don't take the meeting, let's alert the fbi. that video you just saw is why chris wray is going to be the best fbi director of my lifetime. listen to exactly what he said. he didn't say anything about the meeting in particular. he said any threat from a foreign government to interfere in our election is something the fbi should know about. he wasn't passing judgment on all that. >> can you acknowledge that that's what this sounds like in hindsight, an offer to interfere? >> not only in hindsight. i told you that if i read that at the time it would have rang bells for me. but remember, i come from this with a prosecutor's training and mentality. and a lifetime of experience in politics. right? so that's the experience from -- don junior didn't have that experience. >> i guess it's on donald trump to surround himself with some people who know something, isn't it? isn't that what an executive does? >> don mcgahn does know something. i'm sure he would have advised

them to go to the fbi. there is no indication that this was ever brought to the campaign lawyers. it should have been. there is no question about that. i think the president would say that, that in retrospect it should have been brought to campaign lawyers. even don junior said i would have handled it differently. i understand people make mistakes. i am not here defending the taking of the meeting. i am not. what i am also saying is it's not evidence of a crime. >> is it evidence, though, of a lack of loyalty to this country? >> no. >> you don't meet with a russian -- >> it's evidence of a lack of judgment and understanding. >> so jared kushner, paul manafort and don junior have a lack of judgment. >> i am only speaking as to don junior because he had the direct contact with these folks, and i think the only one -- >> the others had direct contact. they sat in a meeting with them. >> they came into the meeting. we don't know what they knew when they walked into the meeting. >> they were in receipt of the e-mail. >> i don't know whether they read the whole e-mail or

considered everything. i will say to you, i was around the campaign a lot, and especially at that time. it was extraordinarily hectic and the white house was shorthanded. there are many more people there doing things than there was during the trump campaign. >> is it hectic? i think every white house is hectic. you know that better than me. >> it was a well oiled machine. >> i want to talk about politics and your term as governor. you are so different in person -- >> thank you. >> -- from the image that you project as a politician. you project defiance and indifference to your public image. i know that that's -- i know you are not indifferent. you are not indifferent about a single person. to see your indifference projected in the wake of an image of you on a beach, it's

hard to watch. i mean, i know you were trying to get the beaches open for the citizens of your state. >> by the way, all the beaches were open. >> they weren't all open. >> i don't want to spend a lot of time on this ridiculousness. >> i want to talk about your image, not beaches. why don't you care how you're perceived? >> i do care how i'm perceived, but i won't sacrifice my family for public perception. >> are they mutually exclusive? >> sometimes. sometimes they are. it depends. sometimes they are. in this instance they were. i had to make a choice. i had to make a choice. i had to make a choice between political optics and my family. when i have to make a choice between the two, i have never made anything clearer to the people of new jersey, i am picking my family. when i have to make a choice. that's only happened two or three times in eight years. when it happens, you have to make the choice. i am making my choice. my wife and my children are the permanent part of my life. >> i know that to be true.

but wasn't there a way to protect yourself from this image that's now been projected -- >> no. the only way to protect myself would have been to tell my family that because every beach in new jersey was opened except for the one where the governor's residence happens to be that none of you can be there until the legislature decides to send me a budget, even though i was willing to sign it if they had sent it to me on time. given that we had, as i said before, people traveling from around the country and from london to come and visit with my children -- >> should you have stayed inside? >> i don't think -- i don't know how that would have made a difference. >> there wouldn't have been a picture of you sitting on the beach. >> that's fine. i told everybody from monday forward i was going to be at the beach. i told everyone that. >> on disclosure you're clean, but it's the image. >> if that's where our politics are now, i am not going to play that game. just not. now, if i had not told everybody -- if i tried to make

people think i was at the governor's residence in princeton or our private mohomen morris county, then the papers would say, now you have a problem. but through monday and the press briefings on wednesday, thursday and friday. i said i'll be at the beach. my family invited a lot of people to come for the weekend. >> i don't think it was a matter of you being sneaky. it's about the image. >> it was about the media being sneaky. flying the plane -- they were trying to play gotcha when there was no gotcha to be had. it wasn't like i didn't say i was going to be there. this is the biggest scandal i have ever seen. the politician who is caught. >> you know that's not what i'm talking about. i am talking about your own image. you know that i -- i never thought there was a political scandal. i am asking you. you are about to end the 16-year chapter of your life in government, and your reputation is so different from the reality

of who you are. >> first of all, i think my reputation is much broader than just what happened two weeks ago. >> your approval rating -- george w. bush about an approval rating at the end of his presidency and he would say publicly i am happy to let history judge me but he would say privately it pained me to have -- >> no one enjoys that. >> does it pain you? >> it really doesn't. i didn't believe my approval rating when it was at 75%. which it was in new jersey. 78% at some point. and i don't believe it when they say it's 15%. i don't believe either one of them. what happens in all this, i think, is if you judge yourself by that, you never belonged in the job in the first place. you judge yourself by the way you make decisions, what you accomplish and how you conduct yourself, whether it's honestly or not. i am happy to be judged in that way over the course of time. our former boss, emphasized that to me too when i became an

office-holder. >> he didn't mean any of it. he would have loved to have been in the '80s. >> when i was in '78 it's a wonderful thing. you know what, it's like i tell my children, nicolle, all of this is temporary. all of it's temporary. >> we'll take a temporary break. much, much more with the governor who is sticking around to join our panel. i'll ask him about a new book out today on the inner workings of the trump campaign and account of what went down on election night. from the first moment you met

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their leadership is instinctive. they're experts in things you haven't heard of - researchers of technologies that one day, you will. some call them the best of the best. some call them veterans. we call them our team. we're back. joining me and the governor, brett stevens and harold ford jr. >> buttoning up my jacket here. >> still getting dressed. >> you reviewed this new book. i think we have a picture of the cover. a new book out about mostly the bannon-trump relationship, "the devil devil's bargain" by joshua

green. talk about your review. >> it's a positive review. i think it's a tremendous book. it gives us an insight into how steve bannon created an alternative gop that was able to fill in for the republican party as the republican party failed to really deliver a winning coalition for donald trump going into the summer of 2016. the way they did that is what i call or what really steve bannon would call the honey boston colleger approach. the honey badger is the animal who doesn't give a darn or something like that. what they did was kind of a strategy of sort of deliberate shamelessness. people used to wonder how is trump winning despite what he said about megyn kelly, muslims, women, mexicans and so on. the lesson is he won because he said those things. >> one of the things that's getting a lot of attention, governor, is the story about you and the call from former president obama. >> shocking. >> tell us what happened on election night. >> first off, the book is wrong

fundamentally in that there was no call from president obama that evening to me. i didn't speak to the president that night at all. >> did you talk to senior staff? >> i got a call from a member of senior staff who, as the election started to turn, who i had been working with on the transition and he said if this goes -- >> again, important to point out that you were the transition director at the time, so you had contacts inside the government. >> we were meeting with the white house every three weeks or so. and they said i'm not saying that we think this is what is going to happen, but if your guy happens to win, how do i get president in touch with your guy because they literally had no contact at all prior to that. and i said just call my phone and i'll give you his number. but i wasn't going to give him the number then until the president of the kruyund united wanted to make the call and i turned to the candidate and he said i think at the white house they think that you are winning because they are calling how to get in touch with you after that

happens. and he was happy about that. >> can i ask you, irrespective of the story, i was just listening to you during your previous interview, very loyal to president trump. most of us sense that that loyalty hasn't been returned to you in any way. do you feel that the president has ban loy has been loyal to you, and repaid the services that you rendered to him? >> the president doesn't owe me anything. he's the presidented a oos my friend for 15 years. >> so what do you owe him? >> i only owe him the truth. which is exactly what i was saying to the last two segments. i owe imtwe him the truth and w a friendship that well predates both our political careers. so i think i understand him a lot better than most people do. so i have a great relationship with the president. and i don't feel like he owes me a thing. >> would the truth be that his presidency is failing? >> no. >> why not?

>> listen, this presidency in the first six months is not failing if for no other reason than gorsuch oig is now supreme court justice. >> if you were advising him on health care, and you probably are, but if you were advising hill day him day to day, would you advise him to work with democrats to find an improvement in how the exchanges work and how we can provide more affordable? in no, i'd advise him to move on. i'd advise him to move on to other priorities.>in no, i'd ad on. i'd advise him to move on to other priorities.>in no, i'd ad on. i'd advise him to move on to other priorities.n no, i'd advi on. i'd advise him to move on to other priorities. no, i'd advis on. i'd advise him to move on to other priorities. like tax reform and infrastructure. it's no secret that i've said that to the president for months. i don't think there is a will in congress right now. i think she have known that there is no will in congress for them to work with each or or for them to -- republicans and democrats to work with each other. they all mouth it. they say say the night thing and

they always throw joe manchin up there to say it because he's from west virginia. but what i'd say is let's move on to things that are also important to the country. reforming our tax system to be able to draet jobs and to increase wages. and to work on infrastructure to rebuild the heart and soul of this country in a way that only the federal government can do in partnership with the states. that would be my advice. >> health care seemed like they focused only to getting republicans. so the question, if you're encouraging him to do taxes or infrastructure, would you encourage him to do it in a bipartisan way or pursue it the same way they pursued health care? >> sure, because i think both trax tax reform and infrastructure lend themselves to be less partisan than health care. i think you can find democrats who will agree with you on infrastructure. i think you can find democrats who will agree with you on aspects of tax reform. and one of the things that i thought was one of the real good parts of the president as private citizen trump was that he was able to talk with

democrats and republicans equally and be able to bring people together. i think he needs to get back to that. but i think the issues have to be right and i think tax reform and infrastructure are things that he should move on to. if congress sgntd have the will to do this and she have known they don't have the will to muster 50 votes in the senate, so if they don't, then the president shouldn't bother with it. move on. >> we'll -- >> this remind me of monty python. this is like the black knights skit. the leg comes off, arm is hacked off and he keeps saying let's fight on. it matters what battle you choose to fight first in politics. george w. bush going into his second term chose to fight for social security reform. >> and failed. we'll sneak in a quick break and let the governor respond on the other side. en hundred miles, you'll see what you're really made of. after five hours of spinning and one unfortunate ride on the gravitron, your grandkids spot a 6 foot banana

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we are back. and bret has a question for the governor. >> i want to go back to what you were talking about russia. you're a prosecutor. so i walk through the red door. i think it's a bore bor democratic elo, but instead it's a chicken shack. that's essentially what don jr. thought he was doing. he thought some russian lawyer would hand him a dossier -- >> i don't know that that's what he thought. i'm sure he would love to have any information on hillary clinton. >> from russia? >> again, you're talking about a guy who is not that sophisticated.

but the point is -- >> paul manafort is sophisticated. >> i didn't talk about manafort. if it turn out to be a chicken shack, it ain't a crime. >> but if you plot -- >> as a prosecutor, those are the judgments you need to make. not what you think what might have happen, but what did happen. >> but conspiracy are -- >> we're not talking about conspiracy now, are we? >> well, a hostile foreign power. >> no, to go this to a meeting, it's not a conspiracy. conspiracy to commit what crime? >> collusion with a power power. >> collusion in and of itself is not a crime. receiving information from a foreign government that is of value could be a crime. >> didn't moran say that we're defer gre deviating down? >> i didn't know this was the moynihan show. >> but without a more compass -- >> you're asking me as a prosecutor, not as a moral

compass. i was a prosecutor, not the pope. so -- >> but at lease it's disgraceful be the son of the republican git, tgit candidate, the son hopes to obtain information from a hostile foreign power that gives you the wikileaks disclosure and -- >> i wouldn't have done the meeting. and i don't think it can be any clearer than that. you want to use a lot of other adjectives, that is up to you. but my view is i try to be dispassionate about this. >> you wouldn't call it -- >> i would call at the shouldn't have taken the meeting. >> that will have to be the last word. >> that's what lawyers do. they tell what to do and whatnot to tdo. >> we're and i ovway over oir t. m tch"mtp daily" starts right n. >> that was a riveting interview with the governor and