a.b. stoddard, david gregory and jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, is that premature. >> i think any discussion of treason is premature. it involves helping an enemy during times of active hostilities. whatever else you can say about our relationship with russia, which is certainly tense at the moment, we are not in a hot or cold war with russia, and also there is no evidence that -- yet -- that the train gave the former soviet union anything. i just think -- >> or vice versa, by the way. part of the irony here is what donald trump -- what don junior was hoping for, as far as we know, wasn't delivered. >> as far as he says. >> as far as he says and the lawyer says and everybody says. i understand we're taking them at their word on that. >> we do know at least according to intelligence agencies, there were active measures -- it's been a long time since it was the soviet union, since russia hacked all those e-mails. that was something of great benefit to the trump campaign. podesta's e-mails, the dnc's e-mails. what the trump campaign knew, if

a.b. stoddard. let's start with the palace intrigue incise the white house. there seems to be a balt between anthony scaramucci and reince priebus. on two hours scaramucci suggesting that he was reince priebus whom he believes is behind the leaks. >> this goes way beyond your typical office politics. this is vicious, paranoid and probably not fact-based. but it lays bare for at least a few hours in that tweet the enormously bad blood, paranoid, distrust at the highest levels of this white house. tone comes from the top. for this to spill into public so early into scaramucci's term is a bad sign for everybody. >> let's thicken out the record a little bit because there's a lot to unpack. first, anthony scaramucci says this was a wrong reckoning. he put reince priebus on there to show his consolidated effort to go after that. why is that scene as suspicious? there's a ton of reporting that priebus has been out to do scaramucci wrong for a while, that he kept him from getting a job, he didn't want him t

a.b. stoddard or real clear politics. the president wants a win.cifically on policy on healthcare, what is he articulating? >> well, when many of these severals failed the last time last week, shep, you heard the president say we just have to go straight to repeal. no more of this -- >> shepard: but a.b., they can't repeal. they can't repeal. >> then he changed his mind. >> he's gone back to replace. he will talk about some form of repeal and replace. it's the kind of thing that republican senators and congressmen he would do all along. to push the message publicly. he will be urging them privately as he's -- along with his public excitations to the senators to come up with the final count and move some form of replace. if they can't get enough votes tomorrow for something that replaces it, i think they might still try to hold some form of repeal vote that will fail. so that people can say that they tried to repeal it and repeal it only. there's a lot -- >> shepard: that's to give people to the people that plan to vote yes on this matter? >> people

a.b. stoddard -- we thank anthony scaramucci for coming on. access is critical to covering the white house, and it's one of the things that gives the show an advantage. what did we learn there? there's stuff learned about transparency of finances. that's why it's good to have brother joshua here this morning to talk about how scaramucci is putting stuff out on his disclosure form that we're still waiting to get from the president in some respects. this is a tale of two cities going on here. you have palace intrigue, and that's what it is. when reince priebus is jealous, slash, doesn't like, slash, doesn't want anthony scaramucci in the shop, that's palace intrigue. you then have something else which is what i was trying to get to with anthony, do you want the fbi and doj chasing after bad political behavior? do you want leaks, the source of information to dominate the discussion of the substance of that information with the russia probe? let's be honest, a.b., that's where this started for president trump, was to use the leaks as a distraction

a.b. stoddard. a.b., let's talk about what we're audiocassetll looking for journalists, the press conference, we don't know the format if it will be freewheeling, how long it will take, how many journalists will be allowed to ask questions, what do we anticipate will come up? >> well, i think obviously president trump is going to be answering questions about donald junior's e-mails and meeting and he will probably, i think, be as defiant as he's been about how the meeting would have been one most people would have taken including democrats and that it's no big deal. basically it's a media witch hunt and it's being overblown and this whole collusion idea is a hoax. that's what he's said the last couple days and i think he'll repeat that. but i do think when he's asked about other things, maybe by the french press, that, you know, i expect president trump to be really charming about his meeting, the invitation that president macron extended to him and his visit there. i think he's going to talk about h

a.b. stoddard and vince colones a.b., it appears they're heading toward a vote for this so-called skinny repeal, but nobody seems to know a lot about what's in it, can you enlighten us? >> it's what peter told us is basically a repeal of the individual mandates. it would have certainly been one of the first things they attempted, democrats, to join with republicans on if hillary clinton had won, but this is not a repeal and it keeps the medicaid expansion, those taxes, so what happened between last night and this morning was that there was some enthusiasm for this idea just being a process, let's hurtle it back over to the house and this could begin the house-senate conference process. i way to keep the conversation going and keep it alive, but now the new anxiety is at the house will take it rate up and this would indeed become the final thing that passes and there wouldn't be a conference or a consensus draft that would be a start all over again draft, so that's a worry that i think people like senator collins who say i don't know what's in it and they won't end up with the numbers they were

a.b. stoddard, syndicated columnist charles krauthammer.he is joking of course but ten days ago anthony scaramucci was going to be and announced as the new white house communications director. ten days later, he's gone. >> what a ten days. unbelievable interview he gave where he was so vulgar and had such inappropriate things to say. this was ten days that felt intense. having said that, i think these changes we are seeing might make it true that there is no chaos now, meaning getting rid of scaramucci should help tamp things down. we need c with reince priebus' departure. he was supposed to help with the legislative agenda, best friends with paul ryan, you couldn't get a more establishment republican person. things didn't go so well. trump wants to change direction and you can hope things will go better with someone who is more to his liking. >> bret: this suggests general kelly has power, that he has some power from the president himself. >> absolutely. i think everyone was surprised. it was clear kelly was in charg charge. kelly reported

a.b. stoddard, syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. charlie, there were a lot of lines in there that really struck a chord as far as painting a picture of a region that includes what's now called the three seas initiative. trying to change the dynamic in the region. >> i thought it was a tremendous speech. there were a lot of great reagan esque lines. if you think about eight years ago, this is about one president obama was beginning his, what a lot of people derisively called his apology tour, going around the world sort of apologizing for america and making excuses for her failings feces about america. this speech was different. it was more like a reagan sounding speech where he talks about the shared ideals, called poland the soul of europe and i think there is definitely a new sheriff in town. >> bret: used a lot of history in poland and strife they had to fight off the and the soviets. to become a country again. >> they were appreciative of that. the polish government particularly and i think the speech was well designed and well

a.b. stoddard. first things first, if a known russian lawyer with kremlin and putin ties were coming to the u.s. to meet with a campaign, is that something the fbi and cia would know about, would catch wind of or can these things sort of happen secretly? >> i don't think they would necessarily know about that. that would defend in part on whether that person has a direct relationship with the russian government. i think looking in retrospect, this starts to get more and more interesting if you're a federal investigator a year after the event. let's collate a few items. we have breaking news. we have the new reporting that jeff sessions story about how many times he met with russians changed. we had general flynn in january so embarrassed with his relationship with russians that his story changed. we're seeing less than 5% of this. the fbi is gathering massive quantities of e-mail and phone information, if you match that with what we've seen, the 5% we're cleekting, you can start to get a picture of

a.b. stoddard. great to see all of you. errol, do we know how this press conference will work? can anybody ask questions? will it be tightly controlled? will american journalists be allowed to ask? >> we've seen lots of different variations. the tradition has been, and i assume they'll sort of adhere to form is both leaders will take questions from foreign and their domestic press. what we don't know is who is going to be in the room and how much they want to sort of press french issues in the way that any of us would do. so, for example, president trump has been critical of immigration policy in france. there's been talk about terrori terrorism and whether or not it is linked to immigration policies. >> he's talked terrorists dangerous. that it's a dangerous place to go. >> if you were a parisian journalist, you would probably ask about that. why are you insulting paris? have you consulted with armed forces? what we'll get i think is going to be a pretty aggressive set of questioning about his past comments which here in the united states, it just kind of comes and goes. he in

a.b. stoddard, matthew whitaker, kirsten powers, mike shields. mike, as a supporter of the president, would it be a mistake to remove jeff sessions? >> i think it would be. i think, you know, there's been a conversation about loyalty a lot tonight. i think loyalty is a part of this, but think it's also confidence. i think the president needs to have confidence in the attorney general and my understanding is he's frustrated because jeff sessions recused himself from an investigation that hadn't begun. when he recused himself, there wasn't an investigation. now there is. so that makes you lose confidence in somebody when they recuse themselves from something that hasn't begun, you may have contributed to the atmosphere that created it. i think jeff sessions has to get the confidence of the president back. >> how do you do that, though? the communications director saying they should sit don and have a face-to-face. it doesn't sound like something that president trump wants to do. sarah huckabee sanders was at the white house today and there was no f

a.b. stoddard. david, i don't know where to begin. what did you hear you would like to talk about? >> all of it. let's hone in on a couple of things here. i don't know that they even go together. as a matter of u.s. foreign policy, kellyanne conway did comment on how this white house views russia and its ability to work with vladimir putin. it's confusing because the president's national security team, general mattis, general mcmaster, nikki haley seemed to recognize president putin for what he is, a u.s. add variesry that you cannot trust. they've recognized putin for what he is and work to counter his influence in europe and the middle east. the president and his leadership here, his rhetoric is so important. we saw that reflected in how kellyanne conway talked about the president's meeting with vladimir putin does not seem to recognize that he's an adversary that cannot be trusted and it appears, possibly, that the president is about to try his own russian reset and brought up that ridiculous staples button that hillary clinton used to try to symbolize the reset. if so, that mea