>> well, mary katherine makes a point the politicians in the republican party can we follow trumpism without trump? foreign leaders are watching this. our adversaries around the world are looking -- i want my president to succeed. the north koreans are evil, the iranians are evil, we have enemies in this world. and this will embolden our adversaries and frighten our allies. this has a huge effect on our lives and it's not really about -- this person or that or this feud or that, it's about the president. the reason the trump white house looks dysfunctional and dishonest and dirty and dumb is because the president of the i need is dysfunctional and dishonest and disloyal and dirty and dumb and the conclusions adversaries will take and allies and does tremendous damage to the united states. >> other political news that happened and maybe because of this, maybe the president was trying to use the clout of this to get other news out as he disband the voter fraud commission -- >> not great news for him. >> not great news but hide something in not great news right there. he said the voter

mary katherine, let me start with you. in a blistering statement today, president trump said, quote, now that he is on his own, steve bannon is learning that winning isn't as easy as i make it look. steve had everything to do with the loss of a senate seat held in alabama by republicans. steve doesn't represent my base. he's only in it for himself. it's very interesting and we have doug jones' campaign manager here, so i want to get to you in a second. but he's again blaming bannon for the loss of the senate seat. >> yeah, it's rare i will take donald trump's side in a feud, but in this one, he's sort of right. it was a bad choice. luther strange was an imperfect choice, as well, in many ways. but he backed him. he went to war with donald trump in a more subtle way, doing that. and it turned out very badly. and that was a seat that was impossible to tupprn blue, so congrats. and there it happened. so i think he does need to answer for that. and trump pointing it out, as i said, is the way that it gets through people's head

mary katherine, brian, thank you so much on that.erry on top. >>> now to california, let me count the ways it differs with the trump administration on major issues. immigration, taxes, of course, marijuana, just to name a few. miguel marquez takes a look at how that state has become the center point of the so-called resistance >> translator: california republic versus president trump. >> the resistance is legion. >> reporter: one year into his administration -- >> trump is a wake-up call. >> reporter: the world's sixth largest economy fighting trump administration policies on everythi everything. >> california is not waiting for trump and all the deniers. >> reporter: and escalating fight over immigration. >> we're going to fight and we're going to win. >> reporter: california now immigrant sanctuary state, new law limiting cooperation between local, state and federal law enforcement, prank road signs welcomed drivers to seemingly another country, the land of illegals. >> if the politicians in california don't want to protect their c

and, again, to hilary and mary katherine's point, they let him in the white house anyway. there is a "usa today" ad for michael wolff's column someone is sitting in his office and he jumps out the window with a rope. seriously, a 15-second ad that "usa today" put out advertising his column. so this was not a secret that this person could come back to bite you. and yet it seems like all the reporting seems to point to steve bannon's vanity. that allowed him in the door. >> i think it's more than that. i think these guys are hungry for people to know a story about donald trump they're afraid to stay directly. >> there is another issue here and it's confirmation bias. a lot of people are hungry to hear that story. >> that's true. >> reporters who suspect it. i'm inclined to believe -- >> what's the difference, they may be both true? >> i'm inclined to believe some of these things about the president because i've been pretty skeptical, but i want to be wary of the fact that the trumps are strange people, different people. they live in a different world than i do. >> yeah, sure

josh green, mary katherine ham "the federalist" and cnn's jeff zeleny. thanks to you all for being with us this morning. jeff, i'm going to start with you on this. really extraordinary that we're talking about the president's mental acuity, in that he was responding in the way that he is. >> no question. and we're only at the end of the first week of 2018. so i think that is sort of a good framing for this year. and the reason we're still talking about this is because the president is talking about this. he is weighing in himself. he could, unlike any other figure on this planet, change the conversation. presidents can change conversations by talking about anything. he has decided to focus his attention on this very issue. and by sending out that early morning storm of tweets, which you were just reading there, from camp david, a snowy camp david, a frigid morning, you have to wonder what is going on in his mind. i think we have a fairly good window. he's very, you know, susceptible to anyone saying he's not smart. think if he's smart or not, that's not

mary katherine gallagher, obviously. tera rialto, the schwety balls. >> stephen: now you have always done characters? because i have a suspicion you have because we got yes, that s. >> stephen: how old are you. >> that was when i was probably nine or ten and that is one of my best friends that i grew up with. >> stephen: nine or ten going on 45 right here, there you are. this is you right here. >> yeah, we would always do characters growing up. and she was the girl who first told me that she could picture me in the movies. we saw this robert altman movie called nashville and karen black had a southern accent and she was singing and she said can i picture you being in the movies, we were like huck finn, and tom sawyer i go you could. >> i could pick picture you in a southern accent in the movies, we would have conversations like that. >> stephen: where did you grow up. >> cleveland, ohio. >> stephen: did you have a sense of how one would go be in a movie. >> no, not at all. but my dad was like my momma gypsy rose. he was like, you go in, when are you ou

. >> i go back to mary katherine hamm, why not.e asked a flat question by george stephanopoulos, should the president testify to rob mueller. he said no. chris christie is a friend of the president, a big former prosecutor, too. it's hard for me to believe he says this in a vacuum. >> yes. but i also don't know if there's that much strategy surrounding it. it might be that christie is advising trump from the tv, which is what we see sometimes. i have a couple of concerns about this. i have concerns about what i think is in some ways by the trump administration a campaign against the intelligence community. i also have concerns about what is a politically motivated leak campaign that he is right to have a bone to pick about. so i don't mind that we might be getting more information here. and i think more information would be better. let us vet what we've been seeing here. we've been getting selective intelligence leaked from these investigations. i don't mind seeing more as it comes out through this process. the inspector general re

with us to share their reporting, mary katherine hamm. you guys dropped the banner for me. subtle. let's get it out of the way. >> go dogs. >> that's good. i have been on executive time the last two weeks. help me out on this conversation. i have been enjoying my time. i was watching as a consumer when this all started. we know this from week one of the trump presidency. he is erratic and different and he behaves differently. he is impulsive. the idea that you would have a public conversation and they brought into brief members of congress. that the president is mentally unfit, there is great theater to that and great conversation. what impact is it having? >> this has been an absolutely explosive situation inside the white house. the president as we can tell from twitter and conversations behind the scenes has been irate about all of this. you saw the blow back with the approach to steve bannon. you saw it on twitter this weekend with him declaring himself to be a genius and very stable. here's the flip side of it. they came into the new year with the passage of the tax package an

with us in studio to share inigt sight, jeff zeleny, and mary katherine ham of "the federalist." look, the republicans run the show. republican president, republican house, republican senate. republicans are, understandably, annoyed that congress can't actually pass a big budget, can't do the one basic thing they're elected to do, keep the government funded. they have every right to be annoyed. differences over defense spending, differences over other things. let's start with the internal republican divide. rachel, you walk the halls all the time. take a listen. >> do you have the votes? >> i don't know. we just -- you know, we're kind of figuring out what we're doing as of last night. we're hearing the plan. i guess our friends at the freedom club decided they wanted to oppose this. so we'll see. but you know, i ultimately think we're going to get through. i'm a little less optimistic this time than i was, say, december 23rd. that's not what i'm hearing from the freedom club, our friends over there. i don't know what their reasoning is because they're not the ones that have been