and david fromm and john harwood. and joyce vance, to the legal theory that we seem to be hearing from rudy giuliani and possibly it is what we will eventually hear from the president, that moment could not be obstruction of justice and he couldn't be describing an obstruction of justice to lester holt when he was thinking about the russia investigation because later as he goes on, he says that he knew the investigation would continue and he just thought james comey was the wrong man for the job. >> it seems like a fabricated defense. i suppose it is what you do when you know the real facts and you know that the president has given an interview where he's given a very persuasiveness he chose to fire jim comey. you realize months down the road, oops, that was the wrong thing to say. so they try to look around at what else was said during that interview and see if they can craft a new version of what was said. and the problem for them is that at the end when the president says, i know the investigation will go on he tal

let's bring in cnbc's editor-at-large john harwood with more. john >> michelle, i wanted to add to the discussion you all were having about trade president trump has had a consistent pattern throughout his presidency that when he experiences adversity he reinforces and doubles down and goes back at the things that he believes has been most successful in keeping his base loyal to him so i think there's every reason to think at this point that his actions on trade where he sees the ability to add unilaterally, imposing tariffs and negotiating and taking actions as using his executive authority, every reason to think he's going to do that even more intently now than he has been doing it, as he tries to demonstrate that he still has power and he can still do things. obviously, everything will change as you guys were discussing as one house of congress flips most forecasters believe that the house of representatives is likely to flip, possible the senate could flip and much less likely than the house, and so that creates the prospect that the administ

john harwood and jessica levinson, thank you both for joining us. i want to turn to that other bombshell news. paul manafort guilty, convicted on eight counts including false tax returns, failing to file foreign bank account reports and two counts of bank fraud. the judge declaring a mistrial in the remaining ten counts. trump choosing to talk about manafort but not cohen. >> paul manafort's a good man. he was with ronald reagan. he was with a lot of different people over the years. and i feel very sad about that. because it involved me, but i still feel, you know, it's a very sad thing thapdt happened. this has nothing to do with russian collusion. >> ty is a federal prosecutor and justice lawyer where she worked for rod rosenstein. seth wax man is a former federal prosecutor. ty, let me just ask you, at this point what's the signal that you read into donald trump saying what he said about what a great guy manafort is and how he worked for reagan and bob dole and it's terrific and it's awful what's happening to him? is that a signal to manafort, hi

let's bring back ayeisha, and john harwood. john, the president did tweet about charlottesville this morning. you saw it. he wrote exactly what he was saying -- for all america, is what you focus on, if you would put a headline on it. your reaction? >> first of all, i think there's a parallel between what he said in that tweet and what he said after charlottesville last year. remember, he came out and said there were good people on both sides, there was fault on both sides. in this tweet, he says, i condemn racism of all kinds. he was generalizing there. which i think is not necessarily inconsistent with what he said last year. look, this is a president who his political strategy is focused on polarizing by race. going after nfl players. going after lebron james. what happened after charlottesville. the set of political rhetoric and policies that the president has pursued have increased the republicans' reliance on nonviolent white voters. that has a cost to it. we saw in the quinnipiac poll in july that 49% of the american peop

john harwood, that would essentially create gridlock in washington financial markets may not actuallyhappy with that result >> it depends on whether they want more legislation or not look, i think financial markets, if they are making a bet on the basis of what we know now, they need to bet on the likelihood that democrats are going to control the house of representatives. we don't know about the senate sean recently assessed the odds at 50-50 yesterday he told me he thought that was too high for the democrats. in any case they got a shot. if they take the house that means investigations of president trump, that means road blocking the president's legislative agenda, that means potentially impeachment proceedings. if they take the senate that means that you have a democratic veto, potentially over appointments to the cabinet and to the court so this is very consequential for american business and for everyone who is watching this program right now. and dave wasserman who is an expert on house elections said last night's results reinforced his view that democrats have a two out of thre

joining me on set, chief washington correspondent and editor at large at cnbc john harwood.for the "washington post," philip rucker, he has brand new reporting on donald trump jr. senior adviser for moveon.org, karine jean pierre. and former mayor of new orleans marc morial. but we want to start with mithe rally in washington, d.c. mike, it seems like the group of material did not materialize. it was a couple dozen surrounded by thousands in opposition. what's the scene like now? >> well, i've got to tell you, kasie. in there's a lead to this story it's that a couple of thousand by my estimate were very loud. each one of them was in full throat when the so-called white nationalists, while supremacists entered lafayette park. the lead is the white supremacists, their rally was an anti-climax, it was a dud, a paltry turnout, a paucity of those people that followed jason kessler a year to the day after charlottesville. the death of heather heyer weighed heavily on the minds of these protesters. i was with them at freedom plaza when the sun was blazing and they marched up to the

. >> thanks, michael michael feroli >>> want to get to john harwood in washington for breaking news thisn >> david, breaking news and sad news senator john mccain, war hero from service in vietnam spent years as a pow, became a congressman, senator, and candidate for president, republican nominee in 2008 has announced through his family in a statement that he ceased treatment for brain cancer he has been home in arizona for some time. he has been suffering brain cancer for the last year or so he of course took some legislative action, including casting the deciding vote to kill the obamacare repeal in the united states senate last year but he has not been in washington for some time and he is not going to come back because he announced today he is ceasing treatments now, that probably will not trigger a special election this fall, a second election in the state of arizona jeff flake, his colleague is retiring that's because john mccain remained in that seat until after the end of may, and i believe that that is the legal trigger for when you would have a special election democrats may tr

cnbc's editor at large john harwood joins me now. rican presidents generally don't talk about the fed. so what's the concern? why have presidents generally not done this? >> well, because we counted on the fed to provide independent oversight management of the u.s. economy and its monetary policy. the idea that the fed is supposed to respond to the williams of presidents in the moment is something that we have not embraced as a nation. presidents have often been displeased with things the fed was doing but they recognized institutional boundaries and allowed the fed to do its job. the president has input on the fed of course because he appoints members of the fed. the senate confirms them. but it's an independent agency and that's something that donald trump does not seem to understand or recognize. >> what do you make of the president, john, saying i should be given some help by the fed? >> well, chris, in every realm, we have seen that the president does not think or function like a mature public servant or like a grown man in gener

you look what -- i mean john harwood, what private charities are doing. gainst this every single day, is there not, john? >> absolutely. the different parts of the american spirit are, in fact, responding to the stimulus that you guys were talking about. some within the republican party feel that too. joe, two years ago i sat down with your friend paul ryan, the house speaker, and he was at that time trying to figure out whether or not donald trump was going to be the nominee and he gave a set of remarks to me that were very similar to ronald reagan. he said, you know, we're a country founded on an idea, not on the place of your birth or your ethnicity or whatever. he was mocking at that time -- >> have you seen that paul ryan in a while? >> that's my point. that's my point. within the republican party that has power to act politically, they simply either don't think they have the power or aren't willing to use the power to stand up and speak. and, you know, paul ryan at that time was mocking donald trump's pledge to have mexico build the wall. he doesn't

joining me now, john harwood, cnbc editor at large. political correspondent. we welcomed you'd both again. john, start with you. we have the national enquirer safe. who do we know about what stories could be held there, do we have any facts on that. >> any speculation at this time? anything we have not heard of before? there's definitely a chance. david pecker killed tons of stories about president trump and other people that will we have not -- that have not been unearthed for the reason they were sitting in that safe. this is very consequence s. even though jeff was just saying that people close to trump talked about how calm he is. he did not look calm to me with this desperate flailing he's doing on twitter and some of the messages he's been giving in public. >> so, aaron, would it matter at all for the president's standing and how so if it does, if it all national enquirer stories out there, both to base and beyond. >> alex, that's exactly the right question. you have to wonder how much a large part of this country is tied in to these news developments. tr

we're going to stay with politics john harwood is sitting down with a man who may have the most pivotal in washington. representative steve stivers in short, he is the guy of stopping a blue wave from taking over the house in november john >> exactly, michelle as good as the economy is going right now, it is an uphill fight for republicans to hold the house in the estimation of most forecasters, and the reason is that economic argument is not so clean to make. the trump administration's immigration policies complicate prospects for future growth, and in the near term even after the tax cuts and the surging growth in the second quarter of this year, average workers aren't feeling much benefit in terms of higher wages i've talked to steve stivers about how you approach that. >> i think the american people have been so long without a raise since 2008 that a lot of people, you know, it's probably a long time coming, but it's on the way. you can see it already in the labor shortages that are out there. >> we do have a labor shortage, and given that doesn't that make it a bad idea to cut lega

"new york times" washington bureau chief elizabeth and jeremy peters and john harwood.orters. jeremy, let's start with your reporting this morning. of course, a morning where we wake up to, let's see, the president tweeting at 1:10 in the morning. so the president is not sleeping much. looking a little swollen and rambling right and left. we're waking up to fox news polling showing that support for the mueller probe is growing rapidly. and concern that the president has either committed a crime or an impeachable offense is also growing. fox news polling saying that. this morning you have reporting about cracks inside trump world. tell us about it. >> i think, mika, that the level of distress among republicans broadly is about as serious as i've heard it since the "access hollywood" tape dropped. and that's because back then there was a real fear that this was all over. that his candidacy is no longer there. that's the same type of worry i'm hearing from republicans. and inside trump's orbit there's a real concern that the type of reckless and impulsive and self-destruct

congressmen will say let's go for it because we don't want to have a failure >> let's bring in john harwood to talk about this john, haven't gotten your view we toss around the term landmark campaign promise, but this is one of them, renegotiating nafta. >> that's right. but keep in mind there was renegotiated nafta on his desk when he took office, trans-pacific partnership. most updates in this deal with mexico reflect what was already done in tpp. there are changes of rules of origin for automobile content and wage requirements. those are new. those could help american workers if auto firms decide to spend money to reconfigure their supply chains to make it happen. we don't know if they will do that i think matt gold made the right point which is that the trump administration's leverage is quite limited. a bilateral deal is unlikely to happen, you would need new fast track authority from congress. in terms of a renegotiated nafta, i think it is quite unlikely there's a deal struck with canada by friday. if there's a deal struck subsequently, then you have a challenge of getting it through

. >> john harwood, thank you very much. joining me now is oscar goolsby, officer of advisers for president trump. let's stay on that for a second. that is a good threat the president is making to a lot of americans, saying, well, look, the one thing you've got going for you is these markets are going well. if i am impeached, it will tank the markets. what's your take? >> i think you actually missed the dynamic there. i don't think the president was engaged in an observation, i don't think he was making an economic forecast. i think he was making a threat. i think he was saying, hey, the economy is looking pretty good. it would be a shame if somebody were to burn it down, say somebody who had control over launching trade wars, changing regulations, applying tax rates to different groups. i think everybody should take a step back and ask yourself, do you honestly think that if they move to impeach donald trump, he's not going to try to burn it to the ground? i think that's what he said in that statement. >> so the president m

cnn's john harwood sent emails to hillary clinton. campaign chairman john podesta shamelessly sucking up to him offering campaign advice and praising the candidate. he was with her while he was covering the campaign. then there was juliette halpern at "the washington post." she dropped podesta a line to give him a heads up she was going to publish and she included a little preview, how helpful. and "the new york times"'s unbiased glenn thrush, he put is an appearance as well. he wrote to podesta a story ins progress to make sure "i'm not f'ing anything up." like lanny davis, podesta was a freelance editor for both "the washington post" and "the new york times." these are just a few examples of collusion that we know about only thanks to wikileaks. a but today we learned from congress and mark meadows the danger of this kind of politicization of the media and partisan story planting. he tweeted in part, "we've learned new information suggesting our suspicions are true. fbi doj have previously leaked info to the press and then used those

. >>> starting at this hour, jeff bennett and laura basset and john harwood. we'll begin with jeff. let's get to what the president is saying about this with a good day. >> president trump is lashing out again at former cia director john brennan. it's the president's latest effort to counter criticism he's faced since deciding to strip brennan of his security clearance. the president is hitting back predictably on twitter, and now he's suggesting that there's some misdeed or mistake in brennan's past which the president says warrants further scrutiny. the president saying it without offering any evidence. here's the tweet. has anyone look add the mistakes brennan made while serving as cia director in he'll go down as the worst in history and since getting out, he's become nothing less than a political hack who cannot be trusted with the secrets to our country. and we should point out that before being named cia director by former president barack obama, john brennan served in the agency for more than two decades where he briefed both democratic and republican presidents. but the pres

john harwood said that the president is delusional.something. >> of course it is. and we're dealing with two distinct processes, one is the legal. and the second is the political. so all the crooks and liars and cheats matter not a bit to the trump supporters. he is not losing any significant support. the reason is that emotionally things like the murder of that poor junk woman young woman in iowa is far more emotionally powerful to people in terms of threatening their safety and their livelihoods than anything about what is going on in washington. which for a lot of people is old news. >> is nancy pelosi's attempt to do what you're saying and talk about the trump environment, the atmosphere, oval office, all of it, as being a culture of corruption, will that be effective with democratic voters, getting them out to vote and might there be independents who say, you know what, we're buying in to that now too? >> there may be some of that. it will be district by sgrikdis. it is not national. democrats have lost any ability to create any e

john harwood and josh boke. when we go out and speak to farmers and speak to factory workers who could be losing their jobs, we've heard over again, they're saying you know what? we've had trade issues for years. we're glad the president is taking this issue on. maybe it's going to hurt us in the short-term. maybe we'll be collateral damage. we'll accept that. are we getting it wrong? >> first, steph, you're not missing anything. this is an economic gibberish argument the president's making, and to the extent that people who are on the short end of the stick economically from that argument are nevertheless embracing what the president's doing, that is a leap of faith they're making for somebody they see as an ally on other issues, and sort of their trust -- they're trusting he has their best interest at heart. if you talk to economists, nobody thinks they're going to come out ahead through the policies which, in fact, are going to be destructive to the american economy, and destructive to many of the people who

our friend, john harwood spoke to the chairman of the nrcc.he said. >> we've seen at crunch time in some of these races you guys have been involved in, your candidates go not to tax cuts, the economy, immigration, i.c.e., ms-13, all that sort of stuff. does that tell us that in this year, it's not the economy stupid? >> we've run ads on the economy in every single special election. but that doesn't mean that's what we will run on the whole time. >> what do you think of that, noah? >> if it was an economic election republicans would not be staring down the barrel of a democratic wave. the economy is doing pretty well. it's not an economic elections, foreign policy election, values election. the values on the table are donald trump's. i think there's a broad misperception what the tax cuts have done. in my state, new jersey, recent poll came out, 13% or so of new jerseyans think their taxes went down, in other words, taking home more money. that perception does not match reality. when you're explaining you're losing, they have seeded the table t

. >> let's bring john harwood back into the conversation.u see this as an credibility boost to mueller, his investigation and where will he take it next? >> well, i don't think robert mueller needed a credibility boost, but it does demonstrate in combination with the michael cohen plea in new york that the ring of criminality surrounding president trump includes his campaign chair, his national security advisor, and his personal lawyer. and in all cases the -- their stories relate to president trump, his campaign. and this is a -- this is an indication of the fact that president trump is in very, very deep trouble with robert mueller, and the russia scandal is only going to intensify from here you've got an additional trial of manafort, you have as john mintz was saying, pressure now on both cohen and manafort to cooperate with special counsel mueller. michael flynn is already cooperating. now, we did learn that george papadopoulos has not provided much of use to special counsel mueller. but the fact that the sentencing for flynn was postpon

cnbc's john harwood analyzed the source of the report and found in the data whites with no college degree approve of the president's job. 58% to 39%. while 29% of all other than americans approve 6, 66% disapprove. the numbers are shifting for the president? >> talked about it for a long time. a bit of narrow casting. but this is about as narrow casting as it gets. willie, all i can say for donald trump and republicans who are hoping, like a special election in ohio tonight, the republicans hoping that he's somehow going to get them over the finish line, even in strongly republican districts lie this ohio 12. they better hope that their small slice of the electorate comes out, because, i mean, donald trump is sacrificing just about every other group in america for this one group of white, non-college educated voters that, again, just -- there just aren't enough to get him over the top or to get his candidates over the top in a lot of elections. >> that gallup number is where where he's been over his presidency but that cross-tab is so interesting. won white non-college voters. makes up hi

you as recently as a few weeks ago with our colleague john harwood were asked whether you thought conversationsve at this point. you said, you know what, we got to let mueller finish his investigation. the headline on the front of the new york times now says president implicated in a campaign finance a campaign fine violation by his own lawyer. i'm wondering if that revelation has changed your view on whether democrats should be focused on impeachment, is that a conversation that you should be having. >> what it means to me is that we have to be even more intensely protective of the mueller investigation. and let it come to its own conclusion. i want the special prosecutor to be able to follow his investigation wherever it goes without interference. and i want him to be able to make a full report to the american people. to me, that is what is critical. and right now, what i think we should be doing in congress, is we should be passing laws to make sure that donald trump cannot fire the special prosecutor. that is where the real threat is to trump. and it is powerful important that we protect th