stop texting for five seconds and make a phone call. >> gloria borger, a little jab at all of us.eened up world. what do you think the impact will be? it's remarkable. >> i do. i think it's remarkable. one key impact is that he took the time to explain what's in the bill. he took the time to explain the issue with preexisting conditions which is what people care about. people want to know about their health care and why this is a divicive issue. they want predictability and stability when you are talking about your own health or your children's health or spouse's health, you want to know your health care will be there. what if you happened to live in a state, for example, that decides that okay, you are going to have to pay more if you have cancer. what does that do to you? do you move if you can't afford your coverage? >> the individual states where the governors and the state legislators, if we put it all out to the states, the state lawmakers and the governors potentially impacted by the lobbying forces necessary that particular state. if you have a strong and thriving health i

gloria borger, thank. read imploregloria's opinion pi to cnn.com/opinion. >>> turning now to the scene of this humanitarian crisis unfolding in the wake of hurricane maria, unweek later, millions of americans, in fact, most of the island of puerto rico is still without power. how long they will have to exist this way in a state of fear and desperation, officials are guestiguest i ing months. >> we need to prevent a humanitarian crisis occurring in america. puerto rico is part of the united states. and we need to take swift action. >> the governor pleading while a tearful san juan mayor tells cnn about a horrific discovery. >> just yesterday, we have been canvassing one by one all of our elderly homes, finding our elderly -- and i'm not kidding -- we had to transfer 11 of them in near-death conditions. no food, no water, no electricity. >> commercial airlines, they're doing what they can, shipping supplies into puerto rico. and packing the few returning flights with evacuates. and with each passing day, gro

gloria borger is back with me as is rana and mark -- forgive me. so, gloria, just to you, on the politics of this, to hear republican senator lindsey graham address d.r.e.a.m.ers, to hear him say, for the republican party, this is a defining moment, for him to say to the president, hear us, help us work the phones. what did you make of that? >> well, lindsey graham has always been someone, as you know, who's been for comprehensive immigration reform and has voted that way. but i think what he -- the points he made at the end, which was actually the point that president obama was making in his statement, is that we're not going to allow these kids to become a victim of the a broken political promise. and lindsey graham did not come at this by criticizing the president, because he agrees with him that what president obama did was overreach. and he didn't like that either. but he said to congress, basically, okay, we now have to do this or these kids will become victims or our broken political process, and that isn't good for the country, and it also i

i want to go to gloria borger to get the latest. gloria? >> this health care bill is important to every american and it's really been a flashpoint, and it's going to be voted on this week or it won't be brought to the floor this week and what you're seeing in these demonstrations is people who feel very strongly that any vote for graham cassidy is a vote that would hurt them and that would take away their coverage for their preexisting conditions, et cetera, et cetera. we'll have a debate tonight on cnn about this between both sides, graham and cassidy on one side and democrats on the other and they're going to lay out the stakes here and the differences between what the republicans want and what the democrats want but there is nothing that affects voters so personally as it affects health care. >> it affects every american family and that's why you are seeing so much passion on so many sides. i want to bring in sunlen serfaty. set the stage. >> many, many protesters, about a couple of hundred have been lined up behind me. we'll try to give

. >> let's discuss this with the panel and gloria borger is with us. the white house reporter and the white house reporter kaitlyn collins is here as well. is the president in serious risk of losing that base which has been with him pretty much consistently as a result of his desire to allow the 800,000 dreamers to remain in the united states? >> according to steve king he is in danger of blowing up his base, but the president said we will build a wall and i think the wall is a bigger issue. they are kicking that can down the road obviously. the confusion here i think is over this question of amnesty. the president saying we are not looking at citizenship and amnesty, but one of the spokes people said this could include legal citizenship over a period of time. if we take a step back here, we are seeing a strategic shift by this president in a major way. he cut the deal over the debt ceiling with democrats and then he is meeting with pelosi and schumer and having a nice meal over chinese food and cutting a deal over daca. he decided what he was doing be

and now, gloria borger. this is a big thing. this is not an easy thing to get. to be able to do this on a u.s. citizen. what does this tell you abouted u.s. citizen. >> it tells you that they believed that they had real reason to reinstitute surveillance of paul manafort, whether it was conversations about paul manafort, whatever they were hearing on their pre-existing surveillance, they thought it was important enough to go to a fisa court to say, we need to start listening in to paul manafort's conversations again they don't -- as evan was pointing out, this isn't done willie nilly here, this goes before a court, it has to be proved. there has to be a real good reason for them to believe that they need to do it. the second thing that just sort of jumping out at me about this reporting, is that, of course, now we have the possibility of the fact that the president of the united states, who continued to talk to paul manafort i'm told until maybe march, that his conversations may well have been recorded as president with manafort, if manafort was being sur veiled

gloria borger, van jones and reverend scott. why bring this up? question to the president about the meeting with ben scott, president immediately after saying he had a great meeting go to revisionist take on his comments. >> doesn't make a lot of sense. i know senator scott very well. he actually went there with agenda about jobs and putting people to work. trump base and democratic base needs jobs. he went there on a peace building mission and for some reason the president then just goes right back to talking about this horrible moment. he doesn't say thanything about the young woman murdered. only one side using isis terror tactics, mowing people down and murdering them in broad daylight, only one side embracing neonazism. for some reason doesn't want to talk about that, just counterprotesters. felt bad for senator scott. going there to do something good and turned into another circus. >> saying about the people writing that people are saying trump has a point. it's usual for the president, people are saying phraseology. >> this president can't

. >> well, sources tell myself and my colleague gloria borger. robert mueller, the special counsel taken corks start interviewing current and former white house staff in the russia probe. this is a signal the russia probe is entering a more advanced stage after the white house has been turning documents over to robert mueller of we're hearing as soon as this week, the interviews with the staffers could begin of as we have previously reported, mueller's office has expressed interest in interviewing reince priebus, the former chief of staff. the former press secretary sean spicer, the current communications director, hope hicks as well as don mcgann of the so we expect one or two of these interviews to happen quite soon. one of the big focuses is on the dismissals of both the national security adviser michael flynn, as well as the former fbi director james comey. the james comey aspect with the probe and they want to know more about the dismissal of michael flynn. why did it happen earlier after they warned about the conversations with the former r

let's bring in our specialist to discuss gloria borger president says he has full attention, but twitterotherwise over the past few days, tweeted more than 20 times about the nfl controversy, four times about puerto rico. so what does that tell you about his priorities? >> i think his priorities are himself, quite honestly. i think you can look at this a bunch of different ways. this is a president, when he first spoke about the nfl, he was at a rally in alabama. and this is a president who understands he need to shore up his base. and he was throwing out some red meat because, don't forget, he's cutting a deal on dreamers, cut a deal on the debt ceiling. the democrats maybe they'll cut a deal with him on the wall. and he's endorsed luther strange who is establishment candidate. if you put all of that together, this is a president who understood intuitively and he knew that the audience would react well, that he needed to shore up his base. i also feel that it's a diversion for him. the news hasn't been great. the narrative today, of course, is health care has failed yet again. and, you

let's dig deeper with our specialist and our analyst in gloria borger.esident insisting they have the votes. they clearly did not have the votes. >> no, they don't. have you ever heard the phrase, truthful hyperbole, which was a phrase that was invented by tony schwartz when he wrote "the art of the deal" with donald trump to kind of explain how donald trump doesn't always tell the truth. and so they came up with this phrase. he doesn't have the votes. he, at very most, i think, would have 49. that's assuming that every other republican would vote for him, aside from the ones who have come out and said absolutely no. but i think it's his way of saying, okay, we're going to get this in the future. you know, when he used to sell apartments in trump tower, he would take people around and he would say, you know, princess diana is buying an apartment here. michael jackson is buying an apartment here, to get them to kind of join the bandwagon. so i think he believes that nothing succeeds like success. so if he keeps telling you that he's got to vote, that mayb

let's bring in our specialists gloria borger, why is the president so specific in this fight when there are so many other critical issues out there? >> look, the president takes everything personally. everything grievance is personal. and i think if you look back to the way this weekend evolved, he was upset that steph curry said he wasn't going to go to the white house. and he was in alabama and he knew this would be well received, and called these players sobest who take a knee and said they should be fired. so what he did, you could see it sort of play out. he took one thing and strung it into another. and it's all about personal grievance. it's not about, you know, i know what sara huckabee said. you can disagree about colin kaepernick or not. but for this president it's personal. and he knows the protest in one way or another is aimed at him. he sees it aimed at him even though it's against the police, et cetera, et cetera. so i think when you look at these things, you have to look at it through the very personal lens that the president looks at it through. it's not about uniting t

gore gloria borger, start with you. these are all pretty dramatic developments which suggests the russia probe, the russia investigation is plofg moving o new level. >> well, it is, wolf. you'll remember at the beginning of the russia probe -- i think that's one of the reasons manu decided to pursue this -- is that there were all these questions that were raised about this issue of unmasking and when in fact, as devon noin nunes wh the chairman, the republican of the house intelligence committee, names were unmasked in these meetings inappropriately. i think what we're reading and learning in manu's piece is that in fact susan rice made the case that she had a good reason to try and figure out why -- who was in this meeting because she had not been told about it in advance. and of course, this was during the transition when she was still national security advisor. so i tharink that is one big partisan area that, in effect, is starting to get cleared up, because we've heard intelligence official after intelligence offici

cnn political analyst gloria borger is with us, and cnn correspondent for bloomberg news and rachel bay, reporter for bloomberg news. gloria, what do you make of the initial reaction from the facebook owner? >> i think when the president of the united states goes out of his way to warn you about russian infiltration into your organization, you ought to pay attention to it. and i think what you see zuckerberg doing now is realizing that he should have paid more attention to it at the time, and so they're sort of playing catch-up. but what else would inspire an outgoing president to talk to a ceo like this unless it were really, really serious? >> and as you know, margaret, the house and senate investigators, they're saying the 3,000 or so facebook ads sold by a russian-linked -- bought by a russian-linked account may just be the tip of the iceberg, that there potentially were a lot more that we don't know enough about yet, and that there are serious ramifications going down that's right. i know i'm still struck even though this is all news how under the radar president obama trieded to s

miya malika henderson is with us, john king, and gloria borger. dust settled a bit, gloria, as far as this pretty stunning development yesterday. the president signing with the democratic leadership and antagonizing the republican leadership. what's the impact? >> well, i think the republicans are upset. scratching their heads. this isn't what they wanted. you heard the president moments ago talking about bipartisanship, but he seems to be the only republican who really signed on to this. and republicans are calling it the pa localsy shpelosi/schumer exactly what did is and prepared to do an 18-month extension of the debt ceiling. they don't like to vote on these things. they consider it a toxic vote. now they're going to have it back in their lap in december, unless, of course, the president agrees with the democrats about eliminating the debt ceiling altogether, which seems to be something he has discussed with democratic leaders. >> you know, you just heard the president, john, say in that little clip, very -- this is what i was elected to do.

. >> joining me is gloria borger and carl bernstein. senior political director david chalian. o you that hillary clinton is more candid than she was as a candidate and throughout much of her public life? >> she seemed to be so much more conversational with you, and she seemed to be unburdened, to a degree. i mean, she's clearly gone through so much. but one thing about losers, people who lose elections, i've spent a lot of time interviewing those people, unlike politicians looking for the next race, they sit back and think about what happened because they have the time to do it. and it's clear, not only because she was writing this book, but there are lots of walks in the woods as she talks about, and that she has given this an awful lot of thought. so i did see somebody different there who wasn't on the high wire as she put it. >> carl, how about you? you wrote the book about her. do you see any difference? >> well, first of all, it's an admirable book, and it's very revealing in many ways. and she's introspective, which is something she's never demonstrated before. >> she's f

i've got gloria borger and jeff zeleny joining us to discuss the headlines. ginning with daca. we've been talking about the dinner over chinese food and chocolate cake with the two top democrats in the house and senate last night. was a deal done or not last night? the fact is that parts obviously of his base, i talked to one this past hour who feels betrayed by the fact that he's trying to maybe do deals with democrats. the president on air force one saying many republicans like it. he said presumably referring to daca and are, quote, very, very happy with what we're doing. some republicans, speaker ryan and others, yes, true. >> yeah. ryan -- you know, ryan wanted a deal on daca. just on listening to the president, first of all -- and jeff can talk about this better than i can, but i think he came out to do the gavel because he was feeling pretty good. you know, this president doesn't like to talk to the press and just say, do you have any questions, if he doesn't really want to answer them. he went out there and he wanted to talk about daca. and it's very c

let's to go gloria borger, rick san tor yeah. oh, a picture can say so many words.huck schumer. the president has called him twice on twitter and here they are in the midst of a loving hug. >> i'm kind of wondering if you extended the lens of that what the faces of the republicans would look like because they were not so thrilled as chuck schumer. they believe that chuck schumer was bluffing the president and that of course the democrats could have gone for a debt ceiling behind three months. they believe the president threw them under the bus, to say the very least, because they didn't want to vote on the debt ceiling again. it is a politically toxic vote. they didn't want to vote on raising the debt ceiling again in december. they wanted to get it out of the way. his own treasury secretary had suggested that they ought to have a longer deadline on this, and the president paid absolutely no attention to him. so what we saw today clearly was a president who wanted to cut a deal, period. he wanted to cut a deal. he wanted to win something. he had been to texas and wa

. >> let's talk about this now with cnn chief political analyst gloria borger, david catonese and jeff zeleny. do we have any sense of whether republicans in congress were given the heads up or were they just completely blindsided? because you have paul ryan saying what he said and then it's a few hours later, it turns out, actually, no, there's a deal and it doesn't include you blindsided. >> i'm told by three republican officials at the white house and capitol hill, the republican leaders were absolutely taken aback by this. they were undercut. and not only them. the treasury secretary, steven mnuchin, was arguing for a longer-term deal and he was given assurance. the president apparently, i'm told by people familiar with the meeting, said, we're done talking about this. and one person said the president was in deal-cutting mode. so he simply wanted to get that done. and mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, confirmed that basically when he came to the cameras on capitol hill just a short time ago and said, you know, the president reached a deal with democrats, basically, so i

i want to go now to retyrant lieutenant general russel honore, along with gloria borger. it's been six days since hurricane maria. just to give people a sense of how the world has changed so dramatically, on the top, that's what puerto rico looked like the night before maria struck. on the bottom is what it looks like now. millions of people have no power. the island is virtually dark. people cannot get food, they cannot get water. paul ryan is one of many to call this a humanitarian crisis. there are 3.4 million americans on the island. yet the president of the united states did not send one tweet in the aftermath until he said, quote, they're in deep trouble, last night, referring to puerto rico. he spent more than 20 about the nfl and sports over the same time. none about puerto rico until he was deluged with criticism. is this his katrina, as some are saying? >> it has very a lot of similarities. i'll be honest with you. during katrina, i made a statement that the bureaucracy in washington was looking at a calendar, and the survivors in new orleans, including myself,

gloria borger and our military diplomatic analyst john kishy and our cnn analyst and congressional reporter for "the washington post." thanks as we await the start of this briefing. the president seems to jump into these getting immediate reaction to this terrorist attack in london even before all the information is apparently out there. >> he does. this is a president who is always looking for someone to blame about something. in this case he is tweeting that the terrorist is a loser which is obviously true, but also that this was on the radar of the british and that's something obviously that he probably should not be talking about. he has to sort of say, well, maybe the british should have had a handle on this before they did. it's a little bit like looking for jeff sessions to blame in the wake of his own firing of jim comey which he would never look at himself and say i shouldn't have fired jim comey. he blames jeff sessions for betraying him by recusing himself which led to the appointment of the special council. it's all part of the personality. >> i want to you listen to what teresa

my colleague, gloria borger and i were told from three sources that robert mueller, special counsel,in discussions with the white house about interviewing some of the white house aides, a small number, we're told, who were aboard aforce one during the drafting of that initial misleading statement about don junior and his meeting at trump tower with the russian lawyer last summer. and so we're told that special counsel will eventually interview these white house aides and that the white house is cooperating. at this point, we're told that the white house counsel has not put in -- i'm sorry, special counsel mueller has not put in a request to interview the president as we've previously reported. through sources, the president was involved in the crafting of that statement aboard air force one on the way gak from tback f government's exhib g20 so this makes clear that robert mueller is interested in the crafting of that statement, who was involved and what they knew as part of the larger probe, the larger obstruction of justice probe. it's not illegal to mislead the public. but it could