joining us now david gurgen and political commentator for senator ted cruz, amanda carpent carpenter. just to tie a bow on this, what strikes me most is the reporting that rod rosenstein has made clear that he wants mueller to wrap this up soon after he had the plane ride with the president that made everything chummy i suppose. what does that indicate to you? >> it indicates to me he is still not certain what is going to happen after the mid terms whether jeff sessions will be fired or he may be fired. he doesn't want to compromise the investigation. he wants to tell him there will be pressures. how can you predict what he is going to do? it has been really notable to me that in this quiet period we have had where mueller has been keeping below the radar screen, donald trump's numbers have been

also senator ted cruz's communications director amanda carpenter. both are now cnn political commentators. amanda, the president is saying there's no proof of anything. that in and of itself is kind of a revealing statement, no? >> well, of course it is. but i think we all know pie now that the president is a very visual person. and so once those photos of the caravan hit the news wires, went on tv, he knew that was something that his voters would be extremely worried about. i think anybody can look at those photos and see there's humanitarian crisis with certain economic, financial, possibly security and health implications. and so then it's away to the races for trump because he fills in the gaps. we have seen him fill in the gaps with lots of questionable statements about who those people are and their motivations, but to be honest, it's really not clear, and there's no alternative message from the democrats other than kind of saying we don't want to talk about this. we're going to stay focused on health care and everything is fine. everything is

joining me to discuss is cnn contributor david swerdlick and amanda carpenter, also the author of "gaslight america, why we love it why trump lies to us." good evening to both of you. i've laid it out there, and it's complicated. but again most of what he wrote was misleading or flat out false. amanda, you wrote the book gaslighting. this is gaslighting in a major newspaper. the line's not new, but is this a new front? >> you hit the nail on the head. >> you have to ask yourself why is trump writing this op-ed at this point in time? all the polling indicates that health care remains a major concern for all voters because obamacare didn't drive cost down, what president trump has done has not driven cost down, so this remains a big issue. and so president trump is really defensive about it. so lo and behold here's an op-ed warning about medicare for all and attempting to depict the democratic party as a wild eye socialist. and let me tell you this is going to get some traction because bernie sanders the sponsor of this bill is self-revived socialist. he has a number of cosponsors on the bill

out front, joan walsh, mark short signed a nondisparagement agreement with the trump campaign, amanda carpenterhaelson. joan, let me start with you, the white house argument is that the attacks on him have not stopped, tom steyer was on my show yesterday, had some very harsh things to say, congressman adam schiff had some harsh things to say. their argument, why should he unilaterally disarm. >> because he is the president, jake, i know you know that, we expect more from the president, and i also have to say, you know, on a day like today, he wakes up, and he calls us once again enemies of the people, and now we get a third pipe bomb addressed to cnn. he did not do it, it's solely the bomber's responsibility, but he can't hold back for even a few days. tom steyer got a pipe bomb, he had some sharp words for the president. he can't hold back from tom steyer, on the day when more jews were massacred in pittsburgh, in the entire history of our country. that same day he decides to attack a very prominent jewish conservative, bill crystal by name. he cannot stop himself. and, therefore, the criticis

let's talk about this with our panel, amanda carpenter.dent yet again, an opportunity to take some ownership for the rhetoric. and passing on the opportunity. >> i no longer care what he has to say about this. i think after all these incidents, we always ask, was the perpetrator mentally ill or what happened? i think in this scenario, we need to ask, was he just unstable enough to believe the things that the president says, and then act on it? because if that's the case, if you believe the press is the enemy of the people, hillary clinton is evil, and there's a deep state undermining the country, pipe bombs become your weapon of choice, rather than words. so he's on his way to another rally and i want republicans to ask themselves, if you're in that crowd and you see a sign like that, targets, is this the atmosphere that makes america great again? because i think it clearly has made us less safe. >> and you heard a secret service agent was on the show earlier, talking about when you cover these rallies how seriously people in the audience,