i want to start now with senior political analyst john avalon and susan glasser. john harwood.excuse me. did i call you john avalon? i guess did i. >> you did. >> like the president today, i apologize. i'm really sorry. especially john avalon, of all people. so john, just moments ago, the president arriving back in washington after his week-long trip to europe and face to face meeting with vladimir putin. he seems confident about what he accomplished overseas. he says, you know, a lot of challenges. but the proof will be in the pudding in time to see if anything was accomplished. so he has a lot of challenges. what is he up against? >> well, look, he has reason to feel confident about the results of the trim. it was overall, a success. he rallied allied democracies at nato and the g-7 and the e.u. to try to say, we need to show we can lead big problem, stand up to autocracies and show we're the way to lead to world in the 21st century. then he went to geneva, confront an autocrat, stood up after the bizarreness of the last four years with trump but tried to lay a foundation for

joining me now to discuss, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and john avalon.ith eric swalwell was the target of this and he described this straight up as big brother like activity. have a listen. i want to get your reaction. this is about every day americans, you know, who don't want to see their government weaponize law enforcement against them because of their political beliefs. i hope trump supporters who fear big brother and see that donald trump is the biggest brother we've ever seen. they did weaponize this. >> john harwood, the irony here, of course, is that trump railed against the legal system, against the deep state as being after him, right, when in reality what is happening here is it was using the justice department to go after his enemies. >> jim, i this i what we've seen in the story is further evidence of something that's long been evident which is that donald trump corrupted the processes of government as president to his own personal benefit. think about other things that we've learned in the last few days. we've had had don mcgann testify in

john avalon, thank you so much. >> great to see you guys. >>> buffalo, new york, is on the verge of a political upset this morning. this is the fascinating political story we're tracking. cnn has not yet projected a winner in buffalo's mayoral race, but self proclaimed socialist is declaring victory over incumbent mayor byron brown in the democratic primary. he was going for his fifth term, by the way, and she would be buffalo's first female mayor and the first socialist to lead a big city in the u.s. in decades. and india walton is joining us now. india, you declared victory. it's a little too early for me to say congratulations for you, we have not projected your win so we are still awaiting that officially. you are very much on the verge of victory here. when we go back and look at how this was covered, you know how it was covered. you were called the long shot. now you're being called the upset. were you surprised by the outcome? >> not really. we set out about a year ago to do exactly what we did. we knew that this race was going to require help from outside of our local geograph

john avalon with a reality check. >> reporter: stereotypes break down on closer inspection.ralism. there's no question it is a democratic city with a 6-1 democratic registration advantage over republicans. but that deep blue hue conseals a diversity of opinion. it was a crowded field to unseat the popular bill de blasio. candidates captured 67% of the primary vote. progressives captured 30%. in and this broadly parallels. let's dig a little deeper. the clear leader at this point erik adams is a former police officer and current brooklyn borough president who promised to be tough on crime, rejecting calls to defund the police. and that message resonated because violent crime is on the rise in new york city. get this. last year new york city saw 97% increase in shootings and a 45% rise in murder. and it's continued to spike in 2021. that's much higher than when de blasio took office, though it's well below the city's murder peak in the 1990s under mayor dink ins. that may account for why dinkins' successor took over, before the attacks of 9/11. independent mayor mike bloomberg

. >> cnn senior political analyst john avalon is with us. eality check this morning. it was excellent. >> thank you. >> but look, what i think is interesting, this is the second time in pretty much as many weeks that we've heard president obama come out publicly to criticize his predecessor. but more importantly, to warn america. and it's rare for a president to do that, and it just shows how important this moment is. >> i think that's right. and this goes beyond sort of the breaking of decorum between not criticizing president, but focusing on a future threat that's looming. it's being enacted in states. he's talking about raising consciousness beyond can the issue of voter suppression, which is urgent. to something more potentially troubling is election subversion. a lot of these efforts in states to undercut the power of secretaries of states that have shown any kind of independence to put the state legislature in charge of those elections that sets up a few potential conflict where they could try to overturn the results of these elections

. >> my apologies again for calling you out of your name, especially john avalon. just kidding. i love both johns. thank you. >>> i want to bring in the former u.s. ambassador. to russia from 2001 to 2005. ambassador, thanks for joining. i appreciate it. >> good evening. so the president wanted to meet putin face-to-face, and he took some home for, quote/unquote elevating putin for this summit. was it worth it? what's your assessment? >> i think it was definitely worth it. the president did as he said himself, achieve what he set out to do. there was never any expectation of big decisions or breakthroughs. just too many problems in the relationship to expect that. what he did was first of all, follow up on the g-7 at nato and showing again that the united states is back as leading the free world. leading the west in democratic values. and then i would describe what did he as challenging president putin to pursue a more constructive agenda based on mutual interests, rather than continuing his present disruptive zero sum approach. biden, of course, did lay out all of our concerns a

john avalon spoke out. >> we've seen the danger from denial is in and politicizing a pandemic.'s why we can't afford to politicize the investigation into how covid 19 found its way into the world. >> know he's worried about politicizing -- how much is asking questions and getting basic answers with millions around the world? >> especially this one. i worked with him 20 years ago in the anthrax attack. in every bureaucracy, one of the worst tendencies is to get along go along. we've seen that at the state department. there is a tendency to say we don't want to raise these issues because if it is true is so collaboratively -- would rather not deal with it and took courage of the trump administration to blow the whistle inside these agencies and force the issue to confront china despite hurdles he faced in the bureaucracy and the media and social media, if you even raise the possibility and talk about china's culpability at the lab. now thank goodness the story is getting these holdings people need to focus on probably the greatest story any of us have ever been through. shannon:

let's bring in john avalon and max booth, from the council on foreign relations. when an american president travels abroad, they usually focus on promoting democracy around the world. today we saw president joe biden trying to assure the world that democracy is alive and well right here in the u.s. is it? >> it is under threat. >> you hesitated. >> yeah. it's a good question. we shouldn't try on gloss over. yeah. biden believes in democracy and diplomacy. his core pitch at home and abroad is that democracies need to stand up to autocracies. we need to be honest that we're experiencing that challenge here at home as well. and the world is noticing it. pew research just shows that america's reputation has rocketed up again in the world's eyes since biden became president but crucially, the world also has doubts about america's ability to be an exemplary democracy. and that's sobering. we need to take that seriously and build it back. >> about 24 hours away, just about 24 hours away from biden's critical meeting with vladimir putin. there is so much ground to cover i

joining me now, cnn's senior political analyst john avalon, cnn political commentator ana navarro.even get to you. it is the height of absurdity. but this is -- we are tasked with discussing this. good evening. john, you first. maggie haberman from the "new york times" detailing her reporting to erin burnett about trump's delusion he is going to be reinstated as president, watch this. >> the question is always, is this real or just something he is saying in the answer is, i don't know whether he genuinely believes it. sometimes when people talk to him, they think he does, sometimes he seems to be a little more aware there actually is no mechanism for what he is talking about. there is no mechanism in the constitution for a president to be, quote-unquote, reinstated, as he is describing. home have tried explaining to him, even if the election results did somehow get overturned, he would not end up becoming president. but he is listening to mike lindell and other allies, the ceo of mypillow, who have been offering him this timeline just based on these controversial audits. >> how ser

. >> so i want to bring in now senior political analyst john avalon and cnn commentator, amanda carpenteraid it. good evening to both of you. he just said it. >> yeah. not complicated. he just said it out loud as he often did. we see this is an administration corrupt to its core because tone comes from the top. people folded on democratic norms, trying announce this one man's paranoid world of power. >> have you ever seen anything like this that is out of bounds? i've been asking people to put this into perspective. john? how does this rank? how do you categorize this? what is this? >> this makes nixon look like minor league ball. people need to understand this. part of what donald trump does, part of what all leaders of his style try to do is normalize behavior that is fundamentally abnormal. remember when he was asked whether putin was a killer, he said everyone is a killer. it's the normalization of extreme behavior. and there's this attitude some people might hear this news and say other administrations have gone after political opponents with open-ended fishing expeditions through th

. >> greg: posted by -- and that was margaret hoover, who is married to john avalon, who is one of the, most obnoxious hacks on cnn. >> probably on twitter than as well. the whole thing is we ultimately -- don't lie to me. that's all i want a tv. greg gutfeld will come up and say this is my point of view, this is my opinion. when you stand up and say no, i am objective, just the facts, just the science, just the truth, and you can see right through it -- that's why people turn the channel. people would rather watch msnbc where the got a point of view, i'm going to tell it like it is, judge for yourself. >> greg: that's why rachel maddow is a pro and i may disagree with everything, but she's not a phony. tyrus, it's like where level of awareness where cnn is at this weird thing where they believe that they know the truth. as you get older, you're supposed to get wisdom where you know that truth isn't -- that's not how it works. it's like you can look at cnn and you can look at fox news and you can look at msnbc and see what they're doing. you can be above it. >> i'm above it naturally,

i want to turn now to cnn senior political analyst john avalon and cnn's athena jones covering this raceg national attention. i've been saying both of you good evening, athena, this is a barometer for what is happening and what is to come. talk to us what we're seeing in these results, please. >> well, don, you know, it's interesting because andrew yang burst on the scene when this race began in eastrnest a few months ago. now in the recent months it's been in person but andrew yang benefitted very early on from name recognition. this is someone that was a 2020 presidential candidate that lasted longer than some other more experienced real politicians in the race and so we got a lot of the recognition and the attention early on. turns out at least in these very initial, very preliminary results, he's in fourth place. several points behind, about nine points behind the person in third place right now which is kathryn garcia. very important to stress we're outside a polling place here on the upper west side and just now things are really wrapping up with poll workers here beginning to cart

as john avalon explains in our reality check. >> this could be the summer when climate change denialfinally goes the way of the dodo because of the pain in the stakes, the need for mitigation and adaptation is clear. the heat wave in the pacific northwest is horrific. it's not just seasonal extremes. when portland, oregon, sees its hottest day on record, 116 degree heat in june. when seattle hits temperatures higher than any recorded in atlanta, making the highways there buckle. canada suffering as well with a fw british columbia passing 121 degrees. passing the hottest temperature in las vegas with more than 230 heat related deaths reported to date. farmers in the western u.s. are fearing for their crops and livestock amid a massive drought, and peak fire season hasn't even started yet. and, yes, this spike in extreme weather is driven by climate change. it's part of an undeniable pattern. washington state governor he jay inslee gets it. >> now we're here, the opening act has arrived of the climate catastrophe, and we're getting it in the pacific northwest right now. everyone is goi

kyrsten powers and john avalon, now that we've cleared that up, just how delicate everything is rightit very well, actually. he ends up being the perfect person for this time, right? where he has to always be cobbling together, putting these puzzle pieces together and try to make things happen. and also when you see his flexibility, when he comes back and immediately says, okay, look, i understand why you would be upset and we're going to do this, move things around and make this happen. so i think while he may be somebody that a lot of progressives feel like they're not in line with where he is and they want more from him, i do think people have to look at what he's dealing with. if you have a problem with what he's doing, you kind of have a problem with math, right? >> he has to try to put things together. he doesn't really have a majority of democrats he can count on. >> is the concern then, john, certainly among progressives, it is. when you look at who is in control now, does the gop have the upper hand? >> no, but they certainly have influence on whether biden can deliver on bip