david gregory. let's read for people who may not have had an opportunity to read james comey prepared statement. we were reminded this is a sworn statement. it serves as a sworn statement. this is james comey talking about michael flynn. he says that the president then said i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go. to letting flynn go. he is a good guy. i hope you can let this go. i reply he is a good guy. i did not say i would let this go. it is fascinating. all of these are fascinating to read, david, particularly we see president trump's dedication to michael flynn who had lied to the vice president. >> that's right. in this particular case, donald trump is contradicted by his own words. he denied ever having that conversation with jim comey. he made that assertion in a press conference. the high stakes of the hearing are underlined by the question of who do you believe? do you believe the president or do you believe the fired fbi director? the man fired in the middle of the probe of

let's bring back cnn political analyst david gregory. so joining us, cnn political analyst jackie kucinich and david drucker, and we have the blessing this morning of knowing the answer because we hear them yapping before the testimony. let's play lindsey graham and paul ryan, who have already put out their thoughts about what they think the impact of comey is. >> what comey, and i think mueller has concluded, i don't have an obstruction of justice case here, but i believe every word of what comey said. it doesn't rise to the level of obstruction of justice. what prosecutor in their right mind would allow their star witness to go out before the senate panel of 20 senators and get beat up, if you really believe he had a case? so, this is the best evidence yet that in the mind of the special counsel there is no obstruction of justice case to be made against president trump. >> is it appropriate for the president to ask a question of loyalty from the fbi director? >> yeah, no. i mean, obviously, i don't think that is. fbi directors are suppo

david gregory, how did the sessions testimony go? what did you learn? >> i don't think we learned a lot about what they are really investigating, which is what did the russians do? how did they interfere in the election? who might have been involved. sen a lot of questions about the contacts with the russian ambassad ambassador. it raised real questions. i think the level of from ustran is how the attorney general handled the questions with what is happening about the investigation. not the under lying offense, but how the president con ducted himself. you get him at odds with the fbi director jim comey. somewhat. basically he is not telling us what he discussed with the president. he is only adding to the suspicion that somehow they came around to thinking jim comey was doing a bad job once the russia investigation got heated up and they became outraged with the handling of the hillary clinton situation which they could have dealt with far earlier. i think democrats and republicans come away for frustrated. i think this is a strong defender of the pres

bring back panel, maggie haberman, chris cillizza, jeffrey toobin, david gregory.al with the easy question first. it is absurd to hear from anybody that the president's tweets don't matter. we have been told nothing else by the president of the united states himself and by everybody around him when convenient, case in point, they put out the big guns yesterday, kellyanne conway, sebastian gorka to say you media, you focus on the tweets, you should focus on what matters. the president chose london terror attack to tweet about the travel ban and what he wanted. that was on him, listen to dpork, a adporgorka and huckabee sanders talk about it. >> it's social media. >> it's not social media. it's his words, his thoughts. >> not policy, not an executive order, it's social media. please understand the difference. >> i think social media for the president is extremely important. it gives him the ability to speak directly to the people without the bias of the media filtering those types of communications. he has over 100 plus million contact through social media and all th

david gregory. >> this was a damning day for the president of the united states. the testimony from james comey was compelling. it opened himself up to criticism as well which we will get into. overall, it was a real blow against the white house and against this president. it only had the effect of widening the investigation around potential obstruction of justice for the special counsel to look into the areas where the president saw to insert himself or interfere with the investigation into michael flynn. if not the broader russia investigation. so there will be a lot of questions. there was cherry picking on the part of the president's lawyer. things he liked about james comey's testimony that he wasn't being investigated, but things he did not like. he was trying to have it both ways. in the end, the discussion we were just having about the house speaker, the president's defenders excusing the behavior by saying he is new to all this. they are overlooking for the most self destructive part of this. the president doesn't listen to anyone. he has a white house co

let's bring back our panel, david gregory, karoun demirriji, margaret tall leave. it continues to be a continuous drip, drip, another story. larger picture starting to form here. what do you make of this, david? >> from what we can tell, i think the thread that is general flynn, what's so interesting, if you go back to the republican convention and then candidate trump standing up -- actually this is the democratic convention in philadelphia. he invited russia to try to find the missing e-mails from hillary clinton's server, which is such an outrageous thing for a candidate to say, to encourage that kind of hacking. yet what seems to -- what the article points out is there may have been an attempt with somebody close to trump to do just that. that becomes interesting. the link between russia and the campaign is general flynn. and whatever legal jeopardy he faces is one of the reasons why we haven't heard from him. but i think that is a part of the investigation that is certainly interesting in terms of, we haven't seen any widespread evidence that there was collusio

let's discuss right now with analyst david gregory and cnn political national security analyst davidger. david gregory, there is nothing more helpful than making the points to the president about the facts. the tweets. the first one he went with. the man who has access to the best intelligence in the world, the president of the united states states, retweeted from the drudge report unverified accounting. it was in fact wrong. 20 people mowed down. he then immediately instead of addressing the catastrophe and sympathy which would be presidential, he said we need to be smart, vigilant and tough and we need the travel ban as an extra level of safety. he said he would take 90 days and come up with better vetting. the police chief says this is home grown, not foreign actors. then whatever the u.s. can do to help out in london, god bless. he seemed to attack the mayor. he said we have to stop being pc. we have to get down to the business of securing our people. he said 7 dead and 48 injured. the mayor of london said no reason to be alarmed. that is factually untrue. you notice we are not h

david gregory and jeffrey toobin and phil mudd and matthew rosenberg. gentlemen, we got senator warners on the intel committee. democrat. his opening comments. one paragraph is relevant. we should start the discussion there. throw up the paragraph from warner. you don't have it? all right. this is important point he makes. the than t the president appears to have threatened comey's job while telling him i need loyalty. david gregory, there will be a lot of focus on him asking comey to stop the flynn investigation. that is part of what you will hear a lot of politicians call inappropriate today. the question is what does that mean in censure or legality or illeg illegality. warner says, that means do you want to save your job. is that a fair reckoning of the question? >> i think there is no question the president created this awkward pre-text to get together and comey describes it. he indicated he wanted to stay in his role and it was if they never had that conversation. here trump is setting up a dinner with the two of them alone where they isolated and

david gregory, what is this a bellwether for? is this a bellwether for the mood today, a snapshot or the mid terms or president trump's agenda or what? >> reporter: well, i think it's all of those things. i think you want to try to measure voter intensity on both sides of the aisle but particularly democrats who are trying to retake congress and who would eventually like to get the white house back. you want to get some sense of what the -- how trump is per fornling overall with the electorate. how his agenda is measuring up. so you get some measure of this at some point. we'll most likely overread one way or the other into this special election. but there's so many national money that's been poured into this this. but that's what people are looking for. on the policy front, what's going to create the intensity. it's not just going to be the russia investigation. it's going to be health care. democrats want to use that argument to say we've got something to argue strongly when it comes to the mid terms next year. >> michael sheer

join us now or flee cnn analysts, maggie haberman, david gregory and david rucker. david gregory, how do you tie these two big stories together, the special election in georgia with ossoff and handle and what's going on or not going on with health care. >> when i look at georgia, i see two things. it's a test of the trump brand now that he is president. this was a district that tom price held, been republican for a long long time and he won it narrowly. there's room for democrats. so you want to test the trump brand and see how it is out there given all of the turbulence of the trump administration. what is democratic intensity like out there and that's one thing we can measure, a lot of excitement about trying to win back congress next year. is this an early barometer of how the democrats are doing. just as republicans in 2010 did, so will democrats in 2018 do which is use health care as a way to really get out democratic voters intensely around the idea that your coverage is being taken away nap's the early look at the play book and i think that's what's happening

we have chris cillizza and david gregory and april ryan. we know you had a very interesting exchange in the white we will get to momentarily. okay. david gregory, yes, the president's words matter. obviously he is the president of the free world. whatever he says matters. however, he says lots of different things on twitter. how are we to know which ones are official? here is what chris collins, congressman chris collins tried to thread this needle to help us understand which ones to pay attention to. listen to this. >> it's social media. >> it is not social media. it is his words, his thoughts. >> it is not policy. it is not an executive order. it is social media. please understand the difference. >> you take them seriously because they are our president's thoughts. however, the nuances at the end, there will be a certain filter they go through when they become official policy. >> okay. david, you heard them both say they are not official policy. >> well, this doesn't have to be a debate. i mean, the president is speaking in an unfilgters

. >> to discuss it we have david gregory, jackie kucinich and john avlon. >> david, for our viewers, what little we know about this health care bill that's going to be unveiled to other lawmakers at 9:30 this morning, what changes, what does it mean for regular people? >> well, i think the big guess in the political context are going to be about process and about how this is being written and conceived and sold and scored before it's actually voted on. so how much of the substance we actually get to in a public debate i think is a big question. the fundamental policy pieces have to do with how many people are covered, what kind of subsidies are actually received for people who need help to afford health care insurance and how the legislation affects the market, how the insurance market will actually operate which will ultimately affect premiums. you have a safety net aspect of it which is going to be changed with regard to medicaid expansion, with regard to who qualifies for getting the insurance. again, this will be the subject of debate. i think the big question will be, when you h

analyst david gregory. analyst jeffrey toobin. editor at large for cnn politics chris cillizza. jeffrey toobin, they know what happened with sessions yesterday. the sensitive issue becomes he was wrong about defending his honor as he said. he was not strong about defending the constitution. he seemed to preference protecting the president. he said i don't want to talk about the conversation. i will exert the executive privilege. that is not how that works. what did you think of the refusal to answer? >> it shows how much witnesses are in control of congressional hearings. there is no judge forcing you to answer. i thought his legal position was clearly wrong. the executive privilege belongs to the president. congress has a right to investigate executive branch matters. the only way you are supposed to be able to decline to answer questions is if the president instructs you. i believe these conversations with covered by executive privilege and you must not answer. >> there is no preemptive executive privilege which is what he was saying. >> no preserving executive privilege for l

it was an interesting match-up, david gregory, of podesta and stone.you can look at it in two ways, political candy, but i wonder what it means in terms of what path they're on in terms of the investigation. where does talking to podesta and stone really take you? >> i think podesta and his e-mail are part of the underlying offense here. what happened, what didn't they do to better protect themselves. there's kind of an evidence trail there of what the actual interference was on the part of the russian government. but this is a political process, and i think roger stone complaining about not being able to speak publicly is part of, a, his grandstanding, but if you're a trump supporter, you do shake your head and say, wait a minute, i thought we'd have a chance to attack this process as being off base and going after the president incorrectly and give him his due. i think the work the committee does when it does it more quietly is more effective. it's like a kbrand jury. we're trying to understand based on who shows up what direction they're going. i th

let's bring in our political panel, david gregory and john avalon and julie pace. john avalon, it's confusing what jay sekulow was saying, in part because in the same interview he said different things. let me play for you a portion of him talking to jake tapper and then chris wallace, that sounded diametricalily opposed. >> should we take it that the president is under investigation? >> let me be clear. he is not under investigation. now he's being investigated by the department of justice. the special counsel under the special counsel regulations reports still to the department of justice, not an independent counsel. he is being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the termination. >> how do you make sense of this? >> that doesn't make any sense because it's a complete contradiction. that's what you do when you're out there, spinning, trying to get people to ignore what they've seen with their own eyes. the mueller investigation, what we mow of it, "the washingto

we have david gregory and errol louis and ron brownstein.gregory, the president is frustrated with the russia investigation. he doesn't like all of the daily threads. he thinks there is nothing to see here. now rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, seems to send a message to americans and journalists. americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous officials particularly when they do not identify the country or branch of government. americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. the department of justice has a long established policy to neither confirm nor deny. anonymous sources are frustrating to them. there are leaks. they don't think anybody should stake stories and truth on these. >> i don't think the deputy attorney general should be spending his time telling american what is to believe about stories attributed to anonymous sources when a lot of journalism is based on that. people can get in trouble for telling the truth anonymously. throughout our history. how about in

and news of the day -- and helping me will be this man, david gregory. avid is preparing with his oatmeal and will have energy as a result. >> i like the team. university alums -- i'm a third -- >> my gosh, kmocommon humanity. we bring it full circle. >> kellyanne conway on and cuomo off, you guys -- >> we'll do the best we can. >> we'll be looking forward to it. thanks. see you in a bit. >>> i don't know if you noticed but uber is in a crisis. but a competitor told not to gloat. [vo] what made secretariat the greatest racehorse who ever lived? of course he was strong... ...intelligent. ...explosive. but the true secret to his perfection... was a heart, twice the size of an average horse. afi sure had a lot on my mind. my 30-year marriage... ...my 3-month old business... plus...what if this happened again? i was given warfarin in the hospital, but wondered, was this the best treatment for me? so i made a point to talk to my doctor. he told me about eliquis. eliquis treats dvt and pe blood clots and reduces the risk of them happening again. not only does e

david gregory, what happened with mcconnell? we didn't see this coming their way. we knew there would be pressure. there's belief mcconnell could get it done. he's famed in his reputation for being able to get his ducks in a row. how big a blow is a delay? >> it allows the opposition to grow. once the senators go home, there's organized opposition against them. more light in the process. it was a mistake to have more light. they thought they could write it privately, work out some of the differences and move quickly. we've seen in the obamacare fight that the more public pressure came, the more difficult it was. of course, they had to get 60 when they were dealing with obamacare. it was party line vote there as well. there's a lot of difficulty here because you're trying to reconcile two very different sides. i don't view a real conservative movement here that wants to repeal obamacare. you have more moderates who are frankly wary of the politics and the policy of taking back -- pulling back an entitlement that's already been given and cutting short the medicaid ex

david gregory is with us.friday. >> very busy friday. >> a baombshell report in "the washington post" that vladimir putin ordered the hacks on the u.s. election. the cia captures putin's instructions to hurt hillary clinton and try

let's bring in our political panel, cnn political analyst david gregory and john avlon and associate editor and columnist at realclearpolitics, a.b. stoddard. david gregory, not just the tweet continuing confusion about whether or not president trump is under investigation. it's jay sekulow's own words yesterday which contradict each other. let me play that for you for a moment. >> should we take that tweet from the president as confirmation that the president is under investigation? >> let me be clear. the president is not under investigation. >> now he's being investigated by the department of justice because the special counsel under special counsel regulations reports to the department of justice, not an independent counsel. he's being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the termination. >> do you understand whether he's being investigated or not? >> a lot of gymnastics here. look, we have a president who in all of his unusual behavior provides an open window into what he's

david gregory, i know none of this is unusual. we have seen it all before. but after virginia?is speech which was well intended and appreciated. not 24 hours later he is back at it and you could argue worse than ever. >> i think that's right. i suppose in his mind he would separate it out, you know, from the general discourse in the country. there's no question that he is back at it and it's hurtful. i think from the president's point of view he is doing two things at once. he is, you know, politically minded how he can lash out at everybody coming at him with regard to the investigation and keep cementing the idea this is wrong and some conspiracy and a real constituency for that. the other side is that he simply doesn't have any discipline and he is self destructive. we are seeing both of those at once. it is such a contrast to, you know, the congressional ball game last night and when something horrible happens, there is the ability for us to look at our representatives in congress and washington and see their humanity. i thought the best moment of the week out of a horrible

david gregory. >> i think there's a lot of things interesting to know about what the government does and what it knows and there's a reason why that information is classified. that's what jeffrey is alluding to. there's always going to be a tension between the government wanting to keep it secret and journalists wanting to know more. especially to expose wrongdoing, a lack of vigilance in this case on the part of the trump administration. but we should point some things out, the trump administration, the president is rightfully condemning classified leaks. any president, president obama went after leakers. >> went after journalists. eric holder went after journalists in unprecedented fashion. >> the point is there's always going to be tension and negotiations in organizations like cnn or "new york times" or "washington post" are going to work very carefully to try to balance these national security risks with the government's right to know. not all is classified information. the leaking, maggie's reporting this morning, her hard work and other people willing to speak anonymously. tha

. >> reporter: david gregory lost his 20-year-old daughter in the fire was too emotional to talk on camera but told me while he is glad charges were filed, he is frustrated more people aren't being prosecuted. his attorney echoed that. >> they believe that they owned this building and allowed this to happen and didn't prevent it. >> reporter: again, we did try to reach out to the building's owner today but were unsuccessful. we even went by one of their homes. we also reached out to almena's attorney who calls this a mischami miscarriage of justice. he believes the truth will come out and his client will be found not guilty. again, that is the latest from oakland. reporting live, jodi hernandez, nbc bay area news. >> who are they? what kienlt of contact did they have with law enforcement and city officials before the fatal fire. >> where have they been since. senior investigative reporter vicky win is contact. >> reporter: we met with max harris after the deadly fire, one of the last to leave the building alive that night. harris tipped us off that funds donated to victims weren't being di

. >> reporter: david gregory's daughter was killed in the fire. he is one of several victims' family members who came to the courtroom today. >> to see if he had any remorse. >> reporter: did you see any of that? >> not from where i was standing, no. >> reporter: the district attorney says al mena and harris lied to the -- almena and harris lied to the police about having events and people living there. on the night of the fire the judge said the men blocked a second-story exit. today al mena's lawyer called the fire a tragedy but said the prosecution does no good. >> creates a distraction. the local government doesn't have to address the fundamental issue of housing inequality and fire safety that will continue to be a problem in this community. >> reporter: the defense attorney asked the judge for more time today to decide on their plea and bail requests. but almena will be back in court next week with harris for a joint appearance. while almena was arrested here, harris is on the way back from l.a. to join almena at the santa rita jail in dubli

david gregory is with us. busy friday. >> very busy friday. >> a baombshell report in "the washington post" that vladimir putin ordered the hacks on the u.s. election. the cia captures putin's instructions to hurt hillary clinton and try to help donald trump win. >> the "post" writes about how to punish the kremlin and what impact his potential involvement would have on the outcome of the race. joining us now one of the journalists that broke the story, "washington post" reporter adam intest. adam, welcome back. let's drill down on one of the really important aspects of this piece. definitive prove according to your reporting that russian president putin wanted to influence the election, and help trump and hurt hillary clinton. tell us more about how you know it. >> yes. so the cia obtained from what it considers to be one of the most reliable sources of information, basically they captured the order itself from putin to his, to his, you know, to his government to carry out this operation. this is information

david gregory. if he says he wants to spend a trillion dollars there's a trillion dollars worth of problgs rebuilding roads, airports, bridges. there's work that needs to be done and this was one area where democrats would join republicans and work together. >> there's some glimpse what could have been when you hear the president speaking in a disciplined way about his approach to ending obamacare to an infrastructure plan. the reality is that he has been so self-destructive and there have been all of these diz tractioning both for the media and by extension the public at large because of the president's behavior around the russia investigation and other things by the way. the other point that has to be made is you can't just talk about infrastructure in a vacuum. this requires a lot of the political capital. it is a campaign that requires a lot of work working together in the administration having issue discipline and then you look at the backlog in terms of legislative accomplishms. the senate is

show pinning sean spicer to the ground, that only helps the reporter catapult their career like david gregory. kennedy: if the worry is your spokesperson is being pummeled, get a different spokesperson. brian: they can sit there and answer we have a few options. in many ways he's still the ceo of his own company making that adjustment. >> you can see the fear in his eyes. you know how sean spicer is scrutinized. he does his job well. when he hops in front of the camera you lose a little self confidence. and you have 90% of the people who think he's lying before he opens his mouth. kennedy: brian kilmeade, thank you very much. remember republican lawmakers in washington, washington state that is, they introduced new legislation that would defund colleges that stifle free speech through free speech zones and prior restraint policies. in the jeff green state conservative speakers were shouted down. this happened. oh, my god. racist teachers. that's evergreen state. oh, my god. they are so anti-fascism they have been doing everything they to be silence people they disagree with like real fascists

i literally ran, spread in the opposite direction from david gregory on the steps the white house pickwe spent all these years trying to hide from the media and now i work for them which is so ironic but also really awesome because it shows that life is unexpected and it can take these crazy turns and that if you're so rigid on what you want to like to be, then you never can experience kind of the beauty of growing and changing. i think also shows you that you can't judge people. i had this to a type of a lot of the people i work with have now become my very best friends. she's one of my next-door neighbor and one of my best friends. i think i thought of her as somebody who is different than she is. and i think it goes with what we're trying to talk about ourselves. people are more complicated than we usually think. >> host: this is not the first book your co-authored? >> guest: that stupid have also written to children's books with my mom who is a very vivacious editor. she's a little more complicated to work with. >> you are less of a diva. >> thank you. >> host: why did you hide fro

david gregory when he ran "meet the press" had glen green walt on his show would and was extremely critical for him being a conduit for the information from edward snowden. when diane feinstein wrote a report about torture and abuse she was on wolf blitzer's situation room and accused of having blood on her in other words revealing the information about the cia torture and abuse. so the think i would like to leave you with at this point dish do want to leave some time for questions and comments -- is our democracy right now is in trouble. we're in a very beleaguered state. there was an article in the "new york times" about two weeks ago about-i love this word -- guardrail, the guardrail of democracy and how the system is working. well, two observations. one, the system will only work if people make the system work. the system can't work on its own. and, two, i would argue the system isn't working the with a i would like it to work. look at the intelligence committees created in 1970s because of the crimes during the vietnam era, 30 years after the cia was credited. the senate intelligence c

let's bring in david drucker and david gregory. david, help us make sense of this. i want this to be something that's irrelevant. this seems to be like word play and sekulow trying to clear something up without wanting to say what he must feel as counsel which is, man, i wish my client weren't saying anything about this, but he's got a unique client here, doesn't he? >> that's the point. it's monday and here we go again. that's the real issue. you have in donald trump someone who is a street brawler who, whether this is a legal or political fight, and it's both, wants to fight it himself and wants his lawyers to kind of catch up to what he's done, and try to explain it. jay sekulow knows better. this word play over twitter is really ridiculous. i think he knows that, but he's trying to make an argument. others have to make arguments. again, let's look at what's going on. there is a legal process that's under way. we don't know the extent to what the mueller team is doing in terms of what they're looking at. we know how much is in the public domain now for them to in

. >> reporter: david gregory, who lost his 20-year-old daughter michaela in the fire, was too emotional to talk on camera that day. he told me on the phone that while he's glad charges have been filed, he's frustrated more people aren't being prosecuted. his attorney echoed that. >> they believe that the ngs, that own this building and allowed it to happen, should be charged criminally as well. >> there's nothing more important than the lives that were lost there. >> reporter: almena told us in december he was torn apart by what happened but knew nothing about the event. his attorneys called the charges a miscarriage of justice. in a written statement they say, "we are confident that this attempt to make a scapegoat out of our client will fail." we tried to reach out to the building's owner today, but we were unable to reach them or their attorney. in oakland, i'm jodi hernandez, nbc bay area news. >>> we've been following the ghost ship fire since the beginning. for the very latest today and continuing coverage, head to our website, web be whnbcbayarea.co. >>> after a day of withering

our legal analyst -- our political contributor david gregory is with us as well. mark preston is a cnn senior political analyst and margaret t talla is the white house correspondent. david, what is your title? >> why did you think i can be -- i'm very close to lawyers. >> all right. so you're not our legal analyst. laura is our legal analyst. i want everybody to go through and tell me two things you are especially going to be looking toward in the upcoming sessions testimony. >> two things i'm looking for, wolf, one is does the attorney general exert executive privilege and how? or is it more along the lines of what we heard from coats and rogers last week? i'm not comfortable answering that question at this point. how does the committee respond. that's one main thing to look for. then the questions about this reports of the third meeting with mr. kislyak are going to be really important on how he handles that. >> on the issue of executive privilege, doesn't the president have that responsibility? he has to tell sessions in effect this is executive privilege, don't

. >> and david gregory, this could be about a lot of things today, right? it could be very direct in the purview of what the senate intel committee is supposed to be looking at. but it keeps being billed as the super bowl for left and right on this issue. what do you think we're going to see today? >> i do think you are going to see political agendas. you will see this fight between the left and the right. this is a political matter. special counsel is pursuing the legal matter. this is the intelligence committee. i think credibility is at stake here for jim comey as well as the president, and i think the underlying offense, the fact that russia was meddling in our election, what we know about it, whether there's been efforts to prevent it from happening again is all important. i will be looking for one sign of the apocalypse. if that happens, i will definitely fall off my chair, but i won't be totally surprised. >> that's an oxymoron, but okay. >> i guess so. >> no surprises. >> but i do -- i'm still struck by something here that you started with jeffrey.

cnn political analyst david gregory, julie pace for the associated press. good to have you all. laura coates, dispense with one main issue dealing with the travel ban. that is, the unknown bona fide connections. bona fide relationships. this is a soft standard. the court spent 16 pages, uncharacteristically long, going through its encurium, fum court reckoning of this case, but that standard seems it will beg for more litigation? >> of course it will. examples what they considered close association and left room for bureaucracies including the state don't say what they believe the explicit definition of a close family member would be. and it boggles the mind on some left out. grandparents, for example can come in. stepsisters and others can. mind-boggling aspect of that. this is kind of the separation of powers at work. the court saying we haven't dealt with the congress stugsality of this. that comes in october. guidance now how to legislate and do this at this point in time, go ahead, but knowing full well, chris, they know that this issue invites not just a little more litiga

let's bring in cnn political analyst david gregory, real clear politic's a.b. stoddard and michael smerconish. david, it's all on the table. the president's tweelt has created this malstrom of negativity. we got to see him at his worst. this is not something new. we got to see gop people, some vocal, many not. that is something else that we have to deal with. then we have all of the reaction to this from trump supporters and people who are antagonistic to trump. it's all negative. it's all counterproductive. how do you use something like this to get better? >> well, i don't know how you do it immediately unless you have a political class that is going to embrace the idea of condemning this kind of crude discourse. we had lincoln at gettysburg, as i said before, we now have trump on twitter. both masters of brevity. same office, same country. that is truly a sad reality, that we have those two basis of comparisons. i think what the president has failed to acknowledge because of his own impulsivity is that the presidency is bigger than him. therefore, he's got to

we have political analysts david gregory and john avlon and cnn chief political correspondent dana bash. we'll get to that in a second. we get the procession was secretive and we get that was opportunistic because they want to deliver on their promise to repeal and replace. mitch mcconnell believes this is the best way. what does today bring? >> i think it starts to sharpen the debate, both within the republican party and then the senate overall. i think it's really interesting to try to understand, as i think some of the reporting and the discussion on the program this morning has gotten into, what is the strategy of leader mcconnell in terms of how he gets the votes and how he sells the plan? one big takeaway for me is there seenls to be a conflict on what the president says has got to be health care without a heart. he's described the house bill as mean. how is he going to square that with what the senate wants to do, which has been described this morning on the program as obamacare light, rolling back provisions that are in obamacare while retaining some of the more popular provisio

what is going to be done vis-a-vis russian interference if anything with cnn political analyst david gregory, cnn legal analyst laura coates and cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd. let's start with the law. the court said, at least in part the executive has a legal right to do this, this being the ban, and it will go into effect in part. but then they put out a very curious nondescript legal standard to put into effect a bona fide relationship. i can't find it in case precedent as something that stands out as discernible. this is going to come down to interpretation. it seems like grandparents, fiancees, and a lot of other people may be carved out which means they can't get in here for at least 90 days. if they're refugees, they can't get in for 120 days. but the basis of the decision seems to be soft. that smells like litigation and bureaucratic problems to me, laura coates. what is your legal reckoning? >> i absolutely agree, chris. in fact, the dissenters didn't know this would be the case. this blurred distinction invites future litigation. there may be a nuanced reason for that. num

so to me, it obviously is persuasive to his supporters but -- >> as david gregory used to say, unpackt. i know exactly what it means, but i want to tell me, what does the word paris say to his supporters? what does the word mean to them? >> i think to the people that i've talked to, it means elite. it means people who are -- >> foreign. >> people who are foreign, but also people who don't understand you. people who think they're better than you. that's what he's using you. you think paris. i mean even to anybody, you think paris, and then you think pittsburgh, i mean where do you want to go? >> i remember popeye doyle. i don't want to use too many movies, but i remember french connection 2. he said i'd rather be a lamp post in new york than the president of france. >> donald trump has bragged several times about how well he knows paris. >> the waiters are not arrogant and awful. they're fine. >> he'll brag about how the old paris is gone and how he knew it back when. >> oh, there's too many arabs there now. that's what he says now, isn't it? >> every white house has to figure out, you

seated at the table are gregory will hughesen. mariana. david devees chief information officer. and karen jackson deputy chief operating officer centers for medicare and medicaid services. and john oswalt. department of veterans affairs. welcome to you all and thank you for being here. pursuant to the committee on oversight and government reform rules all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. please rise and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? please be seated. mr. wilhusen. welcome. >> chairman rice and hurd and members of the sub committee. thank you for inviting me here today. my statement is based on our draft report on federal efforts to reduce the collection use and display of these numbers. we have provided a draft report to 25 agencies for comments. we anticipate issuing the final report to you later this summer after we receive agency comments. before i begin, if i may, i would to to recognize several members of my team. with me

gregory wilshusen, security issues government accountability office. marianna lacanfora, acting deputy commissioner, offices-- office of retirement and disability policy social security administration. david devries, chief information officer, office of personnel management and karen jackson, deputy chief operating officer centers for medicare and medicaid services and finally, john oswalt, executive director for privacy, office of information and technology, department of veteran affairs. welcome to you all and thank you for being here. pursuant to the committee on oversight and government reform rules all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. please rise and raised her right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is so help you god please be seated. mr. wilshusen, welcome and thank you for being here. please proceed. if i butchered your name, sorry to make you did perfect. thank you. members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me today to testify at today's hearing on executive branch efforts to reduce the unnecessary use of social security numbers. my statement is base

david, good to see you. >> good to be here. >> tell the people why you're in town. why i'm in town because i'm speaking at the power talk conference tonight. we're honoring dick gregorya lot of stuff politically, but that's just what we do. that's what i believe men supposed to be in their community but the elders have really embraced me as maybe being one of the people who can help push our culture forward. and to be, you know, for them to even ask me to come and present tonight for somebody as powerful as dick gregory, you know, i like to thank d.c. i actually went to grad school at university of maryland eastern shore. so i spent a lot of time in this area and dc has always embraced me. so for mow to be able to do that, i'm definitely >> what is it about hiphop, you are taking on a more active role in hiphop. we get a lot of negativity when it comes to the hiphop world. you seem to be taking an active role and jumping out there and trying to make change. why did you decide to go that route? >> let me say one thing really quick. hiphop is a direct -- i actually defended in d.c. i defended our first amendment rights after the don i man situation want i told the peop