let's bring back michael smerconish, david sanger and jeffrey toobin. david, you have an article in "the new york times" this morning. this is a pivotal moment for president trump in techls of the sanctions against russia and a dilemma for him. if he goes along with congress and signs the legislation to sanction russia, that must mean he agrees with the intel chiefs that, in fact, they meddled and, of course, it scuttles his attempt to reset this relationship with putin. if he does not sign what congress wants him to sign in 2er78s of sanctions, that has all sorts of political consequences. what's going to happen here? >> alisyn, i think he'll sign it. i think he'll sign it because if he, in this political atmosphere vetoed a bill that appeared to be part of an effort by the white house to somehow protect the russians from additional sanctions, you can imagine the outcry, and the veto would probably be overridden. this vote in the senate, 98-2. the house has nat taken this up yet. the second thing i think you need to remember about this is this is a sig

. ♪ >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.e welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. the president up early this morning, a barrage of tweets blaming democrats for his problems and encouraging the gop to challenge the filibuster rules. >>> meanwhile, the revolving doors in the white house keep turning. just one week after sean spicer resigned, reince priebus is out as chief of staff. >> i think he was right to hit the reset button. >> i think bring in fresh face. i think bring in fresh people is a good thing. >> he's gone, after just 189 days. that's the shortest tenure for a chief of staff until modern history. his replacement, homeland security secretary john kelly. can the general impose discipline on the president? i'm going to talk to pat buchanan. >>> and to me, john mccain's most important act this week was not casting the deciding vote on repealing obamacare. it was his plea for nonpartisan compromise. and i'll explain. >>> and turns out there are good-paying jobs for blue collar workers in the ru

we'll see if anthony scaramucci can change that. >> dana, michael smerconish talking to sean spicer, doesn't seem like a guy who was going to quit his job. what does that tell us how out of the loop spicer was when it came to this announcement? >> my understanding, i talked to a source close to sean who said sean was very well aware as of last night that this was a very real possibility. and you know, he didn't -- my sense is that he's worked for donald trump long enough to know it wasn't real until was actually happening, because he's heard stories of his demise many times before. or about -- about white house shake-ups, whatever you want to call this. as of last night he understood that scaramucci would be brought in as communications director that that was a very real possibility and he didn't know how he would react realtime, whether he would quit. clearly when presented, he decided, i'm out. >> i want to listen to what have become memorable moments of sean spicer as press secretary. >> this was the largest audience to ever witness and inauguration, period. both in person and aro

michael smerconish has a show on c.n.n. called smerconish he just did a segment with a banner that read international intervention has the u.s. meddled in other countries elections with a question mark as in smerconish doesn't know whether or not the u.s. has meddled and the answer could be no but no the answer is yes yes we have meddled in the segment interviews dr levin a post doctoral fellow at the institute for politics and strategy at carnegie melon so dr levin is a very smart guy and he did this extensive research about whether or not the u.s. has ever melt in any other country's elections and through his research this very smart dr levin determined that the u.s. has interfered with elections a no fewer than forty seven countries eighty one election from the years of nine hundred forty six to two thousand and we're not talking about interfering with other countries' politics or economics through wars or whatever that number would be much larger we're only talking about actual proof of direct meddling in election and t

. ♪ >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.e welcome in our viewers in the united states and around the world. what can i say it was a chaotic day for the white house, yes, words i could have used so often in the first six months of the trump administration. yesterday, i paid a visit to sean spicer in his white house digs for the off-the-record chat. it turned out to be his exit interview. my thoughts on spicer's departure are next. >>> plus, mr. schwarzenegger went to washington. the governator was talking gerrymandering and climate change. and we had a sitdown. >>> also, no nfl team has yet signed colin kaepernick. ex qb michael vick gave him hair cut advice. first, i scored sean spicer's exit interview and didn't realize it at the time. i was in washington friday to interview schwarzenegger, and for an offer the record chat with spicer at 9:00 a.m. i left at:45. i didn't want to overstay my welcome because spicer told me he was meeting with the president at 10:00 a.m. by the time i was getting back to my hotel, word was brea

. >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. viewers in the united states and around the world. so president trump finally met president prutin, but what exactly happened? that depends who you ask. rex tillerson says president trump confronted putin about the russian

. ♪ >> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia, we welcome viewers in united states and around the world? it was a chaotic several days for the white house. yes, words i could have used so often in the first six months of the trump administration. yesterday i paid a visit to sean spicer in his white house digs for an off the record chat. it turned out to be his exit interview. my thoughts on spicer's departure are next. plus, mr. schwarzenegger went to washington, talking gerrymandering and climate change and we had a sit down. >> no nfl team has signed free agent colin kaepernick. michael vick gave him hair cut advice. i'm about to ask bob costas whether capp erkaepernick is bl balled. >> i was in washington on friday to interview arnold schwarzenegger and off the record chat with spicer. i didn't want to overstay my welcome because spicer told me he was meeting with the president at 10:00 a.m. by the time i returned to my hotel and turned on television, word was breaking he just quit as white house press secretary. no, i didn't know his departure was imminent. the timing took me by sur

. ♪ >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.our viewers in the united states and around the world. the president up early this morning, a barrage of tweets blaming democrats for his problems and encouraging the gop to challenge the phil buster rules. >>> meanwhile, the revolving doors in the white house keep turning. just one week after sean spicer resigns, reince priebus is out as chief of staff. >> i think he was right to hit the reset button. >> i think bring in fresh face. i think bring in fresh people is a good thing. >> he's gone, after just 189 days. that's the shortest tenure for a chief of staff until modern history. his replacement, homeland security secretary john kelly. can the general impose discipline on the president? i'm going to talk to pat buchanon.

. ♪ >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.n the united states and around the world. what can i say it was a chaotic day for the white house, yes, words i could have used so often in the first six months of the trump administration. yesterday, i paid a visit to sean spicer in his white house digs for the off-the-record chat. it turned out to be his exit interview. my thoughts on spicer's departure are next. >>> plus, mr.

. ♪ >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. in the united states and around the world. the president up early this morning, a barrage of tweets blaming democrats for his problems and encouraging the gop to challenge the filibuster rules. >>> meanwhile, the revolving doors in the white house keep turning. just one week after sean spicer resigned, reince priebus is out as chief of staff. >> i think he was right to hit the reset button. >> i think bring in fresh face. i think bring in fresh people is a good thing. >> he's gone, after just 189 days.

let's discuss this with jeremy diamond, cnn white house reporter and michael smerconish, cnn politicalibutor and host of his show on cnn. what do you make of his tweets? >> i thought it was excellent. i particularly like the point about timing. i look at the president on twitter before i go in the radio. yesterday's 6:00 a.m. hour, seven different tweets. my list may not even be complete. what he does is set the stage for programs like yours and alisyn's on television, mine on radio and the entire news cycle of the day. it's almost as if we're playing catchup from the get-go and he's set the tone. one other observation i would make, his base is comprised of people who like him and people who despise his opponents. so that's why it's constantly bashing hillary, constantly bashing obama, and he's playing very effectively to that core. so even though overall americans say they don't like the tone, that's okay. he's not playing to the country at large. he's playing to a small sliver that he needs to stay in his camp. >> a tactic that will be measured in his ultimate performance. will he ex

joining us now, cnn political commentator michael smerconish. thank you for being with us. isyn, my colleague, had a fascinating discussion with michael caputo who was working inside the trump campaign when that meeting between don junior and the number of russians took place. he said, you know what, don junior didn't know any better. he admits now he makes a mistake, he didn't know there was anything sketchy going on there, and he appreciates his transparency now. is that a fair assessment of that meeting from more than a year ago? >> no. what i found significant about that line of questioning and i'm so glad you're giving me the chance to say this is the response he offered relative to paul manafort's participation was to say, well, paul was then receiving 500 e-mails a day. i was sitting here watching it and i was saying to myself, all the more reason why if it were really about adoption, it didn't warrant his attention. it didn't warrant his time. it always struck me as not passing the smell test, that you would have the try um very rant of trump junior, manafort and kus

. >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia.he united states and around the world. what a week for people named donald trump. not long after we learned that trump golf clubs had fake "time" magazine covers featuring trump senior hung on the wall, a realtime cover is published that donald junior probably wishes were fake. to many the e-mail trail on trump junior proves his

. >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. what a week for people named donald trump. not long after we learned that trump golf clubs had fake "time" magazine covers featuring trump senior hung on the wall, a realtime cover is published that donald junior probably wishes were fake. to many the e-mail trail on trump junior proves his willingness to collude with russia. >> why is it lie after lie after lie? >> but as i'm about to document, others they could care less. and with all the concern and outrage over russia meddling in our election, how often has the u.s. acted similarly? one researcher's answer may shock you. plus, he's performing one of the summer's biggest rock concert tours and lacing it with angry anti-trump imagery and . i'll ask pink floyd co-founder roger waters if his fans want to hear that or maybe just music? first, i began this year by pledging right here on cnn that i wanted to escape my bubble more often. the election results they took me by

. >>> i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. so president trump finally met president prutin, but what exactly happened? that depends who you ask. rex tillerson says president trump confronted putin about the russian hack. russia says putin denied those assertions and trump accepted his denial. and president trump talking tough as north korea launches yet another missile. i'll talk to former u.n. ambassador and governor bill richardson about why he thinks the trump administration should speak directly to kim jong-un. plus a look at the heart breaking battle between the parents of this 11 month old baby with a rare disease and the london hospital that wants to take him off of life support. but first president trump just announced after the g20 he's headed to london which is where i visited last week when i was off. whenever i travel abroad, i try on err on the side of offering too many yes, please, and thank yous. i wouldn't wear a t-shirt if my itinerary included

>> the president, as you heard, i watched your show last night with michael smerconish.k at all your options, they're on the table. >> they're saying to mueller, you are going to reign in and i disagree completely. and i think the president was saying my ability to pardon is complete. don't read that more expansively. >> usually always a lot of noise coming out of the white house and you're not really, it's not really clear what signal to pay attention to. he made it real clear last week. his intensions on what he wanted to do, which is, if he wants to either obstruct or derail this investigation. and if he doesn't do that, he wants to get sessions out of the way and to make sure that mueller is fired. he made that very, very clear. >> i disagree. look -- i disagree with you. he said if i had known sessions would recuse himself, i would have never given him the job. >> the president was entitled to that information before you appoint somebody. i'm going to step down as soon as i get appointed, you should know that before you get appointed. >> he was named in november, hi

>> the president -- as you heard, i watched your show last night with michael smerconish.ood lawyer, as a good lawyer would do, you look at all your options, they're on the table. >> they're not sending a message to mueller. they're saying to mueller you better reign in or i'm going to fire him. >> governor, i disagree with you. i disagree completely. i think the president was simply stating, my be ability to pardon is complete. don't read that more expansively, i'm not. >> usually there's a lot of noise coming unite of the white house, and you're not -- it's not clear what signal to pay attention to. he made it real clear last week, it was his intentions on what he wanted to do, which is, if he wants to obstruct or derail this decision, if he doesn't do that, he wants to get sessions out of the way, and to make sure that mueller is fired. he made that very clear. >> i disagree. i disagree again -- >> he said, if i had known that sessions was going to recuse himself, i never would have given him the job. >> i think the president was entitled to the investigation before you