a.b. stoddard and analyst david drucker. not denying the subject. context of the meeting with the president and russian leaders where he called fired fbi director james comey a nut job. one notable thing while the white house is trying to brush this off. republicans are not jumping to the defense of the administration. some seem shocked. john mccain said he was speechless. listen to this. >> with the appointment of mr. mueller, we are now at the stage of a scandal. now the question is how is it handled? is it handled like watergate where drip, drip, drip, every day? or handle it like ronald reagan handled iran contra? >> david drucker, mccain said he was speechless with the oval office meeting. they are having a hard time with it. >> they are. they were initially pleased to see robert mueller appointed. in their mind, this sweeps it off the table for them and they get back to work. what do you plan to do? now when you have an investigation with a special coup counsel, it can go in any direction. some are worried this could complete in the middle of

a.b. stoddard. i was going to leave it as the kicker. >> i need more covfefe. >> it was up for six hours. he just deleted it. the president doesn't drink, we are told. >> that is true. >> do you have a theory? >> perhaps he was side tackled by a member of the team? we don't know why he left it mid sentence. he gave us a gift. a new word we can enter into the lexic lexicon. i need more covfefe. >> i didn't know what was go on. i started to get texts from trump people. you guys jump on anything he does. even if you don't understand what it is. i said they have a point here. why so much attention on an obviously incomplete tweet? >> i would like to raise the possibility. just because it is funny. >> there were hours of dominance on social media. >> i think -- >> it means nothing. he didn't finish the tweet. >> he didn't finish it means something. >> he is the leader of the free world. if obama had done this, it would be hours on fox. >> unless you have anything to add to covfefe, a.b., michael flynn is

a.b. stoddard. a.b., this is the day no cbo score. a lot of talk of how to thicken out high risk pools. what do you see here? >> i do think they will put it up for a vote. they have the count. that is significant. i think it is a really great moment for the house leadership and the white house. president trump met with more than a dozen lawmakers. pressed really hard on this. what happens from here won't be great. it will go over to the senate and become a totally different bill. when it comes back to the house, the very people who designed this fix to get it through the house will bail. conservatives and freedom caucus will not like what comes back from the senate. this is just a first step in a long process. it will allow the leadership and the white house to say they got this promise delivered. they did an obamacare fix. not a repeal. many problems ahead, but i think they are relieved now that they were able to deliver on this promise. >> abby, let's talk about what we know and what's changed and in the new bill. what the amendments. here is the upton amendment. this is added. this d

a.b. stoddard, thank you.resident trump is close to picking a group of lawyers outside the federal government to help him with the russian investigations. a team of lawyers. that's according to "the washington post." white house officials are not confirming the reports but they're not denying it either. trace gallagher is here with us. trace? >> shep, the "washington post" says the president and his advisers are working together as a team. some of the names being mentioned are ted olsen who rose to prominence in 2000 when he argued gore v. bush before the supreme court delivering the presidency to george w. bush. also helped overturn the 2000 california ballot measure outlawing same sex marriage. he's wife died in a plane that hit the pentagon on 9-11. and then there's another name, reid weingarten who some say is an unlikely choice because he's represented many democratic clients and also a very close friend with the former attorney general under the obama administration, eric holder. shep? >> shepard: and th

a.b. stoddard is here from real clear politics. see you. >> good to see you. >> shepard: you said republicans have a choice to make and soon. what is it? >> well, they're waiting i think paralyzed until comey comes and testifies on capitol hill. he wants to do an opposition and he will have to answer questions about what happened in the oval office, what transpired in that conversation and why he did not bring it to the attention of the attorney general, the department of justice or tell anybody else at the fbi like andrew mccabe that testified last week that there was no interference in the investigation thus far. we did he inform the house chairman of the -- house intelligence committee chairman, the ranking members about this along the way? he might have an explanation for that. that makes things look perilous for the president or might be some strange james comey explanation that allows members to say this is not what it seems. if he says he absolutely saw it as potential obstruction of justice but had a good reason for not sha

a.b. stoddard and stephen dimon. was asking about that first question from the chairman of this committee, chairman burr who wondered about the firing of the fbi director. >> acting director mccabe said he's not going to get into detailing those discussions that the former director might have had with president trump. interestingly enough, across the senate, and the senate judiciary committee, you have the top democrat in the top republican who both had a meeting with director comey a week ago confirming or saying that after their talk with mr. comey, they got no information but the president was wrong. it's a bipartisan backing to the presidents for a pointed statement that he had been told he was not a subject of that investigation. it's probably right that the fbi clams up about this sort of stuff. obviously, the excessive talking of investigation as part of what helped sink director comey. the fact that mccabe is not talking about this is probably a good thing. both of those senators, both said they wished for mo

a.b. stoddard and analyst phil mudd. let's show the clip from the nbc interview. >> sally yates testified that the white house notified he was compromised and at risk of blackmailed. 18 days later he was finally fired. during the 18 day, he had access to the nation's top secrets. one day you meet on the issue of comey and you fire him. in a humiliating way. he is sitting in the room with colleagueses. >> my white house counsel not sound like an emergency of anything. didn't make it sound like anything. she did not make it sound that way either in the hearings. this man has served for many years. he's a general. in my opinion, he's a very good person. i believe that it would be very unfair to hear from somebody who we don't even know and immediately run out and fire a general. >> your acting attorney general at the time. >> phil mudd, the difference in disposition to the president was one guy he liked. so he took it slow. one guy he didn't like so he did it right away. >> i think it is more basic than that, chris. if you

a.b. stoddard. great to have all of you. jeffrey, one of the people most closely connected to the president is now being focused on by the federal investigators. >> to state the obvious, it is not good. i don't think we should overstate how bad it is. it is going to be a tremendous distraction to him. particularly the fact that they are looking into his financial affairs which are complicated. you know, examining what contacts he had financially with the banks or individuals associated with russia and then having to explain that. you know, it will take up a lot of time and space in his brain. >> the white house says they have not been contacted by the fbi. jared hasn't been reached out to by the fbi. how is it distracting? >> it is in your head. think about what it is like to be under investigation by the fbi and having them looking at your bank records and financial records and just because he hasn't been contacted doesn't mean he is not under investigation. in fact, you tend as an investigator to look last at the person yo

a.b. stoddard. jen is in the top right of your screen. all right. so let's talk about this, david gregory, the stakes, the urgency, trying to get this through. why the pressure? what is the gamble? >> the gamble is you're putting your self out there and you may fail. i cannot imagine why they would put themselves in such a precarious position and allow the prospect of failure to be real here. look, they may win in the end. the washington capitals were up 2-0, squandered their lead and won in overtime so everything is fine but they still made it perilously close. even if they clear this hurdle, especially this issue of pre-existing conditions is not going to survive. in other words, it's going to remain in the bill once the senate looks at it. lax message discipline, doesn't know what's in the bill, allowing himself to run the risk of failing again on a central promise. it's just not being done well even if they pull it off. >> a.b. you've been talking to people on the hill, crunching numbers, you felt there was some momentum. where are we this morni

a.b. stoddard.orth noting, we tried to get schumer on the show, but we invited all of the republican leadership. hear me? we tried to get dozens of republican lawmakers to come the show. we are often chock full. not right now. we are over this weekend. let's discuss. david gregory, yes, it is a pickle the president has put his party in here. that's what leadership is about, right? if you choose to ignore, you are in effect, empowering whatever you ignore. >> well, and particularly in this case. i said before i think it is demeaning to reduce the conversation and controversy to partisan politics and allowing a conversation to unfold that the democrats are being hypocrites because they wanted comey out all along. come on. focus on what was done. they made up a reason to get rid of comey. the idea they cared about the treatment of hillary clinton. nothi nobody believes. they did it in the middle of the russia investigation. now they tried to get him to pledge loyalty. you know trump was thinking, this

a.b. stoddard. a.b. chris, what has happened with the health care plan, we think to get it over the finish line? >> the big thing is they took $8 billion and said we will put this in because it addresses the issue of what do you do because you are not mandating people be covered. that won't cover the cost. it mitigates worries by members. this is smart. if you think you have 213 hard yeses and you have five or six maybe yes or maybe no, call the vote. those people are never going to get off the fence until you say the vote is ones thursday afternoon whenever. i think it is a risk. i think they are taking this risk because they believe the alternative which is letting it fail again with no vote is worse. they promised their base for sevens years. from the second president obama introduced obamacare until now, if they got into hour, they would repeal and replace. to not do so twice in the first 105 days of the trump presidency -- voting on the bill with the expectation the senate will change it. >> they ha

a.b. stoddard, syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. mollie, this has been focusing, swirling on capitol hill but to see the actual fisa court rebuke is pretty stunning. >> to learn that the obama administration was routinely violating the privacy protections americans, violating their fourth amendment rights is stunning. god bless them for digging into it because we have an entire media complex that supposedly cares about democracy dying in darkness and when this ruling came out they accepted the anodyne statements from intelligence agencies that the big news is they were going to stop doing some email collection program they'd been doing. these are the types of stories that need to be dug into aggressively by as many reporters to find out more about what these violations were, who was impacted, and what's being done to correct it. this was the kind of thing they had previously been warned about and they didn't fix it. they didn't change the oversight and this is something that can't continue. >> bret: this comes as there is a renewal

a.b. stoddard from real clear politics. a.b.?hing that republicans are agreeing upon these days is they have a brutal summer ahead as mike emanuel points out, before they leave nor the august recess, which is 31 legislative days from now with the time that take off each week that i have to raise the debt celling with a bipartisan vote that requires 60 votes in the senate. they hope with that bill to actually pair something else, the end of some she questing cuts. the president wants to increase military spending. in order to do so, they have to change by law the budget control act of 2011. that also has to be a bipartisan vote that they have to do with democrat s. this package they hope to get out of the door in 31 legislative days. they haven't done much of the tough stuff since january. this is a huge, heavy lift. they hope some time that the senate will get along to healthcare. that trick of reconciliation that senator lee was describing only lasts for the healthcare vote until september 30th. so they'll have to get that done

a.b. stoddard. >> we learned this doesn't just cover the campaign and the campaign advisers. now it reaches into the white house. what is the significance? >> the last point. it reaches to the white house. jared kushner emerged as the president's most important adviser and also family. those authority goes in multiple directions and who has business interests that raise real questions on behalf of the trump family that could have made the campaign vulnerable to being compromised by the russians. again, we don't know what all the facts are so we wait for investigation. we know through kushner's attorney he is happy to talk to all investigators. i think we can make a broader point right now about the attitude vulnerability. cavalier attitude by the trump campaign. russia is not going to do anything to us. there is something of concern here and kushner appears to be the person who had enough contact and meetings or knows enough to be able to really help investigators or though he is not a target right now, that can always change. he seems to be in position to help investigators

a.b. stoddard and david, assistant editor for "the washington post" and patrick healey, "new york times" cultural editor. a.b., let's begin on health care. gary cohn is a guy with rising influence within the west wing, his words, we have confidence, we've got the votes. it's going to be a very good week. so? what do you make of it? >> right, in a normal situation that didn't involve a couple of health care fails in the last few weeks, and all the tension we know surrounding the divisions within the republican conference on the hill, we could take a signal from the white house and say boy, they have the votes. if he says so, but as the reporting shows, there's still a lot of skirmishing going on with incredible hesitance coming from the moderate republicans who are concerned as you mentioned in the open that if there isn't a threat to the coverage for the sick there is certainly the threat their prices will be raised and that house members voting to support a bill like this could see it die in the senate, and then be left sort of holding the political bag next november come the midterm elections,

a.b. stoddard, charles hurt, opinion editor for "the washington times," and steve hilton, former advisor to british prime minister david cameron. charlie, your thoughts. >> well, i am particularly struck by the stark differences between what "the new york times" is reporting and what the white house has said. it's a flat denial. i do think, as you pointed out, it's very important to remember we are talking about parts of a letter that were read over the phone to a reporter. we don't know the full, with the full letter is. it is not in that context but we don't know what jim comey walked away from that conversation thinking, and i do think it's very strange that you have a guy like jim comey who has made no, has had no problems interjecting himself publicly at the height of campaigns to say wait a minute. if he felt like trump had attempted to obstruct justice, i just have a hard time imagining that he wouldn't come out and publicly say we have a problem. one last point is that this letter that he wrote, which is not an unusual thing for him to do, among the people it would have gone to is a

a.b. stoddard. analyst david gregory and analyst tony blanken. what do you see, david? >> you see a highly choreographed visit to israel by an american president who is making it a priority and saying to the israelis that this is a centerpiece of the foreign policy. israelis are happy to have it. particularly because they are trying to turn the page as we watch the it would go through the official signing of the guest book at the beautiful residence for the president in jerusalem. resetting that page to say that this is a new day and new administration. a different relationship between the united states and israel. after the fraught relationship as tony can speak to between israel and the obama administration. we should hasten to point out there may have been frayed relations. that bond from the security point of view was strong from the obama administration and administration of benjamin netanyahu in israel. nevertheless, you have two leaders are more aligned on the question of iran. who are even more aligned on the question of fighting terrorism more generally. that w

a.b. stoddard with real clear politics, charles heard of "the washington times." let me start with you. trump celebrating victory in the house, but the senate is going to be a different matter, tougher to get it through, how tough? >> i think very tough. no question this is a big victory for donald trump and house republicans, but it is a temporary victory. the senate has indicated, we have already seen, basically starting from scratch, starting over, working group of 13 republican senators going to be working to put this together. they are going to have to come up with a bill that meets this 50-vote threshold by pleasing camps that are arguably even more polarized than republicans in the house of representatives. you have bill cassidy cannot susan collins on the one side, moderate side cannot seem to about many of the arguments and the basic architecture and structure of obamacare. on the other side, you've got people like rand paul and tom cotton, others who want to rip obamacare root and branch. i think that is going to be a huge challenge knowing they can only lose those couple vote

a.b. stoddard, charles hurt, opinion editor for "the washington times," and steve hilton, former advisor to british prime minister david cameron. charlie, your thoughts. >> well, i am particularly struck by the stark differences between what "the new york times" is reporting and what the white house has said. it's a flat denial. i do think, as you pointed out, it's very important to remember we are talking about parts of a letter that were read over the phone to a reporter. we don't know the full, with the full letter is. it is not in that context but we don't know what jim comey walked away from that conversation thinking, and i do think it's very strange that you have a guy like jim comey who has made no, has had no problems interjecting himself publicly at the height of campaigns to say wait a minute. if he felt like trump had attempted to obstruct justice, i just have a hard time imagining that he wouldn't come out and publicly say we have a problem. one last point is that this letter that he wrote, which is not an unusual thing for him to do, among the people it would have gone to is a

a.b. stoddard. all right, brother gregory. what do you have on covfefe? >> i got nothing. i got we will trace the beginning of the western civilization to the president's use of twitter and fascination with it. to be more serious, clearly he is in the middle of the new round of ranting of press coverage and trying to distract from the investigation over russia. the extent is something that matters. an actual agenda. we cannot lose sight of the fact that the coin of the realm for president trump is accomplishment. he has failed to accomplish key elements of his agenda that had a lot of excitement for conservatives who may not necessarily agree with him and those who supported him who might not have otherwise supported him if it were not for the uniqueness of the 2016 election year. whether it is stalled on health care and questions of the future of tax reform as we get deeper into the summer and facing the fall and election year next year for the mid terms. i think this has to be wearing on him. the reporting is bearing that out. there is obvious signs of frustration and ho

a.b. stoddard.ou got a lot of advice to the president and whether or not to go along with the paris climate accord. apparently even the secretary of energy rick perry was saying keep it, go with it. his daughter ivanka said go with it. rex tillerson, former chairman and ceo of exxonmobil said keep to the agreement. but there were others saying follow what you promised during the campaign and get out of it. >> yeah, it appears that you would think the sort of stronger voices the one you mentioned particularly rex tillerson would prevail. it seems that the president who is embattled right now not only because of the russia investigations but also because his legislative agenda is so badly stalled seems to want to really kind of satisfy the base. i think we shouldn't be surprised that news broke a few days ago. he's going to want to say that he fulfilled a campaign promise. >> he tweeted this morning expect the announcement shortly. you were what, the state department spokesman when the deal was worked

a.b. stoddard. great to have you here. david gregory, when you hear james clapper saying our institutions are under assault externally and internally, how significant is that statement? >> it is incredibly significant. this is someone at the entire intelligence community of the government which is meant to be independent. making a very serious indictment of the president for abusing his power by firing comey with a false pre-text and now demanding loyalty and recording him and threatening him over twitter. this is not how the system is supposed to work. this is not normal behavior. this is crisis that the public and government has to deal with. it exposes the heart of the usual yo issue. you have the president who feels the community is conspireing against him to deny him legitimate as i as president. it is ridiculous. it is leading to destructive behavior that has to be dealt with. whether anythings comes from the russia investigation, we know the election was hacked. you have the president thinking about the needs of the

a.b. stoddard and cnn political editor and "new york times" editor patrick healey. >> eyebrow raising, head scratching, insert your own adjective here in terms of what president trump's goal is in saying some of these things in these interviews. patrick, let me start with you. let's play it one more time. he talks about the andrew jackson story more tan once. okay. he likes talking about andrew jackson. he talked to celine, gave her this interview. listen. >> had andrew jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the civil war. he was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. and he was really angry that -- he saw what was happening with regard to the civil war. he said there's no reason for this. people don't realize, you know, the civil war -- >> yeah. >> think about it, why? people don't ask that question. why was there the civil war? why could that one not have been worked out. >> patrick, what's happening here? >> president trump has such an attachment to andrew jackson. his statement, he's a tough guy with a big heart is word for word how president trump would describe himse

a.b. stoddard. and analyst patrick healey. cillizza, he made his people look like fools. press secretary and vice president were saying things that are false. the president made it clear this was about russia. his dislike of the investigation. his dislike of the man running it. >> that is a good summary, chris. his press secretary. his vice president. take a pause there. mike pence was the governor of the state. leadership of the house of representatives. this is not the press secretary. he is a staffer at the bottom and really a person who is supposed to represent the party line. to be honest about it. mike pence is the vice president of the united states. on capitol hill two days ago says this is because of rod rosenstein's memo. the president contradicts that in a high profile way. >> chris, let's take a moment and listen to that. this is the second time the vice president has been misled by seemingly by his own white house. first flynn and now the president himself. >> the mendacity montage. >> i was going to fire comey. >> he took the recommendation of the deputy att

a.b. stoddard, special counsel. for the first time we saw republicans and democrats saying, you know, this is a good move, this is the right guy, let's figure it out. now that they're figuring out what it means they're like, what about me, what about my say in the investigation? and they're dealing with that. the president saying it's a witch hunt, that this is a bad move, what has that done with his standing with the men and women of his party? >> that's the problem, is this week we saw a shift after the memo was reported. it's what seems like years ago in the republicans' posture in terms of defending donald trump. they ran for the hills. they didn't want to talk, and when they did, they said this is really of grave concern. we're going to have to find out what's in that memo, we're going to have to subpoena the memo, we're going to have to hear from former fbi director comey. so that was the break. that was the breaking point. it was after many other things, the firing of comey, the lester holt interview where th

a.b. stoddard, david fun, phil mudd.u are going to get smarter, your iq will go up just from watching "new day" this morning. >> we can't get any smarter! we're all set. >> well, right. not you guys. >> and i just heard john berman's there, so you have the bermanator! that is something. >> can you believe this show? >> speaking of raising the intelligence bar, yes. >> that says nothing about chris cuomo being on vacation. you're going to get smarter because chris cuomo's on vacation. >> those were your words, not ours. we didn't say that. didn't say that out loud. >> i'm sure you're not going to be in big, big trouble christine. >> all right. nice to see you guys. >> thanks, guys. see you in a bit. >> and the breaking news there is it is friday. it is friday at "new day" and "early start." first it was volkswagen and fiat chrysler, now another cheater on diesel emissions. that's "cnn money stream" next. finding time to get things done isn't easy. but we've got the digital tools to help. now with xfinity's my account, you

a.b. stoddard, and syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. >> it's obviously a very serious charge. the idea that the president would importune the fbi director potentially to end a particular investigation. let's note that "the new york times" hasn't seen this memo but they are going off of people who have and who read portions of it to them. let's remember, since watergate parallels are thick in the air, that the record of the evidence and watergate showed many instances where ex post facto memoranda were created in a self-serving way to, as they say, gild the lily. i'm not saying that's what happened here but we have to be attuned to that prospect. the white house tells us the memo is not accurate. the language ascribed to mr. trump was "i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go. i hope you can let this go." a good defense lawyer, if acknowledging that that was said, would make it clear it's different from saying i order you to let this go. i instruct you to let this go. james comey became controversial over his conduct last year in the hillary clinton email server cas