ben ferguson i mentioned he's on the phone with us, conservative talk show host and cnn commentator. ben i'm curious from your perspective do you have a message for the president about sharing a video like this? >> look, i think we got to put it in perspective. this has been going around on twitter. i think when i saw it, i eventually laughed at it because i thought it was actually one of the more humorous moments of the real fighting back and forth that the president has had with the media. i don't think it incites violence. i think people are stretching when they imply that. wrestling is fake. everybody knows that wrestling is fake. this was something that you just need to have just an ounce of humor, and just kind of look at this and say, this may actually be a little bit of a funny moment for this. you could look at it and say it's clever -- >> you can say wrestling is fake. security threats are real. and ben you suffer from this just like the rest of us do. you get hate mail that sometimes threatens your life. and that's what's happening to folks at cnn right now. i've seen some

ben ferguson zach.l continue the debate soon i'm hur coming up as the senate heads home for recess republicans will have a hard time defending the health care bill. we're taking you to some rural hospitals already struggling to stay open to see how the proposed medicaid cuts could affect them. you're live in the cnn newsroom. >>> turning now to the battle over the republican lawmakers heading home over the july fourth recess may soon about the health care bill directly from sweets. it would slash medicaid funding that many rural hospitals rely on. many hospitals have had to shut doors due to shrinking budgets. . nick valencia shows how medicaid cuts might hurt hospitals struggle to stay hope. >> two hours south of atlanta it's a different world. access to basic services including a hospital is not a guarantee. >> doctor allurery raj has been the only doctor in time since the nearest hospital stewart webster hospital shut down in 2013. nearly many hospitals have closed down since 2010 pap. the facility w

ben ferguson, media stars in their own right as far as pro wrestling officials. i'll start with this question, ben. how does what the president is doing, these tweets about the media, wrestling video, how does it make america better? >> i think, one, you've got to look at this specifically from one issue. was it worth it? are these tweets worth it when it comes to pushing your legislative agenda? certainly you could make the argument that it's not worth it because it takes the focus off the things that the president has been accomplishing over the last week. i will say this. sometimes people actually need to have a little bit of a sense of humor and not take themselves too seriously and overreact and try to turn this into a bigger issue than it really is. let's look at the tweet. takes seven seconds to tweet it out. it's a little self depricating, showing donald trump doing fake wrestling, which everyone knows is fake. he saw it, thought it was funny. after a week when he thought people at cnn were being unfair to him that had to resign, therefore, he tweeted it o

we all know wrestling is fake as ben ferguson pointed out. i wouldn't advised him to send it out because he needs to win over people in the middle ground. not sure this does that. but his frustration should be noted and stop and ask why has he relentlessly attacked the press? when the press spends 353 minutes on russia a story by the way, jim comey said many, many of the russia stories are false and no times on kapt law or veterans accountability act, no time on those things, one minute on taxes, by the way. that's inexcusable and the american people have a disservice and recognize it, why the media has such low approval ratings. >> sally? >> they focused on in the media because of his tweets. most importantly, he's his number one distraction. this is hysterical if it wasn't so disturbing when kathy griffin posted that picture, i found offensive and said was offensive. you found it offensive. she's a comedienne and you didn't think it should be funny or have a sense of humor about that. the differences, look, there are crazy, hateful people o

we have editor of weekly standard bill kristol and host of the ben ferguson show ben ferguson.what's going on here? >> i think, one, he's mad his information has been put out there so quickly especially when he says leaks have been a huge problem. >> mad at reince priebus. >> i think he was attacking reince because they both agree that the leaks are a problem. reince has been very clear at the white house, especially recently, that leaks are a massive problem. i do not believe for a second when he tagged him he was accusing reince priebus of anything. >> oh really? >> i think he was making clear to the white house staff -- >> look, i've talked to people at the white house literally yesterday, i can tell you, if there's anything these two men agree on, it is leaks. >> it isn't a leak. >> they may not be best friends. >> go ahead, bill. >> why is it called a financial disclosure form? because it's meant to be disclosed. >> to the public? >> yes, yes. if you're a reporter or member of the public and you file a request with the office of government ethics, that's what the politico

former white house communications director and ben ferguson. ben, what do you make of that?rning. >> morning. >> i think it's a simple meeting where they had information about an opponent. this is an individual they met with for that reason. they also talked about adoptions and issues with adoptions. so -- >> first of all -- just so, number one, the adoption issue is not just adoptions, it's a sanctions issue, sanctions that the russian government want lifted there, so we call it adoptions. two, if it is so simple, and it may be, opposition research is opposition research, then why did donald trump jr. change his story not once, twice. he said in march, i'm sure i met with them, but none that i can think of at the moment and none i was representing the campaign in any way, shape or form. this morning, he admits he had the meeting as a representative of the campaign. itis not true. it's not so simple, is it? >> here is what i will say. if you have ever worked on a presidential campaign, you have a lot of meetings after you secure the nomination that want to meet with you. whe

ben ferguson and cnn legal analyst michael zelden. we thank you all for joining us. ben, last night the president tweeted out that his tweeting is modern-day presidential. so is posting this doctored video of him wrestling with a new organization presidential? >> i think it is a little bit fun. i think it is pretty funny, actually. i think that some people are taking this just a little bit too seriously when the reality is it is clear the president is not a big fan of us at cnn. i think he was referring to a story that was he feels like was a hit piece on him that a couple of people had to resign over. so he decided after he saw it to tweet it out. i don't think this is insigciti violence. i think people who try to imply such are stretching a little bit here. the fact is this was a tweet from the president. would i have sent it? no. is this donald trump's style? yes. is he going to stop? the answer is no. let's put this into perspective. this clip shows the president in a pretty funny light when he was doing fake wrestling. before you act like it is over the top or th

here with me is ben ferguson and ellis hannigan. good to see both of you. let me begin with you, the president -- >> apparently still doesn't believe that russia meddled in the 2016 election, why does he continue to question america's intel community? >> first, i don't think he's saying he doesn't believe they meddled, i think he thinks there's a lot of misinformation around this, and there's other people that could have been meddling as well. ultimately what you're going to see, this is what anthony was referring to there is, i'm going to look over the information, we haven't made a decision on this legislation yet. it's not made it to the president's desk, i would imagine the president's probably going to sign those sanctions when he sees them, i think he's said before, i think they were involved, yes, but there may have been others the president's not going to be bullied into doing what people want him to do or say. i think the evidence is pretty overwhelming from what we see in the public. he has a lot more information than any of us have. he may have m

and political commentator and radio host ben ferguson, happy fourth to both. >> what is your group planningltimate goal is to make these republican senators come face-to-face with their constituents, many of whom will be kicked off of health kair. today louisiana senators woke up to a headline that said why target the kids? pressuring republican senators, in our organization, is actually running tv ads in four vulnerable republican states, west virginia, texas, arizona and nevada making republicans come face-to-face with real people who will be kicked off health care. >> so you're mentioning you're targeting specific areas, nevada, louisiana, west virginia, but are you also targeting specific senators? >> yes. so tv ads all over this weekend in every media market, featuring someone named priscilla whose daughter has a disease that if he was kicked off of medicaid she would likely die. she basically poses the question, this is immoral, why would you do this to my child. and there are similar ads questioning ted cruz in texas and dean hellor in nevada. today is a unique day where people can a

ben ferguson on your show earlier says, you know, there's comedy in this. >> right. right. "the daily beast" quoting a couple trump aides saying, this is a joke. you all aren't getting a joke. this is not a big deal. don't overreact. that's on one side. the other side, journalism advocacy groups coming to cnn's defense saying he is suggesting violence, promoting violence through this video pap viewer's opinion may lay somewhere in the middle and i wonder why the president is spending his time posting things like this or caring that much about media coverage in the first place. to me it's a sign of weakness, fred. you can make the case it's a sign of strength. the president is standing up to bullies in the media, being tough. seen those comments on social media. the flip side, acting very weak. not promoting policy objectives. he's not trying to lobby to get this health care bill through congress. instead, just beating up on the media. today it's cnn. who knows who it will be tomorrow. because that makes fans feel good about him, appreciate it and enjoy it. creating a show,

now, this video is captured from two sides of this river by ben and beth ferguson. they live in new zealand and they didn't know the others were shooting video from the opposite side. >> no. >> these horses start running back up to the sand bar. most of the horses realize, look, this is our chance. they run and they rush. >> come on! >> they're able to get out. but pay close attention to that pony. that pony is called thunder. >> thunder, got -- >> polly and thunder still in the water. >> keep going. keep going. >> come on, guys, you can do it. >> close to the shore. >> swim. swim. >> i'm surprised they didn't follow the other horses. >> they probably did, but that pony wasn't able to get up on the bank. >> all they could do is yell and say, keep going. >> come on, baby. come on. >> the horses are running upriver. >> that's it. >> thunder is following polly and thunder is way behind. at this point it looks like polly gets to the sand bar. >> come on. >> that's all well and good, what about thunder? >> yeah, what happens to thunder e well, i have a happy ending for t