a.b. stoddard.o the tape.e. ♪ >> at the dinner, duterte sang a love song with a famous filipino pop star saying he did it on orders from president trump. >> orders from the commander in chief from the united states. >> that's the best since putin did "blueberry hill." that was great. >> tucker: that is fantastic. >> actually, i learned about that through reading and that was my first time actually hearing it. it was really painful. i don't want to see that again. i can't unhear it. >> tucker: you are an old-school journalist. question three is a multiple-choice question. as soon as i give you all three answers. "people" magazine, which still exists, just named the 2017 sexist man alive. was it one, chris hemsworth, two brad pitt or three blake shelton? but wait, there was an honorable mention actually, and that goes to our very own mark steyn. i think we have him on the screen here. mark steyn, sexiest man alive. >> i was going to say mark steyn but i think i will go with chris hemsworth. >> tucker:

a.b. stoddard, happy to welcome her back, columnist editor at real clear politics.ning with us is our favorite former feds, barbara mcquade. so, barbara, let me use that law degree you have and start on a legal basis. is this a serious case? and my second question is, why file this in new york if the lawyer and client are mostly l.a.-based, if the president's offensive tweet was issued in washington, why has it been filed here? >> yeah, so, first, is this a real case. i think it is. you know, it's a little bit ironic as well because it's president trump who is always decrying the definite nation laws and wants to change it to make it easier for people to file defamation lawsuits so his wish has come true here in this case. i think it is. he's made a statement accusing her of lying publicly. is that the sole motive here, to vindicate ms. daniels' reputation? i don't know. it may be that putting additional pressure on president trump creates some leverage that might help them resolve the other case. it might help them with a global resolution to the two cases, sometim

a.b. stoddard from real clear politics what say you, a.b.? >> shep, we know that serious experts on these issues are meeting and they're trying to get the substance as soon as possible. they're note looking at on the menu on the lighting. they're trying to tackle the issues. secretary of state pompeo made it clear today that they want to continue to make progress. but he's not going to tell us what the progress is. the reason is, in the next 12 days or whatever, we have left, they have to play a game of expectation setting and at the same time getting concrete agreements. they can't let president trump get to the table with kim jong-un and be surprised. there has to be something nailed down between now and then. if not, they can't hold it on the 12th. there could be a delay to another time. they're trying to get to some treatment. they don't want to leave anything to chance. they're not going to reveal what that is. the president will say things no matter how they're going. that's what he does, he's a salesman. it's good that he continues to

a.b. stoddard, i was struck in that interview, first of all, he did say and you heard him say right there,i have to overlook this because i agree with this person on policy, but i have asked many of these -- many of those people i cover on the hill every day, do they view the person as a role model for their kids and they don't answer. james lankford did answer the question and he said no. >> he was honest and showed his discomfort with this challenge of trying to put his policy priorities first while having real trouble with the president's character and whether or not leaders should provide a moral example and be role models. i thought it was pretty brave of him to say what he did. >> sopan, jeff mason, evelyn, everyone, thank you, we're switching out. we're going to get a sneak peek at the john mccain documentary. the president loses a major court case whether he can block people on twitter. the woman who filed the lawsuit joins us live in our next hour. >>> that was a look at the new hbo documentary, john mccain for whom the bell tolls. it premieres tomorrow night memorial day at 8:00

a.b. stoddard. i have other questions.ident that during the campaign season railed on china in every way possible who has since said we're going to do tariffs and now all of a sudden we need to save chinese jobs after they broke the north korea -- i don't get it. >> well, he is in this back and forth on trade trying to mitigate the effects of retallatory. tariffs from the chinese that are affecting soy beans -- >> shepard: he's the one that did that. put the sanctions -- >> as john mentioned, he's negotiating with north korea. the thing about trump that he talks about openly is that he is -- everything is negotiable. he's flexible and unpredictable. the trans pacific partnership was a rave of our country and maybe he considered getting back into it. nothing will surprise anyone at this point. it looks from the statements, shep, about applicable laws. the commerce department re-visiting this as a walk back and gave in too soon to a tweet to re-assuring the chinese about zte. looks like they had to do some scrambling. but we

a.b. stoddard, columnist for real clear politics. i thought that that is significant. the white house is not talking but they're saying the only reason his clearance wasn't upgraded is because of the backlogs of the administration. like john roberts said, this had to be vetted at the highest levels and yet they gave it to him. >> yeah, it is significant. he has never had a full clearance. it's not as if he had one and it was revoked. it was always interim. never a complete clearance. that's because jared kushner failed to disclose a bunch of contacts with foreign officials. he had to amend it numerous times. that actually dragged out the process. the fact that he just sat with a special counsel we learned today for another seven hours in april talking about all of his foreign contacts, stuff he did during the transition and since he's been -- and obviously during the campaign and since he's been employed in the white house as one of the president's top advisers makes it clear they have determined that none of those contacts and none of those discussions were relationsh

a.b. stoddard is the associate director.t's also on the radio, and our guest is holding down the fort. i think we need to pay very close attention to what troy gaudi is saying because he has extraordinary access to actual information about this. we all chatter about it and speculate all day and all night, but he knows more than 99.9% of us do because he has seen an actual. so when this was an appropriately predicated investigation and the informant within the trump campaign was not a spy, or acting inappropriately in any way, and, we are in that element of our interview, but the quote also to me that sticks out, he said "it has nothing to do with donald trump himself." that is significant. what he was examining is not targeting the president and that matters. >> as you look at the coverage around the horn, the second part really got chopped off. >> the first part got ignored, the second part -- i think there are a couple of reasons to explain this. one, trey gowdy has more trust in the justice department then devin nunes doe

a.b. stoddard. sam, it was everything in one tweet.you could break it down and tell us where this policy came from. i know that sessions -- jeff sessions announced the separation policy, and they view it as chief of staff kelly said, as a deterrent to try to stop migrant families from coming, because they might be separated from their children. >> a few things going on here. one is that with regards to the missing children, they're missing in the sense that these are unaccompanied minors who have come to the border. there's a policy where they're put with foster family, and hhs keeps track of them. for 1500 or so of these kids, they lost the ability to keep track. they may still be with their foster parents, but hhs does not know the status of them. that's causing a lot of concern and consternation on capitol hill. they fear in part, they might be sent into human trafficking or terrible working conditions. there's a trump administration policy that says you can -- a parent crossing the board we are their child can be -- the child can b

a.b. stoddard, associate editor at real clear politics. katie pavlich, townhall.com.is seemed to pick up steam and was fueled by the president's tweet about this. the fact that the inspector general is taking it, what does it tell us? >> tells us there's credible reason to take a harder look at what was going on in 2016 in terms of the investigation of the trump campaign. at the same time, i think the talk about this guy, as far as what we know about a spy embedded in the campaign is hyperbole. having conversations with people about their contacts with russia than we know about is not an invented spy. maybe it's an informant but it's not quite what people are making it out to be feared that keyword or key phrase in rosenstein statement was "for any inappropriate purpose." there is ample reason that they maybe should've looked into russian collusion or suspicion of it. if there was other reasons why they were doing it, if they were trying to undo or hurt president trump or if there is reason to believe there was political motivation, that would be very bad and it's wor

a.b. stoddard. michael cohen said he was not paid back directly or indirectly. president didn't know anything about this president. the president has said varying things about whether or not michael cohen was representing him with stormy daniels. now rudy giuliani said, oh, yeah, the president did pay him back through a monthly retainer. somebody is lying. >> oh, alisyn. >> oh, alisyn, how can you just be figuring this out. >> we watched sean spicer's at the podium. we know sarah sanders has the toe the company line. it may usually turn out to be either slightly untrue or entirely untrue. and that's her job and she does it well. president trump has no problem, according to the latest assessment by the "washington post" fact checker. he is up over six untruths a day. michael cohen did slip up when he said he facilitated a payment to stormy daniels. but this revelation by mr. giuliani comes after a poll released yesterday following a similar polling result last month that a majority of the public knows, believes that the president paid off stormy daniels and that

a.b. stoddard and fox news correspondent griff jenkins. both of been on the show before.he pressure on tonight's contest. there she is >> and the defending champion. >> always brilliant, found the smartest woman insm washington. >> tucker: adjusting expectations. you know the rules, both of you, for our viewers who may not remember them, hands on brothers, first won't get to present gets to answer the question. you modulate to buzz in. each correct answer gets to a point,. each incorrect answer t attracts a point. best of five wins. are you ready? >> trying to be. >> tucker: according to "the new york post," america's greatest newspaper, which hollywood trumpeter is facing legal trouble due to oversized donations she wants to major democratic candidates? >> roseanne barr. >> tucker: roseanne barr? >> he's trying to lose. it's rosie o'donnell. >> the wrong roseanne! >> rosieie o'donnell under fire for what appears to be illicit campaign m contributions. posting c a tweet today, "all my donations, my goal is to support all those opposed to jump." >> tucker: after decades in

a.b. stoddard. john, what took so long? people of what cambridge analytica is, they know the name. they may not know what it d. they offered tools to influence behavior in psycho graphic modeling techniques built in part with data harvested from facebook, unknown to 50 million users, for the trump campaign in 2016. >> there's some occasion they reached 87 million americans. right now there has been a british national crime investigation into bribery, evidence destruction, hacking computers. now the justice department seems to be running parallel. in the past this has not been a mueller focus. no question they work for the trump campaign. they misused data. there is some question whether they were mobbed up in deeper activity. to date mueller has not been focused. >> we know it is not mueller focused. the hearing they will have about it today and where they are looking at it, this is a straight d.o.j. probe. they take time. you have a whistle-blower involved. a guy doing his own hand it eubgs that was taken and used for the

a.b. stoddard. >> we're hearing from the white house and the state department is two things. first this is not a surprise to pyongyang. they knew this exercise was coming. they had time to repair. they cho -- prepare. they chose to act this way anyway. the white house is confirming the june 12th summit is still on. but this is a reminder for president trump. the last few weeks have almost gone too well with north korea. the prisoners have been returned. kim jong-un has said he will shutter the nuclear program. he's making noise towards doing that. even if the summit is still on, which again we believe it is, this is a pretty significant bit of saber rattling, trying to show the president this is maybe not going to be as easy as you think. you're not just going to be able to talk into this room in singapore and necessarily get the deal you want. it's also a reminder that even if the president comes out of there, who seems so desperate for a win out of this and to make it a big part of this republican midterm pitch, the fears are he's going to take a less than good deal and try

a.b. stoddard and bill cohen, special correspondent for "vanity fair." should anyone be surprised by this, and i want to share a few headlines. new york magazine head line, narc surprises administration by looking like north korea. "the new york times" says north korea returns to form. and says it was entirely predictable. >> it was. you're dealing with personalities over process. that's where it has been the entire time as the summit has come together. donald trump who turned this into a massive pr stunt. kim jong-un, it's all about him and his dictatorship and how he wants to keep control of his country. there has been no official process of going back and forth and discussing what the negotiation is actually about. the priority has been having a big summit at the expense of any decision. and kim jong-un, frankly is taking advantage of that. he realizes that donald trump has put credibility on the line and talking about getting a nobel peace prize because of his summit. and kim is using that to his advantage, he's trying to get concessions and operatin

a.b. stoddard. it's hard to know how much to worry about the first lady because we don't have a lot of details and some sounds quite benign, a procedure, sure, we get it. they're making it sound like it's nothing to be that concerned about. she went in. the president wasn't there for the procedure. and she'll be in the hospital for the rest of the week. after a c section you're thrown out two days later. so it's hard to know what we're being told out of the white house about her condition. >> right. i do think that dr. sanjay gupta initially was saying and describing this procedure which he described as pretty routine, you do need to stay still. and it might be out of an abundance of caution she's staying a few extra days. i don't think we should be speculating on whether or not she has a condition that's more dangerous. she's an extremely private person. and i think that is probably very hard for her. it sounds like it was scheduled and she had to put this off until after she organized the entire s