gloria borger is also here.trump according to "the washington post" called this man papadopolous an energy consultant and an excellent guy. this is also a guy who at least six times according to "the washington post" tried to set up meetings between top campaign officials on the trump team and russians and now he's admitted according to evan's reporting and to what we have here, the paperwork, that he lied about the timing and extent and nature of his relationship and interactions with certain foreign national governments with close connections to senior russian officials. >> this is enormously significant. this is a guilty plea coming out of the trump campaign directly. the president tweeted earlier this morning that manafort's financial crimes -- alleged financial crimes took place before he was involved with the trump campaign. that's incorrect. in fact, they are alleged to have continued while he was with the trump campaign. they are financial crimes not directly related to the trump campaign. this is a felo

but first, the remaining hillary clinton e-mails, our chief political analyst gloria borger is working the story for us, gloria you're getting new information from your sources? >> yes, i am, wolf, president trump making it very clear to the state department he wants to accelerate the release of any remaining hillary clinton e-mails in his possession as soon as possible. we have this story from three sources. now this latest move as you know, from -- to the state department comes on the heels of the president lifting the gag order on an fbi informant, what do both of these things have in common? what they have in common is hillary clinton. people who work for the president say of course this is not politically motivated, that all he wants to do is be transparent, he wants his government to be very responsive to the courts and to the congressional branch of government. but of course, wolf, you have to wonder whether this is a white house that is trying to deflect what is a russia investigation focused on them, back to their public enemy number one. hillary clinton. >> and the e-mails th

tom barrack said what he said today to gloria borger, but he did originally say that this president is better than that. he didn't like some of the rhetoric, some of the things this president is doing. and again, i have to mention this. this is' barrack, there's tillerson, this there's kelly. this is orchestrated. do you think this is part of a clean-up effort? >> i don't know about a clean-up effort but i do think sometimes donald trump's best friends know how to give him advice through the media, you know. and it seems like tom barrack was doing that when he was saying he's better than this. i think that, you know, i think the things have gotten -- this is a low bar, but a little bit better. and if you look at the people that trump is now surrounded by, it is a higher caliber than when he first started. i mean, mike flynn is a prime example of somebody who didn't last terribly long. i think john kelly is definitely a trade up from reince priebus just in terms of the ability to manage the staff. i mean obviously it's not the chief of staff's job to really control the president, but ce

doing damage control, tom barrack sat down with gloria borger, back down or double down?hat sometimes things have shocked me, it's not unlike all of us. the president is intermediating the establishment. what he was sent there to do. he's a revolutionary and warrior of sorts. he has a brilliant aptitude of being able to take severe positions which then allow him to draw back to a median. >> let me ask you about the reports he's isolated, angry, frustrated even at his own advisers and he seems to be in a different place than say he was six months ago, feeling hemmed in, constrained. do you sense any of that when you talk to him? >> quite honestly, zero, i think it's exactly the opposite. he has a great team. what the president always did was curate points of view. had bannon, reince, jared, a series of people around him with different points of view. as time as gone on, they've matriculated into other places -- >> or been fired. >> fired is harsh word. move from campaign to candidate to transition to governing. different tool kits but today you have best adults in sandbox

thank you very much, gloria borger. and sarah murray is "outfront" at the white house and on this issue of releasing the clinton e-mails, obviously the president wants that. the white house talking about clinton collusion on the russian dossier. the president weighing in on this uranium deal that's the focus on clinton, clinton, clinton. even though the election ended near ly a year ago and now, thi is a concerted effort to hit her. what is the president trying to do here? >> it's a little perplexing that this is how he's using his time in the oval office. today, sarah sanders was asked about the comments on uranium. she said this is all in the interest of transparency, that is what this white house is pushing for, but obviously, this opens the president up to attacks, the notion he's using the oval office not only to settle old political vendettas, but that he's using it to try to instigate investigations that draw attention away from investigations into allegations of collusion between trump's presidential and russian

even if it's not true. >> gloria borger joins me now.long with michael de-antonio, the author of "the truth the about trump". gloria, let me start with you it's one thing to use hyperbole about a casino, it's another thing to do it when you're president of the united states. and yet, it seems that people around the president and a lot of the president's supporters are willing to accept it. the question is, why? >> we've been trying to find the answer to that for a long time. i think we learned during the campaign the kind of catch phrase became don't take him lit ra literally. that his supporters didn't take him literally but they took him seriously. so they were willing to overlook a lot of the untruths, a lot of the exaggerations because they thought it was in service of a greater goal which was to get donald trump elected or to get his agenda through as is the case now during the presidency. and they believe that it's part of his showmanship which will serve a greater purpose. >> you know, michael, you know him as well as any biograph

let me bring in gloria borger right now. i want to make sure, i'm sure all of our viewers are somewhat up to speed where this stands with the president and this call that he made to the widow of the fallen soldier, la david johnson. what the florida congresswoman who is also very close to the family, gloria, as you well know what she said is she heard part of the conversation. and she recounted it when she was asked what did you hear. she said that the president said to the widow, he knew what he signed up for. but when it happens, it hurts. and she called the president insensitive and now this back and forth with the president. but also had, just what do you make of this right now, gloria? >> what the president didn't say is here's what i said. let me clarify there. here's what i said. i had somebody in my office with me taking notes. he said he had proof of it. so we should perhaps -- i mean it raises the questions of recordings and all the rest. right. >> if people are -- there's a he said she said issue here. >> can i ju

gloria borger looks into that. >> reporter: in his decades of public life, president trump has neverad any trouble getting himself into the spotlight. but once there, sticking to the facts is a different story. perfect crowd sizes on day one -- >> we had a massive field of people, you saw them. packed. it went all the way back to the washington monument. >> reporter: -- to his party just this week -- >> the republican party is very, very unified. >> reporter: -- but trump's problems with accuracy go back decades, to the building and selling of trump tower, where barbara rez managed the construction. >> he planted that princess di was looking for an apartment in trump tower. >> reporter: and that didn't happen? >> no. but it made the papers. >> reporter: sure. so it was getting the buzz out there about trump. did you laugh at it or -- >> yeah. it was nothing so terrible about it, it was kind of like puffing, you know, like exaggerating. >> reporter: tony swartz, co-author of trump's art of the deal, has a name for this. >> i came up with this phrase truthful hyperbole, which is, you k

i have gloria borger with me onset.ith this joint statement from the nra, they say the nra is calling on the atf to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law. the nra believes the device is designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations. that's quite a development. >> well, it is. look. this is a way to deal with gun control without dealing with the entire issue of gun control. >> as you just sat down, there she is, sarah sanders. >> yesterday three u.s. service members and one partner nation member were killed while providing assistance to counterterror operations. as many of you are aware, ufrmt s. forces are in the country to provide training the the local arms forces. in their efforts to counter violent extremist organizations. additionally two u.s. service members were injured and evacuated in stable condition to germany. names are being withheld at this time as part of the next of kin notification process. our thoug

cnn's gloria borger has more about that from washington. >>reporter: sources tell cnn that president president trump made it clear he wanted to lift the gag order against an undercover informant who played a critical role in an fbi investigation into russian efforts to gain influence in the u.s. uranium industry. that was during the obama administration when hillary clinton was secretary of state. the president directed his senior staff, we're told to dwoe if a sill kate the justice department's full cooperation sources are telling us that don mcgann then relayed that message to the justice department. of course the president has been very interested in this story for some time and the other day he called it one the biggest stories since watergate. his staff says it's base he wants to be transparent. there's a political backdrop here. this story has been going around for a long time. the story is the russians paid what amounted to prescribribes to the hillary clinton administration. clinton of course said she has solutely nothing to do with

politics reporter editor at large chris sciliza, lauren fox, cnn political analyst david drucker and gloria borger. corker, gloria -- >> where's our popcorn? >> no popcorn here. we're working hard. corker is not the only critic. i could go on. lots of critics of the president right now. bottom line though in this push for tax cuts, how is all of that going to play out? the criticism he's getting from fellow republicans and their eventual votes? >> it complicates everything. i mean, this president doesn't exactly have a lot to show from congress. he's got this much to show from congress. he didn't -- he didn't do the repeal and replace, the affordable care act. he hasn't yet done tax reform. just yesterday he tweeted and undercut republicans with him saying, okay, we're not going to touch the 401k. so at the very least, wolf, it has complicated things because he doesn't have anything to show and his personal relationships among republicans are dwindling. now having said that, i wouldn't say that any senator would vote against his constituents and what he believes to be good policy because he doesn'

the eastern analyst with chief political analyst gloria borger. that's what we just heard. the possibility of dueling iq tests between the president and the secretary of state. >> i don't think the secretary of state will pay a lot of attention to that that to be honest. we can agree from our reporting that he is clearly a short-termer here and his tenure can be measured in how many more months rather than how many more years. this is a relationship that looked like it was going to work out when the president did his c casting call. he didn't want corker too short and now he is little bob corker and found the chairman of exxon. it hasn't worked out. the president has under cut rex tillerson on many occasions. i would like to be a fly on the wall between mattis and the president of the united states. i'm sure they will be discussing more important things like potentially decertifying the iran deal and north korea than if they should get out number two pencils and take an iq tests. >> they have a lot of personality issues facing the united states, but we are talking about iq

i have gloria borger, our cnn chief political analyst and sir michael singleton and scott jennings. you, first, i was talking to manu who is outside those doors of capitol hill. he said despite everything, they've heard some rounds of applause from behind those closed doors. do you read anything into that? >> yeah. what i read into that is these are senate republicans who want to get something done and they theed to have the president on board to do that and they want to get their tax cuts through and so they have to sort of show a united face if they're going to do that and kind of gloss over the other issues that he has with lots of republicans in the senate, many of whom he has actually criticized personally. >> right. >> and so that's not something i would expect them to be talking about in there. >> okay. let's not gloss over. let me stay with you. i'm curious, we've seen a lot of senator corker today. he did all of the rounds on the morning show. i think i caught him doing multiple gaggles today up on capitol hill. what do you think his motivation might be in coming out so much

here with us to discuss this and more, gloria borger broke the news of the president's push to get that order lifted and michael is a cnn legal analyst to robert muller at the justice department. kellyanne said the president weighed in because he wants transparency. what's your response? >> that's what evan perez and i were told last night. that the white house wants to be transparent on this and of course this has nothing to do with politics. now that t in trump stands for transparency, i guess. the president did direct his senior staff to facilitate the justice department's full cooperation with this to get this lifted. i should say that the justice department has made it clear that their decision was independent. they wouldn't comment any further, but if you put one and one together, you end up with two. >> the justice department put out a statement. the department of justice is an agency in the executive branch and the president like presidents before and after is free to communicate with executive branch appointees. what's your reaction? is the president okay expressing his views d

so i have cnn chief political analyst gloria borger with me now on just the word decertify.et's start there. what does that even mean? >> that means he's not completely scrapping the deal. what it means is that he's throwing it in congress's court right now, and he says i don't like it the way it's written, i don't want to recertify it because every so often it does have to be recertified. i believe there was an october 15 deadline. and what he's saying is that you better find a way to make this deal better. so it stops short of scrapping it, and we know, brooke, there are people in this administration, most notably i would say the secretary of defense, who doesn't want to scrap the iran deal. >> who recently said he's disagreeing. >> this doesn't mean it is going to be scrapped. what it means is the ball is in congress's court and he wants congress to come up with something better. by the way, there are lots of republicans who also believe that you don't have to zrap it, you can just make it tougher and make it better. but don't forget, this is the president who said he wou

i want to bring in our senior white house correspondent jeff zeleny and gloria borger.y are both working their sources. jeff, what are you learning? >> we do know that the president for now is going to reject the advice of steve bannon. this is theed a viegs of how to handle the special counsel and treat him. so the president is i'm going to stick with the legal strategy that he has now which is to cooperate with the special counsel's office, including allowing white house aids to be interviewed, including turning over e e-mail and other matters here. this is something he's been thinking about, but he's going to stick with the team he has. it's certainly shows that it's more of this strategy of just going along to try to speed up this investigation to try to not be a road block, if you will. as gloria knows, there's some dissension in the ranks over what the president should do. >> the president is hearing from lots of people outside the white house. friends and his former adviser steve bannon, who are saying you ought to get more aggressive here. i was talking to one p

. >> these are powerful senators, mark preston, or gloria borger joining us as well here on the news. what does this tell you? i guess the list so far isn't too long but it's now a list of these establishment republicans who are, for lack of a better term, you know, bowing out as they have a scathing criticism of the president of the united states. >> here he is. forgive me. let's listen. >> at a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord than by our own values and principles, let me note an obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours indefinitely. we are not here tim plea to mark time. sustained incumbency is not the point of seeking office and there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. now is such a time. i rise today with no small measure of regret. regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. regret because of the indecency of our discourse and the courseness of our leadership and for the compromise of our moral authorities and complicity a

gloria borger is joining me. what did he tell you about the president's frame of mind?arrick, efrgs everything is great. he's known as one of the president's whisperers. he offers advise regularly and from the outside. he said he had been shocked and stunned by some of the president's rhetoric saying, quote, he's better than this. needless to say, he heard from the white house and he spoke with us to try and clear up what he says he really meant. >> so when i say that sometimes things have shocked me, it's not unlike all of us right? the the president is disintermediating the establishment. it's a revolutionary and warrior of sorts. he has a brilliant aptitude of being able to take severe positions which then allow him to drawback to a median -- >> do you think he undermines himself in a way with the tweets and off the cuff comments? >> well, he undermines himself to the extent that he look at these constituents and you say, why is he doing that? but actually, he's been the best communicator in history. his tweeting ability conveys the message to a much broader marketpl

and, in fact, sources familiar with the discussions between kelly and the president tell cnn's gloria borger, dana bash and myself that kelly kind of suggested to the president in a nuance of way of this infolding, if tillerson were to leave, if anything were to happen to him, kelly's own ability to do his job properly could be at risk. and don, this is generating more than a few whispers here in washington about how long kelly is going to last. because, you know, he also has been facing the same problems that his predecessor did, reince priebus, in terms of not being able to control the president. the white house initially declined to comment on the story, but after we published called our story false and did not say specifically what they took issue with. >> you have been covering washington for a long time, what do you think this episode says about his standing in the west wing? >> reporter: well, you have to remember when kelly was brought into the white house to take over for reince priebus, you know, headlines blared that kelly was going to impose the military-style order on the chaoti

now i want to turn to cnn's chief political analyst gloria borger. also cnn's justice correspondent pamela brown joins us. good evening to both of you. gloria, cnn is learning the president is unhappy with the jfk document dump. why is that? >> well, i think he wanted more documents to be released and that didn't occur. and so we're told that he was given a choice. either release all of the documents without any redactions, even though there had been these problems that were raised by intelligence and law enforcement officials or release a smaller amount with the redactions. and he decided to do that. but also, he directed the agencies to come back to him in 180 days and with some fuller documents, if they could. imagine his consternation that in the 11th hour after 25 years there were these kinds of problems. >> gloria, can we turn to russia now and the president. you have some breaking news on president trump personally intervening in the justice department to give the okay for a former fbi informant to testify before congress. why did the president

gloria borger is here with our panel. let's start off with puerto rico right now. the president patting hy intintn the back saying the federal government has come through. >> when he asked the governor, didn't we do a great job, the governor did not give him a great. the governor said you responded immediately, sir. and you know, there's a, there's a great difference of opinion in puerto rico. you have the mayor of san juan who has been a nemesis to this president and there are rumors of course the politics chris and i have been b talking about this, that there are politics going on in puerto rico, shock, and that she may actually challenge this governor in the next election and so trump is embracing this republican here and but yet, he declined to give him a ten. >> yeah. david druecker is with us, cnn political analyst, congressal correspondent for the washington exami examiner. >> it was like a tale of two avo va avail, if you will. most was trump being measureded and giving a lot of time and allowing the press a lot of access to see a very warm exchange with pu

let's bring in our political specialists and gloria borger.he said yes when he was asked if he has confidence in the secretary of state rex tillerson. but in an interview -- this interview with "forbes" magazine, he said this. i'll put it up on the screen. i think it's fake news, but if he did that, i guess we'll have to compare iq tests, and i can tell you who is going to win. later, sarah sanders, the white house press secretary, said the president was only joking. do you believe he was? >> i think i believe that it's donald trump's way of punching back, and we heard it all during the campaign. he did it about his republican opponents. he said i have a higher iq than my republican opponents. he picked out rick perry in particular, who i might point out also now works for him, saying that he had a higher iq than rick perry. you know, this is a president who is childish and he has to kind of punch back. he always has to believe that he ends every conversation on top. so what he doesn't understand is that he might feel a personal slight from --

fact, sources familiar with the discussion between kelly and the president tell cnn's dana bash, gloria borgeryself that kelly suggested to the president, because he was so furious, he said in a nuanced way, look, if tillerson leaves, my own job, ability to do my own job properly could be at risk. don, it's now generating more than a few whispers here in washington, more than we've already been talking about, about how long kelly is going to last. now, the white house initially declined to comment about our story, but called our story false after it was -- it did not say what they took issue with. >> more specifically then, what do you think this episode says about kelly's standing in the west wing? >> you've got to rember when kelly was broug into the white house to take over for former chief of staff reince priebus, headlights glared that kelly was going to impose this military style order on this chaotic trump administration. he did close the president's open door oval office policy. he limited calls from long-time outside friends. sources we talked to said kelly is running into the same re

joining us, gloria borger, brian carom and congressal reporter for the "washington post," karen. and g and guys, very much. caron. gloria. gloria. i can say that. how significant are corker's remarks? >> very significant. this is somebody who supported the president. during the campaign. he you know, didn't hug him. didn't give him a bear hug, but told senators kind of calm down about donald trump and he is somethi somebody who is important on lots of issues including foreign policy as chairman of that committee, tax reform sarah was just saying. i don't expect senators to line up and say we're with corker versus we're with trump, but i think that what you have now is senators who if they see that trump continues to take on corker, are going to be a little afraid of it depending on where they come from because in their states, and they are running for re-election, many of them, they can't afford to take on the president the way corker did, who was unbound of course because he doesn't have a race comeing up now. >> well, i think it also depends on how weak they see the president. t

i want to bring nia malika henderson and gloria borger back now. gloria, wow.s is amazing in a way because we heard that they had this deal yesterday, the president weighs in, seems to approve t. then he has an evolution to not support it and now john thune saying it has stalled out. >> right. it gives you whiplash because it's in the space of 24 hours when the president said that sounds like a good idea after they had reached a bipartisan agreement and then i think what really occurred is that conservatives let it be known that this is not something that they could sign on to, that they think that lamar alexander didn't get enough out of the democrats, that he gave away the store and i think that the white house began to hear this and there are now people saying there is not enough market reform in this for them, et cetera, et cetera. and you heard the president this morning, you know, he's saying he doesn't want to support a big enrichment of the insurance companies. so within the span of 24 hours we have gotten from i was for it and now i'm against it. >> bu

. >>> "outfront" next, gloria borger, david drucker also with me. the president challenging his secretary of state to an iq test, putting aside sarah sanders trying to make it go away by making something up. you hear jim's reporting. he meant it. he's angry. he says he's smarter. >> right. that's what he does. i mean, we heard this all during the campaign. he said he had a higher iq than rick perry who i would point out now works for him. he said he had a higher iq of the republicans he was running against. we all know, this isn't a president who's really got a great sense of humor. he's not that great at telling a joke, ate least not publicly. and you know, i mean, they always say that he's joking when they're trying to sort of push something aside, when he said that obama created isis, when he asked russia to hack hillary clinton's e-mails and on and on. they say oh, the president was just joking. this is his way of getting in the last word against rex tillerson, whom he was angry at. >> and is angry at. david, rex tillerson's spokesperson, i gues

and, in fact, sources familiar with the discussions between kelly and the president tell cnn's gloria borger, dana bash and myself that kelly kind of suggested to the president in a nuance of way of this infolding, if tillerson were to leave, if anything were to happen to him, kelly's own ability to do his job properly could be at risk. and don, this is generating more than a few whispers here in washington about how long kelly is going to last. because, you know, he also has been facing the same problems that his brpredecessor did, reie priebus, in terms of not being able to control the president. the white house initially declined to comment on the story, but after we published called our story false and did not say specifically what they took issue with. >> you have been covering washington for a long time, what do you think this episode says about his standing in the west wing? >> reporter: well, you have to remember when kelly was brought into the white house to take over for reince priebus, you know, headlines blared that kelly was going to impose the military-style order on the chaoti

gloria borger is with me along with john kirby who served as pentagon and state department spokesman under president obama. gloria, let me start with you. why is the president making something so solemn and so important, of course, talking about fallen soldiers and the deadliest combat loss since he took office, about slamming his predecessor? >> well, i think there are a couple things at play here. first of all, i think when he was asked about niger and his communications with those families, i think since he hadn't posted the letters yet and perhaps since he hadn't reached out to them by phone, he felt a little defensive about his own action and what he does when he feels defensive is he deflects, as sara murray was just talking about. and he deflected to his favorite foil, barack obama. and started talking about how barack obama responded to the families of the fallen. and so, you know, i think we have seen this over and over again. and you know, barack obama seems to be kind of the default position here. well, what did he do? i do it better and i do it differently. >> so admiral k

washington post" anne gearan, bloomberg news cnn analyst margaret taluogh and chief political analyst gloria borger on different locations, coincidentally, i think, speaking out making it clear that they're very critical of the current president. >> what occurs to me is that president trump will not receive this well. they didn't mention his name. and that's okay. but it's very clear who they were referring to. and i think particularly grading for him will be the comments from someone of his own party, george w. bush. and so i'm kind of waiting for some tweets to appear about it and maybe they've told the president, you know, don't do that, don't tweet about former presidents. but i think that members of the club don't usually talk about each other while they're in office. they try to refrain from that. but even with the absence of donald trump's name here, it was very clear who they were both referring to. and i'm surprised we haven't seen some reaction yet. >> margaret, you're surprised? >> what was particularly surprising about george w. bush was first of all his comments were sort of much more

gloria borger reporting that president trump directed his senior staff to lift the order on that fbi informant who says he wants to share what he knows about what he's calling corruption surrounding the approval of that 2010 uranium deal. hillary clinton was on the committee of nine agencies that approved it. so after the president's order, white house counsel don mcgahn relayed the president's message to the justice department and wednesday night when that gag order was lifted. but here is why democrats are crying foul. the justice department has strict rules limiting any white house involvement in criminal law enforcement matters, especially when it involves the president's political opponents. and, of course, it was just earlier this week that the president talked about the uranium deal calling it the watergate of the modern age and dug in on it again today, tweeting this, ana, he said, it is now commonly agreed after many months of costly looking that there was no collusion between russia and trump. was collusion with hc, standing for hillary clinton there. there has not been a c

gloria borger is with us. henderson is a congressional reporter. rachel is here as well.hat do you think of the president's reaction to steve bannon? >> i think in his heart of hearts, the president supports what steve bannon is doing. he was anti-establishment and ran against congress and doesn't like a lot of these people and thinks they didn't get anything done. he said he will never blame himself for anything that occurred. innocent he is having lunch with mitch mcconnell today. there were two people on the president's shoulders, right? he has to deal with mitch mcconnell who he tweeted about and said publicly he is disappointed in and who he needs right now to get something done. if steve bannon has his way, there are lots of republicans who are saying republicans could lose control of the senate, not to mention the house. as sarah murray has written about in cnn. this is a president trying to threat the needle and put republicans on notice that they better get something done or they will lose their seats. it's a weird position for a president to be in. >> he went th

now that explanation from the white house, it comes after our gloria borger reported last night that president trump directed his senior staff to lift a gag order on an fbi informant who says that he wants to tell what he knows about what he calls corruption surrounding that 2010 uranium deal. after that white house counsel don mcgahn related the president's message to the justice department and wednesday night that the gag order was lifted. so here's where some people democrats in particular, they're crying foul. the justice department does have strict rules limiting any white house involvement in criminal law enforcement matters, especially when it involves the president's political opponents in this case hillary clinton. white house counselor kellyanne conway defended the president's intervention this morning. take a listen. >> he believes, as many others do frankly, that the fbi informant should be free to say what he knows. but this was made, let me repeat, the judiciary chairman in the united states senate, chuck grassley made this request last week. >> and that is true, senato

can i say, i should have said before, this reporting is also by eric bradner and gloria borger. >> thiseam effort here. the thing is, you know, steve bannon, alex, has the wind at his back given what happened in alabama. right? he went against the president. >> no. i don't think that is fair, a fair characterization. alabama was a unique election, a lot of local -- >> it is. >> in terms of how senator strange was appointed in the first place, the unpopularity of that. and bannon came in relatively late. more led from that race from the moment he led the race, never behind, and after bannon got in the numbers really didn't change. at the same time president trump had no impact on that race. that was a very specialized race. i think by trying to nationalize that race to other states, you're sort of missing the point, and i would also say, look, most of these senators that bannon is talking about targeting are wildly popular. that's why they're safe republicans in red states. they're popular because they've been fighting to try to enact the president's agenda. so look, i understand that ba

let's get some more on the breaking news with our correspondents and specialists, and gloria borger,that he has a stronger and tougher attitude, will he listen to his advisers? because he says he's the commander in chief. in the end, it's his decision. >> well, you know, he's right about that. he is the commander in chief. and in the end, that's the way the system works. it is the president's decision. but he has said publicly to rex tillerson, you know, rex, don't waste your time talking to these north koreans. don't waste your time with a back channel. you know that his secretary of defense has also said, look, we have to be prepared for military action, but we would like to try to figure a way around it. and we don't -- you know, we don't really know the answer to that. this is a president who likes to bring in a lot of people, likes to hear a lot of different scenarios. but in the end, he's going to have to decide and the generals are going to have to salute. and i think that given the relationship between at least tillerson and the president, which right now is on the rocky road

sources familiar with discussions between kelly and the president who i'm talking to elise and gloria borgerkelly suggested to the president in a nuance way that if tillerson left, kelly's own ability to do his job properly could be the at risk. it's generating more than a few whispers here in washington about just how long kelly is going to last. >> when you've heard oof the tillerson situation, apparently calling the president an f'ing moron. so, what do you think this episode says, dana? there are so many who said, kelly coming in here, whatever you think of his politics, he's a man of integrity, good at what he does. you need people like him in there. and now, that's in question. what is his standing in the west wing. >> we talked to one source tonight who said for john kelly, every day ends in a why. w-h-y. when kelly was brought into the white house as you were talking about this, he was taking over for reince priebus and the headlines were blaring that kelly kuz woing to impose military style order ore on administration. he closed the open door policy, holding and it's thot lost on so

let's get kate balduan get gloria borger to way in on the wutang band. 's possible. he makes harvey weinstein look like gloria stinem. >> come on, john. >> he talks about violence against women and gays and now he's the face of the trump -- >> but don't belittle what harvey weinstein did. >> harvey weinstein's been accused of rape. and eminem has talked about violence, very explicit violence against women. i think both of those two things coarsen the culture and are bad for america. and i think that having either one of these guys as the face of the opposition benefits trump. no doubt about it. >> i would -- i would push back and say, i don't think eminem is the face of the opposition, but what i do think eminem has done, has stood up and made his voice heard in a way other people would like to do. he's an artist, an artist that has said some problematic things. but that doesn't mean what he said about donald trump is, one, inaccurate, or not right on the mark about how some other people are feeling. i absolutely don't think we can just totally discount t

"outfront" now, david chalian, our political director, gloria borger, and tim nephtally, president historian. gloerj yeah, you have covered politics for long time. senator flake's speech today from the flor of the senate, 17 minutes of the utmost seriousness. have you seen anything like it? >> no, i never have. i was trying to think back whether i heard anything in the clinton impeachment or read anything about richard nixon during his troubles. >> obviously, we have some audio problems with gloria. as soon as we get it. sorry, gloria. david, have you ever seen anything like this? >> i agree with gloria wholeheartedly, no, i haven't. and when i say that, erin, it's not that we're seeing something necessarily that is going to have some huge ramification or that somehow we're going to expect other republicans to sort of open the flood gates and come out and speak out and maybe president trump would change his behavior. i don't expect any of that. that doesn't make today any less remarkable or for the history books. i just have never seen in one day a senior statesman from the party in bob cork

let's talk about this with chief political analyst gloria borger.'ve just kind of tell me what you're hearing, especially about this latest, the surprising turn of the morning of a lot of surprises of this complaint, this guilty plea by george papadopolous. what are you hearing from the trump world and how close of an adviser he was? >> it's interesting because we have conflicting reads on george papadopolous. i mean jim acosta has gotten a read that says he was very involved in the campaign. we know he was on the list of foreign policy advisors. i was communicating with a senior adviser to the trump campaign, a former senior adviser that said to me he was zero. that he was a nonevent. is the way it was described to me. and yet, and yet, you have this person communicating with people at the very top levels of the campaign. so you wonder why he would be e-mailing people like paul manafort, for example, if he was just a nothing. so i think that remains to be determined at this point. and what's also interesting to me, is that from what we learned from

correspondent dana back, chief national correspondent john king, the anchor of "inside politics," gloria borger and security canadien tate ter mike rogers. chairman rogers, let me start with you because obviously president trump has called the whole issue of russian meddling in the election a hoax. i can't find any single other person in the trump administration who believes that. they all say it's real. and although chairman burr wouldn't touch it when asked about it by manu raju, they were very clear they think the intelligence community's conclusions were accurate. take a listen. >>> i think there is general consensus among members and staff that we trust the conclusions of the ica. but we don't close our consideration of it in the unlikelihood that we find additional information through the cop pleasing of our investigation. >> fairly significant. >> i think it's significant. a, that they've both publicly republican and democrat came out by the way, which is the right way to do an investigation like this, stood at the podium together and said we agree with the intelligence community assessm

familiar with their discussions between kelly and the president tell myself, cnn's dana bash and gloria borgerthe president in a kind of nuanced way that if tillerson were to leave, kelly's own ability to do his job properly could be at risk. and this is generating more than a few whispers in washington about how long kelly is going to last. now, the white house is declining to comment, but then called our story after we ran it false, didn't say specifically what they took issue with, but i mean, i think there are a lot of questions about how long kelly's going to hold out. >> yeah. and maybe people are discovering nuance may not work. perhaps it's being really direct. >> reporter: that's right. >> because the president usually is pretty direct. elise labott, thank you so much. >>> president trump said that he would try to work with democrats on health care reform. this morning, he tweeted this. "i called chuck schumer questioned to see if the dems want to do a great health care bill. obamacare is badly broken,big premiums, who knows." in a statement, senator chuck schumer said, "the president

our gloria borger is here. let's get your rea action to what you heard. >> it's not surprising that george papadopoulos is a non-event and a non-person that was a volunteer and had no influence in the campaign and in tro treaties as we've heard previously in news reports that he was rejected and that therefore there was nothing. when you look at the court documents you see that on july 14 the fbi alleges that papadopoulos writes that a proposed meeting has been approved from our side and another e-mail suggests in august that perhaps they should go ahead with the meeting. what we don't have in these documents is the e-mail responses except one from an official who says we need someone to communicate the d.t. is not doing these trips. it should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal and that's a little ambiguous, any signal of what? so we -- you know, there are lots of questions raised here that we don't have the answer to. >> you're a form are prosecutor. it said papadopoulos was work

our gloria borger reporting that former white house press secretary sean spicer has been interviewed by special prosecutor bob mueller. he is the third white house official in the past several yeex who has been interviewed, as part of this ongoing probe into russian meddling, in the 2016 election here. we are just getting this coming in, but interestingly, of course, sean spicer, the white house press secretary, were involved in many of those meetings as they were crafting the responses to this investigation. so certainly sean spicer has, you know, an inside window into what was going on inside some aspects of those meetings in the west wing. and wolf, we also know that he was a very diligent note taker. he was known from his time here in the white house and before that, in fact, of taking a lot of notes, detailed notes from this meeting here. so we do know that bob mueller has now interviewed sean spicer and this is, of course, is one more sign this investigation is just continuing. >> yeah, he's interviewed reince priebus, the former white house chief of staff. the interest is that

joining me now is cnn's chief political ant list gloria borger. we have an unbelievable story. i understand that president trump has a pretty interesting lunch meeting scheduled for tomorrow. tell me about that. >> reporter: yes. you know, he's going to meet with two important people as he heads into deciding about what he's going to do about the iran nuclear deal. his secretary of defense, mattis, and his secretary of state, who if you recall he's had a little bit of difficulty with lately, secretary tillerson. these are two people, you should know, who are quite close to senator corker. the one we've been talking about all day today, who said that the president needing adult supervision over the weekend. and the people that corker is talking about who supervise the president are those two men with whom he is very close. and the third one would be general kelly, who is his chief of staff. >> so, gloria, administration officials cnn that president trump is not finished with senator corker. that's after corker told "the new york times" this. watch this. >> the reason i supported

gloria borger your reaction to this? >> first of all, as we were all sitting here it was quite emotional for everyone, particularly kelly. but you looked at him at the podium and his description of service and his description of what happens in the field and you couldn't help but think this is a true leader standing at that podium. whether it was in the battlefield or now in his new job and the leadership that we saw was somebody who was clearly taking a fall for his boss and said i did this. this is what i told him and he kept saying in his own way this is what donald trump was trying to say to this grieving wife. and then of course he went on after the congresswoman. i don't know if donald trump put him up to this. i know that he was so affected by it that he went to arlington and walked around having a conversation with himself. it was clearly implied. trying to figure out how to handle something that strikes at his heart. but it does make you sort of see what we're lacking in this entire discussion which is leadershi

gloria borger and evan perez are here withe the latest on their reporting. gloria, what are you learning? >> well, i'm learning from sources that it was president donald trump himself who wanted this gag order lifted and that the president then directed his senior staff to, what one source said to me was, facilitate the justice department's full cooperation with congress to lift the gag order. and these sources then said that the white house counsel, don mcgahn, relayed the message to the justice department. and, as we all know, as you just stated, the gag order was lifted. now, the justice department insists that the decision was made independently. but now we know that the president of the united states wanted it done. >> why is the president so interested in the uranium deal? >> well, he's interested in it -- as he called it, one of the biggest stories since watergate the other day. he's interested in it because it's -- his staff says because he wants to be transparent. but we all know that there's a political backdrop to all of this. that there has been a