and julian zeleny is back. right man for the job? >> yeah. i think he would be a tremendous pick.ere are the things. he gets along with him and running the investigation inside the white house. gets along with jay. he has tremendous experience in investigations. he is also worked in a republican administration under attorney general barr during the george h.w. bush administration. he has all of the qualities for this job. he has the he is skervet and satisfactory a lot of folks that wonder how the judges will be handled going forward. i think he is the right man for the job. it seems the president is very comfortable with him. >> that confidence is paramount when you work with the president. let's break down a couple of elements, julian, starting with you. i want to separate out what could be coming from democrats if they take control of the house and the mueller probe. let's start with this will be, obviously, he needs that relationship that reportedly he does not have with republican members of crucial committees in the house if there are subpoenas coming, the oversight that wil

wants out of this treaty and what it means with an intense relationship already with russia is julian zeleny. you've written about this, julian, about this treaty between the u.s. and russia. the significance of the president's decision and the justification from your estimation for ending this agreement. >> this is a treaty that came out of 1987 when gorbachev and reagan joined the process of ending the cold war. since 2014, the u.s. is arguing that the russians are violating the treaty. and so there were two paths. one path was to try to create international pressure so that the russians would imply once again or the other is the path we are seeing today which john bolton has been a strong supporter of and that abandoning it altogether. this opens up the potential for an arms race, both with russia and also with china. >> let's talk about what the president said yesterday offering criticism of his predecessor. here is the president. >> they have been violating it for many years and i don't know whether president obama didn't pull out. >> reporter: you mention 2014 the realization. fair cri

. >>> lynn sweet, washington bureau chief of the chicago sun times is with us and julian zeleny, cnn political analyst and historian and professor at princeton university and our own brian stetter. thank you all for being here. julian, you wrote a piece on cnn.com how dems got outplayed on kavanaugh. how likely is the same thing could happen as we head into 2020? >> oh, i think there is a very good chance the same thing will happen. the democrats should take very seriously the political risks they face. i do think these hearings energized more a republican base, whereas, democrats were already energized and i think this was a huge victory for president trump. he has delivered on one of the big promises, not only of his presidency, but the conservative movement to shift this court to the right. so becomes edemocrademocrats, it of strategic fixing to do in how they handle the politics of trump. >> lynn, we were hearing the president there talk about how he thinks women are thinking about their sons and their husbands in a case like this when they think about kavanaugh. let's take a look

julian zeleny is back bus and shan wu. i understand elbow messaging skills are a value to the president. how so? >> i think so. i think this president and his administration value messaging skills and cipollone has had some experience in that area and particularly with defamation issues. when he worked for attorney general barr one of the portfolio areas he had was communications in special projects. i think that type of ability is going to be very appealing to president trump and probably also very appealing to jay sekulow and rudy giuliani who have emerged as, in part, last man standing but also very much the orchestrators and strategists behind the special counsel defense at this point. i think the fact that they also have worked with him have been advised by him and they like him a lot, i think that is a very important part of how he is going to play a good role on the team in their view. >> good point. now here is the thing, errol. if democrats take midterms what might that mean for cipollone, for the president, for t