david drucker and karoun demirjian. you may have an attorney adding more legal weight to the argument that the president intervenes or meddles or makes inappropriate kmeptcomments. you also have bharara is not apolitical. >> it doesn't make what he said in the interview on "this week" any less true or credible. it can color a little bit how people interpret rate whwhat he say. it was interesting what he said about the president. it is not so much all of the time. sometimes yes, but not what he does, but how he does it. did he have the right to fire james comey? yes. we need an elected official accountable to the people to oversee law enforcement or they are rogue police operations. it is how he did it. it is the way he did it that did not inspire confidence for the american people for reasoning and management skills. if you understand how people are and high levels of government the way he humiliated james comey is the reason we are where we are today with what we know and the memos and the hearing that was just conclud

david drucker, sean spicer is not here. but we have audio from the laura ingram show earlier this week. describing why he's holding more off camera and not allowing audio or video. here's what spicer said. >> the nice thing about turning the cameras off sometimes and i find in when it is not performance art as you call it, that you end up having a more, i think, sometimes a more substantive discussion about actual issues because they're not trying to get their clip and figure out how do i get on tv, how do i ask a snarky question. >> david, you're an observer of these things. you're not a television guy in the briefing trying to show off and make a spectacle. does spicer have a point? >> well, i think in the old days he had a point. years ago, before these things were on tv reliably religious every day that they're televised at least, i think that, look, reporters and journalists, we're all human and maybe we're looking not just to elicit information but we're also trying to, in a sense, push the news forward and make sure

, cnn political analyst and senior congressional responsibility for "the washington examiner," david drucker is here. david, i'm little bit at a loss in how to deal with this now, because the way that the president was quoting the london mayor is fundamentally dishonest, i mean, period, full stop. the london mayor flatly said, londoners will see an increased presence today and over the course of the next few days. there is no reason to be alarmed. the president suggesting that, somehow, the london mayor is saying there's no reason to be alarmed by terrorism. he's just saying it in the aftermath, the immediate aftermath of the terror attack in london, but he's saying it again this morning. how does this help london deal with terrorism? how does this help keep americans safer? >> well, i think the question to ask here is how does this help america lead the west in a fight against isis and really help this special relationship that we have with great britain as much as they would like at a time like this? look, it's understandable. and when i first read the president's tweet yesterday, not firs

." >>> let's bring in cnn political analyst david drucker, senior correspondent for the "washington examiner." good morning. thanks for being on extra early this morning. that perfectly promote your piece in the "washington examiner" about how democrats are attacking this bill, using that word "mean" that president trump used. the question isn't about democratic opposition to you. it's republicans, can they possibly get those four or two of the four involved, supporting it, without losing some of the moderates? >> that's going to be the challenge here. colonel colon mitch mcconnell is a crafty legislator, tax tikz. he understands the -- tactician. he understands the pressure points. i wouldn't underestimate his strategy. my question is can they do this in a week. i tend to think that eventually mitch mcconnell will get the 50 votes he needs that would allow vice president mike pence to make the tie bre-breaking vote the senate. it may take time. the reason i tend to think they'll ultimately get there is because there is a lot of pressure on republicans back home. every state is a little bit

joining us now, april ryan, matt lou in, david drucker. thanks for being with us.e risk of getting involved in the criticism, what he says and the way he says it is something no other president would say. no other president would be let off the hook for saying it the way he said it. i don't know how it benefits the united states of america, but can i get your opinion? >> john, i've kocovered four presidents now. this one is very unique, in his language and how he communicates with the american public. this is no different. but when you think of being presidential you think of being above the fray. and not getting involved in -- in i guess gutter fights or what have you. this is -- this is very interesting. we see that he's letting out secrets or letting out what's happened in his life, and throwing people under the bus at that. so it's very different. but you know, sean spicer, white house press secretary, did say a few weeks ago these tweets are official from the president. so this is his official word. >> okay. so the official statement from the president of the

let's discuss this with our panel, clarissa ward and analysts david drucker and david sanger.ger, i'll start with you. once again, we see a difference in tone between the president's immediate tweets and then what he said last night at the event where it was sort of more tempered. what do we think is going on with president trump? >> well, the first tweet was fine, standing with america's allies. the next ones were about the ban, his own agenda here, something that's in the courts. and you may recall, alisyn, that we were all told in the white house press room just a few months ago, it's not a ban. it's not a ban. and of course, he uses that word in the tweet. this is why the lawyers want to make sure they get to review the tweets first. but then the line about the mayor of london was particularly interesting because it's been a long-running feud between the president and the mayor about -- >> about this ban. >> about the ban, about what techniques he used. the mayor himself is the first muslim mayor of a major western city. and in this case, i think that the president was cal

stoddard, david drucker and errol louis with us. why is he saying this now, because he sees opportunity in making it the fault of president obama and democrats or is it just because he was looking ridiculous, that he wouldn't acknowledge what was obviously true. >> all of the above. none of the above. >> that's what you get here. >> a, b, c and d. >> i'm talking about president trump so cut me some slack here. i think conveniently if you read "the washington post" story, it lays a lot of the blame for some of these issues on inaction by the obama administration. in fact, as i was talking to republicans on capitol hill steeped in intelligence over the past four, five, six years, they were constantly sounding the alarm, imagine that, about russian espionage, russia as our adversary. >> and we were reading it in the paper but not hearing it from the government. >> right. the only reason we've had a complete flip on this is because a republican is president, so the debate changed. i think regardless of why the president did this, this w

our panel, cnn political analyst david drucker and "washington post" political reporter ka ruin deher. i want to show what the average american feels about this health care bill. frankly it's not good. 16% in favor, 17% in favor. even a fox news poll, just 27% in favor of this bill. it seems like a very unpopular bill, ckaroun, but the question is can the surgery be done to change this by tomorrow? >> reporter: that is a very tall order. you've seen quite a lot of really negative headlines come out about this bill, whether we're talking about number of people that will -- poorer people that will see their cost burden go up for health care, the number of people being kicked off medicaid, the number of people that will lose their insurance. there's a disconnect between people saying we want to change health care in this country and what the changes are. also, it's very difficult to communicate what all the changes are to the public because it is a very arcane piece. it's complicated. the problem for the republicans right now is that the numbers aren't necessarily going to add up if they

. >> let's bring in david drucker and terrorism analyst paul cr k cruickshank and dan galiagno. now this. the hypocracy, but now the truth. he wants the ban for christians and the one that included iraq. just to be clear, this is sean spicer addressing the media reporting this is a ban. this is what he said. >> this is not a muslim ban. it is not a travel ban. it's a vetting system to keep america safe. plain and simple. all of the facts and reading of it show it is what it is. >> except one fact. the president of the united states saying it is a ban. what does it mean? >> chris, you have to look at this across the continuum. i look at mayor khan on one end and the ambiguous threat and the president who came out now and said this is a travel ban. that confirmed what we already felt. i watched the british pm. i watched theresa may. i thought wow. defiance and resolution. just so classically british and how she came out and said we will confront it and call it what it is, but not go to the extreme fringe. i thought calling it what it is concerning ourselves with the cyber sphere w

let's bring in david drucker, a man who cloerly never sleeps. he was our lead in actually. >> thanks for coming back. >> i changed my clothes. >> well done, even the pocket square. >> always a pocket square. >> there's some criticism of bob mueller, of the special kunl. it comes from newt gingrich, who tweeted, republicans are delusional it they think the special counsel is going to be fair. look who he's hiring. check fec reports, time to e rethink. the question is these people that bob mueller has appoint ed some call it an all-star team, but they have all made donations to the democratic party. is that a problem for the investigation? >> i think that he's realized it will certainly run some people the wrong wi. you have to dig into the numb s numbers. there's a couple members that have given money over the course of years. i don't think that's such a big deal. one of the people appointed has given a sizable amount of money over a period of decades. and in this time when everyone is is partisan and everyone focuses on everything, there's some

. >> john avlon, margaret talev and david drucker back with us. margaret, you sit in on these questions. this is a simple one, but does sean spicer not talk to the president? >> he talks to the president about things that the president wants him to talk about. this obviously isn't one of them. there was more than a week between televised briefings, the white house certainly knew this was a question that reporters were going to ask ahead of the briefing. the oval office is actually just a few feet away from the press secretary's office. this actually is a matter for the white house to clear up, even if sean felt like he wasn't prepared to talk about it from the podium. there is e-mail and there are statements. this is a deliberate effort to keep maneuvering room or at least keep the distance between the white house and talking about the russia issue from the podium. it may be that simple. i was surprised he didn't just refer the question to marc kasowitz, the president's private lawyer. we have a situation now where staff and cabinet officials thro

also joining us, cnn political analyst jackie kucinich and david drucker, and we have the blessing thisorning of knowing the answer because we hear them yapping before the testimony. let's play lindsey graham and paul ryan, who have already put out their thoughts about what they think the impact of comey is. >> what comey, and i think mueller has concluded, i don't have an obstruction of justice case here, but i believe every word of what comey said. it doesn't rise to the level of obstruction of justice. what prosecutor in their right mind would allow their star witness to go out before the senate panel of 20 senators and get beat up, if you really believe he had a case? so, this is the best evidence yet that in the mind of the special counsel there is no obstruction of justice case to be made against president trump. >> is it appropriate for the president to ask a question of loyalty from the fbi director? >> yeah, no. i mean, obviously, i don't think that is. fbi directors are supposed to be independent. that's something that's very, very critical. i think that's why we have a new pe

let's bring in david drucker and david gregory. david, help us make sense of this. i want this to be something that's irrelevant. this seems to be like word play and sekulow trying to clear something up without wanting to say what he must feel as counsel which is, man, i wish my client weren't saying anything about this, but he's got a unique client here, doesn't he? >> that's the point. it's monday and here we go again. that's the real issue. you have in donald trump someone who is a street brawler who, whether this is a legal or political fight, and it's both, wants to fight it himself and wants his lawyers to kind of catch up to what he's done, and try to explain it. jay sekulow knows better. this word play over twitter is really ridiculous. i think he knows that, but he's trying to make an argument. others have to make arguments. again, let's look at what's going on. there is a legal process that's under way. we don't know the extent to what the mueller team is doing in terms of what they're looking at. we know how much is in the public domain now for them to in

joining me to discuss, kiersten powers and david drucker. friends, so, david, republicans on the hill and far beyond, they all think this ad, the ads were damaging to the process. how big of an impact did the ad -- only on air for a little while or maybe just the threat -- have on this process, do you think? >> look, there are a lot of smart people at america first policies who have a good record of success in republican politics. this ad was a horrible miscalculation. mitch mcconnell can only spare the president can only spare two republican votes. even then they need the vice-president to cast the tie-breaking vote. what they did is put senator dean heller where even if he eventually comes around on the health care bill which he may in july, because he has been in favor of repealing and replacing the affordable care act in some fashion, it's going to look -- democrats can now play it as least as a capitulation. he was threatened with ads. he is under pressure for 2018. now he has come around because the president threatened him or the presi

david drucker? >> looking at the tweet, i was wondering if he was still hyperfocused on the fact that he's not under investigation. if you look at which didn't have to occur, he takes it as a personal affront, he tends to take things personally, that he would be under investigation for colluding with the russians which would delegitimatize his entire presidency. when i read that tweet, he didn't specifically say that comey lied about all of these things that he said. and i wonder if he just meant for everybody who said i was under investigation and colluded with the russians. those were all lies. >> can we just be real? right. he's going to get two questions from the romanians and two questions from american journalists. we don't know who he is going to call on. how does he address it? other than the tweet this morning, didn't say anything at the press pool white house yesterday. said nothing of the infrastructure speech today. >> this is the kind of thing that he actually wants to address and likes

we'll get into that with david drucker next hour. >> and remember when he was on the international trip, the big, foreign trip he just took, what we heard from diplomats in europe was they had all been briefing their heads of state -- >> flattery. >> flattery, lavish the praise and make sure you say the words donald j. trump, donald j. trump. it's about the president. >> cabinet following the playbook. the cringe-worthy cabinet session being mocked by democrats. take a look at chuck schumer's parody post. >> i want to thank everybody for coming. i just thought we'd go around the room. lucy, how'd we do on the sunday show yesterday? >> your tone was perfect. you were right on message. >> michelle, how'd my hair look coming out of the gym this morning? >> you have great hair. nobody has better hair than you. >> you know, before we go any further, i just want to say thank you for the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda. [ laughter ] >> so, if the senate minority leader's making fun of the trump cabinet meeting, well, you know the late-night talk show hosts could not resist. >> th

david drucker, whether global warming is a hoax, the scientific community has decided donald trump goes back and forth on it depending what he wants in that moment, but the money was a big part of his factor here also, right? the united states was pledging about a billion dollars to help smaller economies deal with their own emission output and he didn't like that. >> right. i think, chris, this is always where a lot of republican voters have been, even republicans that aren't that high on donald trump might not have voted for him and don't like what they see from him is that they've always been skeptical of these recall international agreements where the u.s. would be carrying the lion's share of making up for what's going on in developing economies. they don't have the same regulations we do. so they've always been suspicious how it would hit us in the pocketbook. even for this upscale sbn republican we've been focusing on for what could it mean for the 2018 elections that believes manmade climate change needs to be dealt with, i don't think they will be upset if he pulls out. any rep

all of this cnn senior political analyst mark preston, political analysts kiersten powers and david drucker. kiersten, what's your reaction to this new flynn news. >> it's a big deal. you know? it does fit with a pattern and you have to always ask the question, when somebody fails to mention something, is it oversight or intentional? and you know, look, you forget some things i guess, but this seems like a pretty major thing to forget considering the investigation that's going on. you don't forget everything. there seems to be a real pattern not just with flynn but with other people of really just having no memory of things that are associated with russia. >> there's a lot of forgetting going on. >> yeah. >> a lot of forgetting. and it's just another reminder of what a troublesome figure michael flynn has been for president trump and his administration, so much of this russia business for him has been about flynn and flynn's connections. >> how did he ever get past the front door? >> well, i think part of it is that he earned donald trump's trust early on and one of his earliest foreign pol

in our panel, report and editor at large kfor cnn politics, chris cillizza, caroon derijja and david drucker. mr. cillizza, you have mcconnell and his own people within the gop, can he bring it to a vote or even debate and then you have this other battle which is we have problems in lots of markets involving health care. you're going to see premium spikes. things need to get done here, republican, democrat, bipartisan or otherwise. how do you see it? >> well, so the first problem will tell us a lot about how the second problem gets addressed. the first problem is, this was always going to be a very difficult vote for mitch mcconnell to get across the line. they have 52 senators, and you're seeing the problem of a sort of widely varying ideological caucus. you have susan collins, lisa murkowski, shelly of west virginia, rob portman of ohio centrist coverage end, focused on the cbo report, 22 million less people who get insurance. on the other hand, rand paul, mike lee, ted cruz, who don't think the bill goes far enough. those faction also always exist. mcconnell is aware of that. i don't know

joining me to discuss this doug high and david drucker. great to see you. fascinating conversation with chris on this just a second ago. let me ask you this, doug. karen handel won by more than trump did, much less than price did over and over again. she barely mentioned trump's name throughout the race. always dodged it when any questions about the tweet of the day he had. what is the message to republicans from this win? >> the message is to stay local. media tried to make this national on trump. we had so many -- so much press in the district. also tons of money as chris mentioned coming in, trying to nationalize this race, even in an ugly sense, using the shooting of steve scalise in the race. same lesson for democrats. stay local. don't overinterpret, don't overanalyze to the results last night. >> david, you had a fascinating take on this. you make the case, your assessment is it was forget trump, this was about nancy pelosi. what's the message for democrats here? >> right. what republican strategists have discovered in their focus groups pelosi. repu

i want to widen the conversation and bring in david drucker and page pate, shelby holliday and the author of "the art of being the donald." david, we just heard from jessica schneider's about comey's state of mind, his interactions with the president, that he seemed to think that the president was a project and was maybe asking inappropriate things because he didn't have the experience to know differently. does it change anything, in your view, in anticipation of his testimony? >> no. i think a lot of people are going to watch it and it's going to be highly scrutinized. i think what is interesting here is if the administration actually tried to invoke executive privilege, it looks like the president has something to hide. if he testifies, we can already see from miss conway's testimony, that they are going to try to continue to tar james comey's character. that's a position they'd prefer to keep. let mhim talk, continue to undermine him and tar his character. that's what they have done since firing him. it's been the most interesting part of this. and this is why i think we're in this pos

washington bureau chief for "usa today," alex burns, cnn political analyst for the "new york times" and david drucker from "the washington requeexaminer." sus susan, let's listen to a fellow republican of the president, susan collins, when she was asked about these tapes. listen. >> he should give a straight yes or no to the, answer to the question of whether or not the tapes exist, and he should voluntarily turn them over not only to the senate intelligence committee, but to the special counsel. so i don't think a subpoena should be necessary, and i don't understand why the president just doesn't clear this matter up once and for all. >> to be clear again, susan, that's from a fellow republican saying tell us are there tapes or not. what do you think the political calculation is from the white house on this one right now? why leave is to murky, to say the least? >> well that is always a tough question when it comes to thinking about the strategy that president trump may be following. he is leaving it kind of out there, but he faces a demand from the house intelligence, a request from the house intel

want to bring in david drucker and eric o'neal, former fbi counter intelligence operative. the issue of tapes. i am curious what both of you think. do you think there are tapes? >> i don't think there are tapes. >> why? >> trump sounded uncertain if there are tapes, sounded like one of the things he throws out there, which he does. i would think he would know if he were being recorded when he's in a conversation with one person person alone in a room. >> is this like wire tapping at trump tower. >> in the moment he suggested there might be tapes months back now, it is the type of thing he would do almost as a way to build up this idea of what he is claiming happened. when you have james comey sit in front of the entire country under oath and say lordy, i hope there are tapes, it strikes me that's either the biggest bluff ever or there aren't tapes because if there are, number one, they don't belong to president trump, they belong to the government which post nixon and watergate is a change in terms of who the tapes belong to. eventually they get into the hands of the public