david drucker thank you very much. we'll talk to you again in just a little bit. >>> we're learning more details this morning about the so-called second trump tower meeting during 2016 campaign. this one also involving donald trump jr. other participants for that august 3rd, 2016 meeting including a israeli social media essentiallyist, republican donor with controversial ties to the middle east and emissary who led the saudi arabia and united arab emirates. last year the "new york times" reported that george nader said that included saudi arabia's crown prince mbs they were eager to help donald trump win the election. the paper reported another participant was erik prince who arranged that meeting. in an interview last friday prince admitted to participating in that trump tower meeting, however before the house intelligence committee in 2017 prince failed to mention that he was actually involved saying he had no formal communication with the trump campaign beyond quote sending papers on foreign policy to steve bannon.

joining us from washington, david drucker. david, good to have you this morning. thanks so much for joining us on this friday. we know how we are bracing, because we're certainly bracing for the release of this mueller report which is any day now. but it's been any day now for months. a lot of conversation in the newsroom is when and if -- >> it could be today. >> if it will happen today. first and foremost what is your over and under it happens today. we need to know. secondly remember how is d.c. bracing for this? >> look, i've got a pretty good story out today of my own. my over/under is today's high likelihood. my good stories always get buried by mueller news. i think washington has been looking for this for quite a long time. i notice when i travel the rest of the country to cover campaigns which i do quite a bit nobody else seems to care. not because they don't care but because they are living their life and it's not a focus. if you're wondering what it's like in d.c., all we do is run around figuring out what mueller is doing, when he's doing it and when w

and david drucker senior correspondent for the william exami washington examiner. ken, let's start with that dramatic picture we saw of michael cohen bringing these boxes in yesterday. do we have any idea what's in them? >>le we have hints, chris. and that should give the white house a lot of angata. and he weighs all of these allegations about potential tax fraud and insurance fraud. he's got financial statements, he's got bills, he's got checks. and he also has, chris, some information that goes to the what pardon discussion he had back when he was still telling a lie on president's behalf about the timing of the trump moscow deal. >> emily fox has covered this story extensively. here's her take this morning on msnbc, about that image of all of these documents being delivered to capitol hill. >> one of them was stunning images of the past week which has been a fairly stunning week when it comes to michael cohen, with cohen entering capitol hill with three suitcases and a big file forward. i think that, to me, was a moment that must have struck fear in president t

here to discuss is david drucker. the president is his strategy on this particular issue to deflect and just hope the news cycle eventually overtakes this? >> yeah, he's got a good chance that he'll get away with it. look, whenever the president doesn't want to deal with an issue, he deflects. which is interesting because he follows the work we do probably more closely than past presidents. but, you know, it gets to the point this is a potential problem. it's one of those things that's coming to light because you now have much more aggressive oversight in the house of representatives with the democratic majority than you had under republicans. i just -- i don't think ultimately this is going to be a major issue for the president, given how many hot topics are on his plate, how many controversies he tends to fan. whether or not we ask him a question or he decides to volunteer information. i do think, though, that democrats are going to try and look at all of the unusual means in which he and his close advisors are comm

. >> here to shed some light, a healthcare consultant who worked on the affordable care act, david drucker and jeff mason. why now and why at all? >> i think the second question is good. why at all indeed because of the political sort of hit that the republicans took in 2018. but i think the answer to that is largely related to the president. president trump is still bitter that he wasn't able to fulfill a campaign promise that was big -- one of his in 2016 to get rid of obamacare. he blames john mccain for that. that's come out again in the last week or so when he was criticizing the now deceased senator. he apparently spoke about it yesterday in his meeting with lawmakers on the hill. so he really wants to get this done, and apparently it's not seeing it as a political albatross the way it was on many of his republican colleagues in the midterm elections. >> jeff, is there someone in the president's ear right now saying, mr. president, you've got this one? because one name that keeps popping up is mick mulvaney, his acting chief of staff. >> yeah, i can't tell you if it's mick mulvaney s

david drucker, a quick question to you. to point out, obviously this is about the president's grievances around jeff sessions. rod rosenstein was appointed, voted on by the senate. there was a vote. >> you wonder with bill clinton with 379 electoral votes, what the heck ken starr was doing investigating him. presidents in our system are not above the law. i don't think the president has ever really internalized how the american justice system works, and so he's trying to in a sense coach the outcome and win the battle over the mueller report before it's ever released so that if it's at all problematic, the voters he counts on won't believe it and he'll be in the position he wants to be from 2020. >> fair enough. that's going to do it for us on "andrea mitchell reports." "velshi & ruhle" with ali velshi and stephanie ruhle are up next. hi, guys. >> have a good afternoon, kasie. we'll sue you inee you in a lit. i'm ali velshi. >> i'm stephanie ruhle. let's get a little smarter. >> a pathway for medicare. make it available on

david drucker's still with us. maria, to you first.ecause earlier this morning i was looking at the "time" magazine cover. the article about alexandria ocasio-cortez and how she represents the next generation. if joe biden walks in with a stacey abrams, does it solve the criticism he gets about being too old-school and traditional? >> well, this has been insider talk for a long time that if biden were to jump in, one of the things that he can do is really appease a lot of the wisconsin, minnesota, michigan older white voter men that voted for obama, then voted for trump, but then his running mate should be someone that basically helps usher us into the future, someone like a stacey abrams, but people also talked about julian castro, kamala harris. i think the big challenge is how they are rolling this out, and they should really caution that stacey abrams, she owns her future. so this idea that they're going to welcome here in a tent, i would just be careful of how they frame it and make sure it is something that is something that she

. >>> joining us now, senior political correspondent for the washington "examiner" david drucker.itical reporter heidi pryzbyla. let's start with you, heidi. what you have learned? >> in an exclusive interview with nbc sherry bustos told us their 2020 campaign starts today. they're making a major multi-million dollar investment to put the largest number of organizers ever on ground, 60 grass roots organizers. why? because they acknowledge in their interview that their majority is fragile. republicans only need 18 seats to win back the house. just for perspective, you've already got 31 democrats sitting in trump disabilitietric distri. of thos distrie districts, 16 o many won by very small margins. some of the proposals like the green new deal and haealth care for all is being seen as socialism. in 2018 they pushed into areas that are off target like texas, like arizona and then finally, willie, they tell me that these organizers are going to pick um on a successful strategy from 2018, which is what they call republican accountability. what is that? that was some of these mass of p

continue our countdown with executive and resident at american university school of public affairs, david druckerthe washington examiner and fox news political analyst gianna caldwell. who knew we were 600 days? >> not me. >> feels like the campaigns are never over. we know a lot about him, he's okay with staring down some border walls, abolishing ice, impeaching the president. he said every scientist agrees we have 12 years left to save the planet. is an opinion piece in the washington post, she calls his campaign a youthful folly. o'rourke is composite character churned out by a google algorithm specified a young spanish-speaking toss any guy whose name sounds latino even though he is 100% weight from a privileged background and the husband of a multimillionaire's daughter. >> this interesting and a lot -- with the media sensation of this guy which i find somewhat of an elitist and when i don't agree with all the time, a tv host named chris matthews says there's a lot of elitism in the democratic party and beta o'rourke embodies that because democrats including himself have chosen to run their

don't bring a friend. >> david drucker, i'm reading your piece in "the examiner," "republicans resignlosing 2020 popular vote but winning electoral college." >> in two years of the trump administration i've never seen republicans more confident about the president's political prospects than i've seen today. a lot of that is because of their view of the democratic field of presidential contenders and they think that a candidate field where they're rushing to the progressive left is going to help absolve the president of his myriad challenges with which we discuss on a daily basis and are very real. by the same token, they don't seem to have any illusion that the president has ton anything to expand his voting base or will do anything to expand his voting base. one republican strategist tells me he believes that the president governs deliberately with the strategy to specifically reach out to his base, where you have so many liberals living in california, so many conservatives grouped in other places and so they don't really see an avenue for winning the popular vote, but they feel as t

sandra: david drucker, "washtington examiner," thank you. >> you mentioned about 15 minutes ago. 2020ocratic hopeful kirsten gillibrand launching her campaign today. talking in new york city at the moment. holding a rally outside of the trump international hotel right around the southwestern corner of central park. she wasted no time going after the president. here's what happened the moment ago. >> this president has tried to reduce america to its smallest cells. in turning them inside out, rooting for bigotry and discrimination and violence. closing our doors to immigrants and refugees, taking from the many to line the pockets of the few. >> gillibrand is then. that's her first official campaign stop today. i think we're up to 12? >> it is growing. >> keep the check marks. she's talking about the president and all of this. the timing is we are awaiting the mueller report today. >> the report should come any moment now. hundreds and hundreds of pages. fbi director says it needs to tell us by next. ♪ aid! -♪ but she's the maid we got -again, i'm not the maid. i protect your home and a

david drucker, great to kick things off with you. appreciate your time.nd we'll have more on this topic coming up and all these topics next hour when our headliner joins us new york democratic congressman hakeem jeffries will join us. >> jon: the fight to defeat the isis caliphate. we're hearing the last stronghold in syria is close to being crushed. let's go to lucas tomlinson at the pentagon. >> at its peak isis controlled the area the size of ohio across iraq and syria and two days ago the president this prediction. >> president trump: so what happens is, this is all isis. as of today this is isis. the caliphate is gone as of tonight. >> according to a spokesman for the u.s. backed syrian democratic forces fighting isis on the ground some pockets of isis remain, quote, our forces currently engage against isis opponents. international coalition conducted several air strikes against terrorist targets. fighting continues in eastern syria. air strikes are paused in some areas for fear of civilian casualties. isis territory is almost gone. the terrorist gro

richard fowler fox news contributor and david drucker senior political correspondent for "the washingtonur a-team this morning. welcome. >> good to see you, gentlemen. >> sandra: possibly contradicting his own testimony michael cohen, mark where do you go first. >> hard to keep up with the amount of lies. he didn't want another job at the white house. even another network reporting showed he did. he didn't have his -- he did have his testimony edited but it wasn't really edited. he didn't want a pardon he did want a pardon. the only things michael cohen told his truth about his name he is going to prison and there is no collusion. >> bill: here is the statement he made 8 days ago before that committee on the hill. watch here. >> the pain that i have caused my family and my friends, nothing can do that. and i have never asked for nor why accept a pardon from president trump. >> bill: oso now apparently that's not the case. rudy giuliani last hour sent this out. dem star cohen testified never asked for a pardon from president trump. he directed his attorney to explore a pardon. never means