>> i want to bring back john avlon and karoun demirjian.and also gordon chang, author of "nuclear showdown, north korea takes on the world." he's also a daily beast columnist. with these new abilities we're seeing if north korea, there's this increase worry about the reach and the potential conflict with north korea and something we heard from the npt's national security adviser h.r. mcmaster. here is what he said. >> how concerned should america be that we are on the brink of a war with north korea? >> i think it's impossible to overstate the danger associated with this. i think it's impossible to overstate the danger associated with a rogue brutal regime. >> gordon, how worried should americans be? >> i think we should be worried because what mcmaster is saying is the united states can't be assured of deterring north korea. we lived with the soviet union, we live with china now. they both were big powers when it came to nukes, but with regard to north korea, the issue is the regime stable enough, can we come to some equilibrium. what mcma

. >>> let's bring in john avlon and chris cillizza. gentlemen, good to be with you this morning. we've been talking, over six months of tweets and comments he's yet to face a crisis. is this the crisis? >> it certainly appears to be. partly a crisis of his own making.

let's bring back john avlon, karo karoun demirjian and cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd. >> got phil smiling. you know it's a good line if you get that sour puss smiling. >> as funny as the john lovitz retake is, phone call in person, who cares? what's the distinction? >> i think the distinction is the white house got to admit things out of the president's mouth are not true. if he's lying about something small, that's an indication of where we are with this presidency. it's the canary in the coal mine. these comments line up with a pattern the president has which is saying people have been coming up to me and saying at very high levels that it was the gl greatest speech ever given. of course, that strains cred utility. people are coming and talking about personal angers. everyone talking about john podesta's e-mails. the greatest speech ever given. you've got lying about small things and a fluff rate that doesn't rise to the level of reality. >> what the president used to refer to, karoun, a truth. hyperbole. in "the art of the deal" he wrote or somebody wrote with him, people

politics reporter and editor at large chris cillizza, cnn political analysts david gregory and john avlon. david, is it your sense that leading republicans in the senate have reached some sort of tipping point where even beyond lindsey graham and john mccain and jeff lake, thatthey're more willing to come out and publicly split with the president? >> clearly they are. there's no question about it. they feel emboldened to take on a president who is increasingly weak although he has his base behind him republicans who put him into office. this is a president who continues to provoke them and to challenge them from the outside, as if he's not the head of the republican party. he's a president not leveling with the american people. the white house lies about things it should not lie about. this russia investigation is something that grows bigger because of how the president and his team handles it, period. you want to wiggle out from that? then level with the american people. it's that simple. republicans on capitol hill are increasingly paying the penalty for that as they have a president w

. >> let's bring in cnn political analyst john avlon and karoun demirjian and cnn political commentatorouis. let's put up the graphic. here are the republicans who have called out the president by name, and by name matters, and calling this what it is matters. you see them there. john mccain started it going with marco rubio. senator graham came out yesterday about this. but the bigger number are those who are remaining silent. we contacted all 52 republican gop people, invited them on the show -- >> senators all of them. >> nothing. they didn't want to do it, even though the ceos have come out -- the irony that ceo have come out as the first line of moral rectitude. karoun demirjian, the president seems content to say i stand by my words and it's just the media that's coming after me. that's demonstrab strabbly falst we have seen a shyness to come out and exert leadership. >> those who have come out and call the president by name haven't been shy about it at all and they say there's a moral compulsion for everybody to do the same. you have not seen the rest of the party in droves do it

let's bring back our panel, chris cillizza, john avlon, errol louis.hris cillizza, i didn't say it but it looms large in this poll, don't talk about the job numbers say his base, talk about wages and the economic reality is wage growth is stagnating. trump hit that heavy and often in the campaign. it is haunting him right now. >> i mean, i always say that if the economy is not great or people don't feel like the economy is great, every other issue doesn't really matter. that's been the case well before it's the economy, stupid, in the 1992 campaign, but that i think crystalized it for folks, so yes. issues that hit people every day, day in, day out, we know politically speaking we have the biggest ramifications on how they vote. so the economy the other number i saw there, chris, that i'd be worried about if i was donald trump or republicans. 31-62 on health care, approve/disapprove. health care is an issue. barack obama learned that lesson in 2010 and frankly in 2014 as did a lot of democrats who lost. health care is an issue that touches people daily

let's bring in cnn political analysts john avlon, david gregory and abby phillip. david, what's the instant analysis of the last 24 hours? >> well, that president trump clearly was forced into a situation where he condemned the white supremacists in charlottesville, the neo nazis, gave a speech carefully worded with a teleprompter where he condemned them. but where his heart is, where his head is where he was yesterday, giving a real boost to white supremacy in america. even if he condemned these people, he wanted to equivocate and say there are two sides to the story. neo nazis, white supremacists they're anti-semites, racists, advancing an ideology of hate red that this country is trying to put behind it, and the president gave it a boost. there you have aides behind him, some of whom are jewish, behind him that look uncomfortable. this new influence of general kelly is apparently for not. president trump is out there really trying to divide people over incredibly fraught topics of race, of how we remember our past in this country. he wants to shred through that

john kirby and john avlon, thank you very much. >>> why did senator ron johnson suggest john mccain's brain cancer possibly affected his decisive no vote on obamacare's repeal. did he really mean it the way it's being interpreted? the senator is here. he's going to talk about that. we're going to talk about north korea and then he has brought his charts to explain to you the businessman's perspective on how to fix health care. all that coming up. i'm worried i can't find a safe used car. you could start your search at the all-new carfax.com that might help. show me the carfax? now the car you want and the history you need are easy to find. show me used minivans with no reported accidents. boom. love it. [struggles] show me the carfax. start your used car search and get free carfax reports at the all-new carfax.com. >>> senator ron johnson says he was taken out of context, but he's certainly under fire for comments about senator john mccain's no vote on health care. here is a part of the discussion in question. >> we did get a call in paul, he assured us that skinny repeal not going to

let's bring in cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein and analysts john avlon and abby phillip. john, we want to keep mentioning the troopers and heather heyer. hate took lives there in virginia. we want to remember the people that were resistant to that hatred. that's important. equally important is the message from our leadership. mike pence, the vice president, can say whatever he wanted. the president created a wtf moment with what he did and did not say. him repeating on many sides, on many sides, didn't make sense contextually but is completely baffling given the circumstances. how do you explain it? >> i don't think you can explain it why is why the white house has been scrambling, not addressing the president's problem, doubling down on that "on many sides" comment on the day this was going down. this isn't a high bar for presidential leadership, condemning neo nazis and white supremacists. even on the friday night in the square there are young men giving nazi salutes in front of a statue of robert e. lee. that's not a misunderstanding, that's nothing you should consider

yeah, chris -- yeah, john avlon, great guy. that probably does happen. but how does that -- if you're jeff sessions, it's brutal. i mean, it's not new. he's clearly sort of -- he will like jeff sessions to go do another job, but he's not willing to fire him. >> jeff sessions has been, like, checked into the locker by the high school bully and it feels like love and affirmation. this is clearly like a dis fuch functional relationship. he loves generals. also the praise of mcmaster is significant because mcmaster has come under so much fire from the alt-right and that's a significant step. if that coalition can stand together, that bodes well for the white house and its policy. >> i love that word because it's a special word, fine, it always mean it's not fine. right? >> like saying it is what it is. so the president waging a war of words on two different fronts. the first one is north korea. the other his most important republican ally. where is it working for the president better in either situation? we'll take it on. usiness." step one: point decisively

you've always seen the picture of this russian diplomat. >> john avlon, your thoughts?> it's not surprising that kislyak is going to be dismi dismissing all this, saying i was just a diplomat doing my level best and all this is simply a distraction. by all accounts and intelligence sources he had more nefarious aims. i think the reason the report is significant isn't only because it's another trump aide who has ooh senior role in the white house, not just to the legislature but the social security community, is being recruited himself. that's not insignificant. it seems the russians had more contact with the trump campaign than the trump campaign had with people from oregon or hawaii. we'll see what the investigation holds. it's got to move forward. people trying to deny it and say let's move on, they're being motivated -- >> the president didn't help on this. he keeps conflating any attachments by his staff and/or campaign to russian efforts and the russian efforts. karoun, the russian efforts are of primary importance. mueller has his own jurisdiction to look into nef

politics reporter and editor at large chris cillizza and cnn political analysts david gregory and john avlon. david gregory, the president saying allow the aca to implode, arguably a violation of law, arguably a violation of his constitutional duty. but certainly bad politics as viewed in the eyes of his own policy members. what's the play? >> republicans realize a failure to make good on the pledge to repeal and replace obamacare leaves them vulnerable because so many conservatives around the country don't like obamacare, don't like the federal government's role in the health care economy and wanted to see action. well, republicans simply couldn't agree. now the president is trying to strong arm republicans further in a way that will only hurt republicans more. these are definitely supporters of the president who could be further hurt by efforts to undermine obamacare further. so there are real problems in the health care market today under the affordable care act that responsible politicians ought to try to remedy. that includes democrats who can't just stand by and allow these things to g

let's bring in cnn politics reporter and editor at large chris cillizza and cnn political analysts john avlon and april ryan. i know we also say, ooh, never seen anything like this before, never seen anything like this before. last night was stark in contrast to the night before. all of the worst suspicions were confirmed. he read the speech. he clearly didn't believe it. as soon as he could -- >> you've got twitter trump, teleprompter trump and town hall trump. last night was unbridled president on a red meat ram page, and it was poison because he kept targeting different groups. chris, yesterday onset we had a little bet, just a little abe lincoln on whether he would stick to the script, try to be presidential. in fairness when you saw me this morning, you gave me a ten. >> yes, i was so wrong, i had to double -- i can't believe how wrong i was. >> required a little hamilton to address that wrongness. among the significant things last night, first of all, he teased a pardon for arpaio, went after two republican senators, albeit not by name but with a vicious twist. he said he would accept a

. >>> let's talk more with cokie roberts and john avlon, writer at "the daily beast." john, on this russia story it seems like you get the truth only after a string of lies and denials. >> that is the pattern, unfortunately, and what's significant about this story is it shows the president is willing to micromanage the russia investigation response and he's also willing apparently to directly mislead the american people. with statements that were proven to be false, whatever the president's lawyer said is proven not to be accurate, so it's very stunning and it shows a degree of direct presidential involvement which itself is news and could very much interest the investigation. >> beyond that, george -- >> and, cokie, let me bring this to you right now. cokie, it's not a crime to lie to the press by any means but this does bolster the case of obstruction of justice showing the president being part potentially of a cover-up. >> absolutely, it gives robert mueller lots of fuel for his fire. but it also shows you that the president simply doesn't listen to anybody. and it's

john avlon, associate editor and columnist for real clear politics, and john kirby. and we need to have an operating assumption here. do we go after the president's words and try to figure out what he's saying on a regular basis? yes. and is this situation like every other one? no. and why? because, john, we're talking about an unstable mad man who is running north korea. and if you poke at that with the fire and the fury, it's different than what he is saying about mitch mcconnell or about us or about anybody else. because we don't have nuclear warheads. >> right. this is where the idea that words matter, presidential words matter, starts to get weaponized, if you will. because it's one thing to be throwing hand grenades around the calls of washington, rhetorically and angering people for no reason. but as you say, you're dealing with a country that effectively is a cult. and it's a nuclear power. and all of a sudden to be firing off phrases that sound really tough to you but have real world meaning in geo political strategy without any connection or coordination wi

. >> john avlon, the question becomes what do they do, what will fellow republicans do? it's easy to say bigotry is wrong. it's easy to say hatred is wrong. everyone should be able to say that in their sleep. it is john mccain pretty much alone who is actually naming the president, calling out the president in a tweet. but where are all the other republicans calling out the president by name, laying this in his lap and then acting? >> that's what we needy think to watch for today. who will call out the president by name because increasingly republicans have realized that they feel the freedom to speak their mind when it comes to donald trump, that there may not be the political price to pay that they feared. instead, i'd flip the question -- and this goes for people serving in the administration as well. there are good people serving for patriotic reasons, in part because they're trying to contain the president's worst instincts. the look you saw on general kelly's face yesterday was someone who realized, you know what? you're not going to be able to change this man, and

we have one of the authors of the story with us, analyst john avlon, alex burns and karoun demirjian. alex, as i said, co-wrote the story on the vice president and other republicans' presidential ambitions. defend yourself, man. the president is saying the failing "new york times" has made every wrong prediction, totally inept. what is the basis of the reporting and what do you feel confident in saying what is the truth? >> i feel totally confident in what we reported. we reported there are a number of republicans including vice president pence who are not only clearly gearing up for running in 2020 in the event that something happens between now and then that causes president trump not to be on the ballot, whether that's he can't run, chooses not to run, is so unpopular that he appears vulnerable even within his own party. we reported clearly got under the president's skin, several advisers indicated to republican donors that they want to be ready for all scenarios, they have to be ready for 2020 just in case. >> to be clear, this wasn't one adviser, this wasn't one donor, this was m

his big media event on friday where he's going to talk to the american people directly thanks to john avlon and david axalrod. thanks for watching. in for don lemon. i'm going to see you tomorrow morning to start your new day and tomorrow night again hopefully. take care. >>> good evening. we begin with yet another instance of the president making a claim that turns out to be not true and the white house pret d pretending it never happened. two phone calls the president said he took from people who wanted to praise him. phone calls that never happened. let's start with a phone call monday. >> even the president of mexico called me. they said their southern border, very few people are coming. >> that same day the office of the president of mexico issued the statement saying he has not been in recent communication via telephone with president donald trump. why the president said the mexican president called him when he didn't. >> on mexico he was referencing the conversation he had at the g 20 summit where they specifically talked about the issues he referenced. >> the other fake phone call w

we'll bring in cnn political analyst john avlon and abby phillip and a.b. stoddard, associate editor at realclearpolitics. we'll get to the first real test for president trump, and any natural disaster is. i'm stumped as he takes on republican lead that's there's this notion of the trump brand versus the republican brand. he's made it clear he'll take on his own party and isolate himself in the process. >> let's focus for a second on how unusual it is. the republicans have unified control of government, and while donald trump may want to play the resurgent outsider, the reality is he's running one of three branches of government. he's spending most of his time attacking republicans. while congress is at a low, the contradiction is everybody loves their congressman but they hate congress. he's got to get something through congress, who is more popular among u.s. senators right now, mitch mcconnell or donald trump? that's going to be mitch mcconnell. he's deepening massive problems for his own agenda come this fall. he promised the americans, not just that he

let's bring in cnn political analyst john avlon and karoun demirjian, and cnn's ron brownstein. we learned the president will speak about charlottesville later today. if he does choose to call out the racists, even like his own vice president has and his daughter has, white supremacists, kkk, neo nazis, is it too late? do you judge someone by what they say first? >> i'd say it's better late than never. >> you just heard the mayor say he had his moment and he whiffed. >> and he did. to not call out neo nazis and the kkk and instead to try to broaden the criticism with a moral equivalence that even neo nazi sites took as validation of their perspective. there's a larger problem here that i think the president needs to take ownership of the he wants to be leader of the nation rather than leader of a political faction, normally the way we've seen these works, we saw it the militia movement gets energy from democrats when they feel in opposition. what's stunning about what's hang now is these numbers are rising now with a republican president who some of them feel have empowered them

joining us editor in chief of "the daily beast" john avlon, reporter and editor at large for real politicshris cillizza and cnn's david gregory. david, how do you explain what we heard last night? >> we have a slash-and-burn president who is appealing to his lowest common denominator of support. i don't think there's any other way to report it. this is a stale approach trying to discredit the news media in front of his own base of support and perhaps beyond that it's not worth getting worked up about because it's simply not going to work. the facts are what they are. the president is a destructive figure to himself and the country on these particular questions. what he did last week, what he didn't do, what he said and what he didn't say, how he changed what he said, that's all on display for everyone to see. these are his own words. you don't need the news media for this. you need to simply turn on your television. the criticism from business groups, from fellow republicans, from democrats, it's all out there for everybody to see. so i think this zone of destructiveness that he is anywher

. >>> let's bring in john avlon and chris cillizza. gentlemen, good to be with you this morning.e've been talking, over six months of tweets and comments he's yet to face a crisis. is this the crisis? >> it certainly appears to be. partly a crisis of his own making. his administration has been fairly firm and proactive on north korea, more so than his immediate predecessors. yesterday's statements are hard to write up solely as strategy. that's where we're seeing what has been a lot of people's concerns for some time. most of the crises affecting this administration have been self-inflicted. the job involves dealing with larger crises, now the two seem to have collided. >> chris cillizza, i heard the president's words yesterday as deliberate. he repeated them in what i thought was a sort of deliberate, methodical way, the fire and fury like the world has never seen, he repeated it again the second time. so that seems to my ear to have been a crafted statement. i also believe that because of the way he used to tweet -- when donald trump would tweet in 2013 before he was a candidat

. >> we want to bring in our panel, evan perez, cnn political analyst john avlon, cnn legal analyst laura coates and cnn editor at large chris cillizza. so now there are these grand jury subpoenas and the scope appears to be, at least for our knowledge, widing in that robert mueller can look at all sorts of financial dealings that president trump had even before the campaign. >> that's right. this gets real now. has the red line been crossed? that's going to bring up a whole thicket of information. the other significant thing that cnn is reporting and the "wall street journal" brought out is sources in the fbi apparently saying it was mueller's comments caught -- >> manafort -- >> sorry. manafort ooes comments in russian intercepts that drew their attention and there were russian agents or personnel talking about manafort and his attempts to reach out and their attempts to influence the election on their behalf. that's a significant new piece of information. it looks and sounds a lot like collusion. that may not rise to levels of the campaign, but manafort was campaign chair manned and cl

we bring by chris cillizza, john avlon, karoun demirjian.re's no question the top of that speech was not necessarily to sell the plan in afghanistan. >> not at all. >> obviously somebody's gotten to the president and say we know you doubled and tripled down but you are wrong and people aren't with you and you can't draw moral equivalence between the kkk and people fighting against them so let's do this, and he did it last night. what is its net effect? >> look, donald trump is a believer mostly in polling, and a poll came out yesterday "the washington post"/abc news that had his approval in the way he handled charlottesville at 28% and the disapproval at 56%. man, your graphics people are good. so the point here being, it is pretty clear how it went over, no matter what donald trump thinks. these were words that he said. now, are they words that he believes? his candidacy in the first six months of his presidency would not bear out that donald trump is the what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding candidate, right? he is someone w

panel, cnn politics reporter and editor-at-large, chris "the point" cillizza, cnn political analyst john avlon and associate for "real clear politics" a.b. stoddard. a.b. what pops out to you in the poll numbers? >> it's interesting if you look inside the numbers on the credibility crisis, what was so interesting to me was looking at older voters 50 and over and non-college whites, the base of the president's support, who he could sort of dupe into believing whatever he says, he uses his twitter feed to tell them that everything he doesn't like on cnn, the "new york times" or whatever it is, is fake, the polls that are showing, not looking good for him are fake, and if you look inside this poll, at the base of his support, those voters i just mentioned, they're not buying it either. they're there in the twitter, the tweets are misleading. they're there watching him knowing that he's tweeting after he watches too much tv. they think that the twitter is, his tweets are potentially a liability in terms of the signals that it sends to world leader. what do you believe coming out of this white hous

. >> we shall see, cokie roberts, john avlon, thanks very much. >>> we move on to breaking news about the crisis in venezuela. two opposition leaders taken in the middle of the night as the u.s. imposes new sanctions, our chief global affairs correspondent martha raddatz is following these latest developments. good morning, martha. >> reporter: good morning, robin. this is truly an ominous turn followg that gave president maduro nearly unlimited powers and an election that the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. called a sham. take a look at this overnight surveillance video which appears to show those two opposition leaders, one of them who went to college here in the u.s., being forcibly removed from their home. state security agents hauling one man away in his pajamas as a woman is heard screaming for help from neighbors. both men have been highly critical of maduro's plan to rewrite the constitution which has sparked protests blamed for more than 120 deaths, robin. >> the trump administration just announced new financial sanctions against venezuela and its president. >> reporter: they hav

avlon argues that president washington warned to future generations about the ,uture of hyper partisanship and foreign wars. this about one hour. >> we are enormously fortunate today to have as our guest johnn that is the editor-in-chief of the daily beast and the cnn political analyst. he's here today to discuss his new book, "the founding fathers warning to future generations, which has already been praised as a fantastic addition to national literature. please join me today and welcoming our wonderful guest.

avlon argues that president washington warned to future generations about the ,uture of hyper partisanship and foreign wars. this about one hour. >> we are enormously fortunate today to have as our guest john avalon that is the editor-in-chief of the daily beast and the cnn political analyst. he's here today to discuss his new book, "the founding fathers warning to future generations, which has already been praised as a fantastic addition to national literature. please join me today and welcoming our wonderful guest. [applause] john: thank you. it's an honor to be here. >> a great thing to be talking about george washington. in itself it tells us a lot. had you get interested in the project and why is the interest today. >> imagine if the first founding fathers sat down with alexander hamilton in james madison and wrote a memo to future generations, to us, specifically about the forces he feared. rooted in the lessons of his life and understanding of history. he did. that is the farewell address. it was the philadelphia executive mansion on market six street. and he wrote it over years as the autobiography of his ideas. and it really was the sum total of his hard-won wisdom, john all the a