joining me now, cnn senior political analyst david gergen and ron brownstein and cnn's amy parens. want to come back to the stories we're talking about today. amy, we reported on jared kushner, the stories about his finances, the meetings he took, the big loans his business got on the heels of his spokesman leaving into begs the big question here, jared, ivanka, staying, going? closer to going today more today than yesterday? >> i think he is definitely. people in the west wing i have spoken to have said as much, they don't trust him. they think this is increasingly problematic as these stories happen. it's just interesting to see the distrust there, the fact that john kelly doesn't really trust him and he has his own faction and kushner has his own faction or maybe he's a team of one at this point. i think there's a lot of consternation inside the white house happening right now. and a lot of it is kind of directed at kushner. >> the tension is very, very real. the consequence tbd. ron brownstein, sticking to the next subject which is jeff sessions right now. yesterday it was duri

so david gergen, you worked in four white houses. did you ever have to do this? have you ever heard of this before? >> i've never heard of nondisclosure agreements for i must have done so massively. i heard of occasional ones and the truth is that there used to be what we call gentleman's agreements. you wait a descent interval before writing a kiss and tell book. that started collapsing years ago even well before donald trump came to office. i do think the trump people are more, may i say paranoid, about relations with the press than almost anyone i've ever seen tp to think of andrew mccabe, his defense isn't essentially working with his public relations persons, communications persons to talk to the press and try to set record straight. ? f you fir if you fired almost everyone in government who has done this sort of thing, there wouldn't be anyone left. what sets people off like john brennan is they have a sense of honor about how things are done. and to cut off mccabe's pension hours before he would vest and he would be eligible for it may not only mean he has

cnn's david axelrod and cnn senior political analyst david gergen. david, when the president is unpredictable and inconsistent, how much more difficult does it make the already difficult process of governing? >> hugely. almost impossible. anderson, it sounds old-fashioned to say, but trump remains the coin of the realm in politics as in many other professions. if a leader wants to have others follow him in difficult times, they've got to trust him, trust what he says that it's honest, trust what he says and he can say the same thing tomorrow and not change his mind the next 24 hours and trust he'll keep his promises. and donald trump right now, i'm sorry to say, is right at the bottom on all of those metrics. >> david axelrod, senator schumer is obviously no fan of the president, said back in january that negotiating with president trump is like negotiating with jell-o. i mean based on what we've seen, he doesn't seem to be wrong there. >> no, he doesn't. look, i think what happened just in this latest series of events is that he painted himself into

so, david gergen, looking at who's been fired, who's survived, what conclusions do you draw about what the president values in his staff and where this administration is headed, or can you? >> i think he values two things, anderson, increasingly. one is that he wants to be his own man. he wants to do solo. he thinks a lot of people around him have been like training wheels. he doesn't need it anymore. also i think he's looking for surrogates to go out on television. i think he's trying to assembly a team of surrogates. he replaced tillerson with somebody he thought could make a much more forceful argument for him. gary cohn was not often on television, but larry kudlow has been on television for 30 years and he can go out and defend. and i think with h.r. mcmaster, the president had john bolton to speak for an hour, and it looked reading the tea leaves that he might be coming in to replace mcmaster. of course he's very effective, articulate on television. i think the president's trying to bolster his p.r. team among other things heading toward 2018 elections. >> david axelrod, what mes

two views from david gergen and gor glor gloria borger. >> it seems that he is choosing agreeable advisors as well. picking loyalty over qualification. is this a good, healthy and productive way to structure an administration? >> well, it is very healthy for a president to have a good friend, someone who can look him in the eye and tell him what is going right and also what is going wrong. to give candid advice and not be intimidated by the office and by the man himself. that is healthy. what is not so healthy and what is odd and unprecedented is to have your daughter, your son-in-law, your pilot, your physician, you know, you can go down the list and have them all have jobs around you. i think that reflects a what is at the bottom of a lot of what we see with this president and that is there is a personal insecurity there. and he wants to have people around him that he trusts and has trusted for a long time. >> now, gloria, i know you speak to people close to the president and people who advise him, do any of them express concern even amongst that group? >> yes, they do. and you know, the

joining us now, david gergen, david chalian, and gloria borger. let's talk about hope hicks. gergen, you've worked in a lot of white houses. have you seen in any white house where you worked that there is somebody as close to the president as hope hicks? i mean she really kind of plays a role similar probably to ivanka trump and jared kushner just in terms of their proximity and access to the president. >> i've certainly never seen anybody as glamorous so close to the president, and i think that's partly what distinguishes her. we've seen this parade of photographs. but, no, look, i think she's very close to the president, but she was in this job, she's the fourth person in 14 months to be communications director. >> what does that tell you? >> it tells you that it's impossible to be successful in that job because that job is all about planning strategy, communications strategy, themes, working it out, and you've got a president who uses twitter to bust up all that. >> you were communications director under reagan. >> i was indeed. but, you know, that was -- of course he was

we have guests, including david gergen. mr. secretary, does it surprise you at all here we are yet again having yet another conversation about yet more chaos in the white house? >> you know, nothing surprises me anymore unfortunately. because you know it appears that this president likes to operate by chaos, and likes to keep staff constantly concerned about whether or not they are going to have a job. i'm not quite sewer i understand that. i think stability is a much better course for the white house to take because you are dealing with an unstable world check check. if you have an unstable staff, it make it that much tougher to deal with that kind of world. >> david, there is an old, i think it is a bore thee parker quote, those born to the storm find the calm very boring. i mean you worked in the nixon white house. can you just explain what effect instability has on the functions of the executive branch? >> you just reminded me anderson of a friend who went to see president trump and asked him how well are you navigating the

and david gergen adviser to presidents in both parties. and was this departure, maggie, as amicable and as mutual as the white house is saying? >> i mean, to the extent that you can bee ritually humiliated week after week with stories leaking out. i will say that things, look, things between president trump and h.r. mcmaster were never good. they didn't have a good rapport. the president didn't like h.r. mcmaster's briefing style. the president likes to sort of mix up these conversations when they're in briefings with his schtick and h.r. mcmaster did not respond well to that, typically speaking. but john kelly really didn't like h.r. mcmaster. and that, i'm told by several people accelerated this time frame. >> do you know why he didn't like him? >> i think there are a variety of reasons, some of it is four star versus three star. i think they disagreed on policy aspects. i think stylist cistly they did get along. but h.r. mcmaster was generally the odd man out in this sea of military figures with whom the president has surrounded himself

she's back with me, along with april ryan and david gergen joins the group. david, welcome to the program. >> thank you, don. >> i want to start with gloria, because gloria did a profile on him and she's going to set this up for us. president trump's fixer, attorney michael cohen, who is a central figure, really central to stormy daniels, that controversy, let's take a look at it. >> michael was, i'd always like to say, the ray donovan of the office. >> i'll take care of it. >> he took care of what had to be taken care of. i don't know what had to be taken care of, but all i know is that michael was taking care of it. >> he was the guy, you could call 3:00 in the morning when you have a problem. >> do you know stories of donald trump calling him at 3:00 in the morning? >> donald trump has called him at all hours of the night. every dinner i've been at with michael, the boss has called. >> reporter: but cohen did not call the boss, he says, when he decided to pay stormy daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket, 11 days before the election. >> so, it's not just s

i want to bring in cnn's political analyst david gergen and olivia neutsy. thank you both for joining us. hope hicks's departure is a critical time for the white house. and the battle for the job is big. you wrote an article, inside the cutthroat battle to be the next hope hicks. the real story is the blood letting between two early front runners, both former fox news contributors. fill us in on what your sources are telling you. no kellyanne conway. >> kellyanne conway is mentioned, is part of the discussion there. and he's also brought up names like bill shine, the former fox executive. but the real fight is between the two officials. it's just this toxic culture in the west wing and the communication shop in particular that's been there since day one of the presidency. we all remember that press conference with sean spicer about the inauguration. it kind of set the tone but no one can replace hope hicks for the president. she occupied the office next to the oval office was his right hand woman, which was an overused phrase by the media when we discuss hop

. >> two views from two former white house insiders, david axelrod and david gergen. >> anderson, itounds old fashion to say, but trust remains the coin of the realm in politics. if the leader wants to have others follow in difficult times they have to trust him. trust what he believes and he will do the same thing tomorrow and not change his mind. and trust he will keep his promises. donald trump is at the bottom of all of those metrics. >> david, senator schumer is no fan of the president and said back in january, negotiating with president trump is like negotiating with jell-o. he don't seem to be wrong there. >> just in this latest series of events, he painted himself into one corner with guns. and he wanted to change the subject so he pre maturely ran out with this trade announcement that wasn't ready. light on details, you had the speck tackle of the secretary of commerce appearing on a sunday show that he didn't know what the details of this latest trade edict from the president would be on tariffs. how is the world supposed to calibrate its decisions based on these kinds of t

we're going to have more on that story with david axelrod and dave u david gergen a little bit later. she joins us exclusively thursday night. the adult film star stormy daniels whose attorney today released the results of a polygraph exam she took, her attorney joins us to talk about this as well. and there's also summer who was on the apprentice and accusing the president of sexual assault. today a judge allowed her defamation lawsuit to go forward. we'll talk with the attorney and along with david schwartz. they're both here with me. but first randy cay has te has demts that broke today. >> and he came to me and started kissing me with open mouth. >> reporter: that's summer, claiming donald trump groped and sexually assaulted her. she filed a sexual suit against him a year ago. there she alleges in court papers he said let's lay down and watch the telly, telly. >> i pushed his chest and put space between us and i said come on, man, get real. he repeated my words back to me, get real as he began thrusting his genitals. >> reporter: trump denies the affair posting about it, i never m

let's go to david gergen, april rhine, and jeffrey tubin, our analyst. let me start with you, gloria and pam are reporting on, firing of comey and flynn that statement on air force one and infamous meeting at trump tower. does this show only to be obstruction of justice or mueller be looking at other things still on the table or already has what he needs on potential other crimes? >> certainly all four areas relate to obstruction of justice and certainly all of this hem except for the trump meeting deal directly with trump possible obstruction of justice not other people. those three areas, the firing of comey, the firing of flynn, and the statement on air force one all relate to trump's personal possible obstruction of justice. now, it's very hard to make a firm conclusion about the subjects he's not asking about. collusion with russia. trump's finances. and any misconduct in moscow 2013. just because he doesn't ask about them doesn't mean mueller has ruled those out completely. but it does suggest that most prosecutors, if they are investigating person

and david gergen served as adviser to four presidents. john let me start with you. you heard the reporting eve insaying looking at things like the moscow tower they asked a lot of questions about, "the new york times" saying mueller wants some documents, and others related to other topics. he's investigating. what is the significance of this? how deep could this go, john? >> well, it's significant in a number of ways. first of all, it does show the bre breadth and depth of the investigation. he's being very thorough. as evan said he doesn't know if they are being responsive in turning over the documents. but it certainly will get to this point. it's not surprising. this is a plan plays by the book, special counsel, and doing it by the book, and on strongest ground to get this information when he issues a grand jury subpoena like this. >> kim, does it mean that he doesn't trust the trump organization? that's an important point evan made that john picked up on. they handed over thousands of pages voluntarily. do you put a subpoena out if you think they were cooperatin

david gergen, just in terms of the lawsuit she has filed.gitimacy it has? >> i don't understand it. i'm perplexed by it. i don't understand why she's doing an interview with apologies to you. with i think that the it could have been handled differently. it's just inexplicable to me. the idea suing keith davidson as well for not telling her she was talking to michael cohen. my guess is, i haven't talked to keith, my guess is keith thought he was doing something good. he was talking to michael cohen to leverage a deal. with ami. because of michael cohen had not blessed it i'm sure ami was never going to pay her the money in the first place. so. >> she wants the life rights back from ami. that that's essentially what they own in that contract. is that something she can actually sue to get back? >> yes. she can sue to get that back. when you say you want your life rights back and you're not in this for the money, that's another thing this is perplexing. i don't understand what the end game is. it's probably above my pay grade. but it doesn't mak

will do a short version in the interest of time, joining me from the far left is my colleague david gergen who's who is a senior fn economic policy at heritage and next to him is the group executive vice president of congressional relations and strategy the independent community bankers association and then aaron klein last but not least was a fellow in economic studies and directo atr of the center on regulation and markets at the brookings institution. thank you all for coming today. we are of course talking about the senate bill moving this week so it looks like we had good time. i am going to just do a quick overview of some of the highlights and main components that are in the bill and then we look awould get the discussion g off of that. one of the main things is the community bank leverage ratio something they do not like to call and off ramps of the book with a community bank leverage ratio. this measure would provide relief for banks that are under $10 billion in total assets baby and i will get to that o in a second. it stipulates the federal regulators will put the actual ratio